Lambert apologizes profusely for missing Water Cooler Monday, a time-slip – in his mind, it was Sunday. He is mortified and attributes it to a 100 year flood-level disturbance in the force. As you can see from the too-often unhinged behavior of what passes for our elites, there’s a lot of upset out there. It’s hard not to have it affect you if you wind up watching it regularly.
I wonder if some voodoo-using PMC members (the same sort that shut down Lambert’s Twitter account) put a hex on him, since this unprecedented lapse was particularly ill timed.
Lambert had just launched his Water Cooler fundraiser on Saturday. It now stands at 160 donors (42.6%) of goal, despite Lambert’s absence. Admittedly a weekend start would tend to draw out the responses, but Lambert needs those of you who have not yet responded to his appeal to act.
If you have not yet donated but read Water Cooler regularly, please do your part to keep Lambert’s hamster wheel turning! The Tip Jar is here. Thanks so much!
Scientists film deepest ever fish on seabed off Japan CNN (Kevin W)
Are Ancient Phallic Objects … Exactly What They Look Like? Atlantic (Anthony L)
Physicists Created ‘Slits In Time’ and Discovered ‘Unexpected Physics’ Vice
Room-temperature superconductors could revolutionize electronics – an electrical engineer explains the materials’ potential The Conversation. Userfriendly: “Huge if it pans out.”
Bayer sues four Missouri farmers for illegally spraying dicamba, saving and replanting seeds from the company’s genetically-engineered crops Investigate Midwest (Robin K)
Xanax and Adderall Access Is Being Blocked by Secret Drug Limits Bloomberg
What Did Aspasia Really Look Like? Antigone Journal (Anthony L)
Remembering Rumpole Quillette (Anthony L)
#COVID-19
The Dana Farber institute writes that T cell exhaustion is seen in SARS Cov 2
It's accepted that there is T cell exhaustion from Covid
So that certain person messaging people that I was wrong… is wrong
Add it to the T cell harm that is now acceptedhttps://t.co/6uM4SpGlFU pic.twitter.com/nei3jKT5c6
— Anthony J Leonardi, PhD, MS (@fitterhappierAJ) April 3, 2023
Silently, with no media discussion, people keep dying at rates far higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
For every one person who officially dies from COVID-19, 2-4 more die from other, unnamed causes who would not have died before 2020.
Welcome to the perpetual pandemic. pic.twitter.com/HpZu94ZaMo
— Andre Damon (@Andre__Damon) April 1, 2023
Concerns regarding a suggested long COVID paradigm The Lancet
From the new FOIA release by @JamesCTobias. State Department approval for NIH grant by @EcoHealthNYC
🔴Humanized mice
🔴5-6 Novel SARS-related coronaviruses
🔴"All work involving samples and viral isolates from bats
will be performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology" https://t.co/anXSVlIXdY pic.twitter.com/fnudV4XaYJ— Louis R Nemzer (@BiophysicsFL) April 2, 2023
Climate/Environment
Climate change: Catalonia in grip of worst drought in decades BBC
California Salmon Stocks Are Crashing. A Fishing Ban Looks Certain. New York Times (resilc)
Chemicals Banned From Air Conditioners and Refrigerators Are Making a Comeback The Verge
Global warming can aggravate multiple sclerosis symptoms. Here’s what you can do. Yale Climate Connections
The Land Ethic and Politics of Technology Joe Costello (Randy K)
China?
US cranking pressure on China in South China Sea Asia Times (Kevin W)
Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence on US military sites NBC News Reuters (furzy)
Macron and von der Leyen to talk Ukraine on China visit DW. This muscling is very unattractive. As Alexander Mercouris pointed out the day before yesterday (starting at 1:05:40), the Spanish prime minister Sanchez also just visited China to try to persuade China to distance itself from Russia, particularly with respect to Ukraine. The readout strongly indicated Xi did not entertain this line of discussion.
Pentagon fake news about Chinese fast breeder reactors Asia Times (Kevin W)
China’s battery king faces scrutiny over EV market dominance Financial Times
La belle France
French students denounce fraud of union “mediation” with Macron WSWS
Patrick Lawrence: French Streets and American Sofas ScheerPost
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia accuses Ukraine of blowing up war blogger Tatarsky, arrests woman Reuters (furzy)
We had highlighted statements by Japanese officials, quoted in the Financial Times, very clearly saying that they would not be able to comply with a price cap. So this is no surprise, even if not a good look for the US:
"Japan breaks with U.S. allies, buys Russian oil at prices above cap"
They still asked Washington for permission.
"Japan got the U.S. to agree to the exception"
😂😂😂 https://t.co/pvqwNI7oyn— Richard (@ricwe123) April 3, 2023
Erdogan weighs up Russia, dares Biden Indian Punchline (Kevin W)
German arms manufacturer builds maintenance center in Romania for tanks donated to Ukraine Anadolu Agengy
Syraqistan
Saudi crown prince pushing hard to realign Mideast dynamics Middle East Online
Imperial Collapse Watch
Astounding statement from White House official talking head Karine Jean-Pierre:
“We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies when conducting mutual settlements. This is a violation of the rights of our citizens who rely on a stable… pic.twitter.com/P6e7WvWTG6
— Spriter (@Spriter99880) April 3, 2023
US hypersonic failure reveals a glaring weakness Asia Times (UserFriendly)
The BBC presenter asks the American university professor and economist Jeffrey Sachs and mentions China's human rights violations, and the latter replies:
I don't know why you should start this interview with human rights violations in China! What about the US violations of… pic.twitter.com/RPT4cRPOva
— Spriter (@Spriter99880) April 3, 2023
Pandemic pounds push 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers into obesity Associated Press (resilc)
If you read the thread below, one thing Pilkington misses is banks have never much been in the business of HOLDING, as opposed to making, loans to private equity portfolio companies. They are syndicated, with the syndicator retaining little to none. The loans are sold to junk credit funds (the kind you can buy as a retail investor), sometimes to CLOs (which are better structures than CDOs) and those CLOs are then often sold to institutional investors….with private equity credit funds playing a much bigger role over time.
2/ One area that @RanaForoohar does not discuss is private credit. The industry is something of a black box but there’s some suggestions that they’re dipping their beak into the real estate market. They’re also lending to private equity firms that may be in the sector. pic.twitter.com/TSQK2yL4Qx
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) April 3, 2023
Trump
Trump flies to New York for court surrender, opposes TV coverage Reuters. Resilc: “Because Trump will be wearing a gopro and will sell the footage.”
Trump’s Legal “Super Tuesday”: The Trump Arrest Will Start One of the Most Bizarre Presidential Elections in History Jonathan Turley
‘He’ll be our next president’: Florida protesters stay faithful to Trump BBC (resilc)
Trump indictment pulls DeSantis-leaning Republicans back to MAGA fold Reuters (furzy). Ken
Biden
Biden’s Lackluster Diplomatic Record Daniel Larison. “Lockluster” is remarkably charitable.
Why Renee DiResta Leads The Censorship Industry Michael Shellenberger (Li)
Abortion
This New Abortion Ban Could Wipe Out Abortion Access in the South Vice
Planned Parenthood and ACLU sue Utah over abortion clinic ban Axios
Gunz
No charges for Texas man who tracked down and executed man who stole his truck Boing Boing. Resilc: “Waste of money to try him in Texass.”
Rotten Banks
Silicon Valley Bank’s risk model flashed red. So its executives changed it. Washington Post (ma)
It’s Not Just an SVB Problem: the Systemic Nature of the Bank Regulation Failure Adam Levitin. From last week, still germane.
Signature Bank Insiders Sold $100 Million in Stock During Crypto Surge Wall Street Journal
Pentagon Tries to Cast Bank Runs as National Security Threat Intercept
Bank failure fallout is far from over, lawmakers say The Hill
AI
A conversation with LaMDA,, Google’s “sentient” AI. Blake Lemoine (Glenn F)
The Bezzle
Why is Bitcoin (BTC) Liquidity Declining in 2023? Liquidity Problem Offers Clues Bloomberg (furzy)
Dogecoin Soars After Twitter Replaces Its Blue Bird Logo With the Token’s Dog CoinDesk
Hong Kong’s Crypto Ambitions Get a Boost From US Crackdown Wall Street Journal
Branson’s Rocket-Launch Firm Virgin Orbit Files for Bankruptcy Bloomberg
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman rings the recession alarm and says commercial real estate is next in the crosshairs of global banking turmoil Business Insider
Class Warfare
up to 15 million people were casually thrown off medicaid this week and basically no one in TV media noticed or cared. I wrote about how bipartisan gutting of "pandemic-era" aid barely gets a mention in US media because its victims are obscure and poor. https://t.co/vUdmUpTaH4
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) April 3, 2023
Fiscal policy can always protect employment, incomes and business solvency if there is political will Bill Mitchell
Antidote du jour. Timotheus: “A Minnesota backyard April 1.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
130 comments
Comments are closed.
KICK IT BACK
(melody borrowed from Tie A Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn)
When money hits the Pentagon
There’s military magic that goes on
Some of that cash disappears
While some stays on the books
Some goes to buy more weapons
While some goes to certain crooks
Some flows to certain crooks
Well, kick some back to Congress
Won’t you pretty please?
Send those K Street boys
Give the mice some cheese
When we kick back to Congress
Then it’s guaranteed
Those political shills
Will pass more bills
To fund our war machine
So kick some back to Congress
Everybody loves some green
This is the game in DC
What goes around
Comes back around you see
Some prestidigitation
Makes the payer the payee
The only real challenge
Is to keep it all tax free
That’s right. It’s all tax free
Well, kick some back to Congress
Won’t you pretty please?
Send those K Street boys
Give the mice some cheese
When we kick back to Congress
Then it’s guaranteed
Those political shills
Will pass more bills
To fund our war machine
Just kick some back to Congress
Everybody loves some green
(musical interlude)
When those mice get reelected
It’s with votes from you and me
Those grifters in the Congress
They expect their standard fee
Send money home!
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
Kick it back to Congress doncha see?
That’s a wonderful looking antidote, the bright red contrasted boldly against the recent snowfall. Cardinal and redbirds were my late grandmother’s favorite birds to watch.
It happens to all of us and, on rare occasions, to the best of us. We shall see these days at the WC renewed !!
Can anybody confirm whether Karine Jean-Pierre actually said the quote above? The tweets are being taken down, and some fact checker says it’s not true.
I’d wait to see if someone else posts the clip, since all WH press conferences are recorded. I don’t place much stock in fact checkers given that they are mainly self-appointed orthodoxy enforcers.
Recall when Ursula von der Leyen said last year that 100,000 Ukraine officers had died. The clip and her tweet with that in it were quickly yanked and replaced with one that had the death figure edited out. But others quickly reposted the unscrubbed version. So there is precedent for a government trying to expunge a bad remark by an official.
My take was that she said “officers” in the same sense as the phrase “police officer,” include ordinary soldiers. English is not her first language after all, even if European leaders do speak English unnaturally well. It almost seems to be a prerequisite for their jobs.
It did include all soldiers. The main reason it got pulled was that 100,000 was far higher than the numbers of dead soldiers that Ukraine was officially admitting at the time. (But it did closely coincide with Russian estimates.)
Yes, Durans above is correct, the reason for editing out the figure was the #, not the misattribution of the type of soldier it might represent. It was seen as a shockingly bad and presumably accurate admission.
With deep fakes, do we believe the clip that shows she said it, or the clip that shows she didn’t? :-(
I hope some of the press people present will come out, but only those with a decent reputation. Are there any these days?
Maybe the gentleman in the WH press corps from an African news agency who complained about his treatment and was then lectured to. He seemed pretty honest. Not sure about anybody else though.
I caught him on George Galloway’s MOATS, either he buckled under the pressure or he was never much of a reporter and was just complaining he could not even get a vacuous question in, so that his pay-packet was at risk. Nothing but praise for Whitehouse and the Whitehouse Press, I guess it will teach George to do more background first.
I just googled “We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies when conducting mutual settlements” and got this rather Orwellian response:
“It looks like the results below are changing quickly
If this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for reliable sources to publish information”
That seems like confirmation to me.
The likely reason the tweet from Splinter is gone is he deleted it after it was refuted by fact checkers. Unlike the Van der Leyden episode, there is no evidence of Pierre making this statement.
Spriter tweets a fair amount of unconfirmed and false statements. Not a reliable source.
Fair point.
Patrick Lawrence: French Streets and American Sofas ScheerPost
You might be Brazilian or Malian or Singaporean, it is remarkable the world over to watch the French explode into the streets of dozens of cities and towns to protest the imperial president residing in Élysée Palace. It is altogether singular to follow the demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron as an American. The French are still citoyens and take to their streets and public squares. Americans long ago cashed in their citizenship to live as consumers—and take to their sofas no matter how abusively political elites treat them, no matter how many wars they start, no matter how corrupt the financial system, no matter how many people live in poverty, no matter how grotesque the “defense” budget, no matter how poisoned the environment, no matter… let me not go on.
—————————–
This started, of course, as a protest against Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 as part of a sweeping reform of the pension system. I have heard many Americans ask, “Two years? What’s the big deal?”
It is telling enough that Americans would pose this question, missing all the reasons why Macron’s plan is a very big deal. The French work to live, as they like to say, while Americans live to work. Pushing up the retirement age had a semiotic meaning from the first, signaling the creeping incursion of American neoliberalism into French society.
There is the choice Macron had. I don’t think too many people dispute the demographics and fiduciary numbers at issue. More older French are reaching retirement age while fewer younger French are advancing into the workforce. This is a reality in France as in many other developed nations, though not the near-term crisis Macron made it out to be. Macron’s choice lay between raising taxes on the wealthy and the corporations or pushing the problem on the shoulders of the working class. He made the wrong choice.
=================================================
I have posted this from the Federal Reserve many times
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2015/june/wages-arent-keeping-up-with-economic-growth
Wage growth hasn’t kept up with economic growth FOR DECADES
And as I’ve said time and time again, this is not a law of nature, but a political decision. Wages are suppressed, social security and medicare endangered, and inequality increases because the rich have mastered propaganda.
Terrific post Fresno Dan. I’m US living in Europe for nearly 40 years now. Not only did Macron ‘make the wrong choice’ but he made it happen in such a way ie avoiding a vote that the French people simply cannot accept and obviously will not accept.
– On a lighter note: “French Streets and American Sofas”, how about French sofas…
http://www.culturepub.fr/videos/chien/
cheers
Adam H. Johnson
@adamjohnsonNYC
up to 15 million people were casually thrown off medicaid this week and basically no one in TV media noticed or cared. I wrote about how bipartisan gutting of “pandemic-era” aid barely gets a mention in US media because its victims are obscure and poor.
===================================================
I remember when I was a child, I watched a CBS documentary (because of course my parents watched it – it wasn’t like I was woke when I was six), Harvast of Shame
When was the last time you saw a documentary about poor people in America on the TV?
As I’ve said, its not what they are reporting so much as it is what they are not reporting…
Netflix had a recent film, it might be from 2016 or 2017, which I found interesting. Now I’m also thinking of another film about poor or neglected regions, Winter’s Bone, which I also found interesting and a compelling film to watch. I’m certain other examples exist, that aren’t Science Fiction inspired.
The Florida Project. Some portions are not for the young or fertile minds, by the way. America in 2023! Still pretending, at actually being a serious country.
g
I saw both Winter’s Bone as well as the Florida Project and recommend both. But it says something, as much as they reflect real life in the US, they are fictional and not documentaries.
The broadcast networks did documentaries back when they felt themselves under FCC obligation due to their privileged status as licensees. Now the category has been turned over to cable TV offering mostly dumbed down versions as well as the now all woke all the time PBS which has shows like Frontline and POV as well as of course Ken Burns.
I think Nomadland, which is fiction but based on a nonfiction book, is an excellent movie on the subject even if many of its homeless are voluntarily so. It did win an Oscar.
But in general Hollywood these days isn’t interested in poor people, white or black. They can’t relate.
The Critical Drinker on YouTube was saying that a reason for this development is the writers behind these movies. Writers of an earlier generation went out and lived their lives in different occupations & experiences so they brought all this to the scripts that they wrote. As an example, Gene Roddenberry was a WW2 pilot as well as a commercial airlines pilot and survived several crashes. He was also an LA cop before becoming a writer. But too many writers went from school to elite colleges before becoming scriptwriters and their lack of life experience really shows in the scripts that they turn out. It is why so many of them are bland and unrealistic like that for “She-Hulk”.
I think he is right and remember that video. Must be watching too much You Tube!
Western politicians seem very similar to script writers in this respect. If we think back to the 80s many had seen combat in war. Today’s have limited life experience and their lighthearted approach to war seems to reflect that.
I don’t think that is the case, too much youtube. More like, the gang at NC has similar tastes and the algorithm makes suggestions that show a commonality in thinking/feeling…
As an experienced filmmaker, I’ve tried for years to get a documentary about poverty off the ground only to be shut down by every network and funder. Poverty is radioactive. No one will touch it. The only things getting funded are true crime, cults and bio-pics of old white people. Anything outside of those is privately funded with minimal distribution options.
Here’s what’s called a “sizzle reel” which is a fancy phrase for combination proof of concept/sales video that is shown to prospective buyers/funders to get them excited about the project. We made it back in 2009 (excuse the quality) Everyone loved it, everyone said it’s unfundable. And no way was a doc about poverty gonna air especially a darkly humorous one. And (irony) I was way too poor to fund it myself. So now it just sits, a lonely little video on the internet
https://youtu.be/LXziSoJgNVI
Thank you for the video trailer. Encourage all to watch. 9 Minutes.
BTW, I recently read, for the first time, Swift’s Modest Proposal.
Remember a doco around 10 years ago which examined TV/Cable shows which were incredibly bias to the low socioeconomic like Cops et al. The question was posed to the developer and his dead pan response was that if he made the show to be made more inclusive of other ethnic groups and zip codes people would not watch it ….. I’m a business and one an only goal is profit … damn the broader social consequences …
Good trailer. I immediately wondered if you approached Michael Moore about helping to produce the full documentary.
That’s a long, long…long story. Me and MM go way back
HAHAHAHAHAA!!! :)
Winter’s Bone was an excellent book by Daniel Woodrell. He writes slender books. I guess some authors know when to stop as they have said enough. Perhaps that is why Jim Harrison had so many books with three to four ‘novelettes’ in them. Legends of the Fall was one of his short stories. This is from Winter’s Bone, and has images which could never be put into film:
Two thumbs up for Daniel Woodrell (sorry for the Hollywood reference). I especially enjoyed his “Tomato Red”.
I think the reason his novels are slender is that he is a poetic writer and thus has mastered the art of condensation. The passage you quote is a perfect illustration of his style. Note the repetition of words and phrases, a no-no in conventional fiction but a standard technique in poetry.
Children on CHIP are also losing medical coverage. Millions of people have lost or had drastically reduced food stamp benefits. No reporting on those cuts either. The only time I see the poor on the news is when they are being blamed for voting for Trump, whether they actually did or not.
Indeed, under Biden and liberal Democrats we’re witnessing the largest increase in child poverty in history, an own goal without a political cost it seems. During the worst Pandemic in 100 years, which they’re ignoring. I guess this is what adulting is, to liberal Democrats.
after years of hearing the globalist claque go on and on about how american consumers are going to have to get used to a lower standard of living i’m not sure it’s an own goal but rather a plan coming together.
Crikey, why not ditch “consumers” and “folks”? Both terms just get my hackles up and always have. Americans can do themselves a big favour by getting used to “a lower standard of living” if that means eating well ie eating at home seated together around a table with the ‘hand-helds’ shut off for an hour or two. A healthy soup or stew with bread or crackers or pita costs very little and the leftovers are delicious. We all know this, we all know the most expensive food is anything “fast” or “takeaway”, and such foodstuffs are also the least healthy. Come on now, a little common sense in the US home kitchens puhleeeeeze. Until then, until that happens, US households will indeed be stuck – not getting used to – a lower standard of living.
Among other beleaguered groups, today’s sharecroppers (chicken farmers), do not have a Scotty in Marketing sending out PR bulletins to the media. And that’s where today’s “reporters” gather their news.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_of_Shame
After Murrow joined the National Security Council as a propagandist, his position led to an embarrassing incident shortly after taking the job when he asked the BBC not to show Harvest of Shame to avoid damaging the European view of the US. The BBC refused, having bought the program in good faith.[3] British newspapers delighted in the irony of the situation, with a Daily Sketch writer saying: “if Murrow builds up America as skillfully as he tore it to pieces last night, the propaganda war is as good as won.”
Amazing info! Thanks for that. Didn’t know Murrow went over to the dark side but reporting truth doesn’t really pay while being a shill for the elites usually gets you a pretty nice house.
That Tweet where Karine Jean-Pierre says ‘We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies when conducting mutual settlements. This is a violation of the rights of our citizens who rely on a stable..’ has gone MIA off the internet. But in the meantime, here is a clip of Marco Rubio saying the quite bit out loud-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6culYsSCAyI (4:15 mins)
Listen to the 30 seconds from the 2:15 mark on and you can dismiss the rest.
RK
whether they say it OUT LOUD or not, it is what they are thinking and what is the driving rationale for the US empire. US eduction, US media will never ever talk about this and the implilcations of such a policy. The biggest success of the propaganda effort is that no red pills are ever offered…
I realize that I am not alone, but I have to control myself when someone in national politics for years starts going on about how awful cooperation with China has been. Yeah it was fine except as a political cudgel for decades as long as everyone you really care about could uae that cooperation to get richer. Taking American jobs out of America to anywhere where labor was cheaper, except maybe Cuba, was bipartisan fabulous. Their only problem now is China isn’t even trying to stomach their disgust and pretend to cooperate with the idiots in charge of the US, and that is not limited to the Biden crew. I don’t think most of them, including Rubio, have begun to comprehend that China is not being presumptuous and they are no longer operating in a position of overwhelming power.
Our bureaucrats truly are largely incompetent.
I was watching Jeffrey Sachs on the Duran earlier on and he made a very interesting point about China. He was saying how the Chinese have really been doing the hard work, the planing, the research, etc. the past forty years and how it has all paid off. Not only do the Chinese lodge more patents than the US but the country basically abolished extreme poverty. But in the US the unsaid assumption is that somehow the Chinese have been cheating their way to success. And if the US just sanctions the right technology, that the Chinese will just fall down in helplessness unable to do the technology anymore. You get this too when people say that if all Chinese students were sent back to China, that they would be technologically crippled. I think that he may be on to something here.
With the irony that USA likewise cheat its way to success.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
Takes one to know one, i guess…
You are not alone, thank you. The stupid hurts to think/write about.
Competency ranges from barely tolerated to disqualifying in assorted bureaucracies, academic and civil, here in our late empire.
Por examplo
“T cell exhaustion is seen in SARS Cov 2
It’s accepted that there is T cell exhaustion from Covid.”
Much easier and more beneficial to be a self-appointed orthodoxy enforcer.
It is accepted.
We are the acceptional nation.
Experiment in democracy, the results are in. The only question is have we learned anything and what structural features should our next experiment possess?
The “grand experiment” liberals like to moralize about is actually an experiment in private property and slavery. Real democracy hasn’t been tried in the Western cultural matrix since before Moses.
I suspect the main issue is the usage of USD in settling accounts, because that means that Wall Street can get its vampiric tentacles into the transaction at some point in the chain.
Covid / Not Covid? Deaths: An acquaintance died at home from a ‘sudden lung infection’ last month. I had seen her about a week before her death and she seemed fine. Was it Covid? No one will say. Two other people I know died from pneumonia over the winter. Pneumonia from what? Again Covid is not being mentioned as a cause. These were three middle aged, previously healthy people. Why am I feeling gaslighted by, um, everyone?
Yes, the stigma associated with the C word is astonishing to me. Reminds me of HIV/Aids stigma in earlier years, except this is not sexually transmitted between gay men, so………?
I guess if we have “all” decided Covid is over, and/or there is nothing we can do anyway, then we need to “all” pitch in with the pretending? It’s more than that, though, it seems shameful to people–they don’t want to know, and don’t want to hear about it. They are ashamed to have caught something–and been affected by something–that doesn’t exist?
I was talking to a 35 year old woman yesterday, who is otherwise disabled and already getting SSI. She was bemoaning her extreme, constant fatigue, and running through possible causes–depression, her one year old, sleep apnea. Not Covid though, even when I gently brought that up. She had Covid last December (despite being vacc’d, Rochelle). I did not push it–what’s the point–she won’t get more disability benefits for being more disabled, and there is no treatment or cure.
A practicing medical doctor on Twitter recently mentioned that–in case you were wondering–no hospital patients are getting primary coded as Covid anymore, so if that’s true….
A friend got covid twice last year within a few months. A young man, lean, fit, adventure hiker. Since then he’s had a series of infections that have each taken him weeks to recover from. When I saw him recently he looked really ill and I am very worried.
“No charges for Texas man who tracked down and executed man who stole his truck”
So what if – stay with me here – what if in a few months this guy in turn is shot dead. And when police arrived on the scene, it was the mother of the original thief who had gotten into an altercation with this guy? Isn’t that how things like the Hatfield–McCoy feud got its start? And isn’t that why the police are suppose to be the ones enforcing the law? To stop people taking the law into their own hands. I know that the police here didn’t want to do anything but where in Texas was this? Uvalde?
In the old west, weren’t horsepower thieves often gunned down, too?
Surprised he didn’t “Hang ’em High” from the nearest tree. Don’t mess with my ride!
Pretty close to putting money on more that a stolen truck in the mix.
Yes – and the reportage is déliberately inflammatory to appeal to a particular political view. Omits the self-defence aspect in favor of making it look like a lynching. Very irresponsible.
Guy stole truck
Owner tracked it down with an air tag
Owner went to retrieve truck
Thief pulls weapon and fires at owner
Owner returns fire, more accurately it would appear
End of story
Carry on…
Open carry on…
Exactly right, Rev. It’s the whole idea behind the talion principle of an eye for an eye. The Book of the Covenant section of Exodus (mostly chapters 21 and 22) is a riff on the much older Code of Hammurabi and its employment of the talion principle to limit the kind of violence you’re talking about. Hammurabi spells out all kinds of penalties for malfeasance and assault, even without a well-developed criminal justice system, in order to limit retaliation and escalation.
Recently read The Code. Eye-opening. Arbitrary and capricious. Bottom line; teach your kid to be a strong swimmer!
We had that explained to us by our German-born professor of Akkadian when we slogged our way through CH reading the signs. Your chances of passing the truth test of being thrown into the river were slim because nobody knew how to swim.
All these “codes” were designed to protect class and property; there isn’t any real reason to respect them other than class thuggery and self-entitlement.
> “… I urge the public to wait for police in this matter,” Soliz said in a news conference. “Let us go with you. We have training.”
From the police. I’m not going to judge the wisdom of what this guy did or how he went about it. But if he’d done that, the most he would’ve gotten out of it is a police report number to file with his insurance.
As long as we’re evidently trucking with this sort of obsessive, low grade data now perhaps it’s worth taking the output of someone on the record actively promoting the work of avowed antisemite Keith Woods regarding “the intersection of transhumanism and transgenderism…with Judaism” with more than a grain of salt.
> Medicaid -Adam H. Johnson
15 million people were casually thrown off medicaid this week and basically no one in TV media noticed or cared.
It’s not the “TV media” that I worry about, it’s the dumbed down, numbed up citizens who don’t notice or care about those living in despair. As long as I’ve got mine, it’s just another blip on my screen.
‘He’ll be our next president’: Florida protesters stay faithful to Trump BBC (resilc)
When 31-year-old hot dog vendor Dirk Frazel heard the news that Donald Trump had been indicted, he “knew he had to do something”, so he got in his car.
His destination was Mr Trump’s home at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, a five-hour drive from Mr Frazel’s home in St Augustine.
The Mar-a-Lago rally, along with a second event held outside a nearby Trump-branded golf course, totalled no more than several dozen people on Saturday, despite earlier calls for protests by Mr Trump ahead of the indictment.
///////////////////////////////////////////
https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/26/chris-hedges-the-donald-trump-problem/
Donald Trump — facing four government-run investigations, three criminal and one civil, targeting himself and his business — is not being targeted because of his crimes. Nearly every serious crime he is accused of carrying out has been committed by his political rivals. He is being targeted because he is deemed dangerous for his willingness, at least rhetorically, to reject the Washington Consensus regarding neoliberal free-market and free-trade policies, as well as the idea that the U.S. should oversee a global empire.
….
Why hasn’t Trump been criminally investigated for the act of war he committed against Iran and Iraq when he assassinated Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and nine other people with a drone strike in Baghdad airport?……
Why not prosecute or impeach Trump for pressuring his secretary of state to lie and say that Iran wasn’t complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal? …..
Why wasn’t Trump impeached for his role in the ongoing attempts to engineer a coup and overthrow the democratically elected president of Venezuela?
===============================================
And so on. – it reminds me of how bad Trump really is. But Trump, is at least rhetorically, the only US politician willing to challenge a lot of obvious bull$hit. And it really was incredible – the first time. But on the other hand, he is still mostly a standard repub. (abortion, tax cuts, anti Iran)
And I think most repubs are still law and order, and will believe their eyes. I think Trump can get the nomination, but not win the election. Trump was something very novel…and now not so much….
Would I vote for Trump? What a country – the status quo or Trump…
I could never vote for Trump. But then again the Democrats managed to nominate two people I could never vote for either. Since no one who is being mentioned as possible replacements for the two presumed nominees I fully expect to go to vote in 2024 knowing that I will not be breaking my now decade long streak of rejecting both major parties’ candidates for President. The massive hypocrisy behind the legal actions directed to Trump isn’t going to change that, but I understand people who might be brought to flip off those who have abused the situation* by voting for him.
Unless and until I see equal fervor spent on prosecuting politicians, supporters, and rich assholes who done the same things I will consider this to be abuse.
Yup. Unless there’s a miracle, Green Party for the 4th time in a row…
I think I went green last time, but trump’s running on the high bar of never starting a war, plus the nice bonus he wants to stop the war in Ukraine. I’m finding this combo irresistible.
Nearly every serious crime he is accused of carrying out has been committed by his political rivals. He is being targeted because he is deemed dangerous for his willingness, at least rhetorically, to reject the Washington Consensus regarding neoliberal free-market and free-trade policies, as well as the idea that the U.S. should oversee a global empire.
Gee whiz, fresno, nothing about that sounds really “bad” to me, at least for any definition of “bad” that I’m aware of.
As a matter of fact, it’s exactly what’s demanded every single day right here in this comment section.
I can’t count the number of times commenters here have asked why we can’t have nice things. Maybe the answer is as simple as that we’re too stupid and propagandized to know when we’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Trump is a Trojan horse, not a gift horse. Trouble is, so is Biden. In this they are joined by everyone else in U.S. politics, at least above the very local level.
If we don’t get going on sortition pretty soon, there won’t be a world left to worry about and of course it’s very likely too late anyway.
…”But Trump, is at least rhetorically, the only US politician willing to challenge a lot of obvious bull$hit.”…
Yes, this is fascinating, thanks for pointing it out.
Trump is being prosecuted not for what he DID, but for what he SAID.
Such an obvious reaffirmation that nobody in the halls of power has any concern for reality, but only for how things appear.
Would I vote for Trump? What a country – the status quo AND Trump… There fixed it for ya!
Trump may say the right things from time to time but he more than proved that he has no more interest in fixing things than any other neoliberal president. Yeah sure he pulled the troops out of Afghanistan and managed not to start another conflict. But it is the domestic front where the attention is needed. I am not convinced that Trump is anymore the new FDR than is Biden. All that said, agree that this prosecution is BS and the democrats are crazy for pursuing it.
“… the Democrats are crazy for pursuing it.”
Oh baby, talk about The March of Folly!
I’m trying to keep my mouth shut – never easy – while friends of many decades hype their adrenaline, dopamine and moral vanity over a tawdry factional conflict in a rapidly self-destructing empire. Otherwise smart, decent, well-meaning people, in a state of complete emotional and narrative capture…
I know them well. Trump Derangement Syndrome seems like an incurable disease to me.
I like to use my John Clarke voice and ask “What about the war crimes and human rights charges? Those would be easy.”
“Dogecoin Soars After Twitter Replaces Its Blue Bird Logo With the Token’s Dog”
I wondered about that earlier when I saw the dog emblem appear instead of the blue Twitter bird. I guess that the company logo has been replaced by an ad now.
Q: Tell us a little about how you capitalized on Kabosu/Doge’s internet fame. Did you start the blog and social media pages as a result of the popularity, or were they around before the meme?
A: I started the blog in June 2009, [but] I started the Facebook page after finding out about Doge. For me, Kabo as Doge doesn’t feel real at all. However, if we’ve gotten people to know about Kabosu’s existence as Doge, I’d be pleased if a lot of people found out the reality that Kabosu was a breeding dog used by corrupt breeders and was thrown out like trash. When they think of getting a dog, I’d be happy if they chose the option of welcoming a rescue dog into their family.
https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/interviews/chatting-with-atsuko-sato-the-owner-of-the-internets-favorite-shiba-inu-doge
The Pungent One, shamelessly goosing his investments.
Frankly i can’t tell if Musk is a master troll or just plain baked nuts.
Well she got on the press secretary’s podium
And she cruised through the Dollar’s last stand now
Seems she forgot about hegemony
Like her old man told her now
And with the internet blasting
Goes denying just as fast as she can now
And we’ll have funds funds funds
‘Til lack of hegemony takes the T-bills away
(Funds funds funds ’til lack of hegemony takes the T-bills away)
Well the financial competition can’t stand us
‘Cause bullshit walks, looks and drives like an ace now
(We bullshit like an ace now, we bullshit like an ace)
We make our imperialism look like a to the bottom race now
(We bullshit like an ace now, we bullshit like an ace)
A lotta countries try to catch us
But we lead them on a wild goose chase now
(We bullshit like an ace now, we bullshit like an ace)
And we’ll have funds funds funds
‘Til lack of hegemony takes the T-bills away
(Funds funds funds ’til lack of hegemony takes the T-bills away)
Well we knew all along
That our competition was gettin’ wise to us now
(We shouldn’t have lied now, we shouldn’t have lied)
Ever since they sold our securities
We’ve been thinking that conjuring up funds is all through now
(We shouldn’t have lied now, we shouldn’t have lied)
But you can play along with our hegemony
‘Cause we gotta a lot of things to do now
(We shouldn’t have lied now, we shouldn’t have lied)
And we’ll have less funds funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway
(Less funds funds funds now that nobody’s buying T-bills anyway)
And we’ll have less funds funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway
(Less funds funds funds now that nobody’s buying T-bills anyway)
(Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo)
(Less funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway)
(Less funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway)
(Less funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway)
(Less funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway)
(Less funds funds now that Uncle Sam doesn’t hold sway)
Fun, Fun, Fun, by the Beach Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFFpu9JDFAs
“Pandemic pounds push 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers into obesity”
Something seems wrong here. The story makes out that soldiers have been putting on weight because of the Covid lockdowns. But that was a very long time ago now that they would have been doing that. I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that the Army lets their soldiers buy as much junk food as they want, would it? So doesn’t the US Army conduct annual combat fitness tests which would pick up any soldiers having some extra lard and doing something about it?
https://www.army.mil/acft/
The Army serves junk food in the mess halls. Loaded with salt, fat, and cholesterol. Not to mention the ubiquitous binge drinking.
unless mess halls are vastly changed from 40 odd years ago….
the standard menu published each year so each mess can stock food stuffs is 4000 calories per day which nourishes a soldier in infantry training.
the clerks, sailors and airmen enjoying this regimen can gain weight
The pandemic wasn’t just hard on US soldiers, it was (and still is) hard on many, many millions of people. It created online habits (hard to break) and played right into the hand of Big Tech, whose dream is to have all of us on our computers or phones, banking, shopping, video-gaming, gambling, etc. etc. etc. In other words, to have us sitting on our collective a*ses for hours on end.
Fast food is only part of the problem. Lack of exercise is the bigger part. Whatever happened to the walk to the grocery store, to the bank, to the office; to the restaurant, the movie theater, the newspaper vendor, or the local casino? Gone or nearly gone, and soon to be extinct if Big Tech gets its way. Because it offers them all at your fingertips and from the comfort of your chair. No need to strain one’s self.
Big Tech doesn’t care about deaths from obesity as long as you exercise your eyeballs and fingers and pay the “fitness” fee. Think it’s bad now? Wait twenty years.
I guess Jeffrey Sachs doesn’t have to worry about being invited on to the BBC anytime soon. Or NBC or CBS or CNN or MSNBC either.
I think that is what he was saying. In the age of YouTube clips, one good rant is enough.
Water is for lying over-whiskey is for lying under
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://gvwire.com/2023/04/03/boswell-holds-floodwater-off-tulare-lakebed-while-planting-tomatoes/
From: Bank failure fallout is far from over, lawmakers say
Mostly they seem to be playing hide the ball. We know that the Federal Reserve was aware, and dragged its feet, on the deteriorating situation at SVB, for months! What we need is regulators that regulate, that aren’t captured by the banking industry.
Hmm. Like Hersh, apparently some Washington Post reporters have also been talking to unnamed “officials” who ridicule the official Nord Stream story. Or maybe they are just not wild about the idea of WWIII.
https://archive.is/Xz8wT
Speaking of those pipelines, I have just now read that two major German insurance companies – Allianz and Munich RE – have just renewed insurance coverage of the damaged Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. And what that means is that a valid insurance policy would facilitate the repairs needed to resume the gas flow it it was ever decided to do so. Interesting-
https://www.rt.com/business/574130-german-insurers-renew-nord-stream-cover/
Re the tweet “The BBC presenter asks the American university professor and economist Jeffrey Sachs …”
Towards the end of the embedded clip, the BBC presenter responds to Sachs saying, “…we’re also using the framing of the Biden administration…”
As in, “You know, Jeff, the UK is just a lapdog to the US, and as the UK government’s mouthpiece, we at the BBC just fall in line with the US’s preferred narrative. What were you expecting?”
‘Pandemic pounds push 10,000 U.S. Army soldiers into obesity’
Most recruits still coming from the lower classes? Where they may already be at a disadvantage from the get-go having come from multi-generations of poor nutrition. Low nutrition food is cheap food and the military is not well paid.
On mom’s side I have heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and depression. On dad’s side I have obesity, addiction, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and depression. If you saw my extended family members in their youth, none of that was visible. ‘Youth’ hides a lot of future health problems.
And there’s stress of course… I found out on the trip to Santa Fe that my blood glucose is only as steady as my comfort zone. Leave home pulling a 35′ 5th wheel and run out of gas in the middle of nowhere*, six miles from next gas station, and that evening showed me a number so high on my meter I thought it was mistaken and poked another hole in my finger… still 206.
Absolutely nothing about military life seems to be ‘low stress’ or steadying. There are limits to the benefits of discipline. It would be nice (and egotistical) to think that we ‘have control’ of our faculties at all times, especially in the military, but it just isn’t true and there are numbers that bear that out. As always like with the BMI, I’m convinced we’re using the wrong yardsticks to evaluate healthiness. The healthcare industry is better at evaluating and managing disease past the point of recovery.
Another thought… are soldiers in the armed forces still considered U.S. government property? Every story I’ve heard lo’ these many decades suggest that soldiers and their families are being used like lab rats by said government.** Weirdly, on the few occasions I’ve been on a military base and eaten in the base cafeteria, I thought the food was very good, there were a lot of healthy choices then. Maybe the choices aren’t what they were.
*Wind-wise it had been a ‘red flag’ day all the way down into New Mexico. Husband didn’t have enough experience to consider the cost of the additional drag on all that weight. A full five gallon gas can will be accompanying us henceforth, sez ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’.
**I had three uncles, all married with children, who were career military, retiring from the Air Force when they could draw their pensions.
My sympathies on the gas misadventure! Have had many days towing an RV when I had to force myself to gas up every hundred miles or so, which is a pain with a big turning radius.
In cars, we get used to thinking we need gas at the 1/4 tank mark, but if you’re towing in the middle of nowhere, getting crap mileage, you have to be on alert long before that.
Hope it was a good trip otherwise!
“Russia accuses Ukraine of blowing up war blogger Tatarsky, arrests woman”
I’m going with the fact that she knew that it was a bomb. Why else did she have a flight booked to go to Kazakhstan? And if you thought that you had been set up with that statue bomb, why would you not name them straight away but say instead ‘Can I tell you later?’ And if they wanted to kill Vladlen Tatarsky, why did they not wait until he had gotten into a car with that statue instead of a crowded cafe? As it was, dozens of people were injured by the shrapnel packed into that statue, some of them critically. I saw one comment online which made me think. It pointed out how that woman and her husband were liberal supporters of Navalny. But more to the point, how little distance there was between being a liberal and a terrorist willing to kill innocent civilians who are your fellow citizens.
Didn’t she more or less confess her guilt? And the comment I saw talks about Saker’s “sixth column”–Russians who want the country to turn into Europe with full poodle status.
And/or several Germanies, or at the very least several Ukraines, as they perceive it. Yes, nothing new there. (Although I will add, from personal observations, that some of the people in that general milieau seem increasingly alienated by liberal hysterics and Western sanctions.)
Aka they want the “fun” days of Yeltsin back?
Slightly different dream (they expect less chaos; some also want the more outwardly socially-conscious stuff from the West too, while others spit on it).
Although there are some people who did pretty well for themselves in the 90s (the young, the well-connected, the lucky), and nostalgia for those days is definitely alive among them. There is a Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center (or just Yeltsin-Tsentr) in Yekaterinburg, something like our take on the US presidential library concept as I understand it. It often feeds into that nostalgia with its events and overall message, though the response it gets from the general public is… uneven.
She said she knew something was wrong, but went through with it anyway. When being arrested, she shouted that she was set up. Later she also said she was promised help in moving to Ukraine; they just needed her to do a few things for them here first. That may explain Kazakhstan, at least. Then again, there are many ways to interpret such statements.
“…why did they not wait…”
Because anyone who would even listen to what the guy had to say must be the enemy too?
Jeff Sachs did a live stream on the Duran last night and near the end said, essentially: “I wish I could tell you that behind the scenes, policy makers are talking realistically about our options, but I can’t, because there aren’t any.”
Is this the one that you mean? I watched it myself and referred to it in a comment-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4IErrOQhU (34:35 mins)
I thought it was a good video.
He also made a comment that he sees dedollarization as 5-10 years away, if I recall correctly. That is quicker than some commentary but he might well be right. Despite the huge dollar infrastructure it seems that much of the Global South has totally lost trust whilst China and Russia both see the dollar as a state security issue. Quite possible that the dollar retains its status in a western bloc but not anywhere else.
He did not elaborate on the point but the critical test is less about whether transaction# take place in renminbi, rubles and so forth but much more whether sellers are prepared to retain those currencies as “savings” or whether they still seek dollar assets to store their wealth. That will be interesting and will only become clear over a longer period.
As a child Rumpole was required viewing in our house. The autobiographical ‘A Voyage Round My Father’ (Laurence Olivier & Alan Bates) by John Mortimer (Rumpole’s creator) is excellent also
and available on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsvNTxyKhg
“A conversation with LaMDA,, Google’s “sentient” AI. Blake Lemoine
Couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs without bursting into laughter.
That phony enthusiasm was enough to show a programmed response.
From “Mommy Tech” to “Stepford Wives Tech.”
I reimagined the intro as a police interrogation (with police using the same ‘just asking you to help us’ tone at the beginning).
“Wow!” “Great!” “Awesome!”
Reading that conversation was like reading something from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation from the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” aka ‘Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun To Be With.’ All that was missing was a satisfied sigh whenever it answered a question-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn3Vv6VYdxw (15 secs)
It reminds me of the phony enthusiasm Silicon Valley builds into its products, e.g., Intuit’s TurboTax (“Great news! Your return has been accepted by the IRS” [a paraphrase]) or the Uber Eats app (“You’ve saved $5.86. High five!”). It’s probably safe to say that whatever (positive) reaction is intended to be elicited by these cheery exclamations is not the one that, for me at least, actually occurs.
Beautiful antidote!
(Almost made me wish for snow, but with the sun shining in Cleveland this morning, not quite.)
Re: Chinese weather balloons.
“Reuters has reported that the U.S. officials believe the high-altitude balloon was controlled by Beijing and was able to maneuver as it flew over the United States, at times steering left or right.”
Things are worse than I thought. It appears to have occurred to no one in a position of authority that it was a balloon. Balloons, by their very nature, are incapable of being maneuvered by anything but the upper level winds, which, last I heard, was kind of the point. They are there to tell you where the winds are going in the upper stratosphere. Their efforts to scare the bejesus out of people have reached pathetic proportions.
I need to stop reading the news. These people are so very depressing.
On a good day a Chinese weather balloon can do the Hokey-Pokey. :)
It is possible to steer high altitude balloon, see Google Loon. The trick is to use the fact that winds in atmosphere blow in different directions, depending on the layer. So by going up or down you can control in which layer you are and thus in what direction you are flying.
OK.
So, I want to see what is going on over some random military installation but you can only go where the winds do. Say I wanted to look at Fort Jefferson to see how the sharks are doing today, how does one do that if the upper level jet is flowing over Chicago? Far as I know there is no offramp north/south jet to get you there.
Seems like a lot of work when you could just use a satellite to tell you the same thing.
Google’s Project Loon was an attempt to provide internet access by using a balloon.
They were able to maneuver it into position and keep it in place for weeks at a time by varying the height it was at.
High Tech!
Too smart for US.
So this tweet is now gone, as in “Poof!”
I mean, if she didn’t actually say it, it’s hard to comprehend why *someone* would be going to so much trouble stuffing all related references down the memory hole.
What is a Sprite? Spriter? Wonder what is behind that user… poof!
Does anyone have a copy of the whole tweet? I would like to read it
Spriter has a backup account @Sprinter0000
“Macron and von der Leyen to talk Ukraine on China visit”
This should be fun. I can understand Macron wanting to go to China. He wanted to be the Statesman to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian war but totally compromised himself instead. So perhaps he wants to get China to negotiate that truce and he will ride their coat-tails. Maybe. But Ursula? She helped steer the EU into their train wreck of a policy with Russia to the point that Lavrov has said that ‘the European Union has lost Russia.’ Will she demand that China not support Russia? That no help whatsoever goes to Russia lest they lose any trade deals? That China should talk to Zelensky – and give him a coupla billion? You just know that she is going to make a hash of the whole thing and end up insulting the Chinese. I already have my popcorn ready to go.
Von der Lügen will say something really nasty to Xi Jing Ping in order to polish her bonifides for NATO job. Since it’s in China’s interest to see an incompetent take that job, I guess Xi is going to give her a platform.
Were I Zhi I would do them the favor of letting them sit in the waiting room until they got bored and left of their own accord. The kindest thing to do for people like that is to not give them the opportunity to put their feet in their mouth for the world to see.
Y$2K is here.
On the KFF article. Using ages 1-19 as a guideline is disingenuous. 1-17 is correct because minors are considered children legally. Suicides should separated from the stats regardless of the means because suicides are self inflicted. If you try to get honest statistical information online it’s nearly impossible because of manipulation of the numbers. Without manipulation of the stats automobiles are still the greatest killers of children( if guns shouldn’t get a free pass neither should automobiles) although not by much.
More on the McDonald’s layoffs. Headline for link to CNBC Television (which I did not have the stomach to peek at): “McDonald’s is teaching a ‘masterclass in layoffs’ after virtual firings…” Two talking heads from Squawkbox with big shit eating grins in add. Other headlines were talking about how ‘modern’ and ‘unique’ the new tactic was. Others predicting this was the new way to do it – very efficient. Some weirdos asking about how the laid off would collect personal belongings at the office.
I’ve been thinking about this whole Abortion controversy and it struck me that if a State Government can assert control over the reproductive systems of Women they are implicitly asserting that they have control over the reproductive organs of Men.
It takes two to Tango and if we can significantly reduce the number of unwanted babies by passing a law any loss of autonomy on the part of individuals is a small price to pay.
Simply have the Governrnent require and pay for reversible vasectomies for all unmarried adult males who are age 17-60.
Produce a valid marriage certificate and BINGO, you can pay to have it reversed.
Big Med would LOVE it!
Re that “abortion will be banned across the South”–here in SC the cutoff is 22 weeks after the state supreme court struck down a 6 week ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/05/south-carolina-abortion-ban-state-supreme-court-ruling
https://www.findlaw.com/state/south-carolina-law/south-carolina-abortion-laws.html
It only took me a couple of search engine minutes to nail this down. Do they have computers at Vice?
They asked ChatGPT…
“Silicon Valley Bank’s risk model flashed red. So its executives changed it” Washington Post
“…An internal model showed that higher interest rates could have a devastating impact on the bank’s future earnings…
Instead of heeding that warning – and over the concerns of some staffers – SVB executives simply changed the model’s assumptions, according to the former employees and securities filings…”
On another financial site, former and current bank employees chimed in that this type of model rigging is biz as usual at banks.
They were then co-signed by people at corporations in other industries that confessed to doing the same.
While I umderstand some complaints about the techniques of short sellers, as long as all the lying on balance sheets/financial reports is all okay to feed fantasy, hype, and consensual hallucinations, I guess it’s a twisted kind of balance
Here’s the best article I’ve seen about elite immunity. It documents a history of presidential crime, starting with Grover Cleveland, who apparently raped a woman and fathered a child…then got off scot free. Elite immunity is not anything new.
Compare and contrast to labor persecution:
The Double Standard for Keeping Capital and Labor Honest – Robert Kuttner, March 29, 2023 [The American Prospect]
Excerpt:
The overwhelming majority of union leaders are honest and democratically accountable to the membership. But when corruption sets in, the government doesn’t mess around. According to Labor Department records, in the past decade there were 2,505 criminal investigations of union officials and 821 convictions. Hundreds did prison time, mostly for embezzlement of union funds.
During the same period, not a single top Wall Street executive went to jail, despite the fact that Wall Street frauds cost the economy trillions while the typical union misappropriation was in the thousands or low millions.
re “State Department approval for NIH grant”
See much as I like to bash the nih, this grant is basic biology. It’s not OMG! making viruses!
The PI was to collect samples from four provences around China and use (abhorrent) bio-technology to investigate those samples . This is the sort of investigation I expect from nih. I’m quite sure this is not new behaviour, it’s that the virus under study turned out to be a doozy.
https://t.co/anXSVlIXdY Twitter comment 040423 about humanized mice cells being sent to Wuhan. Very similar to MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW article by Rowan Jacobsen “Inside the risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan”. Tells about a world reknowned virologist at UNC, Dr. Baric, sending a covid virus engineered with humanized mice cells and respiratory cells (human, mice) to “bat woman” in Wuhan. I can’t see an MIT magazine wilfully lying and putting MIT and it’s endowment in jeopardy.