WORLD NEWS
Prelude to Day 7: China Is The World’s First Technate
In Part 1, we discussed the historical background of Technocracy Inc. that briefly found popularity in the US in the 1930s during the turmoil of the Great Depression.
Technocracy was rooted in socioeconomic theories that focused upon the efficient management of society by experts (technocrats). This idea briefly held the public’s attention during a period of sustained recession, mass unemployment and growing poverty.
The technological capabilities required for the energy surveillance grid, essential for the operation of a Technate (a technocratic society), were far beyond the practical reach of 1930s America. Consequently, for that and other reasons, public interest in the seemingly preposterous idea of technocracy soon subsided.
However, in recent decades, many influential policy strategists—most notably Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger—and private philanthropic foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, recognised that advances in digital technology would eventually make a Technate feasible. As founding and leading members of the Trilateral Commission, a policy “think tank,” they saw China as a potential test bed for technocracy.
We will now consider their efforts to create the world’s first Technate in China.
These articles build upon the research found in my 2021 publication Pseudopandemic, which is freely available to my blog subscribers.
World Soccer Union ‘Shocked’ to Learn Iranian Player at Risk of Execution for Protest Involvement
A global soccer players’ union says it’s “shocked and sickened” by reports that an Iranian professional soccer player is at risk of being executed for his involvement in anti-government protests.
The organization, the International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPRO), said on Twitter that it’s “shocked and sickened by reports that professional footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani faces execution in Iran after campaigning for women’s rights and basic freedom in his country.
“We stand in solidarity with Amir and call for the immediate removal of his punishment.”
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he was seriously considering a visit to Africa, joking that poor relatives always accepted invitations.
“I’m eager to visit your continent,” Biden said, during an appearance at the Africa leaders summit recalling that he had received some invitations from the leaders of African countries to visit.
Europe’s Largest Bank to Halt Financing of New Oil and Gas Projects
Multinational investment bank HSBC announced that it will no longer finance new oil and gas projects in order to meet the green agenda goals of globalist elites.
The largest bank in Europe, which has nearly three trillion dollars in assets, has said that it will no longer finance new oil or gas fields to supposedly meet its commitments to achieving the UK government’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050.
Biden Wants $8 Billion In Taxpayer Funds To Shut Down Coal Power In South Africa
With the UN and other interests already interfering in Africa’s energy development, Joe Biden announced at the US-Africa Business Forum a plan for American taxpayers to shell out at least $8 billion to shut down effective coal fired energy plants in South Africa so they can be replaced with far less effective and far less efficient green-energy alternatives.
In other words, the goal of climate change cultists is to use $8 billion of America’s money to diminish South African infrastructure.
The green-energy scam continues despite the fact that European nations are now admitting they need more oil and coal based energy, not green tech, after the loss of Russian natural gas resources.
The American taxpayer is now carrying the weight of $94 billion in 2022 for so called “clean energy” initiatives in other nations around the world.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Biden Orders Release Of Unredacted JFK Assassination Files
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is set to release Thursday nearly 11,200 unredacted versions of documents related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
The action is in compliance with President Joe Biden’s executive order to authorize the full release of the documents that have been undisclosed for decades. The order ruled that any information “currently withheld” from the public must be released by Dec. 15.
The order is in connection to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which required that all documents related to the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination “be eventually disclosed” to inform the public on the historic tragedy, unless doing so would threaten national security, intelligence or military defense, according to the executive order.
Biden team broke law in erasing Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, judge rules
A federal judge has ruled that the Biden administration acted too rashly last year when it attempted to end President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” border policy.
The ruling Thursday was a legal defeat for President Biden, but its practical effect was not clear. There is still more legal wrangling and Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, while blocking the Biden administration‘s revocation, didn’t explicitly order the Trump program be restarted at this time.
The decision is also separate from ongoing cases over the Title 42 pandemic border policy, which like Remain in Mexico allowed the government to quickly push illegal immigrants back across the border into Mexico.
Documents Reveal Secret Twitter Portal US Government Used to Censor COVID-19 Content
New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative.
In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal, which U.S. government officials used to censor dissenting COVID-19 views in violation of the First Amendment. It’s a revelation Elon Musk described as “extremely concerning.”
The documents reveal that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was collaborating with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Mafindo to mitigate “disinformation.” Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded by Google, known to have censored searches for keywords like Coronavirus, and COVID-19 as well as blocking information regarding adverse reactions and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines.
Facebook started its third-party fact-checking program in 2016, working with fact-checkers from around the world who are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter to rate and review the accuracy of the content on their platform. According to the IFCN website, they believe “nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism.” However, among their advisory board, U.S.-based representatives appear to be from liberal-leaning outlets such as the Washington Post and PolitiFact, which is owned by Poynter.
Stopgap Spending Bill Approved by House, Heads to Senate
Congressional lawmakers voted to approve a short-term funding bill on Wednesday night that will last through Dec. 23, taking a step toward averting a partial government shutdown.
The one-week extension resolution (pdf) passed in a 224–201 vote and will now head to the Senate to be considered. It will then be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed before midnight on Friday to avoid a shutdown.
“This Continuing Resolution is a simple date change that keeps the government up and running as we negotiate the details of final 2023 spending bills,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the Democratic chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
“I am encouraged by the agreement we have reached on a framework that provides a path forward to enact an omnibus next week. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees are working around the clock to negotiate the details of spending bills that will be supported by the House and Senate,” DeLauro added.
Nine Republicans voted with Democrats in favor of the measure. They were Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), John Katko (R-N.Y.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
Senate Passes $858 Billion Military Spending Bill
The U.S. Senate on Dec. 15 passed a military spending bill with a top-line price to taxpayers of $858 billion.
The defense package, dubbed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed the upper chamber by an 83–11 vote.
The NDAA was passed by the House of Representatives on Dec. 8 in a 350–80 vote. A total of 176 Republicans in the lower chamber voted for the bill, 35 voted against it, and two didn’t vote. A total of 174 Democrats voted for the bill, while 45 voted against it.
One of the most noteworthy aspects of the package, and an early victory for Republicans as they prepare to take the House next year, was a repeal of President Joe Biden’s controversial COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military service members. Despite historically supporting Biden’s COVID-19 policies, Democrats yielded on the issue.
However, in an interview with NTD, Cesar Ybarra, vice president of policy at FreedomWorks, warned that this may not be the victory for Republicans that it seems to be.
“The legislation simply said that the Department of Defense is required to rescind the memo that authorizes the vaccine mandate on servicemembers,” Ybarra explained. “However … it gives us no assurances that DOD will not do that again, right.”
He added, “So it simply says get rid of it, but nothing that says you cannot do this again. And we’ve known from the COVID hysteria that these federal politicians always flip-flop on when or when we don’t need these vaccine mandates.”
Kari Lake’s Lawsuit Trial a Win for Election Integrity: Jenna Ellis
The fact that a judge has ordered a two-day trial in Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s election lawsuit is a win for election integrity efforts, said Jenna Ellis, former senior adviser and counsel to former President Donald Trump, in a Dec. 14 interview with NTD News.
The hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to warrant a trial took place Tuesday before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson.
“I think this is a great step forward that this judge is taking the petition from Kari Lake very seriously and said that there is sufficient evidence here,” Ellis said. “Regardless of whether or not that’s exactly enough time or the judge ultimately ends up extending that timeframe, if there needs to be more presentation of evidence or additional arguments, two days, in my view, is at least a huge threshold victory.”
41 House Democrats File Bill to Bar Donald Trump from 2024 Eligibility
Forty-one House Democrats filed a bill on Thursday to bar former President Donald Trump from running for president in 2024, citing section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
“Donald Trump very clearly engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 with the intention of overturning the lawful and fair results of the 2020 election. You don’t get to lead a government you tried to destroy,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) wrote in a press release:
Even Mitch McConnell admits that Trump bears responsibility, saying on the Senate floor that ‘[t]here’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.’ The 14th Amendment makes clear that based on his past behavior, Donald Trump is disqualified from ever holding federal office again and, under Section 5, Congress has the power to pass legislation to implement this prohibition.
Among those Democrats seeking to deprive Trump of 2024 eligibility 41 Democrats, including radicals Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-M).
The Biden administration is planning for more illegal aliens to be released into U.S. communities to pursue asylum cases as the Trump-era Title 42 program that helped stem the tide of illegal immigration ends on Dec. 21.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a six-pillar plan (pdf) on how it plans to cope with the challenges posed by the scheduled termination of Title 42 and the major policy shift that this represents.
The department’s plan includes accelerated processing for illegal aliens in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing surges, bolstering NGO capacity to receive people after they’ve been processed, and increased criminal prosecutions of smugglers.
The agency estimates that 9,000 to 14,000 migrants could try to enter the country illegally each day when the Title 42 policy ends.
Federal Judge Stops Joe Biden from Ending Trump-Era ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas stopped President Joe Biden’s administration from ending the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy, setting up another court battle over the immigration policy.
Remain in Mexico, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocol, “allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to quickly return border crossers to Mexico while they await their asylum and immigration hearings in the United States — effectively eliminating the practice commonly known as ‘Catch and Release,’” as Breitbart News explained.
Pennsylvania County to Recount 2020 Election Results in 2023
Persistent questions from voters and a petition with 5,000 signatures have convinced the Lycoming County Commissioners in Pennsylvania to recount its 2020 election results.
Around the state, loosely organized groups of voters have been asking various counties for recounts from 2020.
“In our county, they approached our commissioners and leveled allegations that there were thousands of uncounted votes in our county based on what I believe are nonsense statistics,” Lycoming County Director of Elections Forrest Lehman told The Epoch Times.
Groups of 20-80 people started attending county meetings asking for the recount. The county showed various information to answer their questions, Lehman said, but voters still wanted a recount and gathered some 5,000 signatures to make that request.
“That’s when county commissioners decided, as the board of elections, that if there are 5,000 people who signed this petition and have this belief, then we need to hand count these ballots in order to restore public trust in the outcomes of our elections,” Lehman said.
The county has about 70,000 registered voters and a population of around 120,000, so to the commissioners, 5,000 is a lot of signatures, he said.
“This is not something we want to do after every election, but we need to do it once, at least, in order to prove once and for all that our voting system counts the votes accurately and that there were not thousands of uncounted votes that were hidden by an algorithm or some other nonsense like that,” Lehman said.
The city of Denver declared a state of emergency on Thursday in order to stave off a local humanitarian crisis amid an influx of illegal aliens from the southern border, mainly from El Paso, Texas.
Mayor Michael Hancock, a Democrat, issued the declaration as several hundred illegal aliens, mostly from Central and South America, have arrived in the state in just the past few days alone.
“Let me be frank: This influx of migrants, the unanticipated nature of their arrival, and our current space and staffing challenges have put an immense strain on city resources to the level where they’re on the verge of reaching a breaking point at this time,” Hancock said at a news conference on Thursday.
“What I don’t want to see is a local humanitarian crisis of unsheltered migrants on our hands because of a lack of resources,” the mayor added.
According to Hancock’s office, more than 900 aliens have arrived in Denver over the past several months, including more than 600 people since Dec. 2.
Another 247 aliens have arrived since Monday alone, while 75 turned up at a local homeless shelter overnight on Thursday evening, according to his office.
FBI Arrests Chinese Music Student for Allegedly Threatening Pro-Democracy Activist
A Chinese student was charged with stalking for allegedly threatening and harassing a U.S. permanent resident who posted flyers in support of democracy in China, officials said on Dec. 14.
Wu Xiaolei, a Chinese citizen studying at Berklee College of Music–Boston allegedly threatened a person who posted a flyer near the campus demanding democracy and freedom in communist China.
“Post more, I will chop your [expletive] hands off,” Wu told the activist in a group chat on WeChat, a Chinese social media app, according to the charging documents (pdf).
Wu, 25, also said he had reported the activist to the public security agency in China and that the Chinese police would visit the activist’s family, according to the complaint.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts didn’t reveal the name of the activist but said the person is a U.S. permanent resident from China and has family members there.
The charges against Wu came after a series of similar prosecutions targeting what U.S. officials describe as the Chinese regime’s transnational repression. In the past year, more than a dozen Chinese intelligence agents, officials, and U.S-based individuals allegedly working with the regime have been charged in relation to schemes that allegedly intend to harass, intimidate, and repatriate Chinese dissidents in the United States.
Federal prosecutors in Boston said Wu had been arrested on Dec. 14 on the charge of stalking.
DOJ wants 5 years in prison for QAnon believer Doug Jensen
A federal judge will decide Friday how long an Iowa man who became deeply embroiled in the QAnon conspiracy theory should spend behind bars for leading the mob that chased U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman on Jan. 6, 2021.
Douglas Jensen, of Des Moines, was convicted by a jury in September of five felony and two misdemeanor counts, including counts of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding police. In a sentencing memo filed last week, federal prosecutors argued Jensen should serve 64 months in prison, or more than five years, for being a “ringleader” during the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.
Lawmaker plans to defund university after it attacked local church elder
Republican state Rep.-elect Jeanette Ward of Wyoming is turning her attention to higher education after the University of Wyoming (UW) suspended a church elder from operating a table within its student union for one year after he displayed the name of a transgender student on a sign defending biological sex.UW issued a one-year suspension to Laramie Faith Community Church elder Todd Schmidt after he displayed a sign earlier this month which read “God created male and female and [student’s name] is male,” referencing a male student who is currently in the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter. Ward, along with 24 other lawmakers, sent a letter to UW asking that it “reverse the direction that the culture of [the] university is taking.”
UW responded to the letter, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, on Dec. 14 and claimed that while it understood the lawmaker’s concerns, the suspension would be upheld as its investigation concluded Schmidt’s sign violated the school’s harassment policy despite the student’s name being removed upon request.
Portland sets record for homicides amid years-long ‘defund police’ activism
Portland is feeling the effects of a years-long law enforcement crisis involving “defund the police” narratives, “unprecedented” police staffing struggles and flawed policymaking, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Meanwhile, the liberal city has set an all-time record for homicides in 2022.
A deadly stabbing became the city’s 91st homicide in 2022, police said, officially surpassing 2021’s record 90-homicide total, according to KGW8. Portland’s city government reduced the Portland Police Bureau’s (PPB) budget in 2020 after it hired too few officers to keep pace with population growth for most of the previous decade, Manhattan Institute fellow John Ketcham told the DCNF.
“A tripling in the annual number of homicides since 2019 —far above the national trend — has further diverted officers from responding to other important calls,” Ketcham said. “Some city leaders’ repeated criticisms of the police have compounded understaffing to dampen morale further in the bureau, resulting in unprecedented struggles to hire and retain qualified officers. While the latest budget restored police funding, it will take time and political will to repair mutual bonds of trust. ”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Stocks Plunge as Recession Fears, Federal Reserve Dash Investor Hopes
The U.S. stock market suffered one of its worst days of 2022 as the leading benchmark indexes fell sharply on Dec. 15, dashing hopes for a year-end Santa Claus rally.
Investors engaged in a broad-based selloff toward the end of the trading week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended 764 points lower on Dec. 15. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index plunged by 3.2 percent, while the S&P 500 Index lost nearly 2.5 percent.
Year to date, the Nasdaq has lost nearly 32 percent, the S&P 500 has tumbled by more than 18 percent, and the DJIA has slumped by 9.2 percent.
Some of the biggest names on the New York Stock Exchange endured steep losses. Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple lost more than 4 percent. Meta shed close to 6 percent, while Netflix plummeted by 8.6 percent. Bank shares also slumped, with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase declining by nearly 2 percent.
Some of the stocks to trade higher were Verizon Communications (0.9 percent), Allstate Corp. (1.8 percent), Coterra Energy (2.6 percent), and D.R. Horton (3.5 percent).
Traders sought shelter in traditional safe-haven assets. The benchmark 10-year yield shed roughly 6 basis points to about 3.44 percent. The U.S. Dollar Index, which gauges the greenback against a basket of currencies, surged above 104.
ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its third-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Flipping Report showing that 92,422 single-family houses and condominiums in the United States were flipped in the third quarter. Those transactions represented 7.5 percent of all home sales in the third quarter of 2022, or one in 13 transactions. The latest portion was down from 8.2 percent, or one in every 12 home sales in the nation during the second quarter of 2022. But it was still up from 5.9 percent, or one in 17 sales, in the third quarter of last year.
Despite the decline, the home-flipping rate during the third quarter of this year still stood at the third-highest level in the past decade, below the high point of 9.7 percent registered in the first quarter of 2022.
“This is a classic good news/bad news report for fix-and-flip investors,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at ATTOM. “While flipping activity in the third quarter was among the highest on record, gross profits and profit margins declined significantly, reflecting the overall pricing weakness in today’s housing market.”
Fan Sues Tom Brady After Losing Nearly His Entire Life Savings in FTX Deal
A man who describes himself as a lifelong New England Patriots fan is suing Tom Brady after he invested his entire life savings in the FTX crypto scheme.
Michael Livieratos, 56, says in his filing that he was convinced to invest in FTX after seeing the commercials in which Tom Brady was pushing the company headed by Democrat mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried.
Disney Shares Plummet, Pushing Dow Jones Industrial Average to Worst Loss in Three Months
The Walt Disney Co. saw its stock plummet nearly 4 percent on Thursday, helping to push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its biggest loss in three months. Shares of Apple also contributed to the Dow’s bloodbath, shedding 4.7 percent of their value.
Disney shares dropped 3.9 percent during trading Thursday and continued their decline in after-hours trading. So far this year, the stock is down more than 42 percent.
Elon Musk offloads another $3.6 billion of Tesla stock
Elon Musk has offloaded another tranche of Tesla stock, worth almost $3.6 billion, in a move that risks further irritating already frustrated shareholders in the electric vehicle group.
The billionaire, who took over the social media company in October, has sold four tranches of shares worth a total of almost $23 billion since announcing his takeover of Twitter.
It is the third sale since declaring in April there would be “no further TSLA sales” to support the deal.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Big Tech sues California, claims child-safety law violates First Amendment
In the last half of 2022 alone, many services—from game platforms designed with kids in mind to popular apps like TikTok or Twitter catering to all ages—were accused of endangering young users, exposing minors to self-harm and financial and sexual exploitation. Some kids died, their parents sued, and some tech companies were shielded from their legal challenges by Section 230. As regulators and parents alike continue scrutinizing how kids become hooked on visiting favorite web destinations that could put them at risk of serious harm, a pressure that’s increasingly harder to escape has mounted on tech companies to take more responsibility for protecting child safety online.
In the United States, shielding kids from online dangers is still a duty largely left up to parents, and some tech companies would prefer to keep it that way. But by 2024, a first-of-its-kind California online child-safety law is supposed to take effect, designed to shift some of that responsibility onto tech companies. California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (AB 2273) will force tech companies to design products and services with child safety in mind, requiring age verification and limiting features like autoplay or minor account discoverability via friend-finding tools. That won’t happen, however, if NetChoice gets its way.
The tech industry trade association—with members including Meta, TikTok, and Google—this week sued to block the law, arguing in a complaint that the law is not only potentially unconstitutional but also poses allegedly overlooked harms to minors.
Some tech companies don’t like the California law, NetChoice said in a statement, because they allege that it “violates the First Amendment” many times over. They also say it grants California “unchecked power to coerce moderation decisions the government prefers.” By keeping the law’s terms purposefully vague and never really defining what’s considered “harmful,” even companies attempting to comply in good faith could find themselves charged with unforeseeable violations, the complaint alleges.
HEALTH
Hospitals Are Overflowing With Patients As Multiple Pestilences Sweep Across America
Winter hasn’t even begun yet, but cold weather diseases are already spreading like wildfire all over the United States. The flu has returned in 2022 with a vengeance, new strains of COVID are reportedly starting to emerge, and RSV has hit some areas of the nation extremely hard. I don’t ever remember seeing anything quite like this, and the weather is only going to get colder in the weeks ahead. Normally, most people would be able to fight off such diseases fairly easily, but at this point so many have weakened immune systems after everything that has transpired over the last few years. As a result, millions of Americans have been getting really sick, and CNN is reporting that U.S. hospitals “are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic”…
Hospitals are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. But as respiratory virus season surges across the US, it’s much more than Covid that’s filling beds this year.
More than 80% of hospital beds are in use nationwide, jumping 8 percentage points in the past two weeks.
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The Danger of Eating Contaminated Raw Oysters
Before you consume Raw Oysters, you should know that individuals with medical conditions may be at a high risk for becoming seriously ill and dying from eating raw oysters contaminated with a naturally-occurring bacteria. The [Name of Your Agency]is advising these high-risk individuals to only eat cooked oysters because cooking kills the bacteria.
You can get seriously ill and even die from eating raw oysters contaminated with Vibrio vulnificus – a bacterium commonly found in waters where oysters are cultivated such as the Gulf of Mexico. Vibrio vulnificus is found in higher concentrations during the summer months as water becomes warmer.
“You can’t tell if an oyster is contaminated by Vibrio vulnificus by looking at it or by smelling it”. “Nor does the freshness of the oyster mean it is safe from bacteria because it is present in the water where live oysters feed.”
People who drink alcoholic beverages regularly may be at risk for liver disease, and, as a result, are at risk for serious illness or death from consuming raw oysters contaminated by the bacteria.
“Drinking two to three alcoholic drinks each day can cause liver disease and the liver may be impaired years before an individual begins to experience symptoms,” explained [ Name of Your Expert ]. “These people may be at high risk for infection from Vibrio vulnificus and not even know it.”
In addition, diabetes, cancer, stomach disease, iron overload disease, or any illness or medical treatment that weakens the body’s immune system can also put individuals at high risk for Vibrio vulnificus infection.
Can You Pass the 10-Second Balance Test?
Research confirms past studies showing that the ability to perform a 10-second, one-leg stand is independently linked to all-cause mortality
Falls increase the risk of death in older adults and are the No. 1 cause of death and injuries in older Americans. The number of deaths from falling rose from 8,613 in 2000 to 25,189 in 2016
Factors that increase the risk of falling are poor balance, some medications, using multiple medications simultaneously, loss of muscle mass, vitamin D deficiency and inner ear problems such as Meniere’s disease and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo
After addressing underlying medical problems that affect balance, you can improve balance using yoga, improving core strength, and doing exercises like heel-to-toe standing and walking or high-knee marching
Are Late Dinners Wrecking Your Health?
Fasting is an ancient health intervention embraced for its rejuvenating effects. In more recent years, researchers have demonstrated that less challenging forms of fasting, such as time-restricted eating (TRE), are just as effective as longer water fasts, helping your body repair cellular damage, reduce inflammation, improve brain function and much more
90% of people eat across a span of 12 hours a day, and many across even longer timespans, which is a recipe for metabolic disaster. I believe this is part of why more than 93% of Americans are metabolically unfit
Most TRE regimens call for eating during four to eight hours of the day and fasting for the remaining 16 to 20 hours. The sweet-spot is probably six hours of eating and 18 hours of fasting
An often-overlooked caveat with regard to this timing is that you want to eat your last meal at least three hours or more before bedtime. This is important, as it helps protect your mitochondrial function
Cellular repair begins approximately six hours after you’ve ingested your last calories, so if you’re eating across 15 hours a day, your body only has three hours in which to repair itself. If you eat for only eight hours and fast the remaining 16, your body will have a solid 10 hours in repair mode
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
House Plants That Absorb Toxins, Formaldehyde, and Clean Your Air
House Plants That Absorb Toxins, Formaldehyde, and Clean Your Air
How would you like to breathe easier and cleaner at home or in your office? You can do so by adding some selected house plants to your environment. Certain house plants are better than others at adding oxygen to your living space and improving the overall air quality in that space.
House Plants Clean the Air
The science behind this suggestion has been around for decades and actually started with a trio of investigators with NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America. They reported that specific house plants were good at removing off-gassing elements from building materials and furnishings as well as air pollutants.
Plants are a natural air purifier because they produce oxygen from carbon dioxide (which you exhale) while also helping remove toxins from the air. Tiny openings in the leaves take in air, and the plant absorbs the carbon dioxide and other substances from that air.
While the plant uses carbon dioxide to make food, it then releases oxygen and water back into the air. Pollutants, on the other hand, are translocated to the roots of the plant, where they may be broken down, used by the plant, or released into the soil.
The use of plants to remove harmful elements from the air is called phytoremediation. If you want to breathe easier at home or at work, feel good about the air you breathe and know you are providing yourself and your family with better air quality, then consider adding one or more of the following air-purifying plants to your home or office space. We will even tell you how to make that plant flourish so you can reap the most benefits from it.
Which House Plants Clean the Air
Aloe Vera
Areca Palm
Bamboo Palm
Boston Ferns
Gerber (aka, Gerbera) Daisies
Peace Lilies
Snake Plant (aka, mother-in-law’s tongue).
Spider Plant
Weeping Fig
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
Seed selection is one of the biggest decisions that farmers make every year. Corn and soybean producers enjoyed higher prices for their commodities this year but the cost to produce it is going up too. For example, farmers will pay more for 2022 seed.
Todd Pester is the North American corn and soybean crop lead for Nutrien Ag Solutions. He says higher commodity prices don’t always correlate to an increase in seed costs. However, because of the pandemic, there have been a lot of snags in the supply chain which have also affected the seed industry.
“So, you can expect the costs that have been incurred just to even produce that seed crop, whether it’s fertilizer or chemistry over the top, all of those things add to the cost of the seed supply,” says Pester. “What we’ve heard from the market with early intentions on pricing, that price could be anywhere from 5%-15% above where they were the previous year, so it could be substantial.”
Some producers will pay more than that, especially those looking for the latest technology. Pester recommends working with your seed seller to identify as many discounts as possible.
“Early ordering discounts, or maybe it’s a volume discount that they could qualify for. Early payments sometimes or even a cash payment discount are quite common. You know, another thing to consider is bundling across different crops. If you’re buying soybean, also consider a corn purchase. Many seed sellers will offer discounts for doing that,” he says. “And then, work with your local retailer as well. Sometimes they can offer other goods and services that can be bundled together with a seed purchase. That could be a nice opportunity to save some money.”
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COVID RELATED NEWS
Fauci Responds to DeSantis’s Call for Investigation Into COVID Vaccines
White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday responded to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent call to investigate COVID-19 vaccines by saying he “doesn’t have a clue” what the investigation would accomplish.
“I don’t have a clue … what he’s asking for,” Fauci told CNN on Wednesday in response to DeSantis before stating he believes the COVID-19 vaccine “is highly effective.”
“So what’s the problem with vaccines? I mean, vaccines are life-saving,” said Fauci, the outgoing head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. “So, quite frankly … I’m not sure what they’re trying to do down there,” he added.
But DeSantis, who held a meeting with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and a panel of scientists and physicians, said Tuesday that he will move to have the state Supreme Court impanel a grand jury “to investigate any and all wrongdoings in Florida with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.”
The governor made reference to pharmaceutical companies having paid billions of dollars following legal action that was submitted over “the opioid crisis.” Noting that the state recently obtained $3.2 billion, DeSantis added that “it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented.”
“We’ll be able to get more information and bring more accountability to those who committed this misconduct,” the Florida Republican stated.
A video unveiled by the White Coat Waste Project, a taxpayer watchdog group, shows that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) dismissed calls to stop the funding of dangerous gain-of-function projects abroad, deeming them “conspiracy theories.”
The organization, which blew the lid off the NIH funding the gain-of-function experiments in the Wuhan lab, recently discovered a June 9 video from the 124th Advisory Committee to the Director Meeting in which officials discussed a series of “amendments to watch” as they related to Republicans desiring to get a grip on funding for dangerous gain-of-function experiments across the globe.
Asymptomatic People Do Not Spread COVID-19
A vast majority of those testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic. They simply aren’t sick. The PCR test is merely picking up inactive (noninfectious) viral particles
In one study, which looked at pregnant women admitted for delivery, 87.5% of the women who tested positive for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 had no symptoms
A study looking at PCR test data from nearly 10 million residents in Wuhan city found that not a single one of those who had been in close contact with an asymptomatic individual tested positive
Of the 34,424 residents with a history of COVID-19, 107 individuals tested positive a second time, but none were symptomatic and none were infectious
When asymptomatic patients were tested for antibodies, they discovered that 190 of the 300, or 63.3%, had actually had a “hot” or productive infection resulting in the production of antibodies. Still, none of their contacts had been infected
CANCEL CULTURE
Six Establishment Media Journalists Elon Musk Suspended
Elon Musk suspended at least six prominent establishment media journalists from Twitter Thursday evening for allegedly violating the platform’s updated terms of service.
Among the accounts suspended on the platform include:
- New York Times technology reporter Ryan Mac
- Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell
- Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann
- Former Vox reporter Aaron Rupar
- CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan
- Mashable’s Matt Binder
Twitter suspended the accounts that tweeted public tracking information of Musk’s private jet, violating the platform’s rules, which were updated Wednesday.
“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation,” Musk tweeted Wednesday. “This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.”
AOC accuses Musk of ‘proto-fascism’
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly referred to as AOC, has joined the backlash against Elon Musk after Twitter suspended several journalists for allegedly violating the platform’s anti-doxxing policies while reporting on the ElonJet flight tracker.
AOC accused Musk of abusing his power as the new owner of Twitter and told him to “lay off the proto-fascism.” That was after he temporarily suspended half-a-dozen journalists from CNN, the New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others, for reporting on and providing the links to ElonJet – a flight tracker that posted real-time flight data about Musk’s private jet.
In a series of Twitter posts on Friday, Cortez insisted that Musk should not have suspended the reporters because he was “a public figure,” suggesting that being the victim of such location information-sharing comes with the territory.
‘There are red lines’: Europe warns of sanctions after Twitter bans journalists
Elon Musk’s decision to suddenly ban prominent tech journalists from Twitter is fanning a fierce backlash in Europe.
Germany warned of the impact on press freedom, while a senior EU official said Twitter must comply with the bloc’s rules or face possible sanctions.
“Freedom of the press cannot be switched on and off as you please,” Germany’s foreign ministry tweeted on Friday. “As of today these journalists are no longer able to follow us, to comment or criticize. We have a problem with that @Twitter.”
Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, said the “arbitrary suspension” of journalists was “worrying,” and she indicated that the company could face penalties as a result.
“The EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct,” Jourová said in a post on Twitter, adding that Musk “should be aware of that.”
“There are red lines,” she continued. “And sanctions, soon.”
ICYMI
Todd and Julie Chrisley to Begin Prison Sentences at the Start of 2023
E! News can confirm that the Chrisley Knows Best stars will both begin serving their prison sentences on Jan. 17, 2023, at 12 p.m. ET.
According to legal documents obtained by E!, Todd will serve his 12-year sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Florida, while Julie will report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Marianna, Florida, to serve her seven-year sentence.
The news comes several months after the couple was found guilty on charges of tax evasion and bank fraud on June 7. They were later sentenced to multiple years behind bars on Nov. 21.
Following the sentencing, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a statement to E! News, “Over the course of a decade, the defendants defrauded banks out of tens of millions of dollars while evading payment of their federal income taxes.”
He continued, “Their lengthy sentences reflect the magnitude of their criminal scheme and should serve as a warning to others tempted to exploit our nation’s community banking system for unlawful personal gain.”
GOOD NEWS
The Funniest Wildlife Photos of 2022 Win Big Laughs in Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
It’s the most popular photography competition in the world—because the winning photos are some the funniest moments of mirth on Earth.
Some of the most famous photographers from 85 countries submitted their most spontaneous snaps, capturing the amusing side of nature, in a bid to win the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.
The contest was founded in 2015 by Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, both professional photographers and passionate conservationists who wanted create a competition that focused on the lighter, humorous side of wildlife photography.
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