Chastity or Fornication? London Review of Books
Athena Spacecraft Declared Dead After Toppling Over On Moon CNN
Misdiagnosis of Chronic Conditions as ‘In Your Head’ Causes Lasting Damage The Conversation
The Blood of Exceptionally Long-Lived People Suggests Crucial Differences ScienceAlert. Underlying study not new but seems not to have gotten much notice.
Scientists discover new part of the immune system BBC. Paul R: “Interesting, but idk, science by press release is always suspicious. I’ll wait for more developments before expecting too much.”
COVID-19/Pandemics
Patients with long Covid regain sense of smell and taste with pioneering surgery Guardian (Paul R)
Climate/Environment
Gene-Edited Non-Browning Banana Could Cut Food Waste, Scientists Say Guardian
China?
China ‘mass produces’ semiconductor-related papers Asia Times (Kevin W)
China’s exports miss forecasts as U.S. tariffs hit, imports record sharpest decline since July 2023. CNBC
Economic-Themed Press Conference During Two Sessions-Full Transcript & Highlights Inside China (guurst)
Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?Guardian
Africa
Congo offers US minerals in exchange for security MiningMX
South of the Border
‘Biased’ UN report on Nicaragua ignores victims of US-backed opposition violence Grayzone (Mike H)
Trump’s Détente with Venezuela Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
European Disunion
ECB cuts rates again and warns trade war fears are hurting Europe’s economy Guardian
Donald Tusk announces military training plan for all Polish men BBC
Eurotard hysteria achieves new heights as Ursula von der Leyen unveils her new Goatse-branded defence initiative and Friedrich Merz reacts to literal fake news with a massive deficit spending plan eugyppius (Micael T)
EU denies picking on US tech giants, says US also tackling monopolisation Reuters. Since when is picking on tech giants bad?
‘Baltic Sea waters are deep – New research results on the Nord Stream attacks Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (guurst)
Ursula, gravedigger of Europe ? Translated from BAM (Belgian Alternative Media) by Cocotteminute
Romania arrests six over alleged Russia-linked coup plot Aljazeera. Doubling down.
Denmark’s state-run postal service will no longer deliver letters Associated Press
Israel v. The Resistance
Wrecking Yemen with a Terror Designation Daniel Larison
‘How life is in there’ London Review of Books (guurst). Administrative detention in Israel.
Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem hit new record +972 Magazine
World Bank estimates $11 billion needed for reconstruction of Lebanon after Israel-Hezbollah war Arab News
Yemen’s Ansarullah movement declares a four-day deadline to international mediators to advocate for the resumption of aid delivery into the Gaza Strip; otherwise, the movement would restart its naval operations against the Israeli regime.https://t.co/4FWUpofUl5 pic.twitter.com/rs3jIqwiH2
— IRNA News Agency (@IrnaEnglish) March 8, 2025
Trump says he wrote to Khamenei offering talks on Iran’s nuclear program Times of Israel. In small letters in red above the oversized headline: “Iran says it has not received the letter yet”
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia: reparations + peace: Details of the Russian peace plan Marat Khairullin (Chuck L). A must read. Scroll down to find the Russian peace plan. It outlines how Russia proposes to keep rump Ukraine (which would include Odessa, which may disappoint a lot of Russian) militarily neutered and politically aligned, at least at the outset. Perhaps I am unduly pessimistic, but I can’t see the US and certainly not the current regime in Kiev agreeing to this. Russia will have to make a lot more progress on the ground before a near-capitulation like this becomes acceptable as less bad than the direction of travel.
SITREP 3/7/25: EU’s Mega-Billion Bid for Ukraine Flops Again, as Trump’s Erratic Messaging Dissipates ‘Peace’ Momentum Simplicius. Important
Russia’s Putin Is Said to Be Ready to Agree to Ukraine Truce With Conditions Bloomberg. Headline revised since first publication; then it was only “Russia’s Putin Is Said to Be Ready to Agree to Ukraine Truce”. Notice the sequence (emphasis mine)
In the first signal of a positive response from President Vladimir Putin to US counterpart Donald Trump’s call for a ceasefire, the offer was conveyed at last month’s talks in Saudi Arabia between top Russian and American officials, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy.
*Sigh* That meeting was on February 18. So even if accurate, as opposed to Telephone-induced or deliberate overstatement, why is it being leaked now, particularly after Russian officials have repeatedly and consistently rejected the idea of a ceasefire or truce since then, as Lavrov did yesterday (see here staring at 1:26)? And why would Trump be trying to bully Russia again, per the next entry, if Russia was amenable to Trump’s big demand for a ceasefire or something approximating that?
Trump Threatens to Hit Russia with Sanctions Wall Street Journal. Lead story. The Russians will see this as pathetic, even before you get to the microscopic level of US imports of Russian wares. They will not be impressed with Trump’s dominance games. I think you can kiss that Trump request for help with negotiating with Iran goodbye. Even if Russia goes through the motions, this bluster confirms, the US in general and Trump in particular can’t be trusted to stick to any position. And this seems merely to be due to the fact that Russia is continuing to hit Ukraine energy infrastructure and also struck a training site in Dniepropetrosk and killed about 150 Ukraine and an estimated 30 NATO trainers. The thing that OUGHT to have Trump upset or rethinking his approach is that he keeps saying he wants a ceasefire (and that does seem to be high on his wish list) when Lavrov has said every time Ukraine comes up that no way, no how is Russia going to agree to a ceasefire. They will stop war-making only after their minimum ask has been met, which includes Ukraine removing all forces from the four oblasts and Ukraine taking steps (which IIRC include constitutional changes) that commit them to neutrality and no NATO evah.
Ukraine loses access to satellite intelligence, but not completely Ukrainska Pravda
Ukraine could get NATO protection without membership – Italian PM RT (Kevin W)
THE REM WAR – THE RUSSIAN STATE VERSUS TRUMP AND MUSK John Helmer
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Utah becomes first state to pass bill making app stores verify ages CBS (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
U.S. Air Force Leadership Confirms ‘Tough Choices’ Ahead as China Develops World’s First Sixth Generation Fighter Military Watch
ANTI-IMPERIALISM ISN’T TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME John Helmer (Chuck L)
Trump 2.0
The Paradox of Trump’s Economic Weapon Foreign Affairs
Trump threatens new tariffs on Canada, including 250% tax on dairy CNN (Kevin W)
Japan is the next target in Trump trade war The Drink Business
The US: the World as Real Estate Julian Macfarlane
Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas” Axios (Dr. Kevin, guurst)
President Trump says Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau ‘trying to use’ tariff fight ‘to stay in power’ The Hill. Help me. Trudeau was dead as a leader until the Trump tariff threat gave him a new lease on life.
DOGE
Chapter 04: Endogenous Money, of Money and Macroeconomics from First Principles, for Elon Musk and Other Engineers Steve Keen (Micael T)
Musk, Rubio clashed in front of Trump during Cabinet meeting: Sources ABC (Jack B)
Federal workers’ salaries represent less than 5% of federal spending and 1% of GDP Marketplace (Kevin W)
Why Do Republicans Want to Dismantle the Education Department? New York Times
Democrat Death Watch
Senate Democrats’ impending choice: Shutdown or surrender Politico
Immigration
Trump to revoke legal status for 240,000 Ukrainians as US steps up deportations Reuters
Safe place for science: Aix-Marseille Universite ready to welcome American scientists Aix-Marseille Universite (Paul R)
Our No Longer Free Press
BREAKING: President Trump has canceled $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University over the protests they allowed.
As a Jewish person who supports Israel, I still see this as a dangerous precedent—penalizing free speech simply because the government disagrees with it.… pic.twitter.com/WhK5OAZdEX
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) March 7, 2025
WaPo Laments Loss Of News From Iran Which Is Not From Iran Moon of Alabama
House Republicans subpoena Google over alleged censorship EndGadget (Kevin W)
Mr. Market Is Moody
Fed’s Powell: ‘No hurry’ to cut rates amid Trump volatility Axios
It is not the economic impact of tariffs that is most worrying. What are the lessons of the 1930s? Economist
US trade deficit hits record high in January on imports surge Reuters
AI
Signal President Calls Out Agentic AI As Having ‘Profound’ Security and Privacy Issues Techcrunch
The Bezzle
Crypto prices fall as US strategic reserve plan disappoints traders Financial Times. BWAHAHA!
The Spectacular Synapse Collapse Fortune. A reminder: avoid non-bank payment processors unless you really have to go there.
Guillotine Watch
Where is Luigi Mangione getting his clothes? Gothamist. He is not my type (I don’t even have a type!) but he is cute and his legal team is making great use of that.
Antidote du jour. Mark T: “Attached is a photo of my sister’s cat, Tigger. She found him as a kitten, hungry and alone in a storm water drain in the countryside, while on a field trip.”
And a bonus (guurst):
Каждый рыбачит как может pic.twitter.com/r6PrlmxR9c
— Инга (@aijjtoto) March 5, 2025
And a second bonus (Chuck L):
Jack russell vs mob of emus pic.twitter.com/E8qAkUSF9b
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 6, 2025
Yet another bonus (Chuck L):
Two Hummingbirds taking shelter during a heavy rain❤#AI pic.twitter.com/rCySXtKjd5
— Manoco (@Moonlighhy) March 5, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
