COINCIDENTAL NEW NORMAL

North Korea's Defense Ministry has denied that it has provided weapons and ammunition to Russia amid the war in Ukraine, calling the allegations "rumors" spread by "hostile forces" aimed at tarnishing Pyongyang's image. "We have never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia before and we will not plan to export them," an unidentified senior defense official said in a September 21 statement carried by state media. The statement came after Washington earlier this month confirmed a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment claiming that Russia was purchasing weapons from North Korea to ease supply shortages amid its war in Ukraine. Such exports, said to include artillery shells and rockets, would violate UN resolutions stemming from North Korea's nuclear program that bar it from importing or exporting weapons. Moscow has called the U.S. intelligence findings "fake." In the state media report, the unidentified North Korean official told

In the American ethos, sacrifice is often hailed as the chief ingredient for overcoming hardship and seizing opportunity. To be successful, we’re assured, college students must make personal sacrifices by going deep into debt for a future degree and the earnings that may come with it. Small business owners must sacrifice their paychecks so that their companies will continue to grow, while politicians must similarly sacrifice key policy promises to get something (almost anything!) done. We have become all too used to the notion that success only comes with sacrifice, even if this is anything but the truth for the wealthiest and most powerful Americans. After all, whether you focus on the gains of Wall Street or of this country’s best-known billionaires, the  ever-rising Pentagon budget , or the endless  subsidies  to fossil-fuel companies, sacrifice is not exactly a theme for those atop this society. As it happens, sacrifice in the name of progress is too often relegated to the lives of

The subject of mass food shortages has always been a popular one amongst the prepping community . Regardless of the stated reason for the concern, many a writer has shared their thoughts about what life would be like when the grocery store shelves emptied. Even so, we were all a bit surprised in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the “Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020” began. We were even more surprised when that grew into general shortages, and the stores really did empty out.  I have always thought that the pictures people used showing empty store shelves were faked somehow. But now I have a nice collection of pictures of empty store shelves, all of which I can guarantee you are quite real.  But what’s surprised me more than the stores emptying out is that after two years, things still aren’t back to normal. There’s been one thing after another that has kept our supply chain from operating as we are all accustomed to it happening, and to be honest, there doesn’t seem to be an