OFFSHORING OPPRESSION: The Dark Side of Green: Indonesia’s ‘Tainted City’ Is Killing Workers.

“A decade ago, Labota was a fishing village; today it’s been subsumed into a sprawling city centered around IMIP, a $15 billion, 3,000-hectare [7,413-acre] industrial complex containing steelworks, coal power plants, and manganese processors, with its own airport and seaport,” reports Wired. “Built as a joint venture between Chinese and Indonesian industrial companies, it is at the heart of Indonesia’s push to supply the electric vehicle market with nickel, a core component of batteries.”

The rush to mine all the nickel that manufacturers can get their hands on — at the hands of car companies eager to please the greens and governments chomping at the bit to get rid of fossil fuel use — takes a heavy toll. The consequences of this drive toward an EV future are genuine environmental damage and an alarming human cost.

Outsourcing our energy needs, whether oil or electric, enriches despots who don’t give a damn about people or the environment.

AN INSIDER DISHES THE DIRT ON THE IVY LEAGUE: The View From The Top. “Again and again I’d hear how we—the global meritocracy—would’ve solved poverty and inequality and climate change long before if not for evil saboteurs. We were enlightened administrators of the rational future, civilizing braying savages for their own good. Feelings in our collective gut amounted to the sum of human wisdom.”

DON SURBER: Who Needs Nikki? “The main thing she did as governor was fight with her fellow Republicans, who ran the legislature.”

THIS WILL REALLY LIMIT APPLICANTS: “Now hiring non-stupid people.” Controversial sign at Ohio pizzeria draws social media attention.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Ex-NY Times staffer: ‘It was like a Maoist struggle session.’ The Times and its publisher, Bennet said, ‘want to have it both ways.’ Sulzberger is ‘old school’ in his belief in a neutral, heterodox publication. But ‘they want to have the applause and the welcome of the left, and now there’s the problem on top of that that they’ve signed up so many new subscribers in the last few years and the expectation of those subscribers is that the Times will be Mother Jones on steroids.'”

Now that they cater to the beast, it will devour them if they stop.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Membrane Solutions Straw Water Filter, Survival Filtration Portable Gear. #CommissionEarned

PETER DRUCKER ON EDUCATION, FROM 1969:

The most serious impact of the long years of schooling is, however, the “diploma curtain” between those with degrees and those without. It threatens to cut society in two for the first time in American history…By denying opportunity to those without higher education, we are denying access to contribution and performance to a large number of people of superior ability, intelligence, and capacity to achieve…I expect, within ten years or so, to see a proposal before one of our state legislatures or up for referendum to ban, on applications for employment, all questions related to educational status…I, for one, shall vote for this proposal if I can.

If only. But things are starting to trend that way a little bit. Plus:

History shows a frightening parallel to the way our education is going everywhere in the world today. It is the decline of the world’s most creative, most advance, and most exciting civilization, that of China in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Until then, China had led the world in the arts and the sciences, in medicine and in mathematics, in technology and in statecraft. The reaction against independent thinking and artistic creativity that followed the invasion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century imposed the Confucian system of purely literary and purely imitative “liberal education” to the exclusion of everything else. Within a century China had become sterile and had lost her capacity to do anything new, to imagine anything new, to perceive anything new. We are, I am afraid, on the same road–and we have traveled very far along it.

And farther today.

MAMAS, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES READ MAGAZINES LIKE TEEN VOGUE:  It comes up on my Google searches now and then and is always wrong, such as here where it calls the subminimum wage for workers will severe disabilities “a disgrace.”  Why can’t these magazines stick to fashion-conscious sunglasses and new lipstick shades?  Here’s some truth:  Not many employers will be willing to pay a Down syndrome workers $20 an hour.   That’s why the parents of Down syndrome workers overwhelmingly opposed getting rid of the subminimum option when the issue came before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  It means no jobs.

IF IT WEREN’T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: The ‘stochastic terrorism’ double standard.

The left, and the media — but I repeat myself — foment violence nonstop. As Richard Fernandez has said: “It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.”

ROBERT SPENCER: Is the Antisemitism That Is Rampant in Some Parts of the Muslim World Really Based on a Misinterpretation of Islam?

Moderate Muslim Raheel Raza published a heartwarming story in Canada’s National Post Monday, entitled “I’m a Muslim and I love Israel. Here’s why.” In it, she notes that “every moment of my first trip to the Jewish state was an awakening about the misinformation I had been fed.” Raza tells numerous stories about the kindness shown to her by Jews and Israelis, and in this torn and weary world, that is heartwarming indeed.

In the course of her lengthy article, however, she writes: “Hate is a terrible ideology, and it feeds antisemitism, which is rampant in some parts of the Muslim world. Much of this is based on ignorance of facts and misinterpretation of the faith.” Unfortunately, this is not only false but likely to foster a dangerous complacency in the face of a genuine threat.

This is because, much as Islamic spokesmen in the West deny the fact, hatred of Jews is deeply embedded in Islam’s holy texts.

Read the whole thing.

SO IF WE CAN’T EXTEND THE DEBT CEILING WE DON’T DEFAULT ON BOND PAYMENTS, we just have to cut spending everywhere else.

Those who warn of default confuse debt payments with other spending obligations. “A failure on the part of the United States to meet any obligation, whether it’s to debt holders, to members of our military or to Social Security recipients, is effectively a default,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in January.

That’s nonsense. Authorized and even appropriated spending isn’t “the public debt.” For constitutional purposes, promised benefits from Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements aren’t even property, as the Supreme Court held in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), and Congress has as much authority to reduce them as to increase them. When lawmakers were drafting the 14th Amendment, they revised Section 4’s language to replace the term “obligations” with “debts.” If the Treasury ran out of money, the constitutional obligation to pay bondholders would trump all statutory obligations to spend. . . .

Ms. Yellen also said that “Treasury’s systems have all been built to pay all of our bills when they’re due and on time, and not to prioritize one form of spending over another.” But as the Journal has reported, department officials conceded in 2011 that the government’s fiscal machinery certainly could prioritize payments to bondholders, and the Federal Reserve prepared for such a contingency. There’s no question enough money would be available: The government collects roughly $450 billion a month in tax revenue, more than enough to cover the $55 billion or so in monthly debt service.

These basic facts should inform decisions by credit-rating agencies in establishing the U.S. government’s creditworthiness. Those agencies have traditionally acted favorably when heavily indebted countries have significantly cut public spending rather than default on their debt.

This may be the only way we get spending under control, though the side effects could be . . . severe. But on net, not only is the spending excessive, it’s likely as not on things that are actively bad for the country. And anyway, something that can’t go on forever will stop. Time for it to stop.

FROM MARGARET BALL:  Shadow of the Crescent.

#COMMISSIONEARNED

Twenty-seven years after the fall of Constantinople…Caterina, Countess of San Florian, keeps a book of important things she’s learned, from poison antidotes to cosmetic recipes, from charms for toothache to ways of raising and commanding demons. Having a reasonable care for her soul, she has never actually tried demonic magic. Yet.Gian, captain of her personal guard, has an innate magical talent that does not rely on incantations, but warns him of danger and awakens him to opportunities. It makes him nervous.And Sultan Mehmed II wants one last great victory. San Florian would be an excellent base of operations for his army to attack Venice.On the run from Venice to Constantinople after the Turkish-aided takeover of San Florian, Gian and Caterina will need all their wits and every scrap of magic they can employ to escape, to survive, and to recapture their city.

THEY TALK SUING BUT I DOUBT THEY’VE A CHANCE AT ANYTHING BUT LOOKING EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS:   Meghan Markle ‘upset and overwhelmed’ by ‘South Park’ episode: report.

THIS WON’T HELP PROPERTY TAX RECEIPTS:  Office landlord debt defaults rising as remote work takes hold: report.

You know, anyone could see this coming as the result of the lockdowns, but the left insists on believing only what they want will happen. One step thinking.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE:  UN Inspectors Find Weapons-Grade Uranium at Iran Nuke Site.

DON’T YOU HATE HAVING YOUR MOM PUBLICLY EMBARRASS YOU?  Raquel Evita Saraswati, who claimed Arab, South Asian, Latin descent, outed by her own mom: ‘White as driven snow’.

IN 2005 – EAT YOUR HEART OUT NOSTRADAMUS:  ‘South Park’ goes viral for ‘brutally honest take’ on trans rights, abortion.

ANTI-POLICE MOVEMENT SPAWNS POLICE BRUTALITY:  Heather Mac Donald on the death of Tyre Nichols, racism, and the police.

WELL, TO BE FAIR, HE IS A DISASTER HUMAN:  Buttigieg: ‘I was Mayor of my Hometown for Eight Years. We Dealt With a Lot of Disasters, Natural and Human’.

THE SCHOOLS USING YOUR MONEY TO MAKE YOUR KIDS INTO SHEEP:  US Gov’t Funding ‘Disinformation’ Video Game ‘Cat Park,’ Leaked State Dept Memo Reveals.

THE LEFT ALLOWS NOT THE SLIGHTEST DEVIATION FROM THEIR ORTHODOXY:  JK Rowling: The Witch Trials, The Plotting and The Burning.

Woke is a jealous god.

OH, YEAH? ARE WE GOING TO NOT PAY ALL THEIR MEDICAL CARE AND EDUCATION?  Biden Establishes New Policy That Penalizes Those Who ‘Cross the Border Illegally’.

Yeah, I thought not. Also, arent’ they going to give free entry passes by the bazillion anyway?

THE LEFT LOVES WAR. SO MUCH OPPORTUNITY FOR GRAFT AND CORRUPTION:  Biden Speech: The Ukraine War Will Never End.

SOME QUESTIONS MUST BE ASKED, BECAUSE THERE’S A LOT OF CONFUSION:  Your Duty To Your Country.

WHY NOT? THERE ISN’T A SHRED OF EDUCATION LEFT IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS:  The Right Cannot Afford to Abandon Public Education.

At this point kids would learn more from loitering on street corners. At least they would learn the rough money arithmetic of illiterates the world over. The schools work really hard at not educating the kids, while filling their heads with things that just ain’t so.