Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi scores a perfect 10 with a jaw dropping, Michael Jackson inspired dance
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 11, 2025
The puzzle of the ‘idiot savant’ Aeon
How the government shutdown is making the air traffic controller shortage worse and leading to flight delays The Conversation
Property crime and violent crime have different solutions — here’s why Knowable
Lifetime of Friendships Slows Aging Nautilus
What Americans die from and the causes of death the media reports on Ritholtz.com
COVID-19/Pandemics
Covid virus changes sperm in mice, may raise anxiety in offspring: study France 24
Study finds workers still calling in sick more often than before COVID-19 pandemic Washington Times
YOUR ATTENTION:
Terrible😡, LC in children!
Omicron era in preprint:
"The increased microclot burden in pediatric LC supports the role of microvascular dysfunction and persistent viral antigens in pathogenesis.”
Our children are marked for years to come, as the majority… https://t.co/KjV7A7RBzI
— Harry Spoelstra (@HarrySpoelstra) October 11, 2025
Climate/Environment
Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal The Register
South of the Border
Russia, China denounce US military presence in Caribbean as Venezuela warns of threat to regional peace, stability Andolu Agency
US ends diplomatic outreach to Venezuela amid fears of military escalation Latin America Reports
Bessent’s big gamble on Argentina has a narrow road to pay off Bloomberg
China?
A new level of drone show.😲 pic.twitter.com/igMA14cSei
— Sharing Travel (@TripInChina) October 8, 2025
Can anything knock China off its mountain? Noahpinion blogInvestors react to Trump’s massive increase in China tariffs Reuters
China Deploys World’s First Unmanned Fighter Squadron: GJ-11 Stealth Jets Activated in Tibet Military Watch
Trump wanted a trade deal. Xi opened a new front instead. Politico
India
India is forcibly deporting Muslims, including its own citizens, after Kashmir violence NPR
Africa
Around four million people displaced across Africa’s Sahel, UN warns Al Jazeera
Africa Will Be Free When the IMF Stops Colluding to Steal Its Wealth ScheerPost
European Disunion
Chat Control on hold, Europe’s Eastern flank remains passive Euronews
Europe Travel Set To Be Hit By Monumental Airport Strikes As Greece And Belgium Join Italy, Spain, Lithuania, And More In Mid-October Travel and Tour World
Czech populist’s comeback a win for politics of pragmatism in shifting Europe RFI
Old Blighty
Digital IDs are being introduced in the UK — and they’re controversial. Straight Arrow News
Why are millions fleeing the UK? Here’s why the country is seeing ‘mass migration’ Times of India
Israel v. Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran
Israel has dropped about 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza since Oct 7, equivalent to nearly 13 Hiroshima bombs. pic.twitter.com/XrtDoLUBWu
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) October 8, 2025
“We may have survived physically, but we haven’t survived mentally.” Drop SiteGaza Ceasefire: Breakthrough or Another False Dawn? The National Interest
Lebanon slams deadly overnight Israeli strike AFP
Boycotting Israel has gone mainstream: ‘We’ve never seen such traction before’ The Guardian
New Not-So-Cold War
Major Russian strikes cut power in Kyiv and across Ukraine BBC
Ukraine Braces For Winter As Russia Escalates Energy Attacks Radio Free Europe
EU pressures G7 countries to loan frozen Russian assets to Ukraine Politico
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
AI-powered wearables will force our privacy norms to change Cointelegraph
LinkedIn can’t dodge claims it tracked users’ medical data Courthouse News Service
Imperial Collapse Watch
California Braces for ‘Devastating’ Expected Cuts to Federal Homeless Housing funds Sonoma Sun
Military families often live by the paycheck. They are about to miss one. Christian Science Monitor
An American Hunger Crisis Is Coming Washington Monthly
Trump 2.0
What is Trump’s approval rating? What polls say 10 days into the government shutdown USA Today
Market sell-off: Trump post lops off $2 trillion from stocks in a single day CNBC
The shutdown is delaying Trump’s farm bailout. Farmers say it won’t be enough even when it happens. Yahoo Finance
An Immense Solar Project Just Got Canceled Under Trump NY Times
Musk Matters
Tesla Hit With Probe After Crashes Involving Self-Driving Feature Musk Boasted About Broadband Breakfast
Elon Musk sets his sights on struggling MSNBC MSN
The wheels have come off Musk’s monstertruck The Observer
Democrat Death Watch
Susan Shelley: Katie Porter’s debacle opens up the gubernatorial race Los Angeles Daily News
Commentary: Congress’ Democrats are wildly unprepared to face down Trump Yakim Herald-Republic
Immigration
The quiet toll of Trump’s legal immigration crackdown: ‘I’m trying to stay afloat’ The Guardian
‘They treated us like animals’ – Inside the epicentre of deportations in New York City BBC
Our No Longer Free Press
Mr. Market Is Moody
Dollar Dips as Trump’s China Tariff Threat Rattles Markets Modern Diplomacy
AI
MrBeast Concerned That AI Slop Will Put Him Out of Business Futurism
Four AI Policy Choices Policymakers Can’t Afford to Get Wrong War on the Rock
Why You Don’t Get Any Credit Anymore for 30% of Your Code Being Written By AI SaaStr
AI’s Sweet Talk: How Artificial Companions Steal Our Humanity Mind Matters
The Bezzle
North Korean Scammers Are Doing Architectural Design Now Wired
U.S. Doctors Accuse Insurers of Algorithmic Downcoding to Cut Payouts WebPro News
Luxury lifestyle ends in prison for couple who defrauded Medicare Fox 10 Phoenix
Guillotine Watch
Elvish honey is the most expensive honey in the world and is harvested deep inside Turkish caves and at high altitudes
pic.twitter.com/ZmXaGOfKQL— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 14, 2025
This is the most expensive dessert in the world! pic.twitter.com/RrSuo47TPF
— Agriculture Insider (@Agriculfuture) July 17, 2025
Antidote du jour (via)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
“China Deploys World’s First Unmanned Fighter Squadron: GJ-11 Stealth Jets Activated in Tibet”
Sigh. It’s a changing world-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcDtsfHFlTo&list=RDvcDtsfHFlTo&start_radio=1 (4:04 mins)
Unlocked link for AI drones are America’s newest cops
Thanks. Look, that’s my right to privacy in the rear-view. California using drones to search for “code violations” and “too many hemp plants”, that second part likely after lobbying from the states heavily over invested legal weed industry. China probably doing the same thing, but at lest the citizenry there get some nice light shows for their troubles.
Hard to see rural US law enforcement getting away with low altitude drone fly-overs. Too many bird guns out here.
Wait. What happens if that drone manages to send a message off to police HQ first?
‘Officer drone down. Officer drone down. Send backup.’
“Trump wanted a trade deal. Xi opened a new front instead.”
Well that’s a lie. Then again, this is a Politico article. Trump tried to pretend that what China did came out of the blue and had no idea that China was going to do this to the US and the world. But to put this into context, the Trump regime last month dropped new measures to stop high tech stuff going to China so this was actually payback-
‘But U.S. negotiators under Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick tried to play hardball. In late September, during the talks, they imposed further restrictions on China:
On September 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released a long-anticipated interim final rule (IFR) that will result in the most dramatic expansion of U.S. export control regulations in years. The IFR, “Expansion of End-User Controls To Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities,” extends export restrictions to any company owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by any of the thousands of entities already designated on several Commerce and Treasury Department lists.
The IFR would also impose a new duty on exporters to investigate the ownership of an end user where there is reason to believe a designated entity holds a minority stake, or is affiliated with, the end user, subject to a strict liability standard for violations.
The new measures would severely restrict any export of high tech goods to China.’
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/10/u-s-china-trade-war-reaches-new-level.html
FAFO
Imagine, Maverick in an air conditioned trailed flying a work station……
Sentencing of Scottsdale pair for Medicare fraud recalls the case of Florida ophthalmologist Solomon Melgen convicted of 67 counts in 2017 of false diagnoses and treatments of macular degeneration. Treatment involves the direct injection into the eyeball. He was sentenced to 17 years, but Trump commuted his sentence. Melgen was a fund raiser for now convicted Sen. Menendez.
This is not the only Trump pardon/commutation for serious white-collar criminals. I think putting a needle into one’s eyeball for money constitutes a violent assault. To protect Medicare/Medicaid, in the infrequent cases where serious fraud is proven, serious jail time is also indicated.
“Can anything knock China off its mountain?”
‘A few years ago, it looked as if the U.S. and China might battle over global hegemony and preeminence.’
I don’t think that China was ever interested in hegemony. George Bush actually made an offer to China some twenty years ago where the US and China would rule the world together. China would supply the money and the troops while the US would supply the leadership – George Bush’s leadership here I guess. But the Chinese said they had no interest in that sort of power but only wanted to continue to grow their economy and infrastructure. And here we are.
What Americans die from and the causes of death the media reports on Ritholtz.com
The original source for the graph linked is a study published in Our World in Data. Does the news reflect what we die from? which i found well worth reading. The article mentions a “disconnect between what we often hear and what actually happens.”
Does this disconnect reflect a spontaneous mismatch between our fears and the realities of the world? Otherwise, Is it somehow intentional? The news show us what we “need to know” according to criteria which may be more or less apparent but frequently divorced from the real informational needs of the people. When the most important causes of death are under-reported the case can be made that the populaces do not need to know that health care policies might be failing. IMO, there are lots of data suggesting that HC, which showed sharp improvement during the last century, might be now going backwards in overall results.
About long covid in children: I wonder how many of them were vaccinated. According to a study of 48 000 Cleveland Clinic employees from 2023 being vaccinated actually increased your chances of infection. Here a quote: “In a multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model, adjusted for propensity to get tested for COVID-19, age, sex, and phase of most recent SARS-CoV-2 infection, not being “up-to-date” on COVID-19 vaccination was associated with a lower risk of COVID-19 ”
And here the study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.09.23290893v1.full
Even considering the fact that maybe this was just a one off with the then current vaccine (geared for the ABB variant). Why is Spoelstra advocating on Twitter to get a Covid shot every six month? And why does he quote a Chinese study in that regard if he knows perfectly well that the Chinese use a different vaccine than the one available in the West? https://x.com/HarrySpoelstra/status/1977312042882138200
Kinda weird…