A few reflections on the worldwide food crisis

 

We've spoken often in these pages about the current food crisis, threatening real famine in many parts of the world, and certainly affecting the USA as well.  Recent articles here include:

• Food, food, food - or the lack thereof...
• The global food crisis - some people still don't get it
• Food inflation and scarcity: another blogger weighs in
• The food crisis is showing the first signs of real famine
• The growing worldwide refugee crisis is now clear to see

This post will build on that foundation, highlighting a few recent articles on the subject.

First, the latest World Food Situation report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization offers this interesting chart of food prices worldwide over time:

Read it left to right for each year, then jump upward to the following year.  The start point for each year is approximately the end point for the previous year.  Notice a trend?  It's a grim tale of constantly increasing prices, rising sharply this year to a new peak.  The slight easing over the past couple of months is merely the calm before the storm as grain shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine war begin to bite harder, as they will when this year's harvest (which was not planted in large areas thanks to the war) can't be gathered.  We've seen the same price pain play out on our own supermarket shelves.

Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota reminds us that "Food security is national security".  From that perspective, she's worried about the amazingly frequent fires and other disasters affecting US food producers over the past year.

Food production facility fires are ... enormously disruptive events. A 2019 fire at the nation’s second-largest beef packing plant in Holcomb, Kansas shuttered the facility for four months; at that time, the plant was responsible for six percent of total daily beef slaughter. Whether 2022’s incidents are anomalous or the result of something more sinister, the point is we need more information.

Mainstream media outlets are busy attempting to lampoon anyone who expresses even the remotest concern about incidents at food processing facilities today. The repeated refrain is ‘there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing, so drop it.’ But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Coming at a time of shortages in such everyday essentials as fuel, semiconductors, and even baby formula, the American people have every right to be skeptical and to demand answers about the incidents shutting down food facilities. Americans deserve to have their leaders treat disruptions in our food system – from foreign interference to fires to shortages – with concern.

There's more at the link.

Kit Knightly, whom we've met in these pages before, says the food crisis is intended to benefit the powers that be.  He writes about "The REAL agenda behind the created food crisis".

Just as we saw lockdowns break the economy to pieces whilst the billionaire class land record profits whilst corporate megaliths expanded their monopolies, so too will any proposed food security policies end up benefiting the already mega-rich or installing infrastructure for corporate control.

They just announced the building of the largest “cultured meat factory” in the world. Fake meat, of course, can’t be raised at home and is subject to patented processes of creation. Genetically edited or modified plants and animals are likewise subject to patents.

Supranational companies, with profits larger than the budget of some nations, are developing carbon footprint tracker apps which reward people for making the “right decisions”. That could easily be applied to food.

Bill Gates has quietly become the largest owner of agricultural land in the United States. Land on which he can grow new Frankencrops, or which the US government will pay him not to use.

The play is clear: Right now they’re getting ready to tear all our old food systems down, with the stated aim of building them back better.

But better for them, not us.

More at the link.

Michael Yon points out that famine inevitably leads to illness, mass migration and conflict - the unholy trilogy he calls PANFAWAR (Pandemic, Famine, War).

Malnutrition undermines the immune system. When millions are malnourished, the entire herd is weakened. Many migrate. Traveling through new bio-terrain, eating things they’ve never seen, meeting people’s they never knew existed, delivering and acquiring transmissible disease — pandemic emerges.

Screenshot this page. As famines spread, we will begin to see reports of pandemic.

Potential accelerant: There is a low rumble among the credible-class — a class who emerged during this ‘pandemic’ — that these experimental drugs, mislabeled “vaccines” may be causing severely weakened immune systems. In other words, many jab-victims appear to be suffering from an Acquired Immune Deficiency Disorder.

No person — including Donald Trump — who rushed these experimental drugs into veins across the world, is among the credible class.

A little voice in the back of my mind whispers “don’t call these chemicals experimental drugs. There is no public evidence to indicate these were rushed — other than the mass production.”

• The plandemic was clearly weaponized
• The energy crisis is transparent sabotage.
• The food shortage overwhelmingly manmade — atop mega-drought in USA
• The alien invasion is manufactured and facilitated by OGUS
• The fentanyl and other poisons are practically invited
• Cancel culture is open warfare
• Genocide is unfolding

Again, more at the link.

Food is, of course, distributed through local, regional, national and international supply chains, all of which are profoundly affected right now by overloads and undersupply.  FreightWaves claims that "Supply chains are never returning to normal".

Buffer stocks of products are far less likely in the future, as the cost of producing those items continues to rise. Cheap labor, offered by large populations of young people, is largely a thing of the past. This will make it more expensive for companies to produce buffer stock and far less likely that supply chains will enjoy the ability to absorb short-term shocks that are inherent to complex global networks.

More at the link.  The implications for the security and stability of our food supply are obvious.  An IBM executive recently commented that "Every day in the supply chain has a black swan" - something that one couldn't imagine happening, but it happens.  FreightWaves' CEO predicted a couple of months ago that he believed a freight recession is imminent.  Events on the ground seem to be supporting his position.

Finally, "Mish" Shedlock, a noted economic commentator, warns bluntly:  "Expect a Deep Recession to Start This Quarter or Early Third Quarter".  This is corroborated by other economic data, including FreightWaves' warning that "US import demand is dropping off a cliff".  Again, if our economy goes down the tubes, food supplies and their distribution are likely to go with it.

I said some weeks ago that, looking at the signs of the times and events all around us, I believe that we're facing "A totalitarian onslaught against freedom on a worldwide scale".  I've seen nothing since then to make me change my mind - only support my conclusions.  I regard the food crisis as just one element of that onslaught.  If you haven't already done so, I recommend you read my earlier article, and decide for yourself on the basis of the available evidence - then prepare accordingly.

Peter

Beware the new 15%-ethanol blended gasoline

 

Many people appear unaware that last week, the Biden administration raised the "summer blend" ethanol-in-gasoline blend requirement from 10% to 15%.  This may have serious consequences, including physical damage, for the engines of older vehicles, and also for small engines (e.g. outboard motors, lawnmowers, tillers, generators, and so on).

American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) is "the leading trade association representing the makers of the fuels that keep Americans moving and the petrochemicals that are the essential building blocks for modern life".  On their Web site, they talk about the "Blend Wall" as follows:

The blend wall is the maximum amount of ethanol that can be safely absorbed into the U.S. gasoline pool. Today, the blend wall sits at roughly 10 percent of total gasoline consumed. That 10 percent is a reflection of compatible retail infrastructure and consumer demand.

Ethanol is a valuable source of octane in finished gasoline, but it is chemically different than petroleum gasoline and cannot be used in concentrations above 10 percent in small engines — like outboard boat motors, motorcycles, lawnmowers, generators or chain saws — or in any cars made before 2001. Complicating matters further, most cars on the road today still aren’t warrantied to run on gasoline with more than 10 percent ethanol. Retail stations also must have compatible infrastructure in order to sell gasoline with higher ethanol blends. Until those factors change, and change significantly, the blend wall is likely to remain set at or around 10 percent.

Based on the volume targets set in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the 2007 Energy Information Administration outlook available to policymakers at the time, it is clear Congress never intended for the RFS conventional mandate to exceed the E10 blend wall. Corn ethanol’s share of the mandate was supposed to remain just below 10 percent of the gasoline pool, at most.

If your vehicle was made before 2001, or is not certified by its manufacturer to run on a fuel blend of more than 10% ethanol, the new fuel blend mandate may signal serious problems for you.  You may be forced to part-fill your vehicle's tank with ethanol-free gasoline, then the rest with 15% ethanol mix, in order to bring the total ethanol content down below 10%.  (That's what I'm going to do in my 2014 vehicle, for sure.  My wife's vehicle, being much newer, is - according to the local dealer - able to run safely on the 15% blend.)

Furthermore, something like 40% of US corn production goes into ethanol for fuel.  Now that ethanol production will have to increase by 50% (the difference between 10% and 15% fuel mixtures), even more corn will be absorbed by the fuel industry - at a time when there's a worldwide food shortage.  I don't think there could possibly be a more damaging bureaucratic decision than this, not just for vehicles, but for the food market as a whole.  People are already starving.  This is going to make it worse.

As for fuel reserves (if you keep a few cans of fuel handy for your lawnmower or generator, or to refill your vehicle in case of emergency), I've long argued that it's best to store non-ethanol gasoline, because the latter lasts longer without deterioration than mixed fuel, and is also better for small engines.  That goes double now that the ethanol level will go to 15%.  Non-ethanol fuel is more expensive than mixed fuel, but delivers greater energy per gallon when used.  I think it's now become mandatory for our emergency fuel supply.  If you've stored ethanol-mix fuel, I highly recommend that you use it at once in your vehicle, and refill your fuel containers with non-ethanol gasoline.  Add some stabilizer to lengthen the fuel's storage life (I use PRI-G, but there are many others such as Sta-Bil, Seafoam, etc. - take your pick) and you're good to go.

I think the only people who will benefit from this astoundingly dunderheaded bureaucratic decision will be those who want to outlaw fossil fuels altogether (not to mention restrict private motoring), and of course Big Ag - the massive agriculture conglomerates who will now be able to sell more and more corn to the "captive market" of the fuel refineries, whether the latter like it or not.  The rest of us are going to be lumbered with the consequences.  Right now, I can't see any good ones.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,093

 

Today's award goes to a (very) distracted driver in (where else?) Florida.

A Florida driver nearly had his penis bitten off by a woman giving him oral sex after he 'lost control' of his car in a head-on collision.

Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue responded to an accident on North Ocean Boulevard and 19th Street on Thursday after the unidentified man crashed his vehicle into a FedEx van, according to The Star.

Authorities told Local 10 News that the man 'lost control' of the vehicle around 7pm after becoming distracted by his girlfriend's sexual acts.

The couple was found half-naked in their SUV and can be seen in photos laying on the ground.

. . .

The man appears to be in pain as officers gather around him while he laid on his back. The woman, who had her jeans around her ankles, laid face down on the pavement in nothing but her underwear and a white tank top. 

The driver sustained injuries in his groin area, but otherwise was fine. The woman was said to have sustain mild injuries on impact, according to The Star.

So far, no one has been charged in the accident and police have not released names.

There's more at the link, including photographs.

"Injuries to his groin area", eh?  Toothmarks on the old Twinkie, perhaps?  Perhaps denture fixative might speed up his healing?

That'll teach him to try sex "al dente" . . .

Peter

Verily, the mind doth boggle

 

It's got to the point where politically correct bigots are denying medical facts in their efforts to dominate discourse.

A Norwegian feminist faces up to three years in prison for saying that biological men can’t be lesbians.

Yes, really.

Christina Ellingsen, of the global feminist organization Women’s Declaration International (WDI), is under police investigation for making the claim in a tweet in which she criticized the trans activism group FRI.

“Why [does] FRI teach young people that males can be lesbians? Isn’t that conversion therapy?” Ellingsen allegedly tweeted.

She also questioned the legitimacy of FRI’s advisor Christine Jentoft identifying as a lesbian despite being born a biological male.

“Jentoft, who is male and an advisor in FRI, presents himself as a lesbian – that’s how bonkers the organization which supposedly works to protect young lesbians’ interests is. How does it help young lesbians when males claim to be lesbian, too?” Ellingsen reportedly said.

“You are a man. You cannot be a mother,” Ellingsen allegedly told Jentoft. “To normalize the idea that men can be mothers is a defined form of discrimination against women.”

“Amnesty International is also accusing Ellingsen of harassment for saying that Jentoft is a man on national television,” reports Reclaim the Net.

Norway’s hate crime laws were made more draconian last year to make criticizing gender ideology a crime and Ellingsen faces up to three years in prison if she is convicted.

There's more at the link.

The fact that Ms. Ellingsen is manifestly (oops - should that be "womanifestly"?) correct in what she says is being completely disregarded, by the law, by the authorities, and presumably by the courts as well.  Like it or not, men - those with an XY chromosome - are not women, and cannot be a mother (in the sense of giving birth).  Only those with an XX chromosome - actual women, in the medical sense - can do that.  To say otherwise is ludicrous, nonsensical, deluded and deranged.  The same goes for being a lesbian.  The word is clearly defined and has a specific meaning - and it cannot be logically or rationally applied to men, no matter how the "woke" may try to insist on it.

I could pass a law tomorrow saying that the sky is red, and imposing criminal sanctions and punishments for denying that.  It wouldn't alter the fact that the sky will remain stubbornly blue, and anyone saying otherwise will be identifying themselves as nuts.  If Norwegian law is attempting to subject "gender ideology" to the same idiocy, then Norwegian law is an ass, and should be condemned for the nonsense it is.

I can't help smiling as I recall this well-known exchange on Twitter.

Same logic, same error, same fallacy - but the bottom one is a lot funnier than the top.  If I were Ms. Ellingsen, I'd display that tweet in court in my own defense.  It would make as much sense as the prosecution's charges!

Peter

Can't argue with that...

 

From Stephan Pastis again.  Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

It's kinda hard to dispute that, isn't it?

Peter

If you choose to sow bad seed, don't complain about the harvest

 

Oregon is finding that out the hard way.

Overdose rates in the state of Oregon rose by 700% after voters in the state approved a ballot measure to decriminalize all hard drugs.

Voters in the state of Oregon voted to decriminalize all hard drugs in the pursuit of encouraging those struggling with drug addiction to seek medical help. The measure, referred to as Ballot Measure 110, was the first of its kind in the U.S. and went into effect in February of 2021 after being approved by the public the year before.

. . .

Steve Allen, Oregon’s behavioral health director, acknowledged that there has been a “dramatic” increase in overdoses and overdose deaths, but he attributed much of these to an influx of methamphetamine laced with fentanyl.

Allen indicated a belief that if public health resources received enough funding and support, then overdose deaths would decrease as the state’s drug problem begins to improve.

There's more at the link.

This is a textbook example of the non-fact-based, touchy-feely approach to government.

1. Ignore the hard reality of drug addiction and its health consequences.
2. Pass legislation that's politically correct and feeling-centered, "compassionate" rather than reality-based.
3. See the problem get worse and worse as a result.
4. Double down on the "touchy-feely" and demand more resources and funding, in a desperate (and doomed) effort to make the touchy-feely work in the face of reality.

The late President Ronald Reagan observed:

“If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.”

"Subsidizing it" may include more than just financial subsidies.  If you make it easier to do something, and de-stigmatize it, you'll get the same effect.  That's what Oregon chose to do:  and, since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it's now seeing the inevitable result of its misguided policy.  In the same way, "taxing something" might involve not just lesser or no subsidies, but active measures against whatever it might be (laws, regulations, punishments, etc.).  Oregon - and many other states - had for a long time had minimal "taxation" of drug offenses in that sense;  therefore, their problems kept on increasing, leading to their latest "touchy-feely" effort (which was as doomed to failure as their earlier attempts to solve the problem).

You can't legislate human nature out of the equation.  Rudyard Kipling warned us about that.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

. . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Will Oregon learn from its mistake?  Under its present government, and with its present deluded liberal-progressive majority, I venture to doubt it.

Peter

When the world evangelizes the church

 

(For those who eschew religious faith, particularly Christianity, this article is going to deal with that subject, so you might want to skip it.  For those who don't, here goes!)

I've mentioned Bob Mumford before.  He's a Pentecostal evangelist who once defined secular humanism as "what you get when the world evangelizes the church".  I think that definition is perfectly illustrated by a so-called "drag queen pastor".  If you're a believing Christian, as I am, prepare to be nauseated by this article.  I apologize in advance for the offense I know it'll give you:  but I'm quoting from it here because this is the reality we face in so many of the mainline Christian churches today.  I don't know of any other way to drive home the danger and the threat confronting believers today.

Last year, the United Methodist Church accepted Isaac Simmons, who regularly preaches dressed as a drag queen under the name Ms. Penny Cost, as a candidate for ordination. Since that time, Simmons, who serves as an associate pastor at Hope United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois, has challenged basic theological concepts, projecting a worldview where divinity rests not in God but in queerness.

. . .

Simmons has published a new video of himself performing slam poetry in what may be his most provocative repudiation of traditional Christianity and embrace of queer spirituality.

“God is nothing,” the self-described “dragavangelist” repeats throughout the poem, adding, “the Bible is nothing” and “religion is nothing.” In the end, he concludes God and the Bible are nothing “unless we wield it into something.”

“God must be f***ing nothing,” he says, “if her boundaryless, transubstantiated bodies of color are run down, beaten, and strewn in the streets of America instead of ruling the runways of life.”

He speaks of God not as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but rather as the source of queerness, describing him as “nothing but a drag queen with a microphone of biblical f***ing proportions,” “nothing, but if she were, she would be ‘yes, queen’-ing her way down the runways of Paris and Montreal,” and “nothing, but if she were, she would be a seamstress of divide couture, weaving together string theory and self portraits to form the fiercest gowns of queer existence.”

He believes humanity, then, is an emanation of that divine queerness: “From under a shroud of secrecy came the beauty of humanity, humanity made in the gender-bending, identity-breaking, system-shaking image of God, the imago Dei.” He refers to humanity as “God’s queerly anointed creation.” 

Simmons writes that the poem is “directed to those who actively and passively cause harm against the LGBTQIA2S+ Community due to their understandings of Scripture.”

There's (unfortunately) more at the link.

This illustrates perfectly what happens when one abandons the foundation of the Christian faith, namely, God's revelation.  One can argue until the cows come home whether this includes scripture and tradition, or scripture alone, but the reality is basically the same:  our faith rests upon a foundation with which we meddle at our peril.  In orthodox, Christ-centered Christianity, God's revelation judges us and our actions.  In anything else, the world judges revelation, and determines what it means according to the prevailing zeitgeist - as illustrated in the excerpt above.

Many Christians get hot under the collar when reading such drivel.  They protest that it's evil (agreed), even directly Satanic (agreed), and want to drive it and its adherents out of the church altogether.  Sadly, given the world we live in, that's not about to happen.  There are too many people who claim the label "Christian", but believe and live as if they were anything but.  Christ had an answer for them.

I've long since ignored what people say about themselves and their faith (if any).  Instead, I watch what they do and how they live.  That says far more about them than any words they might (or might not) use.  I've said many times to people, "Don't tell me what you believe - show me."  Some are insulted by this, as if I'm doubting them.  No, I'm just applying the standard Christ gave in the link above:  "By their fruits you will know them."

I therefore submit that when we look at individuals such as Isaac Simmons, we look for the Biblical "fruits of the Spirit" in their lives, and decide accordingly whether they're disciples of Christ, or disciples of the world, the flesh and the devil.  If the "works of the flesh" are more evident than the "fruits of the spirit", or the latter are conspicuous by their absence, then we know where that person stands.  It's on that foundation that I think the church should decide who's fit to preach and teach the word of God, and who is not.

I'd also suggest that most of us (including yours truly) aren't doing as well in that comparison as we should be.  I know some out-and-out atheists whom I think are better Christians than I am, because they live in such a way as to be an example to all Christians, a genuinely good life.  I hope God will reward that, in whatever way is possible in the Divine economy.  I fear greatly that many of us who proclaim ourselves to be Christian may have a shock coming when we must, individually, give an account of our lives, and face judgment for them.

Let's pray for Isaac Simmons and his ilk, that - since they proclaim themselves to be Christian - they may repent and truly believe what they proclaim, before it's too late.  If they won't, then I have no doubt that we should exclude them from our fellowship:  and, certainly, we should prevent them from proclaiming their heretical, downright evil beliefs from our pulpits.  Nevertheless, that doesn't mean we're free to hate them, or wish damnation upon them.  I'll wish Hell on nobody.  I'm mindful of Christ's admonition:  "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone first."

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 112

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Last week I once again came across Eugene Ormandy's splendid rendition of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture".  In this 1970 recording, he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra, accompanied by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, with cannon fire provided by the Valley Forge Military Academy Band.  It's long been one of my favorite recordings of this piece.  I think I've put it up on this blog before, but it's so good I don't mind a redux, and I'm sure you won't either.

For a 52-year-old rendition, it's held its own remarkably well in comparison to modern digital recordings.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: Canada through comedic eyes

 

Geoff Hill, travel writer and humorist, visited Canada for three months, and wrote daily articles and commentaries for his editor back in Britain.  He later assembled them into a book titled "I could have been a stoker for a vertical wimple crimper".

They're very funny, and I enjoyed reading them.  To whet your appetite, here are the first two stories from the book.

It wasn’t long before my first taste of what the Canadians call multiculturalism.

Before our Air Canada 747 to Toronto had even moved at Heathrow, Captain Bob Fox was on the intercom, apologising in English for the delay.

Like all airline pilots, Captain Bob had the sort of voice guaranteed to reassure you that everything was all right even if the plane was vertical and stewardesses were whistling past our ears.

Seconds later, chief steward Helen Schriver repeated Bob’s apology in French. With a Swedish accent. Then German.

After that, I was expecting instructions on how to put on a lifejacket in Romanian and a Serbo-Croat preview of the in-flight movie, The Rocketeer.

Since there was a splendidly exotic African chap sitting in seat 36B, presumably the movie would be available in Swahili with Urdu subtitles.

In fact it turned out to be appalling in any language. If you ever get a chance, don’t go to see it.

It was so bad that I listened to it in French on my headphones, but when that didn’t work, I tried the other nine channels until I got to The Barber of Seville, then ordered a pillow, a blanket, and hot towels by the gallon, and had a whisky for breakfast.

By the time I’d turned my watch back five hours to Toronto time and started reading Paul Thoreaux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, I felt quite hopelessly gaga. There’s a lot to be said for having whisky for breakfast five miles above the Atlantic while listening to Rossini and reading about Iran. And I hadn’t even started speaking to the two people on either side of me. He was plugged into Big Country on his headphones, and she was reading Ian McEwan’s The Innocent in paperback.

It was easy to imagine histories for them. He was in his mid-thirties, and where his wedding ring should have been, there was a faint band of white skin.

A Scottish engineer, he’d married a secretary from Luton. Five years later they went on a second honeymoon to Athens, where he accused her of flirting with a barman who looked like a slightly used Greek god.

In the tumult of recriminations which followed, she confessed to a fling with her bank manager, a married man in his fifties, a year after her marriage to the engineer.

At the engineer’s request, the firm had transferred him to Canada, and now he sat beside me on his way out, sadly nervous at the thought of flinging bridges over frozen gorges in the Northwest Territories.

At home, his wife was watching Eastenders and waiting for the phone to ring.

And the petite blonde woman on my right? She was the wife of the bank manager, of course, fleeing her husband after a spate of mystery phone calls and a hotel receipt found in a jacket pocket.

I should have introduced them, but my attention was distracted by page 88 of The Great Railway Bazaar, in which Thoreaux described a visit to the Kabul Insane Asylum to gain the release of a Canadian who had been put in there by mistake.

“He said he didn’t mind staying there as long as he had a supply of chocolate bars; it was better than going back to Canada,” wrote Thoreaux.

But it was too late. I was on my way, and there was no stopping now.

* * * * *

Walking out into the Canadian cold for the first time is the antithesis of stepping into a sauna. First you get the breathless wash of cold, then the inside of your nostrils collapsing.

I clutched my traumatised nose in both hands and stumbled to the taxi rank, where I found an ocean liner with wheels driven by a splendidly moustachioed Lebanese man called Simon.

“Nnn Kning Ednard Notel,” I said.

“Certainly, sir,” said Simon, with some aplomb.

Since the hotel was only about five miles away, I didn’t actually need to get into the taxi. I just put my luggage in the boot, walked around to the front of the bonnet, and there I was.

“How big is the engine in this thing?” I asked Simon as I handed him the contents of my wallet.

“Not so big. About five litres,” he said.

I checked into my room at the King Edward, had a Molson Export in the bar, and went out for a burger at a place called The Keg with Bill Jermyn, an Irish marketing consultant who’d moved to Toronto when the fleshpots of Cork had somehow palled on him.

By the time we got there my moustache had taken on the consistency of Shredded Wheat which had been left in the freezer, and the only way I could be sure I still had ears was to look in a mirror when we got there.

“Canadians are very informal about going out,” said Bill after we’d bought a drink and sat down.

Behind him, a man in a dark three-piece suit jerked nervously across the dance floor, encouraged by his girlfriend’s forgiving smile, while on the giant TV above their heads, enormous black men with shaved heads competed to win the national slam dunk contest.

It was difficult to see which was the most pointless exercise, and Bill and I avoided the issue, walking another ear-numbing distance to a nearby Irish bar incongruously called New Windsor House, where owner Jimmy McVeigh had recreated a west Belfast shebeen down to the lino on the floor.

Jimmy was variously from Belfast or Monaghan, depending on which of his friends you talked to, and just to be on the safe side he had hired a band for the evening from somewhere between the two. In the corner of the bar, the lead singer, a grey-faced man with matching trousers, was singing rebel ballads to a flock of upturned faces.

In one of the richest, most amnesiac cities on earth, the Irish had gathered to plead poverty and remember.

But in the middle of the noisy throng, there was one silent clue that this was not the old country.

The grey-haired man with cornflower blue eyes sitting at the bar with a pint of Harp beside him was Glenn Barr, the radical commander of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association in the Seventies turned Londonderry entrepreneur.

In Toronto on business, he had called into the New Windsor to meet two students from his computer services firm who were in Canada on placement.

Barr may not exactly have been tapping his fingers to the strains of The Boys Behind the Wire, but the sight of him sitting in a bar filled with the noisy battle cries from the ragged edge of constitutional nationalism was one of the more bizarre visions to be had that night in a frozen city.

The rest of the book continues in the same vein.  Of course, having been born to British parents and raised in a former British colony, I enjoy their sense of humor;  but I think it carries over well enough for Americans to do likewise.

Peter

A visual definition of Internet discussion forums

 

I recently came across this Foxes In Love comic from February 6 this year.  It made me laugh.  Click the image for a larger view at the comic's Web page.

I must admit, that's one of the best pictorial depictions of Internet discussion and chat groups I've ever seen!

Peter

Corruption in Ukraine, and its links to Washington DC

 

An article titled "Servant of the Corrupt" outlines the scale of official and quasi-governmental corruption in Ukraine, and the ties of the corrupt to US politicians.  It's staggering in its extent.  It also makes clear that the $40 billion US aid package recently approved for Ukraine is almost certainly going to be looted by politicians and oligarchs on both sides of the Atlantic - at the expense of the US taxpayer.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRESIDENT ZELENSKY, OLIGARCH IHOR KOLOMOISKY AND WASHINGTON DC

Zelensky didn’t have trouble incinerating vaunted democratic norms well-before Russia crossed the Rubicon into Ukraine this year. So it was no surprise when he did it again amid the war in late March, invoking emergency powers under martial law to nationalize TV channels and ban 11 opposition parties, including OPZZh — all supposedly done in the name of combatting Russian misinformation and Russian sympathizers, even though OPZZh’s then-chairman, Yuriy Boyko, denounced the war and called for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. Zelensky, however, wouldn’t miss another opportunity to clip the wings of political opposition in his country, certainly not now that Western media rationalizes and glorifies his every move.

But the portrait of the Ukraine President as a democratic paragon whitewashes the real Zelensky and conceals a vast web of corruption and international skullduggery of which Ukraine is situated in the centre. Understanding the real Zelensky, requires seeing him as a creation of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. He is, in truth, a puppet of intrigue.

It might be hard to believe now, but revelations from documents in the Pandora Papers — millions of files from offshore service providers leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with partners around the world — sent Zelensky reeling last year, threatening to end his political career. Though the actor-turned-politico campaigned as an anti-corruption reformer, the Pandora Papers showed him to be just as crooked as his predecessors.

Of more than 300 politicians and public officials, including several current and former national leaders, in more than 91 countries and territories to whom the documents were linked, Ukraine was home to more secret offshore holdings than any other, including Russia.

. . .

Zelensky, the creation of an oligarch, campaigned for president as the character he played in a comedy series with a party named after the show to victory in 2019. During the race, Volodymyr Ariev, a political ally of incumbent President Poroshenko, posted a chart on Facebook claiming it showed how Zelensky and his television production partners were beneficiaries of a constellation of offshore firms which allegedly received millions from Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank.

The allegations were dismissed as baseless at the time, but the Pandora Papers revealed that information on several companies in the network corresponded with Ariev’s chart, the OCCRP noted.

Shortly after taking the reins, Zelensky and his Servant of the People party began firing, supposedly for inefficiency, Ukrainian ministers with reputations as anti-corruption reformers. Daria Kaleniuk, head of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Washington Post in March 2020 that the affair sent the message that Zelensky “can fire a person who takes a risk, for doing the right things, and blame this person for inefficiency.” Kiev-based reform reporter Oleg Sukhov echoed the sentiment last year, writing that “Zelensky has consistently protected corrupt officials from prosecution and killed anti-corruption reforms.” On the other hand, when faced with a petition calling for his dismissal, Zelensky refused to fire Oleh Tatarov, his deputy chief of staff, who had been charged with bribery.

The people put on the chopping block were also the ones most likely to threaten the power of oligarchs like Kolomoisky, from whom Zelensky may have learned a thing or two.

. . .

The war has completely reinvented Zelensky, thus saving his scandal-plagued presidency marked by broken promises. As a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll showed, just 24 percent of voters supported him in late January. But now, thanks to the West’s embracement of the actor’s new persona which often places him beyond reproach, Zelensky has become the recipient of unqualified adoration and enormous amounts of international aid money. “Before the war the U.S. was sending $300 million per year to Ukraine,” said to NPR Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. Now, we’re providing $100 million a day to what was until recently considered “the most corrupt nation in Europe.”

There's more at the link.

The old rule of "Follow the money" proves itself accurate yet again.  I hope investigative journalists are keeping a very close eye on the bank accounts of our politicians, and others that they may not have in their names, but still control.  I'm willing to bet a very large sum of money that a big chunk - perhaps well over half - of that $40 billion aid package for Ukraine is going to end up in those bank accounts.

I hope my fellow taxpayers are as overjoyed as I am to be contributing to the enrichment of the corrupt.

Peter

The inevitable result of "Defund The Police" - coming soon to a city near you?

 

Seattle was one of the first cities to actively seek to rein in its police force following the George Floyd case and the countrywide riots that followed.  Not only that, but some of its "woke" city councillors openly denigrated its police force and promoted the cause of chaos and anarchy.  As a result, hundreds of officers left the force.

Now we see the inevitable result.

Seattle police’s sexual assault and child abuse unit staff has been so depleted that it stopped assigning to detectives this year new cases with adult victims, according to an internal memo sent to interim police Chief Adrian Diaz in April.

The unit’s sergeant put her staffing crisis in stark terms. 

“The community expects our agency to respond to reports of sexual violence,” Sgt. Pamela St. John wrote, “and at current staffing levels that objective is unattainable.”

. . .

In the memo, St. John went on to say that she was not “able to assign adult sexual assault cases” that came into her unit. Cases involving children and adult cases that had a suspect in custody — a fraction of adult sexual assaults reported to police — were being prioritized. The unit just had too few detectives.

Those concerns bear out in fewer referrals from the sexual assault unit to prosecutors. King County prosecutors say they’ve communicated with the sexual assault unit about understaffing concerns, but little has changed.

Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette in an interview with The Seattle Times and KUOW this week dismissed St. John’s portrayal of what was happening in her unit as “not accurate” and a “gross oversimplification.”

. . .

The staffing crisis at the Seattle Police Department is not new.

The department has been losing officers since the beginning of 2020, and staff levels plummeted to a new low at the end of 2021. Whereas 2020 began with 1,290 officers in service, by March 2022 those numbers dropped to 968 — well below the department’s own projections and what the city expected to spend on salaries.

There's more at the link.

Of course, the police administrators and the politicians who administer their budget are adamantly denying that there's a problem.  They ascribe it to poor allocation of resources and the like.  Well, of course they do - they're the ones ultimately responsible for the problem, but they won't accept that responsibility and live up to it.  They'd rather blame their subordinates.  They can fire them, after all, and thereby reduce the department's budget even further.  As long as their positions and salaries are protected, that's all that matters.

Meanwhile, if your daughter is raped or your son sexually abused in Seattle, good luck getting that crime investigated and the guilty party(ies) tried and convicted.  Isn't it nice to live in such a "woke" city?

This is almost certainly only the tip of the iceberg in Seattle.  If one police department is so badly affected, what are the other departments like?  Given a 25% reduction in personnel strength, according to the figures cited above, I'm sure every aspect of policing in Seattle is suffering.  I fully expect other "blue" cities to be in similarly straitened circumstances.  The more "blue" the city, the worse it's likely to be.

If you're still living in such a city, I can only suggest you move to a safer environment as quickly as you can.  Even if you have to take a drop in salary to do so, I think it'll be worth it, because what's coming is going to be hard enough even without the "deep blue" handicap.

(Just don't move to Uvalde, TX.  Their police department appears to have more than enough problems of its own.)

Peter

Fred Reed calls it

 

From Fred's latest column:

As the sentient have presumably noticed, the United States is in crisis, the country’s problems are profound, intrinsic, without solution, and worsening. When a population reaches the point of despair, even desperation, when it sees a darkening future for itself and its children, people yearn for a strong man who will forcibly put things right. Yet it is unlikely that helicopters of Marines from Quantico will descend on the White House and announce the dictatorship of some general. Military officers are too well paid and comfortable to worry about the country. It is hard to imagine an American Mussolini. Trump is a caricature and no one else comes to mind. Yet “unrest” –less euphemistically, “chaos” on the order of Mr. Floyd’s massive riots, is possible. We have seen it. We can see it again.

Consider America today. By comparison with Japan, China, Korea, it is a barbarity, a dumpster, an asylum, an abattoir, an astonishment. San Francisco loses conventions because of needles and excrement on the sidewalks. Almost weekly we see multiple shootings in stores, high schools and, now, grade schools. Murders of whites by blacks run at thirty a month, the news being suppressed. In cities across the country crime is out of control, the tax bases moving out, bail abolished so criminals are freed in hours. stores leave to escape undiscouraged shoplifting and robbery. Seven hundred homicides a year in Chicago, 300 in Baltimore, and at least twice as many shot but survive, similar numbers in a dozen cities. For practical purposes law does not exists in these ungovernable enclaves. Sexual curiosities, once called perversions, flourish with American embassies hoisting flags in support of transsexualism Mobs topple historical statues. Many tens of thousands live on sidewalks and a hundred thousand a year die of opioid overdoses. The country drops math requirements and English grammar in schools, AP courses, and SATs as racist. The economy declines, jobs have left for other climes, medical care in beyond most people’s means, government is corrupt and incompetent, and wars are unending. There is actual hatred between racial, political, and regional groups. Ominously, gun sales are up.

How is this going to end well? How did we get here?

. . .

The current regime in Washington appears deliberately and intensely divisive. Biden has attacked the South, supporting renaming of military bases in deliberate affront. A thorough racist, he frequently denounces whites. He denounces Trump and his supporters, nearly half of America. He has ostentatiously chosen black women as justice of the Supreme Court, member of Federal Reserve, Vice President, and White House spokeswoman. While these may or may not be competent, he announced them as diversity hires. He is poised to assault owners of guns, sure to provoke fury, has involved America in another war, and wants a federal Ministry of Truth to prohibit ideas he doesn’t like. Profoundly partisan, he makes no attempt to calm things or promote tranquility.

. . .

This can’t last. The hatreds are intense, the guns everywhere, anger growing at crime, something akin to economic desperation appearing. Washington will leave nowhere alone, will not address national problems, will always give priority to its military, its wars and its empire over domestic needs. The hostility that fueled the Floyd riots, the burning cities, the looting and vengeful vandalism, are still there. She’s going to blow. Watch.

There's more at the link.

Fred's saying no more than many other pundits (including yours truly) have been saying for a while now (some of them for years).  I can't disagree with his forecast.  This is going to blow, and when it does, life is likely to become noisy, precarious and "interesting" (in the sense of the fabled Chinese curse) for anyone in or near big cities.  Those of us who are more distant from them will be insulated to a certain extent, but we'll still have to be ready to "repel boarders" when necessary.

I also agree with Mr. Reed that in the chaos, there will be overwhelming temptation for Americans to elect - or at least tolerate - a "strong man" who promises to take charge, end the chaos and restore order.  That's a pattern visible in history on many previous occasions.  It's very, very seldom ended well.  In our case, I expect we'll see local or regional "strong men" jockeying for position, cementing their local power base (if necessary by exterminating or driving out those who won't support them) and trading favors and supplies for national influence.

I fear that outcome even more than I fear chaos and anarchy.  One can keep local control over chaos, given sufficient ruthlessness, and anarchists can be neutralized.  It's much harder to control a "strong man" with military and/or security forces (whether official or "spontaneously organized militia") backing him.  That goes double when half or more of one's neighbors may want to support him as "the only possible way out of this mess".  That way lies dictatorship and all its evils.  Even worse, that way lies criminal domination of society.  We've already seen how drug cartels literally control large parts of Mexico, up to and including entire states.  Want to see that here?  In the upheaval that's coming, you may.  If it isn't cartels, it'll be powerful gangs dominating a city (see Chicago, for example, where that's already a reality), or alliances between left-wing (BLM, Antifa) or right-wing (Proud Boys, local militias) producing the same result.

I've spoken often enough about the need to prepare for what's coming.  If you haven't done so yet, you'd better crack the whip, because you don't have much time left, and the supply chain crunch may mean you'll find it difficult to acquire all you need in the short term.  I won't be surprised if the meltdown commences before the end of this year.

Peter

A defensive long gun on a budget and under legal restrictions

 

I had an interesting exchange with a man who read my three-part article on the personal defensive rifle, and wanted me to address his specific situation.  He has the following complications to deal with.

1. He's on a very limited budget - definitely below $500, and cheaper if possible.
2. His state and city of residence both have very restrictive firearms laws and regulations.  In combination, they effectively make it impossible for him to buy and/or use an AR-15, AK-47, SKS or similar weapon.
3. Those same laws and regulations prohibit magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, so he wants the most effective round he can carry under that restriction.
4. He's in an urban environment, so he doesn't want a round that can carry a long distance and hurt or kill an innocent person.  A pistol-caliber round is his preference.
5. His city has seen mob demonstrations and violence that may require more than a few rounds to deal with;  therefore, he wants a weapon that's reasonably quick to operate and reload.  A lever-action rifle, carbine or shotgun with a tubular magazine won't fit the bill.
6. He wants a weapon that can mount a red dot or similar sight, and also a brass catcher (the latter in the light of my warning in another article).

That's quite a set of restrictions, isn't it?  Fortunately, there's a ready-made solution that answers them all;  and despite its low price and funky appearance, it's actually a decent-quality weapon.  It's the Hi-Point pistol-caliber carbine, chambered for .380 ACP, 9mm, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto and .45 ACP.  The 10mm Auto version is illustrated below;  the others look much the same.

A lot of people look down on the Hi-Point line, particularly their handguns.  I agree, they're bulky and clunky, and I wouldn't choose one as a primary defensive weapon if I had better alternatives available.  Nevertheless, in well over two decades of training disabled shooters who were on limited budgets and could only afford Hi-Points, I've never seen one of their carbines malfunction, provided it was kept clean and lubricated.  The handguns were more problematic, but that was (in my experience) largely due to "limp-wristing" and similar problems.  The carbines didn't seem to suffer from the same problem.  They're not super-accurate (I've found 3" to 4" groups, or 3 to 4 MOA, at 100 yards are about the best I can do with them on a good day), but that's more than adequate to deal with the average defensive encounter.  What's more, with such a wide variety of calibers available, it's not a problem to find a carbine that uses the same cartridge as your defensive handgun, making ammunition supply easier and simpler.

I particularly like the 10mm Auto carbine.  Back in the 1980's, the late, great Jeff Cooper tried to promote the concept of a "Thumper", a light semi-auto carbine chambered (IIRC) for the .44 Auto Mag cartridge.  It didn't catch on, but it generated a lot of discussion.  The 10mm Auto cartridge is pretty powerful out of a handgun, and given its increase in velocity from a carbine-length barrel, it approaches Cooper's "Thumper" concept in terms of hard-hitting power.  Its recoil, which can be unpleasant in a handgun, is well tamed by the 7-pound weight of the Hi-Point carbine, making it easy to control, and it's relatively flat-shooting, allowing easy aiming out to 100 yards or more.  It can over-penetrate the human body, which might be problematic in a crowd situation:  but I respectfully submit that if we're in a crowd, we should be ducking for cover and trying to "get out of Dodge" as fast as we can, not standing up and shooting back!

The Hi-Point carbines use front and rear sights that are relatively easy to take off, if they don't work for you (I find it hard to focus on them with my older eyes).  I prefer to use a red dot sight or other simple aiming device, which makes accurate fire out to 100-150 yards relatively straightforward.  (If you're puzzled by which one to buy, a couple of decent lower-cost solutions are the Bushnell TRS-25, in low mount or raised mount versions, or the Primary Arms MD-RBGII.  I've provided literally dozens of each to disabled students over the years.)  The carbine has a Picatinny rail that makes it easy to attach or detach such sights, as well as brass catchers that keep your spent cartridge cases together and allow you to take them with you without having to waste time searching for them.

Most Hi-Point handguns and carbines use magazines holding 5, 9 or 10 rounds, making it relatively straightforward to comply with restrictions in states that have them.  There are a few higher-capacity mags, but you don't have to buy them.  What's more, Hi-Point magazines are relatively low-cost compared to those from other manufacturers;  most are under $20 from the manufacturer, and possibly even cheaper "on the street" if you get lucky.

The carbines themselves are also relatively low-cost;  you'll find them available at between $300 and $400 almost everywhere, with some special offers even dipping below $300 now and then.  At that price, not only are they affordable, but if you should break or lose one, you won't be crying too hard over your loss.  I know several families that have multiple Hi-Point carbines, one for every adult and near-adult in the group, because that defensive solution is affordable for them.  I know others who carry a Hi-Point carbine in their vehicles as an inexpensive yet effective "truck gun", and won't cost them an arm and a leg to replace if it's stolen.  It's not a bad idea, IMHO, even though I'd prefer to use a harder-hitting (but more expensive) AR-15 for the job.  You pays your money and you makes your choice.

For the set of problems outlined above, the Hi-Point range turned out to be an ideal solution.  If you share those issues, or are just very budget-restricted, take a look at their offerings.  Sure, you can do better if you can afford it:  but you could also do a lot worse.  I own a couple of Hi-Point carbines as training guns, and I don't regret spending my money on them.

Peter

The renovations and upgrades are done at last

 

At the beginning of March, Miss D. and I received payment of a long-overdue debt.  We immediately paid off all our revolving credit and short-term-debt;  but rather than bank the rest (where inflation would eat it away at up to a quarter of its spending value every year), we decided to take care of some much-needed renovations and upgrades, and add some features to our home that we've been wanting for a while.

Yesterday, Wednesday, June 1, three months later almost to the day, the last major task was completed with the addition of insulation to our newly-built utility shed.  It's been very hard work, coordinating providers and agents, getting everything done in the right sequence and to specification, pulling building permits where necessary, and so on.  Still, it's been worth it.  We now have:

1. A new HVAC system, replacing an old one that wasn't big enough for our home and just about at the end of its reliability tether;
2. A new, expanded electricity circuit board, repairing some serious issues that were only uncovered thanks to our other renovations and making our home much safer to live in;
3. A new emergency generator to help during power outages;
4. Expanded emergency reserves of essential supplies;
5. A larger rear gate, allowing vehicle access to the back of our property if necessary (and if the landowner out back agrees to let us cross his property - we always ask permission);
6. A new (roofed) patio, making it very pleasant to sit outside in the evenings and enjoy the fresh air (when Texas weather allows, of course - hundred-degree temperatures are no fun, even on a shaded patio!);
7. A new utility building, complete with electric power, HVAC and insulation.  It replaced a much smaller garden shed, and will be used for storage, projects, and gardening tools and necessities.

Now for the last minor touches, such as sealing concrete, painting trim, stringing lights on the patio, moving all sorts of stuff from the garage and a storage unit into the new utility building, encouraging the grass to re-grow where construction tore it up, and so on.  We have friends with a teenage son who likes to earn extra money by helping with such things.  I'm devoutly grateful for that.  My mind may like to think it's still young and vigorous, but my body begs to differ!

I must admit, I'm flat exhausted.  Getting everything done in just three months took a whole lot of hard work, sitting on contractors' backs to make sure they kept to the agreed schedule (and their promises), did satisfactory work, and came back to fix it when it wasn't.  In most cases, they did a great job.  Their biggest problem was fitting us into their already very busy schedules (we were a small-fry customer compared to their usual clientele), juggling staff (who are in very short supply, at least as regards workers who are both competent and willing to work hard), and finding equipment and supplies in the face of a supply chain crunch.  One big item, our new insulated garage door, still isn't here three months after ordering it, and it may take as long again before it arrives.  Oh, well - there's nothing any of us can do but wait for it to get here.

Financially speaking, we reckon our expenditure was about a third higher than we initially calculated.  Part of that was discovering that we needed urgent (and expensive) remedial electrical work, for which we hadn't budgeted:  but you don't fool around or try to cut corners with potentially dangerous defects like that.  Another part was the effects of rapidly rising prices;  on three major contracts, prices that were quoted had to be increased because material costs rose faster than expected.  Finally, there were the inevitable cost overruns where we forgot to take this, or that, or the other factor into account.  Still, I'm not complaining.  We'll have the excess costs paid off in a couple of months, and call it good.

I'm going to cut back on working on our home for a while, giving it just an hour or two per day while I get cracking on writing again.  Maxwell Volume 6 is calling loudly for attention.

Onward!

Peter

With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel

 

Charles Rixey has written a wonderful COVID-19 parody of Simon and Garfunkel's song "The Sounds of Silence", set to the same rhythm and meter.  I think it's inspired.

With new strains of COVID making their appearance, and the latest monkey-pox scare, I'm sure more verses will be added soon.  I invite readers to submit their contributions in Comments below.

Peter

If this isn't a living definition of political corruption and malfeasance, it'll do until a better one comes along

 

The implications of this news are breathtaking.  The video clip below is less than four minutes long.  Please make the time to watch it.  It's staggering.

If this is true, it means the FBI has been totally and completely politicized.  We've known for a long time that certain senior FBI officials had been politicized and corrupted, but this goes far beyond just a few of them.  Rather, it suggests that the FBI has become, to all intents and purposes, an arm of the Democratic Party, abdicating its status as a neutral law enforcement agency.  It's now nothing more than yet another partisan political apparatus.  This utterly destroys the FBI's neutrality and credibility in any investigation with political overtones - including every investigation of President Trump, before, during or after his term of office.

Sundance reacts:

This is a huge development.  Essentially, what is being admitted in this claim is that a portal existed into FBI databases within the law firm that represents democrats.  This means access to FBI database searches exists inside the office of the DNC and Clinton legal group.  Think about the ramifications here.

CTH has long claimed there was some kind of direct portal link between the Clinton campaign team and the FBI databases.  There were too many trails of extracted non-minimized research evidence in the hands of the Clinton team that CTH could not trace to a transferring FBI official.  If Perkins Coie operated a portal in their office that allowed them to conduct search queries of American citizens, then everything would make sense.  That access portal is exactly what is being claimed and admitted in this report.

The start date of 2012 is important for several reasons, not the least of which is FISA presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer criticizing the scale and scope of unlawful FBI database access going back to exactly 2012 ... The report from Matt Gaetz about Perkins Coie access to FBI databases, is in direct alignment with Rosemary Collyer’s prior report on FBI abuses of the database.

. . .

The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation.  When the DOJ use of the IRS for political information on their opposition became problematic, the Obama administration needed another tool.  It was in 2012 when they switched to using the FBI databases for targeted search queries.

This information from Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz has the potential to be extremely explosive.

There's more at the link.

I underwent the standard FBI background check for federal law enforcement officers during the early 2000's, and worked with FBI representatives on occasion during my service as a prison chaplain.  That relationship predated this development by about a decade, but even so, it now leaves me feeling slimed, polluted by association.  How any person of integrity can continue to work for or with the FBI after this news is utterly beyond me.

This is the last straw.  I'd always said that there are good people in the FBI, and they should not be "tarred with the same brush" as their politicized seniors:  rather, they should be given credit for their work against organized crime.  Now that the FBI has been shown to be itself an organized crime association, I can no longer hold that perspective.  It's time to disband the agency, and prosecute anyone and everyone in its ranks who has acted against their constitutional duties and responsibilities.  I suspect the only way to go forward is to establish a new agency to replace it, and make sure that no former FBI agents are ever again trusted with any law enforcement responsibilities whatsoever.

Meanwhile, if any FBI agent asks you for assistance or information, your answer should be something along these lines:

• "Your agency is untrustworthy, therefore I decline to assist it";  or -
• "Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!";  or -
• "Not just no, but HELL, NO!"

Depending on the situation, more robust responses may be in order.

Peter

Online privacy generally isn't

 

It's an old, trite, but all-too-often true statement that "Something free is worth what you paid for it".  It's as true in the technology sphere as in any other, as users valuing their online privacy are reminded every time there's a new scandal about their personal information and online activities being monitored, sold and/or leaked.

Search engine DuckDuckGo is the latest to be caught.

The privacy-focused company offers a search engine that claims not to track people’s searches, or behavior, and also doesn't build user profiles that can be used to display personalized advertising.

Search engine aside, DuckDuckGo also offers a mobile browser(opens in new tab) of the same name, but this has raised concerns, as although this promises to block hidden third-party trackers, some from a certain tech giant are allowed to continue operating.

Namely, while Google’s and Facebook’s trackers are being blocked, those of Microsoft are allowed to continue running. Zach Edwards, the security researcher who first discovered the issue, later also found that trackers related to the bing.com and linkedin.com domains were also being allowed through the blocks. 

The news quickly drew in crowds of dissatisfied users, with DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg, soon chiming in to confirm the authenticity of the findings ... What remains unknown is why the company who is known for its transparency decided to keep this agreement a secret for as long as it could.

In a statement ... Weinberg said that DuckDuckGo offers “above-and-beyond protection” other browsers don’t even think of doing, but that the company “never promised” full anonymity(opens in new tab) when browsing.

There's more at the link.

"Never promised", eh?  I wonder what Mr. Weinberg meant by asking users whether they're "tired of being tracked online", then promising that DuckDuckGo "can help".  The company also offers "privacy protection for any device".  Sounds a lot like promises to me . . . yet now we find that those affirmations weren't promises, or guarantees, or binding.  How would we feel if our partners and spouses treated us like that?  Would we ever trust them again?  I think not - so why should we trust DuckDuckGo?  As for it being "known for its transparency" . . . apparently not so much.

This demonstrates yet again that, if you can't figure out what product a company is selling, you're the product.  We aren't paying DuckDuckGo for its services, yet the company is making money out of us by getting paid for information about our online activities.  Our privacy, which we value, and which the company uses as a ploy to entice us to use its services, is in fact negated rather than enhanced if we use its search engine and/or browser.  In so many words, the company has lied to us by omission, rather than deliberate commission.

I don't know of any company that can be trusted absolutely when it comes to our online privacy.  The best I've been able to find so far, and assess through user comments, is the Brave browser's search engine.  I don't have the knowledge or resources to test its claims about privacy, but nobody's debunked those claims yet (at least publicly).  I also note that a great many intrusive Web sites, packed with trackers and analytic software, don't work as well using Brave as they do using other browsers.  I'm guessing that's because they're trying to force Brave to provide the information they want, and the browser isn't doing so.  I use that as a good litmus test for whether a site is worth visiting.  If it doesn't play well with Brave, it raises a caution flag as far as I'm concerned.  (Brave helpfully tells you how many trackers and other intrusive software a given site is trying to load.  Some of the totals are startlingly high.  For example, as I write these words while checking in another browser window, the Wall Street Journal currently tries to load 36;  Fox News, 35;  Accuweather, 30;  and CNN, 21.  Why do they need all that information about you?  They don't - they want to make money by selling it to other companies.)

Dad always told me, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is".  I suggest every "free" product, and every promise of privacy made by Big Tech, should be viewed in that light.  And, yes, we have to accept that we're going to be tracked online no matter how many precautions we take.  However, I'm still going to make that as difficult as possible, as a matter of basic principle.  Why make it easy for the intrusive b******s?

Peter