MICROBIOME NEWS: Study links disturbed gut microbiome with irritable bowel syndrome.

SO SAD: How Big Tech’s pandemic bubble burst.

In January 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke in lofty terms about how the first year of the pandemic had sparked a staggering shift toward online services, benefiting his company in the process. “What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry,” he said.

Two years later, the situation appears much more stark. This week, Microsoft said it planned to lay off 10,000 employees as businesses rethink their pandemic-era digital spending and confront broader economic uncertainty. Microsoft’s customers, Nadella said, are now trying “to do more with less.”

Microsoft isn’t the only company experiencing such a dramatic reversal. Days later, Google-parent company Alphabet followed suit, saying it plans to cut around 12,000 jobs, amounting to more than 6% of its staff.

Over the past three months, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook-parent Meta have announced plans to cut more than 50,000 employees from their collective ranks, a stunning reversal from the early days of the pandemic when the tech giants were growing rapidly to meet surging demand from countless households living, shopping and working online. At the time, many tech leaders seemed to expect that growth to continue unabated.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

IF IT SEEMS LIKE THEY ACTIVELY WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE’S LIVES WORSE, IT’S BECAUSE THEY ACTIVELY WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE’S LIVES WORSE: Biden nixes Trump’s efficiency loophole for quick dishwashers, washers, dryers.

Among the things they want to conserve, they do not include your time or your quality of life.

VIRGINIA POSTREL RESPONDS TO MY POST ON SYNTHETIC MEAT: I don’t really see us as being as far apart as it sounds though, and I’m glad to see her picking up on the importance of institutional trust if you want to promote a dynamic society. As for whether I’ve gone from “dynamist” to “80% culture warrior,” I’d say that I’ve decided that our current culture is increasingly hostile to dynamism, and that trend must be fought. I believe Elon Musk has come to the same conclusion. We could both be wrong of course, but are we?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Did Colorado Man Try to Frame Taco Bell Workers by Eating Rat Poison?

STAY WARM: ORORO Men’s Fleece Heated Vest. #CommissionEarned

SIX MONTHS OF DRIVING a Rivian electric pickup. The Insta-Wife and I saw one in the wild yesterday, stopped next to us at a red light on Kingston Pike. She really liked the way it looked.

I REMAIN DUBIOUS OF THESE BIG CASUALTY CLAIMS: Russia Lost 20,000 Troops in a Month, Ukraine Says.

Doubts about Kyiv’s claims aside, Russia’s losses have been certainly far higher than the Kremlin admits.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Heroic Fox News Meteorologist Defends Elderly Man From Pack of Vicious Teens, Is Severely Beaten.

AWFUL NEWS: Longtime blogger and friend Gerard van der Leun has entered into hospice care.

Here we are the last time I saw him in the flesh, at the wrap party for the OG PJ Media a bit over three years ago.

We sold the website, but we kept the Orb Of Power.

GET IN SHAPE: Etekcity Food Kitchen Scale. #CommissionEarned

HEALTH: In-home saliva test detects cancer with 90% accuracy.

An AI-based home screening test to detect oral and throat cancers from saliva samples is now available in the United States with the hope of transforming oral and throat cancer detection.

Based on a technology approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a “breakthrough device,” the saliva test can detect early symptoms of oral and throat cancer with more than 90 percent accuracy.

Due to a lack of effective diagnostic tools, these cancers often go undiagnosed until they have reached an advanced stage, resulting in low survival rates.

This should help.

THIS WILL GO WELL: Boeing ordered to face 737 MAX victims’ families in US court.

RADICAL CHIC, THE NEXT GENERATION: Son of Democrat House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark arrested for assaulting cop during Boston Antifa event.

The son of Democrat House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark was reportedly arrested during an Antifa riot in Boston, Massachusetts after allegedly vandalizing personal property and charged with assaulting an officer while resisting arrest Saturday night.

According to the Boston Police Department, at about 9:30 pm officers responded to a protest at the Parkman Bandstand Monument located in the Boston Common. “Upon arrival officers observed an individual defacing the monument with spray paint. The tagging read ‘NO COP CITY’ and ‘ACAB,'” authorities stated. The phrases are commonly utilized by anti-police Antifa activists, including the ones rioting in the Atlanta “autonomous zone.”

The suspect was later identified as Jared Dowell, 23, of Melrose. AntifaWatch pointed out that the suspect is likely the child of the Democratic politician.

Earlier: Criminal charges for Tim Kaine’s son over violent assault on Trump rally.

THE FBI IS LOOKING INCREASINGLY SHADY: Ex ‘top FBI agent’ who investigated Trump for ties to Russia arrested over alleged ties to Russia. “An FBI agent who investigated the Donald Trump Russia collusion [claims] has been arrested for colluding with Russia. You can’t make this stuff up.”

Sadly, you don’t have to.

The Law of Democrat Projection strikes again! https://t.co/5qkKPlRNhV

— Small Fringe Shoshi 🚚🚛🚑🚒🚜💨 (@shoshido) January 23, 2023

APPARENTLY: Has Biden Been Hoarding Classified Docs for Decades?

DEFUND THE LEFT:  “Stanford student senate allocates thousands of dollars to fund Matt Walsh protesters.”  Seriously, a lot of problems could be eliminated if only colleges and universities weren’t so rich.  If you give these folks a nickel of your money, you’re making a huge mistake.  And if red state legislatures don’t start whacking state university budgets, they are making an even bigger mistake.  All conservatives and libertarians should wake up every morning thinking about new ways to defund the left in large and small ways.

WELL, THAT’S GOOD, I GUESS, SINCE THE VACCINES DON’T ACTUALLY PREVENT COVID: Researchers find hybrid immunity is the best protection against COVID-19.

THE NEW ANTI-RACISM LOOKS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE THE OLD RACISM: School board member tweets: ‘Whiteness is so evil.’

Kesha Hamilton also works as a “diversity, equity and inclusion consultant” because of course she does.

MARK JUDGE ON BRET EASTON ELLIS MISSING THE MARK: The Shards could have been a great satire on modern liberalism.

THIS IS MORONIC, SINCE “GUN VIOLENCE” IS MOSTLY A PHENOMENON OF GANGS IN SELECT DEMOCRAT-RULED CITIES: Pediatricians are giving out free gun locks to approach the gun violence epidemic as a public health crisis. And it’s a behavior problem, not a “public health” problem. Gun accidents involving children happen, but they’re a tiny fraction of the “violence” deaths, which gun locks do nothing about.

Given the public health and medical professions’ patent incompetence in dealing with actual epidemics, let’s take a pass on giving them a role in addressing things outside their limited professional competence. Though I suppose handing out useless-but-harmless gun locks is better than normal by recent standards.

APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX, REDUX: Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis in Peril Amid Ballooning Budget, Crew Exodus.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Gov. Ron DeSantis Lowers the *BOOM* on Florida Teachers’ Unions. “Florida teachers’ unions are about to lose a major source of funding, along with a novel new regulation on administrator pay, if Gov. Ron DeSantis gets his way. It’s a big, bold move — and increasingly typical for America’s most aggressively conservative governor.”

Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

HEY KIDS, WHAT TIME IS IT? It’s Time to Talk About Gay Steroid Use.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Seattle officials intentionally ‘purged’ thousands of texts about 2020 ‘autonomous zone’ despite order not to.