so much trouble in the USA

[mellowtigger]

There's so much trouble in the USA recently that it's impossible to pick a single topic for Moody Monday.

• Minneapolis homeless people freezing in winter? Yes, of course, after all of the camp evictions. What did you expect from our cold winters? It's -20C/-5F outside (wind chill -29C/-20F) as I type this blog post.
  
  
• Police murdering citizens? Yes, more of that. I never watched the Tyre Nichols video, because I learned all I ever needed to know from George Floyd's murder here in Minneapolis. The key point (ignoring the sheer brutality of the roving gang mentality and the follow up lies) is that the officers knew they were behaving badly while they were doing it. "Police reform" went nowhere.
  
  
• Police corruption? Yes, more of that. A sheriff was caught destroying evidence of misconduct for at least a decade. To be fair, corruption is also a problem in the UK.
  
  
• Climate change? We learned that oil giant Exxon knew about the global disaster of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, even back in the 1970s.
  
  
• Political corruption? Ohio Republicans redefined gas as "green energy". I'm sure they'll get rich bringing the worst climate outcomes to all of us. (Liberal efforts to paint a "good" future are growing ever more convoluted as realism sets in.) Arizona Republicans exempt themselves from the state's open-records laws. You know what that means.
  
  
• USA civil war? How about a tactical SUV for the Mad Max murderscape that is the USA?
  
  
• More mass shootings? This is the USA, of course we have more mass shootings.
  
  
• A billionaire corrupting Twitter? Yes, more of that, with Musk targeting an activist who helped identify US Capitol rioters. That activist is now on Mastodon.
  
  
• Capitalism on display? Tech layoffs are numerous and swift, making my own job hunt even harder. COVID vaccines are set to skyrocket in price. Because that's what capitalism dictates. (There's no other choice, or so we're frequently told.)
  
  
• SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19? In the USA, workers are still calling in sick at record high rates, rural America saw death rates climb 90% recently in a spike of otherwise "low" avoidable tragedies, but USA denialism grows more dangerous. Infection changes the gut microbiome, which is bad for a lot of reasons. The virus spreads directly cell-to-cell, avoiding drugs and immune system. Infection is permanent, which is true even while PCR tests are negative, a possibility that I've warned about for 3 years already. Some people knew all along how dangerous this virus is, while some people just now learning that it damages the immune system, but the rich elite at Davos are protecting themselves with technology that should be everywhere for society's protection. Mainstream news is finally (FINALLY!) providing accurate warnings.
  
  

And that's mostly just the news of the week. Go home, 2023. You need a "time out". And I still need an income... or win a lottery. (I'd have to play first.)