Saturday roundup

Here's the Times obituary of King Abdullah but don't miss the story of his encounter with Queen Elizabeth.

Will Africa's economic growth also usher in greater food security?

Inconscionable state sponsorship of animal cruelty, all on behalf of the meat industry.

On combatting food waste.

The oceans are hurting.

Carmen Guadelupe Vasquez has been pardoned, but this travesty never should have gone this far.

Letting your kids walk around on their own is now apparently a crime.

Posting graphic pictures of your kids' colds should be a crime.

Yup any woman who takes issue with things is just jealous.

The problem with exclusively health-motivated vegans is that they often go too far and then give up.

Immigration: a photo essay.


Is dumb-shaming anti-vaxxers not the best way to go?

An excellent critique of media exaggeration/distortion, with the longterm impact and the position it puts experts in:

Stories like this make analysts like me crazy. It’s obviously careless reporting, yet I will encounter claims of a Second Artillery Unit “near Baekdusan” for years, if not the rest of my miserable life. I’ll have to deprogram graduate students and be the jerk who corrects people in meetings. All because no one at the Chosun Ilbo bothered to check with a single competent expert before running that story. What? Mark Stokes doesn’t have email? Henry Boyd at IISS was on vacation? There are literally half a dozen people who would have been happy to correct Chosun Ilbo had they bothered to send a single, solitary email.

So, no China is not deploying nuclear-armed missiles on Mount Baekdu. Instead, the 810 Launch Brigade out of Dalian froze their balls off spending a month reenacting the opening battle sequence on Hoth from Empire Strikes Back.