MBW - 3/24/2022
Good morning friends. It’s a sunny Thursday from where I am standing. I hope you are having good day. Let’s get to the digest:
News Briefing
•European leaders are meeting later today for G7, Nato and European Union summits, one month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. US President Joe Biden will be joining them and is expected to announce a raft of new sanctions against Russia.
•NATO head tells Russia it cannot win nuclear war. "Russia must understand that it can never win a nuclear war," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on the eve of the summit "NATO is not part of the conflict. It provides support to Ukraine but isn't part of the conflict." More on this here.
•An intercepted Russian radio chatter reveals that soldiers on the ground are under fire, out of fuel and with no air support:
•Seems like another Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was foiled:
•Some crazy footage from Ukraine:
•Putin's foreign minister Lavrov says freezing Russia's currency reserves was 'thievery' and that the Kremlin didn't expect such harsh sanctions. More on this here.
•In other news, Tesla inaugurated the opening of its first European Gigafactory in Berlin. During the ceremony Elon Musk and German Chancellor Scholz delivered some locally made Model Ys. Here’s some drone footage from the event:
@elonmusk said Giga Berlin is gonna be a center of excellence for sustainable energy. It looks amazing inside.•A birth control pill for men could start human trials this year. Scientists are still racing to create the first male contraceptive that isn’t a condom or surgery. In new preliminary research, a team says they’ve developed a non-hormonal form of male birth control, one that kept lab mice sterile for four to six weeks with seemingly no side effects. More on this here.
•A man with complete paralysis used brain waves to ask for some music from Tool (the band). Scientists were able to communicate with a late-stage ALS patient using a brain implant and neural signals. Among the few requests he painstakingly communicated was a desire to listen to a Tool album. More on this here.
Roman Abramovich (part 1)
Let’s talk a bit about the most famous Russian oligarch in London, Roman Abramovich. The billionaire was sanctioned by the UK government because of his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr Abramovich's assets have been frozen and he has been disqualified as a director of Chelsea Football Club.
His lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality though. But how true is that?
Born in 1966, Abramovich lost both his parents by the time he was three, and he was brought up by relatives in Russia’s freezing north. After a brief period in the army, he studied as an engineer, and worked first as a mechanic.
In Russia’s perestroika period, when economic liberalisation allowed for small businesses, Abramovich ran a children’s toy manufacturer, famously selling plastic ducks from his Moscow apartment.
Then he had a transformational meeting with Berezovsky, on a Caribbean cruise in December 1994, Abramovich was “a moderately successful businessman”. Already rich from his dealings in the automotive sector, and politically connected, Berezovsky was the ideal business partner for Abramovich. Berezovsky proposed Abramovich’s idea to the then president, Boris Yeltsin: merging a crude oil producer with a refinery, and handing control of the enlarged business to Abramovich and Berezovsky. In exchange, Berezovsky would use revenues from the new oil company to fund a TV station, ORT, to broadcast pro-Yeltsin propaganda.
Yeltsin created Sibneft by decree in August 1995, when Abramovich was still only 29. The new huge oil concern was sold to Abramovich in a series of auctions whose price have been rigged, with other bidders discouraged by various means. Abramovich bought 90% of Sibneft for approximately $240m, using only $18.8m of his own capital. (to be continued)
Incels
The Secret Service is known for its protection of presidents, but the agency has long studied behavioral threats which now includes type of misogynistic extremism known as the involuntary celibacy movement. They recently published a report on it which you can read here.
What are incels? In the late 90s, a Canadian woman created an Internet peer support forum for people who wanted a sexual relationship but were unable to find a partner. She popularized the term ‘involuntary celibacy’ as a nonjudgmental way for lonely people to identify as a group. Over time the term would be shortened to incel. As the community grew, the ideas expressed in the forum changed and by the early 2000s some of the more dominant voices were young heterosexual men with vindictive and aggressive views towards women. Although the original developer took down her website, the community continued to spread across forums. Today, the term incel is often used to describe men who feel unable to obtain romantic or sexual relationships with women, to which they feel entitled.
Incel terrorism has been a thing especially in the US and Canada for while now. Here’s a list of incel-related crimes:
-A shooting at an Arizona mall targeting couples, a machete attack at a Toronto massage parlor and a 23-year-old Virginia man who blew his hand off while tinkering with a bomb that federal authorities believe was meant to target a cheerleading performance.
-In the case of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others in a shooting, stabbing and vehicle ramming spree near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Three women were shot outside of a sorority house. Before executing his deadly attack, Rodger bemoaned not being able to find a girlfriend on social media, documenting his hatred for women, interracial couples and planed retribution.
-A 2018 van attack in Toronto left 10 people dead and 16 injured — the deadliest incident linked to the incel movement. Witnesses saw 28-year-old Alek Minassian plow into pedestrians, ranging from 22 to 94 years old, minutes after posting on Facebook: "the incel rebellion has already begun." The attacker, convicted on 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder, had a history of praising Elliot Rodger online.
And the list goes on.
CDC Covid Death Toll & Masking School Children
The CDC reported a total of 966,575 deaths from COVID-19 after it corrected the data, which reduced the death tallies accross all age-groups, including children. It made adjustments to its COVID Data Tracker's mortality data on March 14 because its algorithm was accidentally counting deaths that were not COVID-19-related.
The reduction cut the CDC's estimate of deaths in children by 24% to 1,341 as of March 18. Children accounted for about 19% of all COVID-19 cases, but less than 0.26% of cases resulted in death, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The CDC now advises that children should be in school and can be without masks. This issue of masking school children has been very polarizing in the US. Here’s the reaction of school children in Las Vegas after teacher tells them they no longer have to wear masks in class:
Pics, vids & memes
Kitty cutting onions.
The National Geographic Picture of the Year. The black images are actually the shadows of the zebras. Zoom in to see the zebras.
KAMALA HARRIS: "The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time...there is such great significance to the passage of time."Ah yes, the passage of time. Very significant indeed.
My wife.
Mediterranean mood.
Epic lighting.
Silver linings.
Old but still good.
That was it for today as well folks. See you tomorrow. Peace.