Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war — both real fog and stage fog — in comments. None of us need more cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will be summarily whacked.

And for those who are new here, this is not a mere polite request. We have written site Policies and those who comment have accepted those terms. To prevent having to resort to the nuclear option of shutting comments down entirely until more sanity prevails, as we did during the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders.

–Yves

P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:

Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commenter troll points. Please don’t do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them.

Devoted Pit Bull Mama Teaches a Baby Raccoon How to Survive in the Wild Laughing Squid

US brings foreign banks into intelligence-sharing fold FT. What could go wrong?

Climate

Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Tropical forests have big climate benefits beyond carbon storage Nature

Carbon Captured by Coastal and Ocean Habitats Can Advance States’ Climate Goals Pew

Agribusiness Hates CRP Iowa. Very good to see Christopher Jones back in action, although weirdly his blog doesn’t see to have a name.

#COVID19

Multiple D.C. insiders test positive for COVID after annual Gridiron Dinner Yahoo News. That’s a damn shame. Under Let ‘Er Rip, they’ll keep getting infected, too, and even with the best of care, which they will get, become a little bit more brain-damaged each time around the track. Commentary:

Fortunately it sounds like all serving staff wore masks consistently. Still, I’d argue we need as much concern (if not more concern) for these essential workers, in addition to the A-listers we consider as being essential.

— Lakshmi Ganapathi (@Lakshmi_RKG) April 6, 2022

It’s not clear the servers were wearing N95s, though.

A not-quite-parallel case from Down Under:

My sons &I’ve bent over backwards to avoid covid from day one (before our govts were doing *anything).
After a week in a unsuitable shitty job w/NO HEALTH REGS (forced to take bcs ‘mutual obligs’) eldest has covid. Now I have covid bcs ‘contagious’ is *before you know you’re sick

— St Mary MacKiller (@StMaryMacKiller) April 7, 2022

(See here on “mutual obligs.”) More from the same thread:

WHAT NEXT, @LiberalAus @AlboMP @ScottMorrisonMP?
@ all the CHOs &health advisors?
Where’s the grand plan?
This isn’t “living with the virus”; this is “slowly killing ourselves for ignorant employers’ profit margins”.
Australians need a better plan or we’re on a f-ing roundabout.

— St Mary MacKiller (@StMaryMacKiller) April 7, 2022

This account is the Kookburra Lady, which is why I follow her; see antidotes.

* * *

Neuropathology and virus in brain of SARS-CoV-2 infected non-human primates Nature. From the Abstract: “Here, we show neuroinflammation, microhemorrhages, brain hypoxia, and neuropathology that is consistent with hypoxic-ischemic injury in SARS-CoV-2 infected non-human primates (NHPs), including evidence of neuron degeneration and apoptosis. Importantly, this is seen among infected animals that do not develop severe respiratory disease, which may provide insight into neurological symptoms associated with ‘long COVID’.”

Pulse Oximetry for Monitoring Patients with Covid-19 at Home — A Pragmatic, Randomized Trial (letter) NEJM. n = 2097. From the text: “Among patients with Covid-19, did not result in a greater number of days alive and out of the hospital than subjective assessments of dyspnea alone.” The headline is a little deceptive; I would have thought the most useful (i.e., life-saving) comparison would have been between patients who were in the medical care system and those who were outside it altogether. And while it’s good to know that, for the patients studied, listening to your body (dyspnea) is sufficient without additional technology (the oximeter), these results come two years into the pandemic. Given the low cost and ease of use of oximeters, and given the downsides, it would have been insane to wait two years for the RCT process to emit a study before taking protective action, i.e. buying one and learning how to use it. A similar low-cost + low-risk / high benefit risk calculus applies in the case of treatments, although the PMC seems almost pathologically unwilling to work with this tendency as opposed to losing their minds over it.

China?

Coronavirus: Shanghai adds 19,982 Covid-19 cases, setting a daily record for the sixth day South China Morning Post

Is this Shanghai’s COVID-19 Tipping Point? Eric Feigl-Ding, Medriva

US sanctions threat if China aids Russia stirs fear in Beijing about forex assets South China Morning Post

Wang Yi Speaks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the Phone Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China

PKU National Development dean on Chinese economy Pekingnology. Commentary:

6/8
Because he does not think Beijing can quickly manage permanent increases in household income, he suggests “giving the people cash to promote consumption.” Yao recommends taking some of the supply-side support and converting it into demand-side support.

— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) April 6, 2022

Pakistan political crisis: Why Imran Khan’s enemies want him out Middle East Eye

Why Most of the Indo-Pacific Tiptoes Around Russia Foreign Policy

The Koreas

Incoming South Korean president backtracks on scrapping gender ministry Channel News Asia

India

A vegetable vendor’s quest for a just world People’s Archive of Rural India

UK/EU

Breaking ranks with EU, Hungary says ready to pay for Russian gas in roubles Reuters

Le Pen Is Finally Getting Noticed by Markets John Authers, Bloomberg

Waking Up from Anesthesia: Decline and Violence in France The Brooklyn Rail

Germany stages country-wide raids against ‘neo-Nazi networks’ Al Mayadeen

Serbia’s Vucic proved he is here to stay Al Jazeera

* * *

As airports grind to a halt… how UK’s ‘Great Lie Down’ threatens a summer of chaos: Hospitality, travel and farming STILL suffer staff shortages after 400,000 people left the work force during lockdowns (and it’s all going to make inflation worse) Daily Mail

Starmer abolishes fairness and natural justice from Labour’s expulsion rules. In as many words Sqwawkbox

Labour staff ‘gagged’ over sexual harassment claims BBC. Incredibly, they were Corbyn supporters.

New Not-So-Cold War

Striving to Make Sense of the Ukraine War Craig Murray. Today’s must-read. Grab a cup of coffee.

* * *

‘There is nothing else out there’: why Europe is hooked on Russian gas FT. News from No. 10:

Martin Lewis used to do guides on the best mobile phone deals. He’s now doing them on how to avoid freezing in your own home. That’s not a good sign. https://t.co/mdmRe1w2rK

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 5, 2022

* * *

Video appears to show Ukrainian troops killing captured Russian soldiers. NYT. At last, some realism. Commentary:

A video posted online on Monday and verified by The Times appears to show Ukrainian soldiers killing captured Russian troops outside a village west of Kyiv on or around March 30, as the Russians were withdrawing. I’ll thread some findings here: https://t.co/vZvVxMhvgP pic.twitter.com/aH94d2CLFw

— Evan Hill (@evanhill) April 6, 2022

Ukrainian doctor tells TV interviewer he has ordered his staff to CASTRATE Russian soldiers because they are ‘cockroaches’ Daily Mail. From March, still germane.

WATCH: Zelenksy Blasts Russia at UN for ‘Worst War Crimes’ Since 1945; Russia Blames Ukraine for Massacre Consortium News. Worse than Abu Ghraib? Worse than Fallujah? Really?

* * *

Normalizing nuclear war (1):

One of the oddities of the current debate over Russia and Ukraine is the shared certainty of the American Left and Right that confronting Russia inevitably risks World War III. This is bewildering. It’s like we don’t have 70 years of managing nuclear risk with Russia or something

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) April 5, 2022

From Brookings, not from those loons at the Atlantic Council.

Normalizing nuclear war (2):

Steven Portnoy of CBS News asks Jen Psaki why the US isn’t calling for a world war against Russia at this point pic.twitter.com/NVbnGNavA9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 5, 2022

The White House press corps really is optimized for demented, evil, little children.

* * *

The Fantasy of the Free World Foreign Affairs

Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Oryx. Impressively obsessive, but from photos, hence social media i.e. Ukraine-biased. And speaking of equipment–

About those Javelins, a useful thread:

Thread on the future of armored warfare

Pictures of destroyed Russian tanks have convinced a lot of people that Javelins/NLAWs have rendered armor obsolete, in the same way that drones did in Nagorno-Karabakh. None of this is true. pic.twitter.com/76crzYi8Jb

— The Bazaar of War (@bazaarofwar) March 27, 2022

(From a longer thread on “the Battle of Kiev.”)

Revisiting The Greek War of Independence While Ukraine Fights for Its Own War on the Rocks. Intriguing analogy, but I dunno. Finland, Austria, and Switzerland are all independent. Independent neutrals.

“Do Not Try to Interrupt a Ukrainian Woman”: Explaining the War to Europe’s Skeptics Vanity Fair

But the children:

The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice has confirmed that parents have started naming their children after weapons systems keeping Ukrainians safe.

A boy recently born in Vinnytsia was named “Jan Javelin” while a girl born in Kyiv received the name “Javelina”. pic.twitter.com/hUjOREMDTP

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 6, 2022

Better than “Stepan“? Tough call.

Biden Administration

Poor old Joe (jr). During the afterparty for Obama’s return to the White House to celebrate the ACA:

Key shot:

I have sympathy for Biden because I tend to stand around at parties myself. But Obama and Harris’s shunning behavior is vicious and reprehensible. What a cesspit the Democrats are. I mean, Obama installed the guy; the least he can do is not humiliate him in public.

Obama backs Biden after ‘sad’ video shows audience ignoring president NY Post. Sounds like “the dreaded vote of confidence” in baseball.

* * *

Five-justice majority restores Trump-era policy on water pollution, provoking more criticism of emergency docket SCOTUSblog. Commentary:

On Monday, Amy Coney Barrett said Americans should “read the opinion” to decide if a Supreme Court decision sounds like law-free policymaking.

Today, the Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision against the Clean Water Act—without issuing an opinion. https://t.co/VAsdQGjaoM

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 6, 2022

FDA Warning Letters Are Pearls Of Wisdom Dealbreaker. On CBD.

Supply Chain

Faced With Sanctions and Scorn, Some Russian Ships are Flagging Out Maritime Executive. As John Gilmore did not quite say: “The supply chain views sanctions as damage and routes around them.”

China state refiners shun new Russian oil trades, teapots fly under radar -sources Hellenci Shipping News. Interesting:

Sanction worries have driven some independent refiners known as teapots, once a dynamic group of customers consuming about a third of China’s Russian oil imports, to fly under the radar.

“ESPO trading was really slow and secretive. Some deals are being done, but details are kept under wraps. No one wants to be seen buying Russian oil in public,” a regular ESPO dealer said.

To keep oil flowing, these nimble refiners are deploying alternative payment mechanisms such as cash transfer, paying after cargo is delivered and using Chinese currency.

Russian suppliers – Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft, and independent producers represented by Swiss trader Paramount Energy – are expected to ship a record 3.3 million tonnes of ESPO from Kozmino port [Vladivostok] in May.

Impact of Russia-Ukraine war on steel production and supply chains Gas World

Our Famously Free Press

The Uncensored:

Well, it looks like I’ve been reinstated. No official word from Twitter about what the problem was or how/why it was resolved. But I’m sure they took notice at the concern expressed by many of you here on Twitter. Thanks for speaking up in defense of free speech. Goodnight!

— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) April 7, 2022

Global life expectancy drops two years since the start of the pandemic WSWS. Everything’s going according to plan.

Antidote du Jour:

Larry is not the only one–

Bonus Antidote:

The end of a sad story.

Double Bonus Antidote:

Triple Bonus Antidote, from the Kookaburra lady (see above):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.