Thanks so much for your generous donations to CalPERS board member Margaret Brown’s litigation fund! She very much appreciates your support. And if you haven’t yet chipped in to help in this David versus Goliath fight, please take a short detour here.
Watch a String Quartet Perform for an Audience of 2,300 Plants Rolling Stone
Cat With Two-Toned Face Fathers Two Kittens In Each Of Its Colors AnimalRescueSite (David L)
Crows are watching your language, literally Corvid Research
Maybe life on Earth is as good as it gets? Advanced Science News (Kevin W)
Iceland Under Threat of Volcanic Eruption After Being Jolted by Thousands of Quakes Sputnik (guurst). I was a volcano refugee in London in 2010!
Why the Oaxaca earthquake made buildings sway hundreds of miles away National Geographic (David L)
Why the World’s Most Advanced Solar Plants Are Failing Popular Mechanics (resilc)
Segway will stop making its iconic self-balancing scooter Engadget (Chuck L)
#COVID-19
China dog meat festival goes ahead but virus takes a toll Agence France Presse
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro ordered to wear mask in public BBC
COVID-19: This is when life will return to normal, according to the experts World Economic Forum (David L)
World tennis number one Novak Djokovic tests positive for COVID-19 Sydney Morning Herald.
Science/Medicine
What Does and Does Not Correlate with COVID-19 Death Rates NBER. Hhhm. Lambert featured this yesterday, but some of the results seem so illogical that I wonder if it confirms that the death data is way off. Recall that Madrid concluded it has missed nearly half of its Covid-19 deaths.
Initial COVID-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reported Penn State
Fauci says in 40 years of dealing with viral outbreaks, he’s never seen anything like COVID-19 MarketWatch
UK/Europe
UK ministers in talks to create air bridges with ‘core’ European nations Guardian. Vlade:
A bridge needs to be anchored on both sides. Did they consider that some of the nations might not be so keen on the UK tourists (with the UK daily numbers still some of the highest in Europe)?
I know that Croatia is desperate for tourists, and so is likely Greece, Spain and at least some parts of Italy (Sicily comes to mind).
But I’m not sure French, German and Austrians are, and at least some of them may quarantine the UK tourists on arrival or require (which is really a CYA thing) a negative test no more than a couple of days old. The article happily ignores all of this, in the best of the UK/US tradition of “what do you mean the foreigners have a say in this too?”.
PlutoniumKun added: “Croatia may be less keen following the fiasco around the Adria Tour.”
EU May Ban Travel from US as it Reopens Borders, Citing Coronavirus Failures New York Times (resilc). Some readers, plus I believe Lambert, foresaw this as a possibility.
We truly are a shithole country. Between all the anti-science anti-mask idiots and the complete lack of leadership from either party on #COVID__19 we’re fucked. https://t.co/LY1U3o8h4p
— Pat the Independent. #BlackLivesMatter🌹🦺 (@PatTheBerner) June 23, 2020
US
Why Reopening Isn’t Enough To Save The Economy NPR (DK). Not the first report on this study but a good recap.
If you haven’t been to the Texas Med Center you don’t understand the gravity of this. The TMC is multiple city blocks with nothing but hospitals, clinics, and research towers; 100,000+ staff & 10,000 beds spread across 20+ hospitals. Terrifying that they could be over capacity. https://t.co/NAE0jDcpqi
— Nico Cortes (@Cortes_Penfield) June 23, 2020
Las Vegas Casino Workers Beg Guests To Wear Masks As Nevada Cases Rise HuffPost (Kevin W)
India-China Joust
Toward a smart Indian response to China Asia Times. Smart?
Brexit
The UK Steers Toward a No-Deal Brexit in the Middle of the Pandemic Der Spiegel
New Cold War
A chain of stupidity’: the Skripal case and the decline of Russia’s spy agencies Guardian (resilc)
HOW THE DUTCH PROSECUTION AND THE JUDGE HAVE RIGGED THE OUTCOME OF THE MH17 TRIAL ON A CHARGE THAT REQUIRES NO PROOF Dances With Bears (Chuck L)
Syraqistan
Saudi coalition shoots down Houthi ballistic missiles and drones Al Jazeera (resilc)
The US “soft war” on Iran and its allies turns against Washington Elijah Magnier (Chuck L)
Trump Transition
Trump, Barr, and the Justice Department Takeover, Explained Rolling Stone
Trump aides consider a CDC overhaul as virus cases surge Politico
President Trump vows to arrest anyone pulling down statues Al Jazeera
Trump visa ban stokes stranded Indians’ fury Financial Times
Bolton May Be a Beast, But He’s Washington’s Creature American Conservative
Is Police Reform A Fundamentally Flawed Idea? FiveThirtyEight
‘BlueLeaks’ Exposes Files from Hundreds of Police Departments Krebs on Security
Inside The Dangerous Online Fever Swamps Of American Police HuffPost (furzy)
2020
‘This is a war’: Republicans ramp up bid to control election maps for next decade Guardian
Joe Biden Can’t “Heal” the Country by Picking the Right Running Mate Slate
VICTORY: AOC’s decisive win proves she’s “no fluke,” establishes her as a “political powerhouse” DFA
Ladies and gentlemen, the establishment! pic.twitter.com/nWG3oCGrrl
— Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) June 24, 2020
If Engel goes down, it’s not just Israel, Saudi, & GOP who are losing a major ally. It’s also all the Woke Syria Regime Changers: Engel is one of the leading Congressional backers of the Syria proxy war & of the Caesar sanctions inflicting new misery on Syrian civilians.
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 24, 2020
And to think that in just 7 months, Nancy Pelosi will explain to Jamaal Bowman that the world is already exactly as good as it can possibly be.
— Zach Carter (@zachdcarter) June 24, 2020
Amid fight over Jeffrey Epstein’s dark secrets, Dershowitz seeks access to sealed documents Miami Herald
Success Academy spokesperson resigns over ‘abusive’ practices at NYC’s largest charter network ChalkBeat
MTA Pulls Emergency Brake on All Major Projects as Financial Woes Mount The City
Steven Mnuchin says US tax deadline may be extended past July 15 Financial Times
Facebook Loses Antitrust Decision in Germany Over Data Collection New York Times
Sitting CalPERS board member sues California pension fund president, claiming retaliation Sacramento Bee. Wellie, the headline is evenhanded, which is better than Brown normally gets from the Bee. And the reading from CalPERS watchers is that the story was sufficiently muddled as to not hurt her much. Plus IMHO Henry Jones looks like a moron for whining.
Class Warfare
Study Finds Gap Widening Between Rich Pets And Poor Americans Onion (BC)
Revealed: millions of Americans can’t afford water as bills rise 80% in a decade Guardian (resilc)
U.S. Ranked Worst for Workers’ Rights Among Major Economies Bloomberg
Antidote du jour. Furzy: “My sister’s llamas, off on a trek in the Oregon hills…..”
And a bonus (Kevin W). So cute!
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
