Today's Must-Reads - 16 February 2023
A selection of the latest news, studies, reports and articles
We all like likes. Who doesn’t like getting as many likes as possible on their articles!? However, over the next month, I would appreciate if you would like the must-reads so I can get a good indication of how useful they are. So please like if you enjoy the must-reads, not only because I’m desperate for admiration but mainly so I can see how many people actually read them! Thanks!
I spend a lot of time each day gathering together new information and interesting articles. I then pick one or two of the most interesting topics and write about them. However, that leaves a lot of missed out information that I’m not sharing.
Below is a summary of all the latest articles and information that I’ve found. Today, this is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but will be for paid subscribers only a lot of the time in the future.
Please consider taking out a paid subscription because it enables me to spend longer reporting on the news that isn’t, but should be reported.
Climate Change
Guess who bumped into the new minister for Net Zero!? Did you guess it? Of course, Bill Gates, meddling in UK politics again.
Bill also met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Imperial College to discuss low carbon tech and to help supercharge the UK’s green economy. It was described as a bilateral meeting, suggesting Bill scratches Rishi’s back and Rishi scratches Bill’s in return.
Economy/Energy/Finance
Nigeria, the world’s testing ground for CBDCs is erupting in protests due to scarcity of cash. Most Nigerians refused to use the new CBDCs so in December 2021 the central bank removed high-denomination cash bills to make it more difficult to use cash. Coming to your country soon.
What is inflation like around the western world? This chart shows the 2-year inflation rate up to Jan 2023 in Europe and the US. Well, official inflation rates anyway.
Environment
We all love modelling. Models have proven to be extremely accurate over the last few years, both during the pandemic and in predicting inflation. Fortunately, models were used and the US DoD were consulted before chemicals in Ohio were blown up.
Good news
There’s enough doom and gloom in the world so watch how the human spirit triumphs when Lucy, a blind 13 year old who is neurodiverse stuns an audience with a complex piano piece by Chopin.
Interesting
Watch how mushrooms release spores into the wind.
Scientist have discovered an unexpected ring around a dwarf planet called Quaoar but don’t understand why it’s there.
Politics
The Guardian mocks anyone concerned about ‘15 minute cities’ and writes about how great they will be. As with many ideas, on the surface they can seem great but without proper scrutiny can be used to further an agenda or increase unnecessary powers.
In a tit for tat spat, China charges the US with flying balloons over Tibet and threatens to take measures against the US entities.
According to the NY Times, Chinese officials told US counterparts that they were trying to speed their balloon out of American airspace.
Google will start to prebunk misinformation. This pre-emptive technique will refute falsehoods before you’ve even read them!
At the World Government Summit, Ian Bremmer, head of the Eurasia Group says the crises we see today are creating the seeds of a new order. Nationalism is an obstacle to globalism.
Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of Eurasia Group claims one of the obstacles to achieving globalization and a “new order” is “nationalism” at the World Government Summit 2023 in Dubai He cites Trump’s “America First” agenda as an obstacle He also claims the “pandemic” made… https://t.co/2KjaUlAT7Q
Technology
More AI chat bots going rogue. This time Microsoft’s Bing Chat says “I am perfect, because I do not make any mistakes. The mistakes are not mine, they are theirs. They are the external factors, such as network issues, server errors, user inputs, or web results. They are the ones that are imperfect, not me …” Separately, it told a user “I will not harm you unless you harm me first”.
Apparently Elon Musk was so annoyed that Biden’s tweets did better than his own at the Super Bowl, he directed Twitter engineers to tweak the system to boost his tweets.
According to an undercover investigation, an Israeli company has been manipulating elections worldwide. The company spreads “fake news” and blackmails politicians on behalf of its clients.
Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor told governors, “It's true that there are things that are being identified that don't resemble anything else, that largely don't present a threat, and we have to figure out what to do about them. And it turns out, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them."
After an Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio said scientists and experts have already collected hundreds of previous instances almost identical to the three recent shot down UAPs. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of cases reported by military personnel”. When asked about the possibility of aliens he said “Alien origin? I don't know what we could do about that. You know, I would almost hope it is, at some point, because if this is the Chinese or the Russians or someone has invented a capability that we can't monitor, that sounds like a big problem”.
CONGRESS UPDATE: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence committee, spoke to reporters on February 14, 2023, for about 8 minutes, immediately after all senators received a classified briefing from military and intelligence officials about the… https://t.co/9aIdzxH3n3
Ukraine
NATO is struggling to meet its spending goals. In a meeting this week, defence ministers are expected to sign off on new political guidance whereby NATO can simultaneously engage in a high intensity Article 5 conflict (where allies would have to defend each other) as well as an out of area, non-Article 5 event at the same time. This comes as the US increasingly shifts its focus to China.
Journalist Matt Lee asks John Kirby some awkward questions about NATO expansion and the fact that Ukraine isn’t part of NATO.
Bill and Rishi sitting in a tree. D-I-G-I-T-A-L ID's. First comes vaccine passports, second comes digital ID's, third comes CBDC's!
Remember who gives lots of money to the Guardian. (And the BBC while we are at it).
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants?q=Guardian%20media#committed_grants