- The Circular Nature Of Political Extremism: Extremes Fuel Each Other
The Circular Nature Of Political Extremism: Extremes Fuel Each Other
Authored by Adam Coleman via The Epoch Times,
Political extremism is often presented as being a linear concept, stretching from the polar ends of the political left to right. But it’s better explained as being circular, where the extremes on both ends neighbor each other and share more in common than they do with the moderates in the proverbial middle.
The primary goal of ideological extremists is to recruit the most vulnerable people into their flock, because strength is in numbers, and misery loves company.
However, extremist recruitment can create an unintended side effect for the people who are fighting against them: they edge closer to the people whom they claim to reject.
The racial tension perpetrated by the media and exploited by progressive activists in all walks of life created a counter-reaction by the majority who reject outlandish racism claims, the push to see racial minorities as victims, and the acceptance of white Americans as being inherently guilty for sins they haven’t personally committed.
Reasonable people can accept that life in America may not be perfect for some people for unfair reasons, but there was a reaction of disgust when the narrative shifted to the immediate guilt of an entire group of people based on something they had no control over—their skin color—and anyone (of any color) who stood offended by these assumptions was unjustly labeled a white supremacist.
With every implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in workplaces and corporate environments across the country, more people were being suffocated by nonsensical dogma that aimed to compel the majority to adhere to a more revolutionary approach toward social cohesion or else feel the wrath of administrative power.
Every form of entertainment started to shapeshift into a purposefully multi-ethnic theatrical event perpetuated by the industry elites who consider the ramifications of not following the guidelines of DEI and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) to be more important than the financial impact of not following the profits.
With numerous massive shifts in our society being pushed by the progressive elite, an anti-woke movement formed as a countermeasure to return to normality, allying with people of all political persuasions and ethnicities with the primary objective of ridding society of this pernicious ideology.
However, over time, the anti-woke and anti-DEI movement has created unintended casualties as a result of their pushback: the misperception of favoritism for all minorities.
The anti-woke brigade has become so fatigued from fighting the “woke” ideologues, who are attempting to use race-based practices that favor minorities or anyone who’s labeled as “marginalized,” that they’re quick to believe that the success of someone who fits into this demographic is solely due to the existence of these practices.
I’ve had this happen to me as a writer and commentator: Having had a multitude of opportunities in the past couple of years, I’ve been labeled as a diversity pick by the very people who wear the uniform of the anti-woke. After Tucker Carlson was fired, Lawrence Jones, a black man, temporarily filled in for his timeslot and online was quickly attacked for being placed there not for his experience or talent but due to his skin’s melanin content.
In some ways, the anti-woke brigade has fallen for the traps placed by the progressive left. Progressives wanted all Americans to consider race in all of their actions to hypothetically make them understand what it’s like for minorities. While their primary goal is to recruit, it’s not always necessarily to make you believe what they do; it’s just as effective to make you see the world as they do by becoming more race-conscious.
Progressives understand the importance of confusion, manipulation of language, and beneficial propaganda to shift unsuspecting naysayers and adversaries into a state of paranoia that causes them to leave behind their original principles.
When you’ve begun implementing skepticism of every person that fits into the category of “marginalized” when their star rises, you’re no longer color blind: you’re racially clear-eyed.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 23:45 - These Are The Most Common Blood Types Around The World
These Are The Most Common Blood Types Around The World
World Blood Donor Day is organized every June 14 by the World Health Organization with the aim of raising public awareness about the need for safe blood, plasma and platelets as well as to celebrate the many people who save lives through their blood donations.
There are four different types of blood: A, B, O and AB. Each of these can either be positive or negative, depending on whether a protein known as the “Rh factor” is present in the red blood cells. Each blood type has slightly different qualities. For instance, those with type O- are universal donors. This means they can give blood to anyone. AB+ on the other hand is a universal acceptor, so they can receive donations from anyone. Only around seven percent of the world are Rh negative.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following map, the most common blood group worldwide is O positive.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Europe tells a slightly different story, however, with the majority of its countries’ populations having A positive blood. Only two countries in the World Population Review’s records have a greater share of B positive blood types: Pakistan and Bangladesh.
While this chart is useful for getting an overview of regional patterns, it hides some of the finer details, such as how evenly split countries are by blood type. For instance, in China and India a fairly high share of the population has B+ blood. Meanwhile, in Europe many countries are fairly closely tied between O+ and A+. There are of course slight differences and exemptions, with the Nordic countries representing a slightly greater share of people having A+ versus O+, according to World Population Review. The U.S. is also fairly closely split, with 37.4 percent of the population having type O+ and 35.7 percent A+, while only 8.5 percent are B+ in the country.
The countries with the clearest prevalence of a given blood group are Ecuador, Peru and Zimbabwe, with 75 percent, 70 percent and 63 percent of O+ blood respectively.
According to the American Red Cross, the opposite rules apply when it comes to the universality of plasma transfusions. In that case, O- blood types can only donate plasma to other O- patients, while the universal plasma donor type is AB blood.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 23:15 - Family Groups And LGBT Activist Uniting Against Bill That Could Make Pedophiles A Protected Class
Family Groups And LGBT Activist Uniting Against Bill That Could Make Pedophiles A Protected Class
Authored by Jackson Elliott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
In an unlikely alliance, Christian family values groups and an LGBT activist have signed a petition against a proposed Connecticut bill they say could make pedophiles a protected sexual minority.
The Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, Conn., on May 4, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images) The bill, HB 6638, would revise the language of the state’s anti-discrimination statutes.
The current definition of “sexual orientation” in Connecticut law excludes protections for “any behavior that is a sex offense crime.” An update to the law would remove that wording.
“If Governor [Ned] Lamont signs it, a person who admits they are a pedophile—even if they haven’t acted on it but just admit it—they could just go to an appeal board if they get fired from a job or denied housing near a school,” said transgender activist Christine Rebstock.
The bill would redefine sexual orientation as “a person’s identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are romantically, emotionally, or sexually attracted, including any identity that a person may have previously expressed or is perceived by another person to hold.”
Because of that critics are sounding the alarm, fearing the new legal language could make it unlawful to fire an employee with a sexual attraction for children—even one working at a business focused on serving minors.
“Employers are going to have to be more cautious about how they interact with potential employees,” Leslie Wolfgang, public policy director of the Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC), told The Epoch Times.
“They won’t be able to discriminate based on their sexual attraction.”
The new bill was sponsored by Rep. Dominique Johnson (D), Rep. Hubert Delaney (D), Rep. Jeff Currey (D), Sen. Gary Winfield (D), and Rep. Tom Delniki (R).
It has passed both chambers of the legislature and now awaits signing by Lamont, a Democrat.
The Epoch Times contacted the bill’s sponsors but received no response by publication time.
Major Problems With Minor Attraction
Current law in Connecticut protects people from facing discrimination due to their heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual “preference.”
But radical gender ideology activists felt that this carve-out wasn’t big enough, said Peter Wolfgang.
Wolfgang is the executive director of FIC, a Christian family values promotion group, and is married to Leslie Wolfgang.
“Our concern is, the language of the [proposed] bill was written so vaguely that it could allow for other categories to be protected that they probably may not have even intended to be included,” Peter Wolfgang said. “Pedophiles is one. There are others.”
The law doesn’t legalize pedophilia, polygamy, or bestiality. But if signed into law, the new language could be interpreted to give protections to people who practice those sex crimes, critics argue.
The process of pedophiles seeking legal protections under the proposed law’s language likely would be gradual, not “overnight,” Peter Wolfgang said. But “after everything that we’ve lived through for the last 20 years, can anyone really claim that these definitions will not evolve?”
“If you’ve got someone who hasn’t committed the crime but is openly professing that that’s what his attraction is on social media, our concern is that you will not be able to discriminate against this person,” he said.
Under the proposed law, even if someone expresses a desire to have sexual encounters with children, it could be considered unlawful discrimination to fire him or her from a job working with children, such as driving a school bus or working in a preschool.
However, Peter Wolfgang said, the law provides an example of something best-selling conservative writer Rod Dreher calls the Law of Merited Impossibility.
This phrase describes a phenomenon often seen in flashpoint culture-war issues.
One side will argue that a controversial activity or policy will never happen, but then—when it does—that same side will accuse opponents of bigotry for previously opposing it.
An example is how many on the political Left denied the existence of child sex-change procedures. Then, when the procedures became undeniable, they defended them, Wolfgang said.
Not Pedophiles, ‘MAPs’
Leslie Wolfgang is concerned about how the proposed law creates protected sexual identities based on “attraction.” That will make hiring and firing decisions more challenging for employers, she said, especially when it comes to people attracted to children.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 22:45 - Where Combat Drones Are Operated
Where Combat Drones Are Operated
Ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States, Washington has urged the country to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in a planned deal for large armed drones.
The contract would be worth $2 billion to $3 billion, according to Livemint.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, data from the website Drone Wars shows that India is in the process of developing its own large armed drones and is seeking to acquire technology from the U.S. in the MALE and HALE (high altitude, long endurance) categories, with no specific program start date set yet.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Operating armed medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drones is becoming increasingly common for militaries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa. Early adopters of the technology were the United States and the United Kingdom (both using U.S. technology) as well as Israel and China (using their own technologies) between 2001 and 2011.
China’s early adoption subsequently led to heavy exports of MALE drones to countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa in between 2014 and 2018, including to Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan. In the same time period, Iran and Turkey developed their own capabilities. Turkey’s technological push led to more exports between 2019 and 2022, this time with a heavier focus on Africa. France was only the second country to receive U.S. MALE drones in 2019.
Other countries and territories except India wanting to arm U.S. drones in the future are the Netherlands and Italy, while Taiwan has already signed such a contract.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 22:15 - Lies, Damn Lies, And UFOs: Deciphering The Truth Hidden Amid Decades Of Propaganda
Lies, Damn Lies, And UFOs: Deciphering The Truth Hidden Amid Decades Of Propaganda
Authored by J.B. Shurk via the Gatestone Institute,
Has the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe finally been answered? In what appears to be a well-coordinated disclosure campaign, several knowledgeable “insiders” have recently made public statements claiming that “ET” is real and has been visiting Earth for decades.
In mid-May, Stanford Medical Professor Garry Nolan caused a stir during an innovation and investment conference hosted by the SALT i-Connections leadership forum when he stated unequivocally that a small group of scientists have been reverse engineering alien technology for quite some time.
One of the compelling things about the 15-minute interview in which he discussed this revelation is how careful the host, Alex Klokus, is to frame Dr. Nolan’s testimony with sober and logical questioning, as if to guard against potential accusations of quackery. Almost as a lawyer would conduct a witness examination in a court of law, Klokus first lays out Nolan’s innovative breakthroughs in immunology, virology, and cancer research. Then he walks through the professor’s personal “experience with people who… are working on the reverse engineering programs” of alien technology. Finally, Klokus offers Nolan the chance to describe to the audience his belief that government disclosure of extraterrestrial life is likely forthcoming.
Nolan’s interview came about a week before NASA’s May 31 public meeting to discuss unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — the current subject categorization used to reference incidents once understood less formally as those involving UFOs and “close encounters” of various kinds with extraterrestrial beings. Although the government conference ended up frustrating some viewers because it dangled many questions without providing any definitive answers, astrophysicist Dr. David Spergel made clear that the commission’s intention is to “provide the scientific community with a roadmap” that could be used to gather and analyze further data. In many ways, the event appeared as a step toward making secretive research more public.
At the beginning of June, two separate online publications posted articles that identified witnesses with personal UAP knowledge now calling for greater government disclosure. In an age of journalism when dependence upon anonymous sources has unfortunately become the norm, the use of on-the-record interviews and corroborated statements distinguish this reporting.
In an essay for Politico entitled, “If the Government Has UFO Crash Materials, It’s Time to Reveal Them,” former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon detailed his direct involvement in delivering UAP evidence to Congress — work that ultimately led to the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), organized to investigate and document encounters with unidentified craft that might be extraterrestrial in origin. Mellon described his efforts to bring public attention to the existence of recorded UAP incidents involving U.S. military personnel. “But despite breakthroughs in government transparency about these sightings,” he argued, “there’s one thing the Pentagon and the intelligence community have so far not addressed, and that is whether they have had any direct contact with these objects” and whether there is truth to “persistent rumors” alleging “that the government has been working secretly to reverse engineer the technology.”
Mellon personally referred four witnesses to AARO “who claim to have knowledge of a secret U.S. government program involving the analysis and exploitation of materials recovered from off-world craft.” He knows of other sources with additional evidence. Although AARO has no legal obligation to report its findings to the public, Mellon has “concluded the public needs to know the truth.”
Within two days of the Politico essay, another online publication, The Debrief, ran a story under the headline, “Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin.” In their well-sourced piece, journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal detail the allegations of David Charles Grusch — a “former intelligence official turned whistleblower” — who has provided both Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General with “extensive classified information about deeply covert programs” in possession of “intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.”
Again, one of the most striking things about this exposé is its forthright attention to naming names and providing substantial background evidence in support of Grusch’s reputation for honesty. Not only do the reporters reject the use of anonymous sources but also they are careful to highlight the credibility of those sources they use. Retired Army Colonel Karl E. Nell — who worked with Grusch as part of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force originally constituted under the authority of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security before that investigatory organ was reorganized into AARO — is quoted as describing Grusch as “beyond reproach.” Then reporters Kean and Blumenthal make sure to dig up a performance evaluation from Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence Laura A. Potter describing Nell as “an officer with the strongest possible moral compass.” If you trust the Army’s evaluation of Nell and Nell’s evaluation of Grusch, then logic suggests that Grusch’s whistleblower disclosures should be trusted, too.
For his part, Nell wholly concurs with Grusch that for the “past eighty years” secret programs have “focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin” and “that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.” He considers this conclusion “indisputable.”
While seeking corroboration for Grusch’s allegations, journalists Kean and Blumenthal conducted an interview with an intelligence officer from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center who specializes in UAP analysis and operates under the identity “Jonathan Grey” inside the agency. For almost a decade, he has been the recipient of highly classified briefing materials involving UAP. He says bluntly: “The non-human intelligence phenomenon is real. We are not alone.”
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Grusch is represented by attorney Charles McCullough III, who previously served as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. Given McCullough’s familiarity with the shadowy world of espionage, the byzantine legal safeguards governing State secrets, and the jumble of criminal tripwires that make lawful disclosure akin to crossing a minefield in the dark, his decision to aid Grusch as a legitimate whistleblower provides further credence to his case. It is also true that in filing his whistleblower complaint, Grusch has placed himself in legal jeopardy by formally attesting that his statements are made “under the penalties of perjury.”
This is a lot to take in. After decades of government denials and allegations of mass cover-ups, suddenly an avalanche of UAP disclosures is hitting the public all at once. We have whistleblowers, Intelligence Community operatives, highly respected scientists, and Members of Congress all speaking up. In another era, Nolan’s interview during a popular “thought leader” investment forum would have been sufficient to capture the nation’s attention indefinitely. Taken together with two provocative essays detailing first-person accounts confirming the existence of extraterrestrial technology, the revelations of the last few weeks should have been enough to eclipse every other news story in the world.
Instead, the response from across the news media has been almost complete radio silence. Tucker Carlson, in his first episode of “Tucker on Twitter,” called Grusch’s whistleblower allegations the “bombshell of the millennium” — a bombshell being entirely ignored. How can a news story with the potential to completely transform the way humans understand their universe cause such a small ripple in the pond of current events? Carlson argues that Americans have been lied to for so long about so many different issues that nobody has any idea at this point what to believe. “Nobody knows what’s happening,” he says. “A small group of people control access to all relevant information and the rest of us… don’t know.”
Given the obvious coordination of the UAP disclosures these last few weeks, only two scenarios seem plausible:
- either a group of scientists, intelligence operatives, military personnel, legal sharks, and politicians are working together behind the scenes to deliver enough corroborated information to the public to pierce through a near-century of State-imposed secrecy, or
- this diverse collection of professionals is part of an elaborate disinformation campaign being used to manipulate public perception and opinion.
In other words, there is either a highly organized attempt to reveal a spectacular yet hidden truth to the rest of humanity, or there is a highly organized attempt to use information warfare as a means to shape the collective consciousness. Either the U.S. government has engaged in a massive conspiracy for nearly a century to hide important truths from its own citizens. Or it is involved in a massive conspiracy today to manipulate Americans’ minds en masse. At a time when political leaders love to speak about the virtues of “democracy,” either possibility confirms a staggering disrespect for popular sovereignty.
That is a fairly stinging indictment against Western government and society. People are bombarded with so much government-sanctioned propaganda and outright lies that they never know whether official statements are true. Outside institutions — including academia and the news media — have embraced so much “fake news” over the years that their reputations are in no better shape. The end result is that nobody in a position of authority is trusted or believed.
The “bombshell of the millennium” explodes right outside Americans’ doors, and the public largely shrugs because it accepted an ugly truth long ago: it is constantly being deceived. With all due respect to our extraterrestrial friends, perhaps that is the most important news story of our time.
JB Shurk writes about politics and society, and is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 21:45 - The Polar Silk Road
The Polar Silk Road
Warming temperatures and thawing sea ice could soon allow for the expansion of maritime routes through the Arctic region at certain times of the year. Polar powers looking to capitalize not only on the shortened shipping lanes but also on the natural resources that exist there are eyeing up this geopolitically strategic space, with Russia and also China, which is a part of the Arctic Council and a self-defined ‘near-Arctic state’, having become two of the most prominent players in the region.
Currently, the main shipping route between Asia and Europe passes from China to Rotterdam via the Suez Canal. But the fragility of the transit route was revealed in 2021 when the Ever Given ship blocked the passage, halting traffic for 7 days. And so a new route through the Arctic could save time for the transportation of goods.
In 2018, Beijing released a white paper on how China could extend its Belt and Road Initiative to the Arctic region, suggesting that polar stakeholders could work together on connectivity and economic and social development, including the exploration and exploitation of resources such as oil, gas and minerals, as well as on scientific research into the effects of climate change on the region. According to Deutsche Welle, the United States is worried about what this means, while Russia “smells business.”
As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, four main maritime routes have been identified to cut through the Arctic: the Northwest Passage (NWP), the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the Transpolar Sea Route (TSR) and the Arctic Bridge Route (ABR).
You will find more infographics at Statista
The Northern Sea Route connects the Asian and European economies and is predominantly located along Russia’s coast. According to the Silk Road Briefing, much of the initial Polar Silk Road will focus on the NSR, since it could reduce the time and cost of shipping goods between Europe and Asia by up to 35 percent. On the other side of the north pole, the NWP connects the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Canadian archipelago. While both have experienced reduced ice coverage in recent years, they are still not consistently usable for commercial shipping, needing icebreakers even in the summer months.
The other two routes that could be used in the future are the Arctic Bridge Route, which connects the Churchill port in Canada to the port of Narvik in Norway and the Murmansk port in Russia, as well as the Transpolar Sea Route, which would connect the Bering Strait with the Atlantic Ocean near Murmansk. According to the Climate Change Post, in a high-end scenario of climate change, these two routes could be open for shipping by the 2070s.
From an environmental perspective, despite ships potentially covering fewer nautical miles, having more vessels going through the Arctic where global heating already happens faster will further exacerbate melt. More ships would also lead to more pollution through emissions as well as an increased likelihood of oil spills.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 21:15 - Oscars' New Diversity Rules Rob Winners Of Authentic Achievement, Say Critics
Oscars’ New Diversity Rules Rob Winners Of Authentic Achievement, Say Critics
Authored by Carly Mayberry via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Since condemning the recent inclusivity changes made to the Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss hasn’t back-peddled on his comments nor has there been notable pressure for him to do so.
Oscar statuettes are displayed at Times Square Studios 23 in New York in January 2006. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images) That’s while other entertainment industry experts are also critical, if not skeptical, of the changes when looking to the future and the legacy of filmmaking.
“They were put in a situation where they had to do something to quiet the activists,” Sasha Stone, founder and editor of the film/awards discussion website Awards Daily, told The Epoch Times about the changes first laid down in 2020 by AMPAS. “The Academy gave productions ample time to prepare. In that time, however, as everyone knows, Hollywood went through the ‘Great Awokening,’ and suddenly inclusivity and diversity was everywhere.”
It was earlier this month that media outlets reported the Oscars organization was clamping down on its new regulations after controversies during this year’s leadup to the awards ceremony. Those involved outreach surrounding Best Actress nominee Andrea Riseborough, Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh’s controversial social media activity, and what appeared to be an endorsement of Yeoh through a tweet by Academy President Janet Yang.
But it was The Academy’s new diversity and inclusion standards first announced three years ago and to be enacted for the 2024 Academy Awards that raised the ire of Dreyfuss.
Inclusivity Requirements
Centered on best picture nominees and representation requirements, films must meet at least two of four new standards that require both onscreen and behind-the-scenes roles to be filled by those from underrepresented groups. They include either having at least one lead character or a significant supporting character from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, having at least 30 percent of secondary roles from two underrepresented groups or having the main storyline, narrative, or theme centered on such a group. The Academy has deemed “underrepresented groups” to include women, people of color, those who identify as LGBT, and people with disabilities.
Dreyfuss during a May 5 interview on the PBS series Firing Line told host Margaret Hoover that such directives “make me vomit.”
“It’s an art. And no one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give into the latest, most current idea of what morality is,” said Dreyfuss. Later during the interview he noted actor Laurence Oliver’s work in 1965’s Othello in which he played the role in blackface.
“He played a black man brilliantly. Am I being told that I will never have a chance to play a black man? Is someone else being told that if they’re not Jewish, they shouldn’t play The Merchant of Venice? Are we crazy? Do we not know that art is art?” he added.
The Epoch Times reached out to Dreyfuss, who until Adrien Brody won for The Pianist in 2002, was the youngest best actor winner at age 30 when he took the award for his role in 1977’s The Goodbye Girl. The actor’s other credits include 1975’s Jaws, 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1985’s Mr. Holland’s Opus.
“I think what he meant was that art should not be dogma—it shouldn’t be propaganda for a specific political ideology, otherwise it loses its value,” said Stone about Dreyfuss’s comments, while noting the audience’s need for authentic storytelling.
She described the actor as part of a rare breed in Hollywood who could be attacked and ultimately exiled for his statements.
However, Christian Toto, film critic and host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast, said that Dreyfuss “nailed it” with his comments.
“Yes movies are an amalgam of art and commerce, but making Best Picture hopefuls adhere to any set of criteria smacks of interrupting the creative process,” said Toto. “The subset of rules dictating what kinds of stories are being told is the very worst part of the new rules.”
UCLA associate professor and author Gabriel Rossman said Dreyfuss’s view about artistic freedom isn’t new.
“For instance, the recent dispute over the best actress nominations was (at least facially) about an excessive role for social capital,” Rossman told The Epoch Times, noting author James English’s book Economy of Prestige. The book discusses prizes as often contests of different forms of capital and that many prize controversies are about disputing what type of capital should dominate.
“So Dreyfuss’s comment that the award should prioritize artistic achievement over other considerations fits in a long tradition of prize disputes,” said Rossman.
For their part, both film viewers and movie aficionados also chimed in when The Academy announced the changes.
“You ruined the Oscars. It’s no longer about a cinema as a genre of art. Now it’s totally about politics,” read one comment on AMPAS’ website while renowned film producer Axel Kuschevatzky felt differently.
“I fully support @TheAcademy’s new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility,” tweeted Kuschevatzky, noting their importance.
The Epoch Times reached out to representatives at both The Academy and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for comment.
In a statement announcing the new rules, Academy President David Rubin and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said “the aperture must widen to reflect out diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them.”
“We believe these inclusion standards will be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry,” they wrote.
That’s while still others note past Oscar-winning films that would never have won under the new rules.
Those include films like 2013’s Argo, which did not have enough female actors in the cast to meet the 30 percent mark or 2007’s The Departed, which also had a predominantly male cast. That film finally earned director Martin Scorsese his first Oscar.
“We turn to storytelling to deepen our understanding of the human condition and to reflect back at lessons or characters we can be moved by,” said Stone. “Any film in the pre-woke era will have the audience in mind more so than anything else. That is no longer true. They’re serving the people at the top, the aristocracy, who value how they look in a culture of judgmental new puritans.”
Toto said Hollywood could better commit to diversity by hiring the best and brightest talents, period.
“That will ensure people from all walks of life get a chance to take part in the grand movie-making process,” said Toto. “If Hollywood wants to increase diversity measures by funding programs for young people from so-called under-represented groups, that’s perfectly fine and a far better path forward.”
Added Stone: “The best thing about right now is that there are more women and black filmmakers and all kinds of diverse and interesting voices making movies—more than ever before. In mandating their inclusion that robs them of a chance to achieve in their own right.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 20:45 - These Are The Most Affordable US Cities For Home-Buyers
These Are The Most Affordable US Cities For Home-Buyers
Just before the pandemic, the average home price in the U.S. was $313,000 – a figure that has since jumped by 40% to $436,800 today. As home prices and mortgage rates increase, home ownership is becoming an unrealistic dream for some.
However, as Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop’s shows in the chart below, buying a house in some cities is a much more attainable goal.
By looking at factors like the real estate tax rate, median home price appreciation, and cost of living, this study from WalletHub assesses the most affordable cities in the U.S. for home buyers. The scores in the ranking are out of 100 and the higher a score, the more affordable that city is for home buyers.
The Methodology
This ranking considers much more than just the price tag on a house when it comes to affordability. Using 10 metrics, which cover an array of important considerations for home buyers, the overall affordability score is measured for each city.
Here’s a closer look at the 10 categories and how each one was weighted and measured:
The highest-weighted metric is the median price of the home itself divided by the median household income in that area, or house affordability.
Other important metrics assessed include the availability of homes for sale, the average cost of homeowner’s insurance, maintenance costs, and many other vital things people must consider when purchasing a home.
Which U.S. Cities are the Most Affordable for Home Buyers?
Here’s a closer look at the 50 most affordable cities for home buyers in the U.S.:
Rank City Score T1 Montgomery, AL 71.4 T1 Flint, MI 71.4 3 Toledo, OH 71.0 4 Detroit, MI 70.9 5 Akron, OH 70.3 6 Warren, MI 70.2 7 Pittsburgh, PA 70.1 8 Yuma, AZ 69.5 T9 Springfield, Il 69.1 T9 Palm Bay, FL 69.1 11 Augusta, GA 68.9 12 Surpise, AZ 68.7 13 Grand Rapids, MI 68.5 14 Davenport, IA 68.3 T15 Buffalo, NY 68.2 T15 Cedar Rapids, IA 68.2 17 Columbus, OH 68.1 18 North Las Vegas, NV 67.9 T19 Fayetteville, NC 67.8 T19 Des Moines, IA 67.8 21 Peoria, IL 67.4 T22 Cleveland, OH 67.2 T22 Las Vegas, NV 67.2 24 Livonia, MI 67.0 T25 Dayton, OH 66.9 T25 Erie, PA 66.9 27 Dearborn, MI 66.5 28 Columbus, GA 66.4 29 Lakeland, FL 66.2 30 Rockford, IL 66.1 31 Memphis, TN 65.9 32 Henderson, NV 65.6 T33 Birmingham, AL 65.5 T33 Louisville, KY 65.5 T33 Fort Smith, AR 65.5 T33 Gilbert, AZ 65.5 37 Peoria, AZ 65.3 38 Mesa, AZ 65.2 39 Chesapeake, VA 65.0 40 Green Bay, WI 64.9 41 High Point, NC 64.5 42 Baltimore, MD 64.4 43 Cape Coral, FL 64.3 44 Fort Wayne, IN 64.1 T45 Indianapolis, IN 63.9 T45 Joliet, IL 63.9 T45 Tuscaloosa, AL 63.9 48 Philadelphia, PA 63.8 49 Lansing, MI 63.7 50 Chandler, AZ 63.5 When it comes to the individual metrics, here’s a look at some cities which had the best scores in a few of the unique categories:
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#1 in Housing Affordability: Springfield, IL
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#1 in Maintenance Affordability: Sunnyvale, CA
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#1 in Rent-to-Price Ratio: Flint, MI
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#1 in Vacancy Rate: Miami Beach, FL
Location, Location, Location
Narrowing down which locations are feasible from a lifestyle and financial standpoint is a critical first step in the home-buying journey. Popular suburban communities and iconic hubs like Los Angeles or NYC hold great appeal, but these places command a higher price point or have housing stock that is incompatible with lifestyle needs.
On the flip side, some of the most affordable cities may have issues that negatively affect desirability. Flint, Michigan (#1), for example, is still widely perceived to have issues with its drinking water. Other places are high in crime or have a narrow range of economic opportunities, like Detroit (#4) or Yuma, Arizona (#9), respectively.
Many of the cities in the ranking are concentrated in Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio. In terms of big cities that are actually affordable, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are examples of well-known spots to make the list.
There are also a number of ties in the ranking, with makes for interesting juxtapositions. For instance, Las Vegas is just as affordable as Cleveland, Ohio (#22). Here’s a look at some other cities that are equally affordable for home buyers:
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Montgomery, Alabama and Flint, Michigan (#1)
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Springfield, Illinois and Palm Bay, Florida (#9)
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Buffalo, New York and Cedar Rapids, Iowa (#15)
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Fayetteville, North Carolina and Des Moines, Iowa (#19)
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Dayton, Ohio and Erie, Pennsylvania (#25)
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Birmingham, Alabama; Louisville, Kentucky; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Gilbert, Arizona (#33)
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Indianapolis, Indiana; Joliet, Illinois; and Tuscaloosa, Alabama (#45)
Overall, the home ownership rate in the U.S.—the share of homes that are occupied by their owners—is currently 66%, according to FRED data. While the trend shows a general recovery from the steep drop off that occurred during the pandemic, there is a while to go before the U.S. reaches pre-2020 figures. Perhaps, these affordable towns could offer a solution.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 20:15 -
- Penn State Professor Arrested for Alleged Sex Crimes With Dog
Penn State Professor Arrested for Alleged Sex Crimes With Dog
We often follow academics in the criminal justice system, but few are likely to be as memorable as Penn State Professor Themis Matsoukas, 64. The Penn State chemical engineering professor was arrested in a parking lot near Rothrock State Forest for allegedly having sex with a collie. He later told police “I do it to blow off steam.” What is notable (beyond the obvious) is the overlap and lack of severity of the charges.
His arrest bizarrely occurs the same week as another man was arrested for attempting to have sex with a tree. However, Matsoukas harmed an animal but will likely not face significant jail time.
Matsoukas was reportedly caught on a trail camera in the parking lot in April and accused of indecent exposure, masturbation, and sexual contact with a dog. He was previously seen walking around the lot with no clothes from the waist down.
He was tracked down through his car and then matched to his DMV license photo. A search of his home uncovered items that could be seen in the video. Among the items seized were a jacket, a backpack, a ski mask, a large wristwatch, an electronic tablet, and photo documentation of the presence of a dog in the footage.
Police reported that Matsoukas told them during the search repeatedly “I’m done, I’m dead,” He then reportedly begged the authorities to shoot him, saying, “I need to die.”
Notably, it appears from the charging sheet that he is facing fairly redundant charges but they all appear misdemeanors or lesser offenses.
§ 5901 M3 Open Lewdness
§ 3127 §§ A M2 Indecent Exposure
§ 3129 M2 Sexual Intercourse With Animal
§ 5533 §§ A S Cruelty to Animals
§ 5503 §§ A4 S Disorderly Conduct Hazardous/Physi Off
That last charge is a disorderly conduct charge where the accused “creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition.” The term “physically offensive condition” is patently obvious in this case, but can be ambiguous and somewhat subjective on its scope.
It may come as a surprise to many that the first three charges (open lewdness, indecent exposure, and sexual intercourse with an animal) are misdemeanors and the last two (cruelty to animals and disorderly conduct) are summary charges. A summary charge is even lower than a misdemeanor and often involve non-traffic offenses.
Presumably, these offenses would run concurrently given the overlap. For a first offender, that could result in a relatively short jail term.
The expectation is that the university will fire him. He could challenge on the grounds that these are misdemeanors but the school can point to the depravity and dangerousness of the allegations. Of course, we have seen faculty who have physically assaulted students who were not fired.
Matsoukas’ academic work focused on chemical thermodynamics and he is the author of a recent undergraduate textbook on the Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics. That book by Pearson Publishing has been out less than a year.
Matsoukas’ research centers on “nano colloidal systems and in the application of stochastic population balance models to particulate processes.”
Matsoukas has been given an array of teaching awards, including the George W. Atherton Award for excellence in Teaching, the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Penn State Engineering Society, and the Outstanding Professor of the Year Award from the student chapter of the AIChE. He earned his undergraduate degree at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and his PhD at the University of Michigan. Both degrees were in chemical engineering.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 19:45 - Body Parts From Harvard Morgue Had Buyers With Ties To Facebook Oddities Group
Body Parts From Harvard Morgue Had Buyers With Ties To Facebook Oddities Group
Update:
Bloomberg shared more details about stolen body parts from Harvard Medical School’s morgue. The report provides details on the buyers and their connections to private Facebook groups.
“Just out of curiosity, would you know anyone in the market for a fully intact embalmed brain?” Little Rock, Arkansas, funeral home contractor Candace Chapman Scott asked accused dealer Jeremy Pauley in Pennsylvania on a Facebook Messenger note in 2021, federal prosecutors say.
Jeremy Pauley Cedric Lodge, 55, the former manager of Harvard’s morgue, was charged with selling brains, hearts, skin, and other body parts to individuals who were part of an online underground human remains trafficking network.
Seven people in five states, including Lodge, were charged with conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen goods by the US Attorney’s office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. So far, Pauley has agreed to plead guilty.
Charging documents said Scott and Pauley were members of several Facebook groups that were platforms for buying and selling “oddities.”
Harvard fired Lodge in May for stealing and selling body parts from the morgue. At one point, he allowed Katrina MacLean and Joshua Taylor of Pennsylvania, an alleged trafficker, into the school’s morgue.
Lodge’s wife was accused of selling body parts to MacLean and Taylor. Taylor appears to have made 39 PayPal payments to Lodge’s wife, totaling $37,000 between 2018 and 2021. In one payment to Lodge’s wife, he wrote in the memo “braiiiiiins.” Another payment was billed as “head number 7.”
The indictment said MacLean and Taylor were accused of shipping body parts to Pauley, who MacLean asked to turn human skin into leather.
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A former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School was indicted on federal charges for stealing body parts of donated cadavers and reselling them to individuals in a nationwide human-remains trafficking scheme.
Cedric Lodge worked at the medical school’s morgue in Boston. He allowed buyers into the school’s morgue to create a shopping list of body parts, able to choose from skin, brains, heads, and bones, according to the five-count indictment filed Tuesday in US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Lodge “stole dissected portions of donated cadavers, including…heads, brains, skin, bones, and other human remains, without the knowledge or permission of (the school) and removed those remains from the morgue in Massachusetts and transported them to his residence in New Hampshire,” the indictment said.
“Some crimes defy understanding,” United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam wrote in a statement.
Karam continued: “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human. It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing. For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling. With these charges, we are seeking to secure some measure of justice for all these victims.”
The indictment alleges Lodge and his wife, Denise, sold body parts to others, including Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor.
Maclean owns Kat’s Creepy Creations, a store in Peabody, Massachusetts, where the indictment says she sold the stolen body parts to others.
Investigators claim Maclean asked Lodge for human skin so a mortuary and crematorium employee in Little Rock, Arkansas, could tan the skin to create leather.
Harvard University officials said:
“We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus — a community dedicated to healing and serving others.”
The medical school said they’re working with federal authorities “to attempt to identify victims and contact as many of the victims’ families affected by this case as possible.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 19:15 - Mississippi Becomes Ground Zero In National Fight Over Ballot Harvesting
Mississippi Becomes Ground Zero In National Fight Over Ballot Harvesting
Authored by Joe Gomez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Mississippi state flag flies over the Mississippi State Capitol building in Jackson, Miss., on June 28, 2020. (Rory Doyle/AFP via Getty Images) Newly passed legislation that would ban ballot harvesting in Mississippi is being challenged in court by several civil rights organizations that claim it would harm minority voters and those with disabilities.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mississippi Center for Justice, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU-MS, and Disability Rights Mississippi (DRMS) filed a federal lawsuit challenging S.B. 2358, legislation which would prevent a third party from collecting an absentee ballot from a voter and delivering it to a polling place. It’s due to take effect on July 1.
“Across the country, we’ve seen how bad actors have used ballot harvesting to take advantage of elderly and vulnerable voters in other states—all so they can try to circumvent our democratic process and cut you out of it. But here in Mississippi, we’re just not going to let that happen. Here, we will make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. I was proud to sign Senate Bill 2358,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves told The Epoch Times.
The governor’s office describes ballot harvesting as a process where a political operative collects and handles massive amounts of absentee ballots and maintains the practice could take advantage of elderly and vulnerable voters.
“National Democrats are pushing for a federal takeover of elections and are advocating to push ballot harvesting on states all across the U.S. This is nothing more than a blatant political power grab, and we must continue standing up to them,” said Reeves.
Meanwhile, plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue the new law would do the opposite by disenfranchising and preventing minorities or those with disabilities from voting.
“Anti-voter politicians are trying to deny a fair voice in government to Mississippians with disabilities while criminalizing their friends and neighbors who want to help them deliver absentee ballots,” said Ahmed Soussi, staff attorney for voting rights with the SPLC. “This bill would diminish American democracy by punishing volunteers who facilitate voting for historically discriminated against communities.”
Voting rights activists have described the terms “ballot harvesting” or “voter harvesting” as essentially pejoratives for “voting.”
The Democratic Governors Association (DGA), which has been trying to prevent Reeves from being reelected, has also voiced their concern over the new law, using it as political ammunition in the group’s attempt to turn Mississippi blue by electing Democrat Brandon Presley to the governor’s office instead.
“Tate Reeves is trying to rip power away from everyday Mississippi voters because he’s scared of being held accountable for his failures and corruption,” DGA Communications Director Sam Newton told The Epoch Times. “In fact, a new poll this week showed that over 20 percent of Mississippi GOP voters are crossing party lines to support Brandon Presley, who is launching a ‘war on corruption’ and putting working people first with plans to axe the food tax, slash car tag fees in half and expand Medicaid to save rural hospitals.”
Reeves has denied any allegations of corruption or misconduct.
Ballot Harvesting Bans in Other States
Mississippi is not the only state to pass a law banning ballot harvesting.
Over 30 other states have placed restrictions or bans on the practice of third-party ballot collections and some have even made it a jailable offense.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 18:45 - California's War Against Prosperity
California’s War Against Prosperity
Authored by Edward Ring via American Greatness,
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, generating 44 percent of all business activity. Take them out of the equation, and the economy collapses. But that is exactly what’s happening. The cards are stacked against small businesses in America today, and nowhere is it worse than in the state of California.
Here, the rules are rigged to make it more difficult for small, independent contractors and independent businesspeople to survive, much less thrive. Excessive regulations invariably favor large companies because the cost of complying is far easier for a company with a billion dollars in annual revenue than it is for a company with a million dollars in annual revenue.
This obvious fact is well understood by corporate monopolists whose rollup and consolidation of industry after industry in America has only accelerated in recent years. This excerpt from a January report by S&P Global, sums up the trend: “In 91 of 157 primary industries, the five largest U.S. companies by revenue combine for at least 80% of total revenue.”
The report goes on to explain how monopoly power is a double-edged sword. On one hand, “growing monopoly power stifles competition and productivity in the U.S. economy.” The counterargument is that “very, very productive firms end up dominating the industry.” From the perspective of the ordinary American worker, either as an employee of a monopolistic corporation, or as an independent proprietor trying to compete in markets getting swallowed up by the giants, both of these arguments are true, and both are bad news.
The fact that regulations actually benefit the largest corporations clearly doesn’t translate to a recognition by progressive voters that deregulation—or at the very least, a more judicious application of regulatory oversight—might help small business survive and might help consumers avoid new rounds of price gouging when a few giant companies capture entire markets. And California is ground zero for this cognitive dissonance.
A more subtle impact of excessive regulations is how it redirects productivity, rendering the value of enhanced productivity far more ambivalent than one might suppose. In California, for example, with costs for land, energy, and raw materials driven artificially high due to regulations, gains in productivity are offset by higher costs for these inputs and by higher costs to comply with regulations. Apart from wiping out the smaller competition—which is good for the monopolies—where is the benefit?
The Punishing Middle-Class Tax Burden
If a sole proprietor aspires to upward mobility by working harder, the cards are particularly stacked. The following chart shows just how demoralizing current tax laws are for people with taxable income between $90,000 and $160,000, particularly in California, where state taxes are especially onerous.
In California, depending on where you live, it is difficult, if not impossible, to support a family on $90,000 per year. That income is the entry-level to the middle class. For the same reasons, in California, a taxable household income of $160,000 per year is by no means upper middle class. In many parts of the state, it still spells tight budgets and tough spending decisions for families.
But where is the incentive to work harder, beyond the pure necessity to survive? If a person is making $90,000 per year as an independent contractor (married filing jointly) and they forfeit nights or weekends to take on extra work, they will give 43 percent of their income to the government. That is, for every $100 they earn, they’ll only keep $57. If they are set to make $132,000 per year, and they take on an extra job, they’ll pay 47 percent of their earnings to the government. Forty-seven percent tax.
This is an appalling abuse of some of the hardest-working citizens in America.
People who are barely able to make ends meet, who need to supplement their income by sacrificing whatever time they can spare after fulfilling their obligations to their family and to their primary clients, are forced to give nearly half of every dollar they earn to the government.
And in a bizarre twist of logic, white collar law partners and consultants, who collect higher compensation as hired clerisy for monopolists and billionaires, end up paying less in marginal taxes. As soon as their taxable income exceeds $160,000 per year, their 12.4 percent Social Security assessment goes away, and their marginal tax burden drops from 47 percent to 34 percent. In America’s supposedly progressive tax environment, a 47 percent marginal tax burden is not reached again until income exceeds $400,000 per year.
Interesting, isn’t it? A guy who takes on extra work to pay rent for his home and tuition for his kids and scrapes together $130,000 per year is paying more taxes on that last dollar than a corporate litigator whose last billable hour topped out at $390,000 per year. Some might say there is a distinction between Social Security taxes and “taxes.” But when your biggest concern is having enough money left to cover your monthly bills, that’s mumbo jumbo. Money for the government is money for the government. It doesn’t matter where it’s going or what you call it.
The Cost-of-Living Burden
It’s not easy to draw the line between what regulations facilitate authentic capitalism, where companies have to use their productivity innovations in order to sell competitive products at competitive prices to customers with options, versus regulations that empower monopolies and throw up impassable barriers to smaller emerging would-be competitors. In California’s case, nobody has even tried to thread that needle.
Instead, the state legislature has never considered a regulation it didn’t like. With accelerating frequency and intensity, and specifically with respect to “saving the planet,” California’s regulatory state has made it impossible to live a middle-class lifestyle.
Thanks to environmentalists pressuring the state to impose ridiculous “net zero” building codes, along with cordoning off cities to prevent the far less expensive option of building on open land, the average home in California costs over $728,000. That’s actually down slightly compared to a year ago, but payments are still way up. With a 30-year fixed mortgage now up to 7 percent, the average home in California will set you back $4,844 per month.
But that’s not all: California’s much-vaunted low property taxes, at 1 percent, still pack a wallop on such a huge base. Add at least another $1,200 per month for the 1 percent property tax, the various local “fees” that get around the 1 percent cap, plus mortgage insurance, and homeowners insurance.
How far is that $90,000 per year going, now that you’ve spent $72,000 just to get your family under the average roof? Add to that the most expensive total costs for natural gas, electricity, gasoline, and water in the United States, and you’ll be lucky to have a dime left over for clothing, groceries, or health care. Want to keep your kids out of the public schools? Good luck. On average, that will cost another $16,000 per year per child in the Golden State. And it is not tax deductible.
All of these costs are elevated either indirectly or explicitly thanks to environmentalist regulatory excess. The state has plenty of land for homes, trees for lumber, abundant reserves of gas and oil, and amazingly productive farmland. But in every one of these areas—the foundations of prosperity—environmentalist-inspired rules have restricted supply and raised costs. The only economic interests that have benefited are monopolists.
What Kind of Government Is This?
How did it come to this? Californians pay ridiculously high taxes. If they are within that middle-class band of income between $90,000 and $160,000 per year, their marginal tax rate is more than people earning up to $400,000 per year. And for what? A government passing regulations that have made the state unaffordable? California’s government has declared war on its hardest-working citizens. It is engaging in what amounts to the economic expulsion of its middle-class citizens.
For California’s low-income communities, the situation is no better. How does it serve social justice to make the most basic necessities of life unaffordable? How does it serve environmental justice to cram millions of people into already crowded cities because a “greenbelt” has been stretched around every urbanized region of this vast, underpopulated state? How does it foster upward mobility for low-income families when the only thing achieving middle-class economic status brings is no more government subsidies and brand new, crippling rates of taxation in their place?
And then there is the entire spectrum of failed state phenomena—rampant drug addiction, decriminalized crime, a completely unregulated homeless population, and public schools where children are taught identity politics and climate crisis indoctrination, filling their heads with resentment and terror, instead of grammar and multiplication tables.
Why should anyone work anymore? Why try? The government schools teach values that nurture irresponsibility—blame systemic racism and corporate greed for anything missing in your life—and at the same time, government regulations have created an economy where even a hard-working and responsible person cannot afford to live.
California’s only hope is for its voters to recognize what has happened and, in a multiethnic, nonpartisan seismic wave of populist rage, replace every one of their dysfunctional, wholly owned legislators. California’s voters must demand politicians and policies that strike a reasonable balance between the needs of the environment and the needs of civilization in order once again to enable an economy where small companies can compete with large companies, where consumers have choices, and a low cost of living appropriately reflects California’s abundant resources and innovative people.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 17:45 - Collapsed I-95 Bridge To Be Repaired "Within Next Two Weeks," Pennsylvania Gov. Says
Collapsed I-95 Bridge To Be Repaired “Within Next Two Weeks,” Pennsylvania Gov. Says
Construction crews are working around the clock to rebuild a portion of an Interstate 95 bridge in northeastern Philadelphia that collapsed about a week ago.
On Saturday morning, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro tweeted that plans are underway to reopen the bridge could be as early as the “next two weeks.”
Today, I can state with confidence: We will have I-95 open within the next two weeks. We are going to get traffic moving again — thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our incredible union trade workers and our all-hands-on-deck approach.
Today, I can state with confidence:
We will have I-95 open within the next two weeks.
We are going to get traffic moving again — thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our incredible union trade workers and our all hands on deck approach.
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) June 17, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Shapiro declared a disaster emergency shortly after a tanker hauling thousands of gallons of gasoline flipped over on an off-ramp and caught fire underneath the bridge last Sunday. His initial estimates were it could ‘take months’ to fix the damaged bridge.
A live stream of the bridge shows construction crews are busy this morning.
The livestream is here, Pennsylvania.
To chart our progress and give everyone a sense of timing, we’re launching our 24/7 livestream where you can watch I-95 get rebuilt.
Government is working for the good people of Pennsylvania. https://t.co/C10d2Z8SCt
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) June 15, 2023
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US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned earlier this week that the bridge’s closure was forcing 14,000 trucks to find alternative routes that could snarl East Coast supply chains and raise consumer prices.
Buttigieg tweeted that this portion of I-95 “is an artery for people and goods,” and emergency relief funds are being deployed to fix the bridge.
On Saturday morning, travel disruptions were seen around the closed-off section of I-95.
One person on Twitter said, “Has to be a RECORD of when any roadwork gets done in PA. Funny what happens with a little effort.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 17:15 - Westchester County DA Ends Investigation Into Trump Golf Course
Westchester County DA Ends Investigation Into Trump Golf Course
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former President Donald Trump applauded a suburban New York prosecutor after she dropped a two-year criminal investigation into him and his company.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on June 13, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah, a Democrat, said in a statement on June 15 that her office had closed the case against Trump after an investigation that was conducted “objectively, and independent of politics, party affiliation and personal or political beliefs.”
Her office did not file charges against Trump or the Trump Organization.
Trump applauded Rocah’s decision, writing on his Truth Social account that ending the investigation “WAS THE HONORABLE THING TO DO IN THAT I DID NOTHING WRONG.”
“BUT WHERE AND WHEN DO I GET MY REPUTATION BACK? WHEN WILL THE OTHER FAKE CASES AGAINST ME BE DROPPED?” Trump added. “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!”
Rocah began investigating Trump in 2021, in an effort to decide whether the former president or his company had misled authorities about the value of the Trump National Golf Club Westchester to pay less on property taxes.
According to The New York Times, Rocah’s office subpoenaed records from the golf course and the town of Ossining in 2021. Ossining handles the course’s taxes.
Trump had previously called Rocah’s investigation a “witch hunt.”
“The Club’s request for a review of its tax assessments was amicably resolved earlier this year and signed off by the Town Board, the Town Assessor, Special Counsel for the Town (who determined the settlement to be both ‘appropriate and in the best interests of the Town of Ossining’), the Briarcliff Manor School District, the Office of the Westchester County Attorney and the Westchester County Supreme Court judge presiding over the matter,” a spokesperson for the Trump Organization told The Hill via email.
“Accordingly, the suggestion that anything was inappropriate is completely false and incredibly irresponsible. The witch hunt continues,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, Trump is facing a separate lawsuit in New York. In September 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump’s business associates over alleged fraud. The lawsuit claims that the Trump Organization deceived insurers, lenders, and tax officials by allegedly inflating the value of its assets.
The case is set to go to trial in October. However, James recently said her case could be delayed by the Department of Justice’s prosecution against the former president over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
On June 13, at a federal court in Miami, Trump entered a not-guilty plea to 37 felony charges in the classified document case.
Rocah talked about her decision to close down her case against Trump in an interview with CBS on Thursday.
“I think it’s really important, more important than ever in our country, to make sure that people understand that we have independent prosecutors, we have a justice system that operates independent of politics,” Rocah told the outlet. “I can stand here and proudly say that I’m one of those prosecutors, and I look at every subject of any investigation, every organization that’s a subject of an investigation, the same way.”
Trump’s legal troubles have not negatively affected his popularity with GOP voters, according to the latest National Research Inc. survey commissioned by American Greatness.
The survey, which queried 500 likely New Hampshire voters from June 12 to 14, found Trump in the lead with 44 percent of support, up 5 percent from the outfit’s May survey.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seen as Trump’s top rival, picked up 12 percent of support, dropping six percentage points from the previous survey.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) finished tied at third with 7 percent of support each, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (5 percent), biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (3 percent), former Vice President Mike Pence (3 percent), and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (2 percent).
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 16:45 - Philly Introduces Legislation To Ban Ski Masks In Public Areas
Philly Introduces Legislation To Ban Ski Masks In Public Areas
Turns out masking wasn’t just totally ineffective during Covid, the remnants of “normalizing” the behavior are now coming back to bite U.S. cities, where the practice – which formerly was just for wintertime and committing crimes – is now being used effectively for the latter because of now normal is has become.
At least that’s the case in Philadelphia, where the city council is now mulling a ski mask ban (as if that should even be necessary heading into the dead of winter). But the city has experienced such an increase in crime since Covid, the idea is getting traction.
City Council Member Anthony Phillips has commented: “You cannot distinguish a misguided kid from a common criminal. We cannot ignore it because neighbors feel unsafe, we can’t ignore the police’s struggle to identify suspects. This is a public safety ad a quality of life issue.”
He introduced the legislation which would ban masks in public places like parks and schools last week, according to ABC 6.
The legislation would carry with it a $250 fine for anyone wearing a ski mask in rec centers, daycares, parks, and city-owned buildings and a $2,000 fine for anyone wearing one while committing a crime.
The bill excludes “costumes, along with anyone engaging in religious holidays or wearing safety equipment for work”, the report notes, meaning that Philadelphia may soon see an influx of “Halloween in July” parties, as well as religions that call for covering ones face.
Philadelphia has already put in place a ban on facemasks on public transit, but the report notes that the new legislation isn’t likely to pass until the end of summer, if at all.
Samia Glenn from West Philadelphia pushed back against the idea: “Some people just wear it (ski masks) for protection. Ski mask isn’t always defensive. Everybody doesn’t wear it just because they’re doing something bad.”
In the dead of summer? Sure, Samia…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 16:15 - Longevity Isn't Really About Our Genes, Study Reveals
Longevity Isn’t Really About Our Genes, Study Reveals
Authored by Emma Suttle, D.Ac, AP via the Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
How often have you pondered your dad’s diabetes or the heart disease that runs in the family and thought, “Am I going to get that? Is it inevitable?”
Physical activity and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle have more to do with our longevity than our genes do. With all we’ve learned about genetics, it seems reasonable to think that some of our health outcomes will be determined by those invisible forces buried deep in our DNA. But a new study has shown that how long we live has more to do with our behavior than with our genes, implying that our choices may have a much more profound impact on our longevity than we may have thought.
The Study
The authors of the study, published in the Human Kinetics Journal, sought to analyze the relationship between physical activity and sedentary behavior, and their associations with mortality based on a score that evaluated genetic risk factors. The study involved 5,446 post-menopausal women 63 years of age or older. The women were put into three groups based on their genetic risk factors. These risk factors were measured by a “small selection of single-nucleotide polymorphisms” that are well-known to affect longevity.
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are variations in a genetic sequence that affects one of the sequence’s basic building blocks—adenine, thymine, cytosine, or guanine. SNPs help predict an individual’s response to certain drugs, his or her susceptibility to environmental factors such as toxins, pesticides, or industrial waste, and his or her risk of developing certain diseases.
The study authors conclusively found that, regardless of their genetic risk factors, participants who had a higher rate of physical activity showed a lower risk of mortality, and those who had a higher level of sedentary behavior increased their chances of dying during an average follow-up period of more than six years.
Ultimately, the findings support the importance of more physical activity and less sedentary behavior for reducing mortality risk in older women, regardless of their genetic predisposition for longevity.
Genes and Longevity
An article titled “Human Longevity: Genetics or Lifestyle? It Takes Two to Tango,” published in Immunity and Aging in 2016, found that a combination of genetic and non-genetic factors determines healthy aging and longevity in humans. It says that family studies found that about 25 percent of the variation in human longevity is due to genetic factors. Interestingly, the article also states that studies have indicated that caloric restriction, as well as epigenetic factors, genetics, and lifestyle, play a role in healthy aging.
Epigenetics is the study of how our behaviors and environment can change the way our genes function. Unlike genetic changes, these epigenetic changes are reversible because they don’t affect our DNA.
In contrast, a study published in 2018 in the journal Genetics analyzed a staggering 54.43 million family trees by collecting birth and death records for 406 million people born from the 19th century to the mid-20th century from the databases of Ancestry.com. The study found that a mere 7 percent of people’s lifespan can be attributed to genetics or heritability.
Heritability measures how the differences in human genes account for the differences in individuals’ particular characteristics or traits. These include eye color, height, hair color, intelligence, and disorders such as schizophrenia and autism.
Lifestyle and Longevity
Longevity, or the biology of aging, is an exciting field of study that is making important discoveries about the factors that affect how long we live.
Until very recently, life expectancy for humans was between 19 and 35 years, but over the past 150 years, significant improvements in sanitation and living conditions, agricultural practices, access to clean food and water, and medical treatment have dramatically increased lifespans. The average lifespan now is about 76 years of age (it has declined significantly in the United States since 2020 due to COVID-19). If we look at it this way, managing how we age is a relatively new concern.
With aging comes a whole host of age-related diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, to name a few. And, as we get older, we are not only more likely to develop these conditions, but also to have several of them at the same time.
Scientists have been studying people who live to be over 100 years old (called centenarians) and those who live to be over 110 (called supercentenarians) in order to understand which factors contribute to their long lives. Scientists have discovered that these individuals have little in common with each other in regard to their education, profession, or income, but they tend to share similar lifestyles: They don’t smoke; they are not obese or overweight; and they cope well with stress. Also, most centenarians and supercentenarians are women.
In our elder years, eating a healthy diet, avoiding tobacco, limiting alcohol, and staying physically active can keep many of us healthy into old age. But in later life—at age 80 and beyond—genetics plays a prominent role in keeping people healthy and avoiding age-related diseases. Research suggests that many centenarians are able to live independently and avoid age-related diseases until the very last years of their lives.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 15:45 - Suicide & Homicide Rates Among Young Americans At Decade High
Suicide & Homicide Rates Among Young Americans At Decade High
Suicide and homicide rates among young people in the U.S. have reached levels not seen in decades, new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
Among those 10 to 24 years old, 11 suicides and 10.7 homicides per 100,000 people occurred in 2021.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, suicide rates in the age group have been hitting new records every year since 2017, while for homicides, 2021 marks the highest rate since 1997.
However, homicide rates for Americans aged 10 to 24 are still lower today than in the early 1990s, when they hit a high of 16.3 per 100,000 individuals in 1993.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Suicide and homicide are the second and third most common causes of death for the age group after unintentional injury.
According to CNN, poisonings are common in suicides by younger children and they rose dramatically in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many suicides and homicides in the U.S. are carried out with guns, which made them the cause of 1 in 5 childhood and teen deaths overall in 2021. Guns as a cause of death overtook car accidents in 2020 for children and teens.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 15:15 - Congress Restricts Funding Of Chinese, Russian Labs, But Loopholes Remain
Congress Restricts Funding Of Chinese, Russian Labs, But Loopholes Remain
Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClear Wire,
More than three years after the U.S. stopped sending taxpayer dollars to fund coronavirus experiments on bats in China, 27 Chinese laboratories – including some run by the Chinese Communist Party – are still eligible for U.S. government funding for research on animals, according to a new review of Congressional Research Service data provided to Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
The ongoing debate over COVID’s origins, including U.S. intelligence agencies’ belief that the virus likely or could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has spurred far more Washington scrutiny of U.S. funding of various research programs in China and Russia. Over the last year, Congress has broadened the effort, working to limit or altogether end U.S. financial support for research projects in all countries regarded as foreign adversaries.
In late May, an analysis by Ernst and the watchdog group Open the Books found that the American research institutes had sent Chinese and Russian entities at least $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars over five years for various programs, including several at the Wuhan lab, as well as experiments forcing cats to run on treadmills in Russia and a gender-equality New Yorker cartoon exhibition in Beijing.
The CRS data showed that $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts were paid to Chinese entities, while another $780 million went to Russian entities. Before Ernst’s efforts, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the U.S. sent just $48 million to Chinese entities over the five-year period examined, from 2017 to 2021.
Another outside group, the White Coat Waste Project, which seeks to end government-funded animal experiments and first exposed the U.S. financing of the coronavirus research in Wuhan, has since reviewed all the U.S.-funded research programs over that five-year period.
A White Coat Waste review of the CRS data, released to RealClearPolitics this week, found that the University of Illinois spent $123,552 of a $1.6 million NIH grant on a Kremlin-linked project at a Russian fur farm that killed foxes, and that the University of Southern California channeled $576,453 of a $1.9 million NIH grant to China’s Peking University for deadly experiments on mice.
It also showed that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Seattle-based Allen Institute sent $993,000 of a $64.7 million NIH grant to Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology for a deadly experiment on baby mice. In addition, Emory University shipped $515,418 of a $38.6 million Health and Human Services contract to the CCP-linked Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, which houses one of China’s dangerous high-containment bio-agent labs.
The experiments at Harbin involved dangerous avian flu viruses collected from China’s wet markets being forced into mice and guinea pigs and efforts to supercharge viruses to make them more transmissible.
Ernst believes the $1.3 billion she uncovered is likely the floor, not the ceiling, for what she describes as “pointless projects” in China and Russia because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars overseas. To ensure Congress knows where all its funding ends up, Ernst has introduced a bill requiring all U.S. funding for organizations in China and Russia to be tracked to its final destination and disclosed. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the China Select Committee, has authored a House version of the measure.
“Among many other troubling taxpayer-funded programs, I’ve got receipts showing how Americans unwittingly funded experiments on foxes at a Russian government fur farm, the Kremlin’s cat-on-a-treadmill experiments, the Wuhan lab that likely sparked the pandemic, and another CCP-run bioagent lab that collected dangerous bird flu viruses from filthy wet markets and engineered them to be more contagious,” Ernst told RCP in a statement. “Our taxpayer dollars should not be funding foreign adversaries, and I’m working to cut this wasteful and reckless spending overseas.”
Last month, the Biden administration’s National Institute of Health also disqualified the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the Chinese state-controlled lab some have blamed for leaking coronavirus and sparking the pandemic – from receiving more U.S. government funds.
President Trump’s NIH, back in April 2020, took the first step and cut off funding for coronavirus experiments on bats at the Wuhan lab. The NIH announced the decision just days after the White Coat Waste exposed the U.S. financial support for the research. Congress followed up by cutting State Department and Defense Department funds to the lab and worked to dramatically restrict U.S. spending for animal experiments in China and Russia, as well as in other foreign adversaries.
The final version of legislation that Biden signed into law narrowed the language from a prohibition on nearly all animal experiments in China, Russia, and other adversarial nations to barring dangerous pathogen experiments in these countries, allowing other U.S.-financed experiments to continue. But a new effort in the House would prevent the U.S. taxpayer dollars from flowing to any research lab in China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries.
“I’m proud to have led successful efforts in recent years to completely cut taxpayer funding for the Wuhan lab that likely caused COVID and all Russian labs that torture cats and other animals,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican who has authored a bill that would impose a full ban. “Tax dollars should never be sent to dangerous and unaccountable labs in adversarial nations like Russia and China that threaten our national security.”
On Thursday, the House Defense Appropriations panel passed a bill including language that would cut funding for all animal experiments or other virus-related projects in China, including those involving the Wuhan lab funder EcoHealth Alliance. Republican lawmakers and others have accused EcoHealth of conducting risky gain-of-function research with NIH funding, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The NIH, which denies that the funds went to gain-of-function research, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have doled out tens of millions to EcoHealth in recent years.
Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who worked to advance the language in the House defense spending bill, said it’s past time to defund these projects because U.S. foreign adversaries, particularly China, have proven they cannot be trusted with U.S. taxpayer dollars to conduct laboratory research and experiments.
“Cutting American funding to research labs in adversarial nations that pose a threat to our national security should never be a partisan issue,” he told RCP. “I’d like to thank my colleagues who have recognized the importance of this effort.”
After Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year, support for defunding Russia-based research programs gained strong bipartisan backing in Washington. Barring U.S.-funded research in China also has garnered far more converts as tensions have continued to flare between Washington and Beijing over China’s lack of transparency about COVID’s origin, new fears over Chinese spying, aggression against Taiwan, and its genocide against the Uyghurs and many other egregious human rights violations.
“Defunding these labs is a no-brainer,” Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat helping to lead the House effort, told RCP, stressing the need to protect national security and the animals.
Despite the strong sentiments from Republicans and Democrats, 27 Chinese labs are still listed as eligible for funding in an online NIH database. Several of these labs have strong links to the CCP, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, which are run by the CCP’s State Council of China. Others with strong CCP ties include Fudan University, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, and Zhenjiang University.
The language providing a full ban on sending U.S. dollars to foreign adversary entities must still pass the full House and Senate, where it was narrowed last year.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 14:45 - Texas Grid Faces First Big Test As Record Power Demand Imminent On Triple-Digit Temp Threat
Texas Grid Faces First Big Test As Record Power Demand Imminent On Triple-Digit Temp Threat
Extreme temperatures in Texas will push the mercury into triple-digit territory for much of the state through mid-next week. The first heat wave of the summer season is expected to send power demand to record levels as homes and businesses crank up their air conditioners.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s grid with 26 million customers, or about 90% of the state’s power load, forecasted peak demand could reach 82,275 megawatts by Wednesday, the first day of summer. The current record of 80,148 megawatts was set last July.
The heat wave brings up two important questions. First, can ERCOT provide enough power to handle record demand? And second, will volatility emerge in wholesale power markets?
BloombergNEF answers those questions:
Is there enough generation available?
Regarding the first of these questions, the situation is most likely under control – at least for now. While high power demand does put pressure on the grid, a better measure of grid stress is net load (also known as the ‘thermal gap’), which is the load remaining after solar and wind generation are subtracted.
The impact of higher-than-expected demand on net load is offset by the fact that solar capacity in Ercot has increased by 4.3GW — or more than a third — since this time last year. So although demand is expected to reach unprecedented levels, net load will not break records: it will just be very high. BNEF anticipates a peak net load of 62GW for June 16, and 65GW for June 20-21. Net load exceeded 65GW for a total of 83 hours between 2018 and 2022 – so the situation is rare, but not unprecedented.
How will the power market respond?
To the question of prices, there is no doubt that the high net load expectations are having an impact. Historically, BNEF has observed that prices in Ercot start to spike when net load is between 55GW and 60GW. For net loads above 64GW, price spikes are not only possible but probable.
The peak net load for Friday is 62GW, which means the market is on the threshold between conventional pricing dynamics and extreme volatility. At 62GW, real-time prices will likely fall between $35/MWh and $104/MWh, a broad but modest interquartile range given how high demand is.
However, the mean of BNEF’s expectations in the same analysis is $158/MWh, lying well outside that range. This seeming contradiction stems from the fact that there is a finite chance of prices hitting the $1,000/MWh-$5,000/MWh range, which could happen if some generators unexpectedly come offline. This possibility pulls up the average. Additionally, if net demand is any higher than expected, extreme prices will be very much in the cards. The hub average day-ahead price for 5:00 pm Friday is $195.70/MWh, which likely reflects concerns of potential upside risk, even if a lower real-time price is more probable.
Next week, keep track of the wind forecast.
Whatever happens with prices, BNEF expects Ercot to have enough generation to keep the power on. Next week’s 81-82GW peak demand will be far more testing and uncertain. The whims of the wind could sway net load by 16GW: strong winds could bring it down to 54GW, while lackluster winds could push it up to unchartered 70GW territory.
Current forecasts for the days in question put mid-afternoon wind speeds at five to six meters per second, which is relatively high, suggesting that net load at the lower end of the above range is more likely. However, net load at the higher end is still a possibility, and the result would be astronomical power prices and potential outages. Those that participate in the Ercot power market or depend on the Texas grid would be wise to keep an eye on the weather forecast as it evolves. June will prove to be the first test of the summer season. However, even if the coming days prove uneventful, the rest of the summer will likely see continued demand records, a continuation of last year’s trend. Moreover, August and September see temperatures – and hence demand – peak later in the day, when solar generation is less of a factor. This could prove to be the true test of whether Ercot is ready to meet new levels of power demand.
ERCOT will face its first major challenge of the summer season next week. According to Bloomberg, they anticipate the grid will hold up. However, stress on the grid may emerge as the season progresses.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/17/2023 – 14:15
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