Links of the Month: February 2024

no cats were harmed in the making of this Midjourney AI image; not my prompt

I think I have run out of outrage. I’m becoming immune to it, rather than inured. The outrage serves no purpose. I try to understand how humans can possibly believe the unfathomable things they espouse, or do the atrocious things they do. I want to understand, I think. We’re all doing our individual best, so how can we collectively have gone so wrong? I keep writing my best explanations of ‘how the world works’ the way it, bizarrely, does. I can understand and explain insane beliefs and behaviours, and I realize and understand the grinding precarity, the conditioning, the abject fear, hatred and trauma that underlies them. But where does that get anyone? So: The guy got so desperate he killed his family. Or threw himself in front of a train. Or launched a genocide. Or pushed the button to launch a nuclear arsenal. We can try to understand. But it doesn’t help. It’s not like any of us has free will to do anything different. It’s not as if any aspect of the predicament of collapse can be slowed or stopped. May the gods bless you if you believe otherwise; I can understand your believing that, too.

Still, it seems better, for no reason I can articulate, to understand. And then, having understood, and accepted, to go for a walk in the sun or the rain, to play with a cat or a dog or a baby, to eat raspberries and ice cream, to talk with the homeless person, or the stranger at the bus stop. To just stand still and look and smile and laugh and marvel at the staggering wonder of it all.

---

COLLAPSE WATCH

nothing unusual happening here, folks, move along please, just an ordinary day like any other; data from NOAA via climatereanalyzer.org

1.5º is so last year: “For the first time, the global temperature pushed past the internationally agreed upon warming threshold for an entire 12-month period, with February 2023 to January 2024, running 1.52ºC above preindustrial levels“.

Sabine talks about the hot models: No, not those hot models; the ones that suggest the pace and acceleration of climate collapse has been dramatically understated. She also points to new research showing how climate change denial is immensely profitable.

Will we find collapse so unbearable we’ll turn to hard drugs to escape?: We’re hearing more and more about new, cheap synthetic drugs that dull the pain and suffering for those trying to cope with abject poverty, suffering and trauma. Lots of canaries in the mine shaft already: Benzo-laced fentanyl and more recently nitazines and protonitazepyne in the west, crocodile and ‘spice’ in Russia, and now kush in Africa. Is this a preview of the future of collapse?

---

LIVING BETTER

Mona’s bad hair day; image via Jezebel.com

Guatemala finally has a democratically elected government: After decades of brutal rule by right-wing military governments, and last-minute machinations by the losing side to get the judiciary to invalidate the results (sound familiar?), and to overthrow the elected government by coup (sound familiar?), the leftist government that won the recent elections has finally been sworn in. Sadly, in many Latin American countries, right-wing foreign interference remains the rule.

Pacific Time zone states ready to go it alone dumping daylight saving time: Fed up with years of federal government incapacity to simply allow states to stay on DT all year long, despite overwhelming support for the idea, the Pacific Time zone states have tentatively decided not to switch to DT at all this year (ie to stay on standard time all year), since that doesn’t require federal approval. Thanks to Kavana Tree Bressen for the link.

Am I Métis enough?: A woman embroiled in the controversy over the recognition of those with mixed First Nations and European ancestry tells her fascinating story.

---

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS AS USUAL

New Yorker cartoon by Sofia Warren 

The coming war with China: The late John Pilger warned us before he died about the Empire’s desire for a war against China, and western journalists’ negligence in not reporting ‘inconvenient’ truths like the rise of Bandera naziism in Ukraine after the Maidan coup.

Biden’s pathetic environmental record: Despite his posturing and one signature law, Biden’s approvals of new offshore, arctic and fracking development (like the massive Willow development), public land oil auctions, funding new oil and gas power plants, fighting the youth climate lawsuit,  waste of money on fake “carbon capture” and “clean hydrogen” projects, and funding of international hydrocarbon projects, all put the lie to his claim to be serious about dealing with climate collapse. Food and Water Watch is keeping track of his litany of ecologically destructive activities, and notes that he has approved more new drilling projects in his term than “drill-baby-drill” Trump did.

Did the founders of the US constitution deliberately make democracy dysfunctional?: An interesting exploration about whether the privileged lawmakers of the day went out of their way to not allow too much democracy. Maybe those red hats should be restamped “MADA” — Make America dysfunctional again. The Supreme Court ‘originalists’ would seem to be onside.

Corpocracy, Imperialism & Fascism: Short takes. (Thanks to John Whiting for many of these links.):

• Still waiting to hear whether the US Supreme Court will gut the capacity of regulatory agencies like the EPA to interpret and enforce laws.
• The massive psychiatric industry negligence and malpractice of prescribing risky and inadequately tested SSRIs (the so-called STAR*D tests) has been further revealed in a new study.
• Time explains the madness of the mindless US bombing of Yemen in retaliation for the Houthis’ blocking Israeli ships in the Red Sea.
• New study reveals increasing police budgets does not reduce crime. Duh.
• Democrats’ unfathomable self-delusion that genocide is a ‘lesser evil‘.
• BC sets yet another all-time record for drug-poisoning deaths.
• The destructive fallout from Brexit continues as the UK walks away from trade talks with Canada.
• New study finds Alberta Tar Sands emissions up to 60x higher than the industry reported.
• 65,000 rape-related pregnancies in the US since Dobbs.
• Why it would take Trump a long time (more than four years) to undo what’s left of US democracy. Thanks to Siyavash Abdolrahimi for the link.
• Biden threatens to shut down the US-Mexico border.
• Trudeau, kowtowing to Conservatives, again delays allowing medical assistance in dying (MAID) for those suffering from Alzheimer’s, even with an advance directive. Meanwhile, one Canadian woman regrets not acknowledging that her father’s death benefited enormously from MAID, and has now vowed to go public about it.
• The Trans-Mountain tar sands pipeline, a massive government white elephant, is facing yet more delays and cost overruns, and its managers want environmental rules governing it relaxed.
• The west’s cruel withholding of funds from UNRWA is starving the desperate citizens of Gaza.
• The situation in Pakistan, a nuclear state, is increasingly desperate. The US-backed military regime jailed the opposition leader on trumped-up charges and made his party illegal, and they were largely coerced by the US to do so according to leaked documents. Yet that party’s “independent” candidates still won the election by a landslide. So the army rolled in, stopped the count, and reversed the tallies. Complete chaos has resulted, with both sides claiming victory. Stay tuned.
• A deranged Nancy Pelosi smeared Gaza peace protesters as agents of Russia.
• Judge rules Musk has to repay “unwarranted” $55B pay package.
• New BC housing legislation has huge tax loopholes to benefit speculators.
• Yes another ISDS atrocity as Mexico is sued for billions by mining company for enforcing its own environmental protection laws. Thanks to Siyavash Abdolrahimi for the link. Here’s a backgrounder about how ISDS is used by multinational corporations to intimidate governments and regulators around the world.
• Biden widens his war in the Middle East with strikes on three more countries.
• The US DEA has again employed known big-time criminals to spy on and destabilize several Latin American nations.
• Signs point to Armenia becoming the next Ukraine. Sides are being drawn up.
• An independent special counsel confirms that Biden is in advanced stages of dementia. You only have to listen to his recent speeches to know that.
• But does it really matter if the US president is not of sound mind? That’s been the case for the last seven years, at least.

Propaganda, Censorship, Misinformation and Disinformation: Short takes:

• Western media like CNN are revealed to have colluded with Israeli intelligence to restrict what journalists can and cannot report and say, and how. In many cases, journalists are complaining or outright quitting over interference that is preventing them from doing their jobs. Massive internal dissension at the NYT too.
• The Guardian and NYT devolve into outright anti-Arab racism in their coverage of current events, including an article by the moronic Thomas Friedman describing Arabs as insects.
• As Canada fawningly and cluelessly prepares to follow the US into war with China, it has aggravated the situation by blacklisting Chinese, Russian and Iranian research organizations, crippling international research work for purely political reasons.
• “In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States.” “What propaganda?” “Exactly.”

---

FUN AND INSPIRATION

from the memebrary

Judge reverses $150k discrimination award: Fascinating case of two sides both trying to do their best, and getting the courts caught in the middle. A woman successfully sued a child advocacy organization for depriving her of access to her children, arguing the decision was racist. No, said the appeal judge to the lower tribunal — in your zeal to fight racism you’ve put the children at risk.

Free won’t: A delightful cartoon about free will. Would have been even better had the genders and ages portrayed been reversed. Thanks to Ian Petrie for the link.

Too much labour: A song by Paris Paloma about women being expected to do most of the work, both physical and emotional, in relationships. Thanks to Lyz Lenz for the link.

Classical K-Pop?: K-Pop producers often use symphony members to co-write and orchestrate their songs. Turning that around, Nahre Sol wonders what if you turned a K-Pop song into a classical composition?

That’s not how to tell me: Rebecca Watson debunks the five Love Languages.

Sorry, I’m not a member of that: A rambling talk by Hank Green about the ‘fracturing’ of the social media landscape, as more and more of us retreat from ‘open’ mega-platforms to smaller, more focused spaces.

Fossil fuel colonialism: Indrajit Samarajiva explains how colonialism can be understood as an attempt by those in cold climates with relatively little solar energy, to expropriate it from those in warmer climates.

This is how to do conversation: This long, funny, quirky, insider conversation of five (relatively) young people is unlike any I’ve ever had, or heard. It covers an enormous amount of ground, and in it the participants listen to and respect each other, and do a lot of ‘yes and…’ vibing off each other. I found it fascinating, inspiring, and a bit exhausting.

Tom Scott on AI: The veteran YouTuber explained (a year ago) why AI scares him. (Hint: It’s partly because ChatGPT gave him the code he needed to fix a problem that he couldn’t fix himself.)

Scientific papers deal with a flood of frauds: Ten thousand retractions last year, and that’s just the ones we know about. That’s what happens when you get enormous awards for being published, and when peer reviewers get sloppy. Thanks to Bob Lasciewicz for the link.

Wherever you go, there you are: Sheryl Crow’s new song gently spoofs woo-woo spirituality, including non-duality.

---

THOUGHTS OF THE MONTH

from the memebrary

From Indrajit Samarajiva, on the symbolism of Blinken’s plane being grounded:

If there’s ever a metaphor for the state of America, it’s the Secretary of State’s plane being unable to take off, and the staff having to scurry home on commercial. America’s entire government is in a real and symbolic shambles; they simply can’t hide the rot. The Secretary of War is bombing people from his hospital bed while the Secretary of Lying can’t get off the ground. Meanwhile the obviously senile President is on autopilot, the Boeing sort that flies the plane into the ground.

From artist Sergio Toporek in Beware of Images (thanks to John Whiting for the link):

Before you judge others or claim any absolute truth, consider that you can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less than 1% of the acoustic spectrum. Pigeons and butterflies can differentiate 10,000x as many discrete colours as humans. As you read this, you are traveling at 220 kilometres per second across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not “you”. A person is not so much an individual human body as a super organism made up of diverse ecosystems, each teeming with microscopic creatures that are essential to our well-being. The atoms in your body are 99.9999999999999999% empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. And the variance between the genome of anthrax bacteria and that of cholera bacteria is much greater than the variance between the genome of humans and that of potatoes. The existence of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes to animals without cones, the rainbow does not exist. So you don’t just look at a rainbow, you create it.

From Caitlin Johnstone in More US-Driven Escalations:

To the managers of the US empire: Get out of the middle east. Just get the fuck out. Stop backing a genocide in Gaza, stop murdering people to shore up domination of world resources, and leave. Leave before you unleash something far worse than the nightmare you’ve already inflicted upon our species.

From (source unknown) on the Story of Me:

Everyone’s story has a chapter they don’t tell out loud.

---