1580: Coup Map

1.) NIGER: I recently witnessed a conversation between a General and their Department of State (DOS) liaison where the General asked if “State” was officially calling the situation in Niger a coup. The DOS liaison stated that they weren’t. The General asked why. The DOS person gave a long winded response that indirectly answered the Generals question. He said that we’ve invested so much into the country, that the Department is hoping to influence a favorable outcome.

The General was quick to point out the group that Coup leader(s) were trained in the US and have attended our Senior Service Schools aka “War College”.

I found supporting evidence here: https://theintercept.com/2023/07/27/niger-coup-leader-us-military/

The General acknowledged he “ambushed” the DOS dude, and moved the conversation to other matters.

Adam,

I feel like I can offer some insight into the conversation on episode 1578 about drugs.

Please keep me anonymous.

My brother is a recently reformed heroin addict who lived on the streets for approximately 5 years in the St Louis area. Over that time period, he witnessed the available drugs go from straight heroin (which he started using) to heroin being cut with fentanyl, to pretty much everything on the street being fentanyl.

At one point I asked him the question that you posed on the show which is "why do drug dealers knowingly push fentanyl when it can pretty much be a death sentence?"

His answer enlightened me to the nature of the problem and I think speaks directly to what you were saying on the show: He told me that that's exactly what the drug dealers wanted. He said as soon as word would be on the street that someone died from a batch someone was selling, sales would immediately skyrocket. The users would flock to get the most powerful stuff imaginable, even at the risk of death.

I can't speak to "tranq" as I think the popularity is relatively new, and my brother never had any experience with it.

But he told me directly that the possibility of fentanyl killing someone would absolutely raise sales for that drug dealer or that corner. He has also told me on more than one occasion that there were several drug dealers in the area who would knowingly do business in front of law enforcement on certain corners. This led him to believe that there are many drug operations in United States inner cities where law enforcement pretty much looks the other way... Whether or not that's because of a directive from higher up is anyone's guess.

Eris (/ˈɪərɪs, ˈɛrɪs/; Greek: Ἔρις Éris, "Strife") is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Her Roman equivalent is Discordia, which means the same. Eris's Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Roman counterpart is Concordia,[3] though she is also described as opposing Nike, counterpart of the Roman Victoria. Homer equated her with the war-goddess Enyo, whose Roman counterpart is Bellona. The dwarf planet Eris is named after the goddess.

She had no temples in ancient Greece and functions essentially as a personification, as which she appears in Homer and many later works.

Link

Hey guys,

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-its-kind-intentional-genomic-alteration-line-domestic-pigs-both-human-food

I wondered when this all went down and found the patent, which they originally applied for in 2003:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US7795493B2/en

The Revivicor website states they were involved with the original cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996, then moved on to pigs in 2000, and the first order of business after that was the alpha gal negative pig in 2001... So one way or another this has been in the works for a while now.

https://www.revivicor.com/

Anyway not sure if I'm just spun out on this one or if there's something interesting here. Buying opportunity for stock in Revivicor before all the planned alpha gal allergies hit? Thought it'd pass it along either way.

Sir Olimus of the Rapa Nui Islands

Just quickly giving a boots on the ground from a Southern Cali Psych ward, after hearing you guys wonder why there are more female to male trans be it adult or kids. I might have the answer. Many of my bio female patients who are trans or identify as non binary or any other thing other than female all day they don’t want kids when they grow up because they are either grossed out or scared of the idea of pregnancy. One kid last week said she finds it “gross” that another human grows inside you like a parasite.

These kids are not being taught proper or basic sex education that girls grow up to be women and boys grow up to become men. Instead they are confused with trans education all throughout elementary school with 20 something year old teachers with blue hair who themselves are disgusted or scared of pregnancy and birth and see it as a burden to live a life to take care of a child. The teacher promotes this lifestyle to an impressionable elementary kid who feels like they don’t fit in. Just my observations working with psychiatric patients who are trans LGBT who are at my hospital for suicidal thoughts or actual attempts since the pandemic started. Oh and not a single one has come in for being suicidal because of a failed transition or regret. Well at least not yet so far.

I think they more so feel like they don’t know what to do because all the “adult guidance”, Internet personalities and mainstream give brownie points to them for their “trans journey” when these kids really have a bigger issues than that. I think they are afraid to admit it and they double down on the trans narrative they think that they have to follow in order not to disappoint someone. Often they can be heard telling stories to one another of what they did for the trans community and whatnot like standing up to an adult that used the wrong pronouns or whatnot.

In the morning,

Your coverage of the transmaoist agenda has been spectacular but I must admit until just recently I classified it as one of those things happening other places that simply wouldn’t happen where I’m from.

That changed the other day. For context I am the sports editor of a small town newspaper in rural Ohio. Our county, technically part of Appalachia, has voted for Trump overwhelmingly twice, every elected official in our county is a republican. It’s a really red area of what has tuned into a red state. Not exactly the place you’d expect to see transmaoism taking root.

As we prepare for football season we go around taking team photos and doing interviews etc. to preview the season. So, imagine my surprise when I showed up to one small high school and see one of the cheerleaders is quite obviously a male posing as a female. Six-inch long painted fake glue on fingernails, fake eyelashes, more makeup on than most of the girls, walking around saying things like “gurrrllll paaaleezz” while having a giant bulge in the front of his skirt and a very distinct adams apple. I could not believe what I was seeing.

My point in reporting this to you is that if it’s happening here, it’s happening everywhere! It’s so easy for people like myself to think nah that’s isn’t going on here but it is! Gitmo nation needs to pay attention no matter how “normal” they think their area is.

Thank you both for shedding light on this topic no one else seems to want to and calling it what it is! And please continue to do so. I fear it’s spreading farther and faster than even you may think.

- Anonymous small town newspaper guy

This is a pretty interesting article, written by a "World Order" deep stater who was also lead writer of our National Defense Strategy –Hal Brands.

https://archive.fo/Ko1is

https://www.aei.org/profile/hal-brands

In the article Brands clearly lays out the "democracy vs autocracy" strategy Biden mumbled & stumbled through. They have essentially declared war on all of Eurasia & Africa could be seen as a front in this new, dare I say, new world war.

Brands says "All the great conflicts of the modern era have been contests over Eurasia. . .Washington’s vital task as a superpower has been keeping the world in balance by keeping Eurasia divided."

Problem is that "China, Russia, Iran & North Korea. . .are forming interlocking strategic partnerships across the world’s largest landmass, and they are fostering trade and transportation networks beyond the reach of the U.S. dollar and the U.S. Navy."

This is the same scenario Zbigniew Brzezinski worried about in his 1997 book 'the Grand Chessboard' as the greatest stumbling block to the "new world order"

https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=3C19660F88B4DCA51C4BD4FEF8B11276

"Potentially, the most dangerous scenario", Brzezinski wrote, "would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an 'antihegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously."

Banks are closing more than 1,000 accounts every working day, according to new data that has fuelled the growing row over so-called “debanking” and prompted Nigel Farage to call for a royal commission to investigate what he said was a scandal.

Hours after the former Ukip leader revealed he was spearheading a website to campaign on behalf of people whose accounts had been shut, data revealed a big jump in the numbers of customers dumped by their bank.

The figures, obtained through a freedom of information (FoI) request made to City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority and first reported in the Mail on Sunday, revealed that in 2016-17, just over 45,000 accounts were shut by banks.

The total has increased every year since, climbing to just over 343,000 accounts in 2021-22 – representing well over 1,000 for every business day of the week.

When people or organisations have their bank accounts closed, they often receive little or no explanation as to why this has happened, though the banks sometimes say it is due to concerns over financial crime such as money laundering and fraud.

Farage used a subject access request to discover that, despite initial denials by NatWest subsidiary Coutts, his political views had played a part in the closure of his account.

There has already been a huge fallout from Farage’s case. Dame Alison Rose, the chief executive of NatWest Group, eventually stood down in the wake of the row after she revealed she had been the source of a BBC story claiming that Farage’s account had been closed for commercial reasons.

She was soon followed out of the door by Peter Flavel, chief executive of Coutts. Farage also wants NatWest Group’s chair, Sir Howard Davies, to stand aside.

The new data will heap further pressure on NatWest, Coutts and banks in general to explain what has been happening.

Speaking to the media on Sunday, Farage said he would be happy to have a royal commission set up to examine the problem, “provided it happened quickly”. Other rightwingers have rallied around him, adding weight to his call to hold the banks to account.

“I’ve just been inundated by small businesses, by folk all round the country. People in absolute fear, terror, lives being ruined, thousands of businesses being closed. These are people who have done nothing wrong whatsoever,” he told GB News, where he works as a presenter.

It is estimated that almost 90,000 individuals have been categorised as “politically exposed persons”, leading to some politicians or their families being turned down by banks. These include some MPs and other figures deemed to potentially be at risk of abusing their positions for private gain.

On Friday the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller called on the FCA and government to step in to ensure new parties and MPs can access banking services. This came after digital bank Monzo informed her recently that her True and Fair party’s account would close in September.

At the other end of the political spectrum, pro-Brexit groups have reported similar problems.

Over the weekend the energy secretary Grant Shapps revealed that he and his family had been victims of debanking because he is a politically exposed person. Shapps reportedly said that one bank had demanded 18 years’ worth of payslips before it would let him be a customer.

Most of those who have been affected by these issues are not in the political spotlight, but are ordinary people trying to go about their lives or run businesses.

Some seemingly found themselves debanked because they held perfectly legal cryptocurrency or gambling accounts. Others who were not born in the UK have found their accounts shut down, often after making or receiving payments from abroad.

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A few weeks before the Farage story broke, the Guardian revealed how a retired social worker who had spent the past year doing humanitarian work across Ukraine had her account suddenly shut by Lloyds.

Fiona Hancock was left with no access to her £5,000 balance made up of savings and pension payments. Without explanation, Lloyds sent a cheque for her balance to her UK address, which was housing Ukrainian refugees.

Until now the banks have often hidden behind money-laundering regulations to refuse to say why an account has been closed.

Commenting on the data, the FCA said increased monitoring by banks might explain some of the increase in account closures. There are about 75m accounts in the UK.

It said: “We know that the total number of customers that banks have ceased doing business with for financial crime reasons is less than 0.2%. Tackling financial crime remains a priority of the FCA.

“We have seen firms increase their monitoring of accounts over the past couple of years, which may account for the increase in the figures.”

The government has announced plans to change the rules around bank account closures – including a requirement for banks to give longer notice of an impending shutdown.

“In some cases banks are legally prevented from telling customers why an account has been closed,” said Tina McKenzie, policy chair of the Federation of Small Businesses.

“But where possible, they should be told, so that if there has been a misinterpretation or misunderstanding, it can be swiftly resolved.”

Link

Conclusion:mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was more common than previously thought, being mild and transient, and more frequent in women versus men. The possible protective role of IFN-λ1(IL-29) and GM-CSF warrant further studies.

Link

Hey Guys! 😍🙏🏻 Here's a little info on what's happening in these cases, including specifically at Prospect (keep me anon for that reason).

Starting point...bad actors directly infiltrate a hospital or health system, or use phishing attacks, and they get network access. They might be in for a while stealing data, or just go for the kill. Having access, they push ransomware code to servers/endpoints/NAS devices, anything that has an operating system. Generally, this would be anything with an x86 CPU (specialized variants probably exist but Enterprises and Health Systems run on x86 devices). Once the ransomware starts, it silently encrypts all files it can find, and presents a "send bitcoin/monero to XX address, and we will give you the decryption key" message on the device's screen.

What's made this such a big impact in healthcare is that during President Obama, something called "meaningful use" came into play (chart of history below). It's Important to note that this was not because of ACA, but an often overlooked act called HITECH. Healthcare systems could receive up to $44k in additional reimbursement per physician if they put computerized medical records into place. The beneficiaries of this turned out to be EPIC Healthcare software (in Verona, WI, owned by a big Obama donor and even bigger Biden donor) and Cerner (Kansas City, recently bought by ORACLE). These are basically ERPs for healthcare. They make everything be guided by and recorded through a computer system. When ransomware hits, this means providers can't access records to check for allergies, drug interactions, etc. Basically they can't provide care, and have to turn people away.

Call me a luddite...all of this was supposed to save providers time and effort, but has been a horrible malinvestment, driven up healthcare costs, and increased risk of hacks/ransomware. It's driven by a huge bureaucracy on autopilot, and won't stop. Nurses and doctors have always been great at making short forms and checklists that take far less admin time than swiping a badge and waiting for the VDI session on the PC to connect and pull up your records. This is why doctors can't really look at and talk to you, why older nurses have retired in droves, causing a shortage, and why doctor's networks and hospitals are getting sold to bigger and bigger entities. The cost of compliance is skewed so only the biggest will win.

Longer than I wanted, but it's hard to cut this down without removing an important factor.

tldr; use concierge medicine, escape the system, it will collapse!

Best, your faithful servant

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 17:06

Strategic Stabilization Advisors (SSA) is a leading data-driven advisory that provides critical guidance to organizations operating in hard-to-reach and challenging operational environments affected by instability and conflict. SSA draws from our team's decades of collective experience in leading P/CVE, counterterrorism and stabilization initiatives. Drawing on lessons learned, we approach conflict dynamics differently. Our mission is to provide clients with informed strategies based on 'groundtruth' - driven by rigorous data analysis and in-depth research - and coupled with our thematic and regional expertise.

Our Story

SSA fills a critical gap experienced by our team while working in the field. SSA's director Aneliese Bernard had first-hand experience of the organizational barriers to effective cooperation with local partners faced with managing a stabilization and counterinsurgency response across the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel. After leaving government, Aneliese set up SSA with Mark van Embden Andres, in an effort to bridge the gap - both in terms of advisory and practice - that exists between increasing capacity for indigenous security institutions and community engagement.

Our Partnerships

Strategic Stabilization Advisors forms a consultancy consortium with Elva Community Engagement , an NGO specializing in informing and implementing conflict prevention, social cohesion and community engagement programing in conflict-affected areas. The Elva team created SSA in 2021 to expand expertise and skills to other markets and clients active in unstable environments. Elva and SSA are co-located in our offices in The Hague, Washington D.C. and Abidjan, with combined programmatic reach across West and Central Africa, the Caucuses and Eastern Europe.

We work with local partners who know the local context, because they are immersed in it. Our consortium of local and regional consultants is comprised of leaders in their research and programmatic fields. Collaboration through consortium allows us to address the most pressing challenges in conflict-affected environments. Our collective expertise and experience rooted at the local level is what sets us apart from other business intelligence firms and NGOs working on stabilization.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:43

CNN '--

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to freeze a lower court order that bars the government from regulating so-called ghost guns '' untraceable homemade weapons '' as firearms under federal law.

The brief order grants the Biden administration's request to allow the regulations to remain in effect while legal challenges play out.

Ghost guns are kits that a user can buy online to assemble a fully functional firearm. They have no serial numbers, do not require background checks and provide no transfer records for easy traceability. Critics say they are attractive to people who are legally prohibited from buying firearms.

The vote was 5-4. Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court's three liberals to allow the rule to take effect.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would have denied the application.

In 2022, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives updated its regulations to define the kits as firearms under the law so that the government could more carefully track them.

The rule does not prohibit the sale or possession of any ghost gun kit, nor does it block an individual from purchasing such a kit. Instead, it requires compliance with federal laws that impose conditions on the commercial sale of firearms. Those conditions include requirements that commercial manufacturers and sellers mark products with serial numbers and keep records to allow law enforcement to trace firearms used in crimes.

In late June, Judge Reed O'Connor of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the agency had exceeded its authority in promulgating the rule and blocked it nationwide. A federal appeals court declined to put on hold two key challenged provisions of the regulation.

In the emergency filing with the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar warned the justices that over the last several years ''police departments around the Nation have confronted an explosion of crimes involving ghost guns.''

''Congress recognized that limiting the federal firearms laws to functional firearms would invite evasion, and it thus broadly defined 'firearm' to include any weapon 'that will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,''' Prelogar wrote.

The challenge to the ATF regulations was brought by two Texas residents who own components that they intend to manufacture into ghost guns for their personal use. The rule blocks them from being able to directly purchase additional parts. A handful of retailers of ghost gun kits as well as a gun rights' group also challenged the rule.

Lawyers for the challengers said that the lower court judge had ''correctly held'' that the ATF had exceeded its authority in agreeing to ''extend the definitions'' of firearms to include ghost gun components.

''The Gun Control Act of 1968 reflects a fundamental policy choice by Congress to regulate the commercial market for firearms while leaving the law-abiding citizens of this Country free to exercise their right to make firearms for their own use without overbearing federal regulation,'' David Thompson, their attorney, argued in court papers.

O'Connor noted in his order that Congress' definition of a firearm does not cover ''parts, or aggregations of weapons parts'' regardless of whether the parts can be ''readily assembled into something that may fire a projectile.''

''Even if it is true that such an interpretation creates loopholes that as a policy matter should be avoided, it is not the role of the judiciary to correct them,'' O'Connor wrote at the time.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:36

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greek goddess of strife and discord

This article is about the Greek goddess of discord. For the god of love, see

Eros. For other uses, see

Eris.

ErisEris on an Attic plate, ca. 575''525 BC

AbodeErebusSymbolGolden Apple of DiscordParentsNyx[1] orZeus and Hera[2]SiblingsChildrenDysnomia, Ponos, At, Lethe, Limos, Algos, Hysminai, Makhai, Phonoi, Androktasiai, Neikea, Amphilogiai, Horkos, Pseudea, LogoiRoman equivalentDiscordiaEris (; Greek: á¼'ρις ‰ris , "Strife") is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Her Roman equivalent is Discordia, which means the same. Eris's Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Roman counterpart is Concordia,[3] though she is also described as opposing Nike, counterpart of the Roman Victoria. Homer equated her with the war-goddess Enyo, whose Roman counterpart is Bellona. The dwarf planet Eris is named after the goddess.

She had no temples in ancient Greece and functions essentially as a personification, as which she appears in Homer and many later works.

Etymology [ edit ] Eris is of uncertain etymology; connections with the verb á½ÏÎ¯Î½ÎµÎ¹Î½ or­nein , 'to raise, stir, excite', and the proper name á¼ÏÎ¹Î½ÏÎµÏ‚ Erinyes have been suggested. R. S. P. Beekes rejects these derivations and suggested a Pre-Greek origin.[4]

Characteristics in Greek mythology [ edit ] In Hesiod's Works and Days 11''24, two different goddesses named Eris are distinguished:

So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.(Nyx), and the son of Cronus [i.e. Zeus] who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

In Hesiod's Theogony (226''232), Eris, the daughter of Night, is less kindly spoken of as she brings forth other personifications as her children:

And hateful Eris bore painful Ponos (Hardship),Lethe (Forgetfulness) and Limos (Starvation) and the tearful Algea (Pains),Hysminai (Battles), Makhai (Wars), Phonoi (Murders), and Androktasiai (Manslaughters);Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Lies), Logoi (Stories), Amphillogiai (Disputes),Dysnomia (Anarchy) and Ate (Ruin), near one another,and Horkos (Oath), who most afflicts men on earth,Then willing swears a false oath.[5]

The other Eris is presumably she who appears in Homer's Iliad Book IV; equated with Enyo as sister of Ares and so presumably daughter of Zeus and Hera:[6]

... and Discord [á¼'ρις] that rageth incessantly, sister and comrade of man-slaying Ares; she at the first rears her crest but little, yet thereafter planteth her head in heaven, while her feet tread on earth. She it was that now cast evil strife into their midst as she fared through the throng, making the groanings of men to wax.[7]

She also has a son whom she named Strife.

Enyo is mentioned in Book 5, and Zeus sends Strife to rouse the Achaeans in Book 11, of the same work.

The most famous tale of Eris recounts her initiating the Trojan War by causing the Judgement of Paris. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.

She therefore (as mentioned at the Kypria according to Proclus as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and Themis) tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed Ancient Greek: ÏᇠκαÎ>>Î>>ίσÏრ, romanized: tÄ'(i) kallistÄ'(i) '' "For the most beautiful one", or "To the Fairest One" '' provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the fairest by Zeus. The goddesses stripped naked to try to win Paris's decision, and also attempted to bribe him. Hera offered political power; Athena promised infinite wisdom; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.

Eris is also mentioned in Nonnus's Dionysiaca, when Typhon prepares to battle with Zeus:

Eris ("Strife") was Typhon's escort in the mellay, Nike ("Victory") led Zeus into battle.[8]

Another story of Eris includes Hera, and the love of Polytechnus and Aedon. They claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus were in love. This angered Hera, so she sent Eris to wreak discord upon them. Polytekhnos was finishing off a chariot board, and Aedon a web she had been weaving. Eris said to them, "Whosoever finishes thine task last shall have to present the other with a female servant!" Aedon won. But Polytekhnos was not happy by his defeat, so he came to Khelidon, Aedon's sister, and raped her. He then disguised her as a slave, presenting her to Aedon. When Aedon discovered this was indeed her sister, she chopped up Polytekhnos's son and fed him to Polytekhnos. The gods were not pleased, so they were transformed into birds.[9]

Golden apple of discord by Jakob Jordaens, 1633

Manuscript illustration of Eris at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis from Jean Mi(C)lot's L'Ep®tre d'Oth(C)a c. '‰1460

Das Urteil des Paris by Anton Raphael Mengs, c. '‰1757

El Juicio de Paris by Enrique Simonet, 1904

Cultural influences [ edit ] The "Five-Fingered Hand of Eris," a holy symbol in Discordianism originally derived from the crescent shape of the Greek EpsilonDiscordianism [ edit ] Eris has been adopted as the patron deity of the modern Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s by Gregory Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley under the pen names of "Malaclypse the Younger" and "Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst". The Discordian version of Eris is considerably lighter in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original, wherein she is depicted as a positive (albeit mischievous) force of chaotic creation. Principia Discordia, the first holy book of Discordianism, states:

One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historic matters. "They were," She added, "victims of indigestion, you know."Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But she is mischievous, and does get a little bitchy [sic] at times.[10]

The story of Eris being snubbed and indirectly starting the Trojan War is recorded in the Principia, and is referred to as the Original Snub. The Principia Discordia states that her parents may be as described in Greek legend, or that she may be the daughter of Void. She is the Goddess of Disorder and Being, whereas her sister Aneris (called the equivalent of Harmonia by the Mythics of Harmonia) is the goddess of Order and Non-Being. Their brother is Spirituality.[11]

Discordian Eris is looked upon as a foil to the preoccupation of western philosophy in attempting find order in the chaos of reality, in prescribing order to be synonymous with truth. Discordian Eris teaches us that the only truth is chaos, and that order and disorder are simply temporary filters applied to the lenses we view the chaos through. This is known as the Aneristic Illusion.[12]

In this telling, Eris becomes something of a patron saint of chaotic creation:

I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.[13]

The concept of Eris as developed by the Principia Discordia is used and expanded upon in the science fiction work The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (in which characters from Principia Discordia appear). In this work, Eris is a major character.[14]

Other [ edit ] The classic fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" is partly inspired by Eris's role in the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Like Eris, a malevolent fairy curses a princess after not being invited to the princess's christening.[15][16]

The New Zealand moth species Ichneutica eris was named in honour of Eris.[17]

See also [ edit ] AnerisEristicNotes [ edit ] ^ Hesiod, Theogony 225. ^ Homer, Iliad 4.400''446. ^ Ruoff, Henry Woldmar (1919). The Standard Dictionary of Facts: History, Language, Literature, Biography, Geography, Travel, Art, Government, Politics, Industry, Invention, Commerce, Science, Education, Natural History, Statistics and Miscellany. Frontier Press Bookstore. ^ R. S. P. Beekes (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Brill. p. 459. ^ Caldwell, p. 42 lines 226-232, with the meanings of the names (in parentheses), as given by Caldwell, p. 40 on lines 212''232. ^ Parada, s.v. Eris. ^ Homer, Iliad 4.400''446. ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.358''9 (pp. 72, 73). ^ Liberalis, Antoninus (1992). "Aedon or Nightingale". The Metamorphoses. Translated by Celoria, Francis (1 ed.). London: Routledge. p. 62. doi:10.4324/9781315812755. ISBN 9781315812755. S2CID 202527062 . Retrieved 9 June 2023 . {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) ^ "The Principia Discordia". Ology.org. 1997-04-21 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 . ^ "Page 57". Principia Discordia . Retrieved 2012-06-14 . ^ "Principia Discordia - Page 49". www.principiadiscordia.com . Retrieved 2017-09-22 . ^ "The Principia Discordia". Ology.org. 1997-04-21 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 . ^ "Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence" by Jeffrey Elliot Archived June 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Interview discussing novel (URL accessed 21 February 2006) ^ H. J. Rose (2006). A Handbook of Greek Mythology, Including Its Extension to Rome. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4286-4307-9 . Retrieved 2007-11-06 . [permanent dead link ] ^ Maria Tatar, ed. (2002). The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05163-6 . Retrieved 2007-11-06 . ^ Robert J. B. Hoare (9 December 2019). Illustrator: Birgit E. Rhode. "Noctuinae (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) part 2: Nivetica, Ichneutica" (PDF) . Fauna of New Zealand. 80: 1''455. doi:10.7931/J2/FNZ.80. ISSN 0111-5383. Wikidata Q94481265. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2021. References [ edit ] Caldwell, Richard (June 1, 1987). Hesiod's Theogony. Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company. ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Volume I: Books 1''15, translated by W. H. D. Rouse, Loeb Classical Library No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1940 (revised 1984). ISBN 978-0-674-99379-2. Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive (1940).Parada, Carlos, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology, Jonsered, Paul …str¶ms F¶rlag, 1993. ISBN 978-91-7081-062-6.External links [ edit ] Hesiod's Works and DaysHesiod's TheogonyHomer's IliadHomer's Iliad at Gutenberg (there are many different translations at Gutenberg)

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:36

New variant does not currently prompt concernMedical experts have said that EG.5 does not seem to cause more severe illness than previous strains of the coronavirus, and no figures from the White House or Capitol Hill have issued strong statements on the matter.

''At this time, there is no evidence indicating EG.5 is able to spread more easily, and currently available treatments and vaccines are expected to continue to be effective against this variant,'' a CDC spokesperson told POLITICO.

The World Health Organization has begun tracking EG.5, but has not labeled it as a variant of interest or concern. In comparison, the XBB.1.5 strain, which previously dominated transmission in the U.S., is listed as a variant of interest.

Globally, hospitalizations from Covid have generally declined since the beginning of the year.

Although hospitalizations from the coronavirus have risen slightly over the summer in the U.S., the Biden administration has continued to express optimism about beating the pandemic. It has ended the public health emergency, and the White House Covid czar left earlier this summer.

''The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic progress on our nation's ability to manage COVID-19 so that it no longer meaningfully disrupts the way we live our lives,'' White House spokesperson Kelly Scully previously told POLITICO by email.

What are the symptoms of Eris? The symptoms from the EG.5 variant are no different from previous variants: typical cold ailments such as sore throat, runny nose, congestion, cough and fever.

Does the public need a new Covid booster vaccine?Since June, health officials and drug manufacturers have worked toward the development of shots that should also address the EG.5 subvariant, given that it exists in the Omicron family.

The public should be able to start receiving the shots starting in the fall.

''Vaccination continues to be the best way to protect against severe outcomes of Covid-19,'' the CDC spokesperson said.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:28

Breaking News On 4 August, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced plans to enshrine the right to pay with cash into the country's constitution as card contactless payments become more popular in Europe.

Nehammer proposed the amendment after the Austrian Freedom Party, which is currently surging in the polls, accused the current government of conspiring to ban cash to track its citizens. Nehammer is the leader of Austria's conservative People's Party, which rules in a coalition with the left-wing Green Party.

''In Austria alone, 47 billion euros are withdrawn from ATMs every year and on average every Austrian carries 102 euros in cash,'' Nehammer wrote in a tweet (original in German). ''That is why I'... am committed to ensuring that cash is constitutionally protected as a means of payment.''

The plan would guarantee cash as a payment option and instruct the Austrian Central Bank to secure a basic supply of paper currency. Nehammer has tasked Finance Minister Magnus Brunner to lead the effort while collaborating with other government ministries and representatives from the private sector.

Let's not lose touch'...Your Government and Big Tech are actively trying to censor the information reported by The Expos(C) to serve their own needs. Subscribe now to make sure you receive the latest uncensored news in your inbox'...

Credit card companies sell your data to advertisersSuspicions about big banks and financial institutions tracking their customers and mining personal data have raised alarm bells about the transition to a digital currency, with activists arguing that cash is the only way to ensure privacy.

Increasingly, credit card companies '' including Visa, American Express, and Mastercard '' have turned to compiling and selling personal transaction data to advertising companies as a major profit source. The data behind a majority of digital transactions are now passed along to marketers, companies, and other firms that mine that data to monitor trends and create personalized ads.

This invasion of privacy is legal because of a loophole known as tokenisation, a financial technology pioneered in the 90s that anonymises personal data from transactions with a unique identification code, that can later be correlated by a firm with a bank's individual customer file.

These systems have become so sophisticated that they are often predictive. For example, many stores are able to find out that their customers are pregnant through their shopping habits, accurate to within days. In 2012, The New York Times reported on a father who found out his teenage daughter was pregnant through targeted home mailers advertising maternity clothing and nursery furniture.

Additionally, non-cash payments place a financial burden on businesses, with major financial institutions charging a credit card processing fee. These fees can be as high as 3.5%, affecting both merchants and customers.

The above is an extract from an article published by Quartz. Read the full article HERE.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:02

An Amazon delivery drone is on display at Amazon's BOS27 Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, Massachusetts on November 10, 2022.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon has lost two executives key to the company's drone delivery operations, the latest setback for an aspirational program that's required hefty investment but has experienced scant success.

Jim Mullin, Prime Air's chief pilot, left Amazon last month, according to his LinkedIn profile. Robert Dreer, who reported to Mullin and was responsible for all of Prime Air's test operations, departed last week for a role at electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft startup Opener, he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Both employees were based at Prime Air's main site in Pendleton, Oregon. Their exits have not been reported on publicly beyond their individual posts, and neither responded to requests for comment over LinkedIn.

Amazon declined to comment on their departures.

The departures come at a critical juncture for Prime Air, which has struggled to transition into a fully operational service since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted in 2013 that within five years Amazon would deliver by drone packages weighing 5 pounds or less to customers' doorsteps. Mullin, a former Marine One pilot during the Obama administration, oversaw Prime Air safety and regulatory compliance, as well as site leads at the unit's facilities in Oregon, California and Texas.

Just as Prime Air was set to launch early this year and start delivering packages sent to consumers, CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Bezos in 2021, embarked on the largest round of layoffs in company history, which included significant job cuts at Prime Air. Jassy's cost-cutting strategy was in response to dramatically slowing growth and investors' turn away from tech as interest rates rose.

But problems for Prime Air predated the economic downturn. The drone unit has been hamstrung by regulatory restrictions that limit where deliveries can be made. Even at its two launch sites '-- Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas '-- deliveries remain way short of division head David Carbon's target of 10,000 this year. Amazon says it has completed hundreds of deliveries at those locations.

There's also been a string of crashes, with multiple reported incidents between 2020 and 2021. More recently, on June 21 of this year, during tests at the Pendleton site, a drone made an emergency landing in a field and was destroyed, according to a federal crash report viewed by CNBC. Nobody was injured, the report says.

Amazon spokesperson Simone Griffin told CNBC in a statement: "We test our drone systems up to their limits and beyond. In this case, there was no damage to people or structures, we reported this incident to the regulatory authorities as required, the flight test was done in compliance with all applicable regulations, and we'll use the learnings to keep improving."

Griffin said there have been no other accidents since the beginning of this year.

Amazon could now be at risk of not completing a key regulatory requirement of the Federal Aviation Administration. At the beginning of the year, the company began durability and reliability (D&R) testing, which requires that Prime Air complete several hundred hours of flying without any incidents.

The company is in the process of completing D&R testing for its current drone model, the MK27-2. It will have to undergo the same regulatory process for its next-generation version, the MK30, which Amazon expects to launch next year.

WATCH: Amazon drones lagging far behind Alphabet's Wing and Walmart partner Zipline

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:44

The unseasonably wet weather is causing problems for this year's harvest, experts have said, with wheat, barley and hay crops affected.

Many farmers have been signed up to a nature-friendly scheme called Mid Tier, which does not allow hay to be cut until July to help wildlife.

However, there have been very few dry days since 1 July, leaving farmers insufficient time to cut the grass, spread it out, allow it to dry, row it up and then bale it before it rains again.

Prof Nicola Cannon from the Royal Agricultural University said: ''Even if the product is being harvested to be used for animals, it still needs to store well without going mouldy as this not only reduces the quality and desirability of the product but also can make it a fire risk.

''We all know the phrase 'make hay while the sun shines', and the reason for this is that, ideally, grass is cut for hay and dries quickly on a warm and breezy day. It is no different to drying your laundry on a washing line '' the thicker and the wetter the clothes, and the stiller or duller the weather, the longer it takes for them to dry.''

The wet weather has also affected grain crops, with waterlogged soil making them harder to harvest.

Cannon said: ''This time of year is when farmers need to harvest winter wheat, which is used for either animal feed or for making biscuits or bread, but the quality of the grain can be seriously damaged if the ripe wheat crop remains in the field because it is too wet to harvest.

''Grain that remains unharvested in the field in wet weather can start to sprout and is more likely to develop mould, both of which can lead to it being rejected for bread-making, meaning the farmer then receives a lower price.''

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She said the wind had also been damaging crops: ''In very wet and windy conditions '' such as those we have been experiencing lately '' the crop may fall over, known as lodging, because the weight of the grain at the top of the plant causes it to lean over. Not only does this make it harder to combine but it also reduces air flow around the grain and impedes drying when the weather is finally dry enough to harvest.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:43

By Tyler Durden

In a stunning move, reminiscent of the first few months of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, European NatGas prices exploded a stunning 40% higher today (oil and coal prices are also rising) as the possibility of worker strikes at some LNG plants in Australia threatens global supply'....

US NatGas is also getting dragged higher'...

For context, here is EU NatGas (energy equiv) compared to WTI and US NatGas'...

As Bloomberg reports, workers at Chevron Corp. and Woodside Energy Group Ltd. facilities in Australia voted to strike, which has the potential to affect liquefied natural gas exports from the country, tightening the global market for the fuel. The exact timing of the industrial action '' if it goes ahead '' wasn't immediately clear.

Asian buyers ''are likely to bid up LNG imports'' to replace Australian volumes if there are disruptions, which would affect Europe as well, said Nick Campbell, a director at consultant Inspired Plc.

''LNG has become a baseload supply in the European gas supply mix, therefore any signs that this flow is at risk leads to support in price.''

The US-EU Nattie Arb is widening out again, back above its historical range'...

Additionally, potential delays in Norway's seasonal maintenance, a drop in LNG imports to Europe last month, increased flows from the region to Ukraine, and the weather are all factors in the price jump:

''Strength appears to be driven largely by a further extension of hot temperature forecasts well into the 3rd week of this month as well as by a broadening of hot temps across a larger portion of the US than had been expected at the start of this week,'' says Ritterbusch & Associates in a note.

''As the heat continues with the associated warming of water temperatures across the Atlantic heightening concerns over hurricane activity, the speculative shorts appear to be scrambling to cover positions.''

It's also possible that this week's price surge caused a wave of position-covering by investors who previously bet on further declines in gas. Similar moves caused an extreme volatility in June.

More problematically, winter gas contracts also gained, albeit at a lower pace, as German utility EON SE warned of more risks during the upcoming heating season.

''The crisis is not over,'' though the likelihood of a repeat of last year has diminished, Chief Executive Officer Leonhard Birnbaum said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Winter is coming'... and so is re-inflation.

Source: ZeroHedge

Top image: Pixabay

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:36

Originally published July 28, 2023 7:50 am PDT

As alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a tick-borne disease that triggers an allergic reaction to red meat, sees a steep rise in cases, eyebrows are being raised over a coincidental alignment with research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

AGS, first reported in Virginia in 2008, has seen an alarming increase over the past few years. According to a recent press release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 450,000 people in the U.S. have tested positive for alpha-gal since 2010.

In 2021, the number of positive test results for AGS surged by 41.3% compared to 2017, and testing for alpha-gal peaked at 66,106 persons that year.

The same year, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a significant grant of $1,469,352 toward research into the Rhipicephalus microplus (''Asian blue'') tick. This tick is known to cause AGS, as verified by a publication in the ImmunoTargets and Therapy journal found in the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

The grant was channeled to Oxitec Ltd., a biotechnology company that genetically modified male ticks to carry a ''self-limiting gene,'' intending to control the tick population by releasing these engineered ticks to mate with wild females in high-infestation areas. Oxitec's project purportedly aimed to address the global pest problem affecting cattle, a significant source of red meat.

In June 2023, after Oxitec reported high efficacy in its tick experimentation, the Gates Foundation provided an additional $4.8 million in funding.

However, the intertwining of Gates's interests and this rise in AGS cases is drawing scrutiny. Gates holds stakes in pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer Inc. that produce antibiotics such as doxycycline, commonly used to treat tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease. Moreover, in 2017, his foundation granted over $1 million to Ceres Nanosciences, a diagnostics company specializing in Lyme disease detection.

In the food industry, Gates has significant investments in plant-based and lab-grown meat companies. He has backed companies such as Upside Foods, Good Meat, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods, some of which which have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the production and sale of meat substitute products.

While there is no definitive evidence linking Gates's funding of tick research to the rise in AGS cases, the timing and the complexity of his interests have led to a growing call for more transparency and accountability.

But this isn't the first time that Gates's involvement in disease research and prevention has caused controversy. A similar series of events unfolded when Gates focused on malaria, a disease eradicated in the United States for decades, until recent developments.

Malaria was last detected in the U.S. back in 2003 when seven people in Palm Beach County were infected, as per the CDC. Fast forward to 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation turned its sights on malaria research, subsequently pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the cause, and increasing their malaria budget by 30% in 2014.

In a significant development, in July 2018, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) launched Krintafel (tafenoquine), a new treatment for Plasmodium vivax malaria. This marked the first new treatment for the disease in over six decades. Gates Foundation funding was pivotal in the drug's development, a fact corroborated by Forbes. The Foundation continued to invest in tafenoquine research, backing various studies, including a Lancet-published article praising the drug's performance.

Meanwhile, in 2019, the Foundation backed the ''Injectable Artesunate Assessment Report,'' establishing the efficacy of injectable artesunate, a malaria vaccine.

Notably, in September 2020, the Gates Foundation granted over $1.3 million to Oxitec Ltd., the same company involved in the aforementioned genetically engineered tick research, for ''mosquito field trials.'' These trials involved the release of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known vectors of diseases including malaria, into Florida and Texas following EPA approval in March 2022.

This move sparked outrage from locals who voiced concerns about being turned into ''guinea pigs'' for this ''criminal'' experiment, according to Florida resident Meagan Hull. Councilman Mark Gregg likened the GMO mosquitoes to ''Frankenstein bugs.''

Fast forward to March 2023, and FFF Enterprises, a specialty vaccine distributor, announced it would start stocking the Gates-backed artesunate vaccine. Three months later, in June 2023, the CDC issued an alert about locally acquired malaria cases in Florida and Texas. Interestingly, the CDC, funded by the Gates Foundation, recommended rapid access to the artesunate vaccine.

As these series of events involving alpha-gal syndrome and malaria unfold, parallels can be drawn in the timing of the Gates Foundation's funding and subsequent disease outbreaks. Though direct causality hasn't been established, the correlation has led to calls for more in-depth investigations and heightened accountability. Transparency about these ties is paramount to alleviate public concerns and ensure ethical practices in disease prevention and treatment.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:35

By James Gallagher

Health and science correspondent, reporting from Porton Down

One of the UK's most secretive centres of scientific research - Porton Down - is aiming to stop the next pandemic "in its tracks".

I have passed through the incredibly tight security at this remote facility to get rare access to its scientists.

They are based in the shiny new Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre.

Their work builds on the response to Covid, and aims to save lives and minimise the need for lockdowns when a new disease next emerges.

"Covid, of course, is not a one-off," says Prof Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which runs these laboratories.

"We say it [Covid] was the biggest public health incident for a century, but I don't think any of us think it'll be a century before the next," she adds.

The combination of climate change, urbanisation and people living closer to animals - the source of many new diseases which transfer to people - means we're facing a "rising tide of risk", she says.

Image caption, Dame Jenny Harries is clear Covid was not "a one-off" public health incident

Porton Down - located in the tranquil Wiltshire countryside, near Salisbury - is one of the few places in the world equipped to research some of the nastiest viruses and bacteria you could imagine. The freezers here contain the likes of Ebola.

Neighbouring buildings include the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (part of the Ministry of Defence), where it was confirmed the nerve agent Novichok has been used in the Salisbury poisonings.

The vaccine laboratories - housed in dark green buildings - were hastily constructed as part of the emergency response to Covid.

But, as the intense demands of the pandemic have waned, the focus has shifted.

The new vaccine research centre is concentrating on three types of threat:

known infections that are getting harder to deal with, such as antibiotic-resistant superbugspotential threats that might cause a problem, including bird flu and new Covid variantsand "Disease X" - something unforeseen, like Covid, which takes the world by complete surpriseThe aim is to work with the pharmaceutical industry, scientists and doctors to support all stages of vaccine development.

Porton Down scientists are working on the first vaccine against Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever, which is spread by ticks and kills about a third of those infected.

The disease is found in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and in Asia - and could spread further with climate change.

At the other end of the process, vaccine effectiveness is evaluated. It was scientists here who spotted that the Omicron variant could bypass some of the protection afforded by Covid vaccines.

And they are still monitoring new Covid variants by growing them in the laboratory, exposing them to antibodies taken from blood samples and seeing if new variants are still able to infect.

Image caption, Antibodies taken from blood samples are being tested at the lab to see if they still offer protection against new Covid variants

Meanwhile machines - unofficially named Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, BB8 and Palpatine - are part of the front line monitoring the threat posed by the world's largest flu outbreak in birds.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has devastated bird populations, and routine testing of farmworkers has found the first, symptomless, cases in people in the UK.

The difference is, before the pandemic the teams here were able to test just 100 samples a week - now it is more than 3,000.

Faster vaccines

The work here feeds into the "100 Days Mission" - a hugely ambitious vision to develop a vaccine against a new threat in 100 days.

Historically, it has taken a decade to design and test new vaccines. The unique circumstances of the pandemic meant the first Covid vaccines were produced within a year, with the vaccine rollout starting in December 2020.

Estimates suggest Covid vaccines saved more than 14 million lives in just the first 12 months they were used.

"Imagine if those vaccines had been available just a bit earlier," said Prof Isabel Oliver, chief scientific officer for UKHSA.

"They were available more rapidly than ever before in history, [but] we could have saved many more lives and we could have returned to greater normality much more quickly."

The hope here is the lessons of the Covid pandemic will mean we are better prepared next time.

Prof Harries says in the past we have been simply reacting to events, but in the future we need to be on the front foot and "try and stop" any pandemic before it even begins.

And if a new disease does occur, she adds, we need to "stop it in its tracks" in its earliest stage.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:34

Drug helped mice on high-fat diets keep weight down and preserve liver healthThe research could translate to a drug that mitigates effects of a 'Western' dietREAD MORE: High fat, high sugar diet makes you more likely to die of SEPSISBy Cassidy Morrison Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 12:40 EDT, 7 August 2023 | Updated: 15:11 EDT, 7 August 2023

Scientists have inched one step closer to a wonder pill that keeps people skinny no matter how much they eat.

The team at the University of Texas developed a drug that ramps up the body's metabolism and makes it much more efficient at breaking down sugar and fat.

It does so by restricting magnesium from being transported into the mitochondria, the part of the cell responsible for producing energy and burning calories.

Magnesium appears to slow the mitochondria's ability to produce energy.

Mice that were given the drug and fed a high-calorie Western diet 'became skinny' despite eating more calories than they burned off.

Scientists have inched one step closer to a wonder pill that keeps people skinny no matter how much they eat (file image)

Whereas mice who were fed the same high-calorie diet and not given the drug saw their bodyfat increase.

As well as bodyweight, the mice given the drug also had lower cholesterol, and blood sugar levels lower than those on a typical diet of mouse chow.

It suggests that the drug - called CPACC - also wards off all the health consequences of a bad diet.

Dr Madesh Muniswamy, a biochemist from the University of Texas who led the research said: 'A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack and stroke, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease, will make a huge impact. We will continue its development.

The team has filed a patent application for the drug and hopes to trial it in humans in the coming years.

The researchers have been studying the role of magnesium in metabolism - the chemical reactions in the body's cells that change food into energy - for years.

They previously showed that too much magnesium slows down energy production in the mitochondria, dubbed the 'cellular power plants'.

That finding was the inspiration for the new drug, which works by deleting a specific gene called MRS2, which promotes magnesium into the mitochondria.

By shutting this gene off, it reduces the amount of the mineral that enters the cell and therefore enhances the metabolism.

Fourteen-week-old male mice were subjected to a Western-style diet for up to a year.

After 30 weeks, mice on a typical diet of animal chow became obese, while those mice that received the drug on top of following the equivalent of a Western diet didn't gain nearly as much weight, staying skinny and healthy.

Dr Muniswamy said: 'When we give this drug to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim.'

Those mice also showed lower levels of a liver enzyme called alanine aminotransferase (ALT), indicating that the liver was in good working order.

The same could not be said for mice on a high-fat diet without the added benefit of CPACC.

Mice that were put on a high-fat 'Western' diet were more likely to be obese compared to those that received a drug impeding the action of a gene that encodes for magnesium movement inside the 'powerhouse' of the cells known as mitochondria

Energy use, which translates to calorie burning, was considerably lower in mice on a western diet with functioning Mrs2 transporting

There were some major limitations of the study, the most consequential being that the medication was tested in mice and far more extensive research will be needed in order to formulate a version of it to be suitable for humans.

And the Mrs2 gene was completely shut off in some mice, which meant researchers could not study its effects on specific organs.

Mrs2 is present in a variety of organs including the brain, the heart, kidneys, and lungs and shutting it off entirely may have a negative effect elsewhere in the body.

The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:37

Germany's leading professional association on sexuality and partnership, Pro Familia, is under fire after issuing a recommendation that daycares implement ''body exploration rooms'' and ''sexual games'' for young children.

The issue first came to light when news outlet BILD revealed that parents were sent an e-mail from an Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) daycare center in the Hanover region which presented a list of ten rules explaining how children in the ''body exploration room'' would be encouraged to ''pet and examine'' themselves and other children.

''All children, especially preschoolers, are aware of the places in the facility where nudity and body exploration can take place,'' reads the message. ''Each child decides for themselves whether and with whom they want to play physical and sexual games. Girls and boys pet and examine each other only as much as is comfortable for themselves and other children.''

Image of an e-mail sent to parents outlining rules for ''sexual games'' for children. Source: BILDOther rules outlined in the communication stipulate that the children must be within the same age group with a gap of no more than two years, and that at no time should a child ''stick anything into another child's body openings.''

One shocked father told BILD, ''My daughter is five years old. I don't want boys groping her. I have another child in another daycare center [where] there is no such thing [as an exploration room].''

Another father responded, ''I'm devastated. We were told that this was determined by the Ministry of Education. As parents we were intimidated. What options do you have if you don't want this?''

The Ministry of Education in Lower Saxony responded to the concerned parents by terminating the program before it was put into effect. A representative told BILD that, at the end of May, ''the state youth welfare office reported to the Ministry of Education that the pedagogical concept of the physical exploration rooms in the daycare centers cannot last, and that this puts the well-being of the child at risk.''

However, Dirk von der Osten, Chairman of the Board of the AWO Region in Hannover, disagreed. ''Exploring one's own body is part of child development, during which they also learn to recognize their own limits, to express them clearly and to develop shame,'' von der Osten said. ''Children also play role-playing games in their group rooms. We do not see any child welfare endangerment in this.''

This is not the first time a policy recommended by Pro Familia has been called into question. In 2013, Deutsche Welle asserted that ''Pro Familia is stuck in the pedophilia swamp,'' and emphasized how the sexual education organization has repeatedly published the works of pro-pedophile lobbyists.

The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel investigated articles published by Pro Familia Magazine and found that pro-pedophile views were represented in works released in the 1980s and 1990s. An article by the psychologist and educator Wolf Vogel, dating back to 1987, for example, reflects ''without prejudice'' on the causes of pedophile lust.

Pro Familia has also platformed R¼diger Lautmann, a sociologist and gay rights advocate who has a lengthy history of normalizing pedophilia. Lautmann authored a book titled The Lust for Children: A Portrait of Pedophiles. The book is based on his interviews with 60 men who admitted to sexually abusing young children, primarily boys.

''They really love the children, read their every wish, organize trips, buy toys and are only comfortable around children,'' Lautmann says of the 60 pedophiles he interviewed.

Released in 1994, the book became popular with pedophiles for its sympathetic portrayal of adult attraction to children, which Lautmann described as a sexual orientation, and its repeated assertions that children are capable of sexual autonomy.

''For me, it is is very clear that there do exist relationships that do not require any intervention,'' Lautmann wrote, ''The children cling to their lovers, and can leave them any moment if they choose.''

In 1995, Lautmann repeated the thesis of his book in an article for Pro Familia, a leading NGO which provides resources on sexual health. In Pro Familia's official magazine, Lautmann's article states: ''Our study defines the term pedophile, distinguishes it from incest, abuse and sadism. We prove that such men exist. The thesis is therefore: The desire for a child is an independent and differentiated sexual form. Pedophilia is therefore a sexual orientation like any other and no longer a perversion.''

An article by Lautmann was again published by Pro Familia in 2013, titled ''sexual research can change reality.''

Last year, after public outcry, Lautmann was blocked from participating in the creation of daycare centers coordinated with Berlin's Senate Department for Youth, Education and Family. He had initially been one of the members of the board overseeing aspects of the project.

Critics have also pointed out that one leading policymaker behind Pro Familia, Uwe Sielert, has questionable views regarding sexuality and children, and has ties to controversial sexologist Helmut Kentler, who has been described as a fatherly mentor to Sielert.

Kentler, who campaigned throughout his life for the abolition of laws which prohibited the sexual abuse of children under 14 years of age, was responsible for a state-funded project that saw children sexually abused by pedophiles in an ''experiment'' to prove that adult-child sex was harmless.

Beginning in 1969, Kentler's project had placed foster children in the homes of pedophiles in an attempt to test his theory that pedophiles could make good foster fathers. Kentler had theorized that the pedophile's attraction to children would result in a strong drive to take care of them.

''These people were able to put up with these [mentally] retarded boys only because they were in love with them, infatuated with them, crazy about them,'' Kentler explained in 1970.

Kentler's project was approved by the Berlin Senate, and the pedophile foster fathers received monthly allowances from the government to care of the orphaned children.

According to Frank Herrath, a lecturer in sexology and co-founder of the Institute for Sex Education (Institut f¼r Sexualp¤dagogik '' ISP), ''sex education in Germany was shaped by Helmut Kentler and Uwe Sielert.''

''Sex education would not be what it is today if Uwe Sielert had not helped shape it for over a quarter of a century as an affair of the heart. Like his fatherly friend Helmut Kentler, Uwe Sielert was and is extremely important for both sex education theory and the practice of professional sexuality support, over the years always innovative and initiative, staying curious about what is new and having a lasting effect,'' Herrath wrote in 2009.

Sielert, co-founder of the Society for Sex Education (Gesellschaft f¼r Sexualp¤dagogik '' GSP), is a scientific advisor to the Dortmund Institute for Sex Education and professor of education at the University of Kiel. He has authored several books on child sexuality. In one example, Sielert co-authored a sexual education book with Herrath, aimed at children ages 4 to 8 years old, in which explicit sexual activity between children is depicted and readers are encouraged to imitate masturbation and sexual interactions.

Last year, Reduxx reported on a play about about ''minor-attracted people'' that was funded by the German national government and the Berlin Senate. Titled ''A MAP's Tale,'' and based on the true story of a pedophile named ''Adam'' who was interviewed by journalist Luke Malone, the play premiered in February of 2023 at Theater unterm Dach in Berlin. In the play's description, pedophilia is labeled a ''sexual preference disorder'' and a ''sexual orientation.''

Reduxx is your source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We're 100% independent! Support our mission by joining our Patreon, or consider making a one-time donation.

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Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:18

NewsScience & AstronomyA powerful solar flare disrupted radio and navigation signals across North America on Monday (Aug. 7) and prompted space weather forecasters to issue warnings because of energetic particles hitting Earth.

The flare, classified as an X1.5, was the 20th X flare '-- the most potent solar flare category '-- of the current 11-year solar cycle, which will reach its maximum next year.

Solar flares are energetic flashes of radiation that explode from magnetically dense, cool regions on the sun's surface known as sunspots. Traveling at the speed of light, the photons from these flares arrive at our planet in eight minutes. As the radiation from the flares interacts with particles in Earth's ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere at altitudes between 50 and 400 miles (80 and 650 kilometers), it supercharges them. These changes then affect radio and satellite signals that pass through this region.

Related: Sun blasts out highest-energy radiation ever recorded, raising questions for solar physics

A powerful solar flare erupted from the sun in August 23. (Image credit: NASA)According to solar physicist Keith Strong, the blackout caused by the Monday flare was a strong category 3 on the five-point scale developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"The X1.5 Flare caused an R3 (strong) radio blackout event on the daylit side of the Earth (most of the US and Canada and the Pacific Ocean)," Strong said on X, formerly Twitter. "Frequencies below 5 Mhz were most affected and navigation signals degraded."

The flare burst out of the largest and most active sunspot group currently visible on the sun's disk, according to the U.K. space weather forecaster Met Office, and emerged only two days after a somewhat weaker X flare that occurred on Saturday (Aug. 5).

In addition to these two powerful flares, the sun also unleashed multiple moderate-class flares in recent days, three of which occurred in the past 24 hours.

The Met Office issued a warning for a mild solar radiation storm due to the presence of charged solar particles in Earth's atmosphere, a result of the lashing by those solar flares. In extreme cases, these charged particles may pose a radiation hazard to astronauts in space and passengers and crew on aircraft traveling over polar regions. They can also damage satellites in orbit. The current event, a mild category 1, should, however, be rather harmless.

The Met Office predicts that further strong flares may occur while the large sunspot cluster remains visible on the face of the sun. That threatening region should, however, disappear behind the sun's edge within the next two days, giving space weather forecasters some respite.

In the meantime, however, these experts are bracing for the arrival of two coronal mass ejections (CME), huge clouds of magnetized gas that frequently escape from the sun together with solar flares. CMEs that hit Earth can cause a different type of phenomenon, known as a geomagnetic storm, as they interact with our planet's magnetic field.

Geomagnetic storms produce beautiful aurora displays but can also cause problems to satellite operators as they make Earth's atmosphere swell. In the most severe cases, geomagnetic storms can knock out power grids and telecommunication networks. The upcoming geomagnetic storm could reach a strong G3 level, according to Spaceweather.com.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 13:13

By James Durso of OilPrice.com

Almost twenty years to the day after Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote his op-ed ''What I Didn't Find in Africa'' about his visit to Niger to confirm if the country was supplying Saddam Hussein with uranium yellowcake, the U.S. found itself again focused on the African country.

On 26 July, Niger's president, Mohamed Bazoum, was ousted by his presidential guard, and the guard commander and coup leader, General Abdourahmane Tchiani, was named president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland. It was the seventh coup in the region since 2020, not including a previous attempt in Niger in 2021 that was put down by the same presidential guard.

The coup was condemned by the U.S., France, the UK, the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, numerous African governments, and ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States.

The ECOWAS deadline to reinstate President Bazoum was ignored by the generals, and Niger's new leaders closed the country's airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing to attack. ECOWAS leaders will now meet in Nigeria on Thursday to discuss next steps.

Last week, the ECOWAS military leaders prepared a plan to reinstate President Bazoum, which will probably be discussed at the Thursday meeting. However, the Nigerian Senate has rejected military intervention in Niger and without Nigeria, which has a 1,600 kilometer border and the largest military in the region, nothing will happen.

Last week, the deputy leader of the military government visited Mali to request the "rapid deployment of Wagner forces to [Niger]'' to help the military regime. And Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops would be able to help Niger - what one researcher called a ''nightmare scenario'' for the U.S. in Africa's Sahel region.

The military government in Niamey received pledges of support from neighbors Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea. Algeria condemned the coup, and Libya said the takeover was ''not acceptable.'' However, last week the chief of staff of the Algerian Army visited Moscow for a meeting with Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu and Niger was surely discussed.

According to the BBC, Wagner Group appeared in Libya in 2019, backing General Khalifa Haftar, a longtime U.S. asset. Libya, whatever it said last week will be focused, first and foremost, on avoiding another surge in refugees that followed the 2011 NATO attack on the Ghaddafi government. If Wagner can revive its network in Libya, Russia may have a secure overland route and air corridor to Niger.

If Algeria and Libya allow the transshipment of material to Niger '' possibly to restore order and prevent another exodus of refugees to Europe '' the coup government would garner significant relief and access to the sea lanes.

Media concern has focused on the fact that Niger is a supplier of uranium, and is a key supplier to France, though France also buys uranium from Kazakhstan. The French nuclear fuel cycle company, Orano, which operates a uranium mine in Niger reported its operations were not hindered or endangered.

Though uranium attracts more news coverage, Niger's biggest export is gold, which accounted for over 70% of exports in 2021.

The military government reportedly halted uranium and gold exports to France, though Reuters later reported that Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso not halting exports of uranium and gold.

One thing that got halted, however, is the $13 billion USD, 5,600-kilometer Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) which was slated to deliver 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas to Europe. The pipeline would run from Warri, Nigeria, via Niger, to the Hassan R'Mel gas hub in Algeria where it would connect to existing gas pipelines to Europe.

The pipeline is a joint effort by Algeria, Nigeria, and Niger, and in July 2022 the countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of the pipeline. The delay of the project comes at a bad time for Europe as it recently lost gas from the Nord Stream pipelines due to sabotage, and the East Med pipeline after the U.S. government killed it by raising environmental objections. The two pipelines were expected to deliver 120 bcm of gas per year.

After the loss of Nord Stream, Europe was forced to import liquified natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. at a higher price than it was paying the Russians.

The presence of Wagner troops in Niger is enough to stop the pipeline unless someone steps in, a country like China for example, which is typically risk averse, but has a long history in Africa, but may be interested in scooping up another 30 bcm of gas every year. The three founding governments haven't foreclosed additional partners but a previous Algerian energy minister said, "only partners that can bring something to the project, not just money, should be there." Of course, it might be easier for China to just add capacity in Nigeria where it is a major investor, but Nigeria is also unstable due to an ongoing insurgency in the Niger Delta.

And Russia may get a vote, or a piece of the action, as the military government in Niger has aligned itself with Moscow with its request for the intervention of Wagner PMC, and Moscow will want to capitalize on the goodwill from the Russia-Africa Summit in July, which ended with no revived grain deliveries (yet) but Russia did cancel $23 billion in debt.

On the other hand, sending the gas north will allow Beijing to deepen relations with Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, the latter of which has agreed to coordinate its national development plans with Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative via the Five Year Plan for China Arab Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation (2022-2026) in recognition of China's long-term economic involvement in Libya.

China is now developing Algeria's El Hamdania Central Port, Algeria's largest and first deep-water port. China also helped complete the 750-mile East-West Highway connecting Algeria to Morocco and Tunisia, and about 1,000 Chinese companies operate in Algeria, their way eased by the wavier of the ''51/49'' requirement that required majority Algerian ownership of all new businesses with the exception of ''strategic sectors.''

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, ''Algeria has the world's 11th - and 16th -largest proven reserves of natural gas and oil, respectively, and was the 10th-largest natural gas producer as of 2019. It is also estimated to have the world's 3rd -largest recoverable shale gas reserves.'' The country exports 85% of its gas to Europe.

Algeria has the fourth-largest economy in Africa with a 2021 GDP of $167.98 billion. Oil and gas income increased by 70% in the first half of 2022, and energy income is expected to total $50 billion by end of year. The World Bank reported Algeria's economy ''expanded by 3.9% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2021, after contracting by 5.5% in 2020,'' largely due to increased European gas demand. Hydrocarbons account for 95 percent of export revenues and about 40 percent of government income.

If China doesn't take the gas but agrees to deliver it to Europe it will increase its influence there, just as the U.S. did by increasing deliveries of LNG after it stopped the Nord Stream and EastMed pipelines.

The European Union seeks a ''long-term strategic partnership'' for natural gas and electricity with Algeria. And France is seeking to repair relations via economic cooperation, though China is now Algeria's biggest trade partner. If Europe expects more energy from Algeria or elsewhere in Africa, though, it may have to pay up to finance expansion of production, or participate in the TSGP, though that may be opposed by Washington if it will dent lucrative U.S. liquified natural gas sales to Europe or offer relief to Niger. And France may find it cramped in the cockpit if it has to share participation with China.

Ideally, the U.S. should be interested in anything that brings more oil and gas online and stabilizes the market. But it also has to consider if its involvement in Niger would help prop up France's troubled colonial empire in Africa, or to give China entr(C)e to more opportunities in Africa, a region it has habitually ignored and will again as soon as Niger is sorted out or at least fades from the front page.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:43

Back in January Special Counsel Jack Smith sought and obtained a search warrant for President Donald Trump's Twitter account. In the warrant, Smith demanded Twitter not tell Trump the Special Counsel was pursuing his account.

"On January 17, 2023, the government applied for, and obtained, a search warrant that directed Twitter to produce data and records related to the '@realDonaldTrump"'Twitter account. At the same time, the government applied for, and obtained, a nondisclosure order, which prohibited Twitter from disclosing the existence or contents of the search warrant to any person. Based on ex parte affidavits, the district court found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses. Moreover, the district court found that there were 'reasonable grounds to believe' that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump 'would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation' by giving him 'an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,'" court documents state.

"The warrant required Twitter to tum over all requested information by January 27, 2023. The nondisclosure order was to remain in effect for 180 days after its issuance. The government faced difficulties when it first attempted to serve Twitter with the warrant and nondisclosure order," the documents continue.

In response to the request for access to Trump's account and the warrant, Twitter argued the effort was a violation of the First Amendment. According to court documents the request was slow walked at the social media company, prompting a judge to hold the company in contempt and a levy a big fine.

"The district court issued a search warrant in a criminal case, directing appellant Twitter, Inc. ("Twitter") to produce information to the government related to the Twitter account "@realDonaldTrump." The search warrant was served along with a nondisclosure order that prohibited Twitter from notifying anyone about the existence or contents of the warrant," court documents show. "Twitter initially delayed production of the materials required by the search warrant while it unsuccessfully litigated objections to the nondisclosure order. Although Twitter ultimately complied with the warrant, the company did not fully produce the requested information until three days after a court-ordered deadline. The district court thus held Twitter in contempt and imposed a $350,000 sanction for its delay."

"In this appeal, Twitter argues that the nondisclosure order violated the First Amendment and the Stored Communications Act; that the district court should have stayed its enforcement of the search warrant until after Twitter's objections to the nondisclosure order were resolved; and that the district court abused its discretion by holding Twitter in contempt and imposing the sanction," the documents continue.

Billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter in October 2022 with a goal of protecting free speech rights and ending big tech censorship collusion with the federal government. President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter on January 8, 2021 and reinstated by Musk in November 2022. Twitter executives explained their decision to issue the ban in the aftermath of the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021:

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them '-- specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter '-- we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:39

Earlier on Wednesday House Oversight Committee James Comer (R-KY) revealed bank statements from the Biden family, including from when now President Joe Biden served as vice president. "According to the memo released by Comer, the Biden family received over $20 million in foreign transactions and the payments were distributed to multiple members," Katie highlighted. "The payments were hidden through shell companies and funneled through Hunter Biden's business partners, including Devon Archer. Archer and Biden earned $6.5 million from Burisma alone." Democrats still found a way to spin it, though, especially former Deputy White House Communications Director Kate Berner, who shared a now deleted POLITICO tweet about the findings.

Deleted, but The List comes for all, @politico.''¸''¸''¸ pic.twitter.com/JU2p179yNc

'-- The List (@ListComesForAll) August 9, 2023''The memo doesn't show a direct payment to Joe Biden.'' https://t.co/pma4PoDfEA

'-- Kate Berner (@KateBerner) August 9, 2023The tweet in question was later shared once more, with a note that "For the record: This replaces a deleted tweet that contained incorrect information about payments detailed in the memo."

Let's play spot the difference between Politico's deleted tweet and its replacement: pic.twitter.com/CfXPeOsesn

'-- John Hasson (@SonofHas) August 9, 2023For the record: This replaces a deleted tweet that contained incorrect information about payments detailed in the memo.

'-- POLITICO (@politico) August 9, 2023The report is still up. Although the actual reporting tries to downplay the memo at considerable length, buried at the end is how more is coming:

What's next: Comer, in a statement on Wednesday, said Republicans ''will continue to follow the money trail and obtain witness testimony to determine whether foreign actors targeted the Bidens, President Biden is compromised or corrupt, and our national security is threatened.''

Noteworthy: Committee Republicans, according to the memo, haven't yet issued subpoenas for Biden family member bank records.

It's also noteworthy that POLITICO cited Democrats, including Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, to accuse Comer as having moved the goalposts. Yet if anyone has done so, that would be how the narrative from the White House continues to change. Initially we were told that Biden hadn't even spoken with his son about his business dealings. Biden himself insisted from the campaign trail. But then, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, barely able to hide her disdain for the press, went with the narrative that Biden wasn't involved. When she was called out for and asked about changing the narrative, she denied that it had changed.

Biden's fellow Democrats, especially Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, acknowledged that last week's testimony from Archer revealed that Biden spoke with his son's business associates, but tried to claim it was about topics such as the weather.

Dem Rep's Attempted Spin on Former Hunter Biden Associate's Testimony Just Makes Things Worse https://t.co/mVlw166huf

'-- Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 31, 2023Now, we're supposed to believe that this $20 million had nothing to do with the then vice president.

As we previously covered at the time, Comer had revealed in April that six additional Biden family members "may have benefitted" from the family dealings, bringing the total number to nine members. He's also raised concerns about Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from the Biden bank accounts at six different banks, to the tune of 170 reports.

First: "Joe never discussed business w/Hunter"Then: "Joe never talked w/Hunter's business partners"

Next: "Joe never discussed business w/Hunter's business partners"

Now: "You can't prove the $20mm going through 20 different Biden shell companies was actually paid to Joe" https://t.co/ZvnQ0XHXba

'-- Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 9, 2023Because Berner's tweet is still up as of Wednesday night, so are the replies and quoted retweets chiming in. There's been over 1,000 replies and close to 200 quoted retweets, making for quite the ratio. Our friends at Twitchy covered some of the best responses.

Yes. Most criminal enterprise's involve direct payments. You've convinced me there's nothing here.

'-- Jim Muessig (@JimMuessig) August 9, 2023"They can't yet prove the $20mm going through 20 different Biden shell companies was actually paid to Joe"Great job guys. Outstanding work.

'-- Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 9, 2023from "Joe never talked to Hunter about business" to "he was just talking to hunter's business partners about the weather!" to "Well he didn't personally receive payments" pic.twitter.com/gCPIJJbyhY

'-- Abigail Marone 🇺🇸 (@abigailmarone) August 9, 2023Oh they're counting on it working.

'-- Dennis the OG Spongeworthy (@spongeworthy2) August 9, 2023

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Archived Version

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 20:45

For Immediate Release: December 14, 2020Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind intentional genomic alteration (IGA) in a line of domestic pigs, referred to as GalSafe pigs, which may be used for food or human therapeutics. This is the first IGA in an animal that the FDA has approved for both human food consumption and as a source for potential therapeutic uses. The IGA in GalSafe pigs is intended to eliminate alpha-gal sugar on the surface of the pigs' cells. People with Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) may have mild to severe allergic reactions to alpha-gal sugar found in red meat (e.g., beef, pork, and lamb).

''Today's first ever approval of an animal biotechnology product for both food and as a potential source for biomedical use represents a tremendous milestone for scientific innovation,'' said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. ''As part of our public health mission, the FDA strongly supports advancing innovative animal biotechnology products that are safe for animals, safe for people, and achieve their intended results. Today's action underscores the success of the FDA in modernizing our scientific processes to optimize a risk-based approach that advances cutting-edge innovations in which consumers can have confidence.''

GalSafe pigs may potentially provide a source of porcine-based materials to produce human medical products that are free of detectable alpha-gal sugar. For example, GalSafe pigs could potentially be used as a source of medical products, such as the blood-thinning drug heparin, free of detectable alpha-gal sugar. Tissues and organs from GalSafe pigs could potentially address the issue of immune rejection in patients receiving xenotransplants, as alpha-gal sugar is believed to be a cause of rejection in patients.

As part of its review, the FDA evaluated the safety of the IGA for the animals and people eating meat from them, as well as the product developer's intention to market the IGA for its ability to eliminate alpha-gal sugar on pigs' cells. The FDA determined that food from GalSafe pigs is safe for the general population to eat. The FDA's review also focused on ensuring the effectiveness of the IGA through the evaluation of data demonstrating that there is no detectable level of alpha-gal sugar across multiple generations of GalSafe pigs.

''The FDA is committed to continuing its close work with developers to facilitate safe advancements of animal biotechnology. Our Veterinary Innovation Program focuses on providing greater certainty in the regulatory process, encouraging development and research of innovative public health products, as well as supporting an efficient and predictable pathway to the approval of IGAs in animals,'' said Steven M. Solomon, D.V.M., M.P.H., director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. ''The developer of GalSafe pigs participated in this program, proving the impact of this important FDA initiative. We look forward to continued work with other developers to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of additional innovative animal biotechnology products.''

As part of its review, the FDA analyzed the potential impact that the approval of the IGA in GalSafe pigs would have on the U.S. environment and determined it is no greater than from conventional pigs. The conditions under which GalSafe pigs will be kept are far more stringent than those for conventionally farmed pigs. Additionally, no animal safety concerns were noted for GalSafe pigs beyond those that would be expected in well-managed, commercial swine operations.

The FDA also assessed the risk of the IGA to promote the emergence or selection of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria of human health concern in or on GalSafe pigs. The FDA concluded that the microbial food safety risk is low and is mitigated by the low number of GalSafe pigs entering the food supply and the ongoing surveillance for antimicrobial resistance, among other factors.

Because the product developer's application to the FDA did not include data regarding elimination or prevention of food allergies, the FDA's review process did not evaluate food safety specific to those with AGS, a recently identified type of food allergy to red meat and other products derived from mammals. In the U.S., the condition most often begins when a Lone Star tick bites someone and transmits alpha-gal sugar into the person's body. In some people, this triggers an immune system reaction that later produces mild to severe allergic reactions to alpha-gal sugar found in red meat.

It's important to note that these pigs have not been evaluated for use as xenotransplantation products for transplantation or implantation into human subjects. Developers of any such human medical products must first submit an application to, and obtain approval from, the FDA before these products can be used in human medicine.

The product developer indicated that it initially intends to sell meat from GalSafe pigs by mail order, rather than in supermarkets.

The FDA granted approval of the IGA in GalSafe pigs to Revivicor Inc.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

Related Information###

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Archived Version

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 15:24

A new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645.

Results will be presented today by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

It is 172 years since a scientist first spotted that the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years. But every cycle is a little different and none of the models of causes to date have fully explained fluctuations. Many solar physicists have put the cause of the solar cycle down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the Sun. Now, Zharkova and her colleagues have found that adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, completes the picture with surprising accuracy.

"We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun's interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%," said Zharkova.

Zharkova and her colleagues derived their model using a technique called 'principal component analysis' of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California. They examined three solar cycles-worth of magnetic field activity, covering the period from 1976-2008. In addition, they compared their predictions to average sunspot numbers, another strong marker of solar activity. All the predictions and observations were closely matched.

Looking ahead to the next solar cycles, the model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022. During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.

"In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other -- peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum'," said Zharkova. "Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago."

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Archived Version

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 15:03

A YEAR AFTER they were invented, both sides in Ukraine are already fielding thousands of racing drones with improvised warheads. Ukraine's defence ministry calls them kamikazes, because the warhead destroys the drone itself. They are also known as First Person View (FPV) drones because the operator dons goggles that show a video feed from them as they fly. They can carry out strikes that would be out of reach of other weapons. In one clip that has been posted online FPVs dive into a tunnel to attack a Russian tank. In others they race after and destroy speeding vehicles. Faster, nimbler and cheaper than regular drones, they could transform warfare, claim analysts. How?

Armies have for a while been using consumer quadcopters, which fly themselves, to drop grenades. FPVs require a skilled remote pilot and are built for speed and manoeuvrability. They loiter as well as fly. The Ukrainians invented homemade versions of these munitions, which are now being copied by the Russians. They are assembled by volunteers or by the soldiers themselves from components provided by fundraisers. The simplicity of the electronics and use of commercial components means that they are cheap to make. One Ukrainian-made Pegasus attack drone costs $462 to buy. The larger and more refined SwitchBlade drones that America supplies to Ukraine, which carry only a small antipersonnel warhead, cost $52,000 apiece or more. FPVs' low cost compensates for their relatively low rate of success in destroying targets. Operators put their success rate at 50%-80%, compared with 90% or more for American Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Although FPVs do not have a long range, the live-feed to the operator's goggles allow them to reach beyond the line of sight, hitting targets behind trees, buildings or ridges or in trenches. They can thus supplement artillery attacks. Defenders find it hard to jam them electronically, because they use analogue video signals to fly at low altitudes. FPVs can carry larger warheads than small quadcopters. An FPV warhead is usually not big enough to penetrate a tank's thick frontal armour, but can go through its thinner rear or sides. It can easily stop lighter armoured vehicles such as personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and trucks. Sergio Miller, a former British Army officer, says that FPVs, if deployed in large numbers in Ukraine, could play the role that the machinegun did in the first world war: make any advance suicidal and lead to stalemate.

Escadrone, a Ukrainian non-profit organisation, produces around 1,500 a month and plans to increase output. Training enough operators will be more difficult. Operating an FPV requires dexterity and fast reflexes. Training In Ukraine, carried out by private schools, NGOs and others, takes a month. The pass rate is 60-70%, although candidates with video-game skills do better. Archangel, a Russian volunteer group that includes programmers, engineers and drone instructors, claims it can train FPV operators in just two weeks.

More uses may emerge as FPVs evolve. New models appear every few weeks. Both Ukraine and Russia have started employing FPV dive bombers, which are able to attack many times. On July 26th Ukraine's minister for digital transformation announced that the latest additions to an initiative dubbed by the government ''the Army of Drones'' had artificial intelligence to help locate Russian targets, raising the possibility of autonomous FPVs that do not require a skilled operator, are immune to radio jamming and can be launched in swarms. That could help raise their success rate.

Other armies are showing interest, too. In November America's Department of Defence issued a request to defence contractors for information based on the Ukrainian experience. NATO's armies, which require stringent certification of components, may not quickly adopt the technology. But countries with smaller defence budgets and, more worryingly, non-government actors, may be keen to learn from the Ukrainians. '–

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 14:59

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S&P Global has stopped handing out scores to corporate borrowers on ESG criteria, at a time of rising questions about their utility and political attacks on such metrics.

The debt rating agency has since 2021 published scores from one to five for a company's exposure to each element of environmental, social and governance risks.

Payments company Visa, for example, had received a two for ''E'' and ''S'' and a three for ''G''. FirstEnergy, an Ohio utility that has been charged with corruption, received a four score for ''G'', S&P's second-lowest grade.

Late last week S&P reversed course, saying that only text, not numerical scores, would comprise analysis of a company's ESG matters.

''We have determined that the dedicated analytical narrative paragraphs in our credit rating reports are most effective at providing detail and transparency on ESG credit factors material to our rating analysis,'' the rating agency said.

The U-turn puts S&P at odds with debt rating rival Moody's, which still rates ESG criteria on a one to five scale.

S&P is influential, with debt ratings that can affect a company's borrowing cost. As Republicans target Wall Street's use of ESG more broadly, conservative state attorneys-general last year opened an investigation into S&P's use of the factors.

Tom Lyon, a professor at University of Michigan's business school who has studied ESG ratings, said the S&P move was ''just the latest example of a company crumpling in the face of these Republican attacks''.

Their attacks have also overshadowed real concerns about ESG ratings sold by S&P and other financial firms, Lyon said. ''They are not that reliable and they disagree.''

The move comes amid scepticism over ESG ratings from some investors. Marcus Moore, a portfolio manager for Osterweis in San Francisco, said he does not pay much attention to specific ESG credit scores from rating agencies and that the numbers should not be a deciding factor for investors.

''We will continue to read S&P's reports and get a feel for what they are thinking about'' on ESG, Moore said.

Andy Brenner, head of international fixed income at Natalliance Securities, said he agreed with S&P's decision to back away from ESG scores. ''[ESG] is very hard to measure. I think it's an overrated concept,'' he said.

S&P said its ESG credit indicators were not sustainability ratings or a standalone assessment of a company's ESG performance.

''The ESG credit indicators were intended to illustrate and summarise the relevance of ESG credit factors on our rating analysis,'' S&P said. ''This update does not affect our ESG principles criteria or our research and commentary on ESG-related topics, including the influence that ESG factors can have on creditworthiness.''

By dropping the ESG ratings now, maybe S&P is saying ''the ratings really are not that useful,'' said David F. Larcker, a professor at Stanford's graduate school of business. ''Or maybe they are responding to pressure from attorneys-general and other people who are anti-ESG.''

Additional reporting by George Russell in Hong Kong and Harriet Clarfelt in New York

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 14:14

WSU ends six-year employment of Dr. Reni Moon, a board-certified Pediatrician, for providing testimony at a U.S. Senate fact-finding roundtable.(Updated 6Aug23: added copy of actual WSU termination letter and personal affidavit filed in Benton County Superior Court).

After teaching at Washington State University (WSU) since 2017, Dr. Renata Moon was terminated in June of this year after voicing concerns about the dangers of the Covid-19 mRNA shots for children. Dr. Moon was invited to a U.S. Senate fact-finding subcommittee in December of 2022 to provide testimony on what she was seeing in patients. The decision not to renew her annual contract, as revealed in recent court documents, was made despite her unblemished 25-year career as a board-certified Pediatrician.

Court documents filed in Benton County Superior Court by the Silent Majority Foundation (SMF) on July 12th (the Complaint) and on July 13th (plaintiff Declarations) reveal that WSU threatened to report Dr. Renata Moon to the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) because of testimony requested by the Senate subcommittee roundtable headed by Sen. Ron Johnson (WI-R), and even though her comments to the subcommittee were delivered as a private individual on her own time. WSU sent a letter on June 29th of this year announcing their decision not to renew her employment as an Associate Clinical Professor. The complaint is posted on the SMF blog.

Dr. Moon has board certification in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine from the American Board of Pediatrics, is licensed in many states, and has practiced as a pediatrician for over twenty-five years. Her Declaration states ''I have never had any action(s) against any state medical license. I have never been named as a defendant in any medical malpractice lawsuit.''

Dr. Moon's personal Declaration includes WSU's threatening memorandum as Exhibit 3, which directly references her participation at Senator Johnson's roundtable discussion on December 7, 2022, and lists areas of concern.

WSU Memo to Dr. Moon Page 1WSU Memo to Dr. Moon Page 2We asked Dr. Moon to respond to these concerns, starting with the possibility of an unexcused absence or of appearing to represent an employer.

''I took appropriate and approved personal leave from my work at WSU to travel to Washington DC. Substitute faculty covered my two afternoon classes during my personal leave. I spoke at the Senator Johnson event as a concerned pediatrician and citizen. I did not speak on behalf of any employer or other entity.''

Her claim that she wasn't speaking as an employee of WSU or any other organization is verified in the press release issued before the roundtable.

As part of their concern on Physician Professionalism, the memo from WSU states, in part:

'''...The WMC has asked the public and practitioners to report possible spread of misinformation. There are components in your presentation that could be determined as a possible spread, as such we are ethically obligated to make a report to the WMC to investigate possible breach of this expectation.''

By stating that it was their ethical obligation, it seems certain that WSU did, in fact, send a report to the WMC. Dr. Moon could easily take this to mean that her Washington State medical license would soon come under review.

Dr. Moon's employment status with WSU is raised in the last concern of the memo delivered to her: ''There were components with the roundtable that were inconsistent with expectations of the evidence based medical education expected in developing a future generation of physicians. The expressed views will require us to review your teaching assignments in the frame of the education of our students.''

Confirming the connection between the WSU memo and Dr. Moon's employment status, her annual contract was terminated, as summarized in the main Complaint:

''On June 29, 2023, I received notice from Washington State University's Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine that my employment contract as a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine would not be renewed for the 2023-2024 academic year. My employment was terminated by Washington State University.''

Dr. Moon was terminated via an Expiration of Faculty Appointment letter from the Interim Dean, James Record and the Education Department Chair, Jeff Haney because ''the needs of the college are moving in a different direction.''

The termination letter says nothing about Dr. Moon's past involvement with WSU's medical school. She has worked or volunteered for the WSU Floyd College of Medicine since 2015, starting with contributions to the accreditation effort before the school even launched. For three years, she volunteered on both the Admissions Committee and the Diversity-Equity Committee. She was the founding faculty sponsor for the school's Pediatric Interest Group, while she taught at the school as an Associate Clinical Professor. Dr. Moon appeared to be a significant contributor to the founding of the school itself, making her termination far from routine.

The legal Complaint also illustrates Dr. Moon's views on the current state of institutions of higher learning in the United States:

''This censorship has compromised my ability to effectively teach the next generation of physicians. Professors teaching in the world of medical education have a duty to teach medical students about ethical principles and this includes helping patients weigh the risks and benefits of potential medical interventions. Censorship and threats have forced many physicians and medical students into a rigid box of ''authorized thinking.''

During Senator Johnson's Roundtable Discussion in December of 2022, Dr. Moon used the package insert that comes with the COVID-19 shots to express dismay:

''It says 'left intentionally blank' on it. So how am I to get informed consent to parents when I have '... This is what I have: a government that is telling me that I have to say 'safe and effective,' and if I don't, my license is at threat. And so how am I going to give informed consent to patients? We're seeing an uptick in myocarditis. We're seeing an uptick in adverse reactions. We have trusted these regulatory agencies. I have for my entire career until now. Something is extremely wrong.''

''It's blank,'' says Dr. Renata Moon about the COVID-19 shot package insert as she shows it to Senator Ron Johnson and the other panel members at a December 7, 2022 hearing.In her personal Declaration supporting the lawsuit, Dr. Moon explains concerns beyond just her Washington Medical license, and that protected speech rights are at issue:

''It was clear that the Washington Medical Commission would also investigate my oral and written statements and try to revoke my medical license because I share the same concerns about the dangers of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines for children. It is my professional duty as a pediatric physician to honor my Hippocratic Oath to ''Do No Harm'' and to speak out about the dangers of the new and experimental genetic COVID-19 mRNA shots. My US Constitutional First Amendment right to free speech has been threatened by the actions of the Washington Medical Commission.''

Loading...As a result of speaking the truth about what she's witnessed, Dr. Moon has allowed her Washington state medical license to expire and is practicing elsewhere. She said she is concerned about licenses in other states, but will continue to speak out because the issue is so important.

Dr. Moon's experiences with WSU and the WMC are not the only discriminatory actions against her. She suffered additional hardship, losing a job in December 2021 after refusing to share her personal COVID-19 vaccination history with her clinic employer. This was revealed in a July 17, 2023 story from Alpha News.

Pediatrician on vax, censorship: 'We're all being silenced for daring to question the data' '' Alpha News

At the recent Informed Choice Washington (ICWA) event ''COVID Betrayal: A Path Forward'' in Spokane on May 20, 2023, Dr. Moon shared a memo from the Federation of State Medical Boards that labeled criticism of COVID-19 vaccines as misinformation and that encouraged revocation of licenses.

News Release from FSMB on July 29th, 2021 titled ''FSMB: SPREADING COVID-19 VACCINE MISINFORMATION MAY PUT MEDICAL LICENSE AT RISK''''Putting in this idea that we're not supposed to question anything. And how ridiculous is that? Science is built on a foundation of questioning, and we just rolled out a brand new vaccine platform with unknown long term consequences to it. So how crazy is this, but they wanted to silence us.''

Reminding the Spokane audience that the pressure to silence doctors is not just about her situation, Dr. Moon also showed an email to a physician outside of Washington that said to refrain from any contradictory comments of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

At the COVID Betrayal Event in Spokane, Dr. Moon discussed the adverse events following the COVID-19 shots that she had mentioned at the Senator Johnson Roundtable discussion:

''This idea that we have to say safe and effective with a product that is brand new and clearly has significant problems for some people who take it and even fatalities, and we're supposed to be saying safe and effective? We have a CDC web site that shows myocarditis as a problem after taking the COVID-19 shots.''

Dr. Moon used a slide from Open VAERS to illustrate her point. An updated look at MedAlerts shows as of July 14, 2023, that there are 17,053 cases of myocarditis reported to the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reaction System (VAERS) following the COVID-19 shot with 412 of those cases resulting in death.

In Washington, VAERS shows 132 cases of myocarditis following the COVID-19 shots:

In the recent Alpha News article, Dr. Moon said the following about adverse events from COVID-19 shots:

''We all know somebody who's had what appears to be an adverse reaction to the shot. A friend shared that her son, who was in his twenties, developed myocarditis just five days after he got the shot. As a trained professional, I can tell you, we never used to see myocarditis, it was extremely rare. Now I hear about it from family and friends '... it's happening enough that there's clearly a massive increase in this.''

Dr. Moon said that she had watched every one of the FDA hearings to authorize COVID-19 shots for children. ''I was yelling at my computer '... saying 'you don't have the data.''' Further adding, ''I'd like to say for the record that I never ordered the shot for a child. The data was clear from the outset that this should have been pulled.''

The actions by medical groups and employers to silence speech strikes a very sensitive nerve in Dr. Moon, given her family background. She has often referenced her parents' search for freedom when they escaped their communist homeland and legally immigrated to the United States.

When interviewed for this article, Dr. Moon provided further background on her family's experiences while still living under communist rule:

''My mother, when she was in her 20's and still living under communism, listened in horror as they came for one of her professors in an adjacent room. He was purged from her college for teaching students about a topic that didn't fit the one narrative party line. Under communism, there was no free speech with academic debate and discussion. The professor had been speaking the truth about the principles of genetics. My mom never saw or heard from him again.''

At the Covid Betrayal Event in Spokane, Dr. Moon summed up the grave concerns she has about the erosion of free speech in the United States:

''My parents represent the millions who came to America for Freedom, and they came because their homelands had become a living hell. You just don't leave for other reasons. When the communist government took over, they asked my grandfather, who was a well-known author and radio personality, to write propaganda for them, and he refused. They pulled his books from the market and demoted him.''

''We are right now in the early stages of communism. We still have the chance to turn this around, and we have to turn this around for our children and our grandchildren.''

(Ref: Dr. Moon's testimony at the Dec. 7th 2022 Roundtable starting at 2:22:27)

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 14:13

We are hearing that UK scientists have begun developing vaccines as an ''insurance against a new pandemic caused by an unknown ''Disease X''. In the same way as COVID-19 was rehearsed at Event 201, It would seem that Disease X'' was also rehearsed at ''Clade X''. Could it be that we are being prepared for a new plandemic?

Sky News reported yesterday that ''Disease X'' is an ''unidentified and potential future pandemic and that there is a team of more than 200 scientists from the UK carrying out work to prepare for it.

The State-of-the-Art Vaccine Research FacilityThe scientists are at the government's high-security, state-of-the-art vaccine research facility, Porton Down laboratory complex near Salisbury Wiltshire which is run by the UK Health Security Agency who ''have drawn up'' what they say are ''a threat list of animal viruses that are capable of infecting humans.''

Above is The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC) is based at the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) Science and Defence technology campus vaccine centre, near Salisbury in Wiltshire (source).

The Independent also reported that ''scientists will work to ensure future pandemics are stopped in their tracks and do not cause the same disruption to everyday life as ''Covid-19'' however, ''It is also hoped the facility will help the UK tackle ''disease X'' by enhancing preparedness for yet-to-be-identified pathogens with pandemic potential.''

The UKHSA '' Preparing in AdvanceYet, they seem to know that the unidentified virus could ''spread rapidly around the world, in the future''. We are being told that ''They have no idea as to which one of them will ''breakthrough'' and ''trigger'' the next pandemic, which is why it's referred to only as ''Disease X'', according to Sky News.

Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), (from COVID fame) told Sky News: ''What we're trying to do here is ensure that we prepare so that if we have a new Disease X, a new pathogen, we have done as much of that work in advance as possible.

Prof Harries, enjoying a previous plandemic.She adds ''Hopefully we can prevent it [a pandemic]. But if we can't and we have to respond, then we have already started developing vaccines and therapeutics to crack it.'' (source).

However, it appears they have lots of time to prepare for ''Disease X'' as they have been planning for it at least since 2018.

Tabletop ExercisesWe all know that COVID had a rehearsal within the tabletop exercise named Event 201 Pandemic Exercise. The exercise was conducted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF) back in 2019.

Well, ''Disease X'' too was rehearsed, and even before that, this time the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted the Clade X pandemic tabletop exercise on May 15, 2018, in Washington, DC.

At the Clade X event, the US National Security Advisor (NSA) assembled a team of top advisors to discuss the mysterious illness emerging in Germany and Venezuela.

The Purpose According to the Center for Health Security.The Center for Health Security claimed that purpose of the exercise was ''to illustrate high-level strategic decisions and policies that the United States and the world will need to pursue in order to prevent a pandemic or diminish its consequences should prevention fail.''

Adding that ''faced with a rapidly evolving biological threat landscape, government leaders in the United States and abroad are eager to identify long-term policy commitments that will strengthen preparedness and mitigate risk.'' Clade X is said to have ''illustrated high-level strategic decisions and policies needed to prevent a severe pandemic or diminish its consequences should prevention fail.'' and ''will educate senior leaders at the highest level of the US government, as well as members of the global policy and preparedness community and the general public''

The organisers claim that ''In addition, exercises like Clade X are a particularly effective way to help policymakers gain a fuller understanding of the urgent challenges they could face in a dynamic, real-world crisis.''

''The exercise simulates a series of National Security Council-convened meetings of 10 US government leaders, played by individuals prominent in the fields of national security or epidemic response. Drawing from actual events, Clade X identifies important policy issues and preparedness challenges that could be solved with sufficient political will and attention.'' say the organisers.

Clade X SimulationThe Clade X simulated pandemic went like this:

''Patients, including US military members, were showing up at the hospital in Landstuhl with fever, cough, and confusion. Some patients were ending up on respirators; others fell into comas. Initially, it looked like viral encephalitis. But it soon became clear this virus was something new'--and lethal. It had the ability to be transmitted from person to person through the air, a 5''7-day incubation period, and a high fatality rate.

By May 1, the virus had spread to Venezuela. And while Germany's health system moved fast to isolate the sick and track exposures, the authorities in Venezuela reacted much differently, denying the outbreak. Hundreds of people soon swamped ERs. The US Coast Guard reported seeing boats of sick refugees from Venezuela approaching Puerto Rico. By May 2, a culprit had been identified: parainfluenza. Human Parainfluenza Viruses, as the CDC explains, are different than influenza viruses, although they also can cause respiratory infections'--and the flu vaccine does not protect against HPIV infections.''

''The mystery virus'--with no known antivirals, no licensed vaccines against it, and pandemic potential'--got a name: Clade X.'' The simulation aimed to spur US officials and researchers to think through challenging scenarios and questions before the next health emergency strikes,.writes the Global Health Now Org, who ask ''For instance, should the US cave to public pressure and issue travel bans and quarantines when a workable vaccine is likely one year away, no rapid diagnostic test exists, and other countries shut down travel?''

''The assembled experts quickly mapped out the case against travel bans. Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, playing the role of the CDC director (a role she held in real life from 2002-2009), pointed out that Frankfurt is a major airport hub, so banning just one leg of the journey wouldn't work. Travel bans, she explained, are simply '''...not effective, impractical, and potentially harmful.''

By June 1st, the FBI learned that a splinter group of an international organization focused on overpopulation, A Brighter Dawn, was behind the attacks; one member of the group, a parainfluenza researcher from the US, could not be located.

By the end of the exercise, the much-anticipated first vaccine flopped, and although a vaccine candidate emerged and Clade X did eventually burn out, it brought the entire world to its knees first, that sounds familiar, hmm?

The Clade X VideosYou can watch the Clade X tabletop exercise in the videos below, to see what has been planned and prepared for.

Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

Not A Real Virus'....Again''The underlying storyline is all too plausible''. say the Global Health Now Org, ''The advisors, a distinguished cast of ex-officials with plenty of real-world experience in their adopted roles, grappled with critical dilemmas'--while intermittent mock newscasts delivered steadily worsening news about the outbreak.''

''Thankfully, Clade X is not real, and this was a mock pandemic'''--they say. Ah, yes, we are aware of that, and we were aware of that the last time, but look where that still got us.

Are we about to see attempts to terrorise us with a new Plandemic and all that entails? and if so, are we really about to allow it? Hopefully with the evidence of their potential practice run and being able to see those partaking in the role play sounding every bit as wooden acting their parts as our politicians have done in the last show, I can't imagine any of us will.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 13:59

The BBC's first disinformation correspondent has said ''it's normal to hate me'' as she revealed that more than 80 per cent of abuse directed at the corporation's journalists is targeted at her.

Marianna Spring, 27, began working at the BBC in 2019 and a year later was appointed its disinformation and social media correspondent. Since then, she has been subject to extreme trolling online, and has even had an incident of harassment '' which took place offline '' referred to the police.

The corporation has a system for monitoring the online abuse that its journalists are subjected to, with software detecting correspondence containing cyberbullying, physical threats, violent language and doxxing (revealing personal information online), and then flags these cases for escalation. Between January 1 this year and late June there were 14,488 escalations. Of these, 11,771 '' more than 80 per cent '' were directed at Ms Spring.

'I'm not going mad'''When I found that out, I was quite relieved,'' she said in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine. ''To have someone be, like, 'Oh, actually, you do receive this phenomenal level of abuse,' it makes you think, 'Oh yeah, OK, I'm not going mad.'''

Among the trolling and slurs directed at her include: ''filthy dirty propagandist''; ''liar''; ''communist bitch''; ''leftist disgusting ugly dog''; and ''you're a mindless slug of greed that I hope publicly gets thrown under a moving bus. Literally or figuratively.''

Earlier this year, one incident of harassment, which Ms Spring said she cannot reveal further details of, spilled over from the online social media world to the real world, and has since been referred to the police.

Asked how she copes with being constantly trolled, she said: ''I've a brilliant support system around me and they love what I do. I think part of my positive approach is that I really don't want them to be worried about me at all.''

However, she concluded that for some people, and many online trolls: ''It's really normal to really hate me.''

Conspiracy theoriesThe issues Ms Spring has investigated include anti-vaxxers and people who believe in state-sponsored conspiracy theories, including those who believe that the US government was responsible for 9/11 or that the Manchester Arena suicide bombing by Islamic terrorist suicide bomber Salman Abedi, which left 22 people dead, did not happen.

The BBC journalist grew up with her parents and younger sister in the suburbs of south London. She attended a private school and took part in a scheme for young reporters run by the publisher Newsquest before being awarded a place to study French and Russian at the University of Oxford.

As an undergraduate, she wrote for one of the university's student newspapers and tried and failed to win a place on the BBC's graduate scheme.

She was on work experience at The Guardian in 2019 when one of its reporters said that she should contact BBC journalists whom she looked up to.

''I emailed the stars I loved, like Emily Maitlis, Fiona Bruce, Mishal Husain, and Emily replied to me. I sent some links to some reporting I'd done, and she said, 'Why don't you come in and meet our deputy editor? We sometimes have shifts going at Newsnight.' And that's how I started at the BBC.''

''The conspiracy theorists love to say that [the BBC] created my role because they knew Covid was coming,'' when she was awarded her current role in 2020.

The BBC was contacted for comment.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 13:58

Waiting for long periods of time in crowded airports, as well as sitting in narrow plane seats and flying long haul, can all be factors in developing this fatal illness

One study in 2021 found air travel longer than eight hours increased someone's risk of developing the illness ( Image: Getty Images)

Going on holiday can increase the risk of a deadly silent killer.

Waiting for long periods of time in crowded airports, as well as sitting in narrow plane seats and flying long haul can all be factors in developing this fatal illness.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a blood clot in a vein that can have fatal consequences if left untreated. It's normally found in the leg but can move to the lungs, causing a life-threatening pulmonary embolism.

Travel can massively exacerbate the condition, with DVT sometimes called 'economy class syndrome'. Some research suggests it's more common in those seated towards the back of planes, but it can happen anywhere.

Scientists say it's actually down to sitting posture, tight seating and prolonged immobility which compresses blood vessels and lead to blood pooling. One study in 2021 found air travel longer than eight hours increased someone's risk of developing DVT.

Body mass index (BMI), age, surgical history, oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and cancer also made people more predisposed. Around one in 1,000 people in the UK will develop DVT every year, according to the NHS. It can happen to anyone, but those over 40 are most at risk.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: "More than 300 million people travel on long-distance flights (generally more than four hours) each year. Blood clots, also called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), can be a serious risk for some long-distance travellers.

"They can form in the deep veins of your legs during travel because you are sitting still in a confined space for long periods of time. The longer you are immobile, the greater your risk."

Symptoms of DVTThe NHS lists the symptoms as:

throbbing pain in one leg (rarely both legs), usually in the calf or thigh, when walking or standing up swelling in one leg (rarely both legs) warm skin around the painful area red or darkened skin around the painful area '' this may be harder to see on brown or black skin swollen veins that are hard or sore when you touch them These symptoms can also happen in your arm or tummy if that's where the blood clot is. Thankfully, there are some things you can do - both before, during and after travel - to reduce your risk.

Before travelling you should avoid smoking and cut down on fast food. During travel, stay hydrated, wear compression socks, keep active and you can even ask for an upgrade. Then when back home or at your destination, it's important to keep moving.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 13:53

Ministers have opened a new vaccine research centre in the UK where scientists will work on preparing for ''disease X'', the next potential pandemic pathogen.

The state-of-the-art Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre is based at the UK Health and Security Agency's (UKHSA) Porton Down campus in Wiltshire.

Live viruses will be kept onsite in specialist containment facilities where scientists can assess pathogens that do not yet have a vaccine or ones where immunisation could be improved, for example, the flu or mpox.

Prof Dame Jenny Harries said: ''What we're trying to do now is capture that really excellent work from Covid and make sure we're using that as we go forward for any new pandemic threats.''

She added: ''What we try to do here is keep an eye on the ones that we do know. For example, with Covid, we are still here testing all the new variants with the vaccines that have been provided to check they are still effective.

''But we are also looking at how quickly we can develop a new test that would be used if a brand new virus popped up somewhere.''

The opening of the facility is announced after the Covid inquiry heard evidence that previous governments were ill prepared for a pandemic, with its plans focusing too much on the possibility of an influenza pandemic rather than other viruses. The former prime minister David Cameron had admitted this was a ''mistake''.

Prof Isabel Oliver, UKHSA's chief scientific officer, said: ''We know that through scientific advancement, we could detect and control these spreads before they have the impact that Covid-19 had on our lives.

''It's not easy, but we know that if we strengthen surveillance and if we accelerate the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, we could do so much better.

''We need to be prepared for all threats, including those that have not been detected yet.'' The government said the centre also underlined the UK's commitment to the 100 Days Mission, a global goal set by the G7 in 2021 with the aim of deploying a vaccine against any new pandemic threat within 100 days of identification.

The health secretary, Steve Barclay, said: ''This new centre cements the UK's global position spearheading pandemic preparedness, vaccine development, and scientific discovery.

''This state-of-the-art complex will also help us deliver on our commitment to produce new vaccines within 100 days of a new threat being identified.''

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 13:44

The ABC is shutting down almost all of its official accounts on Twitter '' now known as X under Elon Musk's ownership '' citing ''toxic interactions'', cost and better interaction with ABC content on other social media platforms.

There will only be four remaining official accounts for Australia's public broadcaster: @abcnews, @abcsport, @abcchinese and the master @abcaustralia account. ABC Chinese reaches Chinese-speaking audiences on X.

''Starting from today, other ABC accounts will be discontinued,'' the ABC managing director, David Anderson, has told staff.

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Anderson said the closure of the Insiders, News Breakfast and ABC Politics accounts earlier this year limited the amount of toxic interactions, which had grown more prevalent under Musk and made engagement with the shows more positive.

Several high-profile ABC journalists left Twitter after being subjected to abuse, including News Breakfast host Lisa Millar and Australian Story host Leigh Sales.

''We also found that closing individual program accounts helps limit the exposure of team members to the toxic interactions that unfortunately are becoming more prevalent on X,'' Anderson said.

''Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety teams. Additionally, it is introducing charges which make the platform increasingly costly to use.''

The ABC has closed its @abcemergency X account and directed people to their local radio station and ABC website for emergency information.

The @Q+A account has also been archived, bringing to an end a long relationship between the talk show and the platform.

The ABC Media Watch account will stay on X because the program is independent and can't post on the ABC news account.

The announcement comes after the ABC recently shifted resources towards making content for other social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram.

Anderson said the vast majority of the ABC's social media audience was located on official sites on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

''We want to focus our effort and resources on where our audiences are,'' he said.

The ABC is the third big public service broadcaster to remove itself from Twitter, following NPR and PBS in April. They left Twitter after Musk branded them ''state media''.

In April the ABC and SBS were also labelled ''government-funded media''.

At that time a spokesperson said the ABC was not planning to follow NPR and PBS by quitting Twitter.

''The ABC doesn't currently have any plans to shut down all its Twitter accounts. We're liaising with Twitter regarding changes to account verification and labels,'' they said.

The withdrawal marks the end of the ABC's rosy relationship with Twitter, which former ABC managing director Mark Scott once called a ''joy'' to use for breaking news and conversation.

Scott was an evangelist of the value of social media in journalism, encouraged journalists to join the platform and promoted the ABC's use of Twitter for disseminating ABC content.

''Twitter reminds me of sitting in the newsroom, watching the feeds come in from the world's great media organisations: Reuters, Dow Jones and Associated Press, the New York Times, The Guardian, AFP,'' he said in 2010.

''Now anyone, simply by following their Twitter feeds, can have these great media organisations delivering a stream of updates to them no matter where they are.

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Archived Version

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:55

A new study of 777 people found that 22 had markers that indicated the mRNA-1273 covid vaccine caused myocardial injury in 1 out of 35 people. This is about thousand times more than prior estimates of myocardial injury. It would mean if 1.8 billion people in the world had covid vaccinations and boosters then 50 million would have had myocardial injury. This would usually be mild and transitory but if those people had strenuous exercise during this period they could trigger heart attacks. This would mean if 280 million people in the USA had covid vaccinations and boosters then you would expect about 8 million to have experienced myocardial injury from the vaccination.

Vaccination is a medical agent that causes your immune system to act against a target disease. This study indicates a side effect of activating your immune system to fight covid where the immune system temporarily attacks heart muscle in 1 out of 35 people (if the study is correct).

The Cleveland Clinic provides statistics related to regular myocarditis. The situation is likely different for vaccination triggered myocarditis.

Many people can live for years without problems after myocarditis treatment. Other people may need to keep taking medication. There's a small risk of myocarditis happening again.

For some people, myocarditis can lead to dilated cardiomyopathy and they may need a heart transplant. Almost 20% of sudden deaths in young people have a connection to myocarditis.

The survival rate for myocarditis is 80% one year after having it and 50% five years later.

John Hopkins discusses regular myocarditis.

Myocarditis occurs when the heart muscle becomes inflamed. When your heart muscle is inflamed, it can affect your heart's electrical system. This can cause arrhythmia, or a rapid or abnormal heartbeat. Myocarditis can cause the heart muscle to weaken and can lead to cardiomyopathy. Myocarditis occurs when the heart muscle (myocardium) becomes inflamed. Inflammation occurs when your body's immune system responds to infections, for example. Myocarditis can be caused by viral infections or more systemic inflammatory conditions such as autoimmune disorders. In severe cases of myocarditis, the heart muscle weakens and cannot pump blood effectively to other parts of your body.

Here is the link to the study: Sex-specific differences in myocardial injury incidence after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 Booster Vaccination.

Among 777 participants, median age 37 years, 69.5% women, 40 participants had elevated hs-cTnT concentration on day 3 and mRNA-1273 vaccine-associated myocardial injury was adjudicated in 22 participants. Twenty cases occurred in women, two in men. Hs-cTnT-elevations were mild and only temporary. No patient had ECG-changes, and none developed major adverse cardiac events within 30 days.

Patients in this study were warned not to exercise for 30 days after vaccination if myocardial injury markers were detected.

Ten to twenty times the number of people who would show any symptoms that would indicate possible myocardial injury from covid vaccination. Not all people with chest pain would get flagged as possibly having myocardial injury.

The CDC still recommends everyone ages 6 months and older get vaccinated as soon as possible to protect against COVID-19 and its potentially severe complications. Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis is inflammation of the lining outside the heart; myopericarditis is present when both myocarditis and pericarditis occur at the same time.

John Campbell calls this ''off the charts'' adverse reaction. He says people need to be told about this issue and the frequency of it before vaccine boosters to have informed consent. There needs to be monitoring for everyone for elevated hs-cTnT concentration. Those with elevated markers must be told not to exercise for 30 days and be monitored for heart problems.

The CDC is reporting about 8000 people across the USA hospitalized for COVID and almost no weekly deaths.

Natacha Buergin1*,Pedro Lopez-Ayala1*,Julia R. Hirsiger2,Philip Mueller1,Daniela Median1,Noemi Glarner1,Klara Rumora1,Timon Herrmann1,Luca Koechlin1,Philip Haaf1,Katharina Rentsch3,Manuel Battegay4,Florian Banderet5,6,Christoph T. Berger2, 7,ChristianMueller1

1Department of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research Institute Basel (CRIB), University Hospital Basel, University of Basel, Basel;2Department of Biomedicine, Translational Immunology, University of Basel, Basel;3Department of Laboratory Medicine, University Hospital Basel, University of Basel, Basel;4Department of Infectious diseases & Hospital Epidemiology , University Hospital Basel, University of Basel, Basel;5Department of Internal Medicine, Medical Outpatient Unit, University Hospital Basel, Basel;6Employee health service, University Hospital Basel, Basel Switzerland,7University Center for Immunology, University Hospital Basel, Basel

Prof. Christian Mueller, Cardiovascular Research Institute Basel (CRIB) and Department of Cardiology, University Hospital Basel, Petersgraben 4, CH-4031 Basel, Switzerland.

Other Post-Vaccine Myocarditis Studies

Yale School of Medicine, Prof Iwasaki, info: What is the likelihood of developing myocarditis post-vaccination, and who is most at risk?

Prof Iwasaki: Myocarditis risk depends on the age and sex of the vaccine recipient. It is most common in younger males'--adolescents or young adults. The highest risk group is males between 12 and 17 years of age. And in that highest risk group, the myocarditis risk after the second dose, which is the highest, is 35.9 per 100,000 people. In comparison, the risk post-infection in that same group is 64.9 per 100,000.

Professor Iwasaki, you have said you are ''a little relieved'' to have found myocarditis cases to be inflammation-induced. Why is that?

Iwasaki: Autoimmune-related myocarditis is more difficult to treat. It would be more chronic, because once you trigger an autoimmune response, it's very difficult to shut it down. For example, if you develop auto antibodies against components of the cardiac muscle, it's difficult to get rid of those B cells that are secreting those antibodies, creating chronic disease. Whereas inflammation-induced myocarditis is more transient'--we actually found that inflammation as well as the immune cell types go back to normal after patients recover. So we know that it's a resolving kind of myocarditis. We don't want to diminish patients' suffering, but this kind of myocarditis is better than other types.

Nextbigfuture NOTE: It is not clear that the 36 people getting post-vaccine myocarditis are the same people who would get post-covid infection myocarditis. Also, why can't we get a covid vaccine that has no myocarditis risk? In the meantime, people need to be fully informed, warned and closely monitored for this substantial post-vaccination risk.

Vaccine Vs Covid

A commenter was comparing the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine with myocarditis from Covid. However, the low number of cases (under 40,000 per week) means about 2 million people in the US might get Covid in a year.

This means less than 1% of the population would get Covid in a year. Vaccine protection fades over time. An annual vaccine that is 1/7th the risk of covid where 50% of the population was vaccinated would mean increasing the risk of myocarditis by 7 times with vaccination.

Younger people are less vulnerable to covid but more vulnerable to myocarditis. This would mean that it would mean the odds are better for most young people (under 40 or 50) to accept the no longer pandemic covid risk rather than the clear excessive amounts of adverse risks from a flawed vaccine.

This does get down to personal risks of covid exposure, vulnerability to the current covid strain and personal risk to the particular covid vaccine. Widely distributed vaccines should not have this level of adverse reaction.

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:50

Since before she hit double digits, Alisa, 15, said she has felt a special connection with Japan. The high school student, who asked to be anonymous for fear of being doxxed online, was born in Ukraine and lives in Maryland, but she now goes by the Japanese name Miyuki and listens to ''subliminals'' that promise she will wake up and be Japanese. So far, she believes that by listening to YouTube videos with lo-fi music and photos of East Asian facial features while she sleeps, her vision has cleared, her eyelids have become smaller and her hair is just a bit darker.

Practitioners of what they call ''race change to another,'' or RCTA, purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to become a different race. They tune in to subliminal videos that claim can give them an ''East Asian appearance'' or ''Korean DNA.''

But experts underscore that it is simply impossible to change your race.

''It's just belief,'' said Jamie Cohen, an assistant professor of cultural and media studies at Queens College, City University of New York. ''It doesn't ever really work, because it's not doing anything, but they have convinced themselves that it works because there's other people who have convinced themselves, as well.''

Though they do not constitute a full-blown trend, a number of racial subliminal creators have popped up on YouTube in recent years, with videos racking up on average over a half-million views apiece. On TikTok, dozens of accounts have emerged in recent weeks sharing similar goals and aesthetics and documenting what people describe as their race-change journeys.

Media experts also point to the potential dark side of the exocitization of Asian culture, saying it could be a form of modern yellowface, or the act of non-Asian people's making their appearance more ''Asian-like.''

Korean American poet Margaret Rhee, an assistant professor of media studies at The New School in New York, said the RCTA phenomenon reflects the current media climate in which East Asian media enjoys widespread popularity internationally and in the U.S.

''There's also the underbelly of that where we want to be careful,'' she said, ''because there's always problems around fetishization or objectification that East Asian cultures have always been subjected to, meaning being revered for these kinds of exotic characteristics but not really fully seen.''

Race as a constructExperts agree race is not genetic. But they contend that even though race is a cultural construct, it is impossible to change your race because of the systemic inequalities inherent to being born into a certain race.

David Freund, a historian of race and politics and an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, corroborates the idea that a ''biological race'' does not exist. What we know today as ''race'' is a combination of inherited characteristics and cultural traditions passed down through generations, he said.

In addition, Freund said, the modern concept of race is inseparable from the systemic racial hierarchy hundreds of years in the making. Simply put, changing races is not possible, because ''biological races'' themselves are not real.

Freund added that the idea of changing one's race operates differently depending on a person's racial background and that white people who seek to ''transition'' to other races can often sidestep the harms of racism.

Kevin Nadal, a professor of psychology at City University of New York, said: ''There is a privilege in being able to change your race or to say that you're changing your race. There are many people who would be unable to ever change their race. Particularly, Black people in this country would be unable to say all of a sudden 'I'm white' and be treated with the same privileges that white people have.''

Certain people of color throughout history have been able to ''pass'' as white to survive. Walter Francis White, the son of two enslaved people, for example, used his ability to blend in as ''white'' to champion civil rights for African Americans as the leader of the NAACP. But most people of color are not afforded the same opportunities.

RCTA and transracialism '-- which came to the forefront because of controversial figures like Rachel Dolezal '-- have been compared to being transgender. However, psychologists and activists push back against comparisons.

Tiq Milan, a Black transgender activist and writer, said it is a disservice to transgender people to compare the two. Race historically emerged as a social construct to establish a racial hierarchy with the white race at the top, whereas variances in gender identity have existed for thousands of years, he said.

''When it comes to who we are as racialized people, it is how we present to the world, but it's also how people treat you,'' Milan said. ''It's not just putting on the hair and the makeup and talking and walking [in] a kind of way. That is fetishizing, and it's objectifying, and it reduces the beautiful and complicated cultures of people of color.''

'Changing races' using subliminalsAlisa began posting to her account, @rcta_ctdr4lifer, on TikTok in the beginning of June. While she has found a community of like-minded people, she has also encountered a slew of hate messages and even death threats. Her account, like those of many other RCTA TikTok creators, features walls of rambling text about her progress and goals and addresses the haters over videos of fashionable East Asian women dancing to Japanese and Korean music.

''Ever since I was about 9 years old, I've always loved Japanese culture, and I've always wanted to move there, even before I discovered RCTA,'' Alisa said.

In the first video she posted on TikTok, she introduces herself through a combination of Japanese and English text, writing that she is Japanese, loves cats and is looking for friends. The white text written by Alisa overlays a video originally posted by TikTok user @simcard_x, in which she dances to the pop song ''LOVE & JOY'' by the Japanese singer Yuki Kimura.

Subliminals, which are audio files or videos intended to evoke certain outcomes, such as growing taller or achieving good grades, exploded in popularity during the pandemic, Cohen said. They emerged as part of a larger trend in which people hope to manifest changes and bend reality to achieve certain goals, similar to meditation, he said.

Subliminals often feature soothing visuals and ambient music, and they purportedly include subconscious messages and affirmations that rewire a person's neural pathways or DNA or both. Creators of subliminals post on YouTube with eye-catching, hyperbolic titles and promise their viewers instant gratification: good grades, clear skin or weight loss.

Alia, 14, who asked to be anonymous for fear of being doxxed online, was born Egyptian but wants to be Japanese and Korean. She said that after she let YouTube videos featuring images of monolid eyes and ambient music play on repeat while she sleeps, she thought her eyes had developed monolids and she lost roughly 2 pounds overnight.

''It starts with a spiritual, mental thing, and then it's your choice to change if you want to change yourself physically,'' Alia said.

Some people said they were initially drawn to RCTA because of a special connection with a race or an ethnicity different from their own. Alia, who goes by the Japanese name Sayaka Hashimoto online, said that she has always felt connected to Japanese culture and that she was elated to discover RCTA last year. Her TikTok account, @5starbunny, is full of reflections on her progress toward becoming Japanese and dreaming about being in Japan.

A video features what she calls a progress update from Alia, who claims her mother bought her a ''skin whitening mask'' without her having asked for it. The text commentary overlies a video originally posted by TikTok user @esoeso_q, which has garnered over 233,000 views.

Some psychologists say people's inclination to change their race can stem from many motivations, including a desire to be more ''exotic'' or shame associated with their race, but the specific motivations can vary from person to person.

Alia said that growing up, she was mocked for being Egyptian: ''I've had many people call me 'fiery' or that I get angry quickly just 'cause I'm Middle Eastern. It might also have been a reason why I transitioned.''

For white Americans, racial trauma can take the form of being ashamed for engaging in racism, having failed to stop others from engaging in racism or not having lived up to a nonracist ideal, said Naomi Torres-Mackie, a psychologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. That racial guilt is what she calls ''white shame,'' and it can lead white people to want to escape from the guilt through RCTA or transracialism.

''If you hold a highly privileged position in society and that is brought to your awareness, it can give you feelings of guilt or shame,'' Torres-Mackie said. ''A lot of people try to find refuge from that shame.''

A case of cultural appropriation, not appreciationAlthough a person can in theory be motivated to try to change into any race or ethnicity, the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian, and similarly, most race-related subliminals aim to transform listeners into East Asians.

The YouTube account MISU, which has gotten over 30,000 subscribers and nearly 6 million views, was one of the largest subliminals creators catering to the East Asian-hopeful crowd. Since she began making subliminals in 2018, MISU, who claims to be Asian, has leaned heavily into the distinctly Japanese anime aesthetic. Four of her top 10 videos purport to give viewers East Asian features or to help them look more like East Asian influencers and stars, such as Jennie from the K-pop group BlackPink.

The intense fixation on and enamoration with East Asian traits and appearances has led some members of the East Asian community to criticize RCTA as fetishistic and harmful. Some scholars say it is another case of cultural appropriation, rather than appreciation. ''Maybe this isn't the way to respectfully engage with the culture,'' Rhee said.

Cohen said: ''The problem, to me, isn't the curiosity; it's the obsession. Some of them go too deep; they get lost in the sauce. They're really in it to the point where it's unhealthy, and they start owning an identity that isn't theirs.''

Joy, a Korean American creator on TikTok, said people taking part in RCTA often overlook the unsavory aspects of being Asian in countries like the U.S.

''They are exercising their privilege when they say they want to change races,'' she said. ''When I was younger, I wanted to be white, because I was sick of facing all the racism, but they're not changing their race because of racism. They're changing their race because they think it's cool.''

Subliminals that aim to make someone more East Asian can also inadvertently use antiquated, erroneous stereotypes. One subliminal, which has been viewed over 200,000 times, says watching it will give a viewer a ''mongoloid skull'' '-- an outdated and harmful anthropological category, according to a 2019 statement by the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. Another subliminal, viewed over 100,000 times, claims to be able to give a viewer a ''flat face.''

However, concerns about the problematic implications of changing their race seem to have fallen largely on stubborn ears. Addressing the criticisms of racism, Alisa said those who practice RCTA are not harming anyone: ''We only live once, so I think we should do everything we want to do in life, even if others think it's not OK or you can't achieve it.''

Nadal gave a few words of advice to people who are struggling with their racial identity.

''I would say the same thing that I would say to somebody who's struggling with any part of their identity,'' Nadal said. ''Talk about what it is that makes you want to change that part of you.''

Emi Tuyetnhi Tran Emi Tuyetnhi Tran is an intern for NBC News Digital.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:31

CommentsBazhou and Zhuozhou, two small cities to the south of Beijing, have been submerged in record floods since late July, when Typhoon Doksuri swept through China's northeast.

Nearly one million people have been displaced. But this is not just a natural disaster. The region has taken more than its fair share of floodwaters. All of this is a deliberate strategy to protect Beijing, the capital, and Xiong'an New Area, a project dear to Xi Jinping's heart.

Residents are understandably furious. Yesterday, a group of Bazhou residents took to the local government building to demand compensation, for the second time in three days. The protestors were met with pepper spray and batons. Online, the provincial party secretary has been lambasted for boasting that his region would become a 'moat' for the capital.

Self-sacrifice for the country's capital, a mega-city of 22 million people, makes sense when Bazhou and Zhuozhou are small by comparison (less than a million in population). But communication and compensation have become two major problems. Many local residents had no idea that they lived in the so-called 'flood storage areas'. One Zhuozhou woman tells the Chinese media Caixin that she was told to evacuate at 5:44a.m., but by 7:32a.m., her family and some neighbours were trapped in the first floor of her house and had to be rescued by boat. State media initially blamed the floods on rains, but has since admitted that the cities were subjected to deliberate flood diversion. Few are reassured by the government's vague promises about compensation.

Diverting the waters into Lake Baiyangdian would mean flooding Xi's pet project

Worst still, the one million displaced people are not only taking the hit for Beijing, but for a sparsely populated city under construction further downstream. Xi Jinping has described Xiong'an New Area as 'a city of the future', with plans to build a mega-city that would alleviate some of Beijing's population pressure. Some government agencies and state-owned enterprises have already been mandated to move there. Yet it lies between the flooded cities and the largest lake in the region, which would historically take the excess floodwater. Today, diverting the waters into Lake Baiyangdian would mean flooding Xi's pet project. Needless to say, this step hasn't been taken yet. Wedged between Beijing and Xiong'an, China's flooded cities are not going to recover any time soon.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:24

The bill to establish Thanksgiving comes after Kiev changed the date of Christmas

A member of President Vladimir Zelensky's party has introduced a bill that would establish Thanksgiving as a public holiday in Ukraine, in line with ''highly developed countries'' he did not name.

Bill 9574, introduced in the Verkhovna Rada on Monday, would designate October 22 as a national holiday, in order to ''raise gratitude to a national level (as it is done in some highly developed countries), when each person will have an official opportunity to give thanks to all those whom he wishes to do so.''

The date was chosen because it falls during the ''the autumn season, rich in the harvest of fruit and vegetables'' that will ''contribute to the introduction of the tradition of celebrating this holiday at the family table,'' according to the proposal.

While the MP who introduced the bill, Georgy Mazurashu, did not name the ''highly developed countries,'' only the US celebrates Thanksgiving as a public holiday. A handful of countries where a similar holiday is observed by some communities '' Brazil, the Philippines, Liberia '' have copied it from the Americans, with the exception of Canada, which has its own version.

While the American version of the holiday is best known around the world, due to its depictions in films and popular culture, the date of Mazurashu's holiday is closer to the Canadian Thanksgiving, which most provinces observe on the second Monday of October.

Both the US and Canada are major sponsors of the current government in Kiev, and Canada is home to a substantial Ukrainian diaspora that fled to the West after the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies in WW2.

The Thanksgiving proposal comes just a week or so after Ukraine officially rescheduled the celebrations of Christmas, from January 7 to December 25, citing the need to ''reject Russian traditions and fortify national unity in Ukraine.'' Most Orthodox Christian churches follow the Julian calendar, which differs from the Gregorian calendar adopted by Catholics and Protestants by 13 days.

Mazurashu is a former athlete and sports journalist who has represented the southwestern province of Chernovtsy '' on the border with Romania and Moldova '' since 2019. Prior to this, he was mostly known for co-sponsoring the controversial Bill 7351 in May 2022. The draft law, never adopted, proposed allowing military commanders to summarily execute soldiers for insubordination.

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:22

Niger expects to start exports in July or August next year from its new $2.5bn crude oil pipeline linking the main Agadem production area to a port terminal in Benin, the oil minister of the landlocked West African country told Reuters.

Niger's minister of petroleum, energy and renewable energies, Mahamane Sani Mahamadou, speaks during the Saudi Green Initiative Forum to discuss efforts by the world's top oil exporter to tackle climate change. 2021. Source: Reuters/Ahmed Yosri

Almost 2,000km long, the pipeline operated by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will help the impoverished country increase its oil production five-fold by linking to new fields being developed in the Agadem Rift Basin.

"The pipeline will be the longest in Africa, so everything will be ready by July or August 2023, so our production will reach 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 20,000 now," Mahamane Sani Mahamadou said late on Wednesday, 19 October.

Most of the crude destined for export

Most of the roughly 90,000 bpd of crude will be destined for export and the rest used as feedstock for Niger's 20,000-bpd refinery, which might be upgraded, he added, speaking on the sidelines of the Africa Energy Week conference in Cape Town.

Mahamadou said the pipeline project cost about $2.5bn to build, with the total rising to close to $5bn if CNPC's new oil fields development in Agadem were included.

As more fields are developed by British firm Savannah Energy and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, Niger was bullish for oil production to increase further by the turn of the decade, Mahamadou said.

"They have been doing some exploration for the past few years and they are now trying to move into the development stage," he added.

"So we think by 2024/25 our production will increase to 150,000 bpd, and hopefully by 2030, we are pretty sure, considering the potential we have in Niger, it will be at 250,000 to 300,000 bpd at least."

All rights reserved. (C) 2022. Bizcommunity.com Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (

Syndigate.info).

Wendell Roelf Reuters Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. https://www.reuters.com/

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:11

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prime Minister of Niger since August 2023

Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine (born 1965 in Zinder) is a Nigerien politician and economist. He was Niger's Minister of the Economy and Finance from November 2002 to February 2010.[1] Currently he is the prime minister of the Niger military junta government since 8 August 2023.[2][3]

Biography [ edit ] Ali Lamine Zeine was born in 1965 and graduated from the Centre for Financial, Economic and Banking Studies in Marseille and Paris-I. He has worked as a resident representative of the African Development Bank in Chad, Ivory Coast and Gabon.[4]

After serving as Director of the Cabinet of President Mamadou Tandja,[5] Zeine was appointed to the government as Minister of the Economy and Finance on 24 October 2003.[6]

Tandja was ousted in a military coup on 18 February 2010 and his government was dissolved. As one of Tandja's key associates, Zeine was one of only three ministers who were not promptly released from house arrest in the days after the coup.[7] According to one of the junta leaders, Colonel Djibrilla Hamidou Hima, the ministers "still under surveillance" had held "very sensitive portfolios" and therefore it was necessary "to ensure their security". The MNSD called for the release of Zeine, Tandja, and the others.[8][9]

References [ edit ] ^ "Photos des ministres - Minist¨re des Finances du NIGER". www.finances.gouv.ne. ^ [1] ^ "Niger junta appoints transitional prime minister". www.aa.com.tr . Retrieved 8 August 2023 . ^ "Niger : Ali Lamine Zeine nomm(C) premier ministre par les putschistes, une (C)missaire am(C)ricaine reconna®t des discussions difficiles >>". Le Monde.fr (in French). 7 August 2023 . Retrieved 8 August 2023 . ^ Cherif Ouazani, "Ali Lamine Zeine", Jeuneafrique.com, 7 November 2004 (in French) . ^ "GOUVERNEMENTS DE LA TRANSITION DE TANDJA MAMADOU" Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, official website of the Nigerien presidency (in French) . ^ "Niger coup leaders promise fresh elections", BBC News, 21 February 2010. ^ Vidjingninou, Fiacre; Hama, Boureima (24 February 2010). "Niger: la junte s'installe, appels un retour rapide de la d(C)mocratie". La Presse via Agence France-Presse (in Canadian French) . Retrieved 8 August 2023 . ^ "Junta to run country until elections, promises new constitution". France 24 via Agence France-Presse. 21 February 2010 . Retrieved 8 August 2023 . Ali Lamine Zeine : Tous les revenus miniers sont r(C)investis >>. Marianne Meunier & Jean-Michel Meyer, Jeune Afrique. 22 May 2009.

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Archived Version

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:09

Coup leaders in Niger have named Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, the country's new prime minister.

Zeine will replace Mahamadou Ouhoumoudou, who was in Europe when the army staged a coup on July 26.

"The President of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland, Head of State, decrees. Article 1. Mr. Lamine Zeine Ali Mahaman is appointed Prime Minister," Amadou Abdramane, Niger's military spokesman, read in a statement on Monday evening.

Zeine previously served as Niger's cabinet director and finance minister. He is expected to lead consultations for the formation of a new government.

Niger's junta names new prime ministerTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Who is Lamine Zeine?Lamine Zeine Ali Mahaman, 58, was born in Zinder, Niger's second most populous city after the capital Niamey.

He previously held the position of Niger's Minister of Economy and Finance from November 2002 to February 2010 under the government of former president Mamadou Tandja.

In 2010, the army briefly placed Zeine and the rest of Tandja's cabinet under house arrest after a coup.

He currently works as an economist for the African Development Bank in Chad.

According to the privately-owned ActuNiger news website, Zeine has worked for the African Development Bank in Chad, Ivory Coast, and Gabon in recent years.

Ali Lamine Zeine previously served as Nigerien's finance ministerImage: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty ImagesJunta makes more appointmentsThe junta further named Col Ibro Amadou Bachirou, the junta leader's private chief of staff, and Lt Col Habibou Assoumane as the commander of the presidential guard.

Brigadier General Amadou Didilli was appointed head of the country's High Authority for Peace Consolidation (HACP). In addition, Brigadier General Abou Tague Mahamadou was named the inspector general of the army and the national gendarmerie.

General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who declared himself the leader of Niger, previously held the position of head of the presidential guard.

Junta leader General Abdourahmane Tiani declared himself president of NigerImage: Mahamadou Hamidou/REUTERSTiani, with the military's support, staged a coup in the vast West African country last month. He has since detained President Mohamed Bazoum in the presidential palace despite regional and international calls for Bazoum's release.

The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, is set to hold an emergency summit on Thursday in Nigeria to address the political crisis in Niger after the junta ignored its seven-day ultimatum to cede power.

Edited by: Chrispin Mwakideu

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:06

HomeEast AfricaSudan FAO UN Food and Agricultural Organisation NAIROBISome 70,000 vulnerable rural households in the Sudanese state of North Darfur have received seeds and agricultural tools from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the agency said on Wednesday."Some 550 tonnes of field crop seeds, including millet, sorghum and groundnut, and around 79,000 tools, including hand and donkey ploughs, were distributed outside displacement camps to conflict-affected households and to host communities to encourage them to stay on their land," FAO said.The assistance is expected to help these families produce enough food to feed themselves for almost three months.The agency said as a result of the two-year war in the region, drought and failed harvests, few North Darfurian farmers had seeds to plant; the available seeds would not be sufficient to cultivate even a third of the area that was cultivated before the conflict."This is the third agriculture season missed by farmers," Bashir Abdel Rahman, FAO's Agriculture Field Officer in North Darfur, said in the statement.He added: "Seeds were looted, lost during the escape to displaced persons' camps, eaten or simply damaged due to improper storage. The harvest for the last two years was poor because of displacement, insecurity and erratic and below average rainfall."Helping farmers to stay on their land and preventing further displacement into camps was key to the FAO-supported household food security activities in Darfur, the agency said."For one tenth of what is spent on food aid for a month, enough seeds can be purchased to help the same number of people produce their own food for several months,'' Sara McHattie, North Darfur Area Emergency Coordinator, said.The agency said more than 100,000 households in all three states of Darfur would receive crop seeds and other assistance from FAO this agricultural season."FAO could achieve better results with more funding," McHattie added.The agency said it had received US $7 million of its $15 million 2005 appeal for Darfur, and added that on receipt of the remainder, it would be able to assist an additional 100,000 families in the region with agricultural and livestock supplies.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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Wed, 09 Aug 2023 03:47

Well, actually'...I do believe this is the longest thing I've ever written, but also the most important. Read with a stiff drink. '' N.S. Lyons

Differences and tensions between the United States and China have never been greater. The whole world is dividing itself between the blocs of these two opposing superpowers. A new Cold War is dawning, complete with a global ideological '' battle between democracy and autocracy .'' Freedom is on the line. The future of global governance will be determined by the winner of this extended competition between two fundamentally opposed political and economic systems '' unless a hot war settles the question early with a cataclysmic fight to the death, much as liberal democracy once fought off fascism.

This is the simple and easy narrative of our present moment. In some ways it is accurate: a geopolitical competition really is in the process of boiling over into open confrontation. But it's also fundamentally shallow and misleading: when it comes to the most fundamental political questions, China and the United States are not diverging but converging to become more alike.

In fact, I can already predict and describe the winner set to prevail in this epochal competition between these two fiercely opposed national systems. In this soon-to-be triumphant system'...

Despite a rhetorical commitment to egalitarianism and ''democracy,'' the elite class deeply distrusts and fears the people over whom it rules. These elites have concentrated themselves into a separate oligarchic political body focused on prioritizing and preserving their rule and their own overlapping set of shared interests. Wracked by anxiety, they strive constantly to maximize their control over the masses, rationalizing a need to forcefully maintain stability in the face of dangerous threats, foreign and domestic. Everything is treated as an emergency. ''Safety'' and ''security'' have become be the watchwords of the state, and of society generally.

This elite obsession with control is accelerated by a belief in ''scientific management,'' or the ability to understand, organize, and run all the complex systems of society like a machine, through scientific principles and technologies. The expert knowledge of how to do so is considered the unique and proprietary possession of the elite vanguard. Ideologically, this elite is deeply materialist, and openly hostile to organized religion, which inhibits and resists state control. They view human beings themselves as machines to be programmed, and, believing the common man to be an unpredictable creature too stupid, irrational, and violent to rule himself, they endeavor to steadily condition and replace him with a better model through engineering, whether social or biological. Complex systems of surveillance, propaganda, and coercion are implemented to help firmly nudge (or shove) the common man into line. Communities and cultural traditions that resist this project are dismantled. Harmfully contrary ideas are systematically censored, lest they lead to dangerous exposure. Governing power has been steadily elevated, centralized, and distributed to a technocratic bureaucracy unconstrained by any accountability to the public.

All of this is justified by a utopian ideological dialectic of historical progress and inevitability. Those more in tune with the tide of history (i.e. elite interests) are held to be morally and intellectually superior, as a class, to backwards reactionary elements. Only certain views are stamped ''scientific'' and ''correct,'' although these may change on a political whim. An economism that values only the easily quantifiable reigns as the only moral lodestar, and frictionless efficiency is held up as highest common good; the individual is encouraged to fulfill his assigned role as a docile consumer and cog in the regime's machine, not that of a self-governing citizen. The state regularly acts to stimulate and manage consumer demand, and to strategically regulate and guide industrial production, and the corporate sector has largely fused itself with the state. Cronyism is rampant.

The relentless political messaging and ideological narrative has come to suffuse every sphere of life, and dissent is policed. Culture is largely stagnant. Uprooted, corralled, and hounded, the people are atomized, and social trust is very low. Reality itself often feels obscured and uncertain. Demoralized, some gratefully accept any security offered by the state as a blessing. At the same time, many citizens automatically assume everything the regime says is a lie. Officialdom in general is a Kafkaesque tragi-comedy of the absurd, something only to be stoically endured by normal people. Yet year by year the pressure to conform only continues to be ratcheted higher'...

Which country does this describe? If you can't quite tell, well, that's the point. For many citizens of the West, the systems of governance under which we live increasingly feel uncomfortably similar to what appears offer in the People's Republic of China.

There are limits to this similarity, of course: the Chinese Communist Party is a brutal regime that has in the past killed tens of millions of its own people and still rules over them with an iron fist. To say that the United States or any other Western country is identical in nature to China would be ridiculous.

And yet, I'm going to argue that commonalities are indeed growing, and that this is no illusion, coincidence, or conspiracy, but the product of the same deep systemic forces and underlying ideological roots. To claim that we're the same as China, or even just that we're turning into China (as I've admittedly implied with the title) would really just be political clickbait. The reality is more complicated, but no less unsettling: both China and the West, in their own ways and at their own pace, but for the same reasons, are converging from different directions on the same point '' the same not-yet-fully-realized system of totalizing techno-administrative governance. Though they remain different, theirs is no longer a difference of kind, only of degree. China is just already a bit further down the path towards the same future.

But how should we describe this form of government that has already begun to wrap its tentacles around the world today, including here in the United States? Many of us recognize by now that whatever it is we now live under, it sure isn't ''liberal democracy.'' So what is it? To begin answering that, and to really explain the China Convergence, we're going to need to start with a crash course on the rise and nature of the technocratic managerial regime in the West.

''To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.'' '' George Orwell

Sometime around the second half of the 19th century a revolution in human affairs began to take place, occurring in parallel to and building on the industrial revolution. This was a revolution of mass and scale , which upended nearly every area of human activity and rapidly reorganized civilization, first in the West and then around the world: the limits of time and space produced by geography were swept away by new technologies of communication and transportation; greatly enlarged populations flowed into and swelled vast urban centers; masses of workers began to toil in huge factories, and then in offices, laboring through an endless paper trail trying to keep track of it all; in politics new opportunities arose for those who could seize on the growing power of the masses and their votes, along with new challenges in providing for their growing needs and desires. In government, in business, in education, and in almost every other sphere of life, new methods and techniques of organization emerged in order to manage the growing complexities of mass and scale: the mass bureaucratic state, the mass standing army, the mass corporation, mass media, mass public education, and so on. This was the managerial revolution . [1]

Rapidly accelerating in the 20th century, the managerial revolution soon began to instigate another transformation of society in the West: it gave birth to a new managerial elite . A new social class had arisen out of the growing scale and complexity of mass organizations as those organizations began to find that, in order to function, they had to rely on large numbers of people who possessed the necessary highly technical and specialized cognitive skills and knowledge, including new techniques of organizational planning and management at scale. Such people became the professional managerial class , which quickly expanded to meet the growing demand for their services. While the wealthy families of the old landed aristocratic elite at first continued to own many of these new mass organizations, they soon were no longer capable of operating them, as the traits that had long defined mastery of their role and status '' land ownership, inherited warrior virtues, a classical liberal education, formal rhetoric, personal charisma, an extensive code of social manners, etc. '' were no longer sufficient or relevant for doing so. This meant the managerial class soon captured de facto control of all the mass organizations of society.

This managerial takeover was accelerated by what I call the managerial doom loop : the larger and more complex an organization grows, the exponentially more managers are needed; managers therefore have a strong incentive to ensure their organization continues to grow larger and more complex, resulting in greater relative power for the managers; more growth means more managers must be hired, who then push for more expansion, including by rationalizing a need for their cancerous bureaucracy to take over ever more functions of the broader economy and society; as more and more territory is surrendered to bureaucratic management, more managers must be educated, which requires more managers'...

Anyway, a reckoning over which class now really constituted society's ruling elite soon became inevitable. In some places the old aristocracy's end was swift, and bloody. But in most of the West they were not eradicated but coopted and absorbed, with the children of even the wealthiest aristocratic families eventually forced to themselves acquire an education in the same skills, ideas, and mannerisms as the managerial class in order to take on any prominent role, from CEO to politician, to philanthropist. Those who did not do so slowly faded into irrelevance. The managerial class had produced the managerial elite.

This did not mean, however, that the expansion of the new managerial order faced no resistance at all from the old order that it strangled. That previous order, which has been referred to by scholars of the managerial revolution as the bourgeois order , was represented not so much by the grande bourgeoisie (wealthy landed aristocrats and early capitalist industrialists) but by the petite bourgeoisie , or what could be described as the independent middle class. [2] The entrepreneurial small business owner, the multi-generational family shop owners, the small-scale farmer or landlord; the community religious or private educator; even the relatively well-to-do local doctor: these and others like them formed the backbone of a large social and economic class that found itself existentially at odds with the interests of the managerial revolution. But, in contrast to what was originally predicted by Marxists, these bourgeoisie came to be mortally threatened not from below by the laboring, landless proletariat, but from above, by the new order of the managerial elite and their expanding legions of paper-pushing professional revolutionaries. The clash between these classes, as the managerial order steadily encroached on, dismantled, and subsumed more and more of the middle class bourgeois order and its traditional culture, and the increasingly desperate backlash this process generated from its remnants, would come to define much of the political drama of the West. That drama continues in various forms to this day.

The animosity of this class struggle was accentuated by the particularly antagonistic ideology that coalesced as a unifying force for the managerial elite. While this managerial ideology , in its various flavors, presents itself in the lofty language of moral values, philosophical principles, and social goods, it just so happens to rationalize and justify the continual expansion of managerial control into all areas of state, economy, and culture, while elevating the managerial class to a position of not only utilitarian but moral superiority over the rest of society '' and in particular over the middle and working classes. This helps serve as a rationale for the managerial elite's legitimacy to rule, as well as an invaluable means to differentiate, unify, and coordinate the various branches of that elite.

Managerial ideology , a relatively straightforward descendant of the Enlightenment liberal-modernist project , is a formula that consists of several core beliefs, or what could be called core managerial values . At least in the West, these can be distilled into:

1. Technocratic Scientism : The belief that everything, including society and human nature, can and should be fully understood and controlled through scientific and technical means. In this view everything consists of systems, which operate, as in a machine, on the basis of scientific laws that can be rationally derived through reason. Humans and their behavior are the product of the systems in which they are embedded. ''Social science'' functions in the same way as the physical sciences. These systems can therefore be socially engineered to be improved. Good and bad, like everything else, are scientifically quantifiable. Those with superior scientific and technical knowledge are thus those best placed to understand the cause and effect governing society, and therefore to run it. Ignorance, and the ignorant, are in contrast ultimately the cause of all dysfunction and harm.

2. Utopianism : The belief that a perfect society is possible '' in this case through the perfect application of perfect scientific and technical knowledge. The machine can ultimately be tuned to run flawlessly. At that point all will be completely provided for and therefore completely equal, and man himself will be entirely rational, fully free, and perfectly productive. This state of perfection is the telos , or pre-destined end point, of human development (through science, physical and social). This creates the idea of progress , or of moving closer to this final end. Consequently history has a teleology: it bends towards utopia. This also means the future is necessarily always better than the past, as it is closer to utopia. History now takes on moral valence; to ''go backwards'' is immoral. Indeed even actively conserving the status quo is immoral; governance is only moral in so far as it affects change , thus moving us ever forwards, towards utopia.

3. Meliorism : The belief that all the flaws and conflicts of human society, and of human beings themselves, are problems that can and should be directly ameliorated by sufficient managerial technique. Poverty, war, disease, criminality, ignorance, suffering, unhappiness, death'... none are examples of the human condition that will always be with us, but are all problems to be solved. It is the role of the managerial elite to identify and solve such problems by applying their expert knowledge to improve human institutions and relationships, as well as the natural world. In the end there are no tradeoffs, only solutions.

4. Liberationism : The belief that individuals and society are held back from progress by the rules, restraints, relational bonds, historical communities, inherited traditions, and limiting institutions of the past, all of which are the chains of false authority from which we must be liberated so as to move forwards. Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits must all be dismantled in order to ameliorate human problems, as old systems and ways of life are necessarily ignorant, flawed, and oppressive. Newer '' and therefore superior '' scientific knowledge can re-design, from the ground up, new systems and ways of life that will function more efficiently and morally.

5. Hedonistic Materialism : The belief that complete human happiness and well-being fundamentally consists of and is achievable through the fulfillment of a sufficient number of material needs and psychological desires. The presence of any unfulfilled desire or discomfort indicates the systemic inefficiency of an un-provided good that can and should be met in order to move the human being closer to a perfected state. Scientific management can and should therefore to the greatest extent possible maximize the fulfillment of desires. For the individual, consumption that alleviates desire is a moral act. In contrast, repression (including self-repression) of desires and their fulfillment stands in the way of human progress, and is immoral, signaling a need for managerial liberation.

6. Homogenizing Cosmopolitan Universalism : The belief that: a) all human beings are fundamentally interchangeable and members of a single universal community; b) that the systemic ''best practices'' discovered by scientific management are universally applicable in all places and for all people in all times, and that therefore the same optimal system should rationally prevail everywhere; c) that, while perhaps quaint and entertaining, any non-superficial particularity or diversity of place, culture, custom, nation, or government structure anywhere is evidence of an inefficient failure to successfully converge on the ideal system; and d) that any form of localism, particularism, or federalism is therefore not only inefficient and backwards but an obstacle to human progress and so is dangerous and immoral. Progress will always naturally entail centralization and homogenization.

7. Abstraction and Dematerialization : The belief, or more often the instinct, that abstract and virtual things are better than physical things , because the less tied to the messy physical world humans and their activities are, the more liberated and capable of pure intellectual rationality and uninhibited morality they will become. Practically, dematerialization, such as through digitalization or financialization, is a potent solvent that can help burn away the repressive barriers created by attachments to the particularities of place and people, replacing them with the fluidity and universality of the cosmopolitan. Dematerialization makes property more easily tradable, and can more effectively produce homogenization and fulfill desires at scale. Indeed in theory dematerialization could allow almost everything to take on and be managed at vastly greater, even infinite, mass and scale, holding out the hope of total efficiency: a state of pure frictionlessness, in which change (progress) will be effortless and limitless . Finally, dematerialization also most broadly represents an ideological belief that it is the world that should conform to abstract theory, not theory that must conform to the world.

Combined, the promotion of these seven managerial values served as a convenient ideological means for the managerial system to challenge the existing ethic and values of the middle-class bourgeois order that preceded it. These bourgeois values consisted of a mix of conservative and classical liberal values. Nowhere were these values once more distinct than in America, where they had developed into a recognizable blend that included: a strong preference for local governance, grass-roots democracy, and an aversion to top-down control; an accepted diversity of regional and local folkways and traditions; a general mythic ideal of spirited individualism and energetic self-reliance; a countervailing tradition of tight-knit family life and exceptionally widespread participation in a proliferation of thick religious, community, and civic associations and affiliations (as most famously described by Alexis de Tocqueville); ''Protestant work ethic,'' and an attention to thrift and self-discipline as moral virtues; an intimate connection to the land, and a very strong attachment to middle-class property ownership as central to republican self-governance and the national character; political realism and a conservative aversion to too rapid and radical of change.

The contrasting values of managerial ideology were perfectly structured to invert, undermine, marginalize, disrupt, and dismantle every one of these bourgeois values simultaneously, steadily subverting the ideological basis for bourgeois legitimacy intellectually, morally, and politically, thus clearing the way to justify the establishment of an alternative political system of rule by the new managerial elite.

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The Managerial System

This managerial system developed into several overlapping, interlinked sectors that can be roughly divided into and categorized as: the managerial state , the managerial economy , the managerial intelligentsia , the managerial mass media , and managerial philanthropy . Each of these five sectors features its own slightly unique species of managerial elite, each with its own roles and interests. But each commonly acts out of its own interest to reinforce and protect the interests of the other sectors, and the system as a whole. All of the sectors are bound together by a shared interest in the expansion of technical and mass organizations, the proliferation of managers, and the marginalization of non-managerial elements.

The managerial state, characterized by its proliferating administrative bureaucracies and thirst for centralized technocratic control, has a strong incentive to launch utopian and meliorist schemes to ''liberate'' and reorganize more and more portions of society (the theoretical bases for which are pumped out by the managerial intelligentsia), necessitating entire new layers of bureaucratic management (and whole new categories of ''experts''). Mass corporations, which make up the managerial economy, have an interest in seeing these schemes implemented, in part because the new layers of regulatory burden that they inevitably produce (more lawyers, more HR managers, etc.) systematically advantage large oligopolistic firms like themselves over those smaller businesses and entrepreneurial upstarts that are both their potential competitors and the old bourgeois power base. The managerial state naturally also wants to break that rival power base. Mass corporations are especially adept at doing this, in particular by advancing the dematerialization of business and property ownership (''you'll own nothing and be happy''), which both increases the dependence of the middle class and concentrates greater wealth and power in managerial hands. The managerial state also acts to directly stimulate aggregate consumer demand and bolster financialized assets through monetary and fiscal policy, among other tools, such as state contracts and subsidies; this managed demand directly fuels the growth of managerial corporations, which have every incentive to fuse themselves as closely as possible with the state, both to encourage stimulus and to capture regulatory policy. The growth of mass corporations in turn rationalizes the further growth of the regulatory state. Formal and informal ''public-private partnership'' between corporation and state easily serves the interests of both.

Meanwhile the managerial corporation also has a great deal to gain from the project of mass homogenization, which allows for greater scale and efficiencies (a Walmart in every town, a Starbucks on every corner, Netflix and Amazon accessible on the iPhone in every pocket) by breaking down the differentiations of the old order. The state, which fears and despises above all else the local control justified by differentiation, is happy to assist. The managerial economy also gains directly from the stimulation of greater consumer demand produced by the liberation of the masses from the repressive norms of the old bourgeois moral code and the encouragement of hedonistic alternatives '' as thought up by the intelligentsia, advertised by the mass media, and legally facilitated by the state. Mass media, too, has an interest in homogenization, allowing the entertainments and narratives it sells to scale and reach a larger and more uniform audience. Mass media, already an outgrowth of journalism's integration with the mass corporation, also has an incentive to integrate itself with both the intelligentsia and the state in order to gain privileged access to information; the intelligentsia meanwhile relies of the media to affirm their prestige, while naturally the state has an incentive to fuse with the media to effectively distribute the chosen information and narratives it wants to reach the masses.

As the old bottom-up network of extended families, social associations, religious congregations, neighborhood charities, and other institutions of grass-roots bourgeois community life are broken down by the managerial system, managerial philanthropy '' funded by the wealth produced by the managerial economy and offering the elite a means to transform that wealth into social power tax free '' is eager to fill the void with a crude simulacrum, offering top-down philanthropic initiatives, managerial non-profit grifts, and astroturfed activist movements in their place. These inevitably work to spread managerial ideology and the utopian social engineering campaigns of the state, further disrupting the bourgeois order. The breakdown of that order then inevitably only produces more social problems, which in turn provide new opportunities for managerial philanthropy to offer ''solutions.'' The managerial state, mass media, and mass corporations are eager to participate in these assaults, while the intelligentsia provides both the ideas and ready-made managerial do-gooders to man the frontlines.

Finally, the managerial intelligentsia functions as the vanguard of the whole managerial system, providing the unifying ideological framework that serves as the system's intellectual foundation, rationale, and source of moral legitimacy. [3] The ideological pronouncements of the intelligentsia, transmitted to the public as revealed truth (e.g. ''the Science'') by the managerial mass media, serve to normalize and justify the schemes of the state, which in turn gratefully supports the intelligentsia with public money and programs of mass public education, which funnel demand into the intelligentsia's institutions and also help to fund the research and development of new technologies and organizational techniques that can further expand managerial control. The intelligentsia of course also provides a critical service to every other managerial sector by meeting the need for the formation of more professional managerial class members through mass education '' which also helps to advance societal homogenization and further elite cultural hegemony. The managerial intelligentsia therefore functions as the keystone of the managerial elite's broad-based and resilient unity and dominance (which is what defines them as the elite).

This hegemonic, self-reinforcing system of overlapping managerial elite interests '' public and private, economic, cultural, social, and governmental '' can together be described as the managerial regime . To identify or describe this regime as simply ''the state'' would be entirely insufficient. As we will see, the evolution of this broader regime is today the central factor of the China Convergence.

But first there is one important historical differentiation in how managerial regimes have emerged and evolved that we must address.

Managerialism: Hard vs. Soft

What's described above is the managerial regime as it emerged in the United States and a number of other Western nations in the 20th century. It is not, however, the only species of managerial regime to have evolved during this time.

When the Communist Party took control of China, the bourgeoisie and the old aristocracy were not gently coopted into joining the managerial elite. Instead, as with the Kulaks (middle-class peasants) of Lenin and Stalin's USSR, they were virtually exterminated. An endless series of bloody ''campaigns'' launched in the name of liberation by Mao Zedong against ''landlords,'' ''rich peasants,'' ''rightists,'' ''counter-revolutionaries,'' and ''bourgeois elements'' all had the same objective. Through relentless collective persecution, confiscation of property, and mass torture, rape, and murder, the bourgeois middle class that had begun to emerge during China's Republican period was systematically destroyed.

This served a straightforward purpose. Political theorists since Aristotle have recognized that ''a numerous middle class which stands between the rich and the poor'' is the natural bedrock of any stable republican system of government, resisting both domination by a plutocratic oligarchy and tyrannical revolutionary demands by the poorest. By eliminating this class, which had been the powerbase of his Nationalist rivals, Mao paved the way for his intelligentsia-led Marxist-Leninist revolution to dismantle every remaining vestige of republican government, replace the old elite with a new one, and take total control of Chinese society.

The result was not of course an egalitarian workers' paradise but the development of a strictly two-tier society of Party oligarchy and everyone else. Every possible orienting and organizing force outside the Party was destroyed, family networks were deliberately disrupted, and individuals were isolated and atomized. Meanwhile the oligarchy would soon grow into a gigantic bureaucratic party-state, managed by legions of devoted CCP apparatchiks. With no mediating institutions between people and state remaining, and with the undifferentiated masses thus fully contained by the uncontested power of a one-party state, Mao succeeded in essentially producing Hobbes' Leviathan in China. He and his comrades were then free to enact their utopian schemes to remake the country along ''scientific'' socialist lines (killing tens of millions of Chinese in the process). And while today's China is quite a bit mellower than during the Mao era, its regime is not fundamentally any different in its core nature. It is still run by a Marxist-Leninist party that has never forgotten Mao's conviction that power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

The brutal history and character of the Chinese communist regime is therefore very different from what most of the West has experienced (outside of Eastern and Central Europe). And yet '' if you've been following along so far '' China, with its vast techno-bureaucratic socialist state, is still recognizably a managerial regime. More precisely, China is a hard managerial regime.

Ever since the political philosopher James Burnham published his seminal book The Managerial Revolution in 1941, theorists of the managerial regime have noted strong underlying similarities between all of the major modern state systems that emerged in the 20th century, including the system of liberal-progressive administration as represented at the time by FDR's America, the fascist system pioneered by Mussolini, and the communist system that first appeared in Russia and then spread to China and elsewhere. The thrust of all of these systems was fundamentally managerial in character. And yet each also immediately displayed some, uh, quite different behavior. This difference can, however, be largely explained if we distinguish between what the political theorist Sam Francis classified as soft and hard managerial regimes.

The character of the soft managerial regime is that described in the previous section. In contrast, a hard managerial regime differs somewhat in its mix of values. Hard managerial regimes tend to reject two of the seven values of the (soft) managerial ideology described above, discarding hedonism and cosmopolitanism (though homogenization and centralization remain a priority). Instead they tend to emphasize managing the unity of the collective (e.g. the volk , or ''the people'') and the value that individual loyalty, strength, and self-sacrifice provides to that collective. [4]

Most importantly, hard and soft managerial regimes differ in their approach to control. Hard managerial regimes default to the use of force, and are adept at using the threat of force to coerce stability and obedience. The state also tends to play a much more open role in the direction of the economy and society in hard systems, establishing state-owned corporations and taking direct control of mass media, for example, in addition to maintaining large security services. This can, however, reduce popular trust in the state and its organs.

In contrast, soft managerial regimes are largely inept and uncomfortable with the open use of force, and much prefer to instead maintain control through narrative management, manipulation, and hegemonic control of culture and ideas. The managerial state also downplays its power by outsourcing certain roles to other sectors of the managerial regime, which claim to be independent. Indeed they are independent, in the sense that they are not directly controlled by the state and can do what they want '' but, being managerial institutions, staffed by managerial elites, and therefore stakeholders in the managerial imperative, they nonetheless operate in almost complete sync with the state. Such diffusion helps effectively conceal the scale, unity, and power of the soft managerial regime, as well as deflect and defuse any accountability. This softer approach to maintaining managerial regime dominance may lead to more day-to-day disorder (e.g. crime), but is no less politically stable than the hard variety (and arguably has to date proved more stable).

Despite these differences, every form of managerial regime shares the same fundamental characteristics and core values, including a devotion to technocratic scientism, utopianism, meliorism, homogenization, and one form or another of liberationism aimed at uprooting previous systems, norms, and values. They all pursue the same imperative of expanding mass organizations and the managerial elite, of growing and centralizing their bureaucratic power and control, and of systematically marginalizing managerialism's enemies. They all have the same philosophical roots. And all their elites share similar deep anxieties about the public.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:32

J ane '' not her real name '' is nervous about speaking to me. She has asked that I don't identify her or the small, south-coast Devon town in which she lives. ''I'm feeling disloyal, because I'm talking about people I've known for 30 to 40 years,'' she says.

Jane isn't trying to blow the whistle on government corruption or organised crime: she wants to tell me about her old meditation group. The group had met happily for decades, she says, aligned around a shared interest in topics including ''environmental issues, spiritual issues and alternative health''. It included several people whom Jane considered close friends, and she thought they were all on the same page. Then Covid came.

Jane spent most of the first Covid lockdowns in London. During that time, she caught Covid and was hospitalised, and it was then that she realised something significant had changed: a friend from the group got in touch while she was on the ward. ''I had somebody I considered a real best friend of mine on the phone telling me, no, I 'didn't have Covid','' she says. ''She was absolutely adamant. And I said: 'Well, why do you think I went into hospital?'''

The friend conceded that Jane was ill, but insisted it must be something other than Covid-19, because Covid wasn't real. Jane's hospital stay was thankfully short, but by the time she was sufficiently recovered and restrictions had lifted enough to allow her to rejoin her meditation group, things were very different.

''They have been moving generally to far-right views, bordering on racism, and really pro-Russian views, with the Ukraine war,'' she says. ''It started very much with health, with 'Covid doesn't exist', anti-lockdown, anti-masks, and it became anti-everything: the BBC lie, don't listen to them; follow what you see on the internet.''

Things came to a head when one day, before a meditation session '' an activity designed to relax the mind and spirit, pushing away all worldly concerns '' the group played a conspiratorial video arguing that 15-minute cities and low-traffic zones were part of a global plot. Jane finally gave up.

This apparent radicalisation of a nice, middle-class, hippy-ish group feels as if it should be a one-off, but the reality is very different. The ''wellness-to-woo pipeline'' '' or even ''wellness-to-fascism pipeline'' '' has become a cause of concern to people who study conspiracy theories.

It doesn't stop with a few videos shared among friends, either. One of the leaders of the German branch of the QAnon movement '' a conspiracy founded on the belief that Donald Trump was doing battle with a cabal of Satanic paedophiles led by Hillary Clinton and George Soros, among others '' was at first best known as the author of vegan cookbooks. In 2021, Attila Hildmann helped lead a protest that turned violent, with protesters storming the steps of Germany's parliament. Such was his radicalism in QAnon and online far-right circles that he was under investigation in connection with multiple alleged offences, but he fled Germany for Turkey before he could be arrested.

Similarly, Jacob Chansley, AKA the ''QAnon shaman'' '' one of the most visible faces of the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, thanks to his face paint and horned headgear '' is a practitioner of ''shamanic arts'' who eats natural and organic food, and has more than once been described as an ''ecofascist''.

They call him the QAnon Shaman '... Jacob Chansley. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son. The QAnon conspiracy is one of the most dangerous in the world, directly linked to attempted insurrections in the US and Germany, and mass shootings in multiple countries '' and wellness is helping to fuel it. Something about the strange mixture of mistrust of the mainstream, the intimate nature of the relationship between a therapist, spiritual adviser, or even personal trainer, and their client, combined with the conspiratorial world in which we now live, is giving rise to a new kind of radicalisation. How did we end up here?

There are many people interested in spiritualism, alternative medicine, meditation, or personal training, whose views fall well within the mainstream '' and more who, if they have niche views, choose not to share them with their clients. But even a cursory online request about this issue led to me being deluged with responses. Despite most experiences being far less intense than Jane's, no one wanted to put their name to their story '' something about the closeness of wellness interactions makes people loth to commit a ''betrayal'', it seems.

One person recounted how her pole-dancing instructor would '' while up the pole, hanging on with her legs '' explain how the CIA was covering up evidence of aliens, and offer tips on avoiding alien abduction.

''A physiotherapist would tell me, while working on my back with me lying face down, about her weekly 'meetings' in London about 'current affairs','' another said. ''There was a whiff about it, but it was ignorable. Then, the last time I saw her, she muttered darkly about the Rothschilds [a common target of antisemitic conspiracy theories] 'and people like that'. I didn't go back.''

Some people's problems escalated when their personal trainer learned about their work. ''I had three successive personal trainers who were anti-vax. One Belgian, two Swiss,'' I was told by a British man who has spent most of the past decade working in Europe for the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual summit at Davos for politicians and the world's elite.

One pole-dancing instructor used to warn clients of the risks of alien abduction. Photograph: Joe McBride/Getty Images''It was hard because I used to argue with all of them and the Swiss made life very difficult for the unvaccinated, but the Swiss bloke insisted that, with the right mental attitude and exercise, you could defeat any illness. I was always asking what would happen if he got rabies.''

When the trainer found out the man worked for the World Economic Forum, he was immediately cut off.

Other respondents' stories covered everything from yoga to reiki, weightlifters to alternative dog trainers. The theories they shared ranged from extreme versions of wellness-related conspiracies '' about the risks of 5G and wifi, or Microsoft founder Bill Gates plotting with vaccines '' to 15-minute cities, paedophile rings and bankers' conspiracies.

Is there a reason why people under the wellness and fitness umbrella might be prone to being induced into conspiracy? It is not that difficult to imagine why young men hitting the gym might be susceptible to QAnon and its ilk. This group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the ''incel'' (involuntary celibacy) movement and similar, and numerous rightwing influencers have been targeting this group. Add in a masculine gym culture and a community already keen to look for the ''secrets'' of getting healthy, and there is a lot for a conspiracy theory to hook itself on to.

What is more interesting, surely, is how women old enough to be these men's mothers find themselves sucked in by the same rhetoric. These are often people with more life experience, who have completed their education and been working '' often for decades '' and have apparently functional adult lives. But, as Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, observes, the answer may lie in looking at why women turn to wellness and alternative medicine in the first place.

New age and conspiracy theories both see themselves as counter-knowledges challenging received wisdom''Far too often, we blame women for turning to alternative medicine, painting them as credulous and even dangerous,'' she says. ''But the blame does not lie with the women '' it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body.''

Women are overwhelmingly more likely than men to suffer from auto-immune disorders, chronic pain and chronic fatigue '' and such patients often hit a point at which their doctors tell them there is nothing they can do. The conditions are under-researched and the treatments are often brutal. Is it any surprise that trust in conventional medicine and big pharma is shaken? And is it any surprise that people look for something to fill that void?

Criado Perez says: ''If we want to address the trend of women seeking help outside mainstream medicine, it's not the women we need to fix; it's mainstream medicine.''

This sense of conspiracies filling a void is an important one. Academic researchers of conspiracy theories have speculated about whether their rise in the 20th century is related to the decline of religion. In a strange way, the idea that a malign cabal is running the world '' while far more worrying than a benevolent God '' is less scary than the idea that no one is in charge and everything is chaos. People who have a reason to mistrust the mainstream pillars of society '' government, doctors, the media, teachers '' are more likely to turn to conspiracy theories for explanations as to why the world is like it is.

Peter Knight, professor of American studies at the University of Manchester, who has studied conspiracy theories and their history, notes that the link between alternative therapies and conspiracy is at least a century old, and has been much ignored. ''New age and conspiracy theories both see themselves as counter-knowledges that challenge what they see as received wisdom,'' he says. ''Conspiracy theories provide the missing link, turbo-charging an existing account of what's happening by claiming that it is not just the result of chance or the unintended consequences of policy choices, but the result of a deliberate, secret plan, whether by big pharma, corrupt scientists, the military-industrial complex or big tech.''

Knight notes an extra factor, though '' the wellness pipeline has become a co-dependency. Many far-right or conspiracy sites now fund themselves through supplements or fitness products, usually by hyping how the mainstream doesn't want the audience to have them.

Alex Jones, the US conspiracist who for a decade claimed the Sandy Hook shootings '' which killed 20 children and six adults '' were a false-flag operation, had his financial records opened up when he was sued by the families of the victims. During the cases, it emerged he had made a huge amount of money by selling his own branded wellness products.

Conspiracist and wellness entrepreneur '... Alex Jones. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters''Alex Jones perfected the grift of selling snake-oil supplements and prepper kit to the libertarian right wing via his conspiracy theory media channels,'' Knight says. ''But it was Covid that led to the most direct connections between far-right conspiracism and wellness cultures. The measures introduced to curb the pandemic were viewed as attacks on individual sovereignty, which is the core value of both the wellness and libertarian/'alt-right' conspiracy communities.''

The problem is, it rarely stops with libertarians. While they may not recognise it, those drawn in from the left are increasingly ending up in the same place as their rightwing counterparts.

''Although many of the traditional left-leaning alternative health and wellness advocates might reject some of the more racist forms of rightwing conspiracism, they now increasingly share the same online spaces and memes,'' he says, before concluding: ''They both start from the position that everything we are told is a lie, and the authorities can't be trusted.''

Society's discussion of QAnon, anti-vaxxers and other fringe conspiracies is heavily focused on what happens in digital spaces '' perhaps too much so, to the exclusion of all else. The solution, though, is unlikely to be microphones in every gym and treatment room, monitoring what gets said to clients. The better question to ask is what has made these practitioners, and all too often their clients, so susceptible to these messages in the first place. For QAnon to be the most convincing answer, what someone has heard before must have been completely unsatisfactory.

Jane has her own theory as to why her wellness group got radicalised and she did not '' and it's one that aligns with concerns from conspiracy experts, too. ''I think it's the isolation,'' she concludes, citing lockdown as the catalyst, before noting the irony that conspiracies then kick off a cycle of increasing isolation by forcing believers to reject the wider world. ''It becomes very isolating because then their attitude is all: 'Mainstream media '... they lie about everything.'''

The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World by James Ball is published by Bloomsbury. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:07

. 2022 Aug 18;107(9):e3937-e3943. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgac251. Affiliations

Affiliations 1 Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children's Mercy Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, USA. 2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City, MO 64111, USA. 3 Department of Family Medicine, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 4 Department of Pediatrics, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 5 Department of Family Medicine, David Grant Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base, CA 94533, USA. 6 Department of Defense, Washington, DC 22042, USA. 7 Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 8 Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. PMID: 35452119 DOI: 10.1210/clinem/dgac251 Item in Clipboard

Christina M Roberts et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab . 2022 .

. 2022 Aug 18;107(9):e3937-e3943. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgac251. Affiliations 1 Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children's Mercy Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, USA. 2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City, MO 64111, USA. 3 Department of Family Medicine, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 4 Department of Pediatrics, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 5 Department of Family Medicine, David Grant Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base, CA 94533, USA. 6 Department of Defense, Washington, DC 22042, USA. 7 Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. 8 Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. PMID: 35452119 DOI: 10.1210/clinem/dgac251 Item in Clipboard

Abstract Introduction: Concerns about future regret and treatment discontinuation have led to restricted access to gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) minors in some jurisdictions. However, these concerns are merely speculative because few studies have examined gender-affirming hormone continuation rates among TGD individuals.

Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of 2009 to 2018 medical and pharmacy records from the US Military Healthcare System. We identified TGD patients who were children and spouses of active-duty, retired, or deceased military members using International Classification of Diseases-9/10 codes. We assessed initiation and continuation of gender-affirming hormones using pharmacy records. Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard analyses estimated continuation rates.

Results: The study sample included 627 transmasculine and 325 transfeminine individuals with an average age of 19.2 ± 5.3 years. The 4-year gender-affirming hormone continuation rate was 70.2% (95% CI, 63.9-76.5). Transfeminine individuals had a higher continuation rate than transmasculine individuals 81.0% (72.0%-90.0%) vs 64.4% (56.0%-72.8%). People who started hormones as minors had higher continuation rate than people who started as adults 74.4% (66.0%-82.8%) vs 64.4% (56.0%-72.8%). Continuation was not associated with household income or family member type. In Cox regression, both transmasculine gender identity (hazard ratio, 2.40; 95% CI, 1.50-3.86) and starting hormones as an adult (hazard ratio, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.14-2.52) were independently associated with increased discontinuation rates.

Discussion: Our results suggest that >70% of TGD individuals who start gender-affirming hormones will continue use beyond 4 years, with higher continuation rates in transfeminine individuals. Patients who start hormones, with their parents' assistance, before age 18 years have higher continuation rates than adults.

Keywords: adolescent; adult; sex-hormones; transgender gender dysphoria; treatment.

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society 2022.

Similar articles Continuation of gender-affirming hormones in transgender people starting puberty suppression in adolescence: a cohort study in the Netherlands. van der Loos MATC, Hannema SE, Klink DT, den Heijer M, Wiepjes CM. van der Loos MATC, et al. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2022 Dec;6(12):869-875. doi: 10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00254-1. Epub 2022 Oct 21. Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2022. PMID: 36273487

Mental Healthcare Utilization of Transgender Youth Before and After Affirming Treatment. Hisle-Gorman E, Schvey NA, Adirim TA, Rayne AK, Susi A, Roberts TA, Klein DA. Hisle-Gorman E, et al. J Sex Med. 2021 Aug;18(8):1444-1454. doi: 10.1016/j.jsxm.2021.05.014. Epub 2021 Jul 8. J Sex Med. 2021. PMID: 34247956

Transgender Dependent Adolescents in the U.S. Military Health Care System: Demographics, Treatments Sought, and Health Care Service Utilization. Van Donge N, Schvey NA, Roberts TA, Klein DA. Van Donge N, et al. Mil Med. 2019 May 1;184(5-6):e447-e454. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usy264. Mil Med. 2019. PMID: 30325452

Routine Screening for Transgender and Gender Diverse Adults Taking Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy: a Narrative Review. Iwamoto SJ, Grimstad F, Irwig MS, Rothman MS. Iwamoto SJ, et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2021 May;36(5):1380-1389. doi: 10.1007/s11606-021-06634-7. Epub 2021 Feb 5. J Gen Intern Med. 2021. PMID: 33547576 Free PMC article. Review.

Midwifery Care for Transfeminine Individuals. Ellis SA, Dalke L. Ellis SA, et al. J Midwifery Womens Health. 2019 May;64(3):298-311. doi: 10.1111/jmwh.12957. Epub 2019 Apr 8. J Midwifery Womens Health. 2019. PMID: 30957961 Review.

Cited by The mean age of gender dysphoria diagnosis is decreasing. Sun CF, Xie H, Metsutnan V, Draeger JH, Lin Y, Hankey MS, Kablinger AS. Sun CF, et al. Gen Psychiatr. 2023 Jun 2;36(3):e100972. doi: 10.1136/gpsych-2022-100972. eCollection 2023. Gen Psychiatr. 2023. PMID: 37396783 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Detransition needs further understanding, not controversy. MacKinnon KR, Exp"sito-Campos P, Gould WA. MacKinnon KR, et al. BMJ. 2023 Jun 14;381:e073584. doi: 10.1136/bmj-2022-073584. BMJ. 2023. PMID: 37315956 Free PMC article.

The Detransition Rate Is Unknown. Cohn J. Cohn J. Arch Sex Behav. 2023 Jul;52(5):1937-1952. doi: 10.1007/s10508-023-02623-5. Epub 2023 Jun 12. Arch Sex Behav. 2023. PMID: 37308601 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Transition Regret and Detransition: Meanings and Uncertainties. Jorgensen SCJ. Jorgensen SCJ. Arch Sex Behav. 2023 Jul;52(5):2173-2184. doi: 10.1007/s10508-023-02626-2. Epub 2023 Jun 2. Arch Sex Behav. 2023. PMID: 37266795 Free PMC article.

Headache prevalence in transgender and gender diverse youth: A single-center case-control study. Hranilovich JA, Millington K. Hranilovich JA, et al. Headache. 2023 Apr;63(4):517-522. doi: 10.1111/head.14493. Epub 2023 Mar 29. Headache. 2023. PMID: 36988085

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:06

Firm struggles to process a mountain of data requests

NatWest customers have been left without answers as to why their accounts were shut down, as the firm struggles to process a mountain of data requests in the wake of the debanking scandal.

Customers who filed subject access requests to the bank in the hope internal documents would reveal why their accounts were closed have been told the dossiers may be delayed.

Letters from the bank tell customers NatWest is dealing with a higher than usual number of requests for personal data as a result of recent media coverage, which has seen staff take longer to provide information, The Telegraph understands.

Customers have been told, while requests are normally turned around within a 30-day timeframe, in line with data regulations, the requests are taking longer than normal to process due to the higher-than-normal volume of applications.

Staff at NatWest have been inundated by data requests after The Telegraph revealed Nigel Farage used data laws to obtain documents which showed his account with Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest, was to be closed because of his political views.

A Facebook group called ''NatWest closed down my account'' with over 10,000 members, in which some users claim to have been debanked by NatWest, then shared instructions and advice on how to file SARs with banks in response to the revelations about Mr Farage's account.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018, everyone has a right to ask for information about them held by an organisation, including banks.

Recipients of the requests must legally respond within one month from the day after the date a request was received and should not extend this time limit for any reason, according to the Information Commissioner's Office.

The ICO, the UK's information regulator, has the power to take action against an organisation to enforce the law if it fails to comply.

It comes as Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, instructed the Financial Conduct Authority to find out how many people have been stripped of their bank accounts and what banks' reasons for doing so might be, including ''lawful freedom of expression and political beliefs''.

The FCA said in a response to the Chancellor's letter that it was already in the process of carrying out a review into the issues he raised and was preparing to request data from banks and building societies prior to receiving his correspondence.

On Thursday night the Chancellor said: ''Free speech is a fundamental human right. You can agree or disagree with Nigel Farage, but everyone must be able to express their opinions.

''I've written to the regulator '' the Financial Conduct Authority '' they have the right to fine banks very large sums of money if they find this practice is widespread. I want to know if it is, and I want to know what they are doing about it.''

A spokeswoman for NatWest said: ''We're currently receiving more data subject access requests than normal, which means it may take longer than usual for us to get back to customers. Our teams are working hard to provide responses and customers will be kept updated''.

While NatWest has confirmed that it is currently taking longer than normal to process data requests, it has not said this will mean breaching the statutory requirement for a one-month turnaround.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:05

NatWest is set to impose new limits on cash deposits next month, fuelling concern among campaigners about an impending cashless society.

The bank has written to customers about the changes, which will take effect from September 11, 2023, stating: ''Protecting you from financial crime and fraud is very important to us.''

In a summary of the changes, NatWest said they will ''make it clearer'' that the bank can set limits on payments to and from the customer's account.

These limits can apply to different types of payments, including cash deposits and withdrawals, and payments that the bank identifies as going to areas of ''high risk of financial crime''.

NatWest has contacted current account customers

PA

The maximum amount of cash customers can deposit into their account at a bank branch, a Post Office or Cash & Deposit Machine (CDM) is £3,000 per day, and £24,000 in a rolling 12-month period.

In the update sent to customers, the bank said: ''We monitor these limits, may change them over time and will make information on them available to you, unless there is a security reason that prevents us from doing so.''

Ron Delnevo, chairman of the Payment Choice Alliance, told GB News he thought the deposit limits were ''ludicrously low''.

He said: ''Many small businesses operating as sole traders have cash takings well above the level NatWest is imposing. After all, you don't have to register a business for VAT until your sales reach £85,000 in a year.

''These daft limits are being set to try to force small businesses to stop accepting cash.

''The banks definitely want a 'cashless' GB - they don't care what the small businesses or the public - their customers - want.''

Mr Delnevo urged the Treasury to step in through the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but claimed ''there is absolutely no sign they intend to do so''.

''It is, of course, particularly bad that NatWest are seemingly trying to force 'cashless' on the Britain public, the public who effectively still own nearly 40 per cent of the bank.''

The terms and conditions changes outlined are applicable to personal customers only.

A NatWest spokesperson said: ''We have a duty of care to protect customers, communities and society from the effects of fraud and financial crime and we've introduced some changes to our terms and conditions to help us to do that more effectively.

NatWest currently allows current account holders to withdraw up to £750 from an ATM per day

ALAMY

''We review our policies regularly and always seek to balance our regulatory responsibilities with the needs of our customers''.

Most banks have a daily cap on how much cash customers can withdraw from an ATM and the amount they can transfer from their account in one transaction to try to reduce the risk of them falling victim to fraud.

NatWest currently allows current account holders to withdraw up to £750 out from a cash machine per day. They can take out up to £20,000 from a branch without notifying their branch in advance.

The Government has introduced legislation to Parliament to protect access to cash as part of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023. The Bill appoints the FCA as the lead regulator for cash, providing it with appropriate powers to ensure reasonable provision of withdrawal and deposit facilities.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:05

NatWest has granted itself ''sweeping new powers'' to limit cash deposits and withdrawals, fuelling warnings that banks are forcing customers towards a ''cashless society''.

The high-street bank has told current account holders it is bringing in new conditions ''giving us the right to set limits on inbound and outbound payments''.

In a leaflet it said that could include imposing ''daily and annual'' cash withdrawal and deposit limits and ''limiting the amount of cash'' paid in or taken out.

The move has raised fears that increasing curbs on the use of paper money across the system could have negative consequences for consumers.

It comes amid a wider scandal over ''de-banking'' after Nigel Farage revealed that Coutts '' which is owned by NatWest Group '' had closed his account because it disagreed with his political views.

NatWest said it was making the change to ''protect our customers from the risk of fraud'' and that it was nothing to do with limiting customers' access to cash. Banks have been told to do more to tackle financial crime by the City watchdog.

Mr Farage said it was ''deeply worrying that banks are now granting themselves sweeping powers to limit their customers' use of cash''.

''The wider de-banking scandal I have uncovered has already demonstrated that banks cannot be trusted to wield such power responsibly, given the way they have closed people's accounts purely because of the political views they hold,'' he told The Telegraph.

''There will now naturally be fears that customers who fall foul of the corporate thought police could see their access to cash cut off. Jeremy Hunt must act swiftly to make sure that this cannot happen and that legal tender remains legal tender.''

'Tomorrow begins today'NatWest announced the changes in a leaflet first sent in June, entitled ''tomorrow begins today'', advising customers of changes to their terms and conditions.

The new rules, which come into force on Sept 11, state that: ''We may apply limits to payments to and from your account, for example, to the amount of cash you pay in or withdraw, or to payment types where there is a high risk of fraud, scams or other crimes.''

Anne-Marie Morris, a Tory MP who sits on the Commons treasury committee, added: ''We should not be moving to a cashless society without consumer consultation and consent.

''Of course we must ensure money laundering is not allowed to flourish. But there is a balance and society cannot just be deprived of cash because it suits banks and regulators.

''The fraud and money-laundering rules seem to be wagging the tail of the cash dog.''

Daily capsMost banks impose daily caps on how much cash customers can take out of ATMs and the amount they can transfer out of their account in one go to protect them from fraud.

NatWest allows current account holders to take up to £750 out from a cash machine, or up to £20,000 out of a branch without notifying their branch in advance.

It has insisted that it is fully committed to access to cash, pointing out it has introduced measures such as a scheme to post cash directly to vulnerable customers.

Many banks have also brought in limits on how much cash can be deposited at the Post Office and in cash-deposit machines to combat money laundering.

Martin Kearsley, the banking director at the Post Office, says the limits have had ''a significant impact on legitimate customers being turned away, unable to do their transactions''.

MPs have raised concerns that bank branch closures and businesses preferring card payments are leaving cash users behind.

Cash is disproportionately used by more vulnerable members of society, including the elderly and the lowest paid, who find it easier to budget using physical money.

A poll of voters in Red Wall constituencies on Sunday revealed that eight in 10 believe that customers should have a legal right to pay with cash in shops. One in five now said it was ''hard'' or ''very hard'' to pay for goods and services with paper money rather than using a card.

Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday that ''people still need access to their cash'', highlighting new laws passed earlier this year to guarantee ''reasonable access'' for withdrawal and deposit facilities.

The Financial Conduct Authority has been given powers to oversee the new rules, including putting limits on how far people have to travel to get their money.

But the Prime Minister has rebuffed calls from Tory MPs to force businesses to accept notes and coins, saying they ''should be able to choose the forms of payment that they will accept''.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:58

Story

2022-12-12

June is #Pridemonth. This is the most colorful month of the year since the LGBTQ+ pride is celebrated. The RAINBOW flag is used widely but it is not the only flag that people in the community connect with. Did you know that there are more than 20 different Pride Flags? Ambassadors of Volvo Group's internal LGBTQ+ network called V-EAGLE tell us what they stand for.

Volvo Group thrives to leave society in a better shape for the next generations. This applies to our transport solutions and also to the way we work with people, employees and partners alike. With equal job opportunities and LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace, we seek to create an environment where you can bring your true unique self to work every day.

Everyone has their personal story and reason for using a pride flag. For some it gives a feeling of belonging, for others it might be a way of coming out, and for others it is a way to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community. It all started in 1977'...

15 Pride Flags and what they mean?

Gilbert Baker Pride FlagGilbert Pride Flag , the flag that started it all'... It was created in 1977 by Gilbert Baker, an artist, activist, and openly gay military veteran. Tasked by Harvey Milk, a historic figure in the fight for LGBTQ rights, to create a flag for the queer community, Baker created a rainbow flag with eight different colors. Inspired by the classic song "Over the Rainbow" from the 1939 film The Wizard from Oz, Baker created a rainbow flag to represent LGBTQ folks. Each color in the flag also had a specific meaning.

Hot Pink symbolizes sex Red equals life Orange symbolizes healing Yellow stands for sunlight Green represents nature| Turquoise equals magic & art Indigo stands for serenity Violet represents the spirit of LGBTQ people

6-Color Pride FlagThe 6-Color Pride Flag is one of the most well-known and used LGBT flags throughout history. This flag includes the colors red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet on it.Hot pink wasn´t included in the fabrication of these flags, because the fabric was hard to find. As the demand for the flag started to rise after the assassination of gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.In 1979, the flag was modified again. Aiming to decorate the streetlamps along the parade route with hundreds of rainbow banners, Gilbert Baker decided to split the motif in two with an even number of stripes flanking each lamp pole. To achieve this effect, he dropped the turquoise stripe that had been used in the seven-stripe flag. The result was the six-stripe version of the flag that would become the standard for future production.

Philadelphia Pride FlagThe Philadelphia Pride Flag came out in response to the demand of more inclusivity across the LGBTQ+ community. The flag launches in 2017 as part of the "More Color More Pride" Campaign in Philadelphia and was designed by a small Philly-based PR agency.

The addition of black and brown stripes to the traditional pride flag symbolized people of color, who historically were not always included in aspects of the mainstream gay rights movement.

Lena Waithe, an American actress, wore the Philadelphia Pride Flag as a cape at the 2018 Met Gala. She is a powerful advocate for black people within the entertainment industry and this flag spiked in popularity after she elevated its visibility.

Transgender FlagThe Transgender Flag was first created in 1999 by Monica Helms, a transgender woman. Light blue and pink are featured because they're the traditional colors associated with baby boys and girls, respectively. The white stands for those who are intersex, transitioning or those who don´t feel identified with any gender.Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth. According to Amnesty International, 1.5 million transgender people live in the European Union, making up 0.3% of the population. And more than 1.4 million trans adults living in the U.S., which is about 0,5% of the population.Violence against the queer community affects trans people of color the most. Therefore, the Transgender Flag is so important! The trans community needs representation and resources to be visible without fear.

New Progress Pride FlagGiven the evolving nature of the LGBTQ+ community and society at large, the Progress Pride Flag integrates many of these flags into one. Thankfully, it has been redesigned to place a greater emphasis on ''inclusion and progression.'' Our community is such a huge umbrella of different kind of people and that is what makes us so special, that is what makes us so unique and that is what makes us so powerful.The modern pride flag now includes stripes to represent the experiences of people of color, as well as stripes to represent people who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming (GNC) and/or undefined.Daniel Quasar's flag includes the colors of the trans flag, as well as black and brown stripes harkening back to 2017 Philadelphia Pride Flag, which sought to further represent the queer and trans identities of black and brown people. Those two stripes also represent those living with HIV/AIDS, people who have passed from the virus and the overall stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS that remains today.

In 2021, the Progress Pride Flag was revised by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK to incorporate the intersex flag. In the new design, the chevron of the Progress Flag includes a yellow triangle with a purple circle in the middle.

Nonbinary FlagIn 2014, Kye Rowan created the Nonbinary Pride Flag to represent people whose gender identity does not fit within the traditional male/female binary. The colors of the nonbinary flag are yellow, white, purple, and black. The colors each symbolize a different subgroup of people who identify as nonbinary.Yellow signifies something on its own or people who identify outside of the cisgender binary of male or female. A cisgender person would be a person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. White, a color that consists of all colors mixed, stands for multi-gendered people. Purple, like the lavender color in the genderqueer flag, represents people who identify as a blending of male and female genders. Finally, black (the absence of color) signifies those who are agender, who feel they do not have a gender.Some non-binary/genderqueer people use gender-neutral pronouns. Usage of singular 'they', 'their' and 'them' is the most common.

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Intersex FlagThis flag went through a variety of iterations before the current Intersex Flag emerged. Previous versions embraced the rainbow that is often associated with queer pride, while others used colors like blue and pink, which are found on the transgender flag.In 2013, Morgan Carpenter chose the colors yellow and purple for the intersex flag. Morgan moved away from the rainbow symbolism and selected these colors because neither is associated with the social constructs of the gender binary.The circle, perfect and unbroken, represents the wholeness of intersex people. It is a reminder that intersex people are perfect the way they are or choose to be.

Asexual FlagThe Flag for the Asexual Community was created in 2010 by the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. Asexual is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or a low interest in sexual activity, but asexuality can mean different things to different people, it is best to ask each individual what it means to them. For some people, it may mean that they rely on other types of attraction instead of or in place of sexual attraction.Asexual can be an umbrella term and each color in this flag also represents something unique. Black stands for asexuality. Gray represents demisexuality, for those who develop sexual attraction to someone only after forming a deep emotional bond with them. White stands for the allies of the community. Purple represents the entire community of asexual folks

Bisexual FlagThe Bisexual Pride Flag was created in 1998 by Michael Page. His idea for the flag represents pink and blue blending to make purple. The way that bisexual people can blend into the straight community and the gay community.The colors of the flag also represent attraction to different genders. The pink symbolizes attraction to the same gender, while the blue represents attraction to a different gender. The purple represents attraction to two or more genders, the definition of bisexuality.

Pansexual FlagThe Pansexual Flag was created in 2010. Pansexuality represents those people who feel attracted to a person without thinking about gender. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others. This means that they can feel attraction to those who identify as women, men, both or neither.The pink on the flag represents attraction to women, blue represents attraction to men, and yellow stands for attraction to those who don't identify with either gender.Pansexuality may be considered a sexual orientation or a branch of bisexuality, to indicate an alternative sexual identity. Because pansexual people are open to relationships with people who do not identify as strictly men or women, and pansexuality therefore rejects the gender binary, it is often considered a more inclusive term than bisexual.

Lesbian FlagThe Lesbian Flag is one of the flags fewer people know about. This flag features different shades of pink and sometimes comes with a red kiss on it to represent lipstick lesbians.

This flag was created by Natalie McCray in 2010. Some lesbians oppose this flag because of its exclusion of butch lesbians but no other flag has as much popularity as this one.In the new flag, the colors represent the following:

Darkest Orange: Gender nonconformity Middle Orange: Independence Lightest Orange: Community White: Unique relationships to womanhood Lightest Pink: Serenity and peace Middle Pink: Love and sex Darkest Pink: Femininity

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Abrosexual FlagThe Abrosexual Pride Flag has existed since 2015. The flag was created by Mod Chad of pride-flags-for-us after another anonymous person requested it. It is unknown why this person chose these colors specifically. Abrosexual refers to an individual whose sexuality is changing or fluid. For example, someone could be gay one day, then be asexual the next, then polysexual the next. While it is possible - and even common - for a person's sexual identity to shift or change in some way throughout their life, an abrosexual person's sexuality may change more frequently, over the course of hours, days, months, or years. Because of their inconsistent attraction, some abrosexual people may not feel compelled to seek out a relationship or may prefer a wavership.The timing of the fluctuations is different for every person; for some the fluctuations may be erratic and for others they may be regular. The sexualities that a person fluctuates between also varies. Some abrosexual people may be fluid between all sexualities, while others may only be fluid between a few.

Gay Men's Pride FlagThe Gay Men's Pride Flag is another lesser known pride flag. It features different shades of green, blue, and purple.This modern gay men's pride flag is a revamp of an earlier gay men's pride flag that featured a range of blue tones. That version of the flag evolved as it used colors that were perceived stereotypical of the gender binary. The updated flag is meant to be inclusive of a much wide range of gay men, including but not limited to transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming men.

Heterosexual Pride FlagThe Heterosexual Pride Flag. Straight is most viewed as men attracted to women and women attracted to men. The term "straight" is used to describe for both straight men and straight women. While straight is often used to describe non-LGBT people it is possible for straight people to be part of the LGBT community. For example, they might be transgender. They also might be, asexual heteroromantic, or aromantic heterosexual, which also makes them LGBT.

However, some believe ''straight pride'' events are simply the latest manifestation of anti-LGBTQ bigotry. Heterosexual pride parades exist as a response to societal acceptance of LGBTQ visibility and originated in campuses in the 1990s as a backlash tactic. Straight pride is a slogan that arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s that has primarily been used by social conservatives as a political stance and strategy. The term is described as a response to gay pride adopted by various groups (later united under the moniker LGBT) in the early 1970s, or to the accommodations provided to gay pride initiatives.

Drag Feather Pride FlagThe Drag Feather pride flag is an earlier, somewhat obscure version of the Drag pride flag. It was created in 1999 by Sean Campbell and was then called the Feather pride flag. It has a phoenix in its center, which symbolizes the drag community's rebirth and the fire of passion they use to raise awareness and funds for different causes.

The phrase "to drag" refers to a performance of masculinity, femininity, or other forms of gender expression '' it is to dress up or exhibit yourself in a way that differs from your everyday expressions. For example, a drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininity, while a drag king is someone (usually female) who performs masculinity.

Maverique Pride FlagThe Maverique pride flag was first created on Tumblr by Vesper H. (queerascat) in 2014, who coined the term "Maverique" to describe their gender. The term combines the English words "maverick" and the French suffix "ique." Maverique is a non-binary or abinary gender with significant gendered experiences but is neither male nor female. However, it is not a lack of gender; it is defined by autonomy and inner conviction about a gender that is unusual and exists outside the standard conceptions of gender. Maverique individuals are free to use whatever pronouns they prefer and present themselves however they want.

The colors of the Maverique pride flag are yellow, white, and orange. The yellow represents non-binary gender '' as yellow is a primary color (meaning it isn't obtainable from combining any other colors and is entirely independent of other primary colors, cyan (blue) and magenta (pink), Vesper H believed it was the perfect analogy for maverique's relationship with masculinity and femininity. Non-binary genders are also frequently related to the color yellow. White represents autonomy or independence from the gender binary and the spectrum of genders created by the combinations of cyan/blue (masculinity) and magenta/pink (femininity). White is a blank slate upon which maverique is based. Orange represents the inner conviction of what a maverique feels regarding their gender. It also describes the unorthodox and individualistic nature of mavericks.

Bigender Pride FlagThe Tumblr user no-bucks-for-this-does created the original version of the Bigender pride flag; the creation date of the flag is unknown but is assumed to have existed before July 30th, 2014. It features different shades of pink, blue, and purple. The meaning of the colors is unknown, but it is often speculated that blue represents masculinity, pink represents femininity, and purple represents a mix of genders or androgyny. The white at its center symbolizes the nonbinary nature of bi-gender.

There is, however, another commonly used variation of the Bigender pride flag, which features four horizontal lines in four different colors '' pink, yellow, white, purple, and blue. The creator is unknown, and so is the colors' meaning '' but it is assumed that the colors have the same meaning as the original flag and that yellow is added to represent non-binary. It was created either before or on August 23rd, 2015.

A bigender individual is a person having or experiencing two different genders of any combination. For example, a bigender person could be both a woman and a man, or be agender and a woman simultaneously. The genders may be binary or non-binary, can be experienced simultaneously or alternately, and may not be experienced equally or in the same way.

Graysexual Pride FlagMilith Rusignuolo created the first version of the Graysexual pride flag in 2013. It features two lines of purple on the top and bottom of the flag, two grey lines further in, with a white center line. The colors are supposed to represent someone starting with no sexual attraction (purple - asexuality), then going through an episode of attraction (grey to white), with white indicating allosexuality from the asexual flag, and then returning to asexuality once again.

Graysexual is used to describe a person who identifies themselves asexual but does not fall into one of the primary kinds of asexuality.

Genderflux Pride FlagThere are multiple variations of the Genderflux pride flag; however, the original version is most commonly used '' it is unknown who created it, and it is speculated to have been created sometime between 2014 and 2015. It has six horizontal strips and six colors where dark pink represents women, light pink represents demi girls, grey represents agender, light blue represents demi boy, dark blue represents men, and yellow represents non-binary genders.

Genderflux is a catch-all phrase for gender identities where an individual's gender or sense of the intensity of their gender changes over time.

Gender Queer Pride FlagThe Gender Queer pride flag was created by the advocate and genderqueer writer Marilyn Roxie in 2011. The flag has three horizontal stripes: lavender, white, and dark chartreuse green. The lavender, a mix of pink and blue which traditionally represents women and men, expresses queer identities and androgyny. White represents gender-neutral and agender identities. Chartreuse represents identities that aren't in the gender binary and the third gender.

A genderqueer does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female. Gender queer is similar to non-binary but has a slightly different meaning. It is sometimes used as an umbrella term to cover any identity that isn't cisgender.

Demiboy Pride FlagThe Demiboy pride flag was created in 2015 by the Tumblr user Transrants. While Transrants did not explicitly explain the colors, the demiboy community who identify with the flag have assigned meaning to them. The flag features four colors, blue represents manhood/masculinity, white represents non-binary or agender, and the shades of grey represents the grey areas and partial connections to other genders than the binary concepts of gender (male or female).

A demiboy, also referred to as demiguy, demiman, demimale, or demidude, is a person who identifies with the concept of masculinity.

Straight Ally FlagThe Straight Ally flag is using the black-white "colors" of the heterosexual flag as a field, it adds a large rainbow colored "A" (for "Ally") to indicate straight support for the Gay Pride/Equal Marriage movement.A straight ally or heterosexual ally is a heterosexual and/or cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, LGBT social movements, and challenges homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. A straight ally believes that LGBT people face discrimination and thus are socially and economically disadvantaged.

Find out how Volvo Group works with Diversity & Inclusion '' stories from the organization.

When we work in a trusting and inclusive environment, we enjoy participating. Do you also want to participate?

Inclusion for Real: Watch Volvo Group Live How do we smash misconceptions about sexual orientation? How do we become more understanding colleagues? Watch this 60 minutes' webinar to hear real-life stories and engaging advice from Volvo Group employees and senior leaders. You'll also find out about Volvo Group's internal network for LGBTQ+ employees and their supporters, and much more

How we strive for equality At Volvo Group we strive to create an environment where you can bring your true unique self to work every day. Because we know when each one of us gives our whole selves, we all receive more. We boost our performance with better decision making and cutting-edge innovation. We are better at listening to and connecting with our diverse customer base.

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Innovation Rock Star Podcast - How to make Innovation Labs workInnovation Rock Stars is a video podcast series about innovation. A virtual stage for real-life stories about innovation, foresight, strategy and growth. Success or failure, opportunities or challenges, growth, or survival '' in this series of podcasts, you'll learn about the journey of the most innovative companies around the globe.

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2022-11-03 November 3, 2022

COP27 is an opportunity we must seizeThe Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) takes place this year between November 6-18th in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. The event represents a defining moment in the global response to the impacts of climate change.

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2022-11-01 November 1, 2022

Seasonal gift: Volvo Group and UNESCO bring Pippi Longstocking to PakistanVolvo Group, UNESCO and the Embassy of Sweden in Pakistan have collaborated to bring the Swedish favorite, Pippi Longstocking, to the children of Pakistan.

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:48

Zoom Meetings logo is seen displayed on a smartphone.

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Zoom wants to train its artificial intelligence models using some of your data, according to recently updated terms of service.

The latest update to the video platform's terms of service front-loads sections on software licensing, beta services and compliance, but if you read past that, the fine print seems to reveal a key decision in Zoom's AI strategy. The update, effective as of July 27, establishes Zoom's right to utilize some aspects of customer data for training and tuning its AI, or machine-learning models.

The "service-generated data" that Zoom can now use to train its AI includes customer information on product usage, telemetry and diagnostic data and similar content or data collected by the company. It does not provide an opt-out option.

This isn't an uncommon data category for companies to use for these purposes, but the new terms are a measured step toward Zoom's own AI ambitions.

The update comes amid growing public debate on the extent to which AI services should be trained on individuals' data, no matter how aggregated or anonymized it's said to be. Chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing, along with image-generation tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, are trained on swaths of internet text or images. Across the generative AI sector, lawsuits have popped up in recent months from authors or artists who say they see their own work reflected in AI tools' outputs.

"You consent to Zoom's access, use, collection, creation, modification, distribution, processing, sharing, maintenance, and storage of Service Generated Data for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable Law, including for the purpose of ... machine learning or artificial intelligence (including for the purposes of training and tuning of algorithms and models)," Zoom's terms state.

Customer content such as messages, files and documents do not seem to be included in this category. In a follow-up blog post, Zoom clarified that "for AI, we do not use audio, video or chat content for training our models without customer consent." The key phrase is "without customer consent."

In June, Zoom introduced two new generative AI features '-- a meeting summary tool and a tool for composing chat messages '-- on a free trial basis for customers, who can decide whether or not to use them. But when a user does enable these features, Zoom has them sign a consent form allowing Zoom to train its AI models using their individual customer content.

"Your content is used solely to improve the performance and accuracy of these AI services," Zoom wrote in the blog post.

A company spokesperson said in a statement that "Zoom customers decide whether to enable generative AI features, and separately whether to share customer content with Zoom for product improvement purposes."

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:36

National Dollar Day is observed annually on August 8 in the United States. This observance marks an important event in the history of the country when the monetary system was established. In fact, in early 2021, the U.S. currency in circulation amounted to $2.10 trillion. The dollar is used as an exchange and accepted in multiple countries. Read on to know more about the history of this extremely important currency.

History of National Dollar DayWhile the creator of National Dollar Day remains unknown, this observance marks the day the U.S. monetary system was established in 1786. It was on that day that they set the value of various coins, how they would be made, e.t.c. They even set the value of gold at $10 apiece and silver at $1 apiece.

Paper money dollars are currently known as Federal Reserve Notes and their designs were based on the Spanish dollar. In fact, the single dollar bill has not been redesigned in more than 50 years to prevent counterfeiting. The first paper dollar that was printed in 1862, had Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, printed on it. Later in 1869, George Washington first appeared on the $1 bill. Interestingly, Crane & Company has supplied paper for U.S. currency for hundreds of years.

The dollar is quite interesting and is decorated with signs and symbols. One can find a tiny bird above the right number one on the face side of the dollar. Furthermore, the pyramid on the back of the bill is part of the Great Seal of the United States. The unfinished top portrays a country that is growing and expanding. Opposite the pyramid, there is an eagle which represents war and peace. Additionally, one can even observe a constellation with 13 stars and a shield with 13 stripes above the eagle's head.

In current times, the United States dollar is used in a plethora of international transactions and is also the world's primary reserve currency.

National Dollar Day timeline1786

The U.S. Monetary System

The monetary system is established.

1792

The U.S. Mint

The United States Mint is formed.

1794

The First Dollar Coin

The first dollar coin, the Flowing Hair Dollar, is minted.

1862

The First Dollar Bill

The United States prints its first dollar bill.

National Dollar Day FAQsWhy is the dollar a powerful currency? The United States holds the trust of the world and confidence for its ability to pay its obligations. Owing to this, the dollar is the strongest world currency and will remain so for years to come.

Do all countries accept U.S. dollars? Owing to the financial strength of the dollar, more than 65 countries peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar. Five U.S. territories and seven sovereign countries use the dollar as their official currency of exchange.

Who controls the circulation of money in the United States? It is the U.S. Federal Reserve that controls the supply of money in the United States. However, it doesn't actually print currency bills but determines how many bills are printed by the Treasury Department each year.

How to Observe National Dollar DaySpend a dollarHave you been meaning to buy something for yourself but have put it off? Use National Dollar Day to spend a dollar without any guilt. If you don't want to spend it on yourself, maybe you can buy a meal for a homeless or needy person and contribute to the wellbeing of society.

Analyze a dollarHave you observed a dollar properly back and front? There are many symbols on it. On National Dollar Day, take that dollar bill out of your wallet and carefully analyze it and see what you find.

Save a dollarYou can use National Dollar Day as a way to start that saving scheme you've been putting off. You can start small and invest a few dollars a day and see how much you end up saving at the end of the year.

5 Fascinating Facts About The DollarCheap production costIt takes approximately under a nickel per note to produce the $1 bill making it one of the cheapest.

Dollar sizeThe dollar is 2.61 inches in width and 6.14 inches long.

Dollar weightThe dollar weighs approximately one gram and is .0043 inches thick.

Dollar materialThe dollar is made from a blend of paper, which is approximately 75% cotton and 25% linen.

Dollar circulationA dollar may spend around six years in circulation on average.

Why National Dollar Day is ImportantThe dollar is a global currencyThe dollar was formally established as the global reserve currency at the Bretton Woods Conference. It is an important currency in the world and is widely used in international trade.

Exchange rate regimeThe dollar holds an eminent position in the globe. It is so powerful that the dollar is widely used as an exchange rate regime where countries value their home currency to that of the dollar.

Important for the economyA sudden collapse in the dollar may lead to global economic turmoil. It could lead to an increase in import prices thus causing inflation.

National Dollar Day datesYearDateDay2023August 8Tuesday2024August 8Thursday2025August 8Friday2026August 8Saturday2027August 8Sunday

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:35

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees the Homeland Security Department, blasted what he called CLEAR's ''lax security controls.''

''After being briefed that there have been multiple security breaches over the past year due to CLEAR's lax security controls, it is apparent that the company puts its bottom line ahead of the security of our aviation system,'' Thompson said in a statement to POLITICO. ''Each passing day the homeland is at greater risk until TSA acts to completely close these security vulnerabilities that it was alerted to last year. We cannot afford any additional delay.''

CLEAR spokesperson Annabel Walsh said for the company ''security is job one and we have a zero tolerance policy.''

In the case of the two newly revealed incidents this year, Walsh said they are ''isolated'' and ''had nothing to do with our biometric system and were the result of an ambassador not following our strict protocols after which we took immediate action,'' she added.

CLEAR fired the employees responsible for the lapses and their managers, along with requiring all employees to be retrained on CLEAR's verification process, the company said.

Still, Thompson and Senate appropriators have called for TSA to begin requiring all CLEAR passengers to present their IDs to a TSA agent. That could impact CLEAR's business of charging $189 a year so pre-screened passengers can use an eye or fingerprint scan, or both, before being escorted to the front of the security line by a CLEAR employee. This allows people to avoid having an ID scanned before being directed to baggage screening.

In both of the newly reported cases, the passengers were able to go through the security checkpoint ''because of CLEAR's lack of oversight,'' the aide said.

One incident was discovered because the passenger noticed their boarding pass was for a different airport. In the other, a person who did not have a ticket was able to use a discarded boarding pass to enter security through the CLEAR lane. Neither successfully boarded an aircraft, the aide said.

In the previously reported July incident last year, a passenger successfully used another person's identity in Alabama to apply for CLEAR's service, which he used to board a plane. CLEAR's technology flagged the ID as mismatched, but an employee waved him through anyway. TSA discovered the identity discrepancy later after he attempted to bring ammunition through the checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The passenger, according to Crystal Nosal, a Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesperson, was charged with weapons possession and identity theft.

In the case of the July 2022 incident, CLEAR said it was a result of ''human error'' to allow the passenger to enroll in the program under a false identity.

Since the 2022 incident, CLEAR said it does not allow employees to override one of their machines that indicates a potential mismatch of ID with the person seeking to use the service.

''CLEAR will continue to partner with the DHS and TSA to implement the new industrywide digital identity standards that we have been working on together since 2020,'' Walsh said.

But that may not be enough to satisfy lawmakers such as Thompson and others, who are demanding that CLEAR passengers present their IDs to a TSA agent before proceeding to the baggage screening lane.

TSA announced last month that it would begin increasing the number of CLEAR passengers who must present their IDs.

TSA spokesperson R. Carter Langston said the TSA will require CLEAR passengers to use TSA's Credential Authentication Technology machines to have their IDs scanned.

''TSA has established a timeline with milestones for this to occur,'' Langston said, without providing a specific deadline. ''Currently, all passengers except [Registered Traveler] participants are required to present identification at the CAT unit, where it is available.'' CLEAR is the only company that operates under the registered traveler program.

TSA provided notice to CLEAR in early June that CLEAR users would need to present IDs and provided a 30-day notice and comment period. Currently, TSA is evaluating the comments, and a shift to 100 percent ID usage is not imminent.

Aside from the July 2022 incident, there are also questions about CLEAR's application methods for customers, following a Bloomberg report last month showing photos of people whose application photo '-- used in conjunction with the company's eye and fingerprint biometric scanners '-- had their faces partially cut off.

CLEAR said the photos in question were not part of the enrollment process and that the company no longer uses face scans to verify identity on the day of travel. Instead, it relies on fingerprints or eye scans.

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:23

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a ''gag order,'' would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Chutkan on Saturday gave Trump's legal team until 5 p.m. Monday to respond to the government's request. Trump's legal team, which has indicated he would look to slow the case down despite prosecutors' pledge of a speedy trial, then filed a request to extend the response deadline to Thursday and to hold a hearing on the matter, saying it needed more time for discussion.

Chutkan swiftly denied that extension request Saturday evening, reaffirming that Trump must abide by Monday's deadline.

Protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it's ''particularly important in this case'' because Trump has posted on social media about ''witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.''

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump's Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, ''If you go after me, I'm coming after you!''

Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a ''substantial'' amount of evidence '-- ''much of which includes sensitive and confidential information'' '-- to Trump's legal team.

They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a ''harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.''

Prosecutors' proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses' lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on ''sensitive materials,'' which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president's post ''is the definition of political speech,'' and was made in response to ''dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.''

Chutkan, a former assistant public defender nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, fueled by Trump's baseless claims of a stolen election.

The indictment unsealed this past week accuses Republican Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden as his legal challenges floundered in court.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a ''bedrock function of the U.S. government,'' repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence , and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Trump faces charges including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress' certification of Biden's electoral victory.

It's the third criminal case brought this year against the the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it's the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team's handling of classified evidence.

After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a ''persecution'' designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

On Saturday night to more than 1,000 attendees at the South Carolina Republican Party's 56th annual Silver Elephant Gala, Trump kept up his attacks on Smith, sticking to his usual caricature of the prosecutor as ''deranged'' for pursuing charges against him.

Smith has said prosecutors will seek a ''speedy trial'' against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.

____Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:18

E arly-stage cancer diagnoses decreased by nearly 20% in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. A new study published in Lancet Oncology emphasizes how, because of disruptions in care, patients were more likely to get diagnosed with deadly metastatic disease '-- across nearly all cancer types.

This study is the most comprehensive analysis of cancer diagnoses during the pandemic, using a nationwide registry that captures over 70% of all cancers in the United States. The starkest decline was observed after the initial shutdowns, with the regular 70,000 monthly cancer diagnoses (captured by the study's inclusion criteria) being cut in half in April 2020.

While some cancers can be detected by screening '-- such as lung, breast, colon, and cervical '-- others require access to primary care, timely referral to specialists, and diagnostic tests. In the early months of the pandemic, however, much of this went silent, according to Hannah Hazard-Jenkins, director of the West Virginia University Cancer Institute, who was not involved with this study. ''We ended up shutting down everything that was 'elective' in anticipation of a large volume of patients with Covid.''

Hazard-Jenkins described how WVU began to reopen in June 2020. But that didn't mean patients were comfortable enough to return. ''Which is worse: dealing with the potential of getting Covid-19 with such a high fatality rate versus dealing with a concern for a cancer diagnosis?'' asked Hazard-Jenkins. ''That was a real struggle for patients.''

Xuesong Han, the lead author of this study and scientific director of health services research at the American Cancer Society, said that monthly cancer diagnoses returned to a ''near pre-pandemic level'' in June 2020, hovering at around 60,000 monthly cases for the remainder of the year. ''Has it returned to pre-pandemic level now?'' she asked. ''We cannot tell as the data are not available yet.''

What Han's data did clearly show is that stage 4 cancer diagnoses were 7% more likely in 2020 and that communities of color were particularly hard hit, suggesting significant long-term consequences. Indeed, with nearly 2 million new cancer diagnoses each year, these diagnostic delays could lead to tens of thousands of additional patient deaths and tens of millions of dollars in added health care costs.

Lung cancer, for instance, is responsible for about 1 in 5 of all U.S. cancer deaths, killing more people than breast, colon, and prostate cancer combined. If caught in its early stages, the five-year survival rate is 56%; in its late stages, that number drops to just 5%. Similarly, while stage 1 lung cancer costs a median $25,000 to treat, stage 4 lung cancer costs almost ten times as much at $210,000.

As a breast cancer surgeon, Hazard-Jenkins described seeing patients in late 2020, who knew they had a lump since April but ''didn't do anything because of their fear.'' What would have normally been treated by a simple lumpectomy ''had to be forced into mastectomy.'' Patients who would otherwise receive curative treatment were now getting palliative care because their tumors had metastasized beyond relief.

And these trends have been continuing beyond 2020. ''In the breast cancer world, last year we had a profound amount of advanced disease,'' said Hazard-Jenkins. ''It was numbers of advanced disease I haven't seen in 15-plus years.''

The study found that marginalized populations were particularly impacted by these late-stage cancers, with Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders being 10%-11% more likely to receive a stage 4 diagnosis in 2020.

Han explained that these racial and ethnic disparities could possibly be explained by cultural and language barriers, low trust in the health care system, and financial shocks due to losing employment. But she particularly emphasized that racial discrimination intensified during the pandemic and could potentially explain why these groups delayed or skipped care. Indeed, during the first year of the pandemic, 1 in 6 Hispanic individuals and 1 in 5 East and Southeast Asian Americans reported facing racial discrimination.

Patients living in socioeconomically deprived areas, largely represented by rural, Indigenous, and historically redlined communities, were similarly 11% more likely to receive a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. ''When you're talking about low health literacy coupled with low financial resources coupled with geographic challenges, it can be very difficult to seek health care,'' said Hazard-Jenkins.

Both Han and Hazard-Jenkins thus underscored that, to address these disparities and the impact of delayed cancer diagnoses, the health care system should do a better job of meeting people where they are. ''Efforts can be made to continue some silver linings from the pandemic,'' said Han, such as ''wide adoption of telemedicine and increased use of home-based stool testing for colorectal cancer screening.''

Hazard-Jenkins also described mobile screening programs as another way to engage underserved communities. Since 2009, WVU has been running Bonnie's Bus for early breast cancer detection and, since 2021, the LUCAS tractor-trailer for lung cancer, with both units driving to the most rural communities in West Virginia to get patients screened. With decade-long partnerships with local providers and federally qualified health centers, Bonnie's Bus and LUCAS screened a combined 3,750 patients across the state in 2022, regardless of their ability to pay. ''When you have economically challenged communities, socially challenged communities and us as big health systems, having this expectation of people coming to you is really just naive,'' said Hazard-Jenkins.

It takes similarly creative strategies to ameliorate racial and ethnic disparities, said Priti Bandi, a scientific director at the American Cancer Society. She noted that, while evidence is generally limited, community-based interventions have previously helped improve screening rates among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Hispanic Americans, with lay health workers educating patients in their homes, churches, and grocery stores.

Beyond addressing disparities through greater awareness, the health care system must focus on transportation issues, child care needs, and helping patients navigate through a complex health care system, according to Anne Hubbard, who is the director of health policy at American Society for Radiation Oncology and was not involved in this study. While the health care system doesn't currently value these wraparound services, she said there are promising trends, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposing payment for social determinants of health in the latest version of the physician fee schedule.

Absent these and other reforms to increase access to care, ''we're going to continue to see disproportionate numbers of disadvantaged patient populations who are presenting with more advanced stage disease,'' said Hubbard.

Ultimately, Han is optimistic that, with return-to-screening campaigns getting the word out and routine doctor visits going back to normal, patients will increasingly have their cancers caught early and have better outcomes. But she also emphasized that challenges remain, such as nearly 4 million losing Medicaid insurance since pandemic-era protections expired in March.

''Disparities in care access and health outcomes have not been specific to cancer,'' Han said. ''Improving broader socioeconomic infrastructure for medically underserved communities is required.''

Simar BajajNews Intern

Simar Bajaj is news intern at STAT supported by the Harvard Institute of Politics and Global Health Institute.

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Archived Version

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:14

72% of the IUS death reports in the 33 year history of VAERS are from one vaccine: the COVID-19 vaccine.

Unlike other vaccines, the COVID vaccines keep on killing people, for months and years after the shot.

The statistics I've been able to collect estimate that the COVID vaccines kill 1 person per 1,000 doses. These vaccines aren't close to safe, so we don't even have to get into a discussion as to whether they are effective.

They are clearly unsafe and nobody should be taking them.

And we can prove that with one VAERS query which nobody can explain away. Anyone can replicate this themselves.

Go to medalerts.org , and set the parameters are follows:

Graph the Onset Interval and Vaccines

Died: Yes

Demographics: US states

and

The line with all the deaths is the COVID vaccine.

Figure 1. The onset curve of the COVID vaccine looks nothing like any other vaccine in US history. Figure 2. The legend for Figure 1It means that the COVID vaccines are killing people.

The onset interval is the interval from the time of vaccination until the first symptoms occurred. Since we are looking at death reports, these will be the time until the first symptoms preceding the death appear or, in many cases, the elapsed time until the death itself.

A safe vaccine should have a peak near day 0 just due to coincidence causing false reports in the first few days after the vaccine as people falsely associate the death event with the date of vaccination. The rest of the curve should be flat. This is the case for many of the vaccines. For example, the Rubella vaccine doesn't have a single death report in the history of VAERS (but does have 800 adverse event reports).

The flu vaccine (FLU4) has an onset curve for deaths that looks like this, but keep in mind that the FLU4 vaccine can be given with other vaccines in the same visit, so it's hard to separate out just the effect of the FLU4 vaccine, but the point is that if vaccines are safe, the death rates reported after the vaccines should be perfectly flat since deaths are random with respect to a vaccination date.

Figure 3. The onset curve for deaths for the FLU4 vaccine. Compare that to the COVID vaccine in Figure 1. What you can see from Figure 1 above is that the COVID vaccines don't look at all like a safe vaccine : the peaks of deaths just keep going and going. The peaks end after 2.5 years because the COVID vaccines have only been out for 2.5 years.

In particular, note that:

the peak at 90-120 days is larger than the peaks at 0 and 1 days

the peak at 15-30 days is nearly as high as the peaks at 0 and 1 days

the peak at 1-2 years is unprecedented

For the COVID vaccine, it's not even close to that.

Many other vaccines show a death peak 15-30 days out. This is clearly caused by the vaccines. In other words, many of the vaccines the CDC believes are safe are, in fact, killing people.

VAERS queries show:

Found 11,860 cases where Location is U.S. States and Vaccine is COVID19 or COVID19-2 and Patient Died

Found 16,396 cases where Location is U.S. States and Patient Died

This is 72.3% of all deaths are from the COVID vaccines. This is extraordinary. The sheer number of deaths here as well as the onset interval above, are clear evidence we have the most deadly vaccine in US history that we are forcing people to take.

I've written in the past about the death rates from the COVID vaccine.

Recently, Denis Rancourt looked at large population data in Australia and Israel and estimated a rate of 1 death per 1,000 doses (see page 23: '''... it is not unreasonable to assume an all-population global value of vDFR = 0.1%).

My estimates agree with this. In fact, just recently, I heard Jay Bonnar's anecdote which confirms this. Jay had 15 friends, all vaccinated, die unexpectedly. There were about 14,000 vaccines given to his friends. So his story is right in line with my 1 in 1,000 estimate. I'll be writing about Jay in my next Substack.

From VAERS, we have a minimum of 11,500 excess deaths (assuming we only count deaths that we know for sure were in the US) and an under-reporting factor of 41, we get 471,000 vaccine-caused deaths at a minimum (since 41 is the best case under-reporting factor). This conservative estimate is a death rate of 1 per 1,400 doses, which is lower than my 1 in 1,000 best estimate.

But if we use a more realistic value of 17,729 deaths (where we exclude foreign deaths which are typically well identified), subtract out 500 ''coincidental'' deaths, 17,529*50 (where 50 is a more realistic factor for deaths since 41 was for the very best case of anaphylaxis), we get 876,000 deaths from 676M COVID vaccine doses administered , which means the death rate estimated from VAERS is that we are killing 1.3 people per 1,000 doses (i.e., we are killing 1 person for every 770 doses).

We can also look at independent surveys that have not been retracted in the peer-reviewed literature because they weren't published in the peer-reviewed literature.

To date, there has only been one independent survey (by Rasmussen) that has ever been done comparing COVID death counts to COVID vaccine death counts. So I'm not cherry picking'... this is the ONLY survey. The Rasmussen survey found that a comparable number of people died from the vaccine as from COVID . My own surveys, done by independent polling firms using their lists, not mine, found exactly the same thing : the vaccine has killed as many people as COVID. There are 1.1M cumulative deaths from COVID. But probably half of those are people who died with COVID, so maybe 600K true COVID deaths. So this suggests around 600,000 vaccine deaths which is very close to my 1 in 1,000 doses estimate.

We can also look at excess death rates in places likely to have good counts, high vaccination rates, and not in the public eye such as the province of Alberta. The data shows all-cause mortality jumped by 20% from 2019 vs. 2021. If half of that was COVID and half was the COVID vaccine this would match the predicted 10% increase in all-cause mortality caused by the vaccine.

Another clue is to look at COVID death rates post vaccine to see if the vaccine might be saving lives. These rates should have dropped after the vaccine rolled out if the vaccines worked. Yet COVID hospitalizations in Ontario were up by 31% in 2022 and deaths were up by 39% in 2022 . But the variants were less deadly. COVID deaths were around 7% of overall deaths.

So I'll stick with my more conservative 1 death per 1,000 doses and I feel pretty good about that being a pretty good estimate. It's nearly midway between the two VAERS estimates as well ((471+876)/2=674K deaths)! And it's also very close to the number Mark Skidmore got from his surveys before they unethically retracted his paper (Skidmore just looked at 2021 deaths in his estimate of 278,000 people for COVID vaccine deaths the first year).

If the COVID vaccine was killing 1 person per 1,000 doses over 2 years, then 44 people should have died unexpectedly in the Pfizer trial in the vaccine arm. In a 6 month observation period, this would amount to 11 excess deaths in the vaccine arm, but there were only 4 excess deaths in the vaccine arm assuming they were able to track all the deaths accurately.

There are several explanations for this:

A 0.1% overall increase in all-cause mortality (ACM) is an overall 10% increase is base rate ACM. Nobody's going to notice a change this small. This is what makes this vaccine so insidious: the death rate is just below the ''notice'' threshold.

In the Pfizer trials, there were 21 deaths in the vaccine group and 17 in the placebo group (see this article ). My conservative estimate was 10% increase in ACM, but a 23% increase was observed. So my estimate looks conservative. Also, there were 4 cardiac deaths in the vaccine group vs. 1 in the placebo group. Three excess cardiac deaths on a base of around 20 deaths is a 15% increase. So using this metric as well, we appear to be ''in range'' on our 1 per 1,000 estimate. Even though this could be interpreted as causing 22 deaths in the vaccine arm, the 1 in 1,000 should be interpreted as a 10% increase in ACM which in this case was very low (it was a 6 month study in a very healthy group who died at a rate much lower than the general population). Jay Bonnar, who knows around 5,600 vaccinated people had 15 deaths from the vaccine over 2.5 years which is 3 deaths in a 6 month period. The clinical trial had 4X as many people, so we'd expect to see 12 deaths from the vaccine.

It wasn't the same vaccine that was used in the trials vs. in commercial production. The commercial vaccines were more dangerous and had a variation in the lethality mix.

They may have undercounted the deaths because some were lost to follow up. How hard did they try?

If the vaccine really work to reduce all-cause mortality (ACM), it should be EASY to find a geriatric medical practice where the ACM of the vaccinated is lower than the ACM of the unvaccinated; it should be nearly 100% of all practices in the US. But so far, I've been unable to locate even a single one. Weird, isn't it?

Here's my latest attempt:

A simple VAERS query on the COVID vaccines for death and looking at the onset interval makes it immediately obvious to anyone that the COVID vaccines are the most deadly vaccines in the 33 year history of the VAERS system. Nothing else is even close.

The people who work at the CDC are paid to look the other way and mislead America into thinking the COVID vaccines are safe.

There is no possible way these vaccines are safe. In my next article, I'll talk more about the Jay Bonnar case and I'll make this crystal clear to everyone.

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Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:04

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In a jaw-dropping revelation, Election Systems & Software ( ES&S ) has been caught red-handed in an audacious scheme to prevent public access to vital public records related to the administration of elections. The bombshell report suggests that the company is trying to cloak their actions in secrecy and hide critical information from the American public.

The hidden treasure trove of data and evidence held hostage by ES&S and their co-conspirators is nothing short of a GAME-CHANGER. It is the ultimate vindication for President Donald J. Trump, providing undeniable evidence that the 2020 and 2022 elections were RIGGED and FRAUDULENT!

ES&S BLOCKING THE EVIDENCE:The information that ES&S is seeking to hide from public disclosure, contains the data and evidence that vindicate President Donald J. Trump and prove with absolute certainty that the 2020 and 2022 elections were significantly and materially impacted by massive election fraud via compromised electronic voting systems on a nationwide basis.

ES&S, the shadowy giant behind the nation's voting systems, has unleashed a disturbing edict this week, instructing all municipalities to HIDE critical public records, data and reports related to government agency-run local, state and federal elections.

THE BATTLE FOR TRANSPARENCY:

In this David vs. Goliath showdown, courageous citizens and watchdogs unite to challenge the election behemoth. The public records requests that spurred the ES&S Security Bulletin were sent out by Christopher Gleason on half of The Justice Society.

In their edict ES&S falsely states governmental agency customers and election officials that their compliance with The Justice Society public records requests for Audit Logs could potentially compromise the security of elections.

What information is ES&S trying to conceal?The logs and data requested are automatically system generated. They are an auditable date/time stamped record of activities and actions taken by administrators and users of the ES&S software and systems. ES&S markets this functionality as a selling point to ensure security of elections administered with their products.

DS200 Tabulator

Electionware '' Election Management Software

ES&S CLAIMS LOGS REQUESTED CONTAIN SENSITIVE INFORMATIONBehind the veil of a seemingly reasonable claim, ES&S's dark secrets are exposed, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) has been deceiving the nation, as their software and systems behind the 2020, 2022, and 2024 elections is anything but secure. Moreover, the data, reports and logs requested across America paint a much different picture than the false claims that the 2020 were secure, free, fair and transparent.

Below is an excerpt of ES&S false claims being used to hide the evidence of widespread election fraud through the use of their software and hardware.

During the lead up to the 2020 election ES&S was the subject of EAC complaints about claims that ES&S made that their DS200 Tabulators equipped with modems were being marketed as approved for use in elections in ES&S marketing materials.

In a letter dated March 20, 2020 the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) sent a letter to ES&S about their misrepresentation that their DS200 Tabulators with modems were certified for use in elections by the EAC.

The EAC informed ES&S that the use of their DS200 Tabulators equipped with modems will void the EAC certification of the voting system in its entirety.

If no modems/network cards are attached to ES&S DS200 Tabulators, how on earth could they be compromised through network or remote access? The apparent contradiction defies all logic, even amidst the raving endorsements of being the "most secure elections on record" by CIS/CISA/DHS/DOJ, democrats, deep state operatives and the so-called "major news networks".

WHY IS ES&S HIDING PROOF THAT THE ELECTIONS ARE SECURE?

The evidence of secure elections and technology can be found in election reporting data and logs. These records also contain proof of compromised technology used for election fraud. Chris Gleason and his team discovered election manipulation through illegal adjudication of ballots marked as 100% Blank. They found this in October 2022 using ES&S Election Summary Reports (EL45A) from the 2020 November Presidential Election in various Florida counties.

Despite winning Florida overall, President Trump lost in 12 counties where a large number of ballots were marked as "BALLOTS CAST - BLANK" by the voting systems unlawfully.

WHAT IS A BLANK BALLOT?

According to the official ES&S product documentation a Blank Ballot is a ballot that is simply a 100% blank ballot.

In both the 2020 and 2022 elections in Florida, Maryland, Arizona and other states millions of voters cast their ballots through various methods. However, a concerning issue arose: ES&S Tabulators marked many of these ballots as "100% Blank," effectively nullifying the ballots and cancelling the votes of those voters.

The ES&S DS200 Tabulators are not the only ballot image scanners used to administer elections. ES&S also sells a high volume ballot scanner called the DS850 that also seems to be illegally adjudicating large numbers of ballots as 100% Blank these are used to process ballots received in vote by mail elections.

Although President Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election in Florida he did lose in some counties. In every county that he ''lost in'' across Florida there were massive numbers of ''Ballots Cast '' Blank''

See below:

2020 - Miami-Dade County Election Summary Results2020 - Broward County Election Summary Results2020 Orange County Election Summary Results2020 - Hillsborough County Election Summary Results2020 '' Palm Beach County Election Summary ResultsIn one Florida County, Pinellas long considered a ''Bell Weather County'' Julie Marcus, a hand picked by Gov. Ron DeSantis altered the 2020 Election Results to conceal the evidence of election fraud by not reporting the number of ''Ballots Cast '' Blank'' as required under Florida Election Law Statutes.

2020 '' Pinellas County Election Results Summary '' ALTERED TO HIDE BLANK BALLOTSGleason and his team have since discovered that in the 2020 November General Election that 16,804 Pinellas County voters had the ballots that they cast illegally adjudicated as 100% BLANK and 7,805 voters had the ballots that they casted deemed ''Damaged'' and were ''Duplicated'', ''Adjudicated'' and printed using Runbeck Systems Software that was the subject of great importance in the Arizona election fraud related to the Kari Lake election.

As you can see above there were 16,804 Blank Ballots that were interfered with being cast. This was 2.977% of all the ballots cast in the 2020 Presidential election. In Pinellas County President Donald J. Trump ''lost'' to Joe Biden by 1,241 votes.

NATIONWIDE PATTERN OF ELECTION FRAUD VIA VOTING SYSTEMSThis pattern has and continues to occur today in elections counties across America.

As Gleason and his team further investigated the widespread election fraud in Florida elections under Ron DeSantis and his hand-picked appointees they found similar problems in Maryland, where ES&S Voting Systems were used without proper certifications and void certifications. These discoveries are the subject of an election fraud lawsuit in United States Court of Appeals, Gibson v Maryland.

The administration of elections with uncertified or uncertifiable voting systems is illegal and voids the illegal certification of elections nationwide.

The data, evidence and reports that ES&S is seeking to cover up is the evidence that Joe Biden is not really the duly elected President of the United States and Katie Hobbs is not the duly elected Governor of Arizona. This evidence proves that the indictment of President Donald J. Trump by the Biden DOJ is an attempted coverup of the largest series of frauds and treasons in the history of America.

Kari Lake spoke out on Thursday about the massive fraud during the 2020 presidential election. In order to impeach Biden he would need to be the legitimate duly elected President of the United States and he isn't. Fraud Vitiates all things.

During the 2022 November Election in Arizona, several counties reported concerning discrepancies related to "Ballots Cast - Blank." Apache and Pima counties listed a significant number of such ballots, indicating interference with voters' right to cast and have their ballots counted accurately. Coconino and Santa Cruz counties, on the other hand, omitted this category from their election reports, raising suspicions of illegal modifications to conceal the number of affected voters. This casts doubt on the integrity of the election process in those counties.

An unacceptable number of Blank Ballots calls into question the accuracy and dependability of the ES&S voting systems and the ease of their use to commit election fraud.

In Arizona for the 2022 November Election, Pima County listed that 5,309 Ballots Cast were 100% Blank. This means that 1.317% of the Pima voters who cast ballots on election day, early voting and provisionally had their right to cast a ballot and have it counted accurately interfered with. Their right to vote illegally taken away by the use of ES&S Tabulators. This calls into question the reliability and accuracy of the ES&S software and hardware used to conduct elections. How can the results being generated by these machines be trusted? When the audit logs and system logs are hidden by the Election Fraud Mafia they can't be trusted.

MASSIVE ELECTION FRAUD RICO ENTERPRISEIn Florida, Ron DeSantis and his hand-picked Secretary of State Cord Byrd have colluded with ES&S, Dominion Voting, and compromised elections officials to destroy the evidence of the widespread election fraud. They went so far to conceal their frauds, treasons and subversive activities that they passed a law restricting the disclosure of elections related results and data to the public in the same legislation that allowed Governor Ron DeSantis to run for President without having to resign.

The new election law has been called ''The Florida Election Fraud Legalization Act'' by election integrity watchdog groups. The legislation was rushed through to the dismay of election advocates on both sides of the political spectrum.

There are numerous lawsuits in Florida about the widespread election fraud by election officials and their co-conspirators.

Any claims by Governor Ron DeSantis that there were no issues with the 2020 Presidential Election are 100% false and can be proven using the public records data that he and his friends at ES&S and Dominion want to illegally hide. Furthermore, there have been massive discoveries that call into question the legitimacy of the 2022 elections. Many of these facts and evidence are the subject of the Scott v DeSantis lawsuit currently unfolding in Leon County Florida.

THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA'S SOULPrepare for an EPIC SHOWDOWN as the forces of TRUTH and TRANSPARENCY clash with the shadows of deceit! The stakes have never been higher as they are for 2024'--this battle will DEFINE the future of America!

'NO AD' subscription for CDM! Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!' CT Public Health Promotes Toothpaste With Fluoride Despite Evidence Showing Fluoride Lowers Kids' IQsTrump Calls For Federal Takeover Of Washington, D.C. - "Crime-Ridden Embarrassment'

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Mon, 07 Aug 2023 23:59

The word decimate is what we might delicately refer to as a problem word. It seems to invite spleen, at least on the part of a small but committed group of linguistic enthusiasts who feel that it is often misused. Here is a sample of comments regarding decimate that have been left by our dictionary's users.

What is going on here? Decimate always meant to reduce something by one tenth. I would prove that point to others using M-W. The definition is now changed to match the incorrect common usage? '--User comment, 21 Jan 2014

Why must we change the meaning of a word simply because a large number of people use it incorrectly? There is no reason for the synonyms to be laid out making "decimate" the equivalent of "annihilate". I believe this to be erroneous and in need of correction. '--User comment, 19 Feb 2013

Just because people are uneducated and do not know how to speak English and have a limited lexicon, is no reason for intelligent human beings to add misuse of a word as its meaning. '--User comment, 31 Jul 2014

People love to complain about 'decimate', but they're wrong. Our language includes many words which originally had a specific historical meaning, all of which mean something different in English.

Lest you think that this is the sort of biased sample that one only finds by scrolling through the comments on a dictionary site, one may find similar feelings expressed on Twitter'--including one from someone who appears to have ended a romantic entanglement over the matter.

Dear everyone, decimate doesn't mean what you think it means. '--Twitter.com, 25 Mar 2016

I don't like how people use the word decimate. It doesn't mean to wipe things out. Words are precise tools, not blunt instruments. '--Twitter.com, 24 Dec 2015

#GotDumpedBecause I insisted she learn that 'decimate' means to reduce by 1/10. It's doesn't mean wiped out, Vicky!! '--Twitter.com, 31 Jul 2015

The issue that many people have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that is once upon a time it had a very singular meaning, a meaning that is in danger of being lost forever to the vandals and barbarian hordes who are manhandling the English language through using this word to mean ''to destroy a large number of.'' The specific complaint is that decimate had the specific meaning, in ancient Rome, of killing one of every ten soldiers, as a form of military punishment. There are, it must be said, some problems with the argument that this is the only correct meaning today.

The first problem is that even if decimate did refer to the practice of killing one of every ten soldiers in Roman times, it did so in the service of Latin, not English. We have many words in English that are descended from Latin but which have changed their meaning in their travels. We no longer think of sinister as meaning ''on the left side,'' even though that was one of the word's meanings when it existed in Latin.

Another problem with insisting that decimate should have but a single meaning is that very few words in English retain but a single meaning. An enormous percentage of the items in our vocabulary are capable of semantic multitasking. When a person uses a tricky word such as when, a, person, use, tricky, or word, all of which have multiple meanings, we use context to understand the speaker's intent. So it is with decimate:

''When Pilgrims came to North America, it was often described as an inhospitable wilderness. Malaria, smallpox and yellow fever decimated immigrants (not to mention untold millions of Native Americans).'''-- Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, 2 Jul. 2013

Was the sense meaning ''to select by lot and kill every tenth man of'' the original use of decimate in English? Yes, it was, but not by much. Our earliest record of this meaning is from the end of the 16th century; by the beginning of the 17th century the word had already taken on an additional meaning (''to tithe''). Furthermore, the word decimation, meaning ''a tithing,'' had been in use for about 60 years before decimate began to be used in any fashion.

Perhaps you are one of those true stalwarts who will refuse to be swayed by any argument in this regard, and have resolved not only to continue to use decimate in this way but also to tell those who do not that they are wrong. In that case you deserve applause and support.

Come to think of it, you deserve more than that'--you deserve an ovation. Except that the original meaning of ovation in English was ''a ceremony attending the entering of Rome by a general who had won a victory of less importance than that for which a triumph was granted,'' so I guess we can't use that word.

No matter, we can say that if you stick to your guns you will surely have a triumph. Wait'--the first meaning of triumph was ''a ceremony attending the entering of Rome by a general who had won a decisive victory over a foreign enemy,'' so let's not use that.

As it turns out, decimate is hardly the only word in English that once had a precise single meaning dealing with Roman history; it just is the only one that people like to complain about. For those who truly believe that words which started out in English having a single meaning that pertains to ancient Rome should remain that way forever, the following list of such will come in handy:

Century: ''a subdivision of the Roman legion.''Forum: ''the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business.''Tribune: ''a Roman official under the monarchy and the republic with the function of protecting the plebeian citizen from arbitrary action by the patrician magistrates.''Missiles: ''Gifts thrown to the crowds by Roman emperors.''Actor: ''In Roman law, one that conducts a legal action.''Legion: ''the principal unit of the Roman army comprising 3000 to 6000 foot soldiers with cavalry.''

Hope that helps.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:39

By B.N. Frank

Apple AirPods have been known to overheat, catch fire, and/or explode. They have been identified as a huge source of toxic electronic waste (E-waste) too.

Apple has also warned repeatedly about how its wireless radiation-emitting products can cause interference issues with pacemakers and other medical devices. Of course, all manufacturers of wireless devices are required to include warnings about radiation emissions with their products. If you've ever wondered how much radiation is being emitted by Apple Airpods, this short video may blow your mind:

Additionally, almost 2 years ago, a federal court ruling in favor of petitioners who sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for NOT updating wireless radiation guidelines (including 5G) since 1996; however the agency has still not addressed this.

Got pets? Exposure can hurt them too! Two paws down!

Activist Post reports regularly about privacy invasive and unsafe technologies. For more information, visit our archives and the following websites:

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Doctors warn of summer COVID spike

Doctors warn COVID hospitalizations are rising 04:03 The EG.5 variant now makes up the largest proportion of new COVID-19 infections nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated, as multiple parts of the country have been reporting their first upticks of the virus in months.

Overall, as of Friday, 17.3% of COVID-19 cases nationwide were projected to be caused by EG.5, more than any other group, up from 7.5% through the first week of July.

The next most common variants after EG.5 are now XBB.1.16 at 15.6%, XBB.2.23 at 11.2% and XBB.1.5 at 10.3%. Some other new XBB spinoffs are now being ungrouped from their parents by the CDC, including FL.1.5.1, which now accounts for 8.6% of new cases.

EG.5 includes a strain with a subgroup of variants designated as EG.5.1, which a biology professor, T. Ryan Gregory, nicknamed "Eris" '-- an unofficial name that began trending on social media.

Experts say EG.5 is one of the fastest growing lineages worldwide, thanks to what might be a "slightly beneficial mutation" that is helping it outcompete some of its siblings.

It is one of several closely-related Omicron subvariants that have been competing for dominance in recent months. All of these variants are descendants of the XBB strain, which this fall's COVID-19 vaccines will be redesigned to guard against.

Virus season is approaching. Here's expert advice for protection against COVID, flu and RSV. Officials have said that symptoms and severity from these strains have been largely similar, though they acknowledge that discerning changes in the virus is becoming increasingly difficult as surveillance of the virus has slowed.

"While the emergency of COVID has been lifted and we're no longer in a crisis phase, the threat of COVID is not gone. So, keeping up with surveillance and sequencing remains absolutely critical," Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead for COVID-19, said on July 26.

Earlier this year, the CDC disclosed it would slow its variant estimates from weekly to biweekly, in hopes of being able to gather larger sample sizes to produce those projections.

On Friday, the agency said for the first time it was unable to publish its "Nowcast" projections for where EG.5 and other variants are highest in every region.

Only three parts of the country '-- regions anchored around California, Georgia and New York '-- had enough sequences to produce the updated estimates.

"Because Nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present," CDC spokesperson Kathleen Conley said in a statement.

Less than 2,000 sequences from U.S. cases have been published to virus databases in some recent weeks, according to a CDC tally, down from tens of thousands per week earlier during the pandemic.

"For some regions, we have limited numbers of sequences available, and therefore are not displaying nowcast estimates in those regions, though those regions are still being used in the aggregated national nowcast," said Conley.

Coronavirus Pandemic More More In: COVID-19 Coronavirus Alexander TinCBS News reporter covering public health and the pandemic.

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Funding & DistributionTranscript Major corporate funding for the PBS NewsHour is provided by Care.com, Consumer Cellular, and Fidelity. Funding for the PBS NewsHour Weekend is provided by Mutual of America. For a complete '...

Major corporate funding for the PBS NewsHour is provided by Care.com, Consumer Cellular, and Fidelity. Funding for the PBS NewsHour Weekend is provided by Mutual of America. For a complete list of funders for the PBS NewsHour and PBS NewsHour weekend, click here.

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JOHN YANG: This summer, millions of Americans are experiencing firsthand the effects of climate change.

Triple digit temperatures for days on end, smoke from record setting wildfires, fouling the air warming oceans bleaching coral reefs, opinion polls when growing concern about climate change.

Psychologists say that can be a positive thing spurring people to action.

But for some people, it becomes an overwhelming sense of despair or anxiety.

Psychologists call it climate anxiety.

This week, we asked people about their emotional responses to climate change.

ADAM BURKE: I would say that climate change has affected my mental health in that it has certainly increased my anxiety.

ALFRED ARTIS: I feel very anxious about the state of the climate and our future.

I believe that if we don't make necessary changes now, we will be changed in the future in ways that we do not want and cannot control and will not be able to mitigate.

ROBERT WOLFF: We're really not seemingly taking seriously enough the efforts to make changes to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

That to me is just that it's sent horrific in a way that I can't fully comprehend.

PAT NOBLE: I'm worried because this is all we have right now.

We talk about going to the moon and mars.

But this is this is what we have.

I think I'm more worried maybe than anxious at this point.

MAR IKEDA: Climate anxiety affects my daily life, by the decisions I make about when I want to go someplace or where I want to go or work away how I want to travel.

ADAM BURKE: My climate anxiety does affect my daily life again, because I'm living in a city that reaches 117 degrees and I watched the birds outside struggling in the heat.

ALFRED ARTIS: The moment when I realized that the climate change crisis was causing anxiety in my life was the day when the sky in the San Francisco Bay Area was orange, that is not the color of the sky.

And that had a profound and deep effect on me, because it so clearly showed that the danger was real.

LIAM HEFFERMAN: I don't want to sound all kinds of doomsday bunker ready to go.

But like, it's a thing.

I think about looking at ways to move out what areas will be most impacted by coastal flooding.

It's a lot of anxiety that I really don't have an outlet for.

KATHERINE SHAW: I think it was when I started to have a panic attack, literally just chopping vegetables for dinner one day, and it was because I was sitting there ruminating on some terrifying headline that I'd seen that day, it was a full on panic attack with like the not being able to breathe and the, you know, just kind of general shaky feeling.

And I was just like, this is ridiculous.

Like, I'm just trying to make dinner here.

JOHN YANG: The voices of Americans and how climate change is affecting their feelings.

Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology therapist.

She teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is author of "Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change."

Leslie, when does healthy concern about the planet about climate change become this sort of climate anxiety?

LESLIE DAVENPORT, Climate Psychology Therapist: Well, from the emerging field of climate psychology, one thing that's really important to understand is we view distress, upset sadness, grief, anger, about climate change to be a really reasonable, even healthy reaction.

Because it's built into us as people that if we feel risks, threats, experience losses, there's going to be upset.

So it's really important to acknowledge that if you're feeling that on any level of intensity, it really means you're paying attention, you care, you're empathetic to what's happening to our world.

JOHN YANG: But when does it become a problem?

When does it become something that people feel they should go talk to someone about?

LESLIE DAVENPORT: Well, it can certainly grow into something that interferes with functioning in daily life keeps you awake at night, gets in the way of enjoying life, becomes really the predominant concern, high levels of physiological distress racing hearts, intrusive thoughts, it can take many, many forms.

JOHN YANG: Are you ever private practice in the Pacific Northwest Southern California?

Are you seeing more people coming to you talking about this?

LESLIE DAVENPORT: I sure do.

And I sure have, I'd say there's been a big leap in the last five years.

And there are three groups I see the most, one are people working in this field, frontline workers, scientists who are studying this, and recognizing what a dangerous trajectory we're on to our people who have been touched very directly about with big losses, lost their home in the fires in Santa Rosa a couple of years ago, have had to decide if they want to still live in a fire prone area.

And there's a very high level of distress among children and youth.

This is a time when they naturally glance into their future, deciding where they want to live, what they want to do a young adults if they want to start a family, and they're quite upset about the prospects of what their future may entail.

JOHN YANG: This isn't like fear of flying, you're not trying to resolve an anxiety.

So what do you do?

How do you treat this?

LESLIE DAVENPORT: Well, there are several approaches are two main areas.

One is there are lots of tools for processing complex feelings, learning how to calm our nervous system, not getting stuck in obsessive thinking, taking media breaks when necessary.

And so that's a big part of it.

But also we really encourage people to find their own way of becoming part of the solution.

How can each person contribute in some way to creating a healthier, safer world, not only is that something that we all need, but it's empowering to not feel as victimized by what's happening.

JOHN YANG: This is not something new.

You say you've been working on this for I think 20 years or so.

Is the medical community is the mental health community.

aware enough about this and handled, equipped to handle it?

LESLIE DAVENPORT: It's a growing awareness, but we have a long way to go.

At this point, none of the mental health field psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, MDs, are required to have training in the mental health impacts of climate change, and how to work with it effectively.

And so to that extent, if a person seeking support they may or may not end up with a clinician, who is equipped and tuned into what's needed.

I'm confident that will change.

There are workshops and programs popping up here and there, but it hasn't yet become part of the mainstream training and approach.

JOHN YANG: If there are people watching this now who are worried about climate change, but it hasn't quite reached the stage of being something that really affects their lives, their day to day functioning, what would you tell them about how to avoid that how to prevent that from happening, LESLIE DAVENPORT: Talk about it, talk about it to other people who are like minded receptive, I feel that way too, so that it's not as isolating.

If it's hard to find that there are a lot of what are called climate cafes, or climate circles.

That can be found by an easy online search where people just get together often online remotely and just say what they're feeling what they're experiencing what people have found helpful.

JOHN YANG: If someone thinks they have sort of almost crippling climate anxiety, how do they find someone who can help them?

LESLIE DAVENPORT: I would really recommend what's being called the climate aware therapist directory.

Since this training again is not built in yet to the mental health field, there are some therapists who have chosen to have this as a specialization.

JOHN YANG: Climate psychology therapist, Leslie Davenport, thank you very much.

LESLIE DAVENPORT: Thank you.

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Emmy Award winning documentary produced by Lea Thompson at WRC-TV in Washington DC in April 1982. DPT (also called DTP at times) stands for the Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus Vaccines.

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Nigel Farage '' YouTube, Released on 8/6/23

From September 11th Nat West Bank will be limiting the amount of cash that you can deposit and withdraw. They also have the right to refuse cash and even checks on any basis in their new terms & conditions. The banks are trying to force a cashless society upon us!

>>

Nigel Farage is a UKIP Member of Parliament for the South East of England. Elected in 1999, he has used his experience of the EU to increase awareness of its activities back home in the United Kingdom. Nigel was re-elected Leader of the UK Independence Party in November 2010. A firm believer in Independence for the United Kingdom he is a proponent of free speech and has faced considerable hostilities from his political opponents for speaking out in favor of free and fair referendums on the transfer of power from elected politicians to the EU.

Cashless Society, freedom, liberty, nigel farage

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We reported earlier how the US Women's National Team (USWNT) went down to a crushing defeat and are out of the World Cup with an embarrassing round of 16 loss to Sweden, 5-4 on penalties.

Part of the reason they lost was this missed kick from Megan Rapinoe.

BREAKING: Woke US Women's Soccer Humiliation

After winning back-to-back World Cups the heavily favored Team USA has been ELIMINATED by Sweden in the 16th round.

Team USA's downfall was delivered by anti-America, anti-woman activist Megan Rapinoe's EMBARRASSING free kick here 🥴 pic.twitter.com/uO3aDQcYbl

'-- Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 6, 2023

She also smiled after she blew the kick.

Rapinoe described the missed penalty kick in the following way:

It tough to go out like this. You obviously saw my smile after I missed that PK [penalty], it's just like 'that's a sick joke' there's some dark, dark Becky Sauerbruun [injured US captain] humor. But that's the way that the game goes and that's the way that life goes.

As my colleague Bonchie wrote earlier, maybe they should have been more focused on winning than on dancing, as they seemed to be a few days ago, dancing onto the field and talking about their ''big mood.''

But perhaps the capper of the day was when Rapinoe was interviewed at the end of the game, and she was crying. She was asked, since this was the last game of her career, if there was a memory that stood out to her in that moment. Now, some athletes might talk about how their team came together, a great win, or a great play. Not Rapinoe, For her, it was about the money.

After getting the boot from the World Cup Megan Rapinoe was asked what her favorite memory was'...

Her response: ''Equal Pay''pic.twitter.com/c71LH7Cg9w

'-- OutKick (@Outkick) August 6, 2023

''Probably [the] equal pay chance,'' Rapinoe replied. ''This team has always fought for so much more. That's been the most rewarding part for me, of course, playing in World Cups and winning championships, and doing all that, but to know that we've used our really special talent to do something that's really like changed the world forever,'' she said.

Wow, what an answer that is. How bad is it when that's what you say when your team has just lost the World Cup? It just says where her head is, and it doesn't sound like it was in the game.

She was happy they could get paid more. But as my colleague Jim Thompson explained earlier, what this ultimately means is that they're making more off the backs of the men. They cut a collective bargaining deal that means that the women and the men's players are going to split 90 percent of the prize money evenly between all the players. Yet FIFA pays out more for the men's performance, currently four times as much. So this means splitting equally means the men lose money, even though they're the ones who are making more of it. It also means when the women's team does poorly, as they did on Sunday, they hurt all the players' chances to get more money.

So she's happy about getting more because of the men? How does that even sound fair? What do the men truly think about this? I can't imagine it makes them happy when the money is taken right out of their pockets. But collectivism, not based on your own merit, seems right in line with Rapinoe's leftist thought pattern.

Hey, at least they got a cheer from Jill Biden.

.@USWNT, you made this sport matter.

Today, you inspired us with your grit and determination. We are proud of you. Always remember that you encourage women and girls everywhere to show up and fight for their dreams. ðŸ'• https://t.co/1vIkTaZ45n

'-- Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) August 6, 2023

''Today, you inspired us with your grit and determination,'' Biden said. ''We are proud of you. Always remember that you encourage women and girls everywhere to show up and fight for their dreams.'' Was she proud of them when some of them didn't seem proud of America during the National Anthem? Probably, because she's Jill Biden.

Others were more blunt and a little more truthful.

''Your career just ended and you were publicly humiliated in front of the whole world. Can you tell us what's on your mind right now?''

''Yeah'... leftist political causes'' https://t.co/9xxeboYxZF

'-- Kenny Webster (@KennethRWebster) August 6, 2023

Trending on RedState Videos

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Mitch McConnell was humiliated after being drowned out by chants of 'retire' and was booed during a speech in his home state McConnell, 81, did his best to continue through his speech during the Fancy Farm picnic, in Fancy Farm, Kentucky It comes after questions were raised about his ability to do his job after he froze during a press conference last monthBy Joe Hutchison For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 08:38 EDT, 7 August 2023

Mitch McConnell was publicly humiliated on Saturday while attempting to make a speech, as he was drowned out by merciless booing and shouts for him to retire.

The 81-year-old Senate Minority Leader had been speaking at the Fancy Farm picnic, one of Kentucky's main political events.

McConnell had attended the picnic amid recent questions about his health and political future after he froze mid-sentence during a press conference last month.

On Saturday, that sentiment was continued by a large number of people in the audience who booed and jeered the Kentucky native.

In video footage of his speech, McConnell is completely unintelligible as the shouting of 'RETIRE' is head around the room, which then descends into booing.

NEW: Republican Senator Mitch McConnell gets humiliated during a speech as Kentuckians completely drown him out, telling him to 'retire'Mitch McConnell is the definition of 'The Swamp.'

McConnell is 81 years old, has spent nearly 4 decades as a Senator and has a net worth of'... pic.twitter.com/UY29EsTwoF

'-- Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 6, 2023Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during the annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, on Saturday, Aug 5

McConnell does his best to continue through the incessant jeering and according to CNN later told the crowd: 'This is my 28th Fancy Farm and I want to assure you it's not my last.

'The people of this state have chosen me seven times to do this job, and I want you to know how grateful I am.'

On Truth Social, former President Trump also shared the footage from his speech and said: 'I AGREE!'

McConnell froze for twenty seconds late last month while speaking at his leadership briefing, being unable to complete his sentence.

'Are you OK?' asked Sen. John Barrasso, a former orthopedic surgeon and the third most senior Republican in the Senate, as he took his arm. 'Anything else you want to say or should we just go back to your office?'

After a few moments, he guided McConnell away from the lectern towards his office.

Another GOP Senator John Thune carried on with the press conference, before McConnell returned and said: 'I'm fine'.

When a reporter asked if he felt he can fully do his job, McConnell said 'yes' and continued.

It raised fresh questions about his ability to do his job and the advanced age of so many of the nation's political leaders including President Biden.

Aides later said McConnell had been feeling 'light-headed' prior to making his remarks.

Later, McConnell told reporters that the president had called to ask after his well-being.

He said he told Biden he had been 'sandbagged,' a reference to president's quip after stumbling over two sandbags at an Air Force Academy graduation in June.

Former President Trump posted on Sunday night that he believed McConnell should resign from his role

McConnell, left, is assisted by Sen. John Barrasso, second from right, and a Capitol Police officer after the GOP leader froze

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell suddenly stopped talking and had to be walked away from the podium during his press conference

In the weeks leading up to him freezing during the press conference, McConnell had also fallen multiple times.

McConnell had fallen while getting off a plane at Washington's Reagan Airport just a few days prior in a spat of incidents raising concerns about his health.

McConnell has fallen two other times this year, according to multiple reports, one of which resulted in a concussion and has led to speculation over whether he has been neurologically impacted by the spills.

The first fall this year, according to a new CNN report, happened in February while McConnell was in Helsinki with a U.S. delegation. The Kentucky Republican tripped and fell while getting out of his car on a snowy day as he was walking to meet the Finnish president.

Just days later in March, McConnell fell again at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Washington, D.C., leading to a concussion after hitting his head during the tumble.

He also broke some ribs at the hotel and was out of Congress for nearly six weeks recovering.

'It's good to be back,' he said after returning to work. 'Suffice to say, this wasn't the first time being hard-headed has served me very well.'