Time is an object aeon (Anthony L)
Students are increasingly refusing to go to school. It’s becoming a mental health crisis. USA Today
#COVID-19
Looking Back on the Sadism of the Covid-19 Shaming Campaign Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea, The Racket (KLG). Trust me, just watch the first few minutes of the embedded video.
Related to story above: a friend just saw Bill Maher, who is doing a tour. Maher had what friend said was an unusually long opener. Two segments: one about the importance of not getting (any more) boosters, and not allowing your kids to get trans surgeries. This was in a purple area. Maher is presumably doing the same act at every stop and they will be likely in purple or blue areas. Friend took this as a sign of where things stand in meatworld, as opposed to social media land.
URGENT: Huge new study shows mRNA Covid jabs sharply raise the risk of severe vaginal bleeds Alex Berenson (Li)
Climate/Environment
Endangered Elements ACS (Chuck L). Important.
Most of US faces elevated risk of blackouts in extreme heat this summer, NERC warns Utility Dive
Big Polluters’ Share Prices Fall After Climate Lawsuits, Study Finds Guardian
France Unveils Plan To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions By 50 Percent By 2030 France24
How solar farms took over the California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’ Guardian (furzy)
China?
China zooms by Japan as world’s top auto exporter Asia Times (Kevin W)
TikTok Sues Montana Over State’s Ban of Its Service Wall Street Journal
Absolutely shameless…
The US imposed on China one of the most brutal acts of economic warfare, designed to restrict China’s future development.
China doesn’t retaliate for 8 months before finally doing the mildest possible thing: restricting some sales in China for the US… https://t.co/VC5rjms0NH
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) May 23, 2023
Sinn Fein wins in Northern Ireland local elections, urges return of government Associated Press (resilc)
Our defeat in context: Greece’s Erdogan-isation is almost complete Yanis Varoufakis
Ecuador’s “Democratic Backsliding” Has Been Ongoing Since 2017, With US support CounterPunch (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
After Bakhmut Douglas Macgregor, American Conservative. Today’s must read.
… 🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/ecHWtjNxeO
— Trollstoy (@Trollstoy88) May 21, 2023
Ukraine War Q&A Series: How Long Can This War Last? Peter Zeihan (resilc). An admission against apparent interest. And is the West that kept this war going after end of March 2022 by scuppering the peace talks, a fact Ukraine/Collective West stalwarts seldom mention.
West Wants Relationship with Ukraine to Follow the ‘Israel Model’ Libertarian Institute (Kevin W). A Zelensky ask that is apparently getting traction.
F-16s won’t fundamentally alter the course of Ukraine War Responsible Statecraft. In case you had doubts.
Wellie, this is quite the rumor but not totally implausible because Zaluzhny was seen as a replacement for Zelensky (hat tip Chuck L):
🇺🇦‼️Shocking discovery: Zelensky gave the coordinates of General Zaluzhny to the Russians, after which the rockets flew‼️💥
Former member of the Verkhovna Rada Ilya Kiva said that the coordinates and time of the location of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,👇 pic.twitter.com/H9MpYfA97r
— Djole 🇷🇸 (@onlydjole) May 22, 2023
Russia transport nuclear weapons from storage facility in Belgorod Oblast – Intelligence Ukrainska Pravda (Dr. Kevin). Note that Alexander Mercouris said Monday at 36:00 that Ukraine had made false claims about an incursion into Russia in Belgorod, which the Russians disputed and Mercouris deems the Russian claims to be accurate (TASS cleared its throat, suggesting, consistent with what Mercouris said, that rumors were flying, but this sounds pretty minor compared to other accounts). Mercouris deemed this claim to be intended to rattle Russians. This may be more of the same.
Armenia ready to recognize Azeri sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh: PM The Cradle (Kevin W)
Syraqistan
Yemen’s Houthi gov’t enters oil exploration deal with China Middle East Monitor (resilc)
Pakistan’s ex-Premier Khan gets bail in multiple cases Anadolou Agency
Pakistani trans activists to appeal Sharia court ruling DW. Resilc: “Pakistan=Flowaduh.”
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
FBI Abused Spy Law 280,000 Times In a Year The Register
Leaked Government Document Shows Spain Wants To Ban End-to-End Encryption Wired
Imperial Collapse Watch
Media And Politicians Throw So Much Bullshit At Us That It Is Difficult To See Through It Moon of Alabama. Nice shout out, as well as quotes from Gilbert Doctorow and others.
2024
Tim Scott president announcement: South Carolina Senator makes 2024 bid official Washington Examiner (resilc)
The growing 2024 GOP field signals that prospective candidates don’t think Donald Trump has the race locked up and view Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a flawed lead challenger to the former president https://t.co/Rl1L4kBTsB
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 23, 2023
Biden
White House Official: Biden’s Migration Is an Economic Strategy Investment Watch Blog (Li). Not wild about the writing style, but they do provide quotes.
Southwest states strike landmark deal with Biden to conserve Colorado River water CNBC (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Banned! Jokn Ganz (Randy K)
Gunz
AI Gun Detection Firm Evolv Markets to Schools, Doubles Earnings Intercept (resilc)
3-year-old shoots 2 people in Indiana, leading to arrest of man wanted for murder ABC
AI
‘I’m Making Thousands Using AI to Write Books’ Newsweek (furzy). This reminds me of my brother in the outsourcing business, as in making his living getting people fired.
AI scanner used in hundreds of US schools misses knives BBC
AI Bob Lefsetz. “It’s 2023’s NFT.”
Building a better NIH Brookings. Resilc: “Con$ultant$, money and private equity is the model for our plantation state.”
Envision Healthcare files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Healthcare Dive (resilc)
Debt Ceiling
McCarthy has little room to maneuver in debt ceiling talks The Hill
GOP’s cut to IRS funding in debt limit plan would backfire Politico
The Heaven’s Gate Option: Congressional Democrats Beg Biden to Make Them Constitutional Nonentities Jonathan Turley. That 14th Amendment idea has some very upset! I have heard arguments it only applied to Confederate-era debt. That is not how it was written…and if you are going to try “Constitutional Amendments have only era-of-drafting-limited interpretations,” what about the Second Amendment?
The Bezzle
Michelle Obama’s juice brand fails her own health standards, experts reveal Fox News (resilc)
Intel wins 2023’s most faith-friendly company as Fortune 500 warms to religious diversity Religion News (Kevin W)
Guillotine Watch
The world’s most expensive ice cream costs $6,696 CBS. Kevin W: “Nancy Pelosi to the courtesy phone, please.”
Class Warfare
The War on Poverty Is Over. Rich People Won. Atlantic. Micael T: “If they already “won”, why do they keep on waging the war?”
Food Banks See Surge in Demand Driven By Inflation, End of Covid Aid Bloomberg (furzy)
“Once dismissed as a fringe theory, the idea that corporate thirst for profits drives up inflation, aka ‘greedflation,’ is now being taken more seriously by economists, policymakers and the business press.”https://t.co/x9S9zFhlYS
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 22, 2023
Immigrants’ Share of the U.S. Labor Force Grows to a New High Wall Street Journal
American Capitalism Has Produced Its Most Remarkable Innovation Yet: Breadlines Jacobin (furzy)
Protesters Shut Down Brooklyn Bridge to Demand Fair Housing https://t.co/0ILjU3EIYC
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) May 23, 2023
Along the highways, Indian restaurants serve America’s truckers Washington Post (resilc)
Antidote du jour. From .Tom:
I took this in 2017 on the deck of a neighbor here in Boston. It was very dark out and I could hardly see the cat as I took this. But it held still enough and so did I so I was lucky enough to get this. And I think that accounts for the wide open pupils of the cat’s eyes.
And a bonus from Chuck L:
The blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii) is a marine bird native to subtropical and tropical regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is easily recognizable by its distinctive bright blue feet
[read more: https://t.co/ZbR0bLiNtD] pic.twitter.com/mFIl5Xke7I
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 21, 2023
And a second bonus from martha r:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
