July 9th, 2023 • 2h 55m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Dutch Gov
Climate Change
Climate change records and beating a swede law BOTG
All "records" only go back to the end of 1940 because 1941 was the coldest year on earth since the 1600's when the belt sea froze over each year and the swedish armies could WALK over to denmark. Denmark still has a law that says it is legal to beat a swede that walks over the ice to denmark even though there has not been ice in the öresund or belt sea since the 1700's. In 1933 even the arctic parts of sweden had a green winter with no snow all year. It was also when all heat records in the country was set before the politicians reset the records to having to been after 1940.
Also Sahara would be green if we had 2 more degrees of heat as the african monsoon would return to 6000BCE levels and the entire earth would be mostly better off, unless you live in canada, scandinavia or northern russia as the winter would be relentlessly long and it would snow a LOT more.
Tuesday set an unofficial record for the hottest day on Earth. Wednesday may break it. | AP News
The globe’s average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool based on satellite data, observations, and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world’s condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), setting a record that lasted only 24 hours.
July 11,2029 Climate Clock
Adam, here is the answer. A partial solar eclipse will occur on Wednesday, July 11, 2029. The terminators arrive to fight climate
Sounds of Freedom / Ghouls
‘Sound of Freedom’: Box Office Triumph for QAnon Believers – Rolling Stone
The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer
The familiar words had appeared on screen, and an elderly man had taken it upon himself to read them aloud, to the rest of a sizable audience seated for a matinee showing of the anti-child-trafficking thriller Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel. For the seasoned moviegoer, this phrase is a joke — we know that cinema will stretch almost any “truth” to the breaking point — and the rank insincerity of such a pronouncement is the foundation of the prankish opening titles of Fargo. But this crowd, I could tell, would view the events depicted over the next two-plus hours as entirely literal.
Caviezel, best known for being tortured to death in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, has become a prominent figure on the conspiracist right, giving speeches and interviews in which he hints at an underground holy war between patriots and a sinister legion of evildoers who are harvesting the blood of children. It’s straight-up QAnon stuff, right down to his use of catchphrases like “The storm is upon us.” Here, he gets to act out some of that drama by playing a fictionalized version of Tim Ballard, head of the anti-sex trafficking nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), in a feature film that casts the operator as a Batman-style savior for kids sold into the sex trade.
Big Tech
Great Reset
France
Transmaoism
VAERS
Big Pharma
Comptroller Lander’s Latest COVID-19 Audit Reveals Weak Cost Controls Over Testing and Vaccination Sites : Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander
The audit’s review of over $200 million in invoices revealed a significant discrepancy in costs. While the average cost per test was $405, the prices DOHMH paid varied from $202 to $937 per test, a wide range depending on the location. Similarly, the average cost per vaccination per site ranged $169 to $2,423. Underutilized sites led to huge cost variations and inflated costs when a smaller volume of tests or vaccines were administered.
Gina on her daughter's tics
Hi Adam! Thanks so much for reading my note. I love the conversation it started about tics! And yes my daughter had an adverse reaction to vaccines at 13 months after having the flu shot and chicken pox vax at the same time. She hasn’t had another vaccine since. I know that set her up for neurological problems and then she got Lyme disease a few years later and that was the kicker for her. Thank you again, having you read that note was a great birthday gift!!
Best,
Gina
USD CBDC BTC
China
Ukraine vs Russia
Go Podcasting!
US podcast misinformation goes largely unchecked
NewsGuard, a firm that rates the credibility of websites, announced in May it would begin evaluating the trustworthiness of popular podcasts.
NewsGuard said it will release the ratings for some 200 podcasts in 2024, giving more transparency to listeners and enabling advertisers to avoid podcasts featuring misinformation or content at odds with their brand.
Editorial Director Eric Effron said rating podcasts is "more challenging" than other content because of the audio format, which requires time to listen and to examine transcripts.
"This takes a tremendous investment because we use human intelligence," Effron said.
Biden Crime Family
STORIES
Top BBC presenter 'stripped to underwear in video call with teen he paid for explicit pictures' | The Independent
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 15:26
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A top BBC presenter accused of paying a teenager thousands of pounds for explicit pictures stripped to his underwear while on a video call, the mother of the alleged victim has claimed.
It is alleged that the TV star paid more than £35,000 in exchange for sexual images and that the teenager used the money to fund a cocaine addiction, which ''destroyed'' their life.
The mother described how her child, who was said to be 17 when the payments began, turned from a ''happy-go-lucky youngster'' to a ''ghost-like crack addict'' in three years.
Neither the presenter nor the teenager has been identified. The presenter has reportedly been taken off air over the claims.
The mother, who said she wanted no payment for the story, complained to the BBC in May and begged them to make the presenter ''stop sending the cash'', according to The Sun.
She has now told the newspaper that the presenter stripped to his underwear during a video call, saying: ''I loved watching him on TV. So I was shocked to see a picture of him sitting on a sofa in his house in his underwear.
''I immediately recognised him. He was leaning forward getting ready for my child to perform for him.
''My child told me, 'I have shown things' and this was a picture from some kind of video call.''
In response to The Sun's report, the BBC said it takes ''any allegations very seriously and we have processes in place to proactively deal with them''.
The teenager's family is said to have complained to the BBC on 19 May.
The mother said in June that her child '' now aged 20 '' told her they had been sent a £1,000 payment on PayPal, according to the newspaper.
She added: ''It's obvious to me the BBC hadn't spoken to this man between our complaint on May 19 and in June as they thought he was too important.
''We never wanted an investigation. We just wanted the BBC to tell him to stop.
''Earlier this year I heard him on the phone saying to my child, 'I told you not to f***ing ring me.' It was shocking as I'd see how he would act on the telly and then he would say stuff like that.''
On Saturday, amid speculation on social media, a number of BBC stars tweeted to say they were not the presenter at the centre of The Sun story.
TV presenter Rylan Clark tweeted: ''Not sure why my names floating about but re that story in the sun '' that ain't me babe.
''I'm currently filming a show in Italy for the bbc, so take my name out ya mouths.''
Jeremy Vine followed suit, tweeting shortly after: ''Just to say I'm very much looking forward to hosting my radio show on Monday '' whoever the 'BBC Presenter' in the news is, I have the same message for you as Rylan did earlier: it certainly ain't me.''
While Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker did not specifically mention the allegations, he tweeted: ''Hate to disappoint the haters but it's not me.''
Broadcaster Nicky Campbell appeared to suggest he had contacted police about being mentioned in connection with the story.
He tweeted a screenshot that featured the Metropolitan Police logo and the words: ''Thank you for contacting the Metropolitan Police Service to report your crime.''
In his tweet, he wrote: ''I think it's important to take a stand. There's just too many of these people on social media. Thanks for your support friends.''
The BBC reported on the story in its news bulletins throughout Saturday.
On a BBC news show, special correspondent Lucy Manning said: ''I think this is very serious for the BBC, let's make no bones about this.
''The understanding is the presenter isn't due on air in the near future, but we haven't been told, and we have asked '' we haven't been told by the BBC whether there has or hasn't been a formal suspension.
''The BBC will need to answer if the investigation should have happened sooner, if it should have been more thorough, and if it's fair to other presenters unconnected to this that their names are now sort of in the headlines.''
Ms Manning said she thinks this ''really does have the potential to severely dent the BBC's reputation''.
In response to The Sun's report, a BBC spokesperson said: ''We treat any allegations very seriously and we have processes in place to proactively deal with them.
''As part of that, if we receive information that requires further investigation or examination we will take steps to do this. That includes actively attempting to speak to those who have contacted us in order to seek further detail and understanding of the situation.
''If we get no reply to our attempts or receive no further contact, that can limit our ability to progress things, but it does not mean our enquiries stop. If, at any point, new information comes to light or is provided '' including via newspapers '' this will be acted upon appropriately, in line with internal processes.''
Justice Ketanji Jackson's faulty claim in affirmative action case takes another hit as lawyers 'clarify' brief | Fox News
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 14:47
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has faced scrutiny for making a flawed claim about Black infant mortality under White doctors in her dissenting opinion to last week's landmark affirmative action decision.
Jackson sought to show that race-based admissions are a matter of life and death for racial minorities, and her dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court's ruling on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard cited an example. The law firm apparently responsible for the misleading statement sought to "clarify" the claim on Friday.
Seeking to show that considering race in admissions was fair and realizes equality, Jackson argued in her dissent that diversity "saves lives" and is essential for "marginalized communities." She asserted that diversity is for the "betterment" of students and society at large beyond college campuses.
"For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die," Jackson wrote as one example.
SUPREME COURT REJECTS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN RULING ON UNIVERSITIES USING RACE IN ADMISSIONS DECISIONS
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is under scrutiny for her dissent in a landmark decision rejecting affirmative action. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
That claim came from an amicus brief filed by lawyers representing an association of medical colleges. The brief stated that for "high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician is tantamount to a miracle drug; it more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live," citing as support a 2020 study that examined mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015.
In a letter Friday filed to the Supreme Court docket, Norton Rose Fulbright wrote that the argument cited by Jackson in her opinion "warrants clarification" and sought to clear up any "confusion."
"The principal cited finding of the [study] was that the mortality rate for Black newborns, as compared to White newborns, decreased by more than half when under the supervision of Black physician," the law firm's letter said. "In absolute terms, this study found that patient-physician racial concordance led to a reduction in health inequity."
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON CLASHES WITH ANTI-AFFIRMATIVE ACTION LAWYER DURING SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS
However, the letter continued, while survival and mortality may be opposites and decreased mortality generally indicates increased survival, "statistically they are not interchangeable. Thus, the statement in the [amicus brief] warrants clarification."
Still, the lawyer added that the study nonetheless supports Jackson's argument in her dissent, expressing "regret" for "any confusion" that may have been caused by the statement in its brief.
The letter to the Supreme Court added that a "more precise" summary of the 2020 study's findings would have been to say that "having a Black physician reduces by more than half the likelihood of death for Black newborns as compared to White newborns."
In other words, Jackson's claim in her opinion that having a Black physician "more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will survive" could be misleading, because the study on which that statement is based examined lower mortality rates, which is not the same thing statistically as survival.
Norton Rose Fulbright's letter came after Jackson's statement in her dissenting opinion caught the attention of several legal experts.
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to end affirmative action in college admissions. (Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Ted Frank, a senior attorney at Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, responded directly to Jackson's claim, lambasting the justice for making a mathematical error.
"A moment's thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible," wrote Frank, who filed an amicus brief in support of Students for Fair Admissions. "Imagine if 40% of black newborns died '-- thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that's a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%. How could Justice Jackson make such an innumerate mistake?"
THOMAS BLASTS JACKSON'S 'RACE-INFUSED WORLD VIEW' IN SUPREME COURT RULING OUTLAWING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Frank went on to argue that the 2020 study was "flawed" and didn't match Jackson's claim about Black newborns having a significantly higher chance of surviving with a Black physician.
"The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for Black newborns with Black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians)," Frank wrote.
"So, we have a Supreme Court justice parroting a mathematically absurd claim coming from an interested party's mischaracterization of a flawed study. Her opinion then urges 'all of us' to 'do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together.' Instead, we should watch where we're going."
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and Fox News contributor, used Frank's op-ed and Jackson's opinion to argue in a blog post Friday that it can be problematic when various advocacy groups file waves of amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases supporting one side or the other by pushing studies and other data that the justices use in their arguments.
"My opposition to the brief is that the justices are in a poor position to judge the veracity or accuracy of such studies," Turley wrote. "They simply pick and choose between rivaling studies to claim a definitive factual foundation for an opinion.
"When you are before the Supreme Court, everyone is free to just dump statistics and studies into the record, and the court regularly uses such material to determine the outcome.
A protester demonstrates outside the Supreme Court in Washington June 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
"It produces more of a legislative environment for the court as different parties insert data to support their own view of what is a better policy or more serious social problem. There is only a limited ability of parties to challenge such data given limits on time and space in briefing. The result is that major decisions or dissents can be built on highly contested factual assertions. In this case, critics believe that the Jackson argument literally does not add up."
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The Supreme Court ended affirmative action in a landmark 6-3 decision June 29. The case combined lawsuits brought against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina by the student activist group Students for Fair Admissions, which argued that the schools' admissions programs discriminated against Asian applicants in violation of, respectively, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
"A benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student's unique ability to contribute to the university," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court's majority opinion.
Aaron Kliegman is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital.
Is 'Sound of Freedom' a true story? What to know about the movie, QAnon ties - The Washington Post
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 14:17
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Illinois to Require Landlords Rent to Illegal Aliens as Housing Costs Surge
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 14:04
Illinois will soon require landlords to rent and sell property to illegal aliens, opening the housing market to tens of thousands considered deportable from the United States, even as rents remain sky-high in metropolitan areas like Chicago.
Late last month, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed SB 1817 into law, which will add ''immigration status'' as a protected class under the Illinois Human Rights Act.
The law ensures that landlords across Illinois will be banned from refusing to rent or sell property to illegal aliens strictly because they are illegally in the U.S.
''This law sets clear boundaries, protecting the rights of immigrants and ensuring that financial institutions and service providers cannot engage in discriminatory practices,'' State Sen. Ann Gillespie (D) said in a statement. ''Putting these protections in place will promote fairness to ensure people are not unjustly denied housing.''
The law comes as housing costs for Americans remain sky-high in Illinois.
For example, in Chicago, the median rent today is about $1,900 a month '-- a bill that is out of reach for most working and middle class Americans. Compare that to last year when the median rent in Chicago was $1,750 a month.
Chart via Zillow
Decades of research have detailed the impact mass immigration has on housing costs for Americans. The results are so evident that establishment media outlets like the New York Times and New York Magazine have acknowledged the issue.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has been a singular voice in the Republican Party raising the alarm on mass immigration's detrimental impact on housing costs that prevents first-time home buyers and those looking to move from securing property.
''Think about what this does for housing prices when you have to house 10 million people that shouldn't be here, that drives up the costs of housing when interest rates are already through the roof,'' Vance told Breitbart News earlier this year.
''This is economic warfare and theft of the American dream from American citizens, that is the big problem here and that's why we have to keep fighting it,'' he continued.
In 2013, a study by the Michael Bloomberg-funded New American Economy, which promotes mass immigration, explained how the importing of tens of millions of immigrants over decades had helped raise housing costs by $3.7 trillion for the next generation of homebuyers but spun the figure as the creation of ''housing wealth.''
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
BRICS Currency Could End Dollar Dominance
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:59
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WEF Says Fashion Will Be Abolished by 2030: ''Humans Will All Wear a Uniform''
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:53
The World Economic Forum has declared that by 2030 fashion will become completely obsolete and all humans will be vegan, whether they like it or not.
A newly resurfaced report written in 2019 states that humans will only be permitted to buy three items of clothing per year and will be prohibited from buying or consuming meat.
Published in 2019, ‘The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World’ report funded by the WEF, sets out extreme targets for governments around the globe to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as consistent with the 2015 Paris Agreement ambitions.
The report outlines six areas where world governments can take “rapid action to address consumption-based emissions”: food, construction, clothing, vehicles, aviation, and electronics:
“The report demonstrates that mayors have an even bigger role and opportunity to help avert climate emergency than previously thought … While the analysis addresses big global questions, its purpose is to inspire practical action … average consumption-based emissions in C40 cities must halve within the next 10 years. In our wealthiest and highest consuming cities that means a reduction of two thirds or more by 2030.” – Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40
“It is now clear that action to reduce consumption will be necessary as part of the global effort to mitigate climate change … The actions set out in the report are challenging and they will be confronting for many, but we think they are necessary … City Mayors can set a vision and convene actors to bring about the changes we describe … The work reported here forces a focus on what a sustainable urban future might look like and helps us to consider what policies, regulations, incentives and behavioural changes will be necessary to transition to a zero-carbon world.”
– Gregory Hodkinson, Former Chairman of ArupThe Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World, 2019Infowars.com reports: C40 is a global network of mayors representing one-quarter of the global economy. It includes almost 100 cities plus 1,143 cities and local governments that have joined C40’s ‘Cities Race to Zero’. The cities that sign up for the ‘Cities Race to Zero’ commit, among others, to keeping global heating below the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.
Without reading the numerous reports and recommendations thrown at the ‘Cities Race to Zero’ signatories, it’s not possible to establish if the actions set out in The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World report are specifically included in the action plan. Why does it matter? Because if they are, it is not only the 100 or so C40 Cities but more than 1,000 cities that are committing to the report’s reductions in consumer-based emissions. Additionally, we can assume Arup’s network is committing the same.
Arup works as a global network of “experts” and boasts that it “shapes cities in a thousand ways.” It has more than 17,000 members and offices in 46 of the 97 cities that make up C40’s global network. C40 and Arup have worked together since 2009 and have collaborated on dystopian publications such as Deadline 2020, Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods and a guide for creating net-zero neighbourhoods. But these collaborations have not come about without money changing hands.
The first C40/Arup report titled ‘Powering Climate Action: Cities as Global Changemakers’ was published in 2015. That same year Arup committed to investing $1 million over three years into a research partnership with C40.
In 2019, the year the C40/Arup consumer-based emissions report The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World was published, Arup trebled its advisory support to C40 to $3 million over 3 three years.
In 2023, Arup continued its investment in C40 with up to US$300,000 a year to help C40 drive resilience and decarbonisation in cities around the world. Unsurprisingly, in March 2023, C40 Cities re-highlighted the 2019 C40/Arup consumer-based emissions report in an article titled ‘A spotlight on consumption-based emissions’. “Since our report was published, cities around the world have begun to map consumption-based emissions and explore ways to reduce them,” C40 said.
So, what does the 2019 report that Arup has so heavily invested in say?
Below we have picked out a few highlights. You can download and read the full report HERE. Because it provides damning evidence against its collaborators, we have also attached a copy below should it disappear from public view at any time in the future.
Starting on page 66, the report summarises what they hope to impose on us. Below are images of their “ambitions” which require no further comment, except to say that all these plans are being made and agreed upon outside the democratic process and in a classic dictatorial manner under false pretences.
C40 and Arup’s activities need to be halted immediately and their operations shut down permanently. Additionally, any person who has actively contributed to/participated in devising, considering or implementing these plans should be questioned, investigated and brought to account.
So, who are the people who feel they can autocratically override fundamental freedoms and remove inalienable rights while destroying our well-being, livelihoods, economies and societies? Some of their names are provided in an “acknowledgement” section at the beginning of the report:
Project TeamSpecialist inputC40 Tom Bailey, Markus Berensson, Rachel HuxleyC40 Mark Watts, Kevin Austin, Shannon Lawrence, Andrea Fernández, Michael Doust, Josh Alpert, Josh Harris, Emily Morris, Sophie Bedcecarré Ernst, Donna Hume, Zachary Tofias, Stefania Amato, Ricardo Cepeda-Márquez, Kathrin Zeller, Zoe Sprigings, Paul Cartwright, Caroline Watson, Anna Beech, Milag San Jose-Ballesteros, David Miller, Laura Jay, Stelios Diakoulakis, Hastings Chikoko, Pengfei Xie, Divyaprakash Vyas, Daniel Robinson, Caterina Sarfatti, Julia Lipton, Charlotte BreenArup Ben Smith, Kristian Steele, Christina Lumsden, Christopher Pountney, Stephanie Robson, Ewan Frost-Pennington, Ethan Monaghan-Pisano, Francesca Poli, Anna Lawson, Maria Sunyer Pinya, Jaspreet Singh, Ben AshbyArup Will Cavendish, Carol Lemmens, Alexander Jan, Stephen Cook, Richard Boyd, Orlando Gibbons, Michael Muller, Christine McHugh, Tim Armitage, Joe Wheelwright, Emily Woodason, Giacomo Magnani, Erato Panayiotou, Allen Hogben, Jack Clarke, Simon Hart, Andrew LawrenceUniversity of Leeds John Barrett, Andrew Gouldson, Joel Millward-Hopkins, Anne OwenOther organisations Miranda Schnitger (Ellen MacArthur Foundation), Maja Johannsen (Ellen MacArthur Foundation), Richard Waites (World Resources Institute), Graham Earl (Ecolyse), Arianna Nicoletti (Future Fashion Forward e.V), John Dulac (International Energy Agency), Thibaut Abergel (International Energy Agency), Tiffany Vaas (International Energy Agency), Mikael Linnander (EAT Forum), Dabo Guan (University of East Anglia), Julian Hill-Landolt (World Business Council for Sustainable DevelopmentThird Party Reviewers Klaus Hubacek, University of Maryland, Emma Stewart, World Resources InstitutThe Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World, 2019
(Article by Sean Adl-Tabatabai republished from ThePeoplesVoice.tv)
Revealed: pharma giants pour millions of pounds into NHS to boost drug sales | Pharmaceuticals industry | The Guardian
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:51
Pharmaceutical giants are pouring tens of millions of pounds into struggling NHS services '' including paying the salaries of medical staff and funding the redesign of patient treatment '' as they seek to boost drug sales in the UK, the Observer can reveal.
Drug firms are simultaneously funding groups that lobby for greater investment in their disease areas, and in some cases are paying generous consultancy fees to influential healthcare professionals, including GPs who have worked as clinical leads for NHS England and have received as much as £480,000 each from industry since 2019.
The spending is revealed in an investigation that lays bare the growing role of Big Pharma in the UK's health sector, with analysis of more than 300,000 drug company transactions since 2015 showing a surge in spending on activities other than research and development (R&D).
Payments to UK health professionals and organisations, including donations, sponsorship, consultancy fees and expenses, reached a record £200m in 2022, excluding R&D with companies seeking to promote lucrative drugs for obesity, diabetes and heart conditions among the biggest spenders. The total spending was almost double the £108m paid by the drugs industry in 2015, while payments to healthcare organisations in the same period nearly tripled to £156.5m.
The payments include more than £29m in funding to NHS trusts, as well as millions more to GP practices and companies that support NHS care. A further £43.7m was paid to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and admin staff.
The rise in spending raises concerns about the growing influence of pharmaceutical companies in the NHS as it reaches its 75th anniversary milestone. Amid record pressure on services, drug giants say closer collaboration can help deliver major benefits to patients.
But project documents reveal many of the partnerships are expected to lead to a boost in sales for the companies, fuelling questions about conflicts of interest. David Rowland, director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest thinktank, warned that ''cash-strapped'' NHS trusts could not afford ''to be na¯ve about these deals with Big Pharma''. ''They are certainly not providing this funding as an act of charity,'' he said.
In some cases drugs firms have been granted a direct role in shaping patient care in NHS services that prescribe their products, including through projects that let them oversee the redesign of treatment pathways for diseases including obesity, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, asthma and rare disorders. Other companies are paying the salaries of pharmacists, nurses and other healthcare staff to work in NHS teams.
AstraZeneca is among giant drug companies making payments to GPs. Photograph: Dado RuviÄ/ReutersIn one case, the drugmaker Eli Lilly has partnered with a major London NHS trust to help ''optimise'' the multidisciplinary service that provides care for patients with diabetes, obesity and heart conditions. Corporate documents show the project with the Royal Free in London aimed to ''implement a new model of care'' and to ''optimise treatment and/or triage patients'' to the newly designed secondary care team, with outcomes including a reduction in waiting times.
''Lilly may benefit from an increase in patients prescribed Lilly medications,'' the documents add. Eli Lilly makes drugs for diabetes and is seeking approval for its obesity drug Mounjaro, a rival to the recently approved Wegovy injections. Records show it spent £3.5m on payments to NHS organisations in 2022, up from £147,000 in 2018. The company said all payments were publicly declared in line with industry codes of practice, adding that it believed in ''working closely'' with UK partners to ''ensure people can access the most effective new medicines'', and that its NHS work had helped cut waiting times and support post-pandemic recovery.
Another major maker of diabetes drugs, Sanofi, has partnered with NHS organisations to review and improve treatment services. A potential benefit for Sanofi is an increase in sales. ''As a result of pathway changes some appropriate patients may be prescribed Sanofi products in line with local or national guidance,'' one project document says. Sanofi said all its projects were transparent and ethical, and that it shared a ''common goal'' with the NHS of improving outcomes for patients.
In some cases, the decision to partner with the NHS when it is under great pressure appears to be part of a strategy. One pharma industry consultancy firm tells clients on its website that there has never been a better time to do so, adding that setting up ''capacity busting'' programmes could be the ''single biggest opportunity for companies to increase sales quickly''.
It cites an example where it helped launch a network of ''discrete, dedicated'' injection clinics in conjunction with NHS ophthalmology services where the intention was to ''prescribe the client's product'' at trusts that were battling ''significant delays''. The clinics were delivered out of hours on NHS premises and resourced by ''NHS staff in their time off'', and they boosted the drug company's sales by enabling ''a significant increase in patient access to the therapy''.
As well as drug companies partnering with NHS trusts, the Observer has found that some are making payments to influential doctors as they seek to expand the rollout of their blockbuster drugs.
One prominent doctor, Dr Yassir Javaid, a Northampton GP and a former NHS England regional clinical lead, was the largest individual beneficiary of money from pharmaceutical firms in 2022, receiving £132,390 in fees and expenses. Disclosure UK records show he has been paid £483,561 since 2019. Javaid has appeared in sponsored presentations for medical colleagues to promote the benefits of certain diabetes drugs, including those made by firms from which he has received payments. Javaid said he had voluntarily opted to appear on the Disclosure UK database; he always correctly disclosed his interests; and his sponsored educational sessions ''promoted evidence-based and guideline-recommended use of treatments''.
Sanofi, a French firm, could potentially increase sales after a partnership with NHS organisations to improve treatment services. Photograph: Beno®t Tessier/ReutersDrugs giants AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim are among the firms making payments to GPs. The overall biggest spenders on non-R&D payments to the UK health sector included Sanofi, which spent £16m in 2022, GlaxoSmithKline, which spent £14.7m, and Novartis, whose 2022 payments totalled £14.3m.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, a trade body which publishes the Disclosure UK database of drugs industry spending, said companies were required to be transparent about payments and were banned from making payments that constituted an inducement to prescribe or promote a medicine.
Dr Amit Aggarwal, the ABPI's director of medical affairs, said there was greater openness than ever about such arrangements, adding that partnerships between drug firms and the health sector could deliver huge benefits for patients: ''Collaborative projects benefit patients and the healthcare system and they are governed by the industry's strict code of practice, which goes above and beyond the law.''
NHS England said collaborations with industry helped patients ''benefit from faster access to innovative treatments'' and that it was ''not unusual for industry to provide funding to support service delivery in areas such as improving cardiovascular health, tackling infectious disease or rolling out innovative cancer therapies''. It added that ''strict safeguards'' were in place for managing conflicts of interest.
Looks like the FAA made flight turbulence worse and then blamed it on climate change... - Revolver News
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:49
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The fake news media has been in a frenzy lately, feverishly reporting on how ''airplane turbulence'' has greatly increased, and the reason why is'... you guessed it'... Climate Change (with two capital ''C's''). Take a look at some of these headlines:
If you listen to the ''experts'' and the media, you'd think everything under the sun, both good and bad, was somehow connected to the elusive Climate Change. However, is that truly the case, or could the media and these so-called ''experts'' be whipping everyone up into a frenzy for no reason? Well, that wouldn't be a big surprise, right? And it could be happening, because of a new airline ''environmental policy'' called OptimizedProfile Descent, or OPD.
So, what exactly is OPD?
PSU:
Optimized Profile Descent (OPD) is a descent profile that starts at Top of Descent and, to the extent possible, comprises idle power descents that minimize thrust required to remain on the vertical path. OPD flight procedures use the capabilities of the aircraft FMS to fly a continuous descent profile minimizing level-off segments, based on the actual performance of the aircraft under current flight conditions along a fixed lateral path. The termination point of an OPD may be on an arrival procedure such as a published Standard Arrival Route (STAR) or at a point in space that allows for radar vectoring.
OPDs are designed to allow use of aircraft automation and piloting techniques to maximize fuel efficiency and minimize environmental impact. Instead of using a typical step down arrival procedure, with an OPD the aircraft flies a constant descent profile with engines at idle power and minimal thrust requirements. This can conserve fuel, limit emissions, and reduce noise. For more details, see the discussion on Optimized Profile Descent Procedures in the next section.
Optimized Profile Descent Procedures
One environmental concern in and around airports is noise produced by aircraftby aircraft. The flight techniques utilized during an Optimized Profile Descent are not new. Pilots use minimum power and optimal glide angle techniques whenever possible to achieve fuel efficiency and quieter landings. OPDs take advantage of these techniques to improve upon standard landing procedures in two ways:
Aircraft fly at higher altitudes for longer periods of time reducing the amount of noise exposure on the ground.
An optimal descent profile requires less work from the aircraft's engine, as a result the engine produces less noise. Non-OPD air traffic control procedures may require arriving aircraft to follow a step-down flight path to resolve conflicts with other operations. During a traditional step-down procedure an aircraft descends until it reaches a specified altitude and speed, it then levels off and flies at a constant speed. The aircraft may repeat this procedure multiple times before landing.
Using an Optimized Profile Descent, the step-down flight path can be eliminated when possible and, in doing so, an aircraft may not be required to level off once it begins its descent. This allows an aircraft to stay at higher altitudes for a longer period of time. In addition, it requires less work from the engine than traditional arrival procedures. (Extra work is needed for a descending aircraft to level off.)
And here's where things get interesting and possibly very manipulative. According to the tweet thread, traditional descents allow pilots to quickly move through pockets of turbulence. On the other hand, the slow descent during OPD forces planes to spend more time in turbulence, which is likely why there's actually more turbulence.
I'm not insane the FAA made flight turbulence worse and then blamed it on climate change https://t.co/ImXKnv4V9N pic.twitter.com/tBuetVcLMF
'-- nibbler (@cynomaxxx) July 7, 2023
Close-up of the image:
Could ''new turbulence'' just be another ruse, much like the narrative around ''wildfires''? We're constantly hearing how wildfires are a direct result of ''Climate Change,'' even as cases of arson keep cropping up. With this kind of mixed messaging, it's getting tougher to fully trust the so-called ''experts. It seems that ''science'' has also been weaponized by the radical left.
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The Most Predictable Outcome of 2023's Post Truth Society: Dutch Dude Wins "Miss Netherlands" ' ð---- The Liberty Daily
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:24
Is there any news less shocking than Rikkie Valerie Koll(C) winning Miss Universe Netherlands? Just knowing a transvestite was in the field is all we needed to know to predict the winner. According to Pageant Circle:
Rikkie Valerie Koll(C) was crowned Miss Nederland 2023 (Miss Universe Netherlands 2023) on Saturday, July 8 at the AFAS Theater in Leusden.
The 22-year-old Dutch-Moluccan model and actress living in Breda succeeds Ona Moody and will now prepare to represent the Netherlands at the 72nd Miss Universe (Miss Universe 2023) in El Salvador.
Dutch activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek wasn't surprised:
A man just won ''Miss Netherlands'' 2023.
Considering the fact that we live in a post-Truth world, I wasn't even expecting anything else. It's all so predictable and unoriginal at this point. pic.twitter.com/j6NKo2cCvu
'-- Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) July 9, 2023
Dr. Simon Goddek still can't believe it:
I still can't believe a man becomes 'Miss Netherlands' and the Dutch state media @NOS only has praising words for this act of misogyny.
It's a shame that hundreds of years of struggle for women's rights have been reduced to absurdity within just a few years. pic.twitter.com/6PDXYZ42SN
'-- Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) July 9, 2023
The news here isn't that a transvestite won. It's that this is so commonplace now, the fact that he was transgender didn't even get mentioned until paragraph five. The next big pageant news we will see in the future is when a trans contestant DOESN'T win.
French Police to Spy Through Phones Using Remote Camera Activation
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 12:58
Getty ImagesFrance's Parliament has voted to approve a controversial new clause in the justice reform bill allowing police to remotely turn on cameras and microphones in a host of internet-connected devices for up to six months to surveil suspects.
A move by the Emmanuel Macron government to grab more power for the security state has passed a key stage in the national Parliament, with MPs voting 80 to 24 in favour of article three of the justice bill. As reported, included in the article are provisions allowing police to ask a judge for permission to use modern personal technology to spy on suspects.
The new rules would allow police to surveil suspects for six months by using their smart devices including mobile phones, computers, and even car dashboards to watch, listen, and locate using cameras, microphones, and GPS.
Le Monde reports that while the law has been criticised by defenders of freedom and privacy from both left and right, its defenders insist this is not '1984', will only be used in a handful of cases a year, and will save lives.
Constraints on the power added to the bill include needing the permission of a judge to activate a cell phone remotely, a time limit on that permission's validity, that the snooping has to be ''justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime'', and that it only be applicable to suspected crimes punishable by five or more years in prison.
As previously reported:
Guy Benarroche, a senator serving within the French Greens, said that the measure effectively leaves ''the door open to widespread surveillance'' in France.
Meanwhile, an NGO in the country dedicated to fighting for digital freedoms expressed dismay that the law would effectively turn every device a person owns into a digital ''snitch''.
To make matters worse, the bill also includes a provision granting the state the power to use geolocation data on a person's device to track their movement, though the Senate has reportedly applied an amendment meaning that such a power can only be applied to people suspected of a crime worth 10 years or more in prison.
This is far from the first time that France has tried to erode digital privacy in the country, with the Macron government previously pushing for both Google and Apple to abandon various privacy protections during the COVID pandemic in order to bolster state-sponsored surveillance.
More recently, the country has announced that it intends to use a complex system of surveillance cameras armed with A.I. to monitor crowds during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, with the government hoping that the system would help spot ''terrorist acts or serious breaches of security'' quickly.
Medical Surveillance State: France Calls on Apple and Google to Ditch Privacy Protections During Pandemic https://t.co/Sl2Lalt8Ig
'-- Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 22, 2020
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New Zealand Government Now Rations Healthcare to Non-Indigenous Patients for Racial Equity '' PJ Media
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 04:34
The Kiwi government has instituted a trendy new social engineering project for Equity' that consists of denying healthcare to whites because of White Supremacy' or whatever.
Via the New Zealand Herald:
Auckland surgeons are now required to consider a patient's ethnicity alongside other factors when deciding who should get an operation first.
Several surgeons say they are upset by the policy, which was introduced in Auckland in February and gave priority to MÄori and Pacific Island patients '' on the grounds that they have historically had unequal access to healthcare.
Health officials stress that ethnicity is just one of five factors considered in deciding when a person gets surgery, and that it is an important step in addressing poor health outcomes within MÄori and Pacific populations.
Te Whatu Ora '' Health New Zealand has introduced an Equity Adjustor Score, which aims to reduce inequity in the system by using an algorithm to prioritise patients according to clinical priority, time spent on the waitlist, geographic location (isolated areas), ethnicity, and deprivation level.
In the ethnicity category, MÄori and Pasifika are top of the list, while European New Zealanders and other ethnicities, like Indian and Chinese, are lower-ranked.
The compelling, common-sense argument against this kind of nonsense '-- which equally applies to the debate over ''affirmative action'' in the U.S. context and countless other social engineering projects '' is that rationing medical care based on race is the quickest, surefire way to breed and exacerbate racial tensions between, in this case, white New Zealanders and Maoris, not to fix them.
It's also a compelling rebuke of state-run medical care. Were individuals left to their own devices, and medical providers free to practice as they see fit, none of this would be enforceable. Things would work out organically.
A rising tide lifts all boats. The best way to empower Maoris to access the healthcare they need is to buoy them economically. But, of course, economically empowered citizens of any race are an inherent threat to state hegemony, as the state is stripped of its major leverage points.
Chinese techno-slaves, for instance '-- the model proletariat of the globalist technocrats '-- are subject to whatever restrictions the CCP wishes to impose on them because the Party enjoys totalitarian control over their lives via its Orwellian surveillance program (which it literally calls SkyNet), its social credit score, etc.
In an alternative reality, in which the governments atop Western civilizations were not run by power-hungry, despotic bureaucrats, publicly administered healthcare might make sense for granting as much access to quality care as possible. But we don't live in that world.
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Dutch prime minister resigns as government collapses | CTV News
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 16:19
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited the king Saturday to turn in the resignation of his four-party coalition and set the deeply divided Netherlands on track for a general election later this year.
King Willem-Alexander flew back from a family vacation in Greece to meet with Rutte, who drove to the palace in his Saab station wagon for the meeting to explain the political crisis that toppled his administration.
Rutte declined to answer reporters' questions as he drove away from the meeting that lasted over an hour, saying the talks with the monarch were private.
The vexed issue of reining in migration that has troubled countries across Europe for years was the final stumbling block that brought down Rutte's government Friday night, exposing the deep ideological differences between the four parties that made up the uneasy coalition.
Now it is likely to dominate campaigning for an election that is still months away.
"We are the party that can ensure a majority to significantly restrict the flow of asylum seekers," said Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, who supported Rutte's first minority coalition 13 years ago, but also ultimately brought it down.
Opposition parties on the left also want to make the election about tackling problems they accuse Rutte of failing to adequately address -- from climate change to a chronic housing shortage and the future of the nation's multibillion-euro (-dollar) agricultural sector.
Socialist Party leader Lilian Marijnissen told Dutch broadcaster NOS the collapse of Rutte's government was "good news for the Netherlands. I think that everybody felt that this Cabinet was done. They have created more problems than they solved."
Despite the divisions between the four parties in Rutte's government, it will remain in power as a caretaker administration until a new coalition is formed, but will not pass major new laws.
"Given the challenges of the times, a war on this continent, nobody profits from a political crisis," tweeted Sigrid Kaag, leader of the centrist, pro-Europe D66 party.
Rutte, the Netherlands' longest serving premier and a veteran consensus builder, appeared to be the one who was prepared to torpedo his fourth coalition government with tough demands in negotiations over how to reduce the number of migrants seeking asylum in his country.
Rutte negotiated for months over a package of measures to reduce the flow of new migrants arriving in the country of nearly 18 million people. Proposals reportedly included creating two classes of asylum -- a temporary one for people fleeing conflicts and a permanent one for people trying to escape persecution -- and reducing the number of family members who are allowed to join asylum-seekers in the Netherlands. The idea of blocking family members was strongly opposed by minority coalition party ChristenUnie.
"I think unnecessary tension was introduced" to the talks, said Kaag.
Pieter Heerma, the leader of coalition partner the Christian Democrats, called Rutte's approach in the talks "almost reckless."
The fall of the government comes just months after a new, populist pro-farmer party, the Farmers Citizens Movement, known by its Dutch acronym BBB, shocked the political establishment by winning provincial elections. The party is already the largest bloc in the Dutch Senate and will be a serious threat to Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.
The BBB's leader, Caroline van der Plas, said her party would dust off their campaign posters from the provincial vote and go again.
"The campaign has begun!" Van der Plas said in a tweet that showed her party's supporters hanging flags and banners from lamp posts.
Kansas State launches center to meet animal vaccine needs | Feed Strategy
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 15:15
Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine has launched a new Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials, or CVEAA, to support animal vaccine development and usage.
Jishu Shi, professor of vaccine immunology and one of the university's leading researchers on infectious swine diseases, will serve as the center's director and one of three primary faculty members. The new center will provide innovative services to global partners and customers by conducting safety and efficacy evaluations of vaccines for transboundary animal diseases, helping animal vaccine buyers manage product specification and quality evaluation, and leading feasibility analysis and policy advocacy on vaccines as alternatives for antimicrobials used in animal production.
''The Center on Vaccine Evaluation and Alternatives for Antimicrobials is a research and service center designed to meet a series of unmet needs in the development and usage of animal vaccines around the world,'' Shi said.
In addition to research projects supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Homeland Security, the center will work closely with animal health industry partners in the following areas:
Safety and efficacy testing of experimental vaccines for African swine fever, classical swine fever and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.Co-development of novel adjuvants for animal vaccines.Evaluations of diagnostic tools for swine infectious diseases, novel antiviral compounds against swine viral pathogens, and novel disinfectants against African swine fever virus and other swine viral pathogens. ''Dr. Shi's research expertise in helping control the spread of African swine fever and his experience in building coalitions between a wide variety of partners in private industry and government agencies makes him uniquely qualified to lead this new center,'' said Bonnie Rush, Hodes family dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. ''He has already assembled an impressive team of research scientists who will serve on an advisory board for the center, and he has identified several opportunities for collaboration in the short time since the center was established.''
Joining Shi as primary faculty members for the center are Lihua Wang, research assistant professor of virology and vaccine immunology, and Rachel Madera, senior research scientist in anatomy and physiology. The center also consists of the following collaborating principal investigators from K-State's veterinary college: Jianfa Bai, Santosh Dhakal, Natasha N. Gaudreault, Tae Kim, Waithaka Mwangi, Roman M. Pogranichniy, J¼rgen A. Richt and Dana L. Vanlandingham.
''The need to evaluate safety and efficacy of experimental vaccines for high-consequence transboundary animal diseases has increased significantly since 2018, but the availability of suitable high-level biosecurity research facilities and associated expertise in public and private domains is very limited,'' Shi said. ''Vaccines for transboundary animal diseases are frequently procured by international aid agencies. However, these agencies have very limited resources on 'fit for purpose' analysis and quality evaluation of the vaccines before they are purchased.''
Shi said the 'One Health' initiative '-- promoting vaccines as alternatives to antibiotics in food animal production practice '-- has faced multiple challenges, including the efficacy, availability and affordability of current commercial bacterial vaccines.
''New policies and public-private partnerships are needed to accelerate targeted research and development of new vaccines to improve animal health and reduce antibiotic consumption and antimicrobial resistance risks,'' Shi said.
China's military is leading the world in brain 'neurostrike' weapons: Report - Washington Times
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 15:13
China's People's Liberation Army is developing high-technology weapons designed to disrupt brain functions and influence government leaders or entire populations, according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts.
The weapons can be used to directly attack or control brains using microwave or other directed energy weapons in handheld guns or larger weapons firing electromagnetic beams, adding that the danger of China's brain warfare weapons prior to or during a conflict is no longer theoretical.
''Unknown to many, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People's Liberation Army (PLA) have established themselves as world leaders in the development of neurostrike weapons,'' according to the 12-page report, ''Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party's Neurostrike Program.'' A copy of the study was obtained by The Washington Times.
The U.S. Commerce Department in December 2021 imposed sanctions on China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related entities the department said were using ''biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end-uses and end-users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.''
Few public studies or discussion, however, have been held regarding the new advanced military capability.
Neurostrike is a military term defined as the engineered targeting of the brains of military personnel or civilians using non-kinetic technology. The goal is to impair thinking, reduce situational awareness, inflict long-term neurological damage and cloud normal cognitive functions.
The study was written by Ryan Clarke, a senior fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore; Xiaoxu Sean Lin, a former Army microbiologist now with Feitan College; and L.J. Eads, a former Air Force intelligence officer and current specialist in artificial intelligence for the U.S. intelligence community. The three authors write that China's leadership ''views neurostrike and psychological warfare as a core component of its asymmetric warfare strategy against the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific.''
According to the report, neurostrike capabilities are part of the military standard military capabilities and should not be viewed as an unconventional weapon limited to use in extreme circumstances.
Likely areas of use for the weapons included Taiwan, the South China Sea, East China Sea and the disputed Sino-Indian border.
The threat is not limited to the use of microwave weapons: ''[China's] new landscape of neurostrike development includes using massively distributed human-computer interfaces to control entire populations as well as a range of weapons designed to cause cognitive damage,'' the report said.
Research is focused on using brain warfare weapons in the near term, and possibly during a Chinese military assault on Taiwan '-- a target for future Chinese military operations that U.S. military leaders have said could be carried out in the next four years.
''Any breakthrough in this research would provide unprecedented tools for the CCP to forcibly establish a new world order, which has been [Chinese President] Xi Jinping's lifelong goal,'' the report said.
Militarily, brain warfare can be used in what the Pentagon has called China's ''anti-access, area-denial'' military strategy for the Indo-Pacific.
''Imagine (at least partially) immunized PLA troops being inserted into a geography where a specific weaponized bacterial strain has been released prior to their entry to prepare the ground and eliminate points of resistance,'' the report states. ''Any remaining sources of resistance on the ground are then dealt with through [Chinese] neurostrike weaponry that instill intense fear and/or other forms of cognitive incoherence resulting in inaction.''
That scenario would allow the PLA to establish absolute control over a nation like Taiwan, while at the same time blunting any American strategic options to intervene and send troops in to support Taiwan. The PLA could thus negate U.S. conventional military superiority with few near-term remedies for the United States, the report said.
''This scenario is based on known existing CCP research programs and what the clear strategic aims of those programs are,'' the report said.
The report said placing China's Academy of Military Medical Science the Commerce Department's blacklist of companies barred from access to U.S. goods was the result of its leading role in developing brain warfare capabilities. A special branch of the Chinese military known as the Strategic Support Force (SSF) is likely the main unit charged with conducting brain warfare.
The 'three warfares' strategy
The SSF is the leader in what the PLA calls a ''three warfares'' strategy of using non-kinetic weapons in war. The three warfares were disclosed in 2014 by China's National Defense University and call for employing psychological warfare, media warfare and legal warfare.
Little is known about the SSF but available information indicates the force would be used to shape information environments on the ground and provide the PLA with better battlefield information than its adversaries.
''With additional neurostrike capabilities that can either damage, disorient or even control perceived adversary cognition at the population level, the PLA SSF would represent an exponential escalation in [China's] aggression in the Indo- Pacific,'' the report said.
''Three warfares'' operations are underway against Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and along the Indian-Chinese border, and the authors warn that the risk of the new brain warfare capabilities being used is increasing.
The SSF ''now operates as a type of superstructure on top of a growing and increasingly active platform of Chinese military assets (land, sea, air, cyber, and space) across multiple theaters in the Indo-Pacific while simultaneously serving as the primary deployment platform for new neurostrike weaponry,'' the report said.
To counter brain warfare capabilities, the report urges the U.S. military to first expose the threat of neurostrike weapons and call for international talks and policy remedies, such as ethics reviews for neuroscience and cognitive science studies. Proactively, the United State should sabotage critical supply chains of specific institutions or companies engaged in brain warfare research.
Cyber capabilities also should be used to target and disrupt Chinese neurostrike programs. Sanctions against all Chinese civilian and military programs linked to brain warfare also should be increased.
The objective of all counter-brain warfare efforts should be to dissuade China's leadership from deploying the new technology, the report said.
''Like all of the CCP's asymmetric warfare programs, neurostrike depends entirely on presenting a massively decentralized and fragmented network structure,'' the report said. ''This renders it nearly impossible to map using traditional investigative or intelligence approaches.''
China currently does not have the defense-industrial base needed to produce the technologies for a neurostrike program that can match Beijing's military ambitions, the report said, presenting a window of opportunity for the U.S. and its allies.
''This fundamental gap presents a massive vulnerability for decapitating strikes against the neurostrike program provided that these gaps can be surfaced, and precision-targeted,'' the report said.
U.S. and allied nations must locate key weaknesses in the networks involved in the brain warfare program. Covert military action can ''make involvement in this weapons program a high-risk venture where technical failure and negative international attention are the most likely outcomes,'' the report said.
' Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
Copyright (C) 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
'Sound of Freedom': Box Office Triumph for QAnon Believers '' Rolling Stone
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 15:10
The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer
''Based on a true story,'' I heard from somewhere across the theater.
The familiar words had appeared on screen, and an elderly man had taken it upon himself to read them aloud, to the rest of a sizable audience seated for a matinee showing of the anti-child-trafficking thriller Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel. For the seasoned moviegoer, this phrase is a joke '-- we know that cinema will stretch almost any ''truth'' to the breaking point '-- and the rank insincerity of such a pronouncement is the foundation of the prankish opening titles of Fargo. But this crowd, I could tell, would view the events depicted over the next two-plus hours as entirely literal.
Caviezel, best known for being tortured to death in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, has become a prominent figure on the conspiracist right, giving speeches and interviews in which he hints at an underground holy war between patriots and a sinister legion of evildoers who are harvesting the blood of children. It's straight-up QAnon stuff, right down to his use of catchphrases like ''The storm is upon us.'' Here, he gets to act out some of that drama by playing a fictionalized version of Tim Ballard, head of the anti-sex trafficking nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), in a feature film that casts the operator as a Batman-style savior for kids sold into the sex trade.
Ballard himself has dabbled in Q-adjacent conspiracy theories, such as the Wayfair trafficking hoax, while his organization has far-right affinities and a long record of distorting its botched ''raids,'' which rely on bizarre tactics like asking psychics where to find victims for rescue. Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept Sound of Freedom as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated ''epidemic'' of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities. In short, I was at the movies with people who were there to see their worst fears confirmed.Editor's picks
Sound of Freedom lives up to that anticipation. It's a stomach-turning experience, fetishizing the torture of its child victims and lingering over lush preludes to their sexual abuse. At times I had the uncomfortable sense that I might be arrested myself just for sitting through it. Nonetheless, the mostly white-haired audience around me could be relied on to gasp, moan in pity, mutter condemnations, applaud, and bellow ''Amen!'' at moments of righteous fury, as when Ballard declares that ''God's children are not for sale.'' They were entranced by what they clearly took for a searing expos(C). Not even the occasional nasty coughing fit '-- and we had no shortage of those '-- could break the spell.
At the outset, we're introduced to Caviezel as Ballard, working for the Department of Homeland Security as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He takes down purveyors of child pornography, but is haunted by the knowledge that the actual victims are beyond his grasp. Meanwhile, a father in Honduras entrusts his young daughter and son to a woman who claims she can set them up with modeling careers, only to abduct them for transport to a child sex trafficking ring in Colombia. When Ballard takes the initiative of arranging his first sting to nab a pedophile who has a stolen child in tow, he conveniently ends up rescuing that little boy '-- and commits to finding the sister as well. Eventually, he'll abandon the DHS altogether, a rogue crusader fed up with bureaucratic limitations, to infiltrate and bring down the Colombian operation.
Apart from its relentless messaging, the movie is hobbled by a near-total absence of procedural logic. That original rescue is only possible because Ballard is standing at the exact right spot of a U.S.-Mexico border station at the very moment his target tries to cross. Lucky! Earlier, Ballard convinces an imprisoned child porn peddler facing a sentence of 30 years to help him contact traffickers in exchange for an immunity deal, needlessly posing as a pedophile himself to gain trust. When the guy fulfills his end of the bargain, Ballard has a dozen police officers swarm the diner they're in to'... arrest him again? Wait, how was he sprung from custody in the first place? Doesn't matter as long as the drooling creep with requisite glasses and pervert mustache gets his head slammed against a table once more. The same muddled approach is taken to Ballard's later, more sensational busts, which is certainly in keeping with the way O.U.R. embellishes and misrepresents their international ''missions,'' according to a Vice News investigation of the group. Related
Then you have Caviezel, bleached blond to match Ballard's buff, clean-cut Mormon profile. Performance-wise, he's stuck on a note of world-historical grief, either crying or staring with bloodshot eyes as he attempts to convey the scale and weight of the tragedy before him. The unambiguous hero of the piece, Ballard invokes parenthood as his motivation or an argument to get the cooperation he wants '-- ''What if it was your daughter?'' is practically his catchphrase '-- yet aside from a dialogue-free breakfast scene, he never interacts with his offspring. And if Mira Sorvino, who plays his wife Katherine, spent more than a day on set, you'd never know it: she's there for all of two minutes, offering brief words of encouragement while Ballard spends weeks undercover as a louche sex tourist in Central America. She, too, evidently had a personal stake in joining this film, telling the Washington Examiner this week that she has ''met so many child survivors and my heart burns for them.''
As implausible as the movie is '-- it invents a finale where Ballard journeys deep into a jungle alone to pluck a girl from the clutches of guerrilla militants, which he accomplishes by posing as a doctor distributing cholera vaccines '-- one wonders if it was extreme enough for Caviezel's liking. The actor has taken to repeating the most grotesque falsehoods of the sprawling QAnon ideology, among them that traffickers are harvesting children's organs and extracting the chemical compound adrenochrome from their brains before murdering them.
Compared to this nonsense, Sound of Freedom is relatively grounded in our universe. But that mainstream accessibility makes it valuable as a recruitment tool, much as generic ''Save the Children'' campaigns proved gateways to far-right conspiracy theories about a secret cabal of evil elites conducting blood rituals. On the QAnon message board Great Awakening this week, adherents celebrated the movie's box-office success (it quickly made back its modest budget of around $14 million and out-earned the latest Indiana Jones sequel on July 4, its premiere date, after the franchise blockbuster had been out for several days) while crowing that ''demons,'' including movie theater employees annoyed by the demographic it pulled in, were miserable at their victory.
''Do you see how more powerful we are than the legacy news?'' wrote one board user. ''We are the news now!'' On a different thread, someone attempted to prove that Donald Trump's endorsement of the film on Truth Social on Thursday was connected to a random Q post from 2018 (because of the time stamps on each). Some discussed efforts to get ''normies'' who are ''in need of awakening'' to see Sound of Freedom, including with the assistance of a promotional program that allows customers to buy tickets for strangers. ''Crimes against children will unite us all. Eyes are opening,'' read one optimistic post, while another was more emphatic still: ''We are witnessing true divine intervention.''
It matters, too, that Sound of Freedom almost never saw the light of day. Completed in 2018, no studio would take it for fear of losing money, according to producer Eduardo Verastegui '-- with Netflix and Amazon among those who passed. It finally found distribution thanks to Angel Studios, a Utah-based media company that crowdfunds original films and TV series that ''amplify light.'' (Although founded by Mormon brothers who originally created a content-filtering service to prevent children from seeing violence, nudity and profanity, it claims no formal church affiliation.)
Therefore, to its boosters, the movie checks many satisfying boxes at once. Caviezel, a devout Catholic allegedly blacklisted by the entertainment industry, back for a mythology-burnishing biopic of Ballard; a call to action in an imagined global war against sexual predators; a blow struck at the heart of ''woke'' Hollywood, the den of iniquity that snubbed it and (lest we forget) is thought to produce the wealthy deviants who serve as villains in this story.
TrendingMeaning it will surely do no good to point out Sound of Freedom's hackneyed white savior narrative. Or its wildly immature assumption that abused and traumatized children go right back to normal once the bad guys are in handcuffs. Or that it enforces stereotypes about trafficking that Angel Studios itself says are less than accurate. To the film's intended viewers, these cannot be flaws '-- they're the whole appeal.
There is visible suffering all around us in America. There are poor and unhoused, and people brutalized or killed by police. There are mass shootings, lack of healthcare, climate disasters. And yet, over and over, the far right turns to these sordid fantasies about godless monsters hurting children. Now, as in the 1980s Satanic panic, they won't even face the fact that most kids who suffer sexual abuse are harmed not by a shadowy cabal of strangers, but at the hands of a family member. To know thousands of adults will absorb Sound of Freedom, this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis'... well, it's profoundly depressing. Worse still, they'll want to spread the word.
Neo-Nazi podcasters who targeted Harry and Meghan's son Archie found guilty of terror crimes | Daily Mail Online
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:33
Neo-Nazi podcasters who said Prince Harry and Meghan's son Archie is an 'abomination that should be put down' for being mixed race are convicted of terror crimes Christopher Gibbons, 38, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, launched racist tirades They denied eight counts of encouraging acts of terrorism but were found guilty By Eleanor Dye
Published: 12:52 EDT, 7 July 2023 | Updated: 12:57 EDT, 7 July 2023
Two neo-Nazi podcasters who incited violence against minorities - including targeting Harry and Meghan's son Archie - have been found guilty of terror crimes.
Christopher Gibbons, 38, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, hosted Black Wolf Radio, where they launched homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and misogynistic tirades.
In one broadcast the pair called Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's four-year-old son an 'abomination that should be put down'.
Both men were arrested in May 2021, and were charged three months later.
They denied eight counts of encouraging acts of terrorism - each charge relating to a different podcast episode.
Neo-Nazi podcasters Christopher Gibbons (left), 38, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh (right), 34, have been found guilty of terror crimes
In one broadcast the pair called Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's four-year-old son an 'abomination that should be put down'
Gibbons also went on trial for two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications.
At Kingston Crown Court today, both were found guilty of all charges of encouraging acts of terrorism.
Gibbons and Patten-Walsh also endorsed the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016, who was murdered by a white supremacist in her constituency of Batley, West Yorkshire.
They also glorified Brenton Tarrant, who went on a shooting spree in 2019 when he killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Police investigating their podcast said they even 'encouraged listeners to go out and commit acts of terrorist violence'.
The investigation found that Gibbons had also created an Internet library containing hundreds of extreme right-wing texts and other materials.
The content online and their podcast was analysed and some of the material was found to be in breach of terrorism legislation, police said.
Officers discovered that the pair produced 21 episodes of the series in which they launched hate-filled rants about mixed race relationships.
At Kingston Crown Court today (pictured), both were found guilty of all charges of encouraging acts of terrorism
Gibbons' neo-Nazi online library was found by police to have held more than 500 videos of extreme right-wing-related speeches and propaganda documents.
It had nearly 1,000 subscribers, and the content had been viewed more than 152,000 times, according to Scotland Yard.
The videos and files were analysed by a team of specialist officers from the Met's specialist Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) and they assessed that they were in breach of terror laws.
Seven videos and a further document were found to also contain extremist views, imagery, rhetoric or information that encouraged others to carry out terrorist acts, police said.
Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, said after the convictions: 'Gibbons and Patten-Walsh thought that the fact they were airing their hateful views and advocating terrorist acts in plain sight, on a radio and podcast platform, somehow gave them some legitimacy and meant they wouldn't face any consequences.
'They were wrong, and both our investigation and a jury has found that they sought to encourage terrorism in how they expressed their abhorrent extreme right-wing views.
'During the course of the investigation, detectives reviewed hundreds of hours of material, and the result of their work was the compelling case that was presented at court which has resulted in their convictions.
'If you come across extremist content online, report it to police and we will act.
Information from the public is vitally important in our fight against terrorism.'
Both defendants will be sentenced at the same court in September.
Whistleblower Gal Luft: 'I May Have to Live on the Run For the Rest of My Life' For Informing U.S. Gov. About Biden's Influence Peddling 'º American Greatness
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:24
Dr. Gal Luft, the Israeli whistleblower who has been on the run since April, detailed his bribery allegations against the Biden family in an extraordinary new video obtained by the New York Post.
As American Greatness previously reported, Luft was arrested on weapon trafficking and other charges in Cyprus last February and disappeared after he was let out on bail. After his arrest, the former Israeli army officer tweeted that the Biden administration was out to ''bury'' him.
The Biden Department of Justice had Luft, the founder and executive director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), arrested on on suspicion of arms trafficking to China and Libya, lying to the FBI and violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), according to his arrest warrant. He's facing up to 96 years in prison if convicted of the charges.
From an undisclosed location, the fugitive claimed in the 14-minute video that he was arrested to stop him from testifying to the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee about the Biden family's shady business exploits in China.
''Let it sink in. I, who volunteered to inform the U.S. government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,'' the whistleblower lamented.
Luft said he was forced to skip bail in Cyprus while awaiting extradition ''because I did not have faith I would receive a fair trial in a New York court.''
The whistleblower reportedly worked with CEFC-USA'--the nonprofit arm of the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China'--between 2015 and 2018, the same period CEFC-China began its influence operations with the Biden family.
Despite Luft's fugitive status, House Oversight chairman, Republican James Comer said the Israeli remains a ''potential witness'' in the Biden family probe, the Post reported.
The whistleblower explained that his legal woes started after he made the ''fatal decision'' to present incriminating evidence about the Bidens to six officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice in a secret two day meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels in March 2019. The DOJ delegation, he said, was made up of two prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and four FBI agents. Luft said he believed the reason why the Justice Dept. dispatched so many officials was because they knew he was a ''credible witness'' and had ''insider knowledge'' about the Biden family's financial transactions with the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, ''including specific dollar figures.''
He said he also told the feds about Biden family associate Rob Walker, whom he referred to as ''Hunter Biden's bagman.''
Luft says he told the DOJ and the FBI in Brussels that Joe Biden, soon after his vice presidential term ended, had attended a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC, with his son Hunter and officials from CEFC.
Luft's account of the former VP's presence at that meeting was corroborated 21'months later when the FBI interviewed another attendee, Biden family associate Rob Walker, according to recent testimony before Congress.
Luft disclosed during the Brussels interview that CEFC was paying $100,000 a month to Hunter and $65,000 to his uncle Jim Biden, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China's Belt and Road Initiative around the world '-- and that the money was being funneled through Walker.
The Oversight Committee has written to Walker demanding he submit to questioning about his role in distributing more than $1 million from China to at least three of President Biden's relatives.
The most ''alarming'' information he shared in Brussels, according to Luft, pertained to the one-eyed mole in the DOJ who shared classified information with Hunter Biden and his Chinese partners.
''I told the DOJ that Hunter was associated with a very senior retired FBI official who had a distinct physical characteristic'--he had one eye,'' Luft said.
That FBI official is widely believed to be former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who gave $100,000 to a trust for two of then-Vice President Joe Biden's grandchildren in 2016 shortly before telling Hunter, ''I would be delighted to do future work with you.''
According to Luft, ''One Eye'' tipped off Hunter's CEFC associates, Dr. Patrick Ho and Chairman Ye Jianming, that they were under investigation.
The whistleblower stressed that he felt it was his ''civic duty to alert the government'' about the Biden family's corruption far ahead of the 2020 election to give the feds plenty of time to investigate the matter.
''I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda,'' he added. ''I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal'--only this time with China. Sadly, because of the DOJ's cover-up, this is exactly what happened.''
Luft said his evidence was corroborated nine months later by ''the emails and receipts'' contained in Hunter Biden's laptop. Incredibly, according to the whistleblower, the agent who seized the laptop from the Delaware computer repair shop in December 2019, Special Agent Joshua Wilson, was one of the FBI agents who interviewed him in Brussels that spring.
The whistleblower noted that although he had provided federal law enforcement with plenty of evidence to investigate before the election, they did nothing with it, and instead made him ''public enemy number one.''
''Over the past four years, they followed me, my family, my friends, my associates. We were all harassed, intimidated, and finally, I was prosecuted,'' Luft said.
Luft said that despite the harassment, he sent his attorney, Robert Henoch, to meet with then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue on the eve of the 2020 elections ''to ensure he was informed about the information I had given his department in Brussels nineteen months earlier, and also to warn him that there might still be a mole within the DOJ.''
In February 2020, Attorney General Bill Barr assigned Donoghue to ''coordinate federal investigations into all Ukraine-related corruption allegations against Joe Biden,'' according to the Post.
Donoghue reportedly agreed to meet Henoch at a Starbucks near DOJ headquarters and corresponded with him on his private email.
''The story is about corruption at the very highest levels of government/politics and I think it can all be corroborated,'' Henoch wrote in an email obtained by the Post.
Unbeknownst to Luft, on Sept. 4, Donoghue had ordered the Delaware US attorney to pause the criminal investigation into Hunter to avoid leaks in the two months before the election, according to testimony before Congress.
Needless to say, nothing came of the meeting.
Yet on November 2, 2022, on the eve of the midterm elections, Luft was indicted on seven counts, including a violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
''If convicted I could face up to 100 years in prison,'' the whistleblower said.
He said while in jail, he was portrayed in the international media as an arms dealer ''even though I have never traded a bullet in my entire life.''
Luft added that ''nowhere in my indictment does the DOJ claim or present evidence that I bought, sold, shipped, or financed any weapon.''
He also contested the charge that he had committed a FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violation by charging former CIA Director James Woolsey $6,000 a month for putting his name on an article he had ghost written for him in a Chinese paper.
''Nowhere in the indictment does the DOJ mention the well-known fact that Woolsey had been an advisor to my think tank since 2002 and that there was nothing in the article that represented Chinese interests'--to the contrary.''
''The notion that I, Gal Luft, spoon-fed a CIA director policy proposals on China, treating him like a useful idiot, is not only an insult to the Intelligence Community, it is an insult to the intelligence of every American,'' he said.
Luft also scoffed at the charge that he made a false statement to the FBI during his voluntary meeting in Brussels which he said came about as a result of his ''good citizenship.''
''Why was I in Brussels to begin with? Was I there to eat Belgian waffles?!'' he exclaimed.
He challenged the Justice Department to make his indictment public.
''Make my day,'' Luft added. ''Put it on your website so every American can see the nature of the allegations against me, the quality of the evidence and the lengths the government is willing to go to weaponize the Justice system to punish whistleblowers like me.''
Luft also challenged the FBI to submit to Congress the minutes from the March 2019 meeting in Brussels.
''Let everyone see what happened in Brussels,'' the whistleblower proposed. ''Why not? Are you trying to protect anything? Are you trying to protect anybody?''
Luft suggested that his arrest in November 2022 was an attempt to discredit him on Trumped up charges as Republicans were about to take control of Congress and start investigations into the DOJ's cover-up of the Biden scandal.
''Why am I being indicted for FARA for ghostwriting an innocuous article'--for which I received no payment, let alone from a foreign government'--when the MOTHER OF ALL FARA cases, the Biden systemic influence peddling on behalf of foreign governments for which they raked MILLIONS'--goes unpunished?'' he asked.
Luft said he had no faith that he would receive a fail trial in New York because he had seen how Patrick Ho had been treated after his 2017 arrest on bribery charges. According to Luft, during his trial in New York, prosecutors blocked Ho from mentioning the Bidens.
Ho ''paid Hunter Biden a million dollars for God-knows-what [but] was not allowed to mention the word Biden before the jury,'' Luft explained.
''The very same prosecutor who is now after me, Daniel Richenthal, told the judge at the time that mentioning the name Biden would 'add a political dimension' to the case, and the judge agreed,'' the whistleblower added. ''Which means if I was brought before a New York court, I would not be allowed to utter the word Brussels or Biden.''
He argued that in effect, ''the real context'' of his arrest: ''me being patient zero of the Biden family investigation, would be hidden from the jury.''
The whistleblower lamented that he now faces the rest of his life on the run, or in prison for doing his civic duty.
''I warned the government about potential risk to the integrity of the 2020 election,'' Luft said. ''Ask yourself, who is the real criminal in this story?''
Tuesday set an unofficial record for the hottest day on Earth. Wednesday may break it. | AP News
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:20
The planet's temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in decades and likely centuries, and Wednesday could become the third straight day Earth unofficially marks a record-breaking high. It's the latest in a series of climate-change extremes that alarm but don't surprise scientists.
The globe's average temperature reached 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer , a common tool based on satellite data, observations, and computer simulations and used by climate scientists for a glimpse of the world's condition. On Monday, the average temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17.01 degrees Celsius), setting a record that lasted only 24 hours.
For scientists, it's a sweaty case of I-told-you-so.
''A record like this is another piece of evidence for the now massively supported proposition that global warming is pushing us into a hotter future,'' said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who was not part of the calculations.
On Wednesday, 38 million Americans were under some kind of heat alert, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Sarah Kapnick. She said the global heat is from a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific that heats up the planet as it changes worldwide weather on top of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Even normally cooler communities are feeling the heat. In North Grenville, Ontario, the city turned ice-hockey rinks into cooling centers as temperatures Wednesday hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), with humidity making it making it feel like 100.4 degrees (38 degrees Celsius).
''I feel like we live in a tropical country right now,'' city spokeswoman Jill Sturdy said. ''It just kind of hits you. The air is so thick.''
THE RECORD HIGHS ARE UNOFFICIAL BUT SIGNIFICANT Residents carry umbrellas to shield from the sun as they take rest on a bench on a hot day in Beijing, Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
University of Maine climate scientist Sean Birkle, creator of the Climate Reanalyzer, said the daily figures are unofficial but a useful snapshot of what's happening in a warming world. Think of it as the temperature of someone who's ill, he said: It tells you something might be wrong, but you need longer-term records to work like a doctor's exam for a complete picture.
While the figures are not an official government record, ''this is showing us an indication of where we are right now,'' said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Sarah Kapnick. And NOAA indicated it will take the figures into consideration for its official record calculations.
Even though the dataset used for the unofficial record goes back only to 1979, Kapnick said that given other data, the world is likely seeing the hottest day in ''several hundred years that we've experienced.''
Scientists generally use much longer measurements '-- months, years, decades '-- to track the Earth's warming. But the daily highs are an indication that climate change is reaching uncharted territory.
JUST HOW HOT IS IT?With many places seeing temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), the new average temperatures might not seem very hot . But Tuesday's global high was nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (a full degree Celsius) higher than the 1979-2000 average, which already tops the 20th- and 19th-century averages.
High-temperature records were surpassed this week in Quebec and Peru. Beijing reported nine straight days last week when the temperature exceeded 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius). Cities across the U.S. from Medford, Oregon, to Tampa, Florida, have been hovering at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Alan Harris, director of emergency management for Seminole County, Florida, said that they've already exceeded last year in the number of days they've had their extreme weather plan activated, a measure initiated when the heat index will be 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.22 degrees Celsius) or greater.
''It's just been kind of brutally hot for the last week, and now it looks like potentially for two weeks,'' Harris said.
In the U.S., heat advisories include portions of western Oregon, inland far northern California, central New Mexico, Texas, Florida and the coastal Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. Excessive heat warnings are continuing across southern Arizona and California.
SOME POPULATIONS ARE AT RISK, BUT MANY ARE STILL OUTDOORSHigher temperatures translate into brutal conditions for people all over the world. When the heat spikes , humans suffer health effects '-- especially young and elderly people, who are vulnerable to heat even under normal conditions.
A woman uses a fan to cool a child as they sit on a bench at Qianmen pedestrian shopping street on a hot day in Beijing, Thursday, June 29, 2023. The entire planet sweltered for the two unofficial hottest days in human recordkeeping Monday and Tuesday, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project. The unofficial heat records come after months of unusually hot conditions due to climate change and a strong El Nino event. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) ''Andy Wong/AP
A Kashmiri man cools off at a stream on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. The entire planet sweltered for the two unofficial hottest days in human recordkeeping Monday and Tuesday, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project. The unofficial heat records come after months of unusually hot conditions due to climate change and a strong El Nino event. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) ''Mukhtar Khan/AP
''People aren't used to that. Their bodies aren't used to that,'' said Erinanne Saffell, Arizona's state climatologist and an expert in extreme weather and climate events. ''That's important to understand who might be at risk, making sure people are hydrated, they're staying cool, and they're not exerting themselves outside, and taking care of those folks around you who might be at risk.''
Overall, the heat means something a little different to everyone.
In West Texas, it's cool wraps and Gatorade for construction workers, said Joe Staley, a job site superintendent for a company that builds wastewater treatment plants. In Portland, it's extra water on backyard vegetable gardens, said Martha Alvarado. In Minnesota, it's a difficult workout on the family vineyard thanks to extra humidity for Joe Roisen.
In Dallas, the heat also means a sense of camaraderie for musician Sam Cormier, who often plays outdoors. Apartment dwellers with their windows open step out to bring him a drink. People are still walking around outside, even with the weather, and he plays with just his guitar, which is lighter than other equipment. He'd rather be outside sweating, he said, than inside on a computer.
HOW WE GOT HERE, AND WHERE WE'RE GOINGNOAA's Kapnick said the global heat is from a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific that heats up the globe as it changes worldwide weather on top of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
''Not all records are meant to be broken. In almost every corner of our planet, people are facing the brunt of unprecedented heat waves,'' said United Nations Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen. ''We ignore science at our own peril. ... It is the poorest and most vulnerable that continue to suffer from our inaction.''
The highs come after months of ''truly unreal meteorology and climate stats for the year,'' such as off-the-chart record warmth in the North Atlantic, record low sea ice in Antarctica and a rapidly strengthening El Nino , said University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado.
A woman uses a sweater to shield from the sun as she walls on a street on a hot day in Beijing, Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Wednesday may bring another unofficial record, with the Climate Reanalyzer again forecasting record or near-record heat. Antarctica's average forecast for Wednesday is a whopping 4.5 degrees Celsius (8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1979-2000 average.
Because humanity hasn't stopped pumping heat-trapping gases into the air, future generations will look back at the summer of 2023 as ''one of the coolest of the rest of your life,'' said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler.
___Borenstein reported from Washington, and Walling from Chicago. Follow them on Twitter at @borenbears and @MelinaWalling .
___Follow AP's climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment .
___Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.
New Proposals Would Allow UK Spy Agency To Monitor Internet Logs In Real-Time
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:12
Presented as a bid to tackle the issue of online fraud, the UK government is mulling over legislation that could grant GCHQ, the nation's cyber and signals intelligence agency, sweeping powers to monitor internet logs in real-time. With a purported aim to catch criminals in the act, this move raises alarm bells on the sanctity of civil liberties.
This latest effort, according to The Record, is the government's response to last year's inquiry, which decried the existing measures as grossly inadequate in tackling fraud. The inquiry lamented that less than 8% of reported fraud crimes are investigated due to the lack of focus and understanding of the evolving complexity of fraud. It called for a ''wholesale change in philosophy and practice.'' On the surface, the new proposal seems like an answer, but at what cost?
GCHQ aims to utilize Internet Connection Records (ICRs), a cache of metadata that includes details of services that devices connect to but not the content accessed. At present, ICRs are relegated to identifying individuals already under suspicion.
However, this proposed legislation would expand the powers, potentially allowing ICRs to be used in identifying new suspects '' a radical shift. The government's obscure communication surrounding this proposal highlights the need for public scrutiny.
When tasked with an independent review of the government's proposition, David Anderson, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, received an operational case from GCHQ which claimed that improved access to ICRs could be used to detect financial fraud and even child sexual abuse by identifying patterns of online behavior. However, it was alleged that national security scenarios could not be publicly shared without compromising operations.
Technical challenges regarding the implementation of real-time monitoring remain an enigma. ICRs, introduced in 2016 through the Investigatory Powers Act, are not widely employed even in 2023. Their deployment is hindered by substantial costs, technical complexity, and the shifting landscape of internet usage.
The debate does not stop at the technical hurdles. The more poignant question lies in the murky waters between crime prevention and personal privacy. The proposed legislation, if enacted, could lead us into uncharted waters, where the government's gaze over our online activities becomes the norm.
In a world where privacy is becoming increasingly cherished, the sudden windfall of power to GCHQ feels like an Orwellian twist.
The public and the guardians of civil liberties must be vigilant. The price for security should not be the pawn of privacy. One must wonder whether in our pursuit to combat online fraud, we are at risk of creating an omnipotent surveillance state that might leave the citizenry perpetually under the watchful eye of Big Brother.
BIS: CBDC Roll-outs may require changing The Constitution '' Mark E. Jeftovic is The Bombthrower
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:09
Also: ''Tiered remuneration'' means no privacy and negative interest rates.The IMF is warning that with all these CBDCs about to launch, there need to be global inter-operability standards between them all, and they're working on a global platform to facilitate just that.
Speaking at a conference of African central banks in Rabat, Morocco, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that there needs to be agreement among CBDC implementations,
''on a common regulatory framework for digital currencies that will allow global interoperability. Failure to agree on a common platform would create a vacuum that would likely be filled by cryptocurrencies''
Not to be outdone, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) worked with seven central banks to publish YARP (Yet Another Research Paper) on CBDC policy, entitled ''Central Bank Digital Currencies: ongoing policy perspectives'''... (*yawn*).
The central banks involved were: Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, England, the United States, Canada, and the European Union.
The paper is mostly a snoozer:
''Development of CBDC work requires careful consideration and engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including the private sector and legislators'''...
''To successfully meet its public policy objectives, a CBDC ecosystem should allow a wide range of private and public stakeholders to participate and, in doing so, deliver services which benefit end users.'''...
''The complex design questions and the potential risks arising from the implementation of any CBDC require careful consideration.''
Until you get to the rather innocuous sounding Annexes, like ''Box 2: Legal Considerations''.
This is where it starts to get interesting.
What are retail CBDCs, exactly?The paper wonders: Are they cash? Deposits? Or something else entirely?
This is quite the question, because if CBDCs aren't cash, there has to be a reason why they wouldn't be. When you start to see where CBDCs are going: expiry dates, programability, social credit scores '' what we're talking about is almost a kind of anti-cash (my observation, not the paper's).
Further, the paper wonders, would there need to be changes to banking charters, legislation or even the constitutions of the countries issuing them:
''Legislation may need to be enacted or adjusted to specifically authorise the issuance and distribution of a retail CBDC (eg changes to central bank charters/statutes, legislation in other areas related to payments or to the constitution itself )''
Who had ''new Constitutional convention'' on their bingo card for the roll-out of CBDCs? We do now.
Box 3: What tools may be needed to manage stressed conditions?
Here we truly get a peak behind the curtain '' and it's all dressed up in that Davos-dialect of benign-sounding euphemisms that belie a Brave New World (like how ''recontextualizing food chains'' basically means banning the peasants from eating meat).
They get right to it:
''When considering potential tools and policies to manage stressed conditions (eg limiting or managing fund outflows from bank deposits ), there are price and quantity control approaches, with a mix of the two also being possible''
Those would be your bank deposits. In this section they're gaming out how to contain bank runs.
''Quantity holding limits have the advantage of directly limiting the extent of potentially harmful levels of disintermediation (eg structural changes resulting from CBDC adoption that increase the cost or availability of credit across the economy), and being relatively simple to implement.
However, they also have disadvantages, such as potentially impacting adoption; this may happen if holding limits increase the risk of failed transactions occurring, or make CBDC transactions less convenient, especially if alternative forms of digital money (eg stablecoins) do not present similar limits.''
Translation: We can cap how much money SerfCoin you're permitted to hold, so we don't blow up the system with too much SerfCoin issuance, but if we do that, you may not want to hold SerfCoin, opting for stablecoins (and cryptos) instead '' where no such limits would apply.
Implementing limits may also have knock-on effects on the potential functionality of CBDC.
Technical solutions such as ''waterfall'' or ''cascade'' functionality, whereby CBDC holdings or payments that would breach a limit would automatically be transferred into other deposits , could be considered to ease the effects of being close to any holding limit/threshold.
Translation: We can build in safety valves that would automatically move your money SerfCoin into other accounts, and even make such transfers obligatory. But that could get tricky, because that might technically be, well'... theft.
When I read what comes next:
Price-based measures like fees and tiered remuneration have the advantage of being more flexible by allowing for any size of transaction or holdings, albeit at increasing costs.
In principle, the decision about the amount of CBDC transferred or held above a certain level is influenced via incentives but still relies primarily on each user's preference. However, price-based measures may permit larger inflows into CBDC in stress situations compared with holding limits as the fee or scale of negative remuneration required to dissuade runs may be very large.
Those are again quite benign-sounding terms, however if you look into it, it becomes apparent that terms like ''tiered remuneration'' have very specific meanings within the body of academic thought around CBDCs.
Tiered Remuneration: eliminating cash, privacy and the ability to saveThe ECB's Ulrich Bindseil discusses this at length in a 2019 paper ''Controlling CBDC through tiered remuneration'' (in fact my money is on Bindseil being the main author of this BIS paper; only the central banks involved are cited on the cover page).
In his paper, the tools of ''two-tier remuneration'' are examined to mitigate ''risk of facilitating systemic runs on banks in crisis situations''.
The paper acknowledges the CBDC role in the elimination of cash (banknotes) and that they effectively end anonymity in transactions and prevent both ''illicit transactions'' and ''store of value'', because CBDCs '' through tiered remuneration '' ''Allows overcoming the ZLB as one may impose negative interest rates on CBDC''.
To wit,
if digital cash is used to completely replace physical cash, this could allow interest rates to be pushed below the zero-lower bound'...By allowing overcoming the zero-lower bound (''ZLB'') and therefore freeing negative interest rate policies (''NIRP'') of its current constraints, a world with only digital central bank money would allow for '' according to this view '' strong monetary stimulus in a sharp recession and/or financial crisis .
This could not only avoid recession, unemployment, and/or deflation but also the need to take recourse to nonstandard monetary policy measures which have more negative side effects than NIRP.
However,
Opponents of NIRP will obviously dislike this argument in favor of CBDC, and will thus see CBDC potentially as an instrument to overcome previous limitations of ''financial repression'' and ''expropriation'' of the saver.''
Wow.
Later in the paper we get to what tiered remuneration means: the more SerfCoin you have, the lower your interest rate, even going negative beyond a certain point. It's like a built-in wealth cap and tax at the same time, where the only way to avoid it, presumably, would be to spend it '' thus shoring up money velocity.
It overlooks the obvious: that those with any meaningful amount of wealth would have the incentive to avoid storing any of it in a CBDC at all.
The BIS paper dropped around the same time a copy of the EU's ''Digital Euro Bill'' was leaked and details published by Coindesk ; notable in that is the provision that any digital Euro must function in an offline mode, protect privacy (i.e. be like cash) and must not be programmable.
It will be interesting to see which vision of CBDCs prevails (although the proponents of the BIS model could profess that tiered remuneration is more structural than programmable, but automatic and obligatory swaps of deposits to other accounts seems harder to rationalize)
That said, Christine Lagarde also clarified in April that ''programability'' will be done at the retail banking level:
''For us [central banks], the issuance of a digital currency that would be central bank money would not be programmable ['...] Those who can associate the use of digital currency with programmability would be the intermediaries '-- would be the commercial banks''
'...which gives us a hint at something else we've been pondering in our monthly coverage of CBDCs in The Bitcoin Capitalist (''Eye On EvilCoin'' section): how will the big banks avoid being disintermediated out of existence when central banks create CBDC accounts directly to the consumer?
Maybe they'll be the ones enforcing the expiry dates, negative interest rates, social credit scores and personal carbon footprint quotas and that will become the raison d'ªtre of the Too Big To Fail Banks.
Today's post is an excerpt from the my premium newsletter The Bitcoin Capitalist. Try it for a month here.
My next e-book The CBDC Survival Guide should be out this summer sign up for The Bombthrower list and get it free when it drops, and receive The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto in the meantime. You can also connect with me on Nostr or Twitter.
Judge Reverses ATF Restrictions on 80% Lowers and Frames - 80% Lowers
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 13:19
On June 30th, 2023, a US judge reversed new rules the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted to implement. This new rule severely restricted and banned certain firearm parts. Here's a quick FAQ to answer questions you may have as an 80% customer and gun builder.
What Did The ATF Do?On August 24, 2022, the ATF's Final Rule (2021R-05F), went into effect. This rule attempted to restrict the manufacturing, sale, and ownership of unfinished 80% lowers, 80% frames.
Under this rule, 80-Lower.com and other, similar businesses would have been restricted from selling some of our products to customers across the country.
Attempts to Restrict 80% LowersIn the ATF's Final Rule were new restrictions on AR-15 receivers. The rule attempted to redefine both upper and lower receivers as firearms. It also placed restrictions on unfinished 80% lowers.
Attempts to Restrict 80% FramesAlso contained in the Final Rule were new restrictions on unfinished handgun frames, like Polymer80 frames. This would have restricted the sale, ownership, and use of Polymer80 and other 80% frames to make a firearm.
What Happened To The Rule?On June 30th, 2023, a federal court vacated the ATF's Final Rule. This eliminates the restrictions the ATF put in place in 2022 and prevents the government from restricting firearm parts like build kits, upper assemblies, 80% lowers and 80% frames.
Can I buy 80% lowers and 80% frames?Yes. With the ATF's rule being vacated, 80-Lower.com and other businesses like us may sell 80% lowers, 80% frames, and 80 lower jigs.
Please note, however, that your state may have passed laws restricting or banning these products. Before ordering, check our Shipping & Return Policy to ensure you do not live in a restricted state.
Can I buy build kits and parts kit?Yes. With the rule vacated, AR-15 upper assemblies, build kits, and parts kits are not restricted from sale, ownership, or use under federal law. The same restrictions to their sale and ownership may apply under state law, though. Before ordering, check our Shipping & Return Policy to ensure you do not live in a restricted state.
Can I buy an 80% jig and 80% lower/frame together?Yes. These products, combined together, are not considered firearms. With the rule vacated, there are no restrictions on either 80% receivers or frames, nor the tooling and jigs used to fabricate them. Again, some state laws may still apply.
DISCLAIMER: If you are new to the world of DIY gun building, you likely have a lot of questions and rightfully so. It's an area that has a lot of questions that, without the correct answers, could have some serious implications. At 80-lower.com, we are by no means providing this content on our website to serve as legal advice or legal counsel. We encourage each and every builder to perform their own research around their respective State laws as well as educating themselves on the Federal laws. When performing your own research, please be sure that you are getting your information from a reliable source.
Now health professionals are urged to call vaginas 'bonus holes' to avoid offending patients | Daily Mail Online
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 13:17
Now health professionals are urged to call vaginas 'bonus holes' to avoid offending trans or non-binary patientsEXCLUSIVE: Women's rights campaigners say term is misogynistic and wrongIt appears in a glossary of words for health professionals to think about using By Dan Sales
Published: 04:31 EDT, 8 July 2023 | Updated: 06:41 EDT, 8 July 2023
Women have condemned a charity after it suggested the vagina could instead be referred to as 'the bonus hole' to avoid upsetting non-binary or trans men.
Female rights campaigners today rounded on the alternative glossary, branding it both 'misogynistic' and 'utterly dehumanising'.
It is featured on charitable organisation Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust on a page for health professionals who are treating patients who have the disease.
Today the trust insisted it was not suggesting the term should be used by all women - but added it was important to reach trans men and non-binary people.
But the 'bonus hole' term - which the cause says was developed with expert organisations who work with the LGBT community - was widely condemned.
The page also features a suggestion that the vagina might also be referred to as a 'front hole'
The charity at the centre of the controversy said it was doing everything to try and encourage everyone to attend screenings
The term is featured on page on cancer charity Jo's Trust website and is for health professionals
It is entitled 'Language to use when supporting trans men and/or non-binary people'.
Conservatives for Women founder Caroline Ffiske told MailOnline: 'The gender movement seems actively to want to encourage body disassociation and hatred, in other words to actively create more confused young people alienated from their own physicality and their own sex.
'What better way than to use this utterly dehumanising language about our own bodies?
'To my mind it is grooming: create the unease, the disassociation, the alienation, and then when you have done that, you step in with euphoric rhetoric about 'trans joy'.
'Fill the void you have created. Of course those doing this will not be around to pick up the pieces when young bodies are irreversibly damaged and young lives destroyed. Is there a mechanism whereby these charities promoting harm could be struck off?'
The glossary says it was created with the help of the LGBT Foundation.
Its adds that using the wrong terms if a person does not use them can lead to them feeling hurt or distressed.
Kellie-Jay Keen, the founder of Standing for Women, described parts of the glossary as 'an erasure of female language'.
She added: 'The whole thing is loathsome but bonus hole and front hole are so misogynist.
Caroline Ffiske, left, who founded Conservatives for Women, said the term was 'dehumanising;
Women's rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen said 'bonus hole' was a 'misogynistic loathsome term'
'If a woman is so triggered by the word vagina I should imagine she need serious psychiatric help rather than the world bend to her never ending list of irrational demands.
'You would think that charities focused on cervical cancer would have better things to do than erase female language. Still it's better than the Canadian cervical charity who devoted a whole section for men with cervical cancer.'
The trust moved today to head off the controversy and explain why it had published the guide.
It said it included it to try and help health professionals and reach potential cancer sufferers that may be concerned about attending screenings.
A spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We are aware that some of our online information is currently attracting significant attention. The information being shared is from a webpage written for health professionals to support trans men and / or non-binary patients with a cervix to attend cervical screening.
'The page includes a glossary of terms they may hear from their patients and was developed with expert organisations who work with the LGBT community.
'The page is not promoting the use of these phrases with all women, it is a list of phrases that nurses may hear some patients prefer.
'Our mission at Jo's is to prevent as many cervical cancers as possible, and a big part of that is increasing uptake of cervical screening.
'Women are our main audience at Jo's, however some trans men and / or non-binary people have cervixes and to reduce as many cervical cancers as possible it is important that we also provide information for this group and the health professionals who support them.'
'Kabinet valt na ruzie over opvang asielzoekers'
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 13:00
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Dutch government collapses over immigration policy | Reuters
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 04:53
AMSTERDAM, July 7 (Reuters) - The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach a deal on restricting immigration, which will trigger new elections in the fall.
The crisis was triggered by a push by Prime Minister Mark Rutte's conservative VVD party to limit the flow of asylum seekers to the Netherlands, which two of his four-party government coalition refused to support.
"It's no secret that the coalition partners have differing opinions about immigration policy. Today we unfortunately have to conclude that those differences have become insurmountable. Therefore I will tender the resignation of the entire cabinet to the king," Rutte said in a televised news conference.
Tensions came to a head this week, when Rutte demanded support for a proposal to limit entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.
This latest proposal went too far for the small Christian Union and liberal D66, causing a stalemate.
Rutte's coalition will stay on as a caretaker government until a new administration is formed after new elections, a process which in the fractured Dutch political landscape usually takes months.
News agency ANP, citing the national elections committee, said elections would not be held before mid-November.
A caretaker government cannot decide on new policies, but Rutte said it would not affect the country's support for Ukraine.
The Netherlands already has a one of Europe's toughest immigration policies but under the pressure of right-wing parties, Rutte had for months been trying to seek ways to further reduce the inflow of asylum seekers.
Asylum applications in the Netherlands jumped by a third last year to over 46,000, and the government has projected they could increase to more than 70,000 this year - topping the previous high of 2015.
This will again put a strain on the country's asylum facilities, where for months last year hundreds of refugees at a time were forced to sleep in the rough with little or no access to drinking water, sanitary facilities or health care.
Rutte last year said he felt "ashamed" of the problems, after humanitarian group Medecins sans Frontieres sent in a team to the Netherlands for the first time ever, to assist with migrants' medical needs at the centre for processing asylum requests.
He promised to improve conditions at the facilities, mainly by reducing the number of refugees that reach the Netherlands. But he failed to win the backing of coalition partners who felt his policies went too far.
Rutte, 56, is the longest-serving government leader in Dutch history and the most senior in the EU after Hungary's Viktor Orban. He is expected to lead his VVD party again at the next elections.
Rutte's current coalition, which came to power in January 2022, was his fourth consecutive administration since he became prime minister in October 2010.
Reporting by Bart Meijer, Anthony Deutsch and Stephanie van den BergEditing by Sandra Maler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
MediaMath Owes $100+ Million To At Least 200 Companies
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 19:19
When MediaMath filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Delaware district court on Friday, its debts were laid bare.
According to the filing, MediaMath has between $100 million and $500 million in liabilities. It has estimated assets of somewhere within that same range and owes money to between 200 and 999 creditors.
These are mostly names that would be familiar to anyone in ad tech: Magnite, PubMatic, Sonobi, Xandr, AdsWizz, Smart AdServer (now Equativ), TripleLift, LiveRamp, Index Exchange, OpenX, Google, DoubleVerify and GumGum.
Putting rent and IT services aside, most of what MediaMath owes is related to media costs with a little bit of third-party data and ad verification sprinkled in.
Ripples
MediaMath's bankruptcy will have a knock-on effect across the online ad industry.
Beyond the immediate chaos of media buyers and ad ops people being forced to scramble over a holiday weekend to transfer their campaigns to other demand-side platforms '' access to MediaMath's platform was cut off as of Friday '' the company's suppliers are now heading into Q3 knowing that their bills won't be paid anytime soon.
Payments to unsecured creditors are not guaranteed in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, and the collections process could take years.
MediaMath's supply partners, all of which are unsecured, will likely receive partial payment '' possibly only pennies on the dollar. Meanwhile, secured creditors '' Goldman Sachs in this case '' will get their money back before anyone else's claim is satisfied.
So, who's owed and how much?
MediaMath's bankruptcy filing includes a list of the 30 creditors with the largest unsecured claims against the company. Unsurprisingly, Magnite and PubMatic are at the top.
These are the ad tech providers owed more than $1 million:
Magnite: $12.6 millionPubMatic: $10.5 millionSonobi: $5.3 millionXandr: $4 millionAdsWizz: $3.4 millionSmart AdServer (now Equativ): $3.4 millionTripleLift: $2.8 millionAzerion Technology: $2.6 millionLiveRamp: $2.3 millionIndex Exchange: $2.2 millionOpenX: $1.9 millionGoogle: $1.7 millionDoubleVerify: $1.5 millionGumGum: $1.4 millionUnruly: $1.4 millionMadhive: $1.3 millionOracle (Grapeshot): $1.2 millionYahoo Ad Tech JV: $1.1 millionYieldlab: $1.1 millionEyeota: $1.1 millionT-Mobile (PushSpring): $1.05 millionFate, free will or a combo?
A lot of the chatter surrounding MediaMath's collapse has been about what could and should have been done differently over the years to have avoided this unfortunate outcome, which resulted in more than 300 people losing their jobs.
MediaMath missed (and dismissed) multiple opportunities to get acquired, took late-stage investments that led to a disastrous restructuring and made business bets that didn't pan out, including that marketers would bring their programmatic media buying in house en masse.
A person close to the company previously described the dynamics at play as akin to ''a Shakespearean tragedy.''
Typically, Shakespeare's characters often bring about their demise through their own actions. But there is also usually an element of fate and having to deal with strong external forces outside of one's control.
Which is to say that every independent DSP (not that there are that many left) operates in a world in which Google, Amazon and Meta collectively generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually in advertising revenue. YouTube alone generated just over $29 billion last year.
Recent research released by Adalytics demonstrates that roughly 80% of YouTube TrueView placements that run on third-party websites violate Google's own standards by being outstream, muted, autoplay and appearing out of view. (Google denies this.)
Regardless, let's pretend the number is far lower than 80%.
Even a sliver of $29 billion available to companies that aren't in the Big Tech coterie would make a palpable difference to the independent ad tech sector.
Adam Heimlich spells this point out in a LinkedIn post:
In short, we live in a system and not in a vacuum.
Federal Officials Hatch a Three-Pronged Defense Against Another 'Tripledemic' - The New York Times
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:51
This fall, Americans will be urged to get shots against the flu, Covid and, if they're older, R.S.V.
While 71 percent of adults age 65 and older got a flu shot this past winter, only about 43 percent chose to get the Covid booster. Two R.S.V. vaccines for older people are new this year. Credit... Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock To prevent a repeat of last winter's ''tripledemic'' of respiratory illnesses, Americans will be encouraged to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots but for two other vaccines, one of them entirely new.
Federal health officials have already asked manufacturers to produce reformulated Covid vaccines to be distributed later this year. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an additional step, endorsing two new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus for older Americans.
The three shots '-- flu, Covid and R.S.V. '-- may help to reduce hospitalizations and deaths later this year. But there are uncertainties about how the vaccines are best administered, who is most likely to benefit, and what the risks may be.
For older and immunocompromised Americans, all three vaccines are a ''godsend,'' said Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children's Hospital and an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.
''The number of elders who die of viral infection every winter in our intensive care units, and also sometimes in the summer, is large '-- it's in the tens of thousands of individuals,'' Dr. Levy said. ''Each of these vaccines is a huge win.''
Yet it's unclear how many Americans will opt for the shots. Some 71 percent of adults ages 65 and older got a flu shot this past winter, but only about 43 percent chose to get the Covid booster.
The misery of the past winter may help change minds. The flu may have led to as many as 58,000 deaths, peaking in December, according to the C.D.C. Covid claimed roughly 50,000 lives between November and March.
R.S.V. kills up to 10,000 people each year, most of them older. Infections this year peaked in November and resulted in about twice as many hospitalizations, including children, as in prepandemic years.
Only the Covid and flu vaccines were available last fall. The R.S.V. vaccines for adults are new, and in clinical trials proved to be highly effective against infection of the lower respiratory tract, which includes the lungs.
In May, the F.D.A. approved the first two versions, made by Pfizer and GSK, for older adults. The C.D.C.'s advisers recommend that Americans age 60 and older get the shot in consultation with their doctors. (The Pfizer vaccine is also being evaluated for use in pregnant women as a way to protect newborn infants.)
Bundling all three inoculations into a single visit to a clinic or pharmacy is likely to encourage more people to get immunized, Dr. Levy said. ''Plus, you want to get these shots in arms before the viral respiratory season in the winter,'' he added.
But other scientists hesitated to endorse the idea, citing the paucity of data on safety and effectiveness when all three are given at the same time.
Image Pfizer's new respiratory syncytial virus vaccine in production. In clinical trials, the shots proved highly effective against infection of the lower respiratory tract, which includes the lungs. Credit... Pfizer, via Reuters Sometimes, vaccines work against one another when administered simultaneously. According to data presented to the C.D.C.'s advisers, the R.S.V. and flu vaccines produced lower levels of antibodies when given at the same time than when either was given alone.
''I would say, when possible, it might be good to spread them out,'' said Dr. Camille Kotton, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the C.D.C. scientific advisory panel.
''I remain clinically concerned, especially where influenza vaccine doesn't engender as much protection as we might like,'' she said.
The vast majority of people at risk for illness and death following infections with these viruses are those 75 and older. In that group, the benefit from each of the vaccines clearly outweighs any safety concerns, Dr. Kotton and other experts said.
Up to 85 percent of flu-related deaths in recent years were among those age 65 and older, according to the C.D.C. The agency recommends that older adults get a high-dose flu vaccine or one with an adjuvant, an ingredient that can produce a stronger immune response.
Hospitalizations and deaths from Covid also occur primarily in the oldest Americans, and Covid boosters are now thought to be beneficial primarily for older adults and people with weakened immune systems.
In June, the F.D.A. advised Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax to manufacture Covid shots designed to target XBB.1.5, the Omicron variant that accounts for roughly 27 percent of cases. That variant seems to be receding, however, and a newer variant, XBB.1.16, is on the upswing.
R.S.V. is the leading cause of infant hospitalizations in the United States, and among the top killers of young children in low- and middle-income countries. The virus was underappreciated as a respiratory threat to adults until recently.
The virus may lead to as many as 160,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths among older adults each year, according to the C.D.C. '-- and those numbers are likely to be underestimates. For every one million adults age 65 and older who get the vaccine, 25,000 outpatient visits, 2,500 hospitalizations and 130 deaths would be prevented, according to one analysis presented to the agency's advisers.
For decades, vaccines against R.S.V. proved challenging to design. A breakthrough in 2013 galvanized efforts by several companies. In a recent trial, the GSK vaccine, to be sold as Arexvy, retained much of its potency into the second year, and its efficacy is being studied for an even longer period.
Pfizer is still evaluating the durability of its vaccine, which will be marketed as Abrysvo. If the vaccines remain effective over a long time, an R.S.V. shot may be not be needed every year.
The companies' trials did not enroll enough people who were immunocompromised, medically frail, live in long-term care facilities, or were 75 and older to gauge efficacy in those groups. These are also the Americans most vulnerable to R.S.V.
Although flu and other vaccines carry a small risk of the autoimmune disease Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome, those numbers generally are on the order of one or two cases per million. Evaluating the new R.S.V. vaccines, the manufacturers each reported three neurological cases, including Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome, within 42 days of vaccination in a population of about 40,000 people.
Still, the trials were not large enough to determine whether those cases occurred by chance or were caused by the vaccines. ''That information really can't be obtained until post licensure and post recommendation and rollout,'' said Dr. Helen Chu, a physician and immunologist at the University of Washington.
Image A drive-through testing site for coronavirus, flu and R.S.V. in Seattle. Credit... Lindsey Wasson/Reuters Influenza, Covid and R.S.V. infections themselves pose a risk of Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome and other neurological problems, so the risk-benefit balance still heavily favors vaccination, Dr. Chu said.
Still, the reports of adverse events related to the R.S.V. vaccines made some C.D.C. advisers reluctant to back them for people who do not face high risks from the infection.
That's partly why the scientific panel said that anyone age 60 and older ''may'' opt to get the vaccine in consultation with a doctor, instead of issuing a blanket recommendation for all adults over 60 or even 65.
That decision risks deepening racial inequities regarding vaccination, some experts said. Many people of color, often at disproportionate risk of severe illness or death, do not have easy access to a health care provider who might help them weigh the risks and benefits of R.S.V. vaccination.
The recommendation also places the onus on general physicians and other health care providers to weigh the risks and benefits, Dr. Chu noted.
''It's hard for the committee,'' she said, referring to the C.D.C.'s expert panel. ''It's certainly going to be much, much harder for a G.P.''
The C.D.C.'s recommendations ensure that most Americans will not have to pay out of pocket for the vaccines. This fall marks the first time that the distribution of Covid vaccines will not be managed by the federal government, but insurance companies will continue to cover the costs.
How much Pfizer and GSK will charge for the new R.S.V. vaccines is still unclear. Pfizer said the price of its vaccine was still being negotiated, but might fall between $180 and $270.
GSK doubled its initial price of $148 two weeks before the C.D.C. advisers were scheduled to meet, giving the agency staff little time to redo its cost-effectiveness analysis, according to one C.D.C. scientist with knowledge of the matter. GSK now has settled on a range of $200 to $295.
GSK raised its price because of the new data showing effectiveness into a second season, said Alison Hunt, a spokeswoman for the company.
Ongoing research is likely to provide more information on the new R.S.V. vaccines. In preliminary data, a second dose of the GSK vaccine did not boost antibody levels, which puzzled the science advisers at last week's meeting.
Pfizer is investigating whether a second dose of its vaccine, given one year after the first, will boost immunity. Those results are expected some time early next year. The companies are also studying whether people who are immunocompromised should get a single dose or two doses given one month apart.
''We never have all the information we want,'' said Dr. Levy, the F.D.A. adviser.
''But one thing we know for sure is that every winter people lose loved ones, grandmothers, grandfathers to the viruses, and now we have better tools. And we want to deploy them.''
A version of this article appears in print on
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U.S. Officials Urging 3-Shot Regimen in Fall to Avoid a 'Tripledemic'
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Report: UN 'Pact For The Future' Seeks Permanent Emergency Powers For 'Complex Global Shocks' '' Summit News
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:27
During a presentation at a conference in Morocco, Kristalina Georgievahe the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the global body is ''working hard on the concept of a global CBDC platform.''
Georgieva declared that Central Bank Digital Currencies need to be interoperable between countries, noting ''If we are to be successful, CBDCs could not be fragmented national propositions.''
''To have transactions more efficient and fairer, we need systems that connect countries,'' Georgieva continued, adding ''In other words, we need interoperability.''
The IMF MD argued that global digital currencies would ''give more people access to financial services and bring the cost down,'' adding that ''CBDCs can provide for more resilient and efficient payment systems,'' and ''can be a cheaper way, and a quicker way, to do cross-border payments, to pass remittances'... and also simplify other transfers.''
Watch:
Some have warned that a digital global currency in the hands of globalist entities could usher in a hyper-centralized techno-Communist dystopia, allowing all purchases to be tracked and even linked to a social credit score system.
Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki recently cautioned that CBDCs would open the door for an unprecedented level of surveillance of Americans.
''By tracking every financial transaction, they will have access to every detail of our spending, the recipient of our money, and how we allocate our resources,'' said Kiyosaki.
''In essence, it replicates George Orwell's dystopian society depicted in 1984. Big Brother will be constantly monitoring our financial activity, and this is precisely the problem with central bank digital currency,'' he added.
''As an individual, I become nervous at the thought of this. I do not want them to monitor my every transaction or be privy to my spending habits. It is a violation of my privacy, and they have no business knowing how I choose to allocate my resources,'' the author warned.
Reflecting such concerns, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) recently introduced a bill that would ban the Federal Reserve from introducing CBDCs, as well as forcing the Fed to remain transparent with Congress on its research into the issue.
CBDCs are being promoted on the basis that they will increase financial freedom, yet critics have asserted that the system would empower the state to place limits on spending and decide what people were allowed to buy.
The amount an individual could save could also be controlled via negative saving rates programmed into savings accounts.
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EU seeks to relax gene-edited crop restrictions | Reuters
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:03
EU executive sees proposal allowing more resilient cropsFirst category of gene-edited plants not subject to rulesBiotech sector positive, wants extended to micro-organismsGreen groups oppose, want controls and labelling to remainBRUSSELS, July 5 (Reuters) - The European Commission proposed revising its rules on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on Wednesday to loosen some restrictions for plants resulting from newer gene-editing technology.
The EU executive said the move would give farmers more resilient crops and reduce the use of chemical pesticides and offer consumers food with higher nutritional value.
The Commission launched a review in 2021 after concluding that GMO legislation from 2001 was "not fit for purpose". The EU's top court had ruled in 2018 that genome-editing techniques should be governed by GMO rules.
On Wednesday the Commission proposed splitting new genomic technique (NGT) plants into two categories.
Those that could also occur naturally or by conventional breeding would be exempted from GMO legislation and labelling requirements. All other NGT plants would be treated as GMOs, requiring risk assessments and authorisation.
Plants will qualify for the first category if there are no more than 20 genetic modifications.
A faster track approval process would apply for the second category of plants if, for example, they are more tolerant to climate change or require less water or fertiliser.
The proposal needs approval from the European Parliament and EU governments and may be revised.
The most prominent example of the new technology is the CRISPR/Cas9 "genome scissors", for which Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Bayer, the world's second-largest seeds and pesticides maker, described the proposal as "ground-breaking".
"Plant breeding normally takes more than a decade from the first positive research results to market entry. Gene editing allows us to cut five years out of this process," said Bayer's head of sustainability Matthias Berninger.
Biotech industry group EuropaBio urged an extension of the rules to cover micro-organisms.
Environmental groups say NGT plants need careful controls and the proposal risks making European farming dependent on large agribusiness companies.
Friends of the Earth campaigner Mute Schimpf said it was essential labelling requirements remain so that consumers could make informed choices. The need to label has effectively prevented sales of GM food items to EU consumers.
Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; additional reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; editing by Jason Neely and Alexander Smith
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Lancet Study on Covid Vaccine Autopsies Finds 74% Were Caused by Vaccine '' Study is Removed Within 24 Hours '' The Daily Sceptic
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:03
A Lancet review of 325 autopsies after Covid vaccination found that 74% of the deaths were caused by the vaccine '' but the study was removed within 24 hours.
The paper, a pre-print that was awaiting peer-review, is written by leading cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch and their colleagues at the Wellness Company and was published online on Wednesday on the pre-print site of the prestigious medical journal.
However, less than 24 hours later, the study was removed and a note appeared stating: ''This preprint has been removed by Preprints with the Lancet because the study's conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.'' While the study had not undergone any part of the peer-review process, the note implies it fell foul of ''screening criteria''.
The original study abstract can be found in the Internet Archive. It reads (with my emphasis added):
Background: The rapid development and widespread deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, combined with a high number of adverse event reports, have led to concerns over possible mechanisms of injury including systemic lipid nanoparticle (LNP) and mRNA distribution, spike protein-associated tissue damage, thrombogenicity, immune system dysfunction and carcinogenicity. The aim of this systematic review is to investigate possible causal links between COVID-19 vaccine administration and death using autopsies and post-mortem analysis.
Methods: We searched for all published autopsy and necropsy reports relating to COVID-19 vaccination up until May 18th, 2023. We initially identified 678 studies and, after screening for our inclusion criteria, included 44 papers that contained 325 autopsy cases and one necropsy case. Three physicians independently reviewed all deaths and determined whether COVID-19 vaccination was the direct cause or contributed significantly to death.
Findings: The most implicated organ system in COVID-19 vaccine-associated death was the cardiovascular system (53%), followed by the hematological system (17%), the respiratory system (8%) and multiple organ systems (7%). Three or more organ systems were affected in 21 cases. The mean time from vaccination to death was 14.3 days. Most deaths occurred within a week from last vaccine administration. A total of 240 deaths (73.9%) were independently adjudicated as directly due to or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination.
Interpretation: The consistency seen among cases in this review with known COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, their mechanisms and related excess death, coupled with autopsy confirmation and physician-led death adjudication, suggests there is a high likelihood of a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and death in most cases. Further urgent investigation is required for the purpose of clarifying our findings.
The full study does not appear to have been saved in the Internet Archive, but can be read here.
Without further detail from the Preprints with the Lancet staff who removed the paper it is hard to know what substance the claim that the conclusions are not supported by the methodology really has. A number of the authors of the paper are at the top of their fields so it is hard to imagine that the methodology of their review was really so poor that it warranted removal at initial screening rather than being subject to full critical appraisal. It smacks instead of raw censorship of a paper that failed to toe the official line. Keep in mind that the CDC has not yet acknowledged a single death being caused by the Covid mRNA vaccines. Autopsy evidence demonstrating otherwise is clearly not what the U.S. public health establishment wants to hear.
Dr. Clare Craig, a pathologist and co-Chair of the HART pandemic advisory group, says that in her view the approach taken in the study is sound. She told the Daily Sceptic:
The VAERS system [of vaccine adverse event reporting] is designed to alert to potential harms without necessarily being the best way of measuring the extent of those harms.
Quantifying the impact of deaths can be done by looking at overall mortality rates in a country.
However, this is imperfect as a deficit of deaths would be expected after a period of excess deaths, making the accuracy of any baseline dubious.
An alternative approach of auditing such deaths through autopsy is sound.
There may be a bias [in the study] towards reporting the autopsies of deaths where there was evidence of causation and the likelihood of causation might be exaggerated by that bias. For example, 19 of the 325 deaths were due to vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) but these reports may be overrepresented because of the regulators' willingness to acknowledge such deaths.
Nevertheless, it is important that attempts are made to quantify the risk of harm and censorship of these attempts, rather than open scientific critique, does nothing to help reassure people.
Dr. Harvey Risch, one of the study's authors, told the Daily Sceptic he deems it ''pure Government-directed censorship, even after the Missouri v. Biden injunction''.
''Meanwhile, my colleagues are studying what they call 'Long Vax', which is vaccine-caused damage. But of course that is a rare, rare, rare outcome, except that they seem not to be having any problem finding such individuals to enroll in their study,'' he added.
"What are you going to do, work for my well-financed competitors?" - Lawyers, Guns & Money
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:01
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General / ''What are you going to do, work for my well-financed competitors?''
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On July 6, 2023
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How it started:
How it's going, cont'd:
It seems worth noting here that non-compete clauses are generally illegal in California. And Elon is an excellent illustration of why this is good policy:
In a tweet posted after this story was initially published on Thursday, Musk wrote that ''competition is fine, cheating is not.''
I dunno, when you define ''cheating'' as ''hiring employees that I fired because I claimed that they had no useful skills'' I tend question the sincerity of your commitment to competition.
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China's Saboteurs Are Coming to America :: Gatestone Institute
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 13:37
How many soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army have slipped into the United States across the southern border? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America's power lines, poison water reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets. Pictured: Migrants, headed for the U.S., travel through the jungle in Darien Province, Panama, on October 13, 2022. (Photo by Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)There is now a Chinese invasion of the U.S. homeland.
"The jungle is filled with Chinese marching to America," said war correspondent Michael Yon to Gatestone.
Chinese migrants are entering the United States on foot at the southern border. Almost all are desperate, seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Some, however, are coming to commit acts of sabotage.
China is in a state of distress; gloom pervades Chinese society. Chinese by the hundreds are now patiently waiting for visas in sweltering heat in lines at U.S. consulates in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
Many, however, are short-circuiting the long waits at the consulates. At the southern border, Chinese migrants are entering the United States in unprecedented numbers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that the number of apprehensions of Chinese migrants in the first five months of the current federal fiscal year was more than double that during all of the last fiscal year. The 8,000 Chinese migrants apprehended this calendar year are more than quadruple the number apprehended in the comparable period a year ago.
Chinese nationals are flying to Ecuador, which permits them to enter visa-free. They then make their way to the southern edge of the Darien Gap, about 66 miles of jungle separating Colombia and Panama. The migrants cross the natural barrier on foot, and once safely on the north side continue the journey to America, often by bus.
Some Chinese migrants are poor. Many, however, are middle-class. They can afford to pay $35,000 each to Mexican cartels to be smuggled into America.
"It's like an animal stampede before an earthquake," said "Sam," a Chinese migrant who crossed into America first in February at Brownsville, Texas, to Axios.
Some migrants are almost certainly members of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said at a press conference on the 14th of this month that a Border Patrol sector chief informed him that some of the Chinese migrants at the southern border have "known ties to the PLA."
"We have no idea who these people are, and it's very likely, using Russia's template of sending military personnel into Ukraine, China is doing the same into the United States," said Green.
These military-linked migrants, despite their affiliations, have been released into America.
There is no question that China's PLA is inserting saboteurs through Mexico. "At the Darien Gap, I have seen countless packs of Chinese males of military age, unattached to family groups, and pretending not to understand English," said Yon, the war correspondent. "They were all headed to the American border."
"Normally in groups of five to fifteen, they typically emerge from the Darien Gap and spend one night in the U.S.-funded San Vicente Camp, or next door in the Tonosi Hotel, before boarding luxury buses for the trip up Highway 1 toward Costa Rica," Yon reports. "One group of six young men bought a chicken at the Tonosi Hotel, drank its blood from small glasses, then cooked the chicken themselves in the hotel restaurant, according to the hotel manager. Drinking raw chicken blood is a rite among some PLA soldiers."
Once here, the military fighters can link up with China's agents already in place or Chinese diplomats.
How many of the PLA fighters have slipped into the United States this way? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. Those numbers sound high, but whatever the actual figure, more are coming.
These are China's shock troops. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America's power lines, poison water reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets.
The saboteurs will almost certainly attack American military bases. China has already been probing sensitive installations. Chinese agents posing as tourists have, for instance, intruded into bases, including the Army's Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska. There, the suspected Chinese agents drove past a base gate and were later apprehended with a drone inside their car.
"Ancient Chinese strategists prized the use of subterfuge and surprise to achieve victory, and the two PLA colonels who wrote Unrestricted Warfare in 1999 were full of praise for the tactics of Osama bin Laden," Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told this publication. "When the Chinese Communist Party starts its war against Taiwan and the United States, Americans should expect that Chinese sleeper agents now in America will hit targets like gas stations and military-age Chinese now crossing our border will be mobilized for assassination attacks and assaults on U.S. military bases."
Therefore, the next war in Asia will almost certainly be fought on U.S. soil, perhaps on its first day. Unsuspecting Americans will be in the fight.
Immigrants make countries strong, and almost all the Chinese migrants crossing the southern border will contribute to American society. Some, however, are coming to wage war on the United States.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
(C) 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone, spy on people
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 13:10
Friday, July 7, 2023
French police and people using phone
A bill that would allow police in France to spy on suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphone including GPS of their phones has been passed.
The bill allows the geolocation of crime suspects, covering other devices like laptops, cars and connected devices, just as it could be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offences, as well as delinquency and organised crime.
Although, the spying provision, which is part of a wider ''justice reform bill'', has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers' charter.
The provisions ''raise serious concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties,'' stated a French advocacy group promoting digital rights and freedoms, La Quadrature du Net.
The group cited the ''right to security, right to a private life and to private correspondence'' and ''the right to come and go freely,'' specifically called the proposal a part of a ''slide into heavy-handed security.''
But lawmakers agreed to the bill late Wednesday as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insisted the bill would affect only ''dozens of cases a year.''
During the debate on Wednesday, the members of parliament in the camp of President Emmanuel Macron inserted an amendment limiting the use of remote spying to ''when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime'' and ''for a strictly proportional duration.'' They noted that a judge must approve any use of the provision, while the total duration of the surveillance cannot exceed six months.
They said sensitive professions, including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges and MPs, would not be legitimate targets.
Last month, the Senate gave the green light to the provision of the justice bill, which would allow law enforcement to secretly activate cameras and microphones on a suspect's devices.
Since 2015, when terrorist attacks rocked France, the country has increased its surveillance powers, and the ''Keeper of the Seal'' bill has been likened to the infamous US Patriot Act.
We have recently deactivated our website's comment provider in favour of other channels of distribution and commentary. We encourage you to join the conversation on our stories via our Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages.
In an era of fake news and overcrowded media marketplace, the journalists at Peoples Gazette aim to provide quality and practical information to help our readers stay ahead and better understand events around them. We focus on being the balanced source of true, stimulating and independent journalism. The Peoples Gazette Ltd, Plot 1095, Umar Shuaibu Avenue, Utako, Abuja. +234 805 888 8330.
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Some of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built took center stage at UN's AI for Good summit, held in the Swiss town of Geneva.
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VIDEO - Portland, OR daytime camping ban begins Friday, what will it change?
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:54
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) '-- At 8 a.m. Friday, Portland's new daytime camping ban takes effect.
The ordinance bans camping in public places from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and forbids camping near parks, docks, schools and construction zones. Campers also cannot block home and business entries.
Repeat violators will face a $100-dollar fine or 30 days in jail, but questions still remain about how the ban will actually be enforced.
Portland police said that they are not going to start giving out fines and or arresting folks until they spend the summer educating people on the streets about the new laws. They also said this wasn't an ordinance of their design and are yielding to the mayor's office on the matter.
One caveat of the ban is the need for an available shelter bed for someone to go to if law enforcement is trying to move them from the street.
When D.A. Mike Schmidt was asked how much interest do you have in prosecuting a violation of the camping ban he said it doesn't necessarily align with his values but his office is prepared to do so.
''My interest in doing it, obviously, is hopefully to be that extra layer of accountability that gets people finally connected to the resource if they make it to us,'' said Schmidt. ''And I'm all in on that. I think that getting people connected to those things will actually be a part of making a difference.''
Schmidt also added that he does not see jail time as a housing solution for people experiencing chronic homelessness. According to Schmidt, to house someone in jail it's over 300 dollars every day.
He said jail should only be used in the rarest cases and realistically he doesn't see anyone going to jail.
Mayor Ted Wheeler shared that the ban will not be immediately enforced and that the city will instead be focusing on outreach and connecting people with services.
''While these reasonable restrictions are a significant policy shift, the ordinance will be implemented thoughtfully, and enforcement will not begin immediately,'' said Mayor Wheeler. ''Over the next few months, we will be focused on education and outreach '' ensuring all outreach teams, City employees, PPB staff, and others have clear and thorough information on this new ordinance.''
VIDEO - Multnomah County, OR to distribute tin foil, straws to fentanyl users in harm reduction effort
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 13:39
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) '' In a controversial new policy, the Multnomah County Health Department plans to distribute aluminum foil and straws to fentanyl smokers in Portland in July, officials say.
Spokesperson Sarah Dean confirmed to KOIN 6 that city officials announced their plan to distribute the supplies in a PowerPoint presentation last week. The supplies will also include glass pipes and snorting kits.
As first reported by the Willamette Week, Dean said the rise of fentanyl has decreased the demand for needle-focused ''harm reduction'' services. Because fentanyl is typically smoked rather than injected, she said visits to clinics have recently dropped 60% since 2019.
Jessica Guernsey, Multnomah County public health director, said the city needs innovative strategies.
''The new part of the program is that we're adding supplies for people who smoke drugs,'' Guernsey said. ''We've seen a shift from injection drug use to smoking drug use, so that we can engage people who may not otherwise engage in services.''
The addition comes at the request of the county's public health team, officials say, just a month after they presented on the success of their syringe exchange program.
But not all are convinced that this program is a good use of taxpayer dollars.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said he ''adamantly'' opposes the decision to distribute the drug paraphernalia, adding that fentanyl is the leading cause of death for U.S. citizens who are less than 50 years old.
''This misguided approach also results in greater risk to public safety for those who simply want to enjoy our city without walking through a cloud of toxic smoke,'' Wheeler said. ''Our community would benefit more from the County using its funding to urgently increase treatment and sobering facilities rather than actively enabling this deadly epidemic.''
However, Dean told KOIN 6 that access to supplies does not increase illegal drug use, but rather it encourages those with addictions to visit clinics, which offer fentanyl test strips and Narcan.
''Building relationships with people actively using substances also gives our department more insight into emerging public health issues that impact this population,'' she said. ''We are able to directly hear from our clients when there are concerning changes to the drug supply, increased wound issues, or other related issues that are of public health concern.''
Dean also noted that the Oregon Legislature recently passed a bill to decriminalize the distribution of drug paraphernalia. It now holds on Gov. Tina Kotek's signature before going into law.
''While we all understand that abstinence from drug use is the safest, the people who are seeking out services are doing so because they are already using substances,'' she said. ''Providing these supplies will give clients more options around routes of administration for their substances. Providing tools for non-injection routes of administration may encourage some people to reduce their injection.''
Guernsey agrees.
''I follow the science, and the science tells us that programs like syringe exchange and harm reduction saves lives,'' she said. ''I know some of these methods can be controversial, but that's what we're really looking at; the severe risk of overdose and death and using the science to build a bridge to prevent that.''
Stay with KOIN 6 as this story develops.
VIDEO - Kidney stones are rising among kids and teens, especially girls
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 12:56
Thirty years ago, kidney stones were considered a disease of the middle-aged white man. Now doctors are increasingly seeing a different kind of patient suffering from the extremely painful condition, especially during summer.
Kidney stones, hard deposits of minerals and salts that can get caught in the urinary tract, are now occurring in younger people, particularly among teenage girls, emerging data shows.
Experts aren't sure why more children and teens are developing the condition, but they speculate that a combination of factors are to blame, including diets high in ultraprocessed foods, increased use of antibiotics early in life and climate change causing more cases of dehydration.
Doctors who spoke to NBC News said they see more kids with kidney stones in the summer than any other season.
Kidney stones is a metabolic disorder, also known as nephrolithiasis, that occurs when minerals such as calcium, oxalate and phosphorus accumulate in urine and form hard yellowish crystals as small as a grain of sand or as large as a golf ball in severe cases. Some stones make their way out the urinary tract with no issue, but others can get stuck, blocking the flow of urine and causing severe pain and bleeding.
In recent years, hospitals across the country have opened pediatric ''stone clinics'' to keep up with demand, where children can meet with urologists, nephrologists and nutritionists to get the care they need to treat and prevent future kidney stones.
Kidney stones in adults are linked to conditions such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension and diabetes.
"In children, we're not seeing that," said Dr. Gregory Tasian, a pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "They're otherwise healthy and simply come in with their first kidney stone for unclear reasons.''
Much of the nephrolithiasis research in children in the U.S. has been led by Tasian and his colleagues and is focused on finding the cause. "Clearly something has changed in our environment that is causing this rapid shift,'' he said.
About 10% of people in the U.S. will have a kidney stone at some point in their lives, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Stones can be found in children as young as 5 years old.
Chloe Carroll has had three surgeries to remove larger kidney stones.Chloe Carroll, now 14, was only 8 years old when she found blood in her urine during a dance recital. Doctors diagnosed her first kidney stone '-- a surprise for a young athlete with no underlying medical conditions.
Less than a year later, she was struck with a second stone. At age 11, she developed another '-- all three stones required surgical removal.
''It's still nerve-wracking to have to go through it again and again,'' Carroll, now 14, said through tears as she recalled the fear of undergoing surgery. ''But I know it's a part of life, and I have to keep moving forward.''
How many children develop kidney stones? Kidney stones aren't common in children, although the rate is unclear because most research has focused on adults.
One estimate comes from a 2016 study Tasian led that included nearly 153,000 adults and children in South Carolina who received emergency, inpatient or surgical care for nephrolithiasis.
The research, published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, found that the annual incidence of kidney stone disease rose 16% from 1997 to 2012, with 15- to 19-year-olds experiencing the greatest increase. Within this age group, kidney stone incidence was 52% higher among girls and women. The disease became more common in men beginning at age 25.
Overall, the risk of kidney stone disease doubled during childhood for boys and girls, while women saw a 45% increase of risk in their lifetime over the 16-year study period. Black adults and children in the study also developed kidney stones at greater rates than whites.
Similar trends have been reported in other studies, including one conducted in Olmsted County, Minnesota, which found that the kidney stone incidence rate among children ages 12-17 increased 6% a year from 1984 to 2008.
Is diet linked to kidney stones? Experts believe that kids' worsening diets may play a role.
High amounts of sodium from potato chips, sandwich meats, sports drinks and packaged meals can force extra minerals into the urine that can clump into kidney stones. It's especially likely if a child doesn't drink enough water or drinks too many sweetened beverages high in fructose corn syrup.
It's like trying to dissolve sugar into a nearly empty cup of coffee, said Dr. David Chu, a pediatric urologist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago who conducts research with Tasian.
Hotter summers cause more kidney stonesThe more hot and humid it is, the more you sweat and less you urinate, allowing minerals to bond in the kidneys and urinary tract. Children are especially vulnerable to heat.
Dr. Christina Carpenter, interim chief of pediatric urology at the New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, said she has already been treating more children with kidney stones in the summer.
Studies have found that the number of people seeking medical care for kidney stones increases as daily mean temperatures rise. Other research shows that the southeastern U.S. '-- known as the ''kidney stone belt'' '-- has as much as a 50% higher prevalence of kidney stone disease than the Northwest.
One 2008 study predicted the ''belt'' will inevitably expand upward, with the fraction of the U.S. population living in ''high-risk zones'' growing from 40% in 2000 to 70% by 2095.
An antibiotic link to kidney stonesAntibiotics may alter the gut microbiome in a way that favors kidney stone development, Tasian said.
In 2018, Tasian's team found that people who took any of five commonly prescribed oral antibiotics were associated with a 1.3- to 2.3-fold increase in the odds of developing kidney stones. The risk decreased over time, but remained high for up to five years after taking the medication '-- and was greatest when given at earlier ages.
Because many antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily in the U.S., Tasian called it a ''leading theory'' for the increase in children developing kidney stones.
The earlier a person develops kidney stones, the more time they have to develop a more severe form of the disease and long-term health issues associated with it, Tasian said. Some of the consequences include loss of kidney function, decreased bone mineral density that could lead to fractures, and higher risk of heart disease in adulthood.
Children who develop a stone have about a 50% chance of developing another one within five to seven years, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
Each stone that passes through the urinary tract increases their risk of developing a ureteral stricture, which is the narrowing of the tube that drains urine from the kidneys into the bladder, Carpenter said.
When this happens, kids may need to undergo invasive surgery to fix it.
The trend is also worrisome because there's limited evidence about how to best treat children with kidney stone disease, experts say.
Symptoms of kidney stonesAccording to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease symptoms include:
Sharp pains around the back, lower abdomen and groin.Pink, brown or red blood in the urine.A constant need to urinate.Cloudy or foul-smelling urine. Irritability, especially in younger children.Some children may not experience any symptoms. However, symptoms can sometimes be ''more nonspecific'' in kids, particularly younger ones, said Carpenter, so they might complain about stomach aches, rather than back pain or nausea, for example.
To avoid kidney stonesDrink plenty of water, especially during warmer months, experts say.
Not sure you're drinking enough? Make sure your urine resembles a light lemonade color, Carpenter said. If it's darker, hydrate more.
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VIDEO - Media silence on Gal Luft's Biden revelations speaks volumes
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 21:10
The drip-drip-drip of evidence detailing the Biden family criminal enterprise has turned into a torrent.
And the sudden quiet from our most strident ''democracy defenders'' has grown deafening.
Case in point: the silence around revelations contained in a video exclusively obtained by The Post from Gal Luft, a key would-be witness on Biden family corruption.
Luft alleges that he provided evidence of Biden family misdeeds to the FBI in 2019.
He claims too that his own 2023 arrest was meant to stop him from testifying before the House Oversight Committee that:
Joe Biden, along with Hunter, met with reps of the Chinese-government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, DC right after leaving the vice presidency '-- an allegation independently confirmed.CEFC was paying huge sums to Hunter and uncle Jim ($100,000 and $65,000 a month) in exchange for use of their family name in promoting China's interests.Hunter had a pet mole within the FBI, who provided tipoffs to CEFC honchos about incoming heat.The prosecutors trying CEFC big Patrick Ho for bribery in 2017 forbade him from so much as mentioning the name Biden, despite Ho having paid Hunter $1 million as a ''legal retainer.'' Gal Luft spoke out against President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in an interview with the Post. APSo what, exactly, will it take to get liberal media activated on the Biden Mafia?
A videotape of Joe himself accepting a suitcase of cash?
Even then, seems our in-the-tank press would find a way to run interference.
Especially now that the ugly collusion between the feds and Big Tech that silenced our initial Hunter reporting has broken apart.
Luft alleges that he provided evidence of Biden family misdeeds to the FBI in 2019.Remember: The New York Times, The Washington Post and other marquee media spent years hyping up the flimsy, fabricated claims of the Steele Dossier and other Russiagate nonsense.
Now that a genuine presidential corruption scandal has broken out '-- and it has, despite the best media efforts '-- our fearless journos display only utter disinterest.
No reporters truly digging deep into the complicated web of Biden business entities.
No pressure on Hunter, Jim or Joe Biden himself '-- despite the abundance of pointers directly implicating him.
Joe Biden and Hunter met with reps of the Chinese-government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, DC right after leaving the vice presidency, Luft alleges. WireImageNo curiosity about the constant fumbling and slow-walking from the IRS and Justice Department on these ultra-high-profile cases.
This in itself would be a total dereliction of duty.
The hypocrisy only adds insult to the very real injury our ''see no evil'' media is doing to the public and the nation.
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VIDEO - Cocaine found in the White House was in a different location than previously reported, sources say
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 13:52
WASHINGTON '-- Multiple officials involved in the White House cocaine inquiry now say the bag of powder was found in a cubby near the White House's West Executive entrance, not the formal West Wing lobby, as was previously reported.
Investigators expect to be done with the investigation by Monday, said two sources familiar with the investigation. The inquiry had previously been expected to take a couple of weeks.
In updating where the cocaine was found, officials said that area was also heavily trafficked.
The cocaine was found in an entrance area between the foyer and a lower-level lobby, the sources said. The entrance is near where some vehicles, like the vice president's limo or SUV, park. It is one floor below the main West Wing offices and on the same floor as the Situation Room and a dining area.
The White House on June 25. Samuel Corum / Getty ImagesForensic work on the cocaine bag continued Thursday, though officials are setting low expectations that they will be able to identify who left it.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer when she was asked at Wednesday's briefing which of the two West Wing entrances was involved, saying she would let the Secret Service address that.
The sources maintain that the area is highly trafficked, in keeping with Jean-Pierre's characterization Wednesday. The area is transited by VIPs, visitors, tourists, staff members, military officials and facilities operations employees.
"What I wanted to be very clear is that this is a heavily, heavily trafficked, heavily traveled, to be more accurate, area of the campus of the White House," Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday. "It is where visitors to the West Wing come through.''
"This is under the purview of the Secret Service," she said. "They are currently investigating what happened over the weekend. So I would have to refer you to the Secret Service, the Secret Service, on all of this."
Officers found the cocaine during a routine patrol, a Secret Service official said. The substance tested positive for cocaine at a lab Wednesday.
President Joe Biden and his family were at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, not the White House, when officers discovered the cocaine.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter Wednesday asking Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for more information about the investigation. Secret Service officials say they have received the letter and will respond.
Kelly O'Donnell Kelly O'Donnell is Senior White House correspondent for NBC News.
Megan Lebowitz Megan Lebowitz is based in the Washington bureau. She has written about breaking politics news and U.S.-China relations.
