Links 12/21/2022

Links 12/21/2022 1

Astute Border Collie Memorizes Disc Golf Course After First Run-Through Laughing Squid. Better than the title.

[ RIFFUSION ] (David L)

ChatGPT: the stunningly simple key to the emergence of understanding Medium (David L)

Study finds AI assistants help developers produce code that’s more likely to be buggy The Register

Popular red food coloring triggers gut inflammation in mice New Atlas (furzy)

The first Romantics aeon

#COVID-19

Science/Medicine

Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Bivalent Vaccine MedRxiv (preprint)

Asia

China has studied Western coverage of the Ukraine conflict:

Japan warns of China’s COVID situation, cuts view on factory output Reuters

Other Viruses Run Amok

Inside a Children’s Hospital: Struggling to Cope With a Surge of Respiratory Illness KHN

Climate/Environment

California passed a milestone law to stop neighborhood drilling. Now Big Oil has launched its counterattack. Grist

Here’s Why 32,000+ Abandoned & Orphaned Offshore Wells Litter the Outer Continental Shelf qCaptain (guurst)

Poop Analysis Shows Endangered Bears Are Surviving Exclusively on Garbage Vice 🙁

EPA Tightens Rules on Pollution From Vans, Buses and Trucks New York Times (Kevin W)

China?

China Accused of Fresh Territorial Grab in South China Sea Bloomberg

Philippines ‘concerned’ over China’s reclaimed land in disputed sea Bangkok Post (furzy)

Russia’s Medvedev Meets China’s Xi in Beijing to Discuss Strategic Partnership and Ukraine Reuters

The Chinese Civil Examinations Inference (Anthony L)

Canada firmly dips its toe in Indo-Pacific waters Asia Times (Kevin W)

European Disunion

Corruption scandal ‘damaging’ to EU credibility, says Charles Michel Politico. Yet nary a mention of Ursula von der Leyen

Old Blighty

Struggling to afford heating bills, Britons turn to ‘warm banks’ to keep out the cold Reuters

“How To Stay Warm Without Turning The Heating On”: UK Poverty And Its “Moron Premium” Counterpunch

The government cannot win the NHS pay dispute Richard Murphy

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine war: Volodymyr Zelensky visits front-line city of Bakhmut BBC. Given the condition of Bahkmut, one would have to have a very expansive definition of its municipal limits for Zelensky to have plausibly visited it. Notice the tight shot in an indoor setting. Lambert had a gander and other images apparently similar. Nevertheless, as Alexander Mercouris underscored, this stunt signifies that Ukraine is doubling down on its intent to hold Bakhmut. That must be music to General Surovikin’s ears.

Zelensky set to visit Washington in first overseas trip since Russian invasion Sydney Morning Herald (Kevin W)

What Zelenskyy wants — but is unlikely to get — from Biden and White House leans on Congress, rallies allies, to aid Ukraine through winter of war Politico

Belarus says its Russian S-400, Iskander missiles enter ‘combat duty’ Defense News

Moscow Says US Policies Have Put the US and Russia on Brink of ‘Direct Clash’ Defend Democracy

Olaf Scholz’s foreign policy manifesto in ‘Foreign Affairs’ magazine Gilbert Doctorow

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a media question in connection with State Department Spokesperson Ned Price saying Russia is guilty of making Russia-US relations worse The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (amfortas)

EU energy regulator casts doubt on bloc’s ‘untested’ new gas price cap Financial Times

Syraqistan

Death Of Nuclear Deal With Iran Adds To Biden’s Failures In U.S. Foreign Policy Moon of Alabama

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Police seize on Covid-19 tech to expand global surveillance Associated Press

Finally, An $11.5k Alexa-Enabled Toilet The Verge (Dr. Kevin)

MSG Defends Using Facial Recognition To Kick Lawyer Out of Rockettes Show ars technica

Imperial Collapse Watch

You’re Not Actually Helping When You “Support” Protesters In Empire-Targeted Nations Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W)

Trump

House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the public Guardian

Read how much Trump paid — or didn’t pay — in taxes each year CNBC

The Prosecution of Trump Runs Into Some Serious First Amendment Troubles Atlantic

A Case of Hope Over Experience: The J6 Referral Falls Short of a Credible Criminal Case Jonathan Turley

House GOP bloc threatens to ‘thwart’ legislative priorities of GOP senators who vote for omnibus The Hill

Migrants rush to US border, hoping to enter when Title 42 policy expires Business Insider

Iran and Russia were too distracted to meddle in midterm elections, US general says CNN (amfortas)

Our No Longer Free Press

FBI paid Twitter $3.5M ‘to do its bidding’: Taxpayers’ money was used for ‘processing requests’ from the bureau amid Hunter Biden censorship scandal – as anger grows over secret state censorship of the American people Daily Mail

Twitter Aided the Pentagon in its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign Lee Fang, Intercept

Equating Rhetoric With Violence to Blame Political Opponents for Mass Murder Sprees Glenn Greenwald

Musk Will Resign as Twitter CEO and Focus on Engineering Bloomberg. But remember: Who Cares Whether Elon Musk Is CEO of Twitter? He OWNS It. Intercept

The Bezzle

OneCoin Co-Founder Pleads Guilty To $4 Billion Fraud The Register

Core Scientific to File for Bankruptcy, Continue Mining Through Process: Report Coindesk

FTX’s Bankman-Fried signs extradition papers as Wednesday hearing looms Reuters

Audi Is Converting All Factories To Produce EVs As It Phases Out Gas Cars Electrek

USPS Expects To Only Buy Electric Delivery Vehicles Starting in 2026 Engadget

Wells Fargo to Pay Record CFPB Fine to Settle Allegations It Harmed Customers Wall Street Journal. Note this settles only CFPB claims.

Class Warfare

Power has poisoned academia Unherd

Antidote du jour (marcy):

Links 12/21/2022 2

A bonus (carolyn w):

And a second bonus (furzy):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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