Read it.

Higher energy prices worrying you? Be afraid because Congress is coming to the rescue. Legislators are introducing a new bill called the “Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act.” The bill’s objective is to reduce the price of oil. The bill pans to tax the windfall profits of large energy companies at a 50% rate. They define windfall profits as profits above and beyond those in the year before Covid. The proceeds from the tax would be returned to consumers earning less than $75k through direct payments.

If Congresses goal is to inflate oil prices further and generate more inflation in the process, the bill, as currently written, is right on track. This article walks through the proposed legislation to better understand why it is grossly flawed. As we will discuss, the bill will not only generate higher prices at the gas pump, but the premise behind the bill, windfall oil profits, is dubious.

But first, it is worth looking beyond Russia’s effect on energy prices and reviewing another reason oil prices have been rising.

‘Windfall profits” is the term Democrats use when they want to pick somebody’s pockets.

Read it.

Around a third of Ukrainian refugees arriving in France are actually economic migrants from other areas of the world, mostly North Africa and the Middle East, according to an investigation by newspaper Le Figaro.

Read it.

The Qatari government and Northwestern University are “training a new generation of journalists who will legitimize anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American positions,” according to a report by a watchdog group.

Read it.

No state advertises its egalitarian bona fides more than California. Governor Gavin Newsom brags that his state is “the envy of the world,” a place that is “not going to abandon our poor people.” In his inauguration speech, he claimed that “unlike the Washington plutocracy, California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope. The California Dream is for all.” Yet even as Newsom and his progressive allies have backed Black Lives Matter and enacted a racialized “ethnic studies” curriculum in public schools, reality tells a less positive story. The Golden State’s racial minorities are far from thriving. Increasingly, they’re seeking fortunes elsewhere—often to redder, less “enlightened” states.

The minorities leaving California are not running away from beautiful weather or scenery but toward an opportunity horizon that no longer seems achievable in the Golden State. In a new report for Chapman University, my coauthors and I found that African-American and Latino Californians’ real earnings ranked between 48th and 50th among the states. Blacks in California earn roughly the same, or slightly less, than do their counterparts in Mississippi. The state has the nation’s worst cost-adjusted poverty rate and the third-highest Gini Inequality index (behind New York and Louisiana). According to the United Way of California, over 30 percent of California residents lack sufficient income to cover basic living costs even after accounting for public-assistance programs; this includes half of Latino and 40 percent of black residents.

Read it.

The warship that U.S. Navy officials described as undeployable if they were not able to remove the unvaccinated commander was actually deployed when the assertions were made, the commander told a judge during a recent hearing.

“No sir, I do not,” the commander, who has not been publicly named, said when asked whether he thought the officials’ statements were accurate.

You mean … the government lied to us? Oh, the horror!

Read  it.

Rick Wilson, cofounder of the scandal-plagued Lincoln Project, subtly compared his decision to leave the Republican Party to the courageous actions of Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who protested the invasion of Ukraine during a live television broadcast.

“I have a few thoughts [about courage],” Wilson wrote on Twitter, as if speaking from personal experience. “First, it’s very, very hard to walk away from the tribal campfire. You lose friends. You lose work. You lose connection with a culture in which you were at home.”

Wilson’s decision to “walk away from the tribal campfire” of the GOP resulted in immense personal wealth. The Lincoln Project raised almost $100 million from left-wing billionaires and activist groups, among others, during the 2020 election cycle. Investigative reporting from the New York Times suggests Wilson and his fellow cofounders funneled a significant portion of that money to themselves. In 2021, Wilson paid off a $200,000 mortgage and finally settled a $400,000 overdue tax bill.

Read it.

A Who’s-Whom of Bush-Republicans is holding a fundraiser to help Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney fend off a primary challenge from a conservative challenger who will vote the same as Cheney but probably won’t sign onto one of Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th Show Trials. The fundraiser will be held in Cheney’s hometown of Jackson Hole, WY, McLean, VA, and will feature Utah Senator Pierre Delecto. The guest list is an epic networking opportunity of globalists, neoconservatives, and people who still think the War in Afghanistan was a good idea.

Read it.

Not until they can do wheat and corn.  Piss-ant vegetables like kale and fruit like strawberries aren’t going to ‘revolutionize’ anything.

Jussie Smollett Asks for Emergency Release as Family Shares Threatening Call (Rolling Stone) He’s so oppressed.

Rooftop Revelations: Pastor Brooks takes on Joy Reid’s racialization of the Ukraine War

Editorial: A racist relic blocks affordable housing in California. It must go (L.A. Times)

Jane Campion’s Venus and Serena Williams Comments Condemned: ‘Stupid and Insulting’ (Newsweek)

The Arithmetic of ‘Equality’

NYT: Racist Poland Is Letting in White Ukrainians But Not Africans Migrating Via Belarus

Opinion: Putin could do for American democracy what he did for NATO unity (Washington Post) Jennifer Rubin wouldn’t know democracy if it bit her on the foot.

Ukraine dents ‘America First’ thinking deep in the heart of Trump country (NBC)

Adams quietly undoes de Blasio-era lobbying disclosure requirement (Politico) Woke is out, old-fashioned cronyism is back in.

Pelosi claims government spending is ‘reducing the national debt,’ not causing inflation

A new Supreme Court case allows the justices to fix one of their worst anti-worker decisions (Vox)

LOL: MSNBC Wanted Keith Olbermann to Replace Rachel Maddow

March Media Madness: Schools in NCAA Tourney Judged On LGBT-Friendliness

PolitiFact Tags Stephen Miller as ‘FALSE’ for Mocking Kamala Harris Word Salad in Europe

Commies in Love: NYT Under Fire After More Evidence Emerges of Ties to China

Chinese students at Cornell “taunt” Uyghur classmate

First Rule of New York Times: Do Not Talk About New York Times

Affordable Housing Activists Demand Homebuilders Build Fewer Houses

Demographics Are Not Destiny

VIDEO: Retired Colonel Blasts Army’s Transgender Indoctrination of Troops

Australia climate change: Court overturns teenagers’ case against minister (BBC)

The Oil Crisis Is Making Fossil Fuel Executives Cocky and Vengeful (New Republic) As opposed to before, when it was Woke activists who were cocky and vengeful.

Microsoft and Jeff Bezos are backing this start-up that aims to retrofit millions of old buildings with ‘green’ energy

Climate change: Food systems are key to our collective survival (The Hill)

Climate Change Doesn’t Have to Spell Doom for Farms and Food (Washington Post}

At global energy conference, leaders acknowledge fossil fuels not going away soon

DC is asleep at the wheel when it comes to climate (The Hill)

Coral resiliency offers encouraging signs despite warming oceans (NBC)

Separating Science From Pseudoscience For Floods And Extreme Precipitation

Scottish Government Ignores Frantic Food Crisis Warnings, Embraces Green Piety

Crown Prince Frederik visits climate-friendly factories  Members of European royal families are reliable weathervanes indicating Establishment viewpoints.

What Trump Has Said About Putin Since Russian Invasion of Ukraine Began (Newsweek) Or at least what the Narrative wants you to believe he said.

Ginni Thomas acknowledges she attended January 6 rally but played no role in planning it (CNN) Burn the witch!

Merrick Garland’s goal is to restore the integrity of the Justice Department. His legacy will still be defined by Trump. (Washington Post) No, his goal was to nail Trump.

Prosecutors admit they violated a Capitol rioter’s rights after leaving him waiting in jail since December (CNN()

Feds admit breaking law with delay in case against alleged Jan. 6 rioter (Politico)

Donald Trump Deepfake Shows Ex-President Joining Russia’s Version of YouTube (Newsweek)

Opinion: TV coverage amplifies the GOP’s false claims about gas prices (Washington Post) Jennifer Rubin is a busy little bee pushing the Narrative.

Tulsi Gabbard Smeared As ‘Treasonous Liar’ By Sen. Romney Over Ukraine Biolab Concerns

Romney’s “Treason” Smear of Tulsi Gabbard is False and Noxious, But Now Typifies U.S. Discourse

Sleazebags Use Death of Fox News Cameraman to Score Political Points

Read it.

The following clip contains excerpts from an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin that was recorded by NBC News back in 2018. As I understand it, this footage was omitted from the final broadcast version of the interview.

Before I am denounced yet again as a Putin stooge, I must say that I find Mr. Putin’s assertion that the Russians don’t interfere with American elections to be laughable. They may not go so far as to hack into Dominion servers and similar operations — I have no expertise on such matters, so I don’t know — but they plant massive disinformation all over the Internet, and have been doing so for as long as I’ve been paying attention. I personally know a vlogger who was offered money by a Russian to propagate certain material (he refused).

More to the point is that the American intelligence services often do things that are just as bad, and sometimes worse, in an attempt to interfere with Russia.

And the idea that Russia interfered with the 2016 election to help elect Donald Trump is ludicrous on the face of it. Anyone with half a brain can see that the Russians would have had every reason to prefer Hillary Clinton over Orange Man Bad.

Read it.

Throughout the pandemic, Miami was framed by liberal pundits and Democratic operatives as a city of heathens and deplorables resistant to science. But the resistance, especially in the early days of the pandemic, had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the Hispanic spirit that animates the city. Working-class Hispanics, unlike the laptop class that has taken to deriding them, are rooted in physical reality and desire face-to-face contact with their friends and family. To Hispanics, the conviviality that arises from engaging with one’s crew is the stuff of life. The Zoom “happy hours” favored by the urbane upper crust were never going to fly. Touch, banter, and hijinks are the necessary ingredients that constitute working-class Hispanic interaction. Communication that deviates from that mode is considered abnormal.

Read it.

This presidency was supposed to be so normal. Watching Joe Biden’s inauguration, Washington Post columnist Max Boot “could not help but recall Warren G. Harding’s 1920 campaign slogan: ‘Return to normalcy.’” As Biden introduced his cabinet to the world, Steve Benen of MSNBC was “struck by how normal the choices are.” By April, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post was relieved to find that “there are days when the new administration is so radically normal that it’s actually kind of boring.” With Bad Orange Man gone for good, everything was fine and good and most of all, normal, normal, normal.

And of course, one year in, it’s going great. Record inflation? Normal. Medical intervention via federal bureaucracy? Extremely normal. Nationally endorsed sexual predation in prisons and schools? The normalest. Cheerleading a new world war to change a nuclear power’s regime is normal; so are supply chain crises. It is also very, very normal for food and fuel to be prohibitively expensive. So that’s reassuring.

Sarah Hoyt.

Humans are far more complex than we tend to think. At least humans as something else than apes. We are creatures of language, of transmissible knowledge, of story and of culture.

The modern era has both submerged us in a bunch of modern narrative that often portrays things that just ain’t so (a lot of it, but not all, based on Karl Grifter Marx), and cut us off from the deep, deep roots of our culture.

The results aren’t pretty.

Read it.

The story goes like this: there are problems in the world that make the future a scary prospect. Fortunately, though, there are solutions to each of these problems, and the solutions have been formulated by extremely smart, tech-adjacent people. For their ideas to become realities, they merely need to be articulated and spread as widely as possible. And the best way to spread ideas is through stories — hence Gates’s opening anecdote about the barrel. In other words, in the TED episteme, the function of a story isn’t to transform via metaphor or indirection, but to actually manifest a new world. Stories about the future create the future. Or as Chris Anderson, TED’s longtime curator, puts it, “We live in an era where the best way to make a dent on the world… may be simply to stand up and say something.” And yet, TED’s archive is a graveyard of ideas. It is a seemingly endless index of stories about the future — the future of science, the future of the environment, the future of work, the future of love and sex, the future of what it means to be human — that never materialized. By this measure alone, TED, and its attendant ways of thinking, should have been abandoned.

I have always looked on TED Talks as entertainment, an actualization of the progressive fetish for talk over action. “If we all just wish really really hard, unicorns will exist and everybody will sing Kumbaya and live in peace.”

Read it.

Italy faces an increasing risk of illicit financing activities for Palestinian terrorist groups. Italian prosecutors recently launched an investigation into the bank transfers of the country’s largest Palestinian organization. Yet some Italian politicians appear to be blind to the threat, even funding Italian non-governmental organizations that engage with Palestinian terrorist organizations.

As a group of Italian and European parliamentarians recently highlighted, several Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), are increasingly using Italy as a hub for their European operations. Its strategic Mediterranean location and extensive political support make it a magnet for terrorist lobbying and financial activities.

Read it.

Today it was revealed that Amazon is closing its downtown Seattle office, with 1,800 employees, because of out-of-control crime. Among other recent victims of downtown crime was an Amazon engineer who was assaulted with a baseball bat near the office in late January.

To learn this story you had to go to the Daily Mail in London. As of this writing, the Seattle Times has nothing on the story at their home page or business page.

Read it.

Touted as a long-awaited “bipartisan” measure, the postal legislation, 15 years in gestation, is anything but noncontroversial.

Fast-tracked through Congress, the bill shifts tens of billions of dollars in liabilities from what is supposed to be the “self-financing” U.S. Postal Service to federal taxpayers.

If the Postal Service had a company name like “JP Morgan” one could imagine how such a bailout would have drawn immediate opposition from across the political spectrum.

How did such a thing happen? Here’s how this little drama unfolded…

White House, oil industry spar anew over drilling as gas prices surge (NBC)

MSNBC panel praises Kamala Harris trip to Europe, she was ‘strong’ and ‘assertive’ against Putin No indication that Putin payed the slightest attention.

Here’s How Biden Can Lower Gas Prices (New York Magazine) But he won’t.

What Joe Biden’s Executive Order On Digital Assets Really Means

Biden’s science advisor falls to the woke

Hunter Biden’s Laptop Gets a Brief NBC Mention — as Comedy Fodder on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Veep thoughts by Kamala Harris

Hungering for Relief From Rapid Rise in Food Prices? Don’t Look to Biden.

These 11 Defensive Uses of Guns Didn’t Target ‘Deer in Kevlar Vests,’ Mr. President

Is super-polluting Pentagon’s climate plan just ‘military-grade greenwash’? (The Guardian)

‘Defining moment’: how can the US end its dependency on fossil fuels? (The Guardian)

Sun sets on Mexico’s paradise beaches as climate crisis hits home (The Guardian)

Iran to install 550k rooftop solar units until 2025

Potholes, road salt and climate change: Warmer Maine winters raise new concerns (Press Herald)

Ethanol’s clean air benefits clouded by greenhouse gas emissions (Star-Tribune)

Global Warming, Quantified

Warming Could Lead To Fewer Tornadoes… Trend Has Been Downward 70 Years, Less Damage

The Atlantic: Even a Minor Nuclear War would be a Climate Problem  Among other things.

Congress earmarks cash for fusion energy development

Environmentalists Give in to Anti-Semitic Pressure Campaign, Cancel Israel Trip

Claim: Permafrost peatlands approaching tipping point

Here Are All The Latest News And Developments From The Ukraine War: March 14

Ex-KGB agent weighs in on ‘bizarre’ Putin photos (CNN)

Why Putin Is Hell-Bent on Capturing Ukraine’s Nuclear Reactors (Daily Beast)

Russia Shows Off New Melitopol Mayor After Kidnapping Elected Mayor (Daily Beast)

Russia has requested military and economic assistance from China, US officials say (CNN)

How magicians are fighting Putin

The dark heart of Russia

Populists are losing this war

Ukraine: On the Fault Line Between East and West

Data Points From Russian Intel

“Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis 

Security Guarantees, Real and Imagined

Russia’s war is a global cancer

Russia labels Meta an ‘extremist’ organization, bans Instagram

The Frictionless Souls Addicted to the Cause

The curious case of Russia’s missing Air Force

Withdrawal Symptoms: Employees & The Russia Exodus

World Wildlife Fund Won’t Let Chapters Denounce Russia

How to Tell Russians from Ukrainians, by Steve Sailer

Ukraine Using Thiel-Backed Clearview AI Facial Recognition During Russia Invasion

WARPLANES: Small Wonders

Mapping and Seizing the Oligarchs’ Assets

The cost of war

War: Bigger Inflation & Recession Shocks, Rate-Hikes Are Smaller

Will China come to Putin’s rescue?

Smartphones in Ukraine playing crucial role, from live video to escaping the country

Zelensky To Address US Congress In Wednesday Virtual Session

Russia May Ban Wheat, Rye, Barley And Corn Exports Until June 30

India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities

Germany decides to buy F-35, in major reversal of announced plans  Gee, I wonder why?

China Amplifies Russian Claims About Secretive US Bio-Weapons Research In Ukraine

UN Chief In ‘Bone-Chilling’ Statement: Nuclear War Back “Within Realm Of Possibility” Over Ukraine

Russia to Seize Hundreds of Leased Airliners

Why Florida is ground zero for America’s ‘culture war’ (Politico) Because it’s run by a Republican whom the Democrats don’t want to run for President because he might win.

President Biden, don’t ‘fund the police’ until cops do better on telling the truth (Philadelphia Inquirer) Will Bunch seems to think it’s up to the President to ‘fund the police’.

Not Charging Trump Will ‘Destroy’ Legitimacy of US Institutions: Kirschner (Newsweek)

Dr. Oz supported health insurance mandates and promoted Obamacare before Senate run (CNN)

ADL develops algorithm to track antisemitism on social media (Times of Israel)

Beto O’Rourke Calls Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a ‘Thug’ and ‘Authoritarian’ at SXSW (Daily Beast)

‘Don’t expect the Mueller report’: Video to play key part in Jan. 6 hearings and report (CBS)

Todd Scolds Barr for Calling Left ‘Dangerous’…After Comparing Trump to Putin

CDC’s silly stalling on flight masks

Kevin Durant rips NYC mayor over ‘ridiculous’ vaccine mandate (The Hill)

Some people aren’t ready to stop masking, but it can be tough to go against the grain (NPR) Signal that virtue! Signal that virtue!

Pfizer CEO: Fourth shot of COVID vaccine “necessary” (Axios) Of course it is. KA-CHING!

Children In China Diagnosed With Leukemia After Taking Chinese Vaccines

Meanwhile In China, All Hell Is Breaking Loose

Growing Number Of Countries Identify Cases Of ‘Deltacron’ Variant

Sea Creatures Looking Forward To Wearing Discarded Masks For Next Few Million Years  Babylon Bee.

NY Times Not Ready for Normalcy: ‘Frustration, Fear’ in Steps Toward COVID Freedom

Rethinking the mRNA Vaccines

Gov. Gavin Newsom roasted for telling Disney to ‘bring jobs back’ to California: ‘Good luck with that’

Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin calls voters ‘stupid’ for blaming Biden on rising gas prices

Incessant crises show old economic model is running on empty (The Guardian) Oh, the one where the government sticks its fingers into every nook and cranny?

Minnesota Non-Profit Set Up To Feed Children Accused Of Massive Fraud And Misappropriating “Tens Of Millions Of Dollars”

Why Are Leftists And Elitists So Happy About Skyrocketing Gas Prices?

The Questionable Ethics Of Anti-Bitcoin ESG Junk-Science

The Beginning Of The End Of The Road To Serfdom

Good Riddance! Netflix Cancels Woke Babysitters Club Reboot

The Media May Hate Brutal Putin Now, But Gushed Over ‘Mighty’ Soviet Union Then

China Says “No One & No Force” Could Stop It From Taking Taiwan As 13 Jets Breach Taiwan Airspace

High Gas Prices Hurting Americans: Economist Says ‘Time for More Stimulus’ in CNN Op-Ed

Amazon moves employees out of downtown Seattle office due to crime

The View’s Hostin Repeats LIE U.S. ‘Already in a War’ With Russia

YouTube CENSORS Gabbard’s Fox Interview: ‘They Wanna Turn Ukraine into Another Afghanistan’

Nancy Pelosi ‘WTF’ Comment Of The Day: “Government Spending Reduces Debt”

Brother Claims Jussie Smollett Is in Jail Psych Ward (Daily Beast) Sounds about right.

GOP raises red flag on Supreme Court nominee’s Guantanamo work (The Hill)

Free Jussie Smollett, Says ‘Empire’ Castmate Taraji P. Henson – Compares Him With Emmett Till (Deadline) Except, of course, that Emmett Till was innocent.

The Only Ones Banning Books are Critical Race Theorists

Read it.

In the segment, CNN’s Anderson Cooper describes Buttigieg (without evidence) as a “very skilled politician” who became “the first openly gay cabinet secretary to be confirmed by Congress.” The latter phrase is deliberately worded to elide the fact that Richard Grenell, a Republican, was the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history. Grenell served as acting director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump and was also confirmed by Congress in 2018 for the role of U.S. ambassador to Germany.

While Cooper’s description is technically accurate thanks to the word “secretary,” the 60 Minutes Twitter account wrote that Buttigieg is “the first openly gay Cabinet member to be confirmed by Congress,” which is not correct. Journalists and other Democrats are in the habit of ignoring “historic” Republican political figures because, in their view, only Democrats are allowed to “make history.”

Read it.

Before Ma Bell came to town, and long before DSL, it was barbed wire, of all things, that brought rural communities together. A Sears telephone hooked up to barbed wire—miles of which were already conveniently strung along fences—connected far-flung ranches in the recently settled American west. Thus an ingenious and unregulated telephone system sprung up a hundred years ago.

More than just physical wire differentiated these rural telephone systems and their more formal urban counterparts. Without switchboards, without individual lines, and without telephone fees, the barbed wire telephone system became its own social network. Today, we might see elements of “personalised ringtones, chat rooms and online music” in this telephone network, as Bob Holmes writes in a feature at New Scientist.

Read it.

Perhaps Mr. Klinenberg is still able to visit public libraries where these qualities remain dominant. But there are signs that this traditional conception of the public library is changing, as librarians are caught up by the same wave of “woke” progressivism that is affecting other sectors of society.

Check it out.

Products confirmed not to be produced in China.

I use CUTCO knives, and recommend them.

Read it.

I wanted to write a quick post to share my recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which last month garnered a lot of attention, not to mention over 2,000 reader comments. The piece, co-authored with my friend Paul Rossi, is a summary of what we learned watching nearly 100 hours of leaked video from the National Association of Independent School’s recent People of Color Conference (PoCC). This is a project that Paul and I have been working on since late last year.

The conference, which took place in late November and early December 2021, is perhaps the leading K-12 education conference for teaching the practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) work, or what many call CRT. These videos exposed the playbook of DEI work, and the true motivations of its practitioners, things that I did not fully appreciate until now. What we learned was at times enlightening, often infuriating, and invariably terrifying.

Read it.

To refresh your memory, it was a day that turned out be the narrow window between the moment when the evolving “science” suddenly allowed Democratic governors to start lifting their states’ mask mandates, and Vladimir Putin launching his special mission to “protect the people” in eastern Ukraine.

I hope you enjoyed it, because given the way the mainstream media portray the news these days, it may be a while before we’re all allowed our next respite from the seemingly permanent existential crisis that runs as a through-line to our human condition.

Read it.

Amnesty International has been facing criticism since releasing a report last month that accused Israel of waging apartheid against Palestinians and demanded that Israeli officials face prosecution in international courts for these alleged crimes. The report was widely condemned by Israel, leading American-Jewish officials, and members of Congress—all of whom labeled the report as anti-Israel propaganda.

Amnesty International faced a wave of renewed criticism this month when the director of its American branch, Paul O’Brien, who is not Jewish, said that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state” during remarks at an event hosted by the Woman’s National Democratic Club.

O’Brien’s remarks are anti-Semitic and amount to “Jew-hatred, plain and simple,” according to the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an advocacy group that represents leading Orthodox rabbis.

Took ’em long enough.

Read it.

Ya gotta feel bad for the South by Southwest folks. Just once a year, they want to get together to publicly examine their virtues, hold their shining intellects up for consideration and propose ways they can drag the rest of us mouth breathers up onto their enlightened plane. They want to talk about wind farms and vegan bologna and the “Latina Power Pipeline.”

Most years, it goes off without a hitch and they all jet home to fight for sustainable microbrews or more pansexual Nickelodeon characters. But this year, some knucklehead went and invited John Cleese to be on a panel. The decidedly unwoke Monty Python founder has caused much tutting among elites lately for insisting that people should have a sense of humor, and for defending J.K. Rowling’s heretical opinion about men being men and women being women. Predictably, Cleese ended up playing the proverbial skunk at the wine and locally sourced cheese party.

Like Christopher Hitchens, Cleese is a lefty who does not suffer fools gladly.

Read it.

While the media’s obsession with the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been front-and-center in our minds, the rest of the world is essentially being ignored. It’s not unusual to see this kind of pre-occupation with dangerous world events. But the media and the U.S. are demonstrating, once again, that we are unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, or more likely, choose not to. And the situation could actually escalate in unexpected ways, putting the entire world at risk, if we don’t wake up.

Read it.

Tehran had “condemned mass executions in Saudi Arabia that activists said included 41 Shi’ite Muslims” leading up to the breakdown in talks, Reuters wrote.

In this era of Identitarianism, what you did is of no interest compared to what you are.

Read it.

There are people that are a problem, and there are people that have a problem. People that are a problem produce people that have a problem.

Let’s revisit the 9-1-1 phone tree:

You have reached 9-1-1-Please listen carefully as our selections have changed:
Press 1 if you want us to raise your children for you.
Press 2 if your neighbor’s dog is barking.
Press 2 again if you haven’t talked to your neighbor about the dog.
Press 2 again if you don’t know your neighbor’s name.

Let’s add Press 3.

Press 3 if you want us to remove the girlfriend that has been living with you for the past seven years.

Read it.

Google is being sued by a Florida restaurant group alleging that the tech company has been setting up unauthorized pages to capture food orders rather than directing them to the restaurant’s own site.

Google uses “bait-and-switch” tactics to get customers to place takeout or pickup orders through “new, unauthorized, and deceptively branded webpages,” according to the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Left Field Holdings, a restaurant company that runs Lime Fresh Mexican Grill franchises. On those pages, customers are prompted with large buttons to order with food delivery companies like GrubHub, DoorDash, or Seamless.

“Google never bothered to obtain permission from the restaurants to sell their products online,” the lawsuit says. “Google purposefully designed its websites to appear to the user to be offered, sponsored, and approved by the restaurant, when they are not—a tactic, no doubt, employed by Google to increase orders and clicks.”

Read it.

I’m in Buenos Aires at the moment, with extremely limited Spanish, and it’s incredible to me that I can point my iPhone camera at any Spanish text and have it instantly translated into English. But there is one big limitation that requires an extremely clunky workaround …

Read it.

The name Rafaela Vasquez may not immediately be recogniseable, but the accident that ties her to the first-ever fatal self-driving car crash accident will be.

Vasquez was the driver when one of Uber’s autonomous test cars crashed into a woman walking her bike across the road at night in March 2018. Now nearly three years later, she is due to go on trial for negligent homicide and has spoken out for the first time.

“I feel betrayed in a way,” she told Wired. “At first everybody was all on my side, even the chief of police. Now it’s the opposite. It was literally, one day I’m fine and next day I’m the villain. It’s very – it’s isolating.”

Meanwhile Uber has escaped any criminal liability, whilst Vasquez is being sued by prosecutors in Arizona. The blame has been pinned squarely on the driver when videos of her showed she was distracted before the collision. Her defense team will argue she was checking Slack messages from Uber in her work phone at the time, whilst prosecutors will say she was watching an episode of reality show The Voice on her personal handset.

Whatever the outcome of the case, Vasquez’s side of the story is a tragic, personal tale of some of the risks in pursuing a high-tech, automated future.

Zman ponders the first casualty in any war.

Early in the Ukraine war, there were reports about the death of Vladimir Zhoga, a Russian commander in the Donbass. Later they reported that Ukrainian defense forces killed Russian Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky in combat. In both cases, it was widely reported that these men led units called “Spartan” divisions. Another high profile Russian commander was killed later in the week and he was also linked to the mysterious “Spartan” division.

Typical of the American media, the reports were mostly copy supplied by the State Department, filled in with fantasy from the media. Zhoga was a separatist leader, not a member of the Russian military. His unit was called the Sparta battalion. The others were Russian military, but they were not Spartans. What is interesting about this is the fact that the State Department focused on the word “Sparta” in their copy. Oddly, Sparta looms large in the imagination of the foreign policy elite.

Read it.

Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West.

Putin’s prewar moves against U.S. tech giants laid groundwork for crackdown on free expression

Russian agents threaten Google, Apple representatives with prison time: report

Ukraine war: UK households offered £350 a month for hosting refugees (BBC)

Putin’s reported arrest of Russian intel official shows frustration with progress of Ukraine invasion: expert

In Putin’s Russia, ‘fake news’ now means real news

India Is Mulling Rupee-Ruble Payments System For Trade With Russia

Why Sanctions Don’t Work, And Why They Mostly Hurt Ordinary People

Stoltenberg Says Ukraine’s NATO Membership Was Never “Imminent” Or “On The Agenda”

Was China Betting on Russian Defeat All Along?

In Moscow, McDonald’s packs up, radio falls silent and the brain drain begins

The Art of Monetary War

“Logistical Challenges, Mounting Casualties, and Sustained Ukrainian Counterattacks”, But Don’t Get Cocky

Finnish govt agency warns of unusual aircraft GPS interference

U.N. Warns Russia’s War In Ukraine Could Spike Global Food Prices By 22%  And the U.N. has always been right in the past.

Kotkin on Russia and the West

Early Lessons from the War in Ukraine.

Italian Police Seize World’s Largest Sailing Yacht From Russian Oligarch

Telegram Cooperates with FSB (Rus)

Russians Kill American Journalist in Ukraine  I understand the impulse.

Ukraine, Russian Negotiators Say “Significant Progress” Made In Ceasefire Talks, Expect Signed Deal In “Next Few Days”

What the Russian Invasion Has Done to Ukraine

Putin Warns Attempts To Prevent Russian Exports Of Fertilizers, Oil, Gas Will Have ‘Serious Consequences’

Yuan Deposits Soar At Russian Banks After SWIFT Cut-Off

Russia Seeking China’s Military Help In Ukraine, US “Sources” Say In Afternoon Of Media Leaks

Putin and Trump have convinced me: I was wrong about the 21st century (The Guardian) You can probably just assume that Robert Reich is going to be wrong about everything, but the point of the Narrative is to link Trump and Putin as much as possible.

Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics (The Guardian)

‘Many’ Spy Agency Staffers Think Capitol Riot Was ‘Justified,’ Ex-NSA Veteran Says  (Daily Beast) What, no ‘insurrection’?

GOP congressman calls Trump ‘a would-be tyrant’ (The Hill) And Tom Rice is a ‘would-be Democrat’.

Trump’s political revenge tour takes on Republicans who broke with him over Jan. 6 (NPR) This is news?

DeSantis’ ‘free state of Florida’ faces new restrictions on First Amendment rights (Miami Herald)

Republican Kinzinger: I should have voted to impeach Trump over Ukraine (The Guardian) But not Biden, apparently.

Jan. 6 Chair Says Trump White House Visitor Logs Proving ‘Very Fruitful’ (Newsweek)

As Washington tries to deescalate a war, Republican state houses escalate the culture war (Boston Globe)

‘Time to wake up and smell the roses!’ | Judge gives Capitol rioter twice the jail time DOJ requested

New York Times in the (Gas) Tank for Biden, But Blamed President Bush

Politico Chronicles New York Times Meltdown Over Recent Project Veritas Videos

Capehart Unloads on GOP State-Level Leadership: ‘It Looks Hideous… It Is Horrendous’

NYT Reporter on NBC: If Trump Was President, He Would Let Russia Invade Ukraine  If Trump were President, Russia wouldn’t have dared to invade Ukraine.

YouTube Removes Trump Interview  If you didn’t know that YouTube was anti-Trump, you know it now.

Tens of thousands take part in climate protests across France (The Guardian)

The geopolitics of fossil fuels and renewables reshape the world (Nature)

The switch to secure, green energy must bring voters in from the cold (Financial Times)

Initiatives at the top of America’s climate and energy agenda (The Hill) Well, the government’s, anyway.

Tories plan big expansion of wind farms ‘to protect national security’ (The Guardian)

Hupa Woman Becomes First Native American Member of State Environmental Justice Committee

Climate tipping might not always be disastrous

Yale 360: Climate Change is Disrupting Global Supply Chains

Tokamak Energy achieves temperature threshold for commercial fusion

House Democrats Cancel Looming Embarrassment With Oil Executives

‘Deltacron:’ Cases of New COVID Variant Confirmed by World Health Organization (NBC)

Pfizer’s confidential document shows adverse events reported following vaccination; it doesn’t demonstrate that the vaccine caused the events or is unsafe  Oh? What does it show, then?

Two years of COVID: The battle to accept airborne transmission (Al Jezeera)

This Year’s Flu Vaccine Was Basically Worthless (Gizmodo)

Mixed reactions greet new phase of COVID pandemic in Seattle as mask mandate lifts (Seattle Times)

American mask makers are going out of business

Vax the Ukrainians!

Pafoua Yang, unvaxxed and unsilenced

Kevin Roche: When do we get our apologies?

Aviation Groups Call For Lifting All COVID Restrictions On Air Travel

China Locks Down 17.5 Million In Shenzhen As Daily COVID Cases Soar To 2-Year High