According to the UC Berkeley Central Snow Laboratory at 6,900 on Donner Pass, CA, which has been keeping precise snowfall records since 1946, the Lake Tahoe area has officially reached the title of third snowiest winter in recorded history as of today, March 13. The UCB Snow Lab has seen 651 of snowfall this season so far. "Another 13.2" (33.5 cm) of #snow over the last 24 hours has taken us to the third snowiest winter on record at the lab! We now have 651 (1653 cm) from Oct 1 to present." - UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, 3/13/23

UC physicist explores mysteries of strange metals. International team finds unusual electrical behavior in experiments. Physicists at the University of Cincinnati are learning more about the bizarre behavior of "strange metals," which operate outside the normal rules of electricity. Theoretical physicist Yashar Komijani, an assistant professor in UC's College of Arts and Sciences, contributed to an international experiment using a strange metal made from an alloy of ytterbium, a rare earth metal. Physicists in a lab in Hyogo, Japan, fired radioactive gamma rays at the strange metal to observe its unusual electrical behavior. Led by Hisao Kobayashi with the University of Hyogo and RIKEN, the study was published in the journal Science. The experiment revealed unusual fluctuations in the strange metal's electrical charge. "The idea is that in a metal, you have a sea of electrons moving in the background on a lattice of ions," Komijani said. "But a marvelous thing happens with quantum...

This is a winter we'll all be talking about for a long time to come. Dodge Ridge Mountain Resort located near Pinecrest, CA, broke its all-time season snowfall record today on March 13 with 654 of snow this season so far.

There has been an avalanche of information and numerous theories circulating the past few days about the fate of a bank in California know as SVB (Silicon Valley Bank). SVB was the 16th largest bank in the US until it abruptly failed and went into insolvency on March 10th. The impetus for the collapse of the bank is tied to a $2 billion liquidity loss on bond sales which caused the institution's stock value to plummet over 60%, triggering a bank run by customers fearful of losing some or most of their deposits. There are many fine articles out there covering the details of the SVB situation, but what I want to talk about more is the root of it all. The bank's shortfalls are not really the cause of the crisis, they are a symptom of a wider liquidity drought that I predicted here at Alt-Market months ago, including the timing of the event. First, though, let's discuss the core issue, which is fiscal tightening and the Federal Reserve. In my article 'The Fed's Catch-22 Taper Is A...

Mozambique and Malawi on Monday were counting the cost of Tropical Storm Freddy, which killed more than 100 people, injured scores and left a trail of destruction as it ripped through southern Africa for the second time in a month over the weekend. Freddy is one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere and could be the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, according to the World Meteorological Organization. It pummelled central Mozambique on Saturday, ripping roofs off buildings and bringing widespread flooding around the port of Quelimane, before moving inland towards Malawi with torrential rains that caused landslides.

A 12-year-old boy died of a dog bite in Amman a few weeks ago. The child's family said that their son was bitten by a dog in the head around 25 days ago in the Qweismeh area, east of the capital, Amman. In a previous statement, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Administration Tawfiq Krishan said that the rising issue of stray dogs will be solved in coordination with administrative governors and mayors. Notably, Jordan has seen a rise in stray dogs' attacks during the past few months which caused great controversy regarding the manner in which the issue should be solved.

In yet another incident of a stray dog attack in Telangana, a five-year-old child died on Sunday. Though he was rushed to hospital, he succumbed to the injuries. As per the details of the incident that took place in Khammam district, Telangana, the child Banoth Bharath become a victim of a stray dog attack when he was playing with his friends on Sunday evening. Despite the efforts of his parents, B Ravinder and Sandhya, Bharath sustained severe injuries before being taken to a private hospital in Khammam. Doctors advised shifting him to NIMS in Hyderabad, but the child passed away en route near Suryapet, Telangana. The grieving parents of the child have returned to Putani thanda of Raghunathapalem Mandal, Khammam, and performed the last rites on Monday.

We received 103 reports about a fireball seen over CT, DE, MA, MD, NH, NY, PA, RI and VT on Sunday, March 12th 2023 around 01:01 UT. For this event, we received one video and one photo.

Local media reports say two football players died after being struck by lightning while playing a match in Kisii county in western Kenya. Two other players were taken to the hospital for emergency treatment after they got injuries during the tournament over the weekend. A football federation official (Evans Akang'a - chairman of the Kitutu Chache North Football Kenya Federation) was quoted by the Daily Nation saying the teams were playing a friendly match when it started raining. Akang'a said, "it is quite unfortunate that they lost their lives while playing a game that they loved most. As federation officials, we send our condolences to the affected families." Akang'a urged the authorities to install lightning arrestors on public buildings including schools and churches to reduce the occurrence of such incidents.

An earthquake measuring 6.3 magnitude on the Richter scale has struck eastern Papua New Guinea. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said that the epicentre of the earthquake occurred at a depth of 211 km, 456 km northwest of the capital, Port Moresby. There were no reports of casualties or material damage due to the earthquake. Papua New Guinea is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region that extends along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, and is characterised by high activity of earthquakes and volcanoes. The last earthquake struck northwest of the Kimbe town in Papua New Guinea on Mar 1, with a magnitude of 6.5 without causing material damage or human losses.

Silicon Valley Bank, the second-largest U.S. bank to collapse, had recently been putting effort into multiple LGBTQ diversity programs, including a "safe space," just before the institution folded. As reported by the New York Post, the company spent money on a month-long LGBTQ pride campaign and a new online resource for LGBTQ youth spearheaded by Jay Ersapah, head of Financial Risk Management at the bank's UK branch. "As a queer person of color and a first-generation immigrant from a working-class background, there were not many role models for me to 'see' growing up," said Ersapah of the diversity and inclusion initiatives. Comment: This is definitely where you want the focus to be for your bank.

BuzzFeed, Inc. announced financial results for the full year and fourth quarter on Monday, with the media company reporting a huge net loss. The report also revealed that the California-based company kept a majority of its cash and cash equivalents at the recently-defunct Silicon Valley Bank. The statement went on to quote a joint release from the US Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that says that depositors would be fully protected from the bank's folding. Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed Founder & CEO admitted that the fourth quarter was particularly difficult for the company, writing: "There's no denying that 2022 was a tough year for digital media. The challenges we faced in Q4 are also impacting us in Q1 2023, and it is clear we have more work to do to realize the full potential of our combined brand portfolio."

Famed investor Michael Burry shredded the executives formerly in charge of Silicon Valley Bank on Sunday as the tech lender's sudden collapse prompted fears of a systemic meltdown. Burry, the hedge fund boss made famous in the 2015 film "The Big Short," likened the current banking sector crisis to conditions the market experienced when the dotcom bubble burst in 2000 and the US housing market imploded in 2008. "2000, 2008, 2023. It is always the same," Burry said in a now-deleted tweet on Sunday. "People full of hubris and greed take stupid risks, and fail. Money is then printed. Because it works so well."

An Oregon man accused of murder is going viral after footage posted to social media showed him fleeing police and escaping the courthouse. Edi Villalobos, 28, who is charged with murdering 33-year-old Artemio Guzman-Olvera, fled the Washington County Courthouse on Feb. 27 during the pretrial jury selection, according to a report. Footage from security cameras shows Villalobos being escorted into a courtroom by two officers who placed him in a chair and removed his handcuffs and leg shackles in accordance with state law.

Formal scientific institutions took a battering during the pandemic, and deservedly so. From the wildly inaccurate predictions of SAGE modellers to the denial of natural immunity by signatories of the John Snow Memorandum, 'Science' (uppercase 's') has not had a good three years. A particularly striking illustration of this is citation patterns in the scientific literature. If things were working well, the best studies would get cited the most. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case: citations have flowed disproportionately to studies that uphold The Narrative. In June, 2020, researchers from Imperial College London (including our old friend Neil Ferguson) published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature titled 'Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe'. They concluded - on the basis of a complex model-fitting exercise - that lockdowns had saved the lives of 3.1 million people across 11 European countries. That's right, 3.1 million...

Dr. Susan Bradley, a Canadian psychiatrist and pioneer in child gender dysphoria treatment, came out against the popular model of affirming children's transgender identities and putting them on puberty blockers a practice she was once involved in in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Bradley started a pediatric gender clinic in 1975 aimed at treating children with gender dysphoria a deep sense of discomfort with one's body and biological sex in which she offered a therapy-focused approach; most patients outgrew their feelings of being transgender over time, she told the DCNF. Around 2000, the clinic began prescribing puberty blockers to gender-dysphoric children as a way to alleviate their distress, a model which has since become widely adopted by medical establishments around the world, including in the U.S. Bradley, who is now in her early eighties, expressed regret that the clinic had participated in the administration of puberty blockers for gender...

The contamination of mRNA vaccines with DNA is far greater than initially thought at up to 35%, and the DNA's role in inducing human cells to produce the spike protein long term has been confirmed, according to the latest research. Earlier this month, the Daily Sceptic reported on the work of Dr. Kevin McKernan and his team who had subjected the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to deep sequencing analysis and found alarming levels of DNA contaminants known as plasmids. These are small circular DNA molecules that in principle can self-replicate in bacterial and human cells and induce the cell to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein long term. Each vaccine dose was found to contain billions of these plasmids. The Moderna vaccine appeared to contain DNA contamination at around the 'safe' level set by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the equivalent of one part per 3,000 mRNA molecules, though it's not clear how safe this level really is. The Pfizer vaccine, on the other...

In an exclusive interview with The Cradle, Russia's top macroeconomics strategist criticizes Moscow's slow pace of financial reform and warns there will be no new global currency without Beijing. The headquarters of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) in Moscow, linked to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is arguably one of the most crucial nodes of the emerging multipolar world. That's where I was received by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev - who was previously interviewed in detail by The Cradle - for an exclusive, expanded discussion on the geoeconomics of multipolarity. Glazyev was joined by his top economic advisor Dmitry Mityaev, who is also the secretary of the Eurasian Economic Commission's (EEC) science and technology council. The EAEU and EEC are formed by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. The group is currently engaged in establishing a series of free trade agreements with nations from West Asia to Southeast Asia. Our...

Just occasionally, a window is opened onto the truth of how the 'system' works. Momentarily, it stands naked in its degeneracy. We avert our eyes, yet, it is a revelation (though it shouldn't be). For, we see clearly how tawdry has been the attire which clothed it. 'Liberalism's' seeming success - almost wholly an ephemeral PR production - serves only to make its underlying internal contradictions more obvious; more 'in your face' - much less credible. This unravelling speaks to a failure to satisfactorily resolve liberal modernity's inherent contradictions. Or, rather its unravelling derives from the choice to resolve a waning legitimacy, through an ever more totalistic and ideological reaching for hegemony. One such window has been the sordid affair of the UK pandemic lockdowns - as revealed by a paper trail leak of 100,000 ministerial WhatsApp messages, managing the lockdown project. What did they show (in the words here of pro-government leading political commentators)? An ugly...

What lies behind this week's scenes in Tbilisi and why was Russia again used as a scapegoat? Tbilisi's main street, Rustaveli Avenue, was blocked for several days this week as thousands of people chanted anti-government slogans in front of the parliament building and sang the Georgian national anthem. Even more protesters gathered at the square in the evenings. By nightfall, the enraged crowd was throwing firecrackers, stones, and Molotov cocktails at the police, attempting to take down an iron fence and storm the parliament. The police used water cannons to promptly put out the fires and showered the crowds with water, at the same time spraying tear gas to disperse those present. What led to this violent confrontation is perhaps difficult to understand from the perspective of a Western reader. It wasn't a "civil society" uprising in the sense you might find, for example, in a country like France. Instead, it was organized by people whose livelihoods were threatened by the proposed...

Germany is facing an inevitable economic decline after losing its access to Russian energy, but cannot do anything about it because it is not a sovereign nation, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council has claimed. "Germany tried for many years to build its economy on a combination of cheap Russian energy and advanced German technologies. Like no one else, it realizes that the terrorist attack against the [Nord Stream pipelines] will definitely cause the German economy to decline further," Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview published in Argumenti i Fakti newspaper on Monday. The advantages that German businesses enjoyed by getting access to Russian fuel has long irritated the governments of the US and the UK, he continued. But Berlin is not at liberty to continue cooperating with Moscow, "because the German nation is not independent."

Ukrainian polar explorers have repainted a signpost at the country's Antarctic station, commemorating the country's "allies," as well as daubing a ceremonial signpost in the red and black colors of the WW2-era Nazi collaborator Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The makeover was announced by the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine in a Facebook post on Saturday, with the agency praising the explorers for their "incredible job." The signpost is located at the Akademik Vernadsky polar station, formerly known as Station Faraday before it was transferred to Kiev by the UK in the mid-1990s. The signpost had remained untouched for some 20 years and direly needed to be repaired, the agency explained.

Brigitte Macron, the First Lady of France, filed a complaint last year against two women who uploaded a YouTube video titled "Brigitte Macron is a man." The video alleged that Brigitte had a gender reassignment at 18. On Wednesday, the French newspaper Le Point reported that Brigitte's complaint against the two women was "voided" by a Paris Judge. In its decision, consulted by AFP, the court declared void the summons issued by Brigitte Macron for invasion of privacy and image rights, considering that the facts she denounced should have been qualified of public defamation. Brigitte Macron, her brother, and the three children of the First Lady had assigned two women on February 15, 2022, one presenting herself as a "medium," the other as an "independent journalist." They asked the court to condemn these two women to pay them damages for having broadcast on the YouTube channel of the "medium", on December 10, 2021, "a perfectly eccentric thesis" according to which Brigitte Macron,...

In a recent interview, Nicholas Burns, the US Ambassador to China, after labelling China the 'threat', bluntly said: "We're the leader in this [Indo-Pacific] region. [And We're] staying". The interviewer, US Congressman Mike Gallagher, described America's new Cold War as no polite tennis match, but an existential struggle for life in the 21st century. President Xi's earlier attempt to reach a 'new dtente' with the US during the November G20 at Bali -- effectively an attempt to explore whether a minimum modus vivendi with US were possible -- is over. The hysteria over the Chinese balloon; the increasing evidence that Ukraine is descending to a dbacle for the Biden Administration in the Bakhmut area; and the coarse threats of 'consequences' for China were it to support Russia militarily (and at the very moment when Washington was promising more weapons for Taiwan), were too much for Beijing.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) admitted on Sunday that her administration's pandemic-era lockdown policies went too far, such as her April 2020 executive order barring most stores from selling gardening supplies, including seeds and plants, to Americans who wanted to grow their own fruits and vegetables. "There were moments where, you know, we had to make some decisions that in retrospect don't make a lot of sense, right? If you went to the hardware store, you could go to the hardware store but we didn't want people to be congregating around the garden supplies," Whitmer told CNN's Chris Wallace. "People said 'oh, she's outlawed seeds.' It was February in Michigan, no one was planting anyway," she continued (except it was in April). "But that being said, some of those policies I look back and think, you know, maybe that was a little more than what we needed to do."

The latest headlines, of course, are all pointing toward the ripple effect of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and they should be. This banking metaphor for the tech sector in particular and the previously described disaster in California as a whole or the matter of banking risk as a theme, require understanding and attention, provided below. Once we get past a forensic look at the data and forces which explain SVB's demise, we quickly discover that SVB is itself just a symbol of a much larger financial (and banking) crisis which ties together nearly all of the major macro forces we've been tracking since Powell began his QE to QT quest to be Volcker-reborn. That is, we confirm that everything comes back to the Fed and bond market in general and the UST market in particular. But as I've argued for years, and will say again now: The bond market is the thing. By the end of this brief report, we also discover that SVB is just the beginning; contagion inside and outside of the banking sector...

Ukraine's general mobilization process has become shrouded in scandal as the authorities become increasingly desperate in their hunt for new recruits... Last year, military conscription became an issue in both Russia and Ukraine. However, the extent has been completely different in the two countries. While in Russia the mobilization was partial, lasting barely more than a month and affecting around 300,000 people, according to official figures - a significant part of whom already had military experience - a completely different picture has developed in Ukraine. Kiev instituted a general conscription drive which has been in force for more than a year. The exact number of those taken to the armed forces during this time is not known for certain and the process has been accompanied by numerous scandals. Cases where law enforcement officers have applied force when handing out conscription notices and illegally delivered men to enlistment offices have given rise to public discontent....

A fascinating new report in Nikkei Asia has unearthed and detailed the findings of an elite Chinese state-linked think tank which reports directly to the People's Liberation Army. Nikkei in the context of examining the timing and motives behind China's 12-point peace plan said that Chinese military experts are predicting the Russia-Ukraine war will end this summer. To review, the 12-point plan urged implementation of a ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations toward a permanent peaceful settlement, and was unveiled on the one-year Feb.24 anniversary of the war. But the Nikkei report asserts there's specific rationale driving Beijing: The reason for China's sudden change can be traced back to a report issued two months earlier by a top think tank in Beijing. The Academy of Military Sciences [AMS] reports directly to the People's Liberation Army. Although it cannot be found on a map, the institution is located in Beijing's Haidian district, which itself is home to the ruins of...

On March 8, Representative Matt Gaetz introduced a resolution that would have forced congressional oversight to be applied to the continuation of America's military occupation of Syria. In total, 47 Republicans joined with 56 Democrats - primary members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) - in favor of the legislation. It also had support from Robert Ford, who was the Obama administration's ambassador to Syria and formerly a major hawk in favor of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "Syria is my leadoff hitter. We're going to take a trip around the globe. We may go to Yemen. We may have stops in Niger. We may have stops in Sudan. Maybe ultimately, we'll end in Ukraine," Gaetz told The Intercept about the bill, implying it would not be the last of its kind in ending American interventionism around the globe. Despite this unexpected bipartisan support, it was still shot down by the overwhelming majority of status quo hawks in Congress, representing a major lost...

Dmitry Medvedev says the country should be called "Bandera-Reich" Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed renaming Ukraine after notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. His suggestion came after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told his government to consider a proposal to change Russia's name. On Friday, Zelensky instructed authorities to "thoroughly study" the proposal to officially rename Russia to 'Moscovia.' He was reacting to an online petition, which argued that the name 'Russia' provided grounds for "further encroachment" on the history of Kievan Rus, a medieval state from which both Russia and Ukraine trace their origin. Many Ukrainian nationalists claim that their homeland is the only true heir of Rus. The name 'Moscovia' dates to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and was historically used by some authors to describe the Russian state. On Saturday, Medvedev, who served as Russian president between 2008 and 2012, and currently serves as deputy chairman of...

Authorities want to require vaccines in order to buy, sell, or trade. Christians are alarmed. Anyone else with a brain should be, too. The new totalitarianism is getting a test run in the wake of COVID-19. Across the globe, every person must submit to "health and safety." So long as officials "can save just one life," any draconian policy is justified. In response, millions of Christians are refusing the 'rona vaccine for fear it's the Mark of the Beast. Their refusal has invited waves of weaponized condescension from dogmatic doctors and Rainbow Xians alike. On September 9, Joe Biden demanded that the entire nation receive the jab young or old, with or without natural immunity. Addressing unvaxxed Americans, the nominal Catholic warned, "We've been patient. But our patience is wearing thin." For many Christians of all races and nationalities, the supposed president's aggressive tone carried the weight of prophecy fulfilled. They see present-day history as manifesting the Bible's...

Estonian authorities announced on Friday that politician Aivo Peterson had been arrested on suspicion of activities against the state, along with two other individuals whose names were not released. The Baltic country's security service detained Peterson in the town of Narva-Joesuu, on the border with Russia. Two Estonian citizens and one Russian national with permanent residence were detained, Security Police spokesman Harrys Puusepp confirmed to local media, identifying only Peterson by name. Puusepp did not offer any details about the charges against them, saying only that the state prosecutors were investigating them for "creating associations against the Estonian Republic." Peterson is a prominent member of Together (known in Estonian as Koos, and in Russian as Vmeste), a leftist political movement advocating the peaceful coexistence of Estonians and Russians. He ran for parliament as a candidate of the Estonian United Left in last week's election. His arrest amounts to...

A Concord, New Hampshire father, who was banned from occupying an elementary school's property, dressed up as Julius Caesar at a school board meeting on Monday to drive his claims that a public school district is "facilitating gender confusion." Michael Guglielmo said: "I am Caesar. Julius Caesar of Rome, the emperor. I am also a female. Does anybody here believe that? That I am Julius Caesar? Anybody believe that? No, of course not. It's ridiculous." Guglielmo called for the suspension of both Concord School District Superintendent Kathleen Murphy and Christa McAuliffe Elementary School Principal Kristen Gallo for "facilitating gender confusion" by allowing an art teacher who identifies with the LGBTQ community to continue teaching in the elementary school. Guglielmo has been outspoken about the art teacher, Silas Allard, who identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, for his decision to wear traditionally female clothing during the school day. He has also criticized Allard's...

Central bank digital currency (CBDC) will end human freedom. Don't fall for the assurances of safeguards, the promises of anonymity and of data protection. They are all deceptions and diversions to obscure the malevolent intent behind the global rollout of CBDC. Central Bank Digital Currency is the most comprehensive, far-reaching, authoritarian social control mechanism ever devised. Its "interoperability" will enable the CBDCs issued by various national central banks to be networked to form one, centralised global CBDC surveillance and control system. Should we allow it to prevail, CBDC will deliver the global governance of humanity into the hands of the bankers. CBDC is unlike any kind of "money" with which we are familiar. It is programmable and "smart contracts" can be written into its code to control the terms and conditions of the transaction. Policy decisions and broader policy agendas, restricting our lives as desired, can be enforced using CBDC without any need of...

We already rely on digital crutches in numerous aspects of our lives - will we delegate even our essential faculties to AI? Mankind's modern trajectory has been defined by several inflection points. The invention of electricity, the light bulb, the telegraph system, the computer and the Internet, among others, have all signaled new irreversible milestones in our modus vivendi. The recent introduction of ChatGPT may, however, prove to be more than an inflection point. It, and AI models like it, may be a permanent disruptor to our way of life; their bloopers and Wokist tantrums notwithstanding. Chat GPT is now the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Within two months of its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT managed to garner more than 100 million users. Its developer OpenAI, which began with 375 employees and thin revenue, is now valued at $30 billion and counting.

This bright bolide was spotted over Spain on March 12, at 2:24 local time (equivalent to 1:24 universal time). The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 53,000 km/h. The fireball overflew the region of Madrid and the province of Segovia (Spain). It began at an altitude of about 74 km over the locality of Pedrezuela (Madrid), moved northwest, and ended at a height of around 33 km over Navalilla (province of Segovia). This bright meteor was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN) from the meteor-observing stations located at Huelva, La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), and Sevilla. The event has been analyzed by the principal investigator of the SMART project: Dr. Jose M. Madiedo, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).

Over the weekend, when parsing through the carnage sweeping the US banking sector, we analyzed (above) which banks are facing the highest deposit-run risk in the aftermath of the SIVB - and now SBNY - failures, and focused on a handful of names who have the bulk of their funding in the form of deposits - deposits which are now suddenly at risk amid what seems to be a major bank run. JPM's Michael Cembalest - whose bank is poised to benefit the most from the ongoing carnage - chimed in with the following chart, which added an additional axis looking at loans plus securities as a % of total deposits, but which after the new BTFP bailout facility is irrelevant since the Fed and TSY are effectively backstopping unrealized losses on securities.

If a fiction writer turned this in, it would be rejected as too obvious. A couple of conservative authors were hoding a launch party for their new book about how the radical Left is poisoning the minds of young Americans with garbage and turning them into angry, irrational, violent thugs, when a gang of angry, irrational, violent young thugs crashed the party, assaulted a septuagenarian media mogul, and started throwing things around while screaming Leftist slogans. It looks as if the book's point has been made. Bethany Mandel and Karol Markowicz are the authors of Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, which as of this writing was Amazon's #1 bestseller in the Censorship & Politics category. On Wednesday night, Mandel and Markowicz held a book launch party in New York City. Among those who showed up for the shindig was Steve Forbes, the former presidential candidate and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, who arrived in time to see...

Ten years ago would you have ever thought we would be having this debate? Transsexual cosplay has somehow become the reigning social issue of our era, with trans activism taking precedence within government, public schools and even the corporate world. For reasons that defy logic the question of "trans rights" has superseded all other conflicts regarding civil liberties. A group that comprises less than 0.5% of the US population has been dictating the national discussion. Not only that, but there is reasonable suspicion that a majority of these people are not actually "trans" but are simply joining what they see as an opportunistic trend. Perhaps it's to get attention they feel they are entitled to. Perhaps it is a way to feel as if they are a part of something historically meaningful as they do little else with their lives. Perhaps it is a play to get special treatment and special protection under victim group status. Becoming trans is, after all, the easiest way for an otherwise...

Botches Marjorie Taylor Greene's name as well Joe Biden spoke in Philadelphia today regarding his plans to enact his plan to enact a $5.5 trillion tax hike on working families. His budget would also spend $2.2 trillion over the next decade, pushing America ever closer to full blown socialism. Biden also told another big lie, claiming Republicans want to defund the police. Democrats of course are the ones who want to do so.

A peer-reviewed paper initially approved and praised by a prestigious academic journal was suddenly rescinded without explanation. Its author, one of the world's top scholars on Ukraine-related issues, had marshaled overwhelming evidence to conclude Maidan protesters were killed by pro-coup snipers. The massacre by snipers of anti-government activists and police officers in Kiev's Maidan Square in late February 2014 was a defining moment in the US-orchestrated overthrow of Ukraine's elected government. The death of 70 protesters triggered an avalanche of international outrage that made President Viktor Yanukovych's downfall a fait accompli. Yet today these killings remain unsolved. Enter Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist at the University of Ottawa. For years, he marshaled overwhelming evidence demonstrating that the snipers were not affiliated with Yanukovych's government, but pro-Maidan operatives firing from protester-occupied buildings.

The flood, triggered by heavy rain over the past week, is worst in the remote Gulf of Carpentaria town of Burketown, about 1,300 miles northwest of state capital Brisbane. Dan McKinlay, chief executive of the local council responsible for Burketown, said on Sunday that 97 residents had been airlifted out in the past 48 hours. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology predicted water levels in the area would peak on Sunday. It said the flood had already topped a March 2011 record of 22.2 feet. The crisis comes after frequent flooding in Australia's east over the last two years due to a multi-year La Nina weather event, including once-in-a-century floods that hit remote areas in the neighboring Northern Territory, in January.

Olbermann tries to get Musk banned from Twitter, which Musk owns. Elon Musk managed to once again live under the skin of leftist news anchor turned demented shouty old man Keith Olbermann, after the Twitter CEO stated that Jacob Chansley, the so called "QAnon Shaman," had been "falsely portrayed in the media as a violent criminal." Musk first tweeted this:

A snowmobiler was killed in an avalanche yesterday, Sunday, March 12th. The group of three was riding in the Stanley Lake Creek drainage of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The victim was caught and carried while ascending a slope. They were buried over three feet deep. A nearby group of three riders responded to the avalanche, located the victim with a transceiver, and extricated them within 15 minutes. They performed CPR but resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the victim's friends and family. The USFS Sawtooth Avalanche Center will release additional information as it becomes available. The avalanche danger at the time of the accident was rated CONSIDERABLE. Visit www.sawtoothavalanche.com for information on current avalanche conditions. The fatality is the 16th avalanche-related death in the US this winter and the 28th in North America.

POLITICO reports there are growing differences between Washington and Kyiv. Over one year since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, there are growing differences between Washington and Kyiv on how to move forward in the conflict, POLITICO reported Sunday. One issue is over Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been locked in battle for over eight months. Biden administration officials think Ukraine has expended too many resources defending Bakhmut and worry it will impact their ability to launch a counteroffensive this spring, but officials in Kyiv have decided to keep fighting for the city.

His comments echo previous statements condemning transgender ideology as a fundamental disorder being forced on the youth. Pope Francis spoke out against gender theory in a recent interview, echoing his past comments expressing disapproval of transgender ideology. "Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations," Francis said in the conversation.

On Saturday, Jack Posobiec posted a screenshot of a now-deleted 2018 tweet from Greta Thunberg, which linked to an article predicting humans would go extinct by 2023 due to climate change. "A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years." Thunberg's post read from 2018.

Gates adds that it is not realistic to expect that the climate crisis could be addressed by personal choices such as giving up eating meat. Microsoft founder Bill Gates reiterated his view last week in the contentious debate about whether individual sacrifice can make a tangible difference in the fight against climate change, casting doubt on the idea that living an "impoverished lifestyle" or becoming a vegetarian could put a dent in rising greenhouse gas emissions. "In climate movements, you can get this 'Hey, we've been consuming too much,' and 'Hey, maybe we shouldn't travel anymore,'" Gates said last week in remarks delivered in India. "I don't think we can count on people living an impoverished lifestyle as a solution to climate."

Three people reportedly died after being struck by lightning while they were watching football on Saturday afternoon at Ntara village, Kavango West region. Two days earlier, a teenager was also struck dead at the Ncamagoro village in the same region. "The incident at Ntara village occurred at around 17h00 when five people were standing watching soccer at Ntara sports field when they were struck by lighting. Two of the victims survived, while three others died on the spot," said Kavango West regional police commander Julia Sakuwa-Neo. The deceased persons in the Ntara incident were identified as 43-year-old Maseka Joseph Kasinga, Haingura Paula Mbunze (16) and her 11-month-old daughter Lontine Ndambu, whom she was carrying on her back at the time of the incident.

A shocking and horrifying incident made headlines where two siblings were mauled to death by start dogs in Delhi. The police on Monday informed that two brothers, aged 7 and 5 were killed in stray dog attack in two separate incidents in the Vasant Kunj area of South Delhi. A case has been registered and the probe is underway. Two siblings killed by stray dogs in separate incidents Delhi Police informed that the first incident took place on Friday, March 10, 2023, when the elder sibling, aged 7 years went missing. His body was recovered later with animal bites-like injuries. '2 siblings, aged 7 and 5 were killed allegedly in stray dog attack in 2 separate incidents in the Vasant Kunj area. A 7-year-old boy went missing on 10th March & his body was recovered later with animal bite-like injuries,' Delhi Police said.

Josef Mengele the Nazi "Angel of Death" was hounded to the ends of the Earth by the US and other Western governments in the aftermath of WWII for his sadistic medical experimentation on Jews in his custody during the war. That's how America used to treat psychopathic war criminals. Now, America pays them the highest salary in the whole government, fellates them on television, and lavishes them with $100K per speech in retirement. We are speaking, of course, of the one and only COVID Warlord Anthony Fauci.

Residents of Rwamuyoora village in Rubanda district, western Uganda were on Sunday afternoon gripped with fear and shock after lightning killed three people: A father and his two sons. The incident happened during an afternoon downpour at Rwamuyora cell, Nyarurambi parish, Muko sub-county. According to a statement released by Kigezi region police spokesperson Elly Maate, the incident occurred at about 2:00 pm on Sunday as Ambrose Kanunu, 35, was in the main house with his two sons identified as Justus Asiimwe, 7 and Arnold Habomugisha, 5.

The 'Covid Origins Story' reemerged recently with FBI Director Christopher Wray stating that the pandemic "most likely" stemmed from a "lab incident" in Wuhan, China. This energized Republicans' Covid probes, resulting in unanimous Congressional support for "publishing all government files on Covid's origins." If such happens, you can bet that all resulting "revelations" will be "dynamically shaped" to smear China. Together with "Balloon-gate," this is grist to the mill of "containing China," something President Xi of China this week, for the first time, explicitly stated is the US' "grand geopolitical strategy" for thwarting China's rise. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has brokered a tentative peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, something the US had nothing to do with, and which signals diminishing American influence in the Middle East, the "energy spigot" of the whole world... Running Time: 01:11:49 Download: MP3 49.3 MB

The Cradle reveals confidential clauses of the agreement struck between Tehran and Riyadh, which was reached courtesy of Beijing. Under Chinese auspices, on 10 March in Beijing, longtime regional competitors Iran and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement to restore diplomatic relations, after a break of seven years. In its most optimistic reading, the deal can be seen as a historic strategic agreement, reflecting major changes underway in West Asia and the world. At worst, it can be characterized as an "armistice agreement" between two important rivals, that will provide a valuable space for direct, regular communications. The Sino-Saudi-Iranian joint statement on Friday carried strong implications beyond the announcement of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Riyadh, severed since 2016. The statement is very clear: The embassies of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic Iran will reopen in less than two months. Respect for the sovereignty of States. Activating...

US regulators unveiled emergency measures on Sunday to shore up the banking system and took control of another bank, as they moved to stem contagion from the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. The Federal Reserve announced a new lending facility aimed at providing additional funding to eligible depository institutions to ensure that "banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors". In a statement, the US central bank added it was "prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise". The facility is part of a broader effort by regulators, including Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Fed chair Jay Powell and Martin Gruenberg of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to reassure customers that their money is safe.

Protesters in Bilbao underline that they are against NATO's strategy, against military support for Kiev, and against the increase of EU countries' military budgets. More than 2,000 people took to the streets of the northern Spanish city of Bilbao as part of a march in support of Russia, a representative of an anti-NATO movement told RIA Novosti. "Russia has been striving for peace since 2014. But the West leaves Russia no other choice. For this reason, we express our solidarity with Moscow," the representative said.

Ukrainian refugees in Poland will have to cover half of their accommodation costs from March onwards, according to plans the European Commission says it was not notified of. From 1 March, Ukrainian refugees that stay in Poland for more than 120 days and live in common housing facilities have to cover half of their accommodation costs with a cap of 40 zlotys (8.50) per day. Vulnerable groups, including children, retirees, pregnant women, single parents, parents with children under 12, and people in a particularly difficult financial situation, are exempted. Comment: Isn't that likely to be most of the refugees since fighting age men were barred from leaving?

American strategic bomber B-52H Stratofortress worked out the possibility of launching a missile attack on St. Petersburg Yesterday, 06: 59 109 The United States continues the practice of provocations near the Russian borders, this time the Americans have worked out the possibility of launching a missile attack on St. Petersburg using the B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber. Data on the flight route of the American strategist was provided by the Flightradar service. The US Air Force B-52H strategic bomber worked out an attack on the Russian northern capital, entering the city from the Baltic Sea near Gogland Island, while being in neutral airspace. According to the service, the American bomber took off from the territory of Poland, after which it flew over the Baltic Sea towards the Russian city, simulated a missile attack over the Gulf of Finland, after which it turned around and went to the base through the Baltic airspace. During the "attack" the American strategist was at a...

The Biden administration is expected to soon push ahead with a massive northern Alaska oil drilling project that is forecasted to create thousands of jobs and 600 million barrels of oil over its 30-year lifespan, according to multiple reports. Senior administration officials have signed off on three of the five drilling sites proposed by oil company ConocoPhillips as part of its Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve located in North Slope Borough, Alaska, Bloomberg reported Friday evening. ConocoPhillips previously stated that, for the project to remain economic viability, the federal government would need to approve at least three of the sites. The Department of Interior (DOI) will publish the final decision on the Willow Project, but President Biden and senior White House officials have been actively involved in overseeing the approval process. Industry groups, Alaska lawmakers and local communities urged the president to approve the project for its economic benefits...

The American exit from Kabul might be taste of the future for officials in Kiev... In the spirit of better late than never, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has published an extensive investigation into the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) following the US withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021. The report not only offers, at-times shocking, detail on the level of Washington's betrayal, but important lessons for America's international allies today. If only you knew how bad things really are The ANDSF's collapse was quite a sight to behold. The vast fighting force, constructed at a cost of $90 billion over 20 years, seemed to vanish even faster than the American aircraft escaping Kabul airport. This is despite US officials endlessly claiming in the leadup to the West's wholesale pullout from Afghanistan that the government was more than capable of defending itself without foreign support. However, SIGAR's...

US-funded biological research laboratories are continuing to operate in Ukraine in spite of official statements indicating that they had been 'deactivated', the Russian Defense Ministry said in a Friday report on Washington's international pathogen research programs. According to the commander of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Moscow has obtained documents that suggest Kiev has continued to coordinate with the Pentagon in the military biological field, including the transfer of pathogenic biomaterials. Kirillov pointed to an official appeal from 'ch2m-hill' - a key Pentagon contractor - to Ukrainian companies participating in a "program to counter particularly dangerous pathogens in Ukraine." The document reports on the continuation of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA) biological program in Ukraine and outlines future tasks, such as consolidating collections of dangerous pathogens and deploying systems for...

We are starting to get a better, a more precise sense of what it means when Joe Biden brags about the strongest and most equitable economic recovery in modern history. What it means is it could be time to buy gold and stockpile food. Oh, there's a deal on Russian steel case and then go pick up a pallet. Just kidding, sort of. Yesterday, some of the biggest banks in this country, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley collectively lost more than $50 billion in market value in one day. That's quite a hit. On the other hand, those banks still exist, and you can't say that for Silicon Valley Bank. As of this morning, Silicon Valley Bank or SVB has gone under completely. That makes the second-biggest bank failure in the history of this country, and that's significant. SVB financed nearly half of all venture-backed health care and technology companies in the United States. It also apparently held significant cash reserves for some of the biggest cryptocurrencies, and it's...

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was informed on Friday that its monks and clergy had until March 29 to vacate the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, after a government commission decided they were violating the terms of their lease from the state. The church has refused, saying there are no legal grounds for the eviction. Founded in 1051, the Pechersk Lavra ('monastery of the caves') is considered the most prominent Orthodox Christian site in Ukraine. Legally it is the property of the state, as a national historic preserve, and administered by the UOC under a 2013 agreement with the government. According to a memo from the Ministry of Culture, published by multiple Ukrainian outlets, a commission established by President Vladimir Zelensky's decree in December had determined that the UOC is in violation of the deal, and therefore must turn the monastery over by the end of March. The UOC does not intend to leave, however. Its head, Metropolitan Kliment, told the outlet Liga: "The document does...

The 5,000-year-old swords found 43 years ago during the excavations in the old mud-brick palace structure in Malatya Arslantepe Mound are the oldest swords in the world. Many archaeologists believed that the earliest swords only dated to around 1600 or 1500 BCE before the discovery of a cache of swords at the archaeological site of Arslantepe in Turkey. The nine swords from the archaeological site of Arslantepe (Melid) attest to the use of this weapon for the first time in the world - at least a millennium before the already-known examples. They date back to the Early Bronze Age (c. 33rd to 31st centuries). In the 1980s, Marcella Frangipane's team at Rome University discovered a cache of nine swords and daggers dating all the way back to 3300 BCE. Frangipane declared the swords of Arslantepe the world's oldest and first swords ever discovered. They are made of an alloy of arsenic and copper. Three of the swords were exquisitely inlaid with silver. These weapons have a total length...

A Japanese astronomer captured the telltale flash of a meteorite impacting the moon, causing a brief flash on our celestial neighbor's nightside. Daichi Fujii, curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum, recorded the event using cameras set to monitor the moon. The time of the flash was 20:14:30.8 Japan Standard Time (7:14 a.m. EST, or 1114 GMT) on Feb. 23. The meteorite appears to have struck near Ideler L crater, slightly northwest of Pitiscus crater, Fujii said.

Chinese officials want to bring in lockdowns to combat the flu, leaving many furious about a prospect of returning to the strict restrictions seen during the Covid-19 outbreak. The city of Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province in central China, said it may enforce lockdowns 'when necessary' if an outbreak of the common flu virus poses a 'severe threat'. The emergency response plan for the city published on Wednesday is intended to combat the rising number of influenza cases in the country, as Covid-19 cases continue to fall. Authorities in the Chinese city have not suggested that a new set of lockdowns are imminent, but locals in the area have still dubbed the plans excessive. China's zero-Covid lockdown plans were implemented throughout the country during the pandemic and were seen as extreme by many. The plan by the Xi'an local government accounts for four levels of flu outbreak. If the common virus was to reach a critically high level, lockdowns would likely be reinstated.