Lambert and I, and plenty of readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational atmosphere ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of struggle — each actual fog and stage fog — in feedback. None of us want extra cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will likely be summarily whacked.
And for many who are new right here, this isn’t a mere well mannered request. We now have written web site Insurance policies and those that remark have accepted these phrases. To stop having to resort to the nuclear choice of shutting feedback down totally till extra sanity prevails, as we did through the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders.
–Yves
P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:
Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commenter troll points. Please don’t do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them.
Your humble blogger was a bit under the weather. Once in a while I get what I call stress hangovers. It’s like having a 75% strength migraine. Nothing serious but I really can’t work while one is on. So forgive me if these links wind up being short rations.
Millions of bees used in pollination die in airline shipping ABC News. Kevin W: “To go from California to Alaska you have to go through frikkin’ Georgia?”
67 Wild Horses Die of Highly Contagious Illness in Federal Care Treehugger
Honeybees join humans as the only known animals that can tell the difference between odd and even numbers PhysOrg (Robert M)
The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap The Hustle
From seawater to drinking water, with the push of a button MIT News (David L)
Why does swearing make us stronger? Big Think (fk). Funny, I picked up the habit of the regular use of profanity when on Wall Street. The use of bad language outside contexts like that was less acceptable than now.
The Ever-Present Origin: Swiss Poet, Philosopher, and Linguist Jean Gebser’s Prescient 1949 Vision for the Evolution of Consciousness The Marginalian (David L)
#COVID-19
Science/Medicine
Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections with the delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases using immunosuppressants: a substudy of two prospective cohort studies Lancet (Kevin W)
Omicron sub-lineages BA.4/BA.5 escape BA.1 infection elicited neutralizing immunity Sigil. Manuscript, not even a preprint but getting attention on Twitter due to high caliber of authors.
Study tracks COVID-19 infection dynamics in adults MedicalXpress (David L)
Ask Amy: Brother insists vaccinated relatives take COVID tests before visit. Is that reasonable? Michigan Live (verifyfirst)
Asia
Under Lockdown in China New York Times
US
Is America in the Middle of an Invisible COVID Wave? Atlantic. Resilc: “Not if you look and read NC.”
Climate/Environment
Country-Level Warming Projections Berkeley Earth (resilc)
Public ‘Duped’ About Plastics Recycling, CA Launches Investigation Patch (David L)
China?
How China Will Dominate the Global Competition Over Data National Interest (RobertC)
Huawei defeats US chip ban to post record profits Asia Times (Kevin W)
China–Solomons deal ‘politically illiterate’ if Beijing wants better ties with Australia: Rudd Asia Strategist (RobertC)
China has a youth unemployment problem Asia Times (resilc)
Mild proposal for fortifying Japan, Taiwan air defenses Asia Times (Kevin W)
Europe’s Economy Slows to a Crawl as War and Inflation Take a Toll New York Times (Kevin W)
Paris suspends Bolloré electric buses after two catch fire France24 (furzy)
New Not-So-Cold War
EU prepares Russia oil embargo – media RT (Kevin W). I can’t even…
Ukrainians Suffer Gasoline Shortages After Russian Strikes on Fuel Infrastructure Wall Street Journal. Erm, we reported on this over two weeks ago, based on a report on a Ukrainian business site.
* * * “Not only would everybody be killed but it would probably be impossible for people to inhabit NYC for hundreds of years after a nuclear war. The life of Russia depends on stopping NATO from advancing to their borders.” — Col. Richard Black (Video Clip 17)https://t.co/EWGkJj7AAI pic.twitter.com/8Oys16VXZg
— 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 (@apocalypseos) April 28, 2022
Ukraine and the Doomsday Machine Larry Wilkerson and Paul Jay (fk). On account of not feeling so scorching, I’ve not tracked down what Scott Ritter stated on this matter. It doesn’t sound like Wilkerson learn supply materials on Russian doctrine with respect to using nuclear weapons. Ritter as a UN former weapons inspector who reads Russian would have the right tackle this.
* * * The New Flip in Ukraine: Putin’s Warfare Turns into Biden’s Warfare CounterPunch (resilc)
Biden Seeks to Rob Putin of His High Scientists With Visa Lure Bloomberg. Um, I feel loads of Russians have labored out that they’re now hated within the West. Even the Economist pointed it out in a current story: There are lots of reviews of hostility in direction of Russians in Germany. It added they have been much less badly handled in France and Italy…as a result of the Russian diaspora was small.
$33B Request Will Assist Ukraine Combat Russia In The ‘Longer Time period,’ Biden Says Protection One (resilc). The dough solely goes to the tip of Sept.
Russian media at present, 28 April 2022 Gilbert Doctorow. On US and Poland schemes for western Ukraine.
Ukraine Newest: Russia Says It Plans to Stop Area Station Bloomberg
The Second Degree Geopolitical Warfare in Ukraine Takes Over CounterPunch. Be aware that commentators who acknowledge that Ukraine is shedding the struggle (as mirrored within the subdued and even selectively downbeat feedback from UK officers and within the British press, a giant shift from their former boosterism) depict the shift in narrative to “the aim is to weaken Russia” as an effort to divert consideration. Nonetheless the US is so propaganda-driven that we’ll now attempt to act on that. Resilc quotes:
What has been obvious to critics for a while is that Western diplomacy has turn out to be primarily dedicated to second degree Geopolitical Warfare even at the price of drastically prolonging and aggravating the Ukrainian struggle on the bottom and producing rising dangers of a wider struggle. Solely up to now few days has this precedence been roughly acknowledged by excessive officers within the U.S. Authorities, most dramatically within the go to of Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, and Austin, Secretary of Protection to Ukraine and later to assembly in Europe with their NATO counterparts. What was revealed was that the primary coverage aim of the U.S. was ‘the weakening of Russia’ made a viable enterprise by the surprising resistance capabilities of Ukrainian armed forces bolstered by a present unified patriotic resolve.
Why Europe can not perceive Russia Pepe Escobar, The Cradle
Syraqistan
Iran’s Guards commander says Israel creating circumstances for destruction Jerusalem Put up
Huge Brother Is Watching You Watch
FBI Performed Doubtlessly Tens of millions of Warrantless Searches of People’ Information Wall Avenue Journal
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Ukraine Warfare Is Ballooning America’s Army Industrial Advanced New Republic. Resilc: “By no means ending love for a shedding army.”
U.S. Military To Take a look at Networked Drone Swarms Flying Journal (David L). Um, how are networked drones any extra immune to Russia’s sign/GPS jamming? Look like this could be combating the final struggle.
FIRST ON CNN: US left behind $7 billion of army tools in Afghanistan after 2021 withdrawal, Pentagon report says CNN. Resilc: “It’ allllll good, jobs for merikin employees.”
Trump
Trump loses bid to raise contempt cost regardless of swearing he can’t discover subpoenaed paperwork CNBC
Biden
Joe Manchin’s Method to Biden’s Presidency Is Paying Off in West Virginia Morning Seek the advice of (resilc)
Sanders: Democrats’ technique for dealing with Manchin, Sinema an ‘absolute political failure’ The Hill
Bernie Sanders Needs Democrats to Make Unions Their Largest Message Self-importance Truthful (furzy). Over the celebration’s lifeless physique.
Our No Longer Free Press
Nina Jamcowicz, head of the ‘disinformation bureau’ wrote a ebook known as ‘how you can be a girl on-line’ and her banner says ‘how you can survive abuse and harassment and struggle again’
That is ‘false flag feminism’.
She needs to censor you, however she will likely be framing herself because the sufferer. pic.twitter.com/LFVJrgSW8B
— Blue Moon (@bmrwshow) April 29, 2022
The Candy Sound of Censorship: The Biden Administration Seeks the Excellent Pitch for Disinformation Governance Jonathan Turley
“That is This” James Howard Kunstler. Undecided in regards to the Maoist reference except he means the Cultural Revolution.
Musk instructed banks he’ll rein in Twitter pay, make cash from tweets Reuters. Furzy appropriately says this might symbolize the tip of Twitter. Musk proposes charging for embedding tweets. They’re now as utilized in a major means even in mainstream media. I can’t think about anybody will associate with this. This can scale back the curiosity of journalists in Twitter.
The issues with Elon Musk’s plan to open-source the Twitter algorithm MIT Expertise Overview (David L)
Decide Rejects Elon Musk’s Quest To Scrap Deal Over 2018 Tweets HuffPost (furzy)
Illinois’ Schooling Chief Urges Faculties to Cease Working With Police to Ticket College students for Misbehavior ProPublica (resilc)
Air France aircraft ‘went nuts’ as pilots pulled controls in reverse instructions Telegraph (Kevin W)
EIA Month-to-month Information Exhibits A Dip In U.S. Oil Manufacturing OilPrice
Nasdaq index marks worst month-to-month drop since 2008 monetary disaster Monetary Occasions
Class Warfare
Malcolm X about Liberals:https://t.co/WXWM3thLe1 pic.twitter.com/uxiqyvmQRU
— Abdullah (@KasaSaaz) April 29, 2022
School-Educated Staff Assist Unionize Locations Like Starbucks New York Occasions. Go class traitors! Or maybe extra precisely, individuals who have been betrayed by their class and aren’t taking it sitting down.
Wages Went Up Through the Covid Pandemic. Now We’re Again to the Crap-Job Economic system. New Republic (resilc)
Antidote du jour:
And a bonus (furzy):
See yesterday’s Hyperlinks and Antidote du Jour right here.