Florida Cat Goes Viral After Bravely Staring Down Alligator Who Shows Up At Front Door Animal Rescue (David L)

Wild Predators Are Relying More on Our Food—and Pets Wired

Room-Temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time Quanta Magazine (David L)

Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement Vice (resilc)

Digital Planet, Predicting US elections results every hour BBC World Service. Resilc:

First two are interesting sections
1. on the election betting market
2. on solar energy in rural Africa. Components are failing. Right to repair essential. Tthe cheapness of quality of all the components is a real weakness. I have Chicom solar lights on outdoor sculptures here in Vermont. Some work for years, some work for 3 months. Cannot be fixed after they break. More e-waste.

#COVID-19

Wars and Pandemics Produce the Same Sort of Lethal Government Bungling CounterPunch

Covid deaths in Europe, US exceed official tallies Agence France-Presse. Resilc: “What a shock.”

Science/Medicine

Trump’s ‘Miracle Cure’ for Covid Is a Logistical Nightmare Wired

Coronavirus: ‘Long COVID’ could be four syndromes affecting body at the same time – study Sky

Sudden irreversible hearing loss post COVID-19 BMJ. Not to worry, n=1.

UK/Europe

Macron announces curfew for Paris and 8 French cities Financial Times

The whole thing stinks.

This Government’s incompetence, its cronyism, its ideological obsession with outsourcing and rip-off privatisation has undermined our NHS and put lives at risk.

Time to kick the profiteers out of the system and put local public health teams in charge. pic.twitter.com/ivqRy4WgOe

— Dan Carden MP (@DanCardenMP) October 14, 2020

Test & trace consultants are being paid £7,360 a DAY each: Fury as private sector company is handed cash equivalent of £1.5 million annual salary for coronavirus tracking Daily Mail (J-LS)

US

About 75,000 more Americans died from COVID-19 pandemic than reported in spring and summer, study finds USA Today

Survey finds Americans are more united than divided on wearing face masks MarketWatch (resilc)

‘It was just a big old scare’: Trump supporters at comeback rally play down Covid risk Independent

Trump again attacks Fauci’s guidance as coronavirus infections tick upward Washington Post (resilc)

Finance/Economy

Change in Real GDP by State Barry Ritholtz

After two lost decades, U.S.’s weakest local economies may face worse from pandemic Reuters

Shaky U.S. Hospitals Risk Bankruptcy in Latest Covid Wave Bloomberg (furzy)

China?

Exclusive: Trump administration to consider adding China’s Ant Group to trade blacklist – sources Reuters (resilc)

US appoints Tibet coordinator amid tensions with China Al Jazeera (furzy)

China braced for lose-lose scenario as US election fuels unease Financial Times

Thailand declares state of emergency and cracks down on demonstrators Financial Times. Hoo boy.

After months of largely peaceful protests, pro-democracy activists and Thai monarchy supporters clashed, throwing punches and bottles at each other pic.twitter.com/RwAz7GrEfc

— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) October 15, 2020

US lets Indonesia’s Prabowo off the hook Asia Times

India

Telangana Rains: At Least 30 Dead; Hyderabad Receives Highest Rainfall in a Century The Wire (J-LS)

Brexit

Brexit Threatens to Become the Messiest of Messy Divorces: A Looming Disaster Der Spiegel

Brexit: What has happened since 31 January? BBC

EU court ruling threatens EU-UK data flows Politico. From last week. Too many people acting as if “of course this will be solved” when it isn’t yet.

New Cold War

Is NASA Finally Done Paying Russia for Trips to Space? Gizmodo (Kevin W)

In Mexico, Cross-Border Fight Over Water Erupts New York Times (resilc). We warned over a decade ago that potable water was the world’s most limited resource. Not hard to see that it would become a source of conflict.

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Pentagon’s AI ‘ghost fleet’ is more than just scary — it’s unwise Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

Supreme Struggle

Key moments from Barrett’s marathon question-and-answer session The Hill (Kevin W)

Why The Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Are Verging On The Absurd FiveThirtyEight

Dems Silent As Barrett Evades Climate Query With Shell Case Looming David Sirota, Andrew Perez

Amy Coney Barrett’s Answer on This Climate Change Question Is Completely Disqualifying. She Will Be Confirmed. Esquire (David L)

2020

Biden Has 11-Point Lead Over Trump Less Than Three Weeks to Election Day Wall Street Journal

Trump and Biden offer starkly different visions of US role in world Guardian. Resilc: “Same ole shit, different spins…….SecState Rice ❤ interventions.”

Harris and Truman? How an embrace of the national security state runs in the family Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

NBC Is Giving Trump, Who Refused to Debate Biden This Week, a TV Special. Slate. Um, Biden will have gotten two televised town halls…one was with NBC, not sure who is running the Oct 15 one.

Biden’s Covid Response Plan Draws From F.D.R.’s New Deal New York Times

Rochester AFL-CIO Calls for General Strike if Trump Steals Election Mike Elk

GOP Vows to Act As Check on Biden’s Plans to Avert Recession New York Magazine

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, and the Latinx Vote Is Still Being Ignored New Yorker (resilc)

It’s Not The Economy, Stupid. It’s Your Identity Heisenberg Report (resilc). Wild, but a spurious correlation?

The other election: South Carolina and the battle for the US Senate Financial Times

The U.S. Shouldn’t Be a ‘Sleazy Offshore Principality’ Atlantic

GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan Caught in Environmental Scandal Intercept

Visualized: A Breakdown of Amazon’s Revenue Model Visual Capitalist (furzy)

Our Famously Free Press

Twitter BLOCKS sharing links to NYPost’s Hunter Biden emails story, invoking ‘HACKED MATERIALS’ policy for first time ever RT (Kevin W)

Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad New York Post

Facebook, Twitter Restrictions on Biden Article Infuriate Trump Bloomberg. Streisand effect. This the lead story.

Proposed Reform to US Espionage Act Would Create Public Interest Defense Consortiumnews (UserFriendly)

With the U.S. importing more goods than it’s exporting, shipments of American cotton, grain and hay are getting squeezed by a shortage of shipping containers https://t.co/L2EXGYfzmq

— Bloomberg (@business) October 15, 2020

Split-Second ‘Phantom’ Images Can Fool Tesla’s Autopilot Wired (Chuck L)

U.S. states oppose settlement being negotiated by OxyContin maker Purdue and Justice Department: letter Reuters (resilc)

Why did Amnesty UK, Bellingcat and White Helmets sabotage Roger Waters webinar on corporate pollution? The Grayzone (Chuck L)

If CalPERS beats earnings targets, its next investment chief could take home $2.4 million SacBee

Class Warfare

For Rudolf Hilferding, Socialism Was About Freedom Jacobin (Chuck L)

The Pandemic Has Benefited One Group Of People: Billionaires HuffPost (UserFriendly)

Antidote du jour. Tracie H:

Spotted this beautiful German Shepherd in the back of this truck on a food stop in Phelan, California, on one of our three-hour weekend drives to the desert. I tried for a bit sharper image but just then my battery died. ☹ Aaugh! As Snoopy and his friends would say!!!

And a bonus, from guurst:

The title should be “Reservoir Bears” – but these things only come to one later. https://t.co/9I1YKXrBil

— Paul Tout (@adriawildlife) September 18, 2020

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here