Oct 11

Today’s News 11th October 2023

  • How Widespread Are Depression, Stress, & Anxiety?
    How Widespread Are Depression, Stress, & Anxiety?

    Yesterday, October 10th, was World Mental Health Day and this year its theme was Mental Health is a Universal Human Right.

    As Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia, explains, this means:

    “Every individual, regardless of their location, occupation, or identity, is entitled to achieve the highest attainable level of mental well-being. This encompasses the entitlement to safeguard oneself from mental health risks, access to mental health care that is readily available, easily accessed, and of high quality, as well as the entitlement to freedom and involvement within their community.”

    While awareness around the topic of mental health has improved significantly in recent years, Statista’s Anna Fleck reports that the WHO states that there is still some way to go in terms of societal attitudes and governmental policies.

    This includes recognizing that mental health overlaps with multiple aspects of life, including education, employment, housing, and social participation and that more work needs to be done to continue to destigmatize mental health issues as well as to further improve access to mental health services and facilities for all.

    The following chart looks at how widespread mental health issues are around the world.

    According to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights, nearly half of the respondents interviewed in Sweden reported having experienced mental health problems such as depression, stress or anxiety in the twelve months prior to the poll.

    Infographic: How Widespread are Depression, Stress and Anxiety? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The share was comparatively lower in countries such as Mexico, India, France and China.

    However, with this data alone it is hard to tell to what extent these figures are reflective of the mental health prevalence in various countries or the degree to which there is social acceptance and discourse around the topic. 

    According to the UN, millions of people worldwide are suffering due to mental health issues and it is estimated that one in four will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 02:45

  • Either Shore-Up Reserve Forces Or Bring Back Conscription, Romanian General Says
    Either Shore-Up Reserve Forces Or Bring Back Conscription, Romanian General Says

    Via Remix News,

    Romania must either rebuild its reserve forces or reintroduce conscription, retired Romanian and NATO General Virgil Bălăceanu has said.

    Bălăceanu, former head of the Multinational Brigade South-East, said on Monday that a law that is absolutely necessary for the replenishment of the Romanian Army reserve has been circulating in the inter-institutional procedure for more than three years.

    The retired army general told Prima News that there is no peacetime army that does not have a reserve and gave the example of Ukraine, which, he said, “would not have survived if it did not have a reserve, which means replenishing the units.”

    According to him, the successful direction is to replenish the reserves, initially through recruitment on a voluntary basis.

    “There is also a need to train the operational reserves, those who completed their military service until 2007. All these issues are included as amendments to the law on preparing the population for defense,” said Bălăceanu.

    “If we do not rebuild the Romanian Army’s reserve on the principles of voluntary service, then we will have to reintroduce compulsory military service, and such a decision cannot be postponed for the next five years,” he warned.

    “Do you think that we will have any political party that in its electoral program will raise the issue of reintroducing compulsory military service? I rule out such a possibility because it would be a disaster in the elections,” Virgil Bălăceanu pointed out.

    He noted, however, that “the parties that win the elections will be obliged, if the Romanian Army does not have its reserves replenished, to decide to reintroduce compulsory military service,” pointing out that Romania currently only has 2,000 voluntary reservists compared to Poland’s 38,000.

    “At present, they are trying to recruit all the young people who have been selected as voluntary reservists,” he said of Warsaw.

    Romania abolished conscription in 2007, but only eight years later, parliament began debating to bring it back. That was tabled due to insufficient political support, but in May the government decided to revisit the issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 10/11/2023 – 02:00

  • Neural Reality – The Ultimate VR – Could Answer The Fermi Paradox
    Neural Reality – The Ultimate VR – Could Answer The Fermi Paradox

    Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClear Wire,

    Scientific skepticism is Dr. Steven Novella’s bread and butter. As president of the New England Skeptics’ Society, his mission is to promote science and critical thinking. Novella casts the light of evidence on a range of complicated topics on his blog and his podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.

    In his latest book, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future, Novella, also a Yale neurologist, looks ahead with a critical eye, attempting to realistically forecast the future rather than falling for the hype that commonly accompanies futurism. Among the panoply of topics he touches upon is the notion of neural reality, which would be the ultimate expression of virtual reality.

    “With neural reality, you don’t have to strap on glasses or deal with issues of safety or a disconnect between the physical and virtual worlds,” he wrote. “Neural reality [uses] a brain-machine interface to directly feed the virtual world into your mind.”

    There would be no clunky headset nor handheld controllers.

    It “completely replaces your sensory input and motor output with a virtual world, while you, for example, lie safely in bed,” he described.

    Neural reality sounds too futuristic to be possible. But Novella, an expert neurologist, says it’s certainly coming.

    “There is no reason to think that this technology is not possible; it is only a question of how long it will take and how good the technology will be.”

    One could imagine this tech being used compassionately at first. People suffering “locked in” syndrome might be the first to use it, followed by quadriplegics. Then it might be the old and infirm who live out their final days in fantastical worlds inside their minds. Eventually, however, neural reality could turn dystopian, or utopian, depending upon how you want to look at it.

    “There’s no question it will be seductive to live in a virtual world where you can have literal godlike power,” Novella commented.

    Eventually, almost everyone might decide to “take the blue pill” and choose to live in neural reality.

    As Novella notes, this may be the answer to the Fermi paradox, which calls attention to the lack of evidence for intelligent alien life despite how common it should be in our Universe. Maybe aliens are safely ensconced underground, being cared for by robots, whilst contentedly dwelling within their own minds.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:40

  • Commonly-Prescribed Antibiotic May Help With Explosion Of Sexually Transmitted Infections: CDC
    Commonly-Prescribed Antibiotic May Help With Explosion Of Sexually Transmitted Infections: CDC

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Health care providers should consider prescribing the antibiotic doxycycline as a way to prevent some sexually transmitted infections (STIs), according to a draft recommendation that was posted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week.

    “The purpose of the proposed guidelines is to provide updated clinical guidance for healthcare providers to inform the use of doxycycline PEP for preventing bacterial STI infections,” the health agency’s document reads, referring primarily to bacterial infections such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

    A worker at the Dexxon pharmacutical plant holds up a package of their Doxylin antibiotics drug in the Israeli town of Or Akiva on Nov. 8, 2001. Doxylin is the trade name for Doxycycline Hydrochloride, one of the three antibiotics effective in combating anthrax infections. (David Silverman/Getty Images)

    The antibiotic “should be implemented in the context of a comprehensive sexual health approach including risk reduction counseling, STI screening and treatment, recommended vaccination, and linkage to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), HIV care, or other services, as appropriate,” according to the draft.

    “Current data suggest overall benefit of the use of doxycycline PEP, but potential risks related to the development of resistance and impacts on the microbiome will need to be closely monitored after implementation of these guidelines,” the CDC stated.

    Doxycycline, which was first developed by Pfizer decades ago and is within the tetracycline spectrum of antibiotics, has been used as a prophylactic against several infectious diseases, including Lyme disease and malaria. It can be used as a first-line treatment for chlamydia and is sometimes used to treat syphilis.

    The public has about 45 days to comment on the proposed rule via the Federal Register’s website.

    Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a CDC official who heads the agency’s division on STIs, told CNN that the health agency would seek public comment because it allows researchers and policymakers “to gather important input before finalizing guidance and gives clinical providers, people affected by STIs, and partner organizations the opportunity to weigh in before … guidance is finalized.”

    “It’s going to take game-changing innovations for us to turn the STI epidemic around. And Doxy-PEP is the first major new prevention intervention we have for STIs in decades,” Dr. Mermin told CBS News last week, noting that his agency will have to also monitor for

    There are gaps in the “long-term monitoring, evaluation, and additional studies” regarding the use of doxycycline, according to the CDC official.

    “There are important questions that remain regarding potential risks,” he said.

    Although health officials say the drug is generally tolerated well, doxycycline can have a range of side effects, including diarrhea or vomiting, rash or itching, changes to the appearance of nails, irritation of the esophagus, loss of taste, and tinnitus. Notably, it can darken the color of one’s skin, teeth, gums, or scars, according to health officials.

    Some have reported that lying down after taking the antibiotic can cause the medication to reflux back into the esophagus, causing irritation or even ulcers.

    STIs Skyrocketing

    STIs have been on the rise across the United States in recent years, according to the CDC. More than 2.5 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were reported in all of 2021, the CDC stated, noting that syphilis rates increased by 32 percent, chlamydia by 4 percent, and gonorrhea by more than 4 percent from 2020 to 2021.

    The CDC’s report states that communities such as “gay and bisexual men and younger people” have been “hit especially hard” by STIs in recent years.

    Months ago, San Francisco’s health department started promoting doxycycline as a prevention measure, according to a report from the Associated Press.

    “We didn’t feel like we could wait,” said Dr. Stephanie Cohen, who oversees the local agency’s STI prevention work.

    Some other city, county, and state health departments, mostly on the West Coast, have since followed suit.

    Earlier this year, local health authorities in Houston issued a warning that syphilis infections are on the rise. The recent increase was attributed to pregnant women, who can pass the bacteria to their unborn babies, the Houston Health Department said in a June statement.

    “It is crucial for pregnant women to seek prenatal care and syphilis testing to protect themselves from an infection that could result in the deaths of their babies,” Marlene McNeese Ward, an assistant director with the Houston health agency, said in the statement at the time. “A pregnant woman needs to get tested for syphilis three times during her pregnancy.”

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:20

  • Mexico Threatens Diplomatic Action As Texas Border Security Delays 19,000 Trucks
    Mexico Threatens Diplomatic Action As Texas Border Security Delays 19,000 Trucks

    Authored by Rashi Varshney via The Epoch Times,

    Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced that he will send a diplomatic note to the U.S. regarding Texas’s border cargo inspections that are causing significant delays to U.S.-bound traffic.

    Mr. Obrador said that 19,000 trucks carrying goods worth $1.9 billion have been impacted by the increased security.

    He criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision, denouncing it as both irresponsible and “politically motivated,” accusing Mr. Abbott of exploiting the illegal immigration crisis for political gain.

    The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) initiated “enhanced commercial vehicle safety inspections” on Sept. 19 in the vicinity of El Paso and Del Rio to combat illegal activities including drug and human smuggling, and to identify unsafe vehicles.

    In September, Mr. Abbott declared an “invasion” at the southern U.S. border, attributing the surge in illegal immigration to President Joe Biden’s policies. He had announced the deployment of the National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement to address the crisis.

    Mr. Abbott shared his declaration on X, formerly Twitter, on Sept. 20, emphasising the state’s efforts to secure the border and the safety of Texan residents, by completing the border wall, and installing razor wire and marine barriers.

    Mexico’s Freight Transport Chamber Protests

    Mexico’s national freight transport chamber, the National Chamber of Cargo Transportation (CANACAR), said on Sunday that it joins the concerns of different sectors in Mexico’s north regarding the crisis that continues on the border between Mexico and Texas due to the unilateral decision of Texas to impose inspections on Mexican trucks seeking to cross into the state.

    “It has been 21 days since Governor Greg Abbott’s administration made the decision to stop the flow of units traveling over the three bridges that divide the Ciudad Juárez region with El Paso, Texas,” the group said in a statement.

    It added that in this period, CANACAR has a record backlog of at least 19,000 trucks that have not been able to cross the border, with $1.9 billion in merchandise being stranded at the border. This has already generated a serious impact on trade between Mexico and the United States, the complaint said.

    Trucks wait in a long queue to cross into the United States after the Texas Department of Public Safety announced increased security checks at the international ports of entry into Texas, at the Zaragoza-Ysleta border crossing bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 9, 2022. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

    The CANACAR in its statement urged the Texas government to revoke its measure, which it said hampers the region’s development and jeopardizes tens of thousands of jobs in both Mexico and the United States.

    The Mexico’s freight transport chamber also dubbed the measure by Texas as “absurd” and said that the presence of elements of the Texas Department of Security at border crossings and the implementation of review operations has caused lane closures, and increased crossing times by up to 24 hours.

    According to figures from the Ministry of Economy, Mexico is the largest buyer of Texas exports. In 2021, the value of trade in goods with Mexico amounted to $231 billion, with 400,000 jobs relying on these exchanges.

    Border Crisis

    There has been an ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border related to unvetted immigration, which has surged to 2,860,127 unvetted immigrated entering the United States in FY2023, as per the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). These figures significantly surpass the 2020 figure of 646,822 and even the previous high of 2,766,582 seen in 2022.

    The Biden administration has faced criticism from Mr. Abbott for failing to secure Texas’s border.

    “President Biden’s reckless open border policies have created an ongoing crisis at our southern border as record levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs, and weapons pour into Texas,” his office has said.

    In response to the unsustainable crisis, for which Texas has long born the brunt, in 2021, Mr. Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, deploying the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to the southern border.

    “Operation Lone Star personnel work around-the-clock to detect and repel illegal crossings, arrest human smugglers and cartel gang members, and stop the flow of deadly drugs and weapons into our nation. While the federal government ignores this crisis, Texas is holding the line,” its website says.

    However, most recently, in a notable policy shift, the Biden administration declared on Oct. 5 the urgent need to expedite the construction of the U.S.–Mexico border wall in Starr County, Texas, citing to the significant rise in illegal immigration.

    Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the waiving of 26 federal regulations to fast-track the construction of roads and barriers along the southern border in Texas.

    These new barriers will be erected within the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, specifically in areas marked as “high illegal entry” zones. Construction will take place near Falcon Dam, the Arroyo Morteros Tract, Las Ruinas Tract, Arroyo Ramirez Tract, key intersections like Perez Road and U.S. Highway 83, and multiple tracts within the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

    Mr. Abbott had criticized the Biden administration’s failure to adopt such border policies sooner, but instead having rolled back Trump-era policies and measures like the border wall construction, which the governor said has led to unprecedented illegal immigration numbers.

    In the beginning of 2021, the Biden administration ceased the ongoing border wall construction initiated by former President Donald Trump.

    On Oct. 4, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said from a Mexico visit that the United States and Mexico share a “mutual responsibility” regarding the current crises of fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration that must be tackled through cooperation between the two countries.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 23:00

  • Lindsey Graham Says "Only Way" To Keep Hamas-Israel From Escalating Is To Attack Iran's Oil
    Lindsey Graham Says “Only Way” To Keep Hamas-Israel From Escalating Is To Attack Iran’s Oil

    Republican Senator Lindsey Graham apparently isn’t worried about the price of oil.

    The hawkish Senator took to Fox News earlier this week, amidst the Hamas attacks on Israel, and immediately called for the U.S. to strike Iran and, specifically, the country’s oil refineries. Graham said on the air that Iran “planned” the attack on Israel. 

    “Well, for every Israeli or American hostage executed by Hamas, we should take down an Iranian oil refinery. The only way you’re going to keep this war from escalating is to hold Iran accountable,” Graham said on Fox News. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    He continued: “How much more death and destruction do we have to take from the Iranian regime? I am confident this was planned and funded by the Iranians. Hamas is a bunch of animals who deserve to be treated like animals. So if I was Israel, I would go in on the ground. There is no truce to be had here. I would dismantle Hamas. This is the best opportunity Israel has to destroy Hamas. Take it to the Iranians.”

    He concluded: “If you harm one American in Syria by using your Iranian militia against us in Syria, if you escalate the war by urging Hezbollah to attack Israel in the north, if Hamas kills one American Israeli hostage, we’re going to blow up your oil refineries and put you out of business. It is now time to take the war to the Ayatollah’s backyard.”

    Graham also later said that the U.S. could “reset the world” by saying to Iran “if you escalate any more attacks coming from Iran, we’re coming after you,” according to Newsweek. 

    “If there is an escalation in this conflict, if hostages start getting killed, if Hezbollah in the north attacks Israel in strength, we should tell the Ayatollah we will destroy your oil refineries and your oil infrastructure,” he reiterated in a subsequent interview on Monday, according to The Hill. “We will put you out of business. Without money coming from Iran and weapons coming from the Iranians, Hamas will be nothing. Hezbollah will be nothing.”

    On The Hill’s NewsNation on Monday, he added: “This is an Israeli ‘9/11,’ it couldn’t have happened without a lot of money and technology and weapons. So it’s time to hold them accountable. The escalation of the conflict should result in a joint attack on the Iranian oil infrastructure to put them out of business.”

    “They [Iran] are religious Nazis. Listen to the language coming from the Ayatollah and his henchmen. They want to purify Islam in their own image. Saudi Arabia is at risk here. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to kill all of the Jews and come after us.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:40

  • 2023 Is US' Lowest Wildfire Year Since 2000
    2023 Is US’ Lowest Wildfire Year Since 2000

    Via Cliff Mass Weather blog,

    Being well into October and with a train of very wet weather systems approaching, we can be confident that most wildfire activity is over this year over the Northwest U.S.   There are no active fires over Washington State today.

    The good news is that this was a very benign wildfire year for the entire U.S..

    In fact, the lowest wildfire acreage since 2000 (see below).  You will note little evidence of a long-term trend.

    Here in Washington State, the Department of Natural Resources is responsible for a large proportion of the burnable area of the State.  2023 is running way below the average for acreage burned (red line is average).  Again, no obvious upward trend.

    What about the biggest fire state of the western U.S.: California?  This year was the second lowest in ten years!  And last year was equally low.

    And what about monthly particulate/smoke levels for the past five years?  According to Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, things are getting better!  Note the outlier during September 2020.

    Do these numbers surprise you?   They are reality.  But if you follow the media and some activist groups, the wildfire threat is getting worse very quickly, with global warming being the major cause! 

    Of course, there is no group that exaggerates wildfire threats more than the Seattle Times and their cartoonist, David Horsey (see below).   I do wonder why his wildfire monster wears sunglasses.

    You should not be surprised that the wildfire threat has stayed tame over the last few years and probably won’t accelerate during the years ahead.

    Let me give you several reasons:

    1.  Global warming for all the hype and exaggeration is quite modest at this point….the western U.S. has warmed up by roughly 2F over the past half century with very little change in precipitation.  Not enough to profoundly alter the fire situation.

    2.  The areas that have burned during the past decades will enjoy suppressed fire potential for a while.

    3.  Many of the wildfires in the western U.S.  during the past decade were caused by failing electrical infrastructure.  After severe impacts on their bottom lines, many power companies (like PG&E) are hardening their powerlines and turning off power when strong winds are predicted.

    4.  After much delay or insufficient efforts,  states are getting more serious about restoring forests, using approaches such as thinning and prescribed burning.  This reduces the potential for catastrophic fire.

    5.  Fire management policy changes allowed more fires to burn in previous decades and contributed to more fires and smoke.

    The bottom line is that all the scary talk about rapidly rising wildfire threats in our future is really not based on solid facts, and reality is going a different way. 

    How many other scary and unfounded predictions have gone viral in the public space?  That communists were taking over the universities and government in the 1950s?  That Vietnam was a domino requiring intervention?  That weapons of mass destruction were hidden in Iraq?    We seem to love believing in apocalyptic predictions, whether or not factual information supports them?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:20

  • Stop Feeding The Polarization Beast
    Stop Feeding The Polarization Beast

    Authored by Alison Dagnes via RealClear Wire,

    A new academic year has begun, as is evident from the smell of Xeroxed paper in the hallways and the excitement of college freshmen who are new to our classrooms. These first weeks are glorious: students are cheerful and optimistic, believing that this will be the year of straight A’s and good times. The professors are generally happy, too, having spent at least part of the summer away from campus, believing that this is the year where there will be no plagiarism, only enthusiastic class participation and completed reading assignments.

    These first few weeks are always so hopeful and expectant. Then the first exams hit, and spirits are murdered en masse, like a “Law and Order” marathon but with fewer attorneys.

    That’s the way it normally is, anyway – but as we’re often told, these are unprecedented times. This fall of 2023, the spirit-killing happened way too quickly in my American Politics classrooms, something I noted when a first-year student took my proffered syllabus, met my smile with a grimace, and asked: “Do we, like, have to talk about politics in this class?”

    My student is not alone in her political distaste, as evidenced by recent polling data from Pew that reports a majority of Americans are “exhausted” when thinking about politics. Even worse, the Pew data show that the percentage of Americans who are excited by politics is a microscopic 4%. That’s lower than the percentage of Americans who hate ice cream (7%)! On the plus side, it’s higher than the percentage of people who don’t like dogs (2%). In any case, the number is depressing to consider for those of us who are unrelenting cheerleaders for democracy.

    The bottom lines are these: Elections are important. Elections have consequences. The American experiment of a democratic republic is teetering now, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation where everyone needs to chip in, or the whole thing is going to fall apart. Unfortunately, these bottom lines are increasingly difficult to sell to the general public, which can avoid bad information with a thumb swipe.

    The theory known as “news avoidance” describes a segment of the public who, after being deluged with so much content and information, unplugs from the news. Reuters conducts an annual survey of global news trends and has found that the percentage of American news avoiders is growing. Its 2023 report stated that the percentage of Americans who are “passive consumers,” or avoiders of the news, has grown to 51%.

    Let’s unpack that number, because being a “passive consumer” is about the same as total abstention.

    Thanks to technology, even those who want to dodge the news will still get bits of information from story fragments that seep into their feeds. These servings can come from reliably sourced journalism, or spicy stories that may or may not be true, or scary misinformation from well-meaning friends, or shady disinformation that originates from truly bad-intentioned actors. Regardless of the information quality, everyone who receives these news bits is getting them without context or perspective.

    This is where our hyper-polarized, deeply personal, and furious political system becomes repugnant for my students and, apparently, for the majority of Americans who used the words “divisive” and “corrupt” to describe U.S. politics. The political stories most people hear are actually slivers of information that pierce their news avoidance because they are the loudest and most sensational bits.

    Our current political media system feeds this beast. When politics moves from policy debates to a fight about individuals, the discourse becomes a cheapened binary. Nuance takes time, but sledgehammer invectives are much easier – and much more effective as clickbait.

    This is not just about Biden and Trump; seemingly every election in 2024 will be a negative referendum on a single person. Will you vote against Doug Mastriano if he runs? Will you vote George Santos out of office? Will you send Joe Biden and his “crime family” packing? Our elections have become one-dimensional unpopularity contests.

    No wonder only 4% of those polled are excited about the elections. Only the most engrossed and outraged citizens dig into these fights, and politicians cater to this subset of seething voters instead of the broader public. This is where, as The Bulwark’s Tim Miller writes, politics becomes fan service, where politicians just play the hits. Our political climate right now is toxic, so the greatest hits are chock full of emotion. In an effort to break through the noise, these politicians continue to amplify their well-worn messages of negative partisanship, panic, and ire. And that’s what’s seen and heard by all those Americans who are already trying to avoid the news because it’s so angry and contentious.  

    So, that’s not good.

    The answer, however, is fairly straightforward. We all have to refuse the (click) bait that’s offered to us and read news to become informed, rather than enraged. Instead of letting bits and bites of politics and news seep into our brains when we’re not looking, maybe a sober news review will help us assess the real problems we face.

    In short, we must resist the temptation for fire and fury and opt instead for equilibrium. We need to change the words we use to describe politics – and the only way to do that is to dismiss the pull of negative emotions.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 22:00

  • These Are America's Richest Men & Women In 2023
    These Are America’s Richest Men & Women In 2023

    Elon Musk has topped the Forbes 400 2023 list of the richest people in America, which was published on Tuesday.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, the 52-year-old Tesla and SpaceX cofounder was reported to have a net worth amounting to $251 billion, as of September 8.

    Musk has some $90 billion more than the second richest person in the United States, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (59), who owns $161 billion. Rounding off the top five are software giant Oracle founder Larry Ellison (79) with $158 billion, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett (93) with $121 billion and Google’s Larry Page (50) with $114 billion.

    While a gender divide still exists among the U.S.’ wealthiest, with the first of the country’s richest women coming in 14th place on the list, females are still making extremely high figures.

    Walmart’s Alice Walton (73) tops the women’s roundup, with a net worth of $66.5 billion in 2023. She is followed by Julia Koch (61) of Koch Industries with $59.8 billion, who alongside her three children inherited a 42 percent stake from her late husband, David. Jacqueline Mars (83), who owns an estimated one-third of the candy, food and pet care firm Mars, then ranks third place for richest women and 19th place for richest Americans with $38.9 billion.

    Infographic: America's Richest Men and Women in 2023 | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to Forbes, the top 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. are worth a combined $4.5 trillion.

    Of these, the top 20 are worth roughly $1.9 trillion altogether. Analysts highlight that these 20 are 30 percent richer than they were one year ago.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 21:40

  • Brutal: RFK Jr's Own Siblings "Denounce" Him And Endorse Biden
    Brutal: RFK Jr’s Own Siblings “Denounce” Him And Endorse Biden

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    As he announced that he will be running for President as an independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s own siblings have thrown him under the bus and endorsed Joe Biden, labelling their brother as “dangerous” to America.

    Within view of where the first and only independent candidate to win the American presidency helped establish the new country’s government, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Oct. 9 and told supporters he believes he will take a similar path to the White House.

     “Today, we are turning a new page in American politics,” Mr. Kennedy said after making the expected announcement that he will run for president as an independent in the 2024 election and depart the Democratic Party’s primary.

    “There have been independent candidates before. But this time is different. This time, the independent is going to win,” Mr. Kennedy said.

    “Three-fourths of Americans believe President Biden is too old to govern effectively. President Trump faces multiple civil and criminal trials. Both have favorability ratings deep in negative territory,” he said.

    “That is what two-party politics has given us, and that is why we need to pry loose the hammerlock of corrupt power over Washington D.C. and make this nation ours again.”

    But his siblings were furious, as he suspected they would be:

    “It is painful for me to let go of the party of my uncles, my father, of my grandfather, and of both of my great-grandfathers—John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, Boston’s first Irish Catholic mayor, and Patrick Kennedy, a Boston ward boss—who, together, launched my family’s political dynasty more than a century ago,” Mr. Kennedy explained.

    “But my sacrifice is nothing compared to the risk our founding fathers took when they signed the Declaration of Independence 247 years ago right over there,” Mr. Kennedy continued, pointing to Independence Hall.

    “What really terrifies the elites, though, is not me. It is what I represent—a populist movement that defies the left-right division,” Mr. Kennedy continued, and his siblings were quick to respond.

    In a statement posted on Twitter/X, Kerry Kennedy, Rory Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend claims that while their brother has the Kennedy name, he does not share the Kennedy “values, vision, or judgement.”

    They further announced that RFK Jr’s announcement is “deeply saddening” for them and that they all “denounce his candidacy.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Brutal.

    There is somewhat expansive irony in the Kennedy siblings waxing about ‘values and judgement’ while endorsing Joe Biden, as social media made clear…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Related:

    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Summit Vitamins – super charge your health and well being.

    Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 21:20

  • Long COVID Might Be Diagnosed With Nearly 100 Percent Accuracy: Study
    Long COVID Might Be Diagnosed With Nearly 100 Percent Accuracy: Study

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A simple blood test may finally provide answers for the millions struggling with long-COVID symptoms.

    (Smit/Shutterstock)

    New research published in Nature reveals distinct biomarkers in patients with the complex condition, allowing a machine learning algorithm to diagnose it correctly nearly every time.

    “This is the first paper of many findings where we’re seeing clear abnormalities between a healthy control population and folks with long COVID,” the study’s principal investigator, David Putrino, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience and is a professor of rehabilitation and human performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, told The Epoch Times.

    How Does AI Spot Long COVID in Blood Samples?

    The findings offer hope of objective confirmation to long-COVID sufferers, who represent about 6 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many have faced doubts that their persistent fatigue, brain fog, and pain after COVID-19 infection are real.

    Mr. Putrino and his team analyzed around 270 patients from three locations—The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Union Square, and Yale School of Medicine—between January 2021 and June 2022.

    They divided participants into three groups: those with no prior COVID infection, those who fully recovered, and those with long-COVID symptoms for at least four months after infection.

    Researchers had all patients complete questionnaires about symptoms, medical history, and health-related quality of life and give blood samples to identify biomarker differences.

    A machine learning algorithm was applied to determine which biomarkers best identified long COVID. The questionnaire data were then fed to the program.

    The algorithm differentiated between those with and without long COVID with 96 percent accuracy, detecting unique features in long-COVID patients’ blood. The biggest differences involved abnormal immune cell activity, reactivated dormant herpes viruses like Epstein-Barr, and reduced cortisol levels.

    The findings show promise for objectively identifying the “constellation of immune cells” diagnostic for long COVID, Dr. Thomas Gut, director of the Post-COVID Recovery Center at Northwell Staten Island University Hospital in New York, told The Epoch Times. “Serological markers could be a huge step toward confirming long COVID versus other complications,” he added.

    The data also raise questions about COVID’s role in awakening other viruses, Dr. Gut noted. “This data does suggest that there be a link between these viruses.”

    Is It Long COVID or Something Else?

    A recent analysis in the British Medical Journal by researchers from the UK, Denmark, and the United States found significant flaws in long-COVID scientific literature. Previous studies may have overestimated prevalence due to broad definitions and lack of control groups, potentially feeding public anxiety and misdiagnosis.

    “There is a need for better case definitions and more stringent [long-COVID] criteria,” the authors wrote.

    Mr. Putrino’s findings offer clinicians guidance for confirming long COVID.

    Rather than a general battery with normal results, doctors will be able to target specific symptoms, according to Mr. Putrino. “We can look at hormonal health. We can run a detailed hormone battery. We can run a detailed immune battery. And we can look for evidence of co-infection,” he said, noting that the study also enables doctors to find the exact problem and treat it with medications.

    It’s Not in Your Head: Long COVID Is a Real Disease

    This new research could offer a way to distinguish long COVID from psychological distress caused by COVID-19 itself. Mr. Putrino emphasized the key takeaway is that long COVID is not a functional disorder without physical signs.

    “We’re not looking at a psychosomatic condition,” he said. “We’re seeing very, very clear evidence that this is an infection-associated complex chronic illness, and this study proves it.”

    A study published in February in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research finds “substantial” evidence suggesting a role for psychological mechanisms in long COVID. The researchers pointed out that it’s well-established that psychological distress isn’t only a symptom but also a risk factor of long COVID, noting that higher levels of personal resilience were associated with lower severity of the condition.

    What Comes Next?

    The eventual design of a blood test for diagnosing long COVID will most likely necessitate the use of machine learning software and further research, Mr. Putrino said.

    The test wouldn’t offer a straightforward yes or no answer due to the diverse symptoms experienced by different patients, he noted. Instead, the test would involve analyzing various factors and symptoms, creating a nuanced approach to accurately identify long-COVID cases based on the amalgamation of these findings.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:40

  • "Your Position Is Clear" – Musk Slams Terrorist-Supporting BLM Posts
    “Your Position Is Clear” – Musk Slams Terrorist-Supporting BLM Posts

    This is going to get awkward for a lot of virtue-signalers…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    At least two Black Lives Matters (BLM) groups have made statements on X, formerly known as Twitter, supporting Hamas – the terrorist group responsible for the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis (including women and babies).

    The first BLM group (@blmgrassroots) issued a lengthy statement proclaiming, among other things, that “when a people has been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned but understood as a desperate act of self-defense.” The statement did not include any criticism of Hamas or its tactics.

    We used a screenshot of the tweet since we suspect this will be deleted very quickly.

    This should not be a surprise since Melina Abdullah, the co-director of the group, has been accused of antisemitism, according to InfluenceWatch. But, if you thought that was a little distasteful, here is what BLM’s Chicago affiliate tweeted.

    Again, we used a screenshot of the tweet since we suspect this will be deleted very quickly.

    It doesn’t get much clearer than that – BLM ‘standing with’ paragliding terrorists who killed hundreds of innocent Israeli concertgoers (as the community note makes it clear) .

    Ultimately, Elon Musk – who has repeatedly been accused of anti-semitism by the Anti-Defamation League, which in turn has frequently supported BLM in the past – made it very clear how he feels about their comment…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Still don’t see it – maybe this tweet will help clarify things…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Presumably the following companies will be demanding their money back, all $99 billion of it, and will promptly cease any and all donations to BLM-affliliated groups and issue a statement of regret for their prior support…

    • Bank of America: $18.5 million
    • BlackRock: $810 million.
    • Adidas: $120 million.
    • Amazon: $169.5 million.
    • American Express: $50 million.
    • Apple: $100 million.
    • IBM: $252 million.
    • Kellogg: $91 million.
    • Microsoft: $244.6 million.
    • PGA Tour: $100 million.
    • Warner Bros. Discovery: $115 million.
    • etc…

    Source

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Also, Jonathan Greenblatt and the Anti-Defamation League have been awkwardly quiet in their rebuke of BLM…

    However, that may leave Mr.Greenblatt with a problem, given that Israel Hayom reported last year that a Fox News investigation found that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s educational and “anti-bias” programs, which influence millions of American children, educators and officials, promote far-left and critical race theory (CRT) concepts including “white privilege” and “systemic racism,” and promote groups such as the Women’s March and BLM – despite those organizations or their leaders’ virulent Jew-hating, Israel-hating and pro-Farrakhan positions. 

    This problem a longstanding. 

    Six years ago, ZOA documented that multiple ADL educational lesson plans: encouraged students to join BLM protests in Ferguson (the same protests that demanded ending Israel’s existence, calling Israel an apartheid genocidal state); promoted BLM while ignoring the BLM/M4BL organizations’ antisemitism and antisemitic platform; and repeated numerous BLM false claims.

    The list of critiques of ADL includes:

    • ADL sought to defund and remove the tax exemptions from three pro-Israel organizations (including prominent Christian Zionist group PTNJ).

    • ADL hired an outreach director who justified anti-Israel terrorism; said Jews need to “repent for Gaza’s dead”; and, after Black extremists murdered innocent Jews in Jersey City, blamed Black antisemitism on “Jewish landlords, and pawnbrokers and small merchants” and on “systemic racism” against Blacks.

    • ADL’s Black History Month celebration featured an Israel-hating BDS activist.

    • After Ilhan Omar tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”, and gave an insulting “non-apology,” claiming she reacted to Israeli “oppression,” Greenblatt praised Ilhan Omar, saying: “Hats off to Rep Omar for her honest apology & commitment to a more just world.”

    • ADL opposed Israel’s anti-BDS law banning BDS activists from entering Israel, which was upheld by Israel’s courts.  Furthermore, in 2018, ADL said that Israel should allow antisemitic boycott activist, SJP-BDS hate group president and terrorism supporter Lara Alqasem to enter Israel.

    • In September 2020, ADL co-signed a full-page New York Times advertisement promoting the antisemitic Israel-bashing BLM.  ADL signed just four months after BLM burned, defaced and looted Los Angeles Jewish synagogues, schools and businesses; and despite BLM/M4BL falsely accusing Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing, training US police to murder Blacks, etc.

    We look forward to Greenblatt’s appearance on CNBC to clear up any confusion.

    Maybe Matt Walsh was on to something…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    *  *  *

    Bonus BLM Tweet (from the UK)…

    *  *  *

    And while we are at it, anyone remember this?

    Presumably, Google and its ad-services will have already contacted all BLM-affiliated groups and banned them for ‘policy violations’ (which we assume includes, supporting baby-killing terrorists?)

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    And now we wait for this epic SNAFU by the deep state’s favorite on-demand riot organization (whose activity tends to peak 3-6 months prior to presidential elections) to force the FBI to conclude that BLM is yet another white-supremacist terrorist organization…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:20

  • Americans Searching "Will I Get Drafted To War" Hits Highest Level Since Iraq 2007 Surge Amid WW3 Threat
    Americans Searching “Will I Get Drafted To War” Hits Highest Level Since Iraq 2007 Surge Amid WW3 Threat

    Geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has warned that the world is teetering on the edge of a war cycle that could last many years. Nenner may be correct: The Ukraine war has been ongoing for 1.7 years, and just days ago, Hamas invaded Israel, sparking yet another dangerous geopolitical powder keg exploding right before our very eyes. 

    On Saturday, former President Trump told the crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that the US is “closer to World War III than we’ve ever been.” 

    “I’m telling you, we are closer to World War III,” Trump said, warning that another conflict could use “weaponry the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    On Tuesday, Israeli officials said the country’s death toll exceeded 1,000 from the ‘surprise attacks’ by Hamas that began on Saturday. In Gaza and the West Bank, authorities report 850 people have been killed in fighting there. 

    “It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield, it’s a massacre,” IDF Major General Itai Veruv was quoted as saying. “You see the babies, their mothers and their fathers, in their bedrooms, and in their protected rooms, and how the terrorists killed them — it’s not a war.”

    “It’s something that I never saw in my life,” Veruv said. “We used to imagine our grandmothers and grandfathers during the pogroms in Europe. It’s not something that we have seen in recent history.”

    While the horrific scenes of the Hamas attack have gone viral on X for the world to see, some Americans are panic-searching if they will be drafted as the conflict in the Middle East and Eastern Europe could spiral out of control. 

    Google search data shows that “Will I get drafted to war?” has jumped above the Feb. 2022 high when Russia invaded Ukraine and hit the highest level since former President George Bush announced the troop surge in Iraq in early 2007. 

    “How old do you have to be to get drafted to war?” is another search phrase on the rise. 

    Let’s hope America’s military is combat-ready. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Maybe Charles Nenner is correct: “This war cycle is going to be bad, and I’ll tell you why.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 20:00

  • Waste Of The Day: Nevada Sitting On $91 Million Meant To Help Homeowners
    Waste Of The Day: Nevada Sitting On $91 Million Meant To Help Homeowners

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Wire,

    While homeowners in Nevada receive foreclosure notices and risk losing their homes, the state has only used a small portion of the $120 million the U.S. Treasury Department allocated to help people avoid foreclosure.

    Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation, a small nonprofit, gets the federal funds and is supposed to pay banks directly to bring mortgages current, ProPublica reported.

    But its slow pace at enrolling people in need and paying those delinquent mortgages ranks Nevada 43rd among the states for getting money to homeowners.

    At the end of the first quarter, Treasury reported that the nonprofit had distributed $17 million — less than 14% of the funds — and as of Aug. 15, according to NAHAC’s data, Nevada had distributed an additional $12 million.

    A federal audit found that previous leadership at Nevada Affordable Housing Assistance Corporation “had squandered federal aid to homeowners caught up in the 2008 foreclosure crisis,” ProPublica reported. It’s unclear, other than new leadership, why the same organization would be entrusted to run a $120 million program.

    The program continues to have issues, including making timely payments to banks, while homeowners continue to receive foreclosure notices on loans they thought were being paid.

    One woman who got a few partial mortgage payments from the program, Shirley Geraci, said when she told the nonprofit that she was getting foreclosure notices, the organization was unable to tell her how much it had paid her bank and why the payment hadn’t been applied to her account, and it wouldn’t provide anything in writing.

    Geraci and her daughter were unsure whether they’d even try to continue getting more aid.

    The states are “flying by the seat of their pants” to run the program and “people are suffering,” she said.

     The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:40

  • Mental Health Is The Top Health Concern Among Americans
    Mental Health Is The Top Health Concern Among Americans

    A 2023 Ipsos survey has found that mental health is now the chief health concern among U.S. adults, surpassing the coronavirus, obesity and cancer.

    As Statista’a Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, 53 percent of U.S. respondents said that they thought mental health was the biggest health problem facing people in their country as of August this year, up from 51 percent in 2022.

    Infographic: Mental Health Is the Top Health Concern Among Americans | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Where the coronavirus had been considered the biggest health problem by roughly two thirds of U.S. respondents through the pandemic, perceptions of the danger of the virus have now curtailed to just 15 percent of respondents considering it the most serious health issue – lower than the rates for obesity (30 percent), cancer (29 percent) and even stress (18 percent).

    According to the survey data, this trend is not unique to the U.S.

    Across the 31 countries polled by Ipsos as part of the Global Health Service Monitor, an average of 44 percent of people said that mental health was the top health concern facing their country. This was followed by cancer (40 percent), stress (30 percent), obesity (25 percent) and drug abuse (22 percent).

    Sweden and Chile stood out for reporting particularly high levels of concern around mental health in 2023 (at 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively).

    Meanwhile, cancer was the most cited health concern in India (59 percent), obesity in Mexico (62 percent) and stress in South Korea (44 percent).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:20

  • The Navy And Diversity
    The Navy And Diversity

    Authored by Brent Ramsey via RealClear Wire,

    In recent years, the Navy has put a lot of emphasis on “Diversity”.   If you visit the Navy’s recruiting website, www.navy.com, on the first page it has an entry, “Who we are”.  When you access that page, it contains three entries:

       Women in the Navy:  With a picture of five women sailors at sea.

       Diversity and Equity:  With a picture of a black female sailor in the foreground.

       Reserve:  With a picture of a black male sailor looking out over the sea.

    Under “THE NAVY’S COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY & EQUITY” it says, “Why are diversity and equity important to the Navy?”, followed by this statement: “We believe that leveraging our diversity is the key to reaching the Navy’s peak potential, both as a workplace and as a defense force. We also believe that when leaders tap into the energy and capability of an actively inclusive team, we achieve top performance. We know that different perspectives shine light into our blind spots, illuminating what we wouldn’t otherwise see.”  No evidence is provided proving diversity has any connection with warfighting success.  The statement is one of wishful thinking.  The fact is there is a dearth of evidence that diversity has anything to do with warfighting effectiveness and lethality.  If readers know of such evidence, I would love to hear about it.

    The Navy has a diversity policy statement.   It says: “The Department of the Navy (DON) is fully committed to creating and maintaining an environment which supports Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). The DON understands that its strength is dependent upon its people and the different perspectives, talents, and abilities they bring to the workplace. Prevailing today and adapting to the emerging security environment of tomorrow necessitates the continued attraction of our nation’s increasingly inclusive and diverse workforce. The DON is committed to the inclusion of our diverse collection of Sailors, Marines, and Civilians into all aspects of the organization’s operations. Successfully including all personnel creates an environment that motivates innovation and provides fresh perspectives, which allows the DON to reach its maximum warfighting potential. Practicing D&I principles allows the DON to fully leverage the wealth of knowledge, experience, and perspectives from all of our people. The DON’s core values-Honor, Courage, and Commitment-reinforce our promise to respect others and provide equal opportunity for all people. Our commitment to each other is second to none, and we must match our dedication to an inclusive environment that assures the success of our core mission. Therefore, I ask every Sailor, Marine, and Civilian to join me in ensuring our workforce actively includes all perspectives in order to harness the powerful benefits of D&I.”  Again, no evidence is presented that a diverse force is more effective, more lethal to our enemies.  This is an example of pandering to the political left with no substance about how to achieve the goal of more diversity nor proof that attaining that diversity makes the Navy more dangerous to our enemies.

    The Navy stood up an organization, Task Force One Navy (TF1N), In July 2020 with great fanfare to examine diversity and how to achieve it.  At its creation, the Navy had 8% black officers.[i]  The 2022 DOD Military Demographics Report shows the Navy now at 7.9% black officers.   The TF1N report had dozens of recommendations about how the Navy would improve the number of minority officers.  The only conclusion that can be reached by this outcome after more than 2 years is that the Navy is clueless about what it takes to attract more minorities to the Navy.  Maybe enticing more minorities to the Navy is more than cliques about diversity and inclusion. 

    At the United States Naval Academy (USNA), the premier educational institution for training career naval officers, there is an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion headed by a CAPT with a staff of 5, all black.  What possible purpose could this office serve?  Those selected for USNA are already there, selected by the admissions staff based on the criteria established by the Navy for attendance.  The Navy’s thumb is already on the admissions scale in favor of two elite groups coveted by the Academy for two entirely different reasons.  The first group are the elite athletes who get in for their athletic prowess not their test scores or GPA.  This group already has a high percentage of minorities, a necessity to attempt to be successful in the elite sports like football and basketball.  This phenomenon of the USNA competing in Division I sports is entirely superfluous to training naval officers and only serves to pander to the alumni who desire such prestige sports to be provided by their alma mater.   The second group are certain minorities who get in because the standards for black and Hispanic minorities are lower than the standards for whites and Asians.  We know for a fact that standards for certain minorities are lower from the statements made by the U.S. Solicitor General’s statement to the Supreme Court arguing in favor of racial preferences for the military in the SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC cases.  Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices on Oct. 31. “So, it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps. And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies.”  She offered this statement without proof that diversity adds to the lethality or effectiveness of our nation’s fighting forces.

    The impression left of these glimpses of the Navy described above is one of pandering, of painting a false image of the Navy to attempt to appeal to women and minorities to join, to convince the public and potential recruits that the Navy is politically correct. 

    Part 2

    The dictionary defines diversity as, “the state or fact of being diverse:  difference: unlikeness.  Another definition and the one the Navy is presumably alluding to is: “the inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, etc.”

    By policy and recruiting emphasis, the Navy tells you exactly what diversity they want.  First and foremost, they want skin color diversity.  How do we know this aside from the pictures at the recruiting website?  Because Task Force One Navy (TF1N) was all about attracting more blacks, Hispanics, and native Americans to Navy officer ranks only.  The report documents clearly that the Navy is already overrepresented in enlisted minorities.[ii]  Thus, its laser focus is promotion of the idea that the Navy needs more black and Hispanic officers although the preeminent emphasis seems to be for more black officers.  Why this conclusion?  On Admiral Gilday’s CNO watch he urged all hands to read How to be an Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi.  Kendi, is an avowed racist based on his own words.  He openly advocates for racism against whites and for the supremacy of blacks.  Kendi is an advocate for race-based discrimination, arguing “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.”[iii]   Increasing the number of black officers apparently became the priority under ADM Gilday.  After the George Floyd tragedy, the Navy openly embraced support for Black Lives Matter.[iv]

    In the latest DOD Military Demographics Report 2021, the Navy officer corps is still only 7.9% black versus the goal of 13% established by the TF1N report. Since the TF1N report, the Navy’s numbers still have not gone up.  The Army reports 12% of its officer corps is black in that same report so the Navy’s result seems unusual.  Overall, the 2021 report shows 13,361 minority officers in the Navy.  One would have to conclude that there are no meaningful barriers to qualified minorities to join the officer corps of the services since over 54,000 minority officers are currently serving.[v]  According to reports of the Department of Education, there were over 200,000 graduates with either bachelors or Masters degrees in school year 2020-2021.[vi]  With qualifications easily met by thousands of minorities each year, why is it that fewer blacks and Hispanics choose to serve?  There is zero credible evidence of barriers to service. Quite the opposite is the case with the services bending over backwards to try to recruit minorities especially with programs that reach out to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to try to attract minorities to the services.  The TF1N report contains 63 references to HBCUs and MSIs.[vii]  It is plain that the Navy claiming to want diversity is not convincing to most of those eligible to serve and that the Navy lags the Army substantially in providing a convincing argument on why serving the nation is a good idea.

    The other diversities being sought are in sexual practice and gender diversity.  This comes through loud and clear at the website, in recruiting media and images and through such phenomenon of the military’s celebration of pride month and lately even promotion of drag queen shows on board ships and a drag queen being used for recruiting (which the Navy has now retreated from due to negative reaction from the public).  Added to that is the nonsensical promotion of popular progressive practice of what pronouns to use and the farcical and unserious nature of our current leadership becomes clear.  Just days ago, DOD had to retreat when it was pointed out its new pronoun policy for awards was both ungrammatical and unpopular with the public.  Even our outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff objected.

    If diversity is such a priority, why only pick out blacks, gays, and transgenders to emphasize?  The definition above includes the categories of national origin, religion, and socioeconomic stratum.  Why no commercials to get Christians or Muslims to join?  Why no ads to attract immigrants?  Why are there no recruiters in the inner cities among high concentrations of young socio-disadvantaged minorities?   The answer is plain that the diversity push is motivated by the popular canard promoted by the left that the US is still a racist nation and must provide racial preferences to minorities.  The recent Supreme Court cases Harvard v. Students for Fair Admissions and UNC v. Students for Fair Admissions emphatically ruled against using race in college admissions as violations of equal protection law.

    Part 3

    The truth is that the racial and sexual identity politics advocates have gained control over our nation’s culture, and this has seeped into our military where it does not belong.

    Although we hear a lot about systemic racism and white supremacy there is no evidence that such is present in the today’s military.  DOD’s own internal review shows that fewer than 2% of serving DOD personnel identify racism as a problem in DOD.[viii]  DOD’s extremism standdown and subsequent reporting revealed fewer than 100 incidents of extremism in the last reporting year out of a DOD force of over 2.1 million, an astonishingly tiny number.[ix] 

    So, why all the fuss over diversity, diversity, diversity when the services are already substantially diverse, have few internal complaints of racism or extremist activity?  Could it be purely a conformity reflex and a reflection of the hold the left has over our military leadership that is supposed to be apolitical?

    Nowhere at the Navy site is proof offered that Diversity is essential for combat effectiveness?  We do have a lot of counter evidence that diversity advocacy is flawed or counter to fielding a lethal military such as:

    • Col (Ret) Bill Prince, U. S. Army Special Forces with 11 combat deployments, attended the recent USMA Diversity conference.  In his recent article he quotes the USMA’s Chief Data Officer, Col. Paul F. Evangelista ‘96, in commenting on attempts to measure the effectiveness of DEI who said, “We don’t have the data.”[x]  West Point’s Chief Data Officer answered the DEI question candidly, “We don’t have the data.”
    • BG (Ret) Ernie Audino, US Army nails the issue precisely in his article saying[xi], “Because, if Prelogar and those generals are right, i.e. that racial diversity in our officer corps is a “national security imperative,” then the services would at least track racial percentages in their mandatory assessments of unit combat readiness, but they don’t.  Racial diversity is not included, and never has been.” 
    • CDR (Ret) Phil Keuhlen, USN, is a former Commanding Officer of a nuclear-powered attack submarine.  He conducted detailed analysis of the TF1N project, and its two sources cited to prove better performance due to diversity.  His conclusion…neither source used by TF1N passes muster. His detailed analysis can be found at this link.[xii] 
    • COL (Ret) Bing West, USMC is one of the most decorated combat veterans in our nation’s history.  COL West also served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under President Reagan. Bing’s article, “The Military’s Perilous Experiment” ought to give our military’s leaders pause in their headlong pursuit of diversity.  He writes, “Inside the military, however, another criterion has taken central booking: diversity. The focus has shifted toward emphasizing gender and racial equality, particularly in leadership positions. Diversity has replaced lethality as the lodestone for the military. “It’s all about war-fighting readiness,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Admiral John Nowell Jr. said. “We know that diverse teams that are led inclusively will perform better.”  On one level, that sentence is a tautology; every individual is unique and therefore every team is diverse. On another level, the admiral is speaking in code. He is implying that the services have been under-performing because they have not properly rewarded diversity.  As a Marine veteran, I find this disconcerting. From boot training on, Marines are taught to put aside diversity, not to emphasize it.”  The entire article can be found at this link.

    If the Navy was truly interested in the merits of diversity, there is ample study on the subject by eminent scholars, many of them black.  The lack of intellectual curiosity on the topic of diversity by Navy leadership is astounding and an apparent manifestation of the politicization of senior officer corps to the detriment of our core mission of preparing to fight and win our nation’s wars.

    A bibliography of book reviews for recommended reading for Navy leaders who really want to learn about diversity follows this article.

    CAPT Brent Ramsey, (USN, ret.) is a writer on Defense matters. He has been featured in Washington Examiner, Real Clear Defense, Armed Forces Press, CD Media, American Thinker, and Patriot Post. He is a leader with the Calvert Group, a Board of Advisors member for the Center for Military Readiness and STARRS and is a contributor to Armed Forces Press.

    [ii] Ibid

    [iii] Christopher Rufo, Ibram X. Kendi is the False Prophet of a Dangerous and Lucrative Faith, New York Post, July 23, 2021.

    [iv] Houston Keene, Navy’s Extremism Training Says it is OK to advocate for BLM at work but not ‘politically partisan’ issues, Fox News, March 29,2021.

    [v] DOD Military Demographics Report 2021, https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2021-demograph….

    [vi] National Center for Education Statistics, Table 322.20 and Postsecondary Degree Fields Report, accessed September 23, 2023.

    [vii] Task Force One Navy Final Report.

    [viii] Email from senior DOD official indicates 2% of DOD workforce have concerns about racism.

    [ix] Michael Lee, Pentagon Report Finds about 100 Troops involved in Extremist Activity, Fox News, December 20, 2021.

    [x] Col (Ret) William F. Prince, When a Diversity Conference Could Benefit from an Increase in Diversity, www.STARRS.us, September 19, 2023.

    [xi] BG (Ret) Ernie Audino, ‘Diversity’ is Not a National Security Imperative, www.STARRS.us, September 22, 2023.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 19:00

  • Are Wind Turbines Killing These 100,000 Pound Mammals?
    Are Wind Turbines Killing These 100,000 Pound Mammals?

    Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Former President Donald Trump said recently that “windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before.”

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times)

    His comments, made at a campaign rally in South Carolina, were quickly ground through the fact-checking mills of legacy media outlets such as The Guardian and the BBC.

    “They’re washing up ashore. I saw it this weekend, three of them came up. You wouldn’t see it once a year. Now they’re coming up on a weekly basis,” President Trump said.

    The Guardian called his allegation a “lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to die, claiming that ‘windmills’ are making the cetaceans ‘crazy’ and ‘a little batty.'”

    The BBC lamented that clips of the former president’s speech had exceeded 9 million views but that his “claims are not backed up by evidence.”

    President Trump also said only one whale had been killed off the coast of South Carolina in the past 50 years, but now the numbers are increasing.

    Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd during a campaign rally in Summerville, S.C., on Sept. 25, 2023. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

    The BBC quoted Rob Deaville with the Zoological Society of London’s Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, who said whale deaths are caused by the fishing industry and ship strikes.

    “To talk about wind farms being a problem takes away discussion around the very real threats that are a problem for those species,” Mr. Deaville told the BBC.

    He said that there’s been no conclusive link between whale deaths and wind farms in the UK.

    Andrew Read, commissioner of the U.S.-based Marine Mammal Commission, told The Guardian that “there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever that wind turbines, or surveying for wind turbines, is causing any whale deaths at all.”

    Although there are broader concerns over industrializing the ocean, he said whale deaths are caused by vessel strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and warming of the ocean caused by climate change.

    “The population of humpback whales, in particular, is recovering from being hunted and they are coming closer to the coast to feed on prey, which means they are being hit as they come into shipping lanes, or being caught up in nets,” Mr. Read said.

    He said people protesting ocean-based wind turbines are being manipulated by “fossil fuel interests,” who are threatened by so-called clean energy.

    Whales and Turbines

    In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported to The Epoch Times that there had been 65 large whale deaths along the East Coast since December 2022. Three dead whales washed ashore in one week in Fire Island, New York; Long Branch, New Jersey; and Long Beach, New York.

    In September, the Biden administration released “An Action Plan for Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the U.S. Atlantic Region.”

    President Joe Biden’s $3.5 billion goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

    The plan is based on the “Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study” to coordinate “timely transmission access for offshore wind” and to “evaluate multiple pathways to offshore wind goals.”

    President Joe Biden points to a wind turbine chart during a meeting about the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership at the White House June 23, 2022.

    A dead Gray Whale lies on the shore of Limantour Beach in Point Reyes Station, Calif., on May 23, 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

    Lisa Linowes, founder of WindAction, said in the recent documentary “Thrown to the Wind” that in its rush to meet these goals, the renewable energy industry has cast aside the “precautionary principle,” in which the burden is on the developer to avoid or minimize harm.

    Ms. Linowes said the move is costing lives.

    “Roughly 350 whales have died along the East Coast since 2016,” she said.

    The uptick began in 2016, she said, with a slight dip in 2022.

    “And in the first six months of 2023—so just half a year—roughly 40-plus whales have died,” Ms. Linowes said.

    Currently, a total of 3,500 wind turbines are proposed for construction across 2.2 million acres of ocean along the East Coast.

    High-resolution geophysical technology is used to survey the ocean floor for the future construction of these turbines. This seismic equipment is sending out frequencies that some believe are blasting the whales and dolphins with loud sounds that have resulted in their disorientation and inability to traverse the waters as safely as they had before.

    Robert Rand, an environmental scientist, said the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA haven’t accounted for the avoidance and aversion that takes place when the whales hear the pile driving and other dissonant sounds reverberating from the construction of the turbines.

    A crowd gathers around a dead humpback whale on Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey, Calif., on July 1, 2016. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    “They don’t make the connection between a loud noise in the water and species moving away from that noise, and that’s a problem because they don’t have the fat stores to run around forever trying to get away from that noise,” Mr. Rand said in the film.

    “If a calf is separated from the mother, what I understand is both of them start stressing a lot, and it doesn’t take long for them to die. It’s a very deadly situation. The calf needs the mother for food, and the mother is trying to find the calf.”

    After the mother and calf expend their energy, they are stranded and they die, he said.

    Mr. Rand published an independent technical study in September that examined “geophysical sonar vessel operational noise” for the purpose of improving “noise control protections” for marine life.

    “What I’m seeing is troubling,” Mr. Rand said. “What I’m seeing are levels that are above the limit which NOAA itself set to be protected at distances which are much higher than were granted in the incidental harassment authorization. So, to me, it looks like an absolute breakdown of regulatory protection for the right whale.”

    Environmental Groups Silent

    When it comes to oil and gas development, environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club will advocate for wildlife, Ms. Linowes said, but in the case of so-called renewable energy, they blame other factors such as ship strikes and climate change, or they keep silent.

    A humpback whale swims near a cruise ship sails in Disko Bay in Ilulissat, Greenland, on Aug. 4, 2019. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

    In 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that the Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico was its own separate species, of which there remained only 50.

    In July, NOAA proposed to designate 18 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida as critical habitat for the Rice’s whale, a proposal that would significantly limit the oil and gas industry from offshore drilling.

    Republican lawmakers along the Gulf Coast filed lawsuits fighting the designation, arguing that the proposal wasn’t well thought out and would harm the economy, according to a report by The Washington Post.

    U.S. District Judge James Cain, appointed by President Trump, agreed and ordered NOAA to withdraw its proposal.

    Environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity advocated for the protection of the area, and the group has initiated several lawsuits arguing that offshore drilling is harming ocean wildlife; however, the organization has made no efforts to challenge the offshore wind development impact on whales.

    On Sept. 28, the center filed an emergency petition asking that NOAA mandate speed limits for vessels.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:40

  • Hamas' Terrorist War Against Israel: There Is No "On The Other Hand"
    Hamas’ Terrorist War Against Israel: There Is No “On The Other Hand”

    Authored by Lanny Davis via RealClearPolitics.com,

    I spent the weekend and most of Monday engaging in back-and-forth with fellow progressive Democrats who were trying to change the subject on the clear black-and-white facts about Hamas’ terrorist war against Israel.

    I kept reminding them of four indisputable facts.

    Fact one: Hamas openly declares it hates Jews.

    It is an openly bigoted, anti-Semitic organization. Its public charter, which it calls its “Covenant,” states: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” The Covenant actually endorses the notorious fraudulent anti-Semitic rant, used in part by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

    Fact two: Hamas’ invasion is not about supporting an independent Palestinian state.

    Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist. It rejects a two-state solution. The head of its political bureau, Khaled Meshal, stated this plainly at a 2012 rally in Gaza: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of land.”

    Some commentators, attempting to explain the Hamas invasion over the weekend, blamed the establishment of the state of Israel as the reason why there is still no independent Palestinian state. That is false and contradicted by undeniable historical facts. For example:

    Fact three: Hamas doesn’t care about an independent, democratic Gaza for the well-being or social justice of Gazans.

    To the contrary. Since Gaza threw out the official government of the Palestinian Authority, it has not invested in food, education, or jobs. Instead, it has used millions of dollars from Iran to build bombs and rockets to be aimed at Israeli civilians, and has lined its own pockets with 15% of substantial funds from Qatar aimed at the poor. It is simply beyond dispute that Hamas has established a corrupt terrorist dictatorship, with some leaders living in luxury abroad. In the summer of 2023, Gazans defied their overlords and held rallies throughout the area. Some chanted: “Where is the electricity and where is the gas?” – and burned Hamas flags.

    Nor is Hamas reacting to Israeli occupation of Gaza.

    In 2005, Israel withdrew its citizens (about 8,000) and soliders from Gaza and from four settlements in the West Bank. In 2007, Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority and took over dictatorial control of Gaza. But it opposed the Authority’s negotiations to establish an independent Palestinian state and does so to this day.

    Fact four: Hamas is and continues to be a terrorist organization – which meets the universal definition as dedicated to intentionally murdering civilians for political purposes.

    Hamas does not deny that. It brags about it. Just this last weekend, Hamas terrorists intentionally killed 260 young civilians attending a music festival in the desert near Gaza during the first moments of its murderous invasion.

    No, it is not the same thing when Israel is forced to respond to defend itself from rockets aimed at civilians and, tragically and unintentionally, innocent Gazans civilians are killed – often because Hamas chooses to launch its rockets intentionally aimed at civilians from schools and hospitals (a double war crime). Those who make the false equivalence between intentional murder and self-defense with tragic and unintentional deaths of innocents ignore the facts.

    I have always been a supporter of a two-state solution. Since I was very young, I believed in justice for the Palestinians and argued with my father that they deserved their own nation. But I also now remember the famous line of Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” when he argued with himself by saying, “On the one hand,” and then countered with, “but on the other hand.” However, on one issue on which he could never compromise, Tevye said: “There is no other hand.”

    So regarding the Hamas terroristic attack on Israel in the last several days, I can only say – based on indisputable facts – “There is no other hand.”

    *  *  *

    Lanny Davis is the founder of the Washington, D.C., law firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates. He is one of the first to use the concept of legal crisis management to solve client problems – operating at the intersection of law, media, and politics. He is a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton in 1996-98 and served on a privacy and civil liberties panel appointed by President George W. Bush. He has been writing his “Purple Nation” column for more than 13 years.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:20

  • Biden Interviewed By Special Counsel In Classified Documents Probe
    Biden Interviewed By Special Counsel In Classified Documents Probe

    President Joe Biden was coached through given a surely thorough interview by Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team investigating his handling of classified documents spanning several years, the White House acknowledged in a statement.

    President Joe Biden speaks on the terrorist attacks in Israel from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on Oct. 7, 2023. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

    “The president has been interviewed as part of the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur,” reads the statement from the White House Counsel’s Office spokesperson Ian Sams (the guy who lied and had a meltdown over Hunter Biden’s $260K in Chinese wires). “The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday.”

    “As we have said from the beginning, the president and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can, consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation,” Sams continued.

    Of note, Hunter Biden listed Joe’s Wilmington, Delaware home – where a bunch of classified documents were found, as his address when he received above mentioned Chinese wires, due to the Biden family’s dealings with CCP-linked businessmen.

    Hur was appointed in January by AG Merrick Garland to lead the classified documents probe. Prior that, he was a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who has litigation experience involving classified materials.

    More via the Epoch Times;

    President Biden’s interview suggests the probe may be nearing its conclusion. As recently as late August, the president said that he had not been asked by the special counsel’s office to sit for an interview.

    “There’s no such request and no such interest,” President Biden told reporters while on vacation in Lake Tahoe on Aug. 25.

    The investigation was launched after classified documents were found in President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, and his former workspace at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.

    In January, when tapped to lead the probe, Mr. Hur had said that he would “follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”

    “I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment,” he said in a Jan. 12 statement released by the Justice Department.

    In June, former President Donald Trump faced indictment on charges by Special Counsel Jack Smith related to mishandling classified documents. The former president entered a plea of not guilty in a Miami courtroom on June 13.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence disclosed in January that classified documents were found at his Indiana home during a search prompted by the Biden document discoveries. The Justice Department later concluded its investigation, finding no wrongdoing.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 10/10/2023 – 18:00

Digest powered by RSS Digest