- Russia Threatens Western Media Crackdown After EU Court Upholds RT Ban
Russia Threatens Western Media Crackdown After EU Court Upholds RT Ban
Starting in March the European Union imposed a ban on Russia’s two major international state-funded broadcasters RT and Sputnik as part of what was then the 6th round of anti-Russia sanctions. Later in May, the EU added to its growing Russian media blacklist the broadcasters RTR Planeta, Russia 24 and TV Centre.
In rolling out the ban months ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described of the crackdown, “We are banning three big Russian state-owned broadcasters from our airwaves. They will not be allowed to distribute their content anymore in the EU, in whatever shape or form, be it on cable, via satellite, on the internet or via smartphone apps.” She said, “We have identified these TV channels as mouthpieces, that amplify [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s lies and propaganda aggressively. We should not give them a stage anymore to spread these lies.”
In March, RT America shut down its broadcast studio in Washington D.C. as US Congress moved to de-platform Russian state media, which also resulted even in its YouTube channel being blocked around the world (with Sputnik suffering the same fate). A majority of Western countries have at this point permanently blocked RT and Sputnik.
On Wednesday, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg threw out an appeal which RT filed arguing that the ban should be lifted on free press and speech grounds. The appeal was made by RT France:
The General Court dismisses as unfounded the complaint alleging a lack of competence on the part of the Council.
The EU authorities were therefore not required to hear RT France prior to the decision temporarily to prohibit it from any form of content broadcasting. Consequently, the Court states that there has been no infringement of RT France’s right to be heard.
As regards the complaint alleging that the statement of reasons for the contested acts is insufficient with regard to RT France, the General Court points out that that statement can be understood and is sufficiently precise,
The condition that the limitations on the freedom of expression must be laid down by law is satisfied. The General Court adds that the nature and extent of the temporary prohibition at issue comply with the essential content of the freedom of expression and do not call that particular freedom into question.
But the Kremlin has blasted the politicized nature of the court’s rejection of the appeal, and has vowed to apply similar restrictions on Western media outlets operating in Russia. Broadly, EU officials have argued that Russian state-linked sources haven’t been “impartial” in reporting the war in Ukraine and thus are “disinformation”.
“Of course, we will take similar measures of pressure on Western media that operate in our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, as cited in AFP. Peskov further charged Europe with failing to uphold its own values in the case of RT:
“We will also not let them work in our country,” he said, describing the Kremlin’s reaction to the ban as “extremely negative.”
“Essentially, RT has been blocked and cannot operate in Europe,” Peskov said. “Europeans are trampling on their own ideals.”
Whatever one thinks about the US role in the war in Ukraine, it’s one of the most consequential and dangerous US (proxy) wars in decades. Yet most of the left-liberal commentariat, after the first couple weeks of excitement and entertainment wore off, acts as if it doesn’t exist.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 26, 2022
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The ongoing past months of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Moscow and the West could now morph into something dangerously parallel when it comes to the press and foreign correspondents, whether in Russia or in Europe.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/28/2022 – 02:45 - EU Prepares Public For Winter Gas Siege
EU Prepares Public For Winter Gas Siege
By John Kemp, senior market analyst
European Union policymakers have started to prepare the public for siege conditions this winter if gas supplies from Russia are completely cut, an effort to demonstrate diplomatic resolve as well as avoid panic later in the year.
In recent weeks, officials from Germany and other EU member states have begun to talk openly and urgently about the need for immediate reductions in consumption in advance of the peak winter heating season.
They have also started to plan publicly for compulsory allocation, including rationing and prioritization among industrial users, as well as sharing among member states in the event there is not enough gas to supply everyone.
The stated reason is to accelerate the accumulation of inventories over the remainder of the summer to ensure European countries enter the winter with the highest possible inventories.
In reality, inventories are rising relatively rapidly and are already above the long-term seasonal average in most member states and across the region as a whole.
Inventories across the EU and the United Kingdom (EU28) stood at 751 terawatt-hours (TWh) on July 24 compared with a ten-year seasonal average of 698 TWh.
EU28 stocks were rising at a rate of 5.11 TWh per day in the seven days to July 24 compared with a ten-year seasonal average of 4.61 TWh.
In Germany, the largest stock holder, inventories of 161 TWh were above the long-term average of 145 TWh, and rising at 0.6 TWh per day, compared with a long-term average of 0.72 TWh per day.
On current trends, the European Union as a whole, and Germany in particular, are already likely to enter the winter with above average levels of gas in storage.
The problem is that it will not be enough if pipeline supplies from Russia are cut completely.
EU storage is designed to cope with seasonal swings in consumption not to withstand a war-like strategic blockade.
EU storage sites are currently filled to 67% of their maximum capacity, including 67% in Germany, 71% in Italy and 76% in France.
But current storage is equivalent to just 18% of annual consumption for the European Union as a whole, including 16% in Germany, 18% in Italy and 21% in France.
Even if storage sites can be filled to 90% or more of their maximum, inventories cannot withstand semi-blockade conditions for more than a few months without being depleted to critically low levels or exhausted completely. And if storage lasts through the winter of 2022/23 it would still need to be rebuilt before the winter of 2023/24, which would be extremely difficult under siege conditions.
Therefore, the unstated reason for the recent talk about consumption cuts and possible rationing is that large-scale and sustained demand reductions are the only way to withstand a possible gas siege.
Public planning for reduced consumption and compulsory allocation is intended to signal resolve and deter Russia from attempting a siege in the first place.
In the event one occurs anyway, it is intended to harden public opinion for the privations ahead, including some physical discomfort, significantly higher utility bills, and a severe economic contraction.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/28/2022 – 02:00 - Victor Davis Hanson: How To Erode The World's Greatest Military
Victor Davis Hanson: How To Erode The World’s Greatest Military
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,
Alienating half the country is not a wise strategy of military recruitment…
The U.S. Army has met only 40 percent of its 2022 recruiting goals.
In fact, all branches of the military are facing historic resistance to their current recruiting efforts. If some solution is not found quickly, the armed forces will radically shrink or be forced to lower standards—or both.
Such a crisis occurs importunely as an aggressive Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea believe the Biden Administration and the Pentagon have lost traditional U.S. deterrence.
That pessimistic view abroad unfortunately is now shared by many Americans at home. In 2021, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute conducted its periodic poll of attitudes toward the U.S. military. The result was astonishing. Currently, only 45 percent of Americans polled expressed a great deal of trust in their armed forces. Confidence had dived 25 points since an early 2018 poll.
Military officials cite both the usual and a new array of challenges in finding suitable young soldiers—drug use, gang affiliation, physical and mental incapacities, and the dislocations arising from the COVID pandemic and vaccination mandates. But they are too quiet about why such supposedly longer-term obstacles suddenly coalesced in 2022—as if their own leadership and policies have had no effect in discouraging tens of thousands of young men and women to join them.
The Greatest Skedaddle in Modern American History
A year ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley were assuring the country not to worry over Joe Biden’s strange ideas of abruptly pulling out all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The radical step was purportedly to coincide with Biden’s planned 20-year celebratory event marking his role in ensuring an iconic end of the war on terror that began on September 11, 2001.
What followed was the worst U.S. military humiliation since Pearl Harbor.
U.S. forces abandoned hundreds if not thousands of American contractors and loyal Afghan employees, a $1 billion embassy, a huge $300 million refitted air base, and reportedly somewhere between $60-80 billion in military equipment and infrastructure. That sum was nearly double all the current military assistance sent to Ukraine.
Thirteen Americans were murdered by terrorists during the chaotic flight. In response, the United States mistakenly blew up 10 innocent Afghans after misidentifying them as ISIS terrorists. The horrific scenes at the Kabul airport surpassed the 1975 catastrophic ending of the Vietnam War on the U.S. embassy roof.
The global aftermath was eerie. Russia in a few months thereafter invaded Ukraine. Iran proudly announced it would soon have enough fissionable material to make a nuclear weapon. North Korea resumed its provocative missile launches. China openly talked of storming Taiwan.
The common denominator was the global perception that any president and military responsible for such colossal, televised incompetence would or could neither deter enemy aggression nor protect allied interests.
In response, widely reported furor arose among the ranks of some American officers and the enlisted. Mid-level officers especially claimed they were ignored after warning that the abrupt withdrawal was suicidal, that Pentagon grandees were lying about the dire facts on the grounds in efforts to lubricate the Biden agenda, and that thousands of Americans and loyal Afghans would be cast adrift, along with our NATO allies.
The shame of defeat and the cloud of incompetence from Afghanistan have continued to harm recruitment efforts of the military.
The White Rage Unicorn
About a year ago Austin and Chairman Milley took time out from assuring Americans that all would be well in Kabul, to testify before Congress about the Pentagon’s effort to address “white rage” in the six-month aftermath of the January 6 riot.
Both were also asked to explain why the armed services were recommending soldiers read inter alia the often-discredited “antiracist” theories of Ibram X. Kendi. His polarizing doctrine asserts that the entire U.S. system of government, all social and political life, and our very culture are racist to core. As a result, Kendi’s solution requires radical and overt racial preferencing and discrimination supposedly to fight such an insidious system.
Yet what was startling about the two officials’ testimonies was the utter lack of data showing any general trends that white soldiers were any more or less likely to practice racial discrimination or chauvinism than other ethnic and racial groups in the military. An array of officers defended various workshops and course work at the military academies purporting that white rage is an existential problem in the military.
The subtext of the entire testimony debacle was that the two titular heads of the military wished to reassure progressive majorities in the U.S. Congress that they were sympathetic to the woke movement and, along with other high-ranking officers, wanted publicly to virtue signal to that effect.
In their emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion—the latest euphemisms for using race and gender quotas to assure proportional or even reparatory representation—throughout the officer corps, Austin and Milley seemed entirely oblivious that the U.S. Army depends on generations of family loyalty to the armed forces. Such heritage and legacy considerations have ensured a steady stream of recruits for front-line combat units.
In other words, over generations the same families, drawn from mostly middle-class cohorts, have served disproportionately in combat units in Vietnam, the various Iraq conflicts, and Afghanistan. Indeed, if the military was consistent in its racial fixations, it might have noted that white males—the purported targets of the Austin and Milley efforts to ferret out supposed white rage cells— died in three wars at roughly twice their numbers in the general population.
Current analysis of the recruiting crisis reveals what almost any observer would have predicted a year earlier from the haughty virtue signaling of Austin and Milley: traditional military families are not sending their sons and daughters into the ranks. It is not the danger of combat or the rigor of military life that families fear, but the suspicion their offspring will be targeted for ideological indoctrination and coercion that is either extraneous or antithetical to military efficacy.
Traditionally, 40 percent of new recruits cite the military service of their parents—not to mention their veteran grandparents. Currently only 13 percent of new recruits arrive from such military families. Yet Austin and Milley made no connection between the Pentagon fixations on current hot-button social issues and its apparent inability to secure an honorable and safe withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Weaponization of the Pentagon
There is a general perception in and outside the military that the top ranks of the services are increasingly politicized. High profile officers have used the great authority, influence, and power of the Pentagon in polarizing progressive advocacy roles from transgenderism to abortion—to the detriment of military efficacy and lethality. Much of unhappiness with the military arises partly from the woke hysteria, the institutional disdain for Donald Trump and his response to it, and the perceived rewards for those retired military lobbyists and corporate board members who reflect a new woke creed.
The nadir in politicization came in 2021 when it was revealed that Milley secretly contacted his Chinese communist counterpart during the height of the 2020 presidential election. Milley claimed he believed that his own commander-in-chief, Trump, was unstable. And so, after his layman’s diagnosis, he wished to assure the People’s Liberation Army’s ranking officer that he would tip the Chinese off about any thought of a preemptive American strike on China. Milley also ordered his own subordinate theater officers to report to him first should Trump contemplate any nuclear action against China.
Upon public disclosure of those facts, Milley should have been summarily fired. By law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an advisory official only. The position enjoys no operational command.
Milley violated the chain of command by usurping theater authority that was not his. Nor can a military long exist, if its iconic leader freelances in contacting enemy counterparts without the knowledge of the commander-in-chief.
Can we imagine the outrage that would now ensue, if Milley should once again warn his Chinese counterpart that another president, Joe Biden, in the chairman’s own opinion, suffers bouts of cognitive debility and early onset senility, forcing Milley to take matters in his own hands? Yet such freelancing insubordination is now Milley’s legacy.
In fact, some in the retired U.S. military for over four years systematically violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, sometimes to the extent of engaging in a sort of coup porn.
In a Washington Post op-ed, retired generals Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson melodramatically and without evidence warned the nation of a supposedly impending coup should their commander-in-chief Donald Trump be elected again in 2024.
In August 2020, two retired officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, wrote an op-ed urging Milley to simply remove Trump from office should Milley himself feel such a move was necessary after a disputed election. That was a de facto call for a possible coup d’état. But it was not unique.
Earlier, civilian Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon legal official, published an inflammatory call to arms in Foreign Policy. She discussed three major possible avenues to remove newly inaugurated Donald Trump from the presidency. One of her alternatives was a military coup.
For the entire Trump presidency, retired four-star generals and admirals had routinely smeared their commander-in-chief as a veritable Nazi, a Mussolini-like figure, an abject liar, and comparable in his policies to the architects of the Nazi death camps. One retired admiral called for the removal of Trump “the sooner, the better” as if regularly scheduled elections were insufficient remedies.
Aside from clear violations of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, these officers were oblivious that nearly half the country supported the president and his policies. And so, millions of people would logically conclude that the highest-ranking retired officers, and by extension the culture of the current military, had nothing but contempt for their own views and voting decisions. Alienating nearly half the country is not a wise strategy of military recruitment.
Nor is hypocrisy. The perceptions in the ranks have grown that applications of the law are asymmetrical and politically warped. Article 88, applicable to retired generals and admirals, prohibits military officers from using contemptuous words about top civilian elected and appointed officials. It says nothing about the spouses of said officials.
None of the retired officers who in the media libeled their commander-in-chief from 2017-2021 faced any consequences—reprimands, court martials, or sanctions from doing business with the Pentagon from their corporate billets. Yet one recently did.
The U.S. Army just fired retired consultant Lt. Gen. Gary Volesky from a contractual position with the Pentagon because he poked fun at First Lady Jill Biden. Note that Volesky did not suggest Jill or Joe Biden was a Nazi, a fascist, or liar —much less that her husband should be removed from office “the sooner, the better.” Retired General Volesky’s crime was mocking Jill Biden’s purported hypocrisy on the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Unfortunately, the crisis in the U.S. military transcends even the Afghanistan misadventure, unsupported accusations against an entire demographic, the erosion of military familial loyalty, freelancing politicized officers, and asymmetrical applications of laws and codes.
Fairly or not, the perception among the public and our enemies is that the U.S. military has become a political entity with an agenda that transcends defending the U.S. and its interests.
Its perceived main agenda by half the country is progressive social justice, administered top-down from a cadre of elites who can implement controversial policies through the chain of command without the messy work of the Congress—to the delight of the Pentagon’s newfound sunshine friends on the woke Left.
Such military social engineers unfortunately appear to share contempt for a large group of Americans who voted for a president they despised. And this is a fact warmly welcomed by our worst enemies abroad.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 23:35 - "Look Almost Human-Made": NOAA Finds Mysterious Lines Of Holes On Mid-Atlantic Floor
“Look Almost Human-Made”: NOAA Finds Mysterious Lines Of Holes On Mid-Atlantic Floor
NOAA revealed the discovery of mysterious holes punched in the ocean floor while on a dive nearly two miles deep in the Mid-Atlantic.
On Saturday, NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer, a converted naval ship turned exploratory vessel, deployed a submersible vessel to observe the summit of an underwater volcano north of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal.
During the survey, at the depths of 1.7 miles, the remotely controlled submersible vessel piloted by the NOAA Ocean Exploration crew found “sublinear sets of holes in the sediment,” an NOAA Facebook post read.
“These holes have been previously reported from the region, but their origin remains a mystery. While they look almost human-made, the little piles of sediment around the holes make them seem like they were excavated by…something,” NOAA continued.
NOAA posted two photos of the linear holes that appear out of place on the flat sandy surface.
The agency responsible for monitoring the climate and environment asked the public to offer theories about what could’ve possibly formed the linear lines.
One of the most exciting comments besides “impact craters,” “swordfish sharpening its bill,” “water from underground springs,” “gas methane vents,” and “spine of a whale or something else that was buried,” was one commenter who said: “this is the work of an ancient civilization, what some refer to as a breakaway-civilization.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 23:15 - Fauci, Birx, & The Small-Print That Destroyed America
Fauci, Birx, & The Small-Print That Destroyed America
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,
In a maddening interview yesterday, Anthony Fauci performed his usual song and dance when faced with even the most mild questioning. He stonewalled in his trademarked way.
He spoke in long, drawn-out sentences, emphasizing the word consonants, punctuated by pauses and silences that convey the sense of precision without the reality. He strung together terms that seem vaguely scientific which intimidated his interviewers into an overly cautious pose.
“Oh wow, I’m interviewing a very powerful person,” the interviewer thinks, “so I had better not say anything wrong!”
He’s been pulling this trick for 40 years. He is very good at it.
In this interview, several messages stands out: 1) in retrospect, we should have locked down even more, 2) he never pushed lockdowns; he was only passing on CDC guidance, and 3) he is utterly and completely blameless for all things, particularly in funding gain-of-function research which, in any case, is not responsible for the creation of the virus in Wuhan.
The first part is startling because many of us have had the sense that lockdowns are in disrepute. Far from it: Fauci’s message is that next time, the lockdowns will be harder and longer. And there certainly will be more. The third part I feel sure will be revealed in time. The fear that the virus escaped from the lab is likely what drove the lockdowns agenda.
What intrigues me the most is the second part, the claim that he never ordered lockdowns. This was the CDC and he only served as messenger. Everyone else is to blame for anything that went wrong.
In a second interview the same day, Fauci says this explicitly: “All I have ever done, if you go back and look at everything I’ve ever done, was to recommend common-sense, good CDC-recommended public health policies that have saved millions of lives. If you want to investigate me for that, go ahead.”
I’m going back to the March 16, 2020, press conference at which Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Donald Trump are announcing a fundamental change of life in the United States, one that would disregard all normal rights and liberties. It’s not entirely clear, to me in any case, that Trump knew what was happening even then. He had a sense that he was doing something to stop the spread but he didn’t know entirely what.
This has always puzzled me. It’s one thing for him to be hornswoggled into greenlighting the destruction of the economy that was booming and roaring under his administration. That’s bad enough. But to be confused even about the details of what he was ordering that day is next-level stuff.
The following exchange occurred that day. Trump is asked whether restaurants and other venues should close. Trump responds: “Right now we don’t have an order one way or the other. We don’t have an order, but I think it’s probably better that you don’t [go to restaurants].”
From that, I gather that Trump believed that he was not forcing anything on anyone.
A reporter asks for a clarification: “Telling people to avoid restaurants and bars is a different thing than saying that bars and restaurants should shut down over the next 15 days. So why was it seen as being imprudent or not necessarily to take that additional step offered at additional guidance?”
At this point, Trump demurs and turns over the microphone to Deborah Birx, who must not have been paying attention and says something vague about the virus living on hard surfaces.
At this point, Fauci interrupts and says: “I just want, there’s an answer to this.”
Fauci says the following: “The small print here. It’s really small print. ‘In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.’”
This was obviously a very startling thing to say—it means the end of regular life—but it is not clear that Trump was paying attention. A reporter asked a follow-up question. “So Mr. President, are you telling governors in those states then to close all their restaurants and their bars?”
Trump says: “Well we haven’t said that yet … we’re recommending things. No, we haven’t gone to that step yet. That could happen, but we haven’t gone there yet.”
I take from this exchange that Trump did not believe that he was calling for lockdowns. However, he believed that he might. And yet Fauci himself had just read from the CDC guidelines that called for exactly that.
Curious, I looked up the guidelines to which Fauci referred. It is a two-page PDF that was sent all over the country, the one labeled “15 Days to Flatten the Curve.”
They are here reproduced in graphic form:
The only part that truly matters is the section with a black background with white print, the part that looks like boilerplate fluff. It was not. It was the scraping of freedom itself.
As he demonstrated at the press conference, Fauci knew this fine print was there. He might even have been the one to make sure it was there and that it was too small for Trump to read. No question that Trump had no idea that it was there. He makes clear in the press conference that he didn’t know it was there. Even after Fauci highlighted its existence, Trump remained oblivious.
What does the fine print say? It’s the full loaf: lockdown.
“School operations can accelerate the spread of the coronavirus. Governors of states with evidence of community transmission should close schools in affected and surrounding areas. Governors should close schools in communities that are near areas of community transmission, even if those areas are in neighboring states. In addition, state and local officials should close schools where coronavirus has been identified in the population associated with the school. States and localities that close schools need to address childcare needs of critical responders, as well as the nutritional needs of children.”
“Older people are particularly at risk from the coronavirus. All states should follow Federal guidance and halt social visits to nursing homes and retirement and long-term care facilities.”
“In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.”
Consider the implications of this. Your mother is in the nursing home that you are paying for. But now you are even banned by the government from visiting. It’s an utterly shocking violation of human rights. You are deploying the state to separate families, as in a dystopian novel. It’s a death sentence.
As for schools, astounding. There was never any evidence that schools spread death and, in any case, we already knew that the risk of COVID to kids is near zero. Sweden never closed schools and not a single death resulted. And yet in the United States, the kids were denied education and likely traumatized for life.
As for the last sentence banning all gatherings—sports, weddings, funerals, gyms, malls—and completely wrecking all enterprise, this is an edict worthy of history’s most horrible despots in the annals of history.
And it was all buried right there in tiny print, so small the president of the United States didn’t even read it. What’s more, no one in his inner circle at the time read it. Surely, Fauci and Birx knew it was there. Any reporter in the room could have read it. It was only a few sentences but they overrode the U.S. Constitution, all American law, plus 500 years of progress in rights and liberties. And it came to America in small print!
What happened then? State health departments took the two-pager and rendered the small print into larger print. Here is a screen shot of the order from the state of Georgia.
The small print quickly became the large print that transformed life for everyone. You think there was no plot here? That this was just some mistake that somehow caused the end of America to be buried in the fine print? Wise up. This is a level of malice that is truly boundless.
As for Deborah Birx, she admits later in her book that the idea of 15 Days was always a trick. “No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two-week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it,” she admits.
This was how the chaos in American life began: in small print. Very quickly, this small print was extended to the entire world. And then extended to two years. And now we face a devastating economic, cultural, and political crisis. The population is demoralized and hope is nearly lost.
Who to blame? Anthony Fauci’s fingerprints are all over this sadistic caper, but he denies having anything to do with it.
It’s our fault, he says: We didn’t read the fine print.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 22:55 - Pentagon Approves Sending Wounded Ukrainian Troops To US Military Hospital In Germany
Pentagon Approves Sending Wounded Ukrainian Troops To US Military Hospital In Germany
The Pentagon has already been running programs to train Ukrainian soldiers on how to operate US-supplied long-range rocket systems, namely the HIMARS, in neighboring countries like Poland. Currently, the administration is mulling training pilots too, with the House having recently set aside the funds to do it, pending an internal White House debate over providing US jets (or possibly allied jets).
At a moment the US military’s involvement in the Ukraine war continues sliding from ‘indirect’ to potentially more direct, the Pentagon announced Tuesday that the US will begin treating wounded Ukrainian troops at an American military hospital in Germany.
Image: US Army Germany is one of the multiple locations in Europe that US soldiers are currently training Ukrainian forces. As for medical aid, there’s long been speculation that the US Army could already be providing assistance in this area in Poland.
But now the biggest US military hospital outside the continental United States will host wounded Ukrainian troops:
Ukrainian troops would be treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center if needed, the official said.
Adjacent to the Ramstein Air Base southwest of Frankfurt, it is the largest U.S. military hospital outside the continental United States.
It’s widely believed that Ukraine’s forces have suffered immense losses after six months of the Russian invasion, but no one knows precisely how many dead and wounded, given Ukraine’s defense ministry won’t publish the information on fears that it could be a boost to “Kremlin propaganda”.
However, within the past two months Kiev officials have belatedly acknowledged losing “up to 200 troops a day” due to the “complete lack of parity” between the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
“The U.S. military is now offering medical care to wounded Ukrainian troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the premier American hospital in Europe, Military Times has learned.”https://t.co/xJ80HI9E53
— Justin Coleman (@DemopJ) July 27, 2022
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Pentagon leadership has meanwhile denied reports that hospital care to wounded Ukrainian troops had already been underway in Germany:
However, Landstuhl has not yet received Ukrainian service members for medical care yet. An official from US European Command told CNN, “We have not treated any Ukraine troops at Landstuhl”. As per the report, the official said that the purpose of the memo was to remove any red tape that would hinder the process of treating Ukrainian soldiers if and when the need arose.
US Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, file image Moscow will likely see this as yet another sign of growing Pentagon involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which US commanders have still refused to acknowledge as a “proxy war”.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 22:35 - Does The Biden Administration Emulate The CCP's Methods?
Does The Biden Administration Emulate The CCP’s Methods?
Op-ed authored by Stu Cvrk via The Epoch Times,
In its hybrid war against the United States, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been pursuing a number of intertwined goals aimed at world economic dominance in all spheres: trade, policy, legal, technology, etc. For it is economic dominance that undergirds geopolitical and military dominance, as well as its penultimate goal: world leadership in all human endeavors.
A view of the U.S. Capitol Dome in Washington on June 21, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) In one of the many successful campaigns of that ongoing multi-front hybrid war against its main adversary, the CCP has corrupted some members of the U.S. political class. The corruption began immediately after Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger “opened China” in 1972 (Kissinger continues to speak of appeasing China nearly 50 years later).
The rampant corruption is intertwined with bought-and-paid-for Chinese sycophancy, outright admiration of the communist regime in Beijing, and the mirroring of some of its authoritarian policies by the Biden administration.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Liu He (L) attend a group photo session with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (R), and members of a delegation from the 2019 New Economy Forum before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Nov. 22, 2019. (Jason Lee/Pool/Getty Images) Here are some policies pursued by Democrats that essentially implement “Chinese-style authoritarianism with American characteristics.”
Great Firewall Versus Big Tech
The Great Firewall (also known as the “Golden Shield”) is the Beijing regime’s internet censorship and surveillance system. Its goal is to maintain ideological control of Chinese citizens by restricting their access to “corrupting foreign influences.” Moreover, the system facilitates the monitoring of individual communications to crush political dissent.
The Democratic Party has increasingly—through persuasion, corruption, and coercion—exploited Big Tech to convey Democrat narratives and suppress the messages of the Democrats’ political enemies. Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and many others are more than just Democrat-friendly; they are important elements of the Democratic Party’s ongoing campaign to suppress dissent and demonize their political opponents.
Social Credit Systems
The ostensible goal of China’s evolving social credit system is to enable reporting on the “trustworthiness” of individuals, corporations, and government entities across China—with trustworthiness, of course, being arbitrarily defined by the CCP.
China’s State Council announced in 2014 that a social credit system “is an important method to perfect the Socialist market economy system, accelerating and innovating social governance, and it has an important significance for strengthening the sincerity consciousness of the members of society.”
Left unsaid is the punishment for those deemed by the state to have exhibited “insincere consciousness.” Examples of infractions punished by Chinese authorities include “bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games, and posting fake news online, specifically about terrorist attacks or airport security,” according to Insider.
Also left unsaid is that the social credit system can be extended in multiple dimensions, including monitoring and suppressing “prohibited” political speech or implementing travel controls through vaccine passports.
People check on travel packages offered by travel agencies during the Guangzhou International Travel Fair in Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong Province on March 3, 2018. Travelers in China were blocked from buying plane tickets 17.5 million times in 2018 as a penalty for failing to pay fines or other offenses. The Chinese regime reported on penalties imposed under a controversial “social credit” system. (Chinatopix via AP) It is no secret that Democrats are enamored of the CCP’s social credit system, as they envision it as a powerful political control mechanism that could be wielded in America to monitor and control behavior based on Democrat priorities and objectives.
As reported here, congressional Democrats are considering an overhaul of the U.S. credit reporting system by implementing the Comprehensive CREDIT Act and the Protecting Your Credit Score Act of 2021, which would result in “a new system—similar to that of China.”
And the CCP would doubtless be more than willing to sell the Democrats the social credit system information technology components that underpin the Chinese system.
Masks, Social Distancing, and Lockdowns
These COVID-19 response measures, which were previously foreign to most Americans, originated in China and are components of China’s draconian and unscientific “zero-COVID” policy. Democrat governors (and others) have been happy to force these on Americans while ignoring the lack of any proof whatsoever that masks are effective (150 comparative studies reported here) and also the economic and personal damage wrought by the lockdowns.
However, constitutional freedoms are the bane of authoritarians—at least in the United States. It took nearly two years for the New York state supreme court to determine that the statewide mask mandate was unconstitutional. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden just extended the COVID emergency.
Vaccination Certificates
A key feature of Beijing’s “zero-COVID” policy is the use of “vaccination certificates,” which are used in the social credit system to control the access and travel of all Chinese citizens.
Rasmussen polling in January showed that “a majority of Democrats embrace restrictive policies, including punitive measures against those who haven’t gotten the COVID-19 vaccine.” This has manifested in congressional Democrats and the Biden administration continuing to “discuss” the use of vaccine passports and the implementation of vaccine standards.
Doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination record cards for children under 5 at UW Medical Center – Roosevelt in Seattle, Wash., on June 21, 2022. (David Ryder/Getty Images) Media Narratives and Control
Chinese state-run media parrot the prevailing CCP narratives pronounced by Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The messages are uniform and relentless, especially the repetition of Chinese communist euphemisms such as democracy with Chinese characteristics, market communism, closed-off management (in referring to COVID lockdowns, believe it or not), the indivisibility of security (what in the world does that mean?), and content moderation (censorship).
However, while carefully watching China’s media operations, the Democrat-media complex does not take a backseat to the Chinese communists in terms of controlling media narratives in the United States. Here are some examples: calling claims of 2020 election fraud “baseless” despite numerous reports exposing new information, characterizing unarmed Jan. 6 protesters as “insurrectionists,” pushing Marxist critical race theory and diversity-equity-inclusion policies on Americans, and advocating LGBTQI lifestyles. The minions at China Daily and Xinhua must be smiling.
Concluding Thoughts
The above parallels did not happen by accident. The CCP got what they paid for, including through the actions of the “united front,” which is one of Mao Zedong’s “three magic weapons (the other two being party-building and armed struggle).
Initially, the United Front Work Department (UFWD) was focused domestically on establishing and strengthening CCP control over all Chinese citizens. Its original responsibility, as noted here, was “to rally social groups and individuals to support the Chinese Communist Party and its objectives [f]rom the party’s Politburo Standing Committee down to its grassroots committees, united front work involves thousands of members, social organizations, and fronts.” This was the CCP’s de facto social credit enforcement system before the internet.
The UFWD’s mission was expanded by Xi Jinping in 2015, as described here, to include foreign objectives such as “the co-optation of elites, information management, persuasion, and accessing strategic information and resources” with the express purpose of “influenc[ing] the decision-making of foreign governments and societies in China’s favor.”
What could be more favorable to the CCP than to have its main adversary, the United States, adopt policies that are identical to those implemented by the Beijing regime itself? What better way to psychologically condition Americans to the CCP’s authoritarian methods than have their own government do it? CCP mission accomplished—and continuing—in its continuing hybrid warfare against the United States.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or Zero Hedge.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 22:15 - China's Power Demand To Surpass Record Amid Heatwave
China’s Power Demand To Surpass Record Amid Heatwave
A persistent heatwave in China has pushed power consumption to record levels in some areas and even forced rolling blackouts, with new indications demand will continue to rise.
Bloomberg quoted He Yang, director of China’s National Energy Administration’s power division, who said power consumption would increase into August during the traditional peak period, adding power demand is already breaking records this month.
“After entering July, as the economy grows and temperatures rise amid the global wave of persistently hot weather, our electricity consumption and power load are also growing rapidly,” Yang said. He noted, “the supply and demand of electricity in the country is still stable and orderly.”
In terms of grid stability, Yang said power generators would be able to ensure sufficient supplies. However, there are instances where forced consumption cuts are needed to rebalance the grid and thwart widespread blackouts.
“There have been occasions when power users have been asked to cut consumption in Zhejiang and other parts of China during periods of peak load,” he said.
Even though China leads the world in terms of installed green power sources, such as wind and solar, along with energy storage batteries, it still consumes nearly five times as much coal as India and almost six times as much as the US. The latest figures from China show that 65% of the electricity generated is derived from coal.
To meet soaring power demand, China’s coal fleet will have to expand. Yan Qin, a China analyst at Refinitiv, recently said China’s coal fleet could increase by 150 gigawatts in the next five years.
Chinese provinces are trying to prevent an electricity shortfall experienced last fall when factories and high-rise buildings had to shutter operations.
President Xi Jinping recently said coal would be burned for power generation until reliable replacements were readily available.
China’s ability to ensure energy security and a stable grid amid soaring demand appears to be through the use and expansion of coal-fired plants.
Yang also expects another round of surging power demand in the winter. He said Chinese energy companies are already making preparations by purchasing coal and natural gas to expand stockpiles.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 21:55 - US Carrier Group Heads Towards Taiwan Ahead Of Potential Pelosi Trip After China Warns Of 'Forceful Response'
US Carrier Group Heads Towards Taiwan Ahead Of Potential Pelosi Trip After China Warns Of ‘Forceful Response’
If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) follows through on her planned trip to Taiwan, the US military will beef up security in case a ‘mishap, misstep or misunderstanding’ endangers her safety, AP reports.
While the trip is still an uncertainty, officials say that the military would ‘increase its movement of forces and assets in the Indo-Pacific region,’ though they declined to go into further detail – aside from noting that fighter jets, ships, surveillance assets and other military systems would be used ‘to provide overlapping rings of protection’ for her flight, and any time she spent on the ground.
[O]fficials said this week that a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi — she would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to visit Taiwan since 1997 — would go beyond the usual safety precautions for trips to less risky destinations.
Asked about planned military steps to protect Pelosi, D-Calif., in the event of a visit, U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that discussion of any specific travel is premature. But, he added, “if there’s a decision made that Speaker Pelosi or anyone else is going to travel and they asked for military support, we will do what is necessary to ensure a safe conduct of their visit. And I’ll just leave it at that.” -AP
(Just like Milley’s assurance to Trump that “We’ve got a plan and we’ve got it covered” in regards to January 6th?)
To that end, the USS Ronald Reagan and its escorts left Singapore on Monday sailing northeast, according to ship tracking information reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group, including a guided missile destroyer and a guided missile cruiser, set out from Singapore on Monday heading northeast towards the South China Sea, according to ship-tracking information provided by Beijing-based think tank the South China Sea Strategic Probing Initiative.
Source: Stratfor Pelosi’s trip comes at a time when China and the West have been engaging in risky “one-on-one” confrontations, as China has been trying to assert sweeping territorial claims over the region. “The incidents have included dangerously close fly-bys that force other pilots to swerve to avoid collisions, or harassment or obstruction of air and ship crews, including with blinding lasers or water cannon,” according to the report, which adds that ‘dozens’ of such maneuvers have occurred in 2022 alone.
China, meanwhile, has long considered self-ruling Taiwan part of its territory, and has repeatedly raised the prospect of taking it by force. The US has maintained informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan.
The beefed up military cover comes after President Joe Biden said last week that Pelosi’s trip is “not a good idea right now,” and after China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian warned: “If the U.S. insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” adding “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the U.S.“
According to Mark Cozad, acting associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corp, the biggest risk for Pelosi’s trip is if some Chinese show of force has “gone awry, or some type of accident that comes out of a demonstration of provocative action.”
“So it could be an air collision. It could be some sort of missile test, and, again, when you’re doing those types of things, you know, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong.“
Cizad also said the US military presence could backfire and further inflame tensions.
“It is very possible that … our attempts to deter actually send a much different signal than the one we intend to send,” he said, adding “And so you get into … some sort of an escalatory spiral, where our attempts to deter are actually seen as increasingly provocative and vice versa. And that can be a very dangerous dynamic.”
Barry Pavel, director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, downplayed the plan.
“Obviously, the White House does not want the speaker to go and I think that’s why you’re getting some of these suggestions,” he said, adding “She’s not going to go with an armada.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 21:44 - Gingrich: The Coming Big Election American Tsunami
Gingrich: The Coming Big Election American Tsunami
Authored by Newt Gingrich via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
As I wrote in my last column, an American tidal wave is coming based on big, nationalized congressional campaigns.
The American people will repudiate high inflation, fuel prices, and food costs. They will reject the unchecked border and skyrocketing murder rates (which are up 37 percent in New York City and 34 percent in Chicago). And they are sick of relentless values assaults over race, sexuality, and the nature of America.
If this big election tsunami is going to materialize into what could be the worst Democrat Party repudiation since 1920, Republicans need to understand two things:
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First, this is an American Majority—not a Republican Majority or a Conservative Majority. Americans of all ethnic and partisan backgrounds are coming together to reject unsustainable pain for their families, communities, and our free society.
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Second, tsunamis grow out of a big election strategy—not from trying to add up a whole series of small elections.
The American Majority Project logo. (AmericanMajorityProject.com) Republicans must learn to talk about a New American Majority—not a Republican majority. They must plan, think, and act for the American Majority. This requires listening to and learning from a lot of people who have not been historically part of the Republican Party.
This emerging New American Majority requires base broadening—not base mobilization strategies. This is important, because virtually every Washington consultant will reject this idea. But data shows there is a vastly larger majority emerging than Republicans have been used to engaging for the last 90 years. Reaching all of that majority requires new thinking about policy development, language, scheduling, and coalition building. The polling and focus groups which led to this conclusion are all available at AmericanMajorityProject.com. The data is available to everyone for free.
The big election campaign must be built around big solutions that can actually be implemented. The current crises of the American system, and the Big Government Socialist-Woke Left assault on American values, require big solutions with broad support.
Only deep, committed support of the vast majority of Americans will force the changes on the hostile establishment. Importantly, only this deep commitment will sustain the changes through ferocious attacks from leftwing activists, who will see their radical vision of a America being rejected by the American people.
The big election campaign must offer believable, achievable solutions. The American people are frustrated and hurting. They want a movement dedicated to practical, workable problem-solving that will improve their lives. They are tired of partisan politics. The New American Majority will grow by delivering better results than the Big Government Socialist-Woke Left coalition.
Further, as will become apparent, the better results will be achieved because of the inherent difference in principles between the New American Majority and the Big Governments Socialist left—not just personal capabilities. My new national best seller “Defeating Big Government Socialism: Saving America’s Future” outlines the case for replacing failed ideas and policies with real solutions based on principles that work.
The big election campaign must be built on the principle that politics is the prelude to governing. Great majority coalitions (Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan) exist because they use political momentum to create governing solutions that improve people’s lives and achieve goals people strongly support. As people see leaders keeping their words—and solutions working and improving their lives and communities—new majorities coalesce around practical success.
Getting to an American tsunami requires staying positive and focusing on the cultural and political issues on which the New American Majority can agree. The establishment (including their propaganda media) will do everything it can to draw us into fights that distract us from the areas in which our American majority will dominate. They will seek to focus on gossip, internal tension, or other distractions to minimize our ability to communicate with the New American Majority about issues that bring us together and motivate us to win.
Pay close attention to this: Irrelevant, trivial noise and niche issues are the enemies of growing a majority. Clarity, consistency, and firmness of purpose are the keys to attracting, educating, and holding together a New American Majority.
Because this New American Majority grows out of the American people’s desire for a better future—and a more stable value system—it is essential for those who would lead the majority to be constantly listening to the American people. Leaders must continuously be learning how Americans are thinking through and responding to the extraordinary pressures of our time.
Lincoln’s government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” naturally requires constantly listening to and trying to understand “the people.” This is the heart of a governing majority.
We are not reinventing anything. New American Majorities have come together before to save society. Every activist and leader who wants to help develop this emerging majority should read about Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and my latest book if we are going to achieve a better American future.
A big election American tsunami is possible but not inevitable. Following these principles make it much more likely.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 21:35 -
- Point72 Hires Two Former Central Bank Employees
Point72 Hires Two Former Central Bank Employees
Further proving that Wall Street just one giant cesspool where everyone swims around in everyone else’s tepid bathwater, Steve Cohen’s Point72 put out a press release this week announcing two “key hires” for its offices in New York and London. Both hires are formers from Central Banks (one from the Fed and the other from the ECB).
The company press release announced the hiring of Sophia Drossos as Economist and Strategist based in New York, and Soeren Radde as Head of European Economic Research, based in London.
Point 72 Head Economist Dean Maki said: “With Sophia and Soeren’s arrivals, we have significantly boosted our economic forecasting and analysis capabilities, adding to the support we offer our global teams of investment professionals at a time when macro factors are affecting asset prices perhaps more than ever.”
Drossos was formerly Head of Research at Light Sky Macro and held similar positions at Thiel Macro and Element Capital Management, the release says. She also happened formerly be “Chief Dealer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she oversaw and planned open market operations and provided financial market analysis for Federal Open Market Committee and U.S. Treasury officials.”
Surprisingly (or not), Radde also has experiences in the world of central banking. He formerly “recently led coverage of the European Central Bank (ECB) and was the economist responsible for Germany forecasting and political commentary at Goldman Sachs”. But, prior to that, he spent five years at the ECB working as an economist in the Monetary Policy Strategy Division.
As part of his job, Radde also researched “the transmission of monetary policy measures” and had one of the most important roles at any central bank…contributing to the speeches of executive board members.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 21:15 - What Psychedelics And Bitcoin Have In Common
What Psychedelics And Bitcoin Have In Common
Authored by Maxx Mannheimer via BitcoinMagazine.com,
I’ll begin by stating that I do not suggest that anyone take psychedelics. Each individual knows what is best for them and it is not my intent to challenge your free will in any way. If what I have written connects with your life experience, great. If it does not, feel free to ignore every word. But if you wish to debate about what I am presenting, I would only request that you carefully read this article in its entirety. I do not recommend participating in any activity which is illegal where you live and I do not recommend taking psychedelic substances without professional guidance. Psychedelic experiences can be profoundly liberating and inspiring, but they can also be existentially earth-shattering if used without proper preparation. As always, do your own research and use your best judgment.
I’m not the first to draw a link between psychedelics and Bitcoin. Articles about billionaire investor Christian Angermayer have highlighted at least one anecdote of psilocybe mushrooms assisting with the understanding of Bitcoin. However, I believe this won’t be the last time we see these two topics mentioned together. If my intuition is correct, we will be seeing many more articles along these lines as Bitcoin and psychedelics both enter the mainstream consciousness.
A financial revolution without a spiritual one will fail to create a better world for the majority of life on this planet. A spiritual revolution without a financial one will fail to enact lasting change due to the corruption that is built into our current monetary system. Both are needed to fix the world. It is important that we acknowledge this dynamic period in human history holistically and ecologically rather than making blanket statements about quick-fix solutions to the issues that humanity is facing.
The Bitcoin community often discusses the potential for a second renaissance. I hear much of the same talk in the psychedelics space. However, the two worlds often don’t consider the potential synergies between the two. My hope for this article is to support the ice-breaking process which has already begun. The 1960s were a time of ranging counterculture with no concrete direction. It represented a powerful lashing out against a system that doesn’t serve humanity. But after creating a cultural movement — and some excellent music — the flame was extinguished by draconian government intervention.
Not only did all use of psychedelics get pushed to the black market, but all scientific research was completely halted for about 50 years. Many psychedelics were being used recklessly at that time, but psychedelics were made illegal for political reasons, not health reasons. The loss to human progress is impossible to calculate.
In my assessment, the heavy handed prohibition is unraveling before our eyes. Various city and state governments have opted to decriminalize or legalize the use of psychedelics for therapy. Well known authors, comedians and other public figures are openly discussing psychedelics. Netflix is airing documentaries about psychedelics and many podcasters are covering the topic in a way which would have been shocking ten years ago. Publicly-traded companies are even working on psychedelic pharmaceutical development.
More conservative-minded Bitcoiners may pause before seeing this in a positive light, but the data regarding psychedelics potential for therapeutic use can’t be ignored. Therapy using MDMA — the chemical abbreviation for the drug known more commonly as ecstasy or “Molly” — seems to be the most effective way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a lasting manner. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is moving through U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trials to have the substance rescheduled. Their phase three trials have demonstrated 67% of PTSD patients no longer met the criteria for PTSD two months after their sessions. Even after the fiat fiasco collapses we’ll still need to support these people who were traumatized by it. Note: MAPS accepts donations in bitcoin.
The psychedelics community may have some hesitancy about the Bitcoin community as well. From my interaction with plant medicine enthusiasts, I have gathered that they’re a sensitive bunch. I genuinely mean that as a compliment, but sensitivity doesn’t always lend itself well to the self-identified “toxic” Bitcoin community. As a generalization, they are wary of anything that could be used to exclude people and deepen inequality. These concerns are valid, but are often projected onto the bitcoin life raft rather than the fiat sinking ship. As a result, there isn’t a sturdy connection between these two communities, but I am predicting that there could be for a number of reasons.
The first bridge is the one that leads towards personal and collective liberation. Psychedelics have the potential to liberate us from old systems of thought and all of their downstream effects. Bitcoin has the potential to liberate us from Modern Monetary Theory and all its downstream effects. Both are interested in reducing violence against humanity. Both are interested in reducing government control over what we decide to put in our bodies. Both carry an inherently egalitarian questioning of authority.
The second bridge is the novelty of thought required to understand Bitcoin. As I mentioned in “The Bitcoin Customer Service Department,” Bitcoin is a complex paradigm-shifting topic. Despite the simplicity of the Bitcoin white paper, understanding all its implications requires a dramatically novel understanding of the world. In Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind,” the following metaphor is used by Mendel Kaelen to explain the effects of psychedelics on the human psyche.
“Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, and thoughts as sleds gliding down that hill. As one sled after another goes down the hill, a small number of main trails will appear in the snow. And every time a new sled goes down, it will be drawn into the preexisting trails, almost like a magnet. In time, it becomes more and more difficult to glide down the hill on any other path or in a different direction. Think of psychedelics as temporarily flattening the snow. The deeply worn trails disappear, and suddenly the sled can go in other directions, exploring new landscapes and, literally, creating new pathways.”
This metaphor is an excellent way to visualize what has been observed in psychedelic patient trials. Neural pathways become more flexible. New connections are created that allow for novel thought, understanding and behavior. Have you ever had a conversation with someone where they fully understood your viewpoint and agreed with everything you said just to see them revert back to their default assumptions a day or two later? That’s the snow metaphor in conversation form. The more concrete our neural connections become, the less likely we will be to understand new emergent technologies.
The third bridge relates to the counterculture which gravitates around both Bitcoin and psychedelics. Radical rejection of conventional norms seems to be inherent in the Bitcoin ethos. Bitcoiners generally don’t accept mainstream media, political corruption or dishonesty. Psychedelics enthusiasts generally don’t accept moralistic arguments, violence or inauthenticity. Both groups seek fair treatment of humanity. Both groups avoid processed foods. Both groups are opposed to mindless materialistic consumption. Psychedelics enthusiasts are proponents of meditation and if Bitcoin holders haven’t been meditating through the 2020-22 market, I wouldn’t know what else to call it.
Psychedelics pose a threat to authoritarian systems of control because they show users a deeper potential for spirituality and connection with their environment. They enable a novel view of circumstances which allows people to notice that what they are used to may not be the truth. What happened in the 1960s, exactly? A ton of young people realized that the game they were playing was making them and the rest of society miserable. They dropped out in the hopes of finding a new way to live. Most of the hippies in the 1960s were deeply distrustful of the government and of the fruitless wars politicians were creating. They knew the game was rigged and the best course of action was to opt out. What are Bitcoiners talking about today? Essentially the same thing.
I know that both of these amorphous groups may balk at the fact that I have categorized them into groups at all. They are not really groups, but rather millions of individuals who share common interests and many of whom will never meet. That’s the beauty of it. Bitcoiners and psychedelic enthusiasts seem to be under a constant centrifugal force. As soon as I begin to categorize or wrangle them into any semblance of a group identity, they sprawl out even further. They span the full scope of human backgrounds and experience.
The propaganda war against psychedelics has largely lumped them together, in the mind of the public, with dangerous addictive substances. I would recommend a more nuanced approach to understanding drugs and their uses. Every drug is a tool and each has its proper use. To simply ask for any random tool when what you really need is specifically a Phillips-head screwdriver, you’re unlikely to meet your needs. A closer inspection of each substance will clearly demonstrate that lumping all “drugs” together, simply due to legal status, is absurd.
The federal government has clearly lost its grip on “The War On Drugs.” In direct opposition to federal drug scheduling laws, Oregon has decriminalized all drugs and made psilocybe mushroom therapy legal. As Ryan McMaken points out in his recent article, 43% of Americans are currently living in states which have legalized recreational cannabis. Again, in direct opposition to federal drug scheduling laws. If there was a “War On Drugs” it is fair to say that the drugs have won. Right or wrong, this trend is likely to continue.
The continuous lack of understanding regarding drug use in America has had a devastating impact on the psyche and freedom of the country. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world and approximately half of our prisoners are locked up for non-violent offenses. Drugs and alcohol play a critical role in many of the violent offenses as well. Those incarcerations damage families for generations which ultimately increases future crime rates and use of addictive drugs. Rinse and repeat. The harder we press down on drugs, the more harmful the drugs on the street become. Opium, heroin, oxycontin, fentanyl. Overdoses have never been worse. The criminal justice system is totally broken and people are suffering. Is it possible that people are turning to these drugs because they are disenfranchised by a system which has done nothing but abuse them since the moment they were born?
Don’t worry though! Big pharma has a solution for us. They’ll use their cantillon-bucks to lobby for their interests and pay doctors to prescribe psychotropic pharmaceuticals to numb the populace. It’s helpful to keep folks docile as we push them back into the massive machine which is crushing their souls. Western medicine really shines when it comes to saving people who are in dire need of intervention, but largely falls flat when it comes to improving quality of life in a sustainable way.
In addition to treating PTSD, psychedelics have shown remarkable potential in assisting with anxiety, depression, addiction, birth trauma and fear of death. I personally have witnessed resolutions of serious physical ailments which were thought to be permanent medical conditions following ayahuasca ceremonies. Is this a result of the plant medicine or is it a result of the plant medicine’s ability to unlock human potential in self-healing? In either case, the effects could only be described as miraculous.
Due to the lengthy prohibition, empirical research in this field is just beginning and the potential benefits are much broader than most realize. As John Sanro argues in “The Mindbody Prescription,” many of the ailments which we think of as physical in nature originate in the emotional body. If used responsibly, psychedelics can create lasting emotional relief which does not require repeated use. Most psychedelics are also non-addictive. Many have said that one profound experience is enough to create a permanent positive impact in one’s life. To my knowledge there are no pharmaceuticals which can make that claim.
The understanding of self-interest in human action is a critical component for understanding society. The understanding of what constitutes the self is a critical component for understanding spirituality. At the core of every spiritual practice is the same lesson. The litigious dogma which separates religions simply distracts from that. This has been said at least since Baruch Spinoza, Sri Aurobindo and Alan Watts. Some have argued that the core spiritual message has been lost since the original teachings of Buddha, Christ and Muhammad were passed on to their followers.
As eloquently discussed by Eckhart Tolle in “A New Earth,” humanity has simply missed the mark and that is the origin of suffering. The boundary between our self-interest and the interest of every other form of life is merely a condition of our perspective on the separation. You may discover that acting exclusively in self-interest without any consideration of others gradually becomes self-destructive. Most actions taken for the exclusive benefit of others, at great personal cost, typically prove themselves fruitless as well. There is a good reason for this. In his 2001 book, “No Boundary,” Ken Wilber presents a thorough case that all separation is simply an illusion. It is my belief that we all get the chance to see through this illusion upon departing this physical realm, but if we can look through the door, before permanently crossing the threshold, the broadened perspective can be beneficial to our experience until the departure.
However, all of these words have very little consequence if they are not accompanied by first-hand experience. The metaphor I like to employ for this understanding is that of the mountain. Throughout human history the great prophets and mystics have arduously made their way up the mountain using various methods. Many have done their best to describe the sights, sounds and viewpoints from the paths that they chose. Those who reached the top have seldom had words to describe what was there and many never make the attempt to explain. That place is not describable to those who have not experienced it. This is true of every aspect of life. How can sight be described to a blind person? How can sound be described to a deaf person? Words ultimately only point to truth, they do not contain truth. Without a shared context of reality, words are empty.
What psychedelics may be able to assist with, if the seeker is prepared, is to find a temporary view of various parts of the mountain. The glimpses into those heightened states of consciousness are simply that: glimpses. They do not contain the same value as thousands of hours of meditation, years of yoga practice or pilgrimages to holy sites, but the glimpses they provide can be profoundly liberating. To hop in a helicopter and visit the top of the mountain for fifteen minutes has the potential to alter your life permanently.
The permanency is what many people fear when they hear about psychedelics, but what if the changes that remain with us are largely beneficial to our well-being rather than harmful? What if the expansion of human consciousness is exactly what is needed to slingshot us into the next phase of human evolution? The lowering of time preference alone seems to have a spiritual component, but is it enough to shift human nature away from the darkest parts of our past? The answer will come in the form of individual choice and expression. I want to believe that the separation of money and state will benefit humanity as a whole, but I won’t be entirely convinced until I see how it happens.
What I would ask from the reader is a gentle approach to both psychedelics and to Bitcoin. You may benefit from listening for the true intent of those you are communicating with, not the intent you may have assumed they have. This speaks true not just for Bitcoin and psychedelics, but for all topics of discussion. The lack of understanding of a topic is not the same as malevolence. Assume the former even if you suspect the latter and your ability to support others in learning will improve significantly.
Have a nice trip.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 20:55 - Why China's Youth Unemployment Has Hit A Record 19.3%
Why China’s Youth Unemployment Has Hit A Record 19.3%
China has a new pandemic to worry about: Unemployment, underemployment and disillusionment is steadily spreading throughout China’s highly-educated youngest generation.
As with most dismal economic circumstances, this one is largely the fault of government. As Bloomberg explains:
A perfect storm of factors has propelled unemployment among 16- to 24-year-old urbanites to a record 19.3%, more than twice the comparable rate in the US. The government’s hardline coronavirus strategy has led to layoffs, while its regulatory crackdown on real estate and education companies has hit the private sector.
At the same time, a record number of college and vocational school graduates — some 12 million — are entering the job market this summer. This highly educated cohort has intensified a mismatch between available roles and jobseekers’ expectations.
China’s maximalist approach to combatting Covid fell hardest on private companies, which were more likely to lay off workers than entities owned by the government. At the same time, the government hammered private internet companies with penalties for alleged monopolistic actions, and cut off financing for private real estate ventures.
That’s had a marked effect on the career preferences of young Chinese. Bloomberg reports a whopping 39% of college grads now say state-owned companies are at the top of their list of preferred employers.
Young people are also applying in droves to work directly for the government: The number of college grads applying for civil servant positions this year is 39% above last year’s total. Chasing a generation away from the country’s most innovative and entrepreneurial employers will have long-lasting, negative consequences for the Chinese economy.
Meanwhile, China’s youth comprise the country’s most educated generation ever, with a 60% attendance rate that’s comparable to developed economies. However, there aren’t enough jobs to match this enormous talent pool’s potential.
In a parallel to the United States, too few Chinese are attending vocational schools, which have been deeply stigmatized by society, along with the factory jobs they enable. Add it all up, and China has far too many applicants for IT positions and too few willing to fill open positions for those who build and repair things.
The government has trotted out subsidies and tax rebates to encourage hiring, but the rewards are so small they’re not going to move the needle much.
Cultivating dampened expectations, Chinese President Xi Jinping last month counseled new graduates to “prevent the situation in which one is unfit for a higher position but unwilling to take a lower one…to get rich and get fame overnight is not realistic.”
A sort of listlessness is taking hold, summarized by a Chinese phrase that became popular last year: “tang ping,” which translates into “lying flat.” It’s emblematic of a lifestyle that eschews the rat race and embraces low expectations for professional and financial success.
As youth unemployment steadily rises, Bloomberg reports a more ominous phrase is now emerging: “bailan.” It means “let it rot.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 20:35 - Electric Vehicles: Trading One Form Of Hazardous Mining For Another
Electric Vehicles: Trading One Form Of Hazardous Mining For Another
Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times,
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) reached a record 3 million in 2020, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
That’s an increase of 40 percent from 2019 and is in contrast to overall car sales, which saw a 16 percent decrease.
The report further estimated that EV sales could reach 23 million by 2030, thanks partly to the Biden administration’s stated goal of half of all vehicles sold in 2030 being zero-emissions vehicles.
Pointedly, lithium batteries are the preferred battery technology because it has the highest charge-to-weight ratio.
The push to transition to electric vehicles is driven by key regulations by the United States, Canada, and the European Union, to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from internal combustion engine vehicles, and transition to a more environmentally friendly future, according to the energy agency.
However, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that this uptick in EV adoption and increased demand for lithium batteries presents a significant environmental challenge.
“As demand for lithium increases and production is tapped from deeper rock mines and brines, the challenges of mitigating environmental risk will increase.”
Rod Colwell, CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources (R), and Tracy Sizemore, the company’s Global Director of Battery Materials, walk along geothermal mud pots near the shore of the Salton Sea, where the company is mining for lithium, in Niland, Calif., on July 15, 2021. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)
Lithium in its pure form doesn’t occur naturally on Earth.
Currently, there are two viable ways to obtain lithium: hard rock extraction or evaporation ponds called salar brines.
Seawater presents a possible future source of lithium, but because of extensive water, land use, and time requirements, extracting lithium from seawater is not feasible.
Importantly, due to its cost-effective nature, salar brines are the most commonly used method for lithium extraction —66 percent of global lithium resources are from lithium brine deposits, according to UNCTAD’s report.
Miners drill holes in salt flats to extract lithium and pump the salty, mineral-rich brine to the surface.
Once at the surface, the water evaporates and leaves a mixture of lithium salts, borax, manganese, and potassium. The mixture is then filtered and placed into another evaporation pool, where it evaporates for an additional 12 to 18 months.
After that period, lithium carbonate and hydroxide are extracted and can be used to make cathode material in batteries.
Materials such as cobalt and nickel are processed with lithium chemicals to produce battery electrodes.
According to a report from the Institute for Energy Research (IER), it takes approximately 500,000 gallons of water to extract one metric ton of lithium from salar brines.
If water were in abundant supply, the above heavy demand might be overlooked. But, more than 50 percent of lithium resources are located in the “lithium triangle” of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. And, UNCTAD reports this area is one of the driest areas on Earth.
Rafael, 7, walks on the Uyuni Salt Flats after bathing in a hole with salty water in Uyuni, Bolivia, in 2014. (AP Photo/Victor Caivano)
On the jagged plain of Chile’s Salar de Atacama, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s geological survey reports that it hasn’t rained “for as long as people have been keeping track.”
The result is a diverse but fragile ecosystem with scarce water resources.
However, the Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile and is rich in lithium salts just under the surface. Consequently, it’s become a significant source of lithium mining.
Indeed, 65 percent of the region’s water goes toward mining activities, according to IER.
The effect is a lack of water that’s forced local farmers—who grow quinoa and herd llamas, and nearby communities—to abandon their ancestral settlements and find water elsewhere, according to UNCTAD.
“We used to have a river before that now doesn’t exist. There isn’t a drop of water,” stated Elena Rivera, the president of the Indigenous Colla Community of the Copiapo commune, to the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC).
“And not only here in Copiapo but in all of Chile, there are rivers and lakes that have disappeared—all because a company has a lot more right to water than we do as human beings or citizens of Chile.”
…
Lithium mining isn’t the only concerning factor with lithium-ion batteries. There are additional chemical elements in batteries, like cobalt and graphite, which pose social and environmental challenges, according to UNCTAD.
In its 2022 report, the USGS reports that in 2021, over 70 percent of the global cobalt production came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and that Southern Congo sits atop an estimated 3.5 million metric tons, which is almost half of the world’s known supply.
The problem, according to UNCTAD, is that dust from cobalt mines often contains toxic metals such as uranium, and DRC mines may contain sulfur minerals that can generate sulfuric acid, according to UNCTAD.
When exposed to air or water, sulfuric acid can lead to acid mine drainage, polluting rivers and drinking water for hundreds of years.
And, up to 40,000 children are estimated to be working in these mines under slave labor conditions.
In 2021, China was the leading graphite producer, producing an estimated 79 percent of the world’s total output, according to the USGS report.
According to USCTAD, graphite mining has similar environmental impacts to cobalt mining; it leads to contaminated soils, water, and toxic dust.
A woman and a man separate cobalt from mud and rocks near a mine between Lubumbashi and Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 2015. (Federico Scoppa/AFP/Getty Images)
Finally, in addition to the above-stated problems, mining battery components emit a fair amount of CO2, which varies based on specific mining and manufacturing processes.
“There are carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions that come with the process of extraction. [It’s] not like CO2 comes out of the lithium, but it does take energy to mine things—today many of those systems involve emitting CO2,” said Zeke Hausfather, Climate Research Lead at nonprofit Berkeley Earth to Climate360.
“There’s emissions associated with the processes of mining like CO2 emissions creating sulfuric acid and other things used in the mining process—the life cycle of all of these things involves some environmental impact,” Hausfather concluded.
Research and consulting firm Circular Energy Storage reported that emission results can range from 39 kg CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour to 196 kg CO2e/kWh, which significantly impacts the potential positive impact of electric vehicles.
“If an electric vehicle is using a 40 kWh battery its embedded emissions from manufacturing would then be equivalent to the CO2 emissions caused by driving a diesel car with a fuel consumption of 5 litre per 100 km in between 11,800 km and 89,400 km before the electric car even has driven one meter,” Circular Energy reports.
“While the lower range might not be significant, the latter would mean an electric car would have a positive climate impact first after seven years for the European average driver.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 20:15 - Blinken Offers Russia "Substantial" Deal For Return Of Brittney Griner & Paul Whelan
Blinken Offers Russia “Substantial” Deal For Return Of Brittney Griner & Paul Whelan
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise announcement on the Britney Griner case, saying Wednesday afternoon the United States is ready to cut a rare deal for her release from Russian custody. He said the Biden administration has made a “substantial proposal” to Moscow. Talks appear to have already been underway for weeks.
He also named imprisoned former Marine Paul Whelan, currently serving a 16-year prison sentence in Russia stemming from a “spying” conviction after what he and US officials have called a “sham trial”, as part of the deal on the table. “We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release,” Blinken said in a press briefing.
JUST IN: Sec. of State Antony Blinken says U.S. “put a substantial proposal on the table” to facilitate release of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner from Russia. https://t.co/hi29tu0lxM pic.twitter.com/o38OuvHVTC
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2022
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The Associated Press underscores “The statement marked the first time the US government has publicly revealed any concrete action it has taken to secure the release of Griner, who was arrested on drug-related charges at a Moscow airport in February and testified Wednesday at her trial.”
Blinken didn’t offer details of the arrangement Washington is offering, however. Likely the two American citizens’ release would come in the form of a prisoner swap – though Russia might possibly demand sanctions relief – which would likely collapse any pending deal.
There’s been widespread speculation that the US could release notorious Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout from custody, currently serving a 25-year federal prison sentence since 2012. Russian state media has frequently mentioned Bout’s name over the past months as high on the foreign ministry’s list of priorities.
CNN is reporting that indeed it’s Viktor Bout that the US is offering to exchange, though Blinken himself did not publicly confirm this…
The Biden administration has offered to exchange Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout for Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, per @CNN
Griner has been detained for 160 days. pic.twitter.com/iGcpT8P07v
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 27, 2022
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Per a breaking CNN report:
After months of internal debate, the Biden administration has offered to exchange Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms trafficker serving a 25-year US prison sentence, as part of a potential deal to secure the release of two Americans held by Russia, Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, according to people briefed on the matter.
These sources told CNN that the plan to trade Bout for Whelan and Griner received the backing of President Joe Biden after being under discussion since earlier this year. Biden’s support for the swap overrides opposition from the Department of Justice, which is generally against prisoner trades.
Viktor Bout was successfully extradited to the Southern District of New York from Thailand in 2010. Despite Blinken not having spoken to his Russian counterpart since Feb.15 – just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began – the AP cites the top US diplomat as indicating Wednesday “he had requested a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.”
Griner testified on her own behalf in a Moscow court on Wednesday…
NEW AUDIO OF BRITTNEY GRINER IN COURT: WNBA star Brittney Griner claims she was never informed of her rights, was not provided thorough interpretations, and was not told which documents she was signing when she was detained in a Moscow airport in February pic.twitter.com/OnQfqheFcx
— KWTX News 10 (@kwtx) July 27, 2022
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“U.S. officials said the desire for an answer on the prisoner offer was the primary, but not only, reason that the US on Wednesday requested the call with Lavrov,” AP notes further. Blinken indicated he expects to speak with Lavrov on the matter in the “coming days”.
The CNN report cited an administration official who said at the moment “the ball is in Russia’s court” concerning the offer to do a prisoner swap.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 19:55 - Markets Take Pelosi's Taiwan Visit Talk In Stride
Markets Take Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit Talk In Stride
By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst
A possible visit to Taiwan early next month by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — as part of her Asia tour — has stirred a fair bit of diplomatic tension between Beijing and Washington.
Financial markets in Taiwan, however, have so far taken the political turmoil in stride. If history offers any guidance, any selloff on concerns about a military confrontation would provide golden opportunities for buy-and-hold investors.
The Financial Times first reported the trip on July 19 during Asian trading hours, eliciting an immediate warning from Beijing. Having had enough time to absorb the news and likely repercussions, Taiwan’s benchmark index managed to climb 1.4% on a closing basis between July 18 and 27, handily beating major stock gauges in Hong Kong and mainland China. Investors seem to have concluded the aggressive rhetoric from mid-level Chinese foreign ministry and defense officials poses little actual risk of war.
Beijing might respond to the visit in a couple of ways, Bloomberg reported last week. Reactions range from relatively mild ones such as fighter jet incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone or crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line, to something more aggressive like a missile test near the island or even unprecedented tensions such as warplanes shadowing Pelosi’s flight.
Chinese forces even could intercept Pelosi’s aircraft and prevent her from landing. Such a scenario, however, is unlikely since it would mark a dramatic escalation, according to Gabriel Wildau, New York-based managing director at Teneo, a global CEO advisory firm. Beijing could be less confrontational yet still set a new precedent, such as flying into Taiwanese airspace. That would stop “short of a hostile act against US military aircraft,” Wildau wrote in a July 26 note.
Teneo believes Beijing’s response cycle could be “months-long” if the missile crisis more than two decades ago serves as an accurate reference point. On May 22, 1995, Washington green-lit a “private visit” by Taiwanese leader Lee Teng-hui. That decision, on top of the island’s first direct presidential election the following year, prompted Beijing to order live-fire military exercises and test-fire ballistic missiles. In December 1995, President Clinton sent the US aircraft carrier Nimitz through the Taiwan Strait. In March 1996, two aircraft carrier battle groups — centered around the Nimitz and the USS Independence — plied the waters near Taiwan.
The island’s equity gauge initially sold off back then, lagging the MSCI China and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprise indexes, before bottoming in August 1995. By May 20, 1996, when Lee was sworn in as Taiwan’s first popularly-elected president, the benchmark index has recovered all lost ground, outperforming peers by a wide margin.
For long-term investors, other risks are far more relevant than the Pelosi saga, which will eventually come to an end. China’s resurgent Covid cases have once again threatened manufacturing and warehousing operations in Shenzhen and Shanghai. And the lockdowns will weigh on Taiwanese producers through supply chain channels at a time when the island’s industrial output grew at the slowest pace since January 2020, according to DBS Group.
Concern over falling global semiconductor demand means capital outflows from the island are unlikely to turn around anytime soon, the selling pressure on Taiwanese stocks will likely persist and the currency will come under pressure, wrote Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank N.V. in Hong Kong.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 19:35 - Apple Nabs Key Lamborghini Executive to Work on Its Electric Car
Apple Nabs Key Lamborghini Executive to Work on Its Electric Car
Apple has plucked one of Lamborghini’s top car-development managers from Volkswagen Group, in a sign that it’s accelerating work on its self-driving electric vehicle program that’s already seen hundreds of former Tesla, Rivian, Alphabet and other engineers join, according to Bloomberg.
Mockup of potential Apple EV based on “genuine patents filed by Apple, Inc.”, created by Venarama Luigi Taraborrelli, a 20-year veteran of Lamborghini, was hired to help spearhead the design of Apple’s vehicle, according to anonymous sources. Taraborrelli most recently served as Lamborghini’s head of chassis and vehicle dynamics.
To see some of Lamborghini’s latest work, check out this (Jeremy Clarkson-less, and therefore lame) Top Gear review of the Countach reboot.
Taraborrelli, who worked on the Lamborghini Urus, Huracan and Aventador, will become one of the senior managers on Apple’s EV team. As noted, he also oversaw Lambo’s chassis development, including handling, suspensions, steering, brakes and rims, per his Linkedin profile.
Earlier this year, Apple tapped a 31-year veteran of Ford Motor Co. to lead its vehicle-safety efforts. Last year, it hired Ulrich Kranz, the former chief of struggling electric-car maker Canoo Inc. and former leader of BMW’s electric-car business. Before that, Apple enlisted former Tesla Inc. Autopilot chief Stuart Bowers to work on self-driving technology.
The Apple project includes hundreds of former engineers from Tesla and other car companies, including Rivian Automotive Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, Volvo Car AB and Mercedes-Benz Group AG. It also has former senior design executives on staff from Tesla, McLaren, Porsche and Aston Martin. -Bloomberg
Apple is shooting for a 2025 introduction, with a design that lets riders face each other in a ‘limousine-like’ interior. Ultimately, Apple has ambitions to create a fully-autonomous car without a steering wheel or pedals, that could spell trouble for Tesla.
That said, Apple has also lost a few key people along the way – including former project head, Doug Field (former Tesla who joined Ford), and AI specialist Ian Goodfellow. The project is currently run by Kevin Lynch, who’s also in charge of the Apple Watch and health software teams – and John Giannandrea, the company’s head of machine learning.
Only one question remains; will it be able to do this???
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 19:15 - Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred To Low-Security Prison In Florida
Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred To Low-Security Prison In Florida
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved to a low-security federal prison in Florida, which offers a number of amenities including yoga and movies, to serve out her 20-year prison sentence.
Ghislaine Maxwell attends the 4th Annual WIE Symposium at Center 548 in New York on Sept. 20, 2013. (Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images) The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists Maxwell, 60, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, which is described on its website as a “low security federal correctional institution with a detention center.” A judge had asked to have her serve out her sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution Danbury, in Connecticut.
Accused of being a madam to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Maxwell was convicted in December of five federal charges including sex trafficking of a minor. Prosecutors accused the UK socialite and Epstein, a multimillionaire, of plotting to lure and groom young girls into relationships with Epstein between 1994 and 2004. She is slated to be released from prison in 2037.
At FCI Tallahassee, inmates can participate in yoga, pilates, weights, softball, flag football, and frisbee, according to the Zoukis Consulting Group. Maxwell also will be able to watch movies at the prison, the prison consulting group’s website says.
Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in 2008 and was sentenced to house arrest in Florida. In July 2019, he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges before he was found dead in a prison cell in Manhattan a month later, which the New York City Medical Examiner’s office ruled his death a suicide by hanging.
No Remorse
Maxwell’s 20-year sentence was shorter than the one sought by prosecutors.
“It’s been an incredibly long road to justice for myself and for many other survivors,” said Sarah Ransome, one of Maxwell’s and Epstein’s accusers. “This is for the girls that didn’t have their say, the ones that weren’t here.”
Judge Alison J. Nathan noted as she imposed the prison term and a $750,000 fine that Maxwell never expressed remorse for her crimes. The judge said she wanted the sentence to send an “unmistakable message” that nobody is above the law.
Four survivors at the sentencing described their sexual abuse, including Annie Farmer, who was briefly overcome with emotion as she addressed the judge. She said she and her sister tried to go public with their stories about being abused by Epstein and Maxwell two decades ago, only to be shut down by the powerful couple through threats and influence with authorities.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 18:55 - Trump Files 'Notice Of Intent' To Sue CNN Over 'False Statements'
Trump Files ‘Notice Of Intent’ To Sue CNN Over ‘False Statements’
Former President Donald Trump has filed a ‘Notice of Intent’ to sue CNN for “repeated defamatory statements.”
In a recent filing through Washington-based law firm, Ifrah Law, under Florida statute § 770.02, Trump seeks to force the network to “publish a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction” based on published pieces or broadcasts that he says made “false statements” about him.
“I hereby demand on behalf of President Donald Trump that CNN (1) immediately take down the false and defamatory publications, (2) immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the statements identified herein in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published, and (3) immediately cease and desist from its continued use of ‘Big Lie’ and ‘lying’ when describing President Trump’s subjective belief regarding the integrity of the 2020 election,” reads the letter.
Failure to issue an apology will result in a lawsuit.
“Failure to publish such a correction, apology, or retraction will result in the filing of a lawsuit and damages being sought against you, CNN,” reads the document, which was reported by the Daily Caller.
“I have notified CNN of my intent to file a lawsuit over their repeated defamatory statements against me,” Trump said in a statement. “I will also be commencing actions against other media outlets who have defamed me and defrauded the public regarding the overwhelming evidence of fraud throughout the 2020 Election. I will never stop fighting for the truth and for the future of our Country!”
The notice accuses CNN of repeatedly airing claims that Trump was “illegitimately elected” in 2016, which went unchallenged. It then accuses the network of ‘feeding a narrative’ that repeatedly defamed Trump’s character leading up to, and after, the 2020 election.
The document then stated that CNN inaccurately branded Trump as a “liar” and likened him to Adolf Hitler and communist leaders by labeling his election fraud claims as the “Big Lie.” The network has coined the term “Big Lie” in relation to Trump more than 7,700 times since January 2021, the document said.
“In this instance, President Trump’s comments are not lies: He subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states,” the document said.
The document alleged that the network treats Trump unfairly in comparison to other public figures, including Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Jussie Smollett and Andrew McCabe. It then argued that the former president’s questions about election integrity are legitimate, given that True the Vote reportedly found evidence of illegal, fraudulent votes in states such as Georgia and Arizona. -Daily Caller
Could this be a 2024 election strategy?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/27/2022 – 18:35
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