/Links 12/16/2020

Links 12/16/2020


When Usually Solitary Octopuses Get Together, Odd Things Happen Atlas Obscura (furzy)

‘Hug-buddy’ is Flemish word of the year Politico

Kangaroos can learn to communicate with humans, researchers say Reuters

Monarch butterflies denied federal protection as California population plunges Merced Sun-Star (David L)

A palm oil alternative could help save rainforests BBC (furzy)

All the Stuff Humans Make Now Outweighs Earth’s Organisms Wired

‘We’re getting Europe’s waste?’ US hit by plastic debris lost from UK ship Guardian

Small Modular Reactors Produce Clean Hydrogen Popular Mechanics

#COVID-19

Covid-19 vaccine stickers could encourage people to get vaccinated CNN (Kevin W). Sigh. Psychological research finds that presenting people with information that contradicts their priors only leads them to double down.

Don’t Force Employees to Get the Covid-19 Vaccine Bloomberg

Santa likely delivered coronavirus to nursing home, infecting 75 people Boing Boing

Saudi begins registering people for COVID vaccination Al Jazeera (resilc)

Singapore to open travel bubble as it prepares to stand in for Davos Reuters

Science/Medicine

America Is Running Out of Nurses New Yorker

FDA Authorizes 1st Home Coronavirus Test That Doesn’t Require A Prescription NPR

Moderna submits data to FDA showing vaccine can potentially prevent infection, not just severe disease CNN

Moderna vaccine appears to protect against coronavirus infection NBC (furzy)

UK/Europe

COVID-19: For the first time in its history UNICEF will help feed children in the UK Sky

Coronavirus: France replaces lockdown with evening curfew BBC

Covid Second Wave: Sweden Offers Hard Reality Check Ahead of Christmas Bloomberg (furzy)

US

Hunger spikes, demand rises for US food banks BBC

Hunger in America, Covid-19 and the Nightmare of Food Insecurity TomDispatch

Fridges Feeding the Hungry Weather Growing Pains With Creative Alliances THE CITY

Amazon ecourages California warehouse and Whole Foods workers to get weekly Covid tests CNBC

Finance/Economy

Locked Down and Broke: 20,000 Vermonters Could Lose Unemployment Benefits Seven Days Vermont (resilc)

Sanders, Hawley embrace odd couple status in push for stimulus checks The Hill

Confirming our cross post yesterday:

TOM CURSE Raging Tom Cruise warns Mission: Impossible crew they’re ‘f***ing gone’ if they break Covid rules on set The Sun

China?

Revealed: China suspected of spying on Americans via Caribbean phone networks Guardian. Resilc: “Sort of like Walmart, Amazon, Google, NYTimes, Fox, Home Depot?”

China Attempts to Cap Soaring Coal Prices as Imports Tumble Caixin

Brexit

Progress on Brexit issues, next days critical, EU says Reuters. Wowsers, is the press desperate to amplify any scrap of positive news. Other headlines more boosterist, when von der Leyen almost exactly repeats Barnier’s early “narrow path” formulation.

Global Britain ditches EU for an Asian future Asia Times (Kevin W). Good luck with that.

Facebook To Move UK Users To California Terms, Avoiding EU Privacy Rules Reuters

Mexico lashes out at U.S. with law expected to harm cooperation on drug fight TheHour (Kevin W)

Syraqistqan

Iran’s Pres. Rouhani to Biden: We will Fulfill our Nuclear Obligations on Day One if you Return to 2015 Deal Juan Cole

Camp closures force Iraqi families back to shattered homes Associated Press

Imperial Collapse Watch

French and Russian Trolls Wrestle For Influence In Africa, Facebook Says Reuters. But American trolls receive no mention.

Trump Transition

President Trump to veto national defence bill, White House says Al Jazeera. Subhead: “Broad support in Congress for bill containing language that would impose limits on US troop withdrawals from overseas.”

William Barr: The Carl Schmitt of Our Time New York Review of Book (resilc)

DeVos urges career staff to ‘be the resistance’ as Biden takes over Politico

Biden

Biden Taps Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary New York Times (Kevin W)

Lindsey Graham: Big ‘threats to conservatism” are election officials helping people to vote, and social media disinformation crackdown Boing Boing

Republicans Will Take Their Assault on Democracy to Congress—and It Will Be Awful Nation (resilc)

I’m sure you can find a way to avoid ActBlue:

Paris city hall fined for putting too many women in senior roles Guardian (Kevin W)

FDA funding study around blood donations from gay men: report The Hill (UserFriendly)

Police State Watch

Defund Campus Police Slate

It’s Not Just You, USPS Packages Are Massively Delayed Again Vice (resilc)

Walmart Will Use Fully Driverless Trucks To Make Deliveries In 2021 The Verge

Trump Financial Regulator Quietly Shelved Discrimination Probes Into Bank of America and Other Lenders ProPublica

Class Warfare

Pay gap in Britain between executives and workers ‘obscene’, says union Guardian

Antidote du jour (furzy):

And a bonus from furzy. Don’t try this at home!

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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