Max Roach on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Vinnie Sperrazza
How the frog meat trade helped spread a deadly fungus worldwide Science Daily (Kevin W)
Scientists sent viruses to space and they evolved in surprising ways Science Daily (Kevin W). I gather these scientists are too old to have read The Andromeda Strain
Killing deer not the answer to reducing Lyme Disease, says HSPH scientist Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Bob H)
Shrimp with a side of cancer? Radioactive contamination is real. The Hill (Kevin W)
Trump supporters and insecure men more likely to value a large penis, according to new research PsyPost (Dr. Kevin)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
"We analyzed lymphocyte subset data from 40,537 patients across three phases: pre-COVID, mass infection, and post-COVID..
During mass infection [with SARS-CoV-2], T cells, CD4+T cells, CD8+T cells, NK cells, and B cells dropped significantly.
Even 20 months post-infection, CD8+…— Hiroshi Yasuda (保田浩志) (@Yash25571056) January 17, 2026
Post 73 — H5N1: when viral adaptation meets the market
H5N1 trajectory from its detection in poultry in China in 1996 to the current global panzootic is not only a story of mutations and spillover, but also of increasingly visible ecological, health, and economic impacts. 1/11 pic.twitter.com/bCOiOTOkgv
— Dr Fabrício Campos (@camposfabricios) January 19, 2026
Climate/Environment
Climate Change Has Already Shrunk US Salaries By 12% ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)
China?
China’s Trade Surplus, Part III Paul Krugman
China’s population falls for fourth year amid economic woes Asia Times (Kevin W)
Japan
15 years after Fukushima, Japan prepares to restart the world’s biggest nuclear plant Guardian (Kevin W)
Southeast Asia
Asean will not certify Myanmar election or send observers Reuters
Cambodia raises annexation fears over Thai land seizures Nikkei. From a friend: “Thailand’s emergency phone test shocked the bejeezus out of me.” I didn’t get it, so I must not be worth protecting :-)
O Canada
Trump is reportedly turning his attention to Canada and focusing on its ‘vulnerability’ Independent (Dr. Kevin)
European Disunion
🚨 CONFIRMED: Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has acknowledged Trump’s letter is real.
The letter reportedly ties Norway’s Nobel Peace Prize decision to Greenland, questions Denmark’s “right of ownership,” and declares the world isn’t secure unless the U.S. has… pic.twitter.com/c6lRJxS4qO
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 19, 2026
Why Trump will get Greenland Wolfgang Munchau, Unherd
Mentality of a rapist: Danish Lawmaker Exposes Stephen Miller’s Imperial Greenland Claim Egberto
‘Make America Go Away’: spoof Maga caps soar in popularity amid Greenland crisis Guardian (Kevin W)
Military Exercises and NATO’s Loss of Purpose: The EU’s Reaction to US Claims to Greenland TASS via machine translation (Micael T)
On Greenland, the Monroe Doctrine, USA expansion and aggression towards Europe Jeff Rich. Important
Rumours first circulated last month Europe and UK had threatened to liquidate US Treasuries as a 'nuclear option' if Trump does a deal with Putin to end the Ukraine war against European interests. The rumour is back as potential retaliation for invading Greenland.
If true, it… https://t.co/ouNUeAZwSH
— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) January 19, 2026
⚡️🇩🇰🇺🇸BREAKING:
A grassroots boycott of U.S. products is spreading fast in Denmark after Trump renewed claims over Greenland.
European media say this may go EU-wide.
100,000+ Danes have joined a boycott group, dropping brands like Coca-Cola, Heinz, U.S. wine, and canceling… pic.twitter.com/iYNg1rckjj
— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws1) January 19, 2026
* * * What it means to live as an Arab in Germany today Mondoweiss (guurst)
Old Blighty
US considering asylum for British Jews Telegraph
Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 01:37 AM EST 01.20.26
Shockingly, our “brilliant” NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. There is…
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 20, 2026
Israel v. The Resistance
Mossad-backed rioters attacked the Palestinian ambassador’s home in Tehran and tried to murder her
While compatible leftists like Owen Jones market this rampage as a “freedom movement,” and Western media whitewashes its violence, Israeli media cheers its anti-Palestinian nature https://t.co/qzvhbS06fv
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 18, 2026
"We take responsibility for what happens (in Gaza), impose military rule, and, with god's help, complete the mission… The time has come to dismantle the (US) headquarters in Kiryat Gat, to expel from there countries like Egypt and Britain…"
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's… https://t.co/fGI27XxUQV pic.twitter.com/VREUKlYXWI
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) January 19, 2026
The Unbreakable Nael Barghouti Dropsite
Imagine future generations learning about how we punished the people asking to stop a genocide, instead of the people committing it. https://t.co/Gprx7K6YQ5
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) January 18, 2026
Phase farce: No way ‘Board of Peace’ replaces reality in Gaza Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
* * * Trump to POLITICO: ‘It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran’ Politico. resilc: “much more here in uSSa uSSa.”
Alastair Crooke : Trump’s Iran Blunders — and False Hopes Judge Napolitano, YouTube
U.S. Bolsters Israel’s Offensive Air Capabilities with More F-35 Fighters as Tensions with Iran Mount Military Watch
Trump balked but war is inevitable: Will Iran attack first? The Cradle
Syraqistan
Syria’s military has seized swathes of Kurdish-held territory. Here’s what we know CNN
New Not-So-Cold War
German Foreign Minister Wadephul stated that Witkoff will soon fly to Moscow to put pressure on Putin.
'For us, there's no doubt: only when the pressure on the Kremlin becomes strong enough, can we expect Putin to be genuinely ready for negotiations. By the way, this assessment… pic.twitter.com/GrVhKno0d4
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) January 19, 2026
Just yesterday Donald Trump invited Vladimir Putin to join his “Board of Peace.” Hours later, the Russia leader ordered missiles and drones to strike Ukraine’s capital and its critical infrastructure amid one of the harshest winters in recent memory. https://t.co/1Nt9w8ABFa
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) January 20, 2026
Putin’s “Self Deception”? Julian Macfarlane
Theodore Postol: The Secrets of Russia’s Oreshnik Missile Glenn Diesen, YouTube
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The Orbital Challenge China Economic Indicator
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Navy spent $13 billion on an aircraft carrier and can’t get the toilets to work Boing Boing. resilc: “No shit? Not a surprise.”
Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura says US has become a “third world country” YouTube (resilc)
Why Aren’t All the Americans Protesting? Kathleen Wallace
John Mearsheimer on Trump and why Iran isn’t Venezuela and Venezuela isn’t Panama South China Morning Post. Money quote: “It’s Not Great Power Politics. It’s Old-Style Imperialism.”
The United States spends more on defense than the next 9 countries combined Barry Ritholtz (resilc)
From Kissinger’s Nightmare to European Quagmire: Divide et Impera in U.S. Foreign Policy Global Affairs (Micael T)
Economic Dogma Blocks Pragmatic Policies Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Trump 2.0
Hispanic voters sent Trump back to power. Now some are souring BBC. resilc: “SOMEEEEEEEEEE?????????? What kind of moron Lation would support him now unless Cuban ‘white asses’?”
Trump suffers major losses in his war on offshore wind Politico (Kevin W)
Trump’s Confabulations are More Serious than Just a Response to a Bruised Ego Larry Johnson. IM Doc has identified confabulation as the key marker of white matter disease. He pointed to Trump probably having that publicly last July.
Meet the Americans so desperate to flee Trump they’re now living in filthy Dutch REFUGEE camps Daily Mail
ICE Rampage
“Imagine the chaos” https://t.co/Hvp7cMHBPw pic.twitter.com/shHCN3kQ43
— Nicole Foy (@nicoleMfoy) January 19, 2026
Not AI, see press story:
ICE Chases Protestor in Minnesota 😂🛁🏃♂️ (Bathtub Viking Escape) #Minnesota pic.twitter.com/M1M4JceNE0
— Ijaz Malik (Ejaz Hussain) (@Ijazmalik101) January 17, 2026
Why are federal agents gunning down Americans in the streets? Noah Smith (resilc). From last week, still germane. I am not a fan of Noah Smith but this is a very good piece.
ICE’s Facial Recognition App Misidentified a Woman. Twice 404 Media. “ICE has said the app’s results are a “definitive” determination of someone’s immigration status.”
Immigration
‘Maybe my talent is big boobs’: How I got an O-1B as an internet model The Times (resilc)
Tariffs
Americans Are the Ones Paying for Tariffs, Study Finds Wall Street Journal. Quelle surprise!
Liberation Day 2.0 Brian Romanchuk
Supremes
Justice Gorsuch and the Anarchy of Judicial Textualism Philip Pilkington
Legislative Standing and/After Bost Steve Vladeck
Mamdani
Mamdani Said He’d Make Buses Faster and Free. Now It’s This Guy’s Job. New York Times
Our No Longer Free Press
White House press secretary tells CBS ‘we’ll sue your ass off’ if it edits Trump interview Guardian
Economy
IMF warns global economic resilience at risk if AI falters Financial Times
AI
AI Completely Failing to Boost Productivity, Says Top Analyst Futurism
The Bezzle
More US States are Putting Bitcoin on Public Balance Sheets CNBC
Spotify Just Got More Expensive Again, In Case You Didn’t Dislike Them Already Metal Injection (Micael T)
Class Warfare
Oversocialization, the Shackles of the Millennial Generation Freddie deBoer. This explains much.
Ford CEO warns there’s a dearth of blue-collar workers able to construct AI data centers and operate factories: ‘Nothing to backfill the ambition’ Fortune (Kevin W). How about paying more, FFS?
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
The rescue is just incredible. pic.twitter.com/aKEygFeytK
— The Best (@Thebestfigen) January 18, 2026
A second bonus:
Seals love to jump on the bows of ships and rest there
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) January 20, 2026
And a third:
Dolphins have one of the largest brains relative to body size, second only to humans. Watch this naughty one put it to full use 🐬 pic.twitter.com/QaWSeQymiF
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) January 19, 2026
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“The Navy spent $13 billion on an aircraft carrier and can’t get the toilets to work”
Plumbing consultants flow onto the USS Ford state that they are trying to understand what the problem is but say that so far they have nothing to go on.
If I remember correctly, catapults, arresting gear, and elevators do not function properly either. Competence in designing and building that kind of vessel seems to have withered dramatically.
Being a silly bugger, I would have said that no new system should go on such a ship unless it has been proved to be fully reliable and working. Otherwise you run the risk of having systems failures and expensive retrofits with ships not being capable of being fully deployable. But that is just me.
That’s what they get for naming it after an un-elected President who had an un-elected vice-president!
Regarding “Syria’s military has seized swathes of Kurdish-held territory. Here’s what we know”, I find this a remarkable parallel to what happened to the former SAA/Assad-led forces.
1) The SAA had fought tenaciously for years, supported by Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, successfully resisted during protracted sieges (e.g. Deir Ez Zor), won difficult and long campaigns (e.g. to retake Aleppo) — and then, after years of stability, collapsed in about a week.
2) The SDF fought tenaciously for years, supported by the USA, France, and the UK, successfully resisted during protacted sieges (e.g. Kobane), won difficult and long campaigns (e.g. to retake Raqqah) — and now, after years of stability, it seems that it will collapse in about a week.
If history is any guide, I would not bet on the Al-Jolani-led HTS remaining in power in the medium-term — but for one difference: there are no Syrian contenders any longer. The only opposition that could launch an offensive and overthrow HTS is a foreign, neighbouring power: either Turkey or Israel. I am unsure where this leads strategically, but for HTS just like for the SAA and the SDF, being a proxy seems hardly conducive to survival.
I have not seen a map of the areas taken but I wonder at the phrase ‘Syria’s military has seized swathes of Kurdish-held territory.’ When ISIS was falling apart the Kurds raced south and seized Arab-Syrian land on the eastern banks of the Euphrates river. The only reason that they could do this was because they were being protected by US air power. In addition they seized the Syrian breadbasket as well as the heart of Syrian oilfields. This was why Syria collapsed years later. So I wonder if what is happening is that the Syrians are putting the Kurds back into their box and taking back Syrian land that the Kurds seized for themselves. And the US? Looks like they are selling out the Kurds for a third major time. They just never learn.
If you’re interested, a very good source is This Week in Northern Syria. The latest (18 January) analysis suggests, probably rightly, that the Kurds did not anticipate the sudden collapse of the Assad regime, and had done no contingency planning for it. They have found themselves in less time than they could have imagined in the position of an obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the internal crisis in Syria, and thus likely to lose foreign support. At the moment, western states are trying very hard to push the factions into compromise whilst still retaining some influence over Al-Shara’a, and the Kurds, for historical reasons, are an obstacle to this. As the (surprisingly good) CNN report says, one of the big problems of the last year has been what to do with the SDF after the fall of Assad. The Kurds want them to become part of the Army but in separate brigades (an Army within and Army if you like.) The government has only offered recruitment on an individual basis. But there are an estimated 100,000 SDF, highly motivated and with combat experience. The main reason the SAA collapsed when it did is that the veterans of the fighting against ISIS had left, and the Army as a whole was massively less capable than it had been up to 2019. What the real capability of the SAA is now compared to the SDF is hard to be sure of. But if necessary the Kurds will go back to guerrilla warfare, and look for support from anyone who wants to give a Sunni-led government in Damascus a hard time. There will be no shortage of offers.
I’m assuming that’s one of the reasons why al-Golani regime is trying to play nice with Russians? I suspect they’ll have to make nice with more of their erstwhile enemies to eliminate potential sponsors of the Kurds…and we’d be back to where we were with the Assads.
Well, Kathleen Wallace, partly they are tied up working 18 hour days with 3 part-time jobs, and partly protesters are getting betaen up, arrested, killed…
Reminds me of the classic middle class complaint that the poors should prepare healthy meals instead of eating junk… when working 18 hour days doesn’t leave enough time to get enough sleep, let alone spend time buying the ingreeds and cooking.
Good morning. FWIW, Neither Ukraine, nor Putin mentioned in my google news feed this morning, a first for me since the start of the SMO.
IMO, google news is a good source for keeping an eye on the narrative.
On January 18th two high-speed trains crashed not far from Córdoba, Spain with now 41 deaths (still counting). The last three wagons of one of the trains derailed very shortly before the second train was approaching in opposite direction. Causes still not known. The derailment probably caused by a broken rail though still the reasons behind that are not known or unreported. The railways had been subject to maintenance recently.
I bet this will have to do with neoliberalism, subcontracting branch of it, resulting in something badly done during maintenance.
If you feel you speak too clearly and straight-forward, here you find some inspiration to correct it
https://archive.ph/FhFhr
“Rumours first circulated last month Europe and UK had threatened to liquidate US Treasuries as a ‘nuclear option’ if Trump does a deal with Putin to end the Ukraine war against European interests. The rumour is back as potential retaliation for invading Greenland.”
LOL! While I’m sure the stupid folks in Washington could still screw it up, but the FED would be well within it’s power and right to make this a non-thing with just a press of a few buttons. Granted there would still be knock on psychological effects that could scare wall street, but in the end the price of Treasuries is well within the FEDs power to control.
Re; Trump supporters and insecure men more likely to value a large penis, according to new research
That’s hitting below the belt, isn’t it?
“Mentality of a rapist”
Pretty sure that Stephen Miller also subscribes to Mao Zedong’s famous quote-
‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’
So does Miller think then that Russia was correct in launching their SMO? But there are consequences to this sort of attitude. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference-
‘ “Of course, the US wants to negotiate, but so far this is all happening in the absence of any common criteria that until recently underpinned the work of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization,” Lavrov said. “It’s a game of ‘might makes right’.” ‘
https://www.rt.com/russia/631192-lavrov-might-makes-right/
Mr Ritholtz. We no longer have a ‘defense’ department. That is official, and should be recognized. I am tired of reading ‘defense’ contractors. We have none. We have ‘war’ contractors, full stop.
“For us, there’s no doubt: only when the pressure on the Kremlin becomes strong enough, can we expect Putin to be genuinely ready for negotiations.”
This statement on the surface is true, but it’s delusional to think the west has actually put any meaningful pressure on Russia. Yes we’ve made things hard for the Russians, but nothing like the pressure that’s being assumed/referred to here. It’s comical people believe so.