Saved from the garbage, Russian cat lands on its feet in minister’s chair Reuters (resilc)

House of the Dragon: Meet Daemon Targaryen’s Dragon, Caraxes LRM (furzy)

Lava lake continues growing inside Halemaumau Crater on Hawaii island Star Advertiser (David L)

Massachusetts city to post climate change warning stickers at gas stations Guardian (resilc)

Aviation Groups Are Worried 5G Could Lead to ‘Catastrophic’ Plane Crashes Popular Mechanics (resilc)

The family with no fingerprints BBC

People experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when processing information that supports their beliefs. “It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong,” researchers say. https://t.co/zF0fhHSgGe

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 26, 2020

#COVID-19

China’s virus deceptions have been even worse than we thought New York Post (David L)

Science/Medicine

Super-infectious mutant strain of coronavirus is found in Ireland and France Daily Mail (Kevin W)

UK scientists trial drug to prevent infection that leads to Covid Guardian (furzy)

Rich countries buying most of the world’s vaccine supply has left the rest ‘scrambling for supplies,’ campaigners say Business Insider (Kevin W)

Quack cure or Covid hope? Six things you can buy in the shops that scientists believe could protect against severe coronavirus infection Daily Mail

Boston doctor says he almost had to be INTUBATED after suffering severe allergic reaction from Moderna Covid vaccine RT (Kevin W)

Why new coronavirus variants ‘suddenly arose’ in the U.K. and South Africa National Geographic (David L). Really really bothered that this is a hypothesis with no evidence whatsoever. Convalescent plasma was deployed in a big way in NYC. So why don’t we have a mutation cluster coming out of NYC? Another therapy, hydroxychloroquinine, was used extensively in hospitals in Italy during its peak and is heavily used in the global South. So why the declaration that the mutations showing up in London are due to treatments, with zero evidence of London using “treatments” more than other places with acute outbreaks, like New York and India and Los Angeles? We also have Long Covid….which according to IM Doc’s sample, is significant among patients who have been hospitalized, and press reports of Long Covid has typically showcased a different population, young healthy people whose initial Covid cases were mild to moderate but didn’t resolve.

This is the Stanford vaccine algorithm that left out frontline doctors MIT Technology Review

UK/EU

France finds first case of new coronavirus variant BBC

US

Kary Mullis Nobel Prize Inventor of Abused PCR Slams Antony Fauci YouTube (RR). Ouch.

Christmas travel rush ignores Covid warnings as California hits 2m cases Guardian. Resilc: “Since the American community cannot address this issue, they cannot address, nor agree on any issue.”

California COVID-19 patients wait 8 hours in ambulances before entering ERs Daily Mail

Southern States Are Facing an Explosion of Virus Cases New York Times

Experts say experience convinced Midwest of virus dangers ABC. MA flags this quote:

Roughly one of out every 278 people across northern states spanning from Wisconsin to Montana required hospital care for COVID-19, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.

Finance/Economy

Trump again calls for $2,000 checks as Covid aid bill remains in flux CNBC

Anger at Congress, Trump mounts among governors The Hill

China?

China’s Economy Set to Overtake U.S. Earlier Due to Covid Fallout Bloomberg

Tales of a “CEO monk” obscure the business of faith in China Economist (David L)

Brexit

EU ambassadors gather to review Brexit trade deal on Christmas Day CNN

Brexit Trade Deal Google Drive. Courtesy the Telegraph, for those of you with high tolerance for pain or detail.

Keir crisis: Labour MPs set to rebel against whip and vote down Boris Johnson’s EU deal Express. Hhhm. Presumably purely symbolic.

Brexit: tea break’s over Richard North. Finds some significant UK misrepresentations beyond the one I flagged on a fast pass yesterday.

The way the Brexit deal is being hailed as having saved the UK from no-deal chaos means that people will be even more surprised when the queues start at the ports on 1 January 2021.

Not only that, some businesses that had frantically been trying to prepare may slack off again.

— Edwin Hayward 🦄 🗡 (@uk_domain_names) December 26, 2020

Brexit’s Unwinding of Integration With EU to Test U.K. Economy Wall Street Journal

This Brexit deal is emphatically nothing to celebrate Prospect

Thousands apply to be a Finn for 90 days in migration scheme Guardian (resilc)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Pentagon leaders exchange lobbyists for Christmas Duffelblog (JTM)

Trump Transition

Four Seasons Total Landscaping: The Full(est Possible) Story New York Magazine (UserFriendly)

2020

GOP seeks to avoid messy Trump fight over Electoral College The Hill. OMG Tommy Tuberville is being treated as a player???

The Memo: Could Pence run and win in 2024? The Hill. Painfully early to be handicapping. He might not even be alive by then.

Please use this corrected chart: pic.twitter.com/h4VJfNtsRm

— Joseph M. Firestone (@joefirestonephd) December 25, 2020

The WOKIES: 2020’s top virtue signalers, ENTERTAINMENT edition RT (Micael)

Nashville

Nashville explosion: What we know about downtown explosion on Christmas morning Tennessean. A well-travelled NYC friend argues this would never have happened in Time Square: NYC has bomb squads and would have recognized the threat earlier.

Before & after of Nashville bombing.
AT&T central office & data center pic.twitter.com/S0uVOj6Mil

— Robert Lee (@RobertLee556) December 25, 2020

Next up for retailers: A big wave of gift returns Reuters

SA Bitcon CEO Disappears With Over 9 Billion Investors Money South Africa’s Rich and Famous andMTI CEO goes AWOL, lawyers pull out Moneyweb (furzy)

Who Is America? Ian Buruma, Project Syndicate (David L)

Class Warfare

Boots Riley on Why the Left Abandoned Class Struggle YouTube (Kevin C)

LABOR’S UNTOLD STORY: AN OLD BOOK IS GETTING A NEW LOOK Intercept (MatthewCC)

GoDaddy is accused of cruelty after it teased 500 employees into replying to email promising Christmas $650 bonus – only to then reveal it was phishing test they FAILED Daily Mail (BC)

Antidote du jour. R.H.: “Meet Ozzie, a 17-year old rescued Persian (Got him when he was 3 years old).”

And a bonus (dk):

Dead leaf butterfly 🦋

Found in Tropical Asia from India to Japan pic.twitter.com/pO2uLuMyuC

— ༺❆ᗙ Martin 🏳️‍🌈 ᗛ❆༻ ¸.•*´¯*⊱• ⁛҉ (@KlatuBaradaNiko) December 25, 2020

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here