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John Carter
Postcards from Barsoom
Wed, 31 May 2023 20:15 UTC
inferno graphic art
© Einar Martinsen
Ask not what the woke corporations can do to you, ask what you can do to the woke corporations

For years now we've been trapped in a seemingly inescapable vortex of woke madness, one of the most baffling aspects of which has been the seeming determination of every corporation on the planet to embrace whatever fresh new horror bubbles up from the mindless Marxcissist mob nurtured by the social media algorithms.

We know this is all desperately unpopular. Talk to normal people on the down-low, and they'll mutter dark imprecations against the injustice and insanity of this intolerable and incoherent police state. But they won't mutter too loudly, and they'll look over their shoulders as they do it, lest they draw the attention of the mob and find themselves unemployed and unemployable.

At least, that was the case until recently. Increasingly it seems that people don't give a shit.
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Chess

At Oxford students now live in fear - they think cancelling each other will help them get ahead

A Member of the Oxford Feminist Union
The Telegraph
Sun, 21 May 2023 20:07 UTC
Oxford
© Tracy Packer/Moment Editorial/Getty ImagesArchie Bland and Jon Henley
Christ Church college in Oxford.
I will admit that I used to relish telling people that I go to the University of Oxford, and to some extent I still do. However, now when I sheepishly tell another conference attendee this, it is met with sympathetic tuts and murmurs of "That must be tough". They don't mean the workload. They mean the abysmal culture of intolerance towards freedom of speech that has somehow manifested here.

And they're right. I'm careful who I tell about my dissertation on the topic of gender. My heart races when a new person asks what I'm doing, and I have to make a snap decision if it's safe to tell them, and if it's worth it. Peers have asked "Why are you going to Kathleen Stock's event?" with narrowed eyes and suspicious tones. I spend so much time biting my tongue in conversation. Even basic truths can be completely unsayable in the wrong circles. But I'm getting braver.

Surprisingly, those who are truly against free speech are fairly rare. These people are led by a very aggressive minority, often oppressors dressed as victims. Behind them are another small group of self-hating ideologues, and other confused but well-meaning supporters. However, the majority of students, I have found, are actually quite sensible. Yet at first glance, it is almost impossible to tell these groups apart.

Comment: This letter demonstrates two things quite well: 1) intraelite overproduction and competition, the best predictor of revolution and the collapse of societies, and 2) the pathological nature of ponerogenesis.

From Political Ponerology:
For the purpose of an intellectual exercise, let us thus imagine that [people with red-green color-blindness] have managed to take over power in some country and have forbidden the citizens from distinguishing these colors, thus eliminating the distinction between green (unripe) and red (ripe) tomatoes. Special vegetable patch inspectors armed with pistols and batons would patrol the areas to make sure the citizens were not selecting only ripe tomatoes to pick, which would indicate that they were distinguishing between red and green. Such inspectors could not, of course, be totally color-blind themselves (otherwise they could not exercise this extremely important function); they could not suffer more than near-blindness as regards these colors. However, they would have to belong to the clan of people made nervous by any discussion about colors.

With such authorities around, the citizens might even be willing to eat a green tomato and affirm quite convincingly that it was ripe. But once the severe inspectors left for some other garden far enough away, there would be a shower of comments it does not behoove me to reproduce in a scientific work. The citizens would then pick nicely vine-ripened tomatoes, make a salad with onions and cream, and add a few drops of rum for flavor.
...
The stubborn majority feels insulted in its humanity, restricted in its right to intellectual development, and forced to think in a manner contrary to healthy common sense. The other stifles the premonition that if this goal cannot be reached, sooner or later things will revert to normal man's rule, including their vengeful lack of understanding of the otherness of pathocrats' nature.


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Airplane

Climate Lockdowns begin for the workers: France bans short flights for passengers but not private jets

Jo Nova
joannenova.com.au
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 18:44 UTC
Planes on Finals
© joannenova.com.au
It is in effect: If there is a train and it's less than a 2.5 hour trip, in France you can't fly — unless of course, you own your own private jet, the most "polluting" kind of plane (according to the EcoWorriers). How does that make "carbon sense"? Are we saving the planet, or just stopping the riff-raff from traveling?

It's one rule for you, another for the Feudal overlords.

Private planes make 5 to 14 times as much CO2, but they are "good to go"?
by Valentina Morando, Impakter

... numerous studies demonstrate that private jets are much more impactful to the environment than other modes of transportations.

They are about "5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes (per passenger)," a report published by the Transport and Environment group in 2021 states.

According to a recent study, "only 1% of the population causes 50% of global aviation emissions."
Right now there are only three routes in France that will be banned, Paris-Orly to Bordeaux, Nantes and Lyon affecting only 2.5% of all domestic flights. The original plan was to ban five more routes, but the timetables weren't so friendly for early morning or late in the day flights.

No one says this better than Marc Morano:
Climate Lockdowns Begin: France bans short-haul flights 'to cut carbon emissions'

Marc Morano -- Climate Depot:

"You were warned! This is what a climate lockdown looks like. This is what the Great Reset looks like. The climate agenda demands you give up airline travel, car travel, cheap reliable energy, and plentiful food. Net Zero goals are now dictating vehicle shortages to force more people into mass transit.

They're going after your freedom of movement; they're going after private car ownership, they're going after everything it means to be a free person and turning it over to the administrative state."
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Family

The suffering is off the charts

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00 UTC
sufferring
Things have taken a turn for the worse. In recent months, economic activity has been dropping all over the nation, and that decline appears to be accelerating. We just learned that gross domestic income has now fallen for two quarters in a row, and the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators has now been plummeting for 13 consecutive months. Unfortunately, when economic conditions deteriorate it is the people at the low end of the economic pyramid that get hit the hardest.

Thanks to our rapidly rising cost of living, we are seeing a dramatic explosion in the number of "working homeless" that are living out of their vehicles on a daily basis even though they are currently employed.

In particular, the RV "communities" that are springing up from coast to coast are starting to get quite a bit of attention...
The owner of a party bus company, Rikers Island prison guards and an Amazon worker are just some of the eclectic bunch who have formed a community of 'working homeless' people living out of RVs in the Astoria section of Queens, New York.

Similar communities have formed across the US from New England to California where people have chosen a nomadic lifestyle amid a national cost of living crisis.
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House

Portland considers banning daytime homeless camps to address 'humanitarian catastrophe'

David Propper
New York Post
Wed, 31 May 2023 11:36 UTC
homeless portland
© AP
Frank, who is experiencing homelessness, sits in his tent in Portland, Ore., next to the Willamette River on June 5, 2021.
Portland officials are mulling a proposal to ban daytime homeless camps in most public spaces as the West Coast city struggles to get a handle on the ballooning number of people living on the streets.

Homeless people would need to clear their camps every morning by 8 a.m., picking up all their belongings and trash before they could settle down again at 8 p.m., according to the proposal.

The ban would extend to city parks, near schools, day cares, construction sites and some sidewalks, according to the plan brought forward by Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Comment: See also:

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People 2

Disney faces backlash after mustached man in a dress is seen welcoming little girls into boutique

Katie Daviscourt
The Post Millennial
Wed, 31 May 2023 00:01 UTC
trans disney worker
Immense scrutiny erupted across the internet on Tuesday after a video surfaced of a cross-dressing male with a mustache greeting little girls as a "fairy godmother" at Disneyland's Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

The video, which has since gone viral with more than 7 million views, shows the Disney employee named "Nick" wearing a pink and blue dress with matching makeup and welcoming little girls into the store. His title at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, which transforms kids ages 3 to 12 into princesses or knights with makeovers, is called a "Fairy Godmother's Apprentice."

"So, my name is Nick, I am one of the Fairy Godmother's Apprentices," Nick said, smiling at the little girl with a face full of pink and blue makeup.

Comment: See also:

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People 2

French consumers tighten belts as food prices soar


Al Arabiya News
Wed, 31 May 2023 12:00 UTC
Carrefour supermarket france
© Reuters
A checkout-free Carrefour store in Paris, France.
France prides itself on taking its food seriously, but many consumers are now tightening their belts or skimping on quality, hit by a record inflation rate that threatens to serve up another political headache for the government.

Adjusted for inflation, household spending on food fell year on year by a record 10 percent in April, to its lowest since March 2009, data from statistics agency INSEE showed on Wednesday.

That followed a near 16 percent annual increase in food prices - another record - in March. The rate eased back in May, but only to a still appetite-killing 14 percent.

"I go for the cheapest things, things on sale or generic brands. I compare prices per kilo or per item, which I didn't necessarily do before," Sandra Hamadouche, a 38-year-old mother of two, told Reuters in the Paris suburb of Joinville-Le-Pont.

Comment: In response to the rapidly deteriorating standard of living, countries across Europe, including Spain, and the UK, have seen some of the biggest protests and strikes in many years:

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Magnify

Huge fire engulfs paper warehouse in Germany


ExBerliner
Thu, 01 Jun 2023 12:00 UTC
fire berlin
© Twitter - Berliner Feuerwehr
A fire in a paper waste warehouse on Lahnstrasse in Neukölln sent black clouds billowing into the sky above Berlin.
Even those who missed the giant plumes of black smoke billowing up into the the Berlin sky might have been alerted to the fire that broke out in a paper waste warehouse on Lahnstrasse in Neukölln yesterday by a frantic beeping coming from their smartphone: the fire brigade sent an official warning yesterday evening, about an hour after the start of the blaze. It's not yet clear what caused the fire, but this was a major operation.

A 6,000 square meter warehouse storing large quantities of extremely flammable material (paper, to be precise) caught fire on the premises of the Remondis disposal company on Lahnstrasse. The building was entirely destroyed. Firefighters are still on site and are expecting to carry out post-extinguishing work until noon on Thursday.

Comment: See also: TWO more huge fires today in US: Brooklyn timber mill, warehouse in Florida killing 2

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Handcuffs

Three years later, no justice for BLM insurrection in DC

Julie Kelly
American Greatness
Mon, 29 May 2023 18:28 UTC
blm protest
"Our office prosecutes all acts of violence, regardless of political motivation, the same."

So said U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves — under oath, mind you, and with a straight face — during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee earlier this month.

Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) questioned Graves' disparate treatment of Black Lives Matters rioters who terrorized Washington, D.C., in 2020 versus Trump supporters involved in the events of January 6, 2021.

Although the start of both incidents was a mere seven months apart, they are a world away in terms of accountability.

In what Graves calls the "Capitol Siege" investigation, more than 1,000 Trump supporters have been criminally charged. Graves, a Biden appointee, has promised to double that caseload before he's finished. His office announces new arrests every week.

That, however, is not the case for rioters who caused far more violence and inflicted far more damage in the nation's capital in 2020. The rioting that began on May 29, 2020 at Lafayette Square prompted the lockdown of the White House; Donald Trump, his wife, and teenage son were ushered to an underground bunker for their safety as looters and arsonists repeatedly tried to scale the fence and break through police barricades erected outside the White House.
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Cardboard Box

Cargill to sell China poultry business as high costs reduce profitability and sales fall

Hallie Gu
Bloomberg
Wed, 31 May 2023 16:32 UTC
Cargill
© REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
A Cargill logo is pictured on the Provimi Kliba and Protector animal nutrition factory in Lucens, Switzerland, September 22, 2016.
Cargill Inc. is selling its poultry farming and processing business in China, the world's biggest meat market as weak demand and high costs continue to pressure margins.

The world's largest agricultural commodities trader has agreed to sell its Cargill Protein China operations to private equity firm DCP Capital, a company spokesperson said, without disclosing terms. The deal is expected to close in 2023, subject to regulatory approval.

The sale comes as meatpackers like Cargill struggle with thinning margins, and inflation that's eroding demand. Relatively high grain prices are also boosting the cost of feeding animals, all challenges new Cargill's Chief Executive Officer Brian Sikes will have to tackle.

Comment: A similar scenario of rising costs, reduced demand, and producers reducing stock, is playing out elsewhere on the planet, with the ultimate result being that the food supply chain becomes ever more vulnerable. Although it's notable that China has been proactive in its attempts to support farmers and shore up stocks.

Meanwhile, and particularly in the West, there's highly suspect food processing plant fires; supermarkets refusing to pay producers for the cost of production and producers in turn reducing the number of stock; extreme weather and erratic seasons wiping out harvests; outbreaks of animal diseases, and the sometimes excessive response by the authorities; lockdown backlogs and their subsequent culls; soaring inflation and energy prices, as well as a draconian crackdown by, primarily Western, governments, that are clearly intended to throw farmers out of business; all of which, taken together, it seems that a collapse of the food supply chain is all but inevitable.

Further to this, it's also notable that Cargill would sell off now, what with the significant uptick in provocations by the US against China:

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