It is tempting, as Naomi Wolf has done recently, to ascribe the breakdown of Western civilization to the debasing of "Judeo-Christian" ethics and the reemergence of malignant supernatural forces. Witnessing the many assaults on the infrastructure and social order of the United States of late, I wouldn't rule out metaphysical causality either. But to blame the pagan gods, or, in specifically Christian terms, to blame Satan, and not his legions, is to take comfort in an obscured perspective on the current global arrangement. To lay culpability strictly on gaseous, unknowable forces is to let the global elite off the hook.

As I write in The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty, the Western world is in the grips and under the control of "subversive elites." With inordinate power and influence, these people aren't naturally superior but have as their object the undermining of Western civilization.

They can be found in such globalist "Round Table" organizations as the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, and the World Economic Forum (WEF); in their main international intergovernmental counterpart, the United Nations (UN); and in the monetary organizations that fund the globalist regime, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. All these organizations have had as their objective the undermining of nation states, the destruction of the free market, and the control of the world economic system by a globalist elite. These objectives are now being conducted under the rubric of "stakeholder capitalism," with the WEF running interference for and coordinating the "public-private partnerships" that are ushering in stakeholder capitalism, supposedly to combat "climate change."

The mission objective of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is remarkably simple: the smartest, best people in the world should rule everyone else. In WEF parlance, their schemes of total supervision and behavioral modification will create a "sustainable" future for humanity. Humans become nothing more than "things" to be counted, shuffled, categorized, tagged, monitored, manipulated, and controlled. They become nothing more than cogs in the WEF's great trans-humanist, technocratic machine.

When Sir Thomas More wrote his socio-political satire about a fictional island society in the New World, he gave it the fabricated name, Utopia, derived from simple Greek and meaning, "no-place." Although More was humorously telling his audience that his idealized community existed nowhere, centuries of central planners chasing the fantasy of utopian societies have failed to get the joke. Worse, for every peaceful religious community seeking separation from modern civilization, there is a power-hungry tyrant seeking to impose his will upon everyone else.

It seems as if not a generation goes by when some megalomaniac does not rise to proclaim, "If only the world does exactly as I demand, I will deliver you paradise here on Earth." Usually, these same narcissists go down in history remembered as either vainglorious buffoons or bloodthirsty tyrants — often both.

On Saturday, the French military's Operation Orion 2023 (Orion 23) began with hundreds of parachutists being dropped in the Tarn region of southern France. On Sunday morning, an amphibious assault was simulated at Sète on the Mediterranean coast.

This first stage of Orion 2023, which continues until the end of the week, involves 7,000 troops from France, the US, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the UK, which are all part of the NATO alliance that is waging war against Russia in Ukraine. Over this week, as many as 2,300 military vehicles will be involved in the war games. These include 40 warplanes, over 100 drones, 30 warships and the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier.

According to General Yves Métayer, who led the organization of the operation, "We have never done an exercise of this magnitude over such a long period of time." Another officer told France3: "The amount of resources made available, the degree of synergy between the different armies, is unheard of since I joined the army."

The mRNA Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna contain billions of particles of self-replicating DNA that may turn human cells into long-term factories for the COVID-19 spike protein, a study has found.

The result is thought to shed light on the persistence of vaccine spike protein and mRNA in the body for months following inoculation, a worrying phenomenon which has not so far been fully explained - though earlier experiments also found evidence the vaccine mRNA may be reverse-transcribed into the cell DNA.

Persistence of spike protein is believed by experts to be a contributor to adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines by inducing auto-immune attacks on the heart and other organs, among other mechanisms.

Cabin roofs at Yosemite National Park are almost completely covered with snow. At the park's Badger Pass ski area, snow is up to the second floor of the lodge. In the Yosemite Valley, snow accumulation broke a 54-year-old daily record — by multiple inches.

The historic snowfall in the Sierra Nevada from back-to-back winter storms has closed the world-famous park indefinitely while rangers and park staffers work to respond to the epic snowpack.

"In all of my years here, this is the most snow that I've ever seen at one time," said Scott Gediman, a spokesperson for Yosemite and ranger for 27 years. "This is the most any of us have ever seen."

The park known for its impressive granite formations and stunning waterfalls initially announced Saturday it would close because of severe winter weather, with plans to reopen by Thursday. But after additional snowfall though early Wednesday, officials for the national park announced it would remain closed, without a specific date to reopen.

A string of back-to-back winter storms have lashed the West this week, delivering blizzard conditions and heavy snowfall to many areas in California.

The days long brutal conditions left many stranded, shut down highways, knocked out power to thousands of homes and buried roads in snow as communities ran low on supplies.

Last week, the National Weather Service in Los Angeles issued its first blizzard warning since 1989. Over the weekend, the weather service's local office in San Diego issued its first-ever blizzard warning for the San Bernardino County mountains

Blizzard warnings remain in effect Wednesday across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, where up to 2 feet of additional snowfall are possible through Wednesday morning.

The San Bernadino Mountain Range could see between 1 and 3 feet of additional snowfall, with gusts up to 75 mph.

A powerful solar storm that swept across Earth on Monday (Feb. 27) forced SpaceX to delay a Starlink launch from Florida and temporarily disrupted operations of several Canadian oil rigs as GPS signals were too inaccurate.

SpaceX eventually launched those satellites, the first batch of 21 second-generation Starlink internet spacecraft, at 6:13 p.m. ET (2313 GMT) on Monday after the geomagnetic storm, classified by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a strong G3 storm subsided. Liftoff occurred about 4.5 hours after the originally scheduled launch time.

SpaceX has been cooperating with NOAA since a mishap in February last year, which saw the company lose a batch of 40 satellites after launching them right into a relatively mild geomagnetic storm.

Residents of East Palestine, Ohio have been reporting bizarre symptoms following the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment and subsequent toxic explosion, the NY Post reports.

"Doctors say I definitely have the chemicals in me but there's no one in town who can run the toxicological tests to find out which ones they are," said 40-year-old Wade Lovett, whose high-pitched voice now sounds as if he's been inhaling helium.

"My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. My normal voice is low. It's hard to breathe, especially at night. My chest hurts so much at night I feel like I'm drowning. I cough up phlegm a lot. I lost my job because the doctor won't release me to go to work."

Polymetallic nodules, sand mafias and e-waste hazards

From the position of the archaeologist, technology is a neutral term. From flint hand axes to sickles, antler harpoons to fish traps, the earliest forms of technology leverage efficiency and capability at the interface between the human and the rest of the world. There is nothing unnatural about this - crows, otters, monkeys, even crocodiles make use of manipulated objects to exploit their dietary niche. Where there are concerns about how modern technology functions, they shouldn't be framed as a dichotomy between 'good' and 'bad', but rather at the specific problems created. Too often what counts for academia today will position any discussion of technology in a framework of 'neoliberalism' and 'systems thinking'. Some will talk of the Anthropocene, barely suppressing their glee at the control such definitions bring. What I want to do here is outline some concrete and non-systemic threats that specific technologies pose. It is my contention that only through approaching risks to the natural world in this way will we actually retain the ability to tackle them. Beyond the nebulous outlines of international agreements and porous commitments lies the bulwark of the nation state and its capacities, let us not be shy in demanding it makes use of them.

Mining the Sea-Floor: Polymetallic Nodules

The new Green Revolution and its consequences are rolling like a tidal wave across the world. One of its most insidious children is the 'net-zero' mining industry. To be absolutely clear, the new eco-friendly techno-complex of electric cars, wind and solar generated energy and the vast new infrastructure of batteries needed to support these relies precariously on this industry's ability to extract unprecedented amounts of raw minerals. According to the World Bank's 2020 report: Minerals for Climate Action, the increase in mineral production includes a staggering 488% increase in demand for lithium, 460% for cobalt, 231% for indium and a 189% increase for vanadium. The projections for the UK to meet its target for electric cars would require the world's current output of neodymium, almost twice the world's production of cobalt and three-quarters of the global lithium production. With two of the main countries for nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper being China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the race has started to find alternatives mining venues. European nickel mines are one option, but by far the most enticing is the prospect of under sea mining.

Over the past few days mountain areas have experienced high snowfall totals and there's more on the way.

A winter storm with an atmospheric river that made its way over the Pacific brought multiple days of unexpected snowfall to some parts of Southern California.

Some areas have already received over 30 inches of snow and there is more coming in the forecast.

The snow came as the National Weather Service issued a rare blizzard warning for the San Bernardino mountains as well as the LA County and Ventura County mountains.