Pick Your Utopia

This is the start of a long weekend for some of us. Perhaps there will be time to dream about a utopian future.

Medieval peasants imagined a fantasy land where all their desires were fulfilled. It was called Cockaigne, which rhymes with Spain, and it was super depressing. The Land of Cockaigne is a simple place: the houses are made from fish pies, and roasted pigs walk around with knives in their backs for easy eating. Eggs grew legs so that peasants could indulge while lying on the ground, and animals pooped in baskets for easy clean up. In an imaginary world with endless possibilities, the medieval myth of Cockaigne focused on two things: food and laziness.

Cockaigne wasn't as bad as the rich Italians who made poor people fight over food. In fact, the stories include some fascinating insights into what the community cared about--the French peasants wanted quality wines, while the Italians wanted a mountain of Parmesan cheese. Still, Cockaigne is proof that life for medieval peasants was pretty bad, since their utopia was essentially a medieval version of the dystopia in Wall-E. . .

Don't tell these guys about the house from Hansel and Gretel made of candy--it'll make their "house of fish" look pretty sad. According to the 14th-century English poem "The Land of Cockaygne," the walls of all the houses in the utopia are made of fish pies. If that doesn't sound very appetizing, look to the roofs, where "flour-cakes are the shingles."

One French version of the story included even stranger housing materials. The walls themselves are made of fish, while "the beams are made of sturgeons, the roofs of bacon, and the fences of sausage." In a fantasy world where houses could be made of literally any material, it's pretty depressing that medieval peasants picked fish.

I have an old Joy of Cooking cookbook in which many of the family recipes, including some from the family cook (from Eastern Europe, I think) include the word "Cockaigne" in the name.

Have you ever had a utopian dream like this, even as a child?

Utopia: We can forget what MLK said about the content of character and judge people by their superficial group characteristics

What could go wrong? Why do so many elite white people who fit the "oppressor" profile push this ideology?

EXCLUSIVE: Mandatory training for all NYC public school teachers.

The Wheel Of Identity gives teachers a chart of which students are oppressed and which are the oppressors. The oppressors:

-Slim
-White
-Citizen
-English
-Able-bodied
-HeterosexuaI
-Owns property
-Cisgender… pic.twitter.com/Bdk4tQw0uB

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 12, 2024

Utopia: Huge, well-respected NGOs will save government from incompetence

Back in December, NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker sent us details of her family's trials dealing with The California Employment Development Department (EDD) over a simple short-term disability claim. This led to a discussion of the department's inability to deal with COVID relief fraud. She sent some additional information on this. Some of the fraudulent claims came from Nigeria.

Here's a little detail with which she has found an interesting connection to current news:

THEN

I'm sorry, but I don't understand why the person in charge of the EDD at this time would even be considered for promotion to the federal system.

. . . New financial reports requested by CalMatters show that amid the chaos, the EDD and its unemployment payment contractor Bank of America split a half a billion dollars in revenue, though the bank says it ultimately spent more to cover fraud losses. Another large EDD contractor, Deloitte, made more than a quarter of a billion dollars on tech contracts and emergency contracts to build systems that state reports say buckled during the pandemic.

Bank of America and Deloitte. And unnamed others. Any possibility that there was some illegal activity going on with the State's contractors? Or are they all just really, really incompetent?

Deloitte is a really giant international auditing and consulting firm. Seems to have a reputation as the best in the business, as far as I could tell from a cursory searcy. Or it did until a few days ago.

NOW

NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker found this: Hindenburg Founder Warned Deloitte 11 Times In 5 Months About Tingo's "Massive Fraud" Before SEC, DOJ Action

As we wrote back in December, the SEC charged publicly listed company Tingo Group, a Nigerian "agri-fintech" company with "massive fraud", claiming that almost every aspect of the company - including its partners and its financials - was fabricated. Short seller Hindenburg Research had written about the company on June 6, calling it "an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials".

In a not-so-surprising development, the Department of Justice joined the party earlier this month, charging the company's founder and former CEO, Dozy Mmobuosi, with securities fraud, making false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and conspiracy charges. . .

But in a slightly more surprising development, yesterday the short seller who originally pointed out concerns with Tingo released a tranche of 11 emails it had sent to Tingo's auditor, Deloitte, warning them about potential fraud at Tingo.

"Today, we are releasing 11 emails we sent to Deloitte's senior leaders, spanning nearly 5 months, that documented flagrant signs of fraud at Tingo Group, one of the most spectacular Big 4 audit failures of our time," Hindenburg Research founder Nathan Anderson wrote on X yesterday.

"Our letters pointed this out clearly and repeatedly, but Deloitte stood by and failed to act despite being presented with overwhelming evidence," he continued.

He then linked to all 11 emails which show Hindenburg clearly putting numerous people with Deloitte e-mail addresses on notice about Tingo. Anderson wrote in one email to the auditor:

As Warren Buffett once said: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." Deloitte has an otherwise strong global reputation that it has earned through decades of difficult audit work--we hope to see the firm continue to protect its brand. We think this should have been obvious months ago, but better late than never.

Forbes is running a story about how Deloitte missed this, but it's behind a paywall, so I don't know what excuses are presented.

How much do you think this will affect the reputation of Deloitte?

I meandered through the interwebs and AoSHQ archives to see if there were any clues to changes in Deloitte that might give us a clue to how this massive "mistake" occurred. I didn't find much news on their audit failure on the Nigerian company. I did find the following:

From 3 days ago:

Deloitte is rolling out an AI chatbot that can help staff answer emails and create presentations

Yesterday:

Celebrate Humans, Not AI, Deloitte's Chief Futurist Says

"Chief Futurist"

January 2:

Deloitte Shares Loyalty Trends and Best Practices for 2024

July 2, 2020:

Harvard Grad Who Threatened to Stab Those Who Say "All Lives Matter" Fired by Deloitte

Well, that's nice.

Utopia: You can run a Sanctuary State in Illinois while leaving all the people who want sanctuary in Texas

JUST IN: Democrat Governor JB Pritzker is literally now begging "for mercy" to Texas Governor Greg Abbott to stop bussing migrants to his state.

Remarkable.

Abbott is simply giving Pritzker what he asked for considering in 2021, Pritzker signed a bill making Illinois the "most… pic.twitter.com/L7IqPayCZv

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 13, 2024

More from Ed Driscoll

Incidentally, were those "migrants from Texas" dropped off busses at the airport? Why?

Democrats: We Need Illegals to Do Menial Tasks

Meanwhile, Abbott Seizes All City Property Along the Riverfront at the Border in the Eagle Pass Area.

Including federal processing locations.

Things are getting spicy.

Utopia: What if American politicians talked about economics? What if they did something positive concerning economics?

Who would have thought that the tousle-haired president of Argentina would be the best YouTube economics explainer of them all? The series is great fun. https://t.co/bNCakN4AQZ

— John Cochrane (@JohnHCochrane) January 7, 2024

Weekend

Adjusting to Change

This photograph shows a Native American man looking over the newly completed transcontinental railroad in Nevada in the year 1869. Let's assume the man was around forty and was born in the 1820s. The changes he must have seen are astonishing.

What this man is looking at, is the… pic.twitter.com/LStTp1pvL9

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) January 13, 2024

Music

Come and get your love - Redbone

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, January 6, DEI heretics pay a price even when they are financing DEI

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:07 AM

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