1463: Future Framework

You can't lose what you never had

I have read the Dobbs opinion and - as a Constitutional scholar and PhD in American politics and public policy - can conclude that the ruling states plainly, that any and all laws, enacted in the name of public health will be found Constitutional.

This means all quarantines of the healthy, mandatory shots for hospital workers, teachers, students (even "home-schooled), restaurant workers, etc., forced masking of all peoples - all the time (both in public and private spaces) are Constitutional and there is NO grounds for Courts to enjoin applications of mass arrests, mass fines, and even forced injections.

Please share widely.

This is a 9 page analysis. I offer both A4 and US letter format.

Prof J. Johnson

Pacific Decadal Oscillation

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Carbon Dioxide Rises AFTER Temperature Increases, Scientists Find

But the Massachusetts team found that claims of the dominance of anthropogenic fossil fuel in the isotope record have involved the ‘misuse’ of 12C and 13C statistics to validate such suggestions. They conclude that the assumption that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is dominated by or equal to the anthropogenic component is “not settled science”.

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Quote: The Company was told to reduce its shipments by nearly 20%... However, because Union Pacific has told the Company that noncompliance will result in the embargo of its facilities by the railroad, CF Industries may not have available shipping capacity to take new rail orders involving Union Pacific rail lines to meet late season demand for fertilizer.

As Buzzkill was quick to point out this is an odd thing for a common carrier to do, however it makes much more sense after the 'ol wokester check:

It's all in the ESG baby! However, that made me wonder, what is their ESG score? Interestingly itst 'BBB', 76 and 51...

https://www.refinitiv.com/en/sustainable-finance/esg-scores

WTF? It seems just like the private credit reporting agencies, there are multiple ESG reporting outfits out there and each has their own score. Are there going to be 3rd party companies specializing in 'ESG score cleaning and repair'?

All new chargepoints must have a data connection, and they must have the ability to measure, record and transmit usage, both in minutes and as units of energy.

The connection must also be able to delay charging or slow it down during periods of high grid demand. Chargepoint manufacturers will also have to provide a user interface for drivers, such as an app.

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At a summit of EU leaders later this week, the EU was planning a new initiative that would structurally decrease poorer nations' reliance on Russian fertilisers by helping them develop their own fertiliser plants.

But at a meeting with EU envoys last week, the EU Commission explicitly opposed the text, warning that supporting fertiliser production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies, officials said.

The production of chemical fertilisers has a big impact on the environment and requires large amounts of energy. However they are crucially effective in boosting agriculture output.

Draft conclusions of the June 23-24 summit, seen by Reuters, urge the EU executive commission to devise a plan "to support the development of fertiliser manufacturing capacity and alternatives in developing countries".

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With the NA message of row vs wade changes necessary for mandatory vaxxing, I have an idea for you. Will the two of you be making the modern version of the "Green Book" for those of us that haven't accepted the vaccine into our lives? Not sure an app would be allowed on any platform promoting places and businesses that are unvaxxed friendly. A book format sounds just right to add to my Go Bag. 😉

Thank you both for voicing the less popular options,

Sir Anthrax

The Cult in Google. I worked for Google for about three and… | by Kevin Lloyd | Jun, 2022 | Medium

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Isn't it just typical that when something happens in Oslo worthy of international attention, it has to be some fuckhead shooting up something? Anywhoo...

At 01.41 last night a lone gunman opened fire at a club killing two and wounding 11 more, in addition to another 22 people harmed in the aftermath. So 33 wounded. Coincidence?

The backdrop: Oslo is at the height of summer this weekend, with the big Pride parade and the Tons of Rock festival going on. The city is full of people for one or both of these events.

The incident: The gunman first opened fire at the bar Per på Hjørnet (translated to Per on the Corner) killing 2 people before shooting his way down the street to London Pub, a local gay bar. Here he was tackled to the ground by civilians before being arrested by police.

The man, identified as 42 year old Zaniar Matapour, has lived in Norway most of his life after coming here as a refugee from the Kurdish region of Iran. Police have said that he is a known entity with a long history of drug and violent crimes on his record. He is suspected to have become radicalised in 2015 after coming into contact with a local Islamist group with ties to ISIS. He also has a history of psychiatric issues.

The police consider this to be a terrorist attack, motivated by events offensive to Islam. He has been appointed one of the top defence attorneys in Norway to represent him.

The guns: Police have said that the gun used was an older weapon, or at least not a modern weapon. It's not clear if it was automatic or semiautomatic.

Gun laws in Norway are super-strict. In order to purchase firearms in Norway you must be a member of a gun club, with the club vouching for your proficiency is handling firearms via certification. You are only allowed to buy ammo for guns you are registered as owning. It's unclear how he came to possess the weapons used.

So to make it clear: Walking into a sports store and asking for "Your finest AR-15 style rifle" is not something that happens.

Either way, the debate seems to be focused on his Islamic ties, psychiatric issues and being known by the Police Security Service PST than "OH my God, blame the gun!!"

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 17:00

An apocalyptic 'cult' led by an eccentric misogynist accused of sexual abuse of young men has taken over a division of Google, a whistleblower has claimed.

Kevin Lloyd, 34, claims that he was fired from his job as a video developer at Google last year because he began questioning the influence of the cult.

In August, Lloyd filed a discrimination case in California Superior Court, alleging he was fired for digging into Fellowship of Friends - a group based in the small Californian town of Oregon House, and whose members made up a large percentage of employees in his division.

'Plaintiff's preliminary research into Oregon House and the Fellowship of Friends described the Fellowship as a destructive cult, with a pedophilic leader who makes false prophecies about the end of the world,' the lawsuit claims.

'Plaintiff became alarmed that Google was involved with and/or financially supporting such an organization.'

Earlier this month, Lloyd wrote a lengthy description of his case on Medium, and spoke to The New York Times - who corroborated many of the lawsuit's claims through interviews with eight current and former employees of the Google business unit.

Kevin Lloyd, 34, claims he lost his job at Google because he raised concerns about how many people within the Google Developer Studio were affiliated with Fellowship of Friends

Google's campus in Mountain View is 180 miles from the small town of Oregon House, population 1,250 - yet half of the people Lloyd met were from Oregon House, he said

Lloyd said he began work at Google in 2017, as part of Google Developer Studio (GDS) - the tech giant's internal production company, making adverts and video content.

He said it slowly dawned on him that many of the people he met at GDS were from the same small Californian town, 180 miles north of Google's Silicon Valley home, in Mountain View.

The town of Oregon House is home to 1,250 people, and yet Lloyd said he realized that half of the 25 people he met at GDS were from the same town.

Lloyd said he noticed that many of the outside vendors, such as caterers and entertainers at corporate events, were also from Oregon House.

In 2018, Lloyd said, he was speaking to a freelancer who was working with them that day, and was from a town near Oregon House.

Lloyd recalls the freelancer telling him: 'Oregon House isn't a town. It's a cult.'

He began investigating the freelancer's claim, and said he was shocked by what he found.

'There are online support groups for former Fellowship of Friends members to help them process the trauma endured during their membership, as well as problems that arise after leaving,' Lloyd's lawsuit states.

Fellowship of Friends, which is based in Oregon House, was founded in 1970 by Robert Earl Burton, a former school teacher in the San Francisco Bay area.

'From its inception the vision of the Fellowship was, and remains, to establish a practical spiritual organization and to make it available to anyone interested in pursuing the spiritual work of awakening,' they state on their website.

Robert Earl Burton, now believed to be around 83, founded Fellowship of Friends in 1970. He has been accused in multiple lawsuits of sexual abuse

Burton is seen with a European artwork purchased with the organization's cash. Members must give 10 percent of their earnings to the group

Burton, believed to be now aged in his early 80s, sought to create a center celebrating the fine arts - with opera, ballet, works of art and literature the focus.

He based his organization in Oregon House, and created a winery where his devotees worked, when not studying the arts.

Google even purchased wine, the lawsuit claims, from the Grant Marie Winery, an allegedly cult-affiliated vineyard run by a Fellowship member in Oregon House.

But critics claimed that he had sexually abused new members of his group - in particular young boys.

In 1984 a former member filed a $2.75 million lawsuit claiming that young men who joined the organization 'had been forcefully and unlawfully sexually seduced by Burton,' according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

In 1996, another former member accused Burton in a law suit of sexual misconduct with him while he was minor. Both suits were settled out of court.

Some accusers, Lloyd alleged, had been flown to the country under false pretenses and then abused.

Members of Fellowship of Friends are seen with Burton (left, in pale blue suit) holding a meeting

What is Fellowship of Friends?Founded on January 1, 1970 by San Francisco school teacher Robert Earl Burton, Fellowship of Friends is a non-profit religious organization, headquartered in Oregon House, California.

Burton based his faith system on a philosophy called the Fourth Way, founded by an Armenian philosopher and mystic, George Gurdjieff, who lived from 1866 to 1949.

Burton adopted Gurdjieff's believe that people are in a hypnotic 'waking sleep', and need to work on themselves through studying art, music and literature.

He named his 1,200-acre headquarters Apollo, and his 1,800 followers gave 10 percent of their earnings to the organization - which spent the money on art, fine wine and culture.

Critics have filed lawsuits claiming sexual abuse.

Other critics said that the group was strongly anti-women, and celebrated white European men above all.

In September, investigative journalist Jennings Brown published a six-part podcast produced for Spotify, entitled Revelations.

Brown had spent three years from 2018 digging into the group, and documented allegations of sexual abuse in what he termed a 'doomsday cult'.

Lloyd said he was aghast that GDS was so strongly linked to the Fellowship, with GDS's director, Peter Lubbers, described as a longtime member of the group, who joined shortly after he moved to the U.S. from the Netherlands.

Lubbers introduced a video producer named Gabe Pannell to the Fellowship: Pannell was pictured with Burton in 2015, and described as a 'new student', The New York Times report.

Lloyd's lawsuit states: 'Mr Lubbers gained status and praise relative to the increase of money flowing to the Fellowship through his efforts at Google that put (and kept) other Fellowship members '-- directly or indirectly '-- on Google's payroll.'

Lubbers insisted faith had nothing to do with his hiring.

'My personal religious beliefs are a deeply held private matter,' Lubbers told The New York Times.

'In all my years in tech, they have never played a role in hiring. I have always performed my role by bringing in the right talent for the situation '-- bringing in the right vendors for the jobs.'

Pannell told the paper that those hired were brought in from 'a circle of trusted friends and families with extremely qualified backgrounds'.

Lloyd, in his Medium post - which does not name Lubbers or Pannell - said that anxiety about the Fellowship, and its reputation, sparked a panic attack, for which he was admitted to ER.

He said in his court documents that he worried events he produced 'could somehow be used to funnel money back into the Fellowship of Friends.'

Burton is seen in a 1981 photo at Oregon House. In 1984, a former member filed a $2.75 million lawsuit claiming that young men who joined the organization 'had been forcefully and unlawfully sexually seduced by Burton,' according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The suit was settled out of court

Fired in February 2021, he has retained a lawyer who previously represented a woman at Lubbers' previous company, Kelly Services, and sued in 2008 in a similar case.

Lynn Noyes claimed that Kelly Services had failed to promote her because she was not a member of the Fellowship.

A California court awarded her $6.5 million in damages.

'Anyone outside of the Fellowship is seen as somehow inferior and at times adversarial,' Lloyd's lawsuit says.

'Those that express serious concerns, criticism or question the group may be eventually perceived as enemies.'

Google told The New York Times that they were barred by law from inquiring about someone's religious practices during the hiring process.

'We have longstanding employee and supplier policies in place to prevent discrimination and conflicts of interest, and we take those seriously,' a Google spokeswoman, Courtenay Mencini, said in a statement.

'It's against the law to ask for the religious affiliations of those who work for us or for our suppliers, but we'll of course thoroughly look into these allegations for any irregularities or improper contracting practices.

'If we find evidence of policy violations, we will take action.'

Fellowship of Friends was approached for comment.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 17:00

I worked for Google for about three and a half years as a video producer. I was fired because I raised alarm about a doomsday cult that dominated my former team there.

I first joined Google in 2017 as part of Google Developer Studio (GDS), a production company within the heart of Google, making advertisements, instructional content, and produced events, all for different teams within Google itself.

I was fired from my team there in February of 2021 because I raised alarm about a cult within Google, a group called the Fellowship of Friends. The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse, human trafficking, forced abortions, and rape within the group, which has some 1,500 members worldwide and makes frequent prophecies of an imminent apocalypse.

The cult's members dominate my former team at Google through favoritism and cronyism, not to mention direct payments back to the cult (thus funding its activities). I believe that as a result of my complaints about the Fellowship, I lost my job at Google. I have filed a lawsuit and my story is out today in the New York Times. But I also wanted to tell my story in my own words, so here it goes.

I first started working for GDS in 2017. I'd been recommended by my friend, who I am going to refer to as Dan. Dan was also with GDS and I'd known him for over a decade.

Before joining the team, I'd been working in entertainment as a producer; I'd continue that work at GDS, this time in tech. It was my first job out of LA and my first job making good money. I could grow into this role. I was excited for my future, despite having left so much of my life in southern California.

When I showed up in Mountain View, I tried to get the lay of the land. I asked colleagues where they were from, where I should go, and what I should see. Most of them, including my boss and the director of our department, said they weren't from San Francisco or the Bay Area. Not unusual, I wasn't from the Bay Area either. What was unusual was that they were all from the same place, a town called ''Oregon House,'' which turned out not to be a city or an industry hub, but a small rural community about 150 miles north, outside of Sacramento. For a time, it seemed like half of my colleagues were from this very small place in the California foothills hours away from where we worked.

As I made friends at work, we started to talk about this. My colleagues also noticed how prevalent Oregon House was. Cronyism and nepotism is not uncommon, especially in my line of my work, but it was unusual on this scale: At least 12 people in of the 25, or so, I had met, all from this small town, all of whom knew each other beforehand and had close relationships.

The ties didn't end there either. GDS contributed a lot of business to Oregon House, mostly wine. Oregon House has a winery '-- called ''Grant Marie,'' formerly ''Renaissance'' '-- from which we'd buy wine by the crate for the events we produced (between nine to 12 a year). They'd even set up booths just to talk about their wine at these events '-- events like the Google I/O after-party and the Android Summit, large events with thousands of guests. Sundar himself could have drank this wine '-- it was certainly served around him. The wine was our most consistent feature, and the invoices I've seen suggest we were buying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth every year, just from Grant Marie.

I didn't think much of it until around late 2018, while at lunch before a shoot. I was speaking to my director of photography, a freelancer for that day, meaning someone who didn't regularly work with us. I asked him where he was from and he told me he was from Grass Valley, a small city north of Sacramento.

''Oh, you're from the place everyone we work with is from,'' chimed in my friend and co-worker, who was chatting with us.

''Oregon House,'' I clarified for my friend.

At that, I saw the blood leave the freelancer's face. He was gravely serious. ''Oregon House isn't a town,'' he said. ''It's a cult.''

We chatted uneasily for the remainder of our meal. He told my friend and I what he meant: A group called the Fellowship of Friends lived in Oregon House, a group that our colleagues were likely a part of. I asked my fill of questions and it seemed like this person was pretty well versed on the Fellowship of Friends. But, of course, I couldn't form a real impression from one conversation. I brushed it off and we moved on with the day. I pretended to forget.

When I got home, I looked into it. The Fellowship of Friends was a real, documented cult: I found support groups where ex-members talk about their time in the group, including discussions of sexual abuse and grooming. There were articles in mainstream outlets dating from the 1990s that described them as a cult (in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sacramento Bee, to name a few), including an in-depth piece on the group's ''cult wine.'' I even found episodes about them on a podcast aptly named ''Cults.''

I can describe the cult in more detail. Some of this I learned long after I first looked up the Fellowship of Friends, including very recently through a detailed six-part podcast called ''Revelations'' that's entirely focused on the cult.

The Fellowship of Friends is a bizarre group. It claims to have hundreds of members and dozens of ''centers'' across the world, many in ''stately mansions'' outside major cities like Paris. They reportedly try to recruit in different countries. One of the things they became known for was placing bookmarks in metaphysical bookstores '-- some members have described looking for guidance in a book, coming across a Fellowship of Friends bookmark, and joining the group as a result.

The group puts a premium on ''high culture.'' At its headquarters in Oregon House, in a compound called Apollo, members describe studying philosophy, art, and music, watching ballet performances, and practicing the violin, all while working on the cult's natural wine vineyards. Members describe paying at least 10 percent of any earnings to the cult as a tithe, with the group receiving millions every year as a result. Its leader, Robert Earl Burton, reportedly goes on lavish shopping sprees all over the world using members' tithe money, buying European paintings, Ming dynasty furniture, expensive clothing, and exotic animals like white camels and peacocks.

The compound, named ''Apollo,'' has been referenced as an ''ark'' and cult members believe that when the world ends, they will help rebuild a new one.

The culture and fine wine hid their other activities though: Robert Earl Burton has reportedly sexually abused dozens of members. Members have described him grooming and sexually assaulting male followers, including minors, and described at least one ''love fest'' where he tried to have sex with as many as 100 of his male followers in a single day. He has settled a lawsuit by a former member for sexual assault. He reportedly forbade other members from having sex outside of marriage; one member described being fined $1,500 for having sex with a woman when they weren't married.

I've seen statements alleging that women were forced to undergo abortions when they got pregnant because it ''wasn't time for children to be on the ark.'' Homosexual relationships were reportedly forbidden (except for the leaders of course) and same-sex couples were forced to break up. Men from across the world were reportedly flown into the country on religious visas to visit the compound before learning that sexual favors were an expected part of their stay '-- sex trafficking, in other words.

The Fellowship of Friends is also seemingly a patriarchal, Anglo-centric, Europhilic group. Women were disparaged and subservient to male members: Robert Earl Burton taught that women were less spiritual beings than men, and there's only one woman among the 81 ''angels'' who look over the group (Queen Elizabeth I). Its leaders were seemingly obsessed with white European culture '-- Robert Earl Burton's chateau in Oregon House was created in the style of a French villa, its grounds host a statue of Ganymede, and European arts, music, and dance dominate the group's culture. One former member called the culture ''white supremacist.''

Not only that, but there was pretty suggestive evidence that my colleagues were a part of it. I found property records of both my boss and the director of our department, both listing Oregon House addresses. I also found photos of both of them with the leader, Robert Earl Burton.

It was clear to me what was going on.

I was devastated and furious '-- I'd been unknowingly supporting a cult, a group with a well-documented history of sexually abusing its youngest members, and I'd moved nearly four hundred miles away to do so. Worse, more than a dozen of my colleagues were seemingly in on it, people like my direct manager. I did not know who I could trust, but I resolved to do something. I thought, naively in hindsight, that if I could make people aware of this, there would be change.

The first chance I got, I brought it up with my friend Dan, who was a manager within Google by this time and, more importantly, someone I knew wasn't in the cult.

Within a week of my discovery I spotted Dan in our office. I approached his desk and let him know that I had found out something very disturbing about a number of our colleagues.

''I think I know what you're going to say,'' he said, to my surprise. ''Let's go off campus.''

So I drove us to a ramen shop in downtown Mountain View. He told me that he already knew about Oregon House: Another concerned manager had let it spill while drinking, weeks earlier. People already knew, he said.

That didn't surprise me; it would have been hard not to raise suspicions that something was going on. But what did surprise me was how he dealt with it. He told me that the cult was a problem and he was horrified just as I was after initial research. Despite this, he had softened on them, at least as they existed within GDS. He liked our department lead, Peter, and said he was a ''good guy,'' despite what he was doing for the Fellowship of Friends. He felt he owed him for a recent promotion.

At a certain point, he said he had thought about both quitting and complaining up the ladder, but ultimately decided against either. He thought complaining could lead not only to the loss of his job, but the destruction of our whole department. The loss of all our jobs. GDS, in his mind, wasn't on steady ground. A revelation like this would be its end.

He instructed me to keep quiet. He told me not to tell anyone and to tell anyone I had already informed to do the same. He reminded me again that if I complained about this, I could lose my job. Strangely, he threw in that ''Peter is a powerful guy.'' It was unsettling to say the least.

My anxiety reached new levels. I'd thought there was a path forward, but now I felt trapped. I started looking for other work. As Dan had said, there weren't a lot of options, good or otherwise, for people working in video productions in the Bay Area. I had work, but it now involved keeping quiet about a destructive cult, a doomsday cult, growing in influence in our department. I heard of new members regularly being added and I saw how existing members excelled, further boosting the status of the Fellowship of Friends within our department. Conversely, it seemed the Fellowship members who were on the outs with the group were made to leave. Seemingly, where you stood with the Fellowship of Friends very much related to where you stood with GDS.

Still, I did as Dan said for longer than I'd like to admit. I cautioned my peers not to talk about the cult, at lunch, in the studio at work. I tried to put distance between myself and the problem. I engaged less with Fellowship of Friends members. I avoided work social functions wherever I wouldn't be noticed.

One night, it got the better of me. I went to the emergency room thinking I was having a heart attack. I was 31. They said it was nerves, a panic attack, the first of my life. The consulting physician asked me if there was any stress in my life. All I could say was ''work.'' I knew I had to do something.

I went back to Dan, but his line was clearer now, more rehearsed. At his home, over a drink, he cut me off the moment I raised the cult as a concern. He told me to drop it and, for that day, I did. I felt defeated. Weeks later, I steeled myself and tried again, more forcefully. I wouldn't back down this time. It was an explosive argument, the first and only I had had with my friend Dan and the last time I'd be alone in a room with him. I begged him to go to HR. I pleaded with him to help me do something. He had access. I did not. I was a TVC '-- which stands for ''temps, vendors, and contractors,'' a designation within Google for workers who aren't full-time employees and are hired by third parties companies, not by Google itself. We do the same work as full-time Google employees '-- I worked right alongside them '-- but we don't have the same corporate benefits.

If I went to my HR department, they'd have no power over Google. In fact, they were entirely beholden to Google. They had disregarded colleagues who had complained about more clear-cut issues like a drunk and unruly manager. ''Why are you telling me this?'' they'd ask. ''Don't tell me this.''

I left Dan's that night knowing I'd need to figure this out on my own. Then, COVID happened. Suddenly a dangerous cult seemed like less of a priority. I was allowed to work from home, I even moved to a different state. The problem grew distant and I was finding a semblance of peace. I didn't have to see my old manager, the director of our department, or even Dan. My work went well. I received only positive reviews, zero complaints, and my client was looking to bring me on as a genuine, full-time employee of Google. Besides that, I was up for a promotion. Things felt better.

Then, without warning or reason, I was fired. The person who actually gave me the decision didn't know why they were doing it. They said they had no involvement in the decision. They asked me if I knew why I was being fired. I said ''I assume you would know, right?'' They didn't. (A funny detail: The raise for that promotion I was given was processed after I was fired, so I received two last checks at the higher rate. Fired and promoted at the same time.)

Even though Dan was not in my chain of supervisors, I'm convinced he helped to orchestrate my termination. I believe he saw me as an existential threat, to him, his colleagues and their jobs. The purported reasoning for my termination was an email I had sent requesting the retention of an editor, which was a completely normal business issue. In retrospect, it looks like Dan was looking for pretext to shuffle me off for some time before that.

In the middle of a pandemic, in a new state, I was unemployed '-- fired, for the first time in my professional career. I had recently joined the Alphabet Workers Union, the union of now almost 1,000 workers across all Alphabet companies, including Google. I told them my story and they advised that I get a lawyer. Fifteen months later and this is where I am: the lawsuit is pending, I'm still unemployed, and I see no change in the cult that essentially runs an entire department within Google.

Still, I'm optimistic. I was not the first or the last person to complain. I know of at least four former colleagues who've also spoken out about this. None of those complaints have thus far been taken seriously, likely because they are coming from TVCs like me. I have heard that agitation against the cult is increasing.

Google knows about this problem. Managers know full well that a destructive cult, a group credibly alleged to be involved in the sexual abuse of possibly hundreds of followers, including children, has significant influence over an important team within the company. Yet they turn a blind eye, ignoring their own workers who've spoken out. I'm doing my best to hold them accountable.

If you want to get in touch, email me at kwilliamlloyd@protonmail.com

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:55

Two important papers have recently been published that question the extent to which humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuel and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The works will of course be ignored by mainstream media outlets, but they represent further evidence that a more nuanced view of human-caused or anthropogenic warming is gaining traction among scientists, tired of working within the political constraints of 'settled' science.

In a paper to be published next month in the journal Health Physics, three physics professors led by Kenneth Skrable from the University of Massachusetts examine the atmospheric trail left by CO2 isotopes and conclude that the amount of CO2 released by fossil fuel burning between 1750 and 2018 was ''much too low to be the cause of global warming''.

Three carbon isotopes are found in the atmosphere, 12C, 13C and 14C. The latter is produced by cosmic rays and is in a constant state of activity but the other two are contained in the gas entering the atmosphere. The carbon in living matter has a slightly higher proportion of 12C. Although only about 4% of CO2 entering the atmosphere every year is produced by human activity, it is said very slightly to alter the balance of the other atmospheric isotopes. As a result it is often used as 'proof' that rising CO2 levels are primarily the result of fossil fuel burning.

But the Massachusetts team found that claims of the dominance of anthropogenic fossil fuel in the isotope record have involved the 'misuse' of 12C and 13C statistics to validate such suggestions. They conclude that the assumption that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is dominated by or equal to the anthropogenic component is ''not settled science''.

Furthermore, they go on to state: ''Unsupported conclusions of the dominance of the anthropogenic fossil component of CO2 and concerns of its effect on climate change and global warming have severe potential societal implications that press the need for very costly remedial actions that may be misdirected, presently unnecessary, and ineffective in curbing global warming.''

The ''remedial'' net zero political agenda is driven by the unproven hypothesis that humans are causing catastrophic heating and climate breakdown by using once-living plant and animal matter and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. But there is little or no correlation between temperature and CO2 levels on a current, historical or geological timescale. Recent global warming, which replaced the global cooling scare of the 1970s, ran out of steam almost two decades ago. Green activists keep the doomsday tales going by highlighting natural bad weather, quoting massaged surface temperatures (don't mention the far more accurate and cooler satellite data) and citing increasingly fanciful forecasts from the hottest ticket in town '' the Always Goes Wrong Climate Model Show.

The unproven science hypothesis that humans cause most or all climate change is now under increasing attack on a number of fronts in scientific circles. Professor Happer of Princeton University has suggested that CO2 becomes ''saturated'' once it reaches a certain level, since it reflects heat back to Earth only within certain bands of the infrared spectrum. Under this hypothesis, which was given some credence by former Obama Administration Energy Under-secretary Steve Koonin in his book Unsettled, CO2 becomes ''saturated'' once it reaches a certain level, with most of the Sun's heat that is going to be trapped having already been radiated back to Earth.

Ascribing all climate change to just one cause '' the burning of fossil fuel '' is given short shrift by recent work published by the German physicist Dr. Frank Stefani. In a paper published last year, the researcher at the Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf dismisses the ''illusionary claims of an overwhelming scientific consensus''. He cautions it is essential to support such settled conclusions, ''before embarking on drastic, perilous and perhaps misguided plans for global action''.

Much of Dr. Stefani's research looks at the effect of solar influences and geomagnetic forces on the planet. He suggests that the Sun accounts for between 30-70% of recent planetary warming. He further suggests that it is likely that solar activity will continue its two decade decline '' at the end of the 20th century it was likely at its highest level for 8,000 years '' and geomagnetic activity as measured by the aa-index will fall. In Dr. Stefani's work, he use the aa-index as a proxy for solar activity. So far as CO2 is concerned, he argues that even if there is an annual rise of 2.5 parts per million into the atmosphere, this will lead to only ''a mild additional temperature rise'' of less than 1°C by 2100. Other scenarios could result in flatter temperature curves ''in which the heating effect of increasing CO2 is widely compensated by the cooling effect of a decreasing aa-index''.

There are countless factors that influence the climate in the short, medium and long term. Dr. Stefani concludes his work by noting that the huge ''Milankovitch drivers'' [changes in the Earth's axis and orbit] will eventually ''cool down mankind's hubris of being able to significantly influence the terrestrial climate (in whatever direction)''.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:48

Since the creation of the US Federal Reserve over a century ago, every major financial market collapse has been deliberately triggered for political motives by the central bank. The situation is no different today, as clearly the US Fed is acting with its interest rate weapon to crash what is the greatest speculative financial bubble in human history, a bubble it created. Global crash events always begin on the periphery, such as with the 1931 Austrian Creditanstalt or the Lehman Bros. failure in September 2008 . The June 15 decision by the Fed to impose the largest single rate hike in almost 30 years as financial markets are already in a meltdown, now guarantees a global depression and worse.

The extent of the ''cheap credit'' bubble that the Fed, the ECB and Bank of Japan have engineered with buying up of bonds and maintaining unprecedented near-zero or even negative interest rates for now 14 years, is beyond imagination. Financial media cover it over with daily nonsense reporting , while the world economy is being readied, not for so-called ''stagflation'' or recession. What is coming now in the coming months, barring a dramatic policy reversal, is the worst economic depression in history to date. Thank you, globalization and Davos.

Globalization

The political pressures behind globalization and the creation of the World Trade Organization out of the Bretton Woods GATT trade rules with the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, ensured that the advanced industrial manufacturing of the West, most especially the USA, could flee offshore, ''outsource'' to create production in extreme low wage countries. No country offered more benefit in the late 1990s than China. China joined WHO in 2001 and from then on the capital flows into China manufacture from the West have been staggering. So too has been the buildup of China dollar debt. Now that global world financial structure based on record debt is all beginning to come apart.

When Washington deliberately allowed the September 2008 Lehman Bros financial collapse, the Chinese leadership responded with panic and commissioned unprecedented credit to local governments to build infrastructure. Some of it was partly useful, such as a network of high-speed railways. Some of it was plainly wasteful, such as construction of empty ''ghost cities.'' For the rest of the world, the unprecedented China demand for construction steel, coal, oil, copper and such was welcome, as fears of a global depression receded. But the actions by the US Fed and ECB after 2008, and of their respective governments, did nothing to address the systemic financial abuse of the world's major private banks on Wall Street and Europe , as well as Hong Kong.

The August 1971 Nixon decision to decouple the US dollar, the world reserve currency, from gold, opened the floodgates to global money flows. Ever more permissive laws favoring uncontrolled financial speculation in the US and abroad were imposed at every turn, from Clinton's repeal of Glass-Steagall at the behest of Wall Street in November 1999. That allowed creation of mega-banks so large that the government declared them ''too big to fail.'' That was a hoax, but the population believed it and bailed them out with hundreds of billions in taxpayer money.

Since the crisis of 2008 the Fed and other major global central banks have created unprecedented credit, so-called ''helicopter money,'' to bailout the major financial institutions. The health of the real economy was not a goal. In the case of the Fed, Bank of Japan, ECB and Bank of England, a combined $25 trillion was injected into the banking system via ''quantitative easing'' purchase of bonds, as well as dodgy assets like mortgage-backed securities over the past 14 years.

Quantitative madness

Here is where it began to go really bad. The largest Wall Street banks such as JP MorganChase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup or in London HSBC or Barclays, lent billions to their major corporate clients. The borrowers in turn used the liquidity, not to invest in new manufacturing or mining technology, but rather to inflate the value of their company stocks, so-called stock buy-backs, termed ''maximizing shareholder value.''

BlackRock, Fidelity, banks and other investors loved the free ride. From the onset of Fed easing in 2008 to July 2020, some $5 trillions had been invested in such stock buybacks, creating the greatest stock market rally in history. Everything became financialized in the process. Corporations paid out $3.8 trillion in dividends in the period from 2010 to 2019. Companies like Tesla which had never earned a profit, became more valuable than Ford and GM combined. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin reached market cap valuation over $1 trillion by late 2021. With Fed money flowing freely, banks and investment funds invested in high-risk, high profit areas like junk bonds or emerging market debt in places like Turkey, Indonesia or, yes, China.

The post-2008 era of Quantitative Easing and zero Fed interest rates led to absurd US Government debt expansion. Since January 2020 the Fed, Bank of England, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan have injected a combined $9 trillion in near zero rate credit into the world banking system. Since a Fed policy change in September 2019, it enabled Washington to increase public debt by a staggering $10 trillion in less than 3 years. Then the Fed again covertly bailed out Wall Street by buying $120 billion per month of US Treasury bonds and Mortgage-Backed Securities creating a huge bond bubble.

A reckless Biden Administration began doling out trillions in so-called stimulus money to combat needless lockdowns of the economy. US Federal debt went from a manageable 35% of GDP in 1980 to more than 129% of GDP today. Only the Fed Quantitative Easing, buying of trillions of US government and mortgage debt and the near zero rates made that possible. Now the Fed has begun to unwind that and withdraw liquidity from the economy with QT or tightening, plus rate hikes. This is deliberate. It is not about a stumbling Fed mis-judging inflation.

Energy drives the collapse

Sadly, the Fed and other central bankers lie. Raising interest rates is not to cure inflation. It is to force a global reset in control over the world's assets, it's wealth, whether real estate, farmland, commodity production, industry, even water. The Fed knows very well that Inflation is only beginning to rip across the global economy. What is unique is that now Green Energy mandates across the industrial world are driving this inflation crisis for the first time, something deliberately ignored by Washington or Brussels or Berlin.

The global shortages of fertilizers, soaring prices of natural gas, and grain supply losses from global draught or exploding costs of fertilizers and fuel or the war in Ukraine, guarantee that, at latest this September-October harvest time, we will undergo a global additional food and energy price explosion. Those shortages all are a result of deliberate policies.

Moreover, far worse inflation is certain, due to the pathological insistence of the world's leading industrial economies led by the Biden Administration's anti-hydrocarbon agenda. That agenda is typified by the astonishing nonsense of the US Energy Secretary stating, ''buy E-autos instead'' as the answer to exploding gasoline prices.

Similarly, the European Union has decided to phase out Russian oil and gas with no viable substitute as its leading economy, Germany, moves to shut its last nuclear reactor and close more coal plants. Germany and other EU economies as a result will see power blackouts this winter and natural gas prices will continue to soar. In the second week of June in Germany gas prices rose another 60% alone. Both the Green-controlled German government and the Green Agenda ''Fit for 55'' by the EU Commission continue to push unreliable and costly wind and solar at the expense of far cheaper and reliable hydrocarbons, insuring an unprecedented energy-led inflation.

Fed has pulled the plug

With the 0.75% Fed rate hike, largest in almost 30 years, and promise of more to come, the US central bank has now guaranteed a collapse of not merely the US debt bubble, but also much of the post-2008 global debt of $303 trillion. Rising interest rates after almost 15 years mean collapsing bond values. Bonds, not stocks, are the heart of the global financial system.

US mortgage rates have now doubled in just 5 months to above 6%, and home sales were already plunging before the latest rate hike. US corporations took on record debt owing to the years of ultra-low rates. Some 70% of that debt is rated just above ''junk'' status. That corporate non-financial debt totaled $9 trillion in 2006. Today it exceeds $18 trillion. Now a large number of those marginal companies will not be able to rollover the old debt with new, and bankruptcies will follow in coming months. The cosmetics giant Revlon just declared bankruptcy.

The highly-speculative, unregulated Crypto market, led by Bitcoin, is collapsing as investors realize there is no bailout there. Last November the Crypto world had a $3 trillion valuation. Today it is less than half, and with more collapse underway. Even before the latest Fed rate hike the stock value of the US megabanks had lost some $300 billion. Now with stock market further panic selling guaranteed as a global economic collapse grows, those banks are pre-programmed for a new severe bank crisis over the coming months.

As US economist Doug Noland recently noted, ''Today, there's a massive ''periphery'' loaded with ''subprime'' junk bonds, leveraged loans, buy-now-pay-later, auto, credit card, housing, and solar securitizations, franchise loans, private Credit, crypto Credit, DeFi, and on and on. A massive infrastructure has evolved over this long cycle to spur consumption for tens of millions, while financing thousands of uneconomic enterprises. The ''periphery'' has become systemic like never before. And things have started to Break.''

The Federal Government will now find its interest cost of carrying a record $30 trillion in Federal debt far more costly. Unlike the 1930s Great Depression when Federal debt was near nothing, today the Government, especially since the Biden budget measures, is at the limits. The US is becoming a Third World economy. If the Fed no longer buys trillions of US debt, who will? China? Japan? Not likely.

Deleveraging the bubble

With the Fed now imposing a Quantitative Tightening, withdrawing tens of billions in bonds and other assets monthly, as well as raising key interest rates, financial markets have begun a deleveraging. It will likely be jerky, as key players like BlackRock and Fidelity seek to control the meltdown for their purposes. But the direction is clear.

By late last year investors had borrowed almost $1 trillion in margin debt to buy stocks. That was in a rising market. Now the opposite holds, and margin borrowers are forced to give more collateral or sell their stocks to avoid default. That feeds the coming meltdown. With collapse of both stocks and bonds in coming months, go the private retirement savings of tens of millions of Americans in programs like 401-k. Credit card auto loans and other consumer debt in the USA has ballooned in the past decade to a record $4.3 trillion at end of 2021. Now interest rates on that debt, especially credit card, will jump from an already high 16%. Defaults on those credit loans will skyrocket.

Outside the US what we will see now, as the Swiss National Bank, Bank of England and even ECB are forced to follow the Fed raising rates, is the global snowballing of defaults, bankruptcies, amid a soaring inflation which the central bank interest rates have no power to control. About 27% of global nonfinancial corporate debt is held by Chinese companies, estimated at $23 trillion. Another $32 trillion corporate debt is held by US and EU companies. Now China is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since 30 years and little sign of recovery. With the USA, China's largest customer, going into an economic depression, China's crisis can only worsen. That will not be good for the world economy.

Italy, with a national debt of $3.2 trillion, has a debt-to-GDP of 150%. Only ECB negative interest rates have kept that from exploding in a new banking crisis. Now that explosion is pre-programmed despite soothing words from Lagarde of the ECB. Japan, with a 260% debt level is the worst of all industrial nations, and is in a trap of zero rates with more than $7.5 trillion public debt. The yen is now falling seriously, and destabilizing all of Asia.

The heart of the world financial system, contrary to popular belief, is not stock markets. It is bond markets'--government, corporate and agency bonds. This bond market has been losing value as inflation has soared and interest rates have risen since 2021 in the USA and EU. Globally this comprises some $250 trillion in asset value a sum that, with every fed interest rise , loses more value. The last time we had such a major reverse in bond values was forty years ago in the Paul Volcker era with 20% interest rates to ''squeeze out inflation.''

As bond prices fall, the value of bank capital falls. The most exposed to such a loss of value are major French banks along with Deutsche Bank in the EU, along with the largest Japanese banks. US banks like JP MorganChase are believed to be only slightly less exposed to a major bond crash. Much of their risk is hidden in off-balance sheet derivatives and such. However, unlike in 2008, today central banks can't rerun another decade of zero interest rates and QE. This time, as insiders like ex-Bank of England head Mark Carney noted three years ago, the crisis will be used to force the world to accept a new Central Bank Digital Currency, a world where all money will be centrally issued and controlled. This is also what Davos WEF people mean by their Great Reset. It will not be good. A Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine ''New Eastern Outlook''.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:48

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Press Release 31 March 2022 Siemens Energy Berlin Siemens Energy willlocate the industrial production of electrolysis modules in Berlin and is thustaking the centerpiece of its hydrogen technology to the capital. Start ofproduction at the location Huttenstrasse in Berlin's Moabit locality isscheduled for 2023. At this site the complete infrastructure of an existing productionhall can be used. New production lines for the electrolyzers are being set upon 2,000 square meters at a cost of around 30 million euros. Today, the sitemainly manufactures gas turbines, which are among the most powerful andefficient in the world. These can already be operated with up to 50 percenthydrogen, and by 2030 complete hydrogen operation should be possible. SiemensEnergy is now pooling its expertise in both these areas in Berlin to ensure areliable and successful energy transition to a new energy mix. This alsoincludes the business field of energy transmission: At the Siemens Energy SwitchgearPlant Berlin innovative high voltage products are manufactured, ensuring thatelectricity reaches consumers reliably.

Thomas Bagus (left) will head industrial production of the electrolyzers at Siemens Energy in Berlin. He and his team are currently planning the final details for setting up the production hall at the site in Berlin. Production is scheduled to start in 2023.

Christian Bruch,President and CEO of Siemens Energy, comments: ''With the new productionfacility for hydrogen electrolyzers, we are reinforcing our claim to play anactive role in shaping the energy transition. To this end, we are pooling ourknowledge in the field of various energy technologies in Berlin. For us,hydrogen is an important component of the future energy world. For this to beeconomically viable, the manufacturing costs for electrolyzers must besignificantly reduced. With our new production facility, we are helping to makehydrogen competitive sooner.''

At the Berlinlocation, the individual electrolyzer cells will be manufactured and combinedto form functional modules, or ''stacks.'' Depending on the required capacity,these will then be assembled into larger process-based units. In Germany, thislast stage will take place at M¼lheim, which is closely associated with the newBerlin plant and complements it perfectly. The critical element is that productionis being switched over to mass production: Reasonably priced and affordableelectrolyzers are the prerequisite for being able to cover growing demand andthe future costs of hydrogen.For this purpose,Siemens Energy is relying on PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) electrolysis, inwhich water is separated into hydrogen and oxygen using a proton-permeablemembrane and electricity from renewable sources. The key aspects of this processare its high level of efficiency, high product gas quality, and reliableoperation with no chemicals or impurities. The latest and most powerful PEMelectrolyzer product line from Siemens Energy is optimized for applications upto the high hundreds of megawatts, enabling systems of this size to generateseveral metric tons of green hydrogen every hour. The electricity used inelectrolyzer manufacture will be sourced entirely from renewables.

Hydrogen as a keyelement in decarbonizationGreen hydrogen '' inother words, hydrogen generated using renewable energy '' is a key element inthe replacement of fossil fuels with renewables. Hydrogen can serve as astorage medium and also as a raw material for further applications, includingsynthetic fuels. But hydrogen molecules can also be used directly as an energysource to generate electricity and heat, which have previously depended on gas.In combination with a massive expansion of renewables, this is a way to ensurethe success of the energy transition. The pathways for producing green hydrogenand its derived products are known; the task now is to scale production toindustrial volumes. Powerful electrolyzers of the type to be manufactured soonin Berlin will form the centerpiece of hydrogen technology.

Siemens Energy will locate the industrial production of electrolysis modules in Berlin. Robots will help automate production.

Siemens Energy is one of the world's leading energy technology companies. The company works with its customers and partners on energy systems for the future, thus supporting the transition to a more sustainable world. With its portfolio of products, solutions and services, Siemens Energy covers almost the entire energy value chain '' from power generation and transmission to storage. The portfolio includes conventional and renewable energy technology, such as gas and steam turbines, hybrid power plants operated with hydrogen, and power generators and transformers. More than 50 percent of the portfolio has already been decarbonized. A majority stake in the listed company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) makes Siemens Energy a global market leader for renewable energies. An estimated one-sixth of the electricity generated worldwide is based on technologies from Siemens Energy. Siemens Energy employs around 91,000 people worldwide in more than 90 countries and generated revenue of '‚¬28.5 billion in fiscal year 2021.

www.siemens-energy.com.

Read more HQPR202203296205EN

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:48

Earlier this month, The Gateway Pundit published an article on a list of US-based food manufacturing plants that were destroyed, damaged or impacted by ''accidental fires,'' disease, or general causes from 2021 to 2022 under the Biden administration. These data were first published at Think Americana.

Below is the list:

1/11/21 A fire that destroyed 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville4/30/21 A fire ignited inside the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, IL7/25/21 Three-alarm fire at Kellogg plant in Memphis, 170 emergency personnel responded to the call7/30/21 Firefighters on Friday battled a large fire at Tyson's River Valley Ingredients plant in Hanceville, Alabama8/23/21 Fire crews were called to the Patak Meat Production company on Ewing Road in Austell9/13/21 A fire at the JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., on Sunday night forced a halt to slaughter and fabrication lines 10/13/21 A five-alarm fire ripped through the Darigold butter production plant in Caldwell, ID11/15/21 A woman is in custody following a fire at the Garrard County Food Pantry11/29/21 A fire broke out around 5:30 p.m. at the Maid-Rite Steak Company meat processing plant12/13/21 West Side food processing plant in San Antonio left with smoke damage after a fire1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton's Mountain following an overnight fire1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA1/31/22 a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire on Cherry Street in Winston-Salem2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer's Foods plant in Hermiston2/16/22 A fire had broken at US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont2/22/22 The Shearer's Foods plant in Hermiston caught fire after a propane boiler exploded2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center in Plainfield, Indiana has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast, Maine.3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food meant to feed people in a food desert near Maricopa3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota4/13/22 Fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota4/19/22 Azure Standard nation's premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Covington, Georgia4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2M chickens in Delaware4/2822 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin4/29/22 5 million honeybees are dead after a flight carrying the pollinator insects from California to Alaska got diverted to Georgia4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed Jensen Beach FL5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys destroyed on farm in Dakota Minnesota5/23/22 4,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, Minnesota5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota6/2/22 30,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola, Louisiana6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at a Food Processing Plant West of Waupaca County in Wisconsin6/14/22 Over 10,000 head of cattle have reportedly died in the recent Kansas heat wave (New)With this ongoing problem in our food supply, a concerned citizen created an interactive map that will let you click on (or hover over) an icon and it will provide all of the details of what happened at that location, including a link to the article.

Below is a screenshot:

TRENDING: SHOCK VIDEO: 17-Year-Old Girl Escapes Sex Trafficker in Plano, Texas Who Held Her Over a Year

Read the excerpt of the message sent to The Gateway Pundit:

I have been doing extensive research regarding what is going on with the food supply. I have created an interactive map that will let you click on (or hover over) an icon and it will provide all of the details to what happened at that location, including a link to the article. (Please see attached example)

If I had any doubts about this being on purpose, that is completely gone at this point. It's almost terrifying seeing what is going on and the majority of people have no idea. Every day something else happens to add to this list. Things are happening so quickly now, that it is mind boggling. Big Tech is covering most of these up or burying them so far down the feed that most people never see them. I have investigative skills that I have used my entire career so I know how to get around all of that or I would never have found what I have.

I had not heard of anyone looking up actual grocery store fires so that is what started me down this path. Once I saw how bad it was and the patterns that are happening it was clear what they are doing, and I am now convinced they are getting people to help with this just like they did with the election. I realize that not all of these are on purpose but once you see how big this is, it cannot be denied that something evil is going on and we are about to have our legs kicked out from under us.

I have over 600 instances so far (I have read or watched every article to confirm it) and I have many more that I am trying to add. Almost 400 of these are just in 2022.

I have so much more to add to this list and I've been working on it nonstop. When all the news outlets came out saying it wasn't true it made me want to prove them all wrong so this has been my main priority for a couple of months now. People are going to starve if something is not done about this. I figure if I can help anyone at all by giving them a heads up (there are too many locations to say it's a coincidence) so they can try to prepare for their families then it will be worth it.

It's pretty terrifying when you see it all together.

TIME FRAME: 01/01/2021 '' 06/20/2022

REASONS: Fire/Explosion, Disease, Permanently Closing, Vandalism, Hacked & Government Ordered

PROOF: Attached to each pin on the map has the Name, Location, Date, Reason & a Link to each article/video/news story (this is so they cannot explain it away)

TRENDS: Most buildings are either damaged or completely destroyed by fires or explosions, in the middle of the night & have no reason regarding what started the fire.

See below for the list of colors and what each one represents. The greenhouse, chemical plants, or food recalls are not yet included on this map.

BLACK '' PLANT BROWN '' GRAIN/SILOS FUSCIA '' HACKED '' Any company that produces food/gas/electricity/water that is hacked GREEN '' FARMS/ANIMALS PURPLE '' FOOD PANTRY RED '' GROCERY STORE WHITE '' DESTROYED/EUTHANIZED/BANNED (Any food that is destroyed and/or banned OR when animals are euthanized due to disease) Click the link to know more, click HERE or below: (For the best viewing experience, view it on a desktop computer or laptop.)

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:47

Suddenly and unexpectedly on 6/15 Trey

was struck with an extreme sore throat. He went to urgent care where he coded out,

was transported to new Hanover Memorial Hospital, and got an emergency tracheostomy. The tracheostomy partially failed pumping his body cavity full of air cause mild cardiac arrest.

Trey has a long road to recovery and every little bit helps. Unfortunately his insurance lapsed and the hospital bills are astronomical. Please consider helping out a friend and fellow IATSE member.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:14

Time to rethink dinner plans. One of the world's tastiest pieces of wild-caught fish, which sells for $32 a pound at Whole Foods, is suddenly at the epicenter of a feud between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The reason? Russia. Yeah, we're gonna need to explain that one.

Bass NotesForty years ago, 26 countries, including the US, UK, and Russia, joined forces to protect wildlife in deep-fishing waters near the South Pole. Fishing quotas for many species, including the delicious Chilean sea bass, were adopted and respected under the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The population of sea bass '-- also known by the less appetizing moniker Patagonia toothfish '-- rebounded from dangerous levels caused by poachers.

But last year, with concerns already arising over its military positions around Ukraine, Russia rejected the latest quotas proposed by CCAMLR. Since they have to be adopted unanimously, Russia effectively turfed them. While the US has held its ground, Britain's approach has been bass ackwards:

According to the Associated Press, the UK has been quietly issuing fishing licenses without catch limits via South Georgia, a remote and inhospitable island north of Antarctica that it controls as an Overseas Territory. Privately owned British-Norwegian company Argos Froyanes owns three of the four ships the UK has licensed.US officials warned the UK they will likely block imports of sea bass caught near South Georgia, according to correspondence reviewed by the AP. The global sea bass market was worth about $3.5 billion in 2020, according to Allied Market Research.''In a world beset by conflict, the UK is playing a risky game,'' Will McCallum, Greenpeace UK's head of oceans, told the AP. ''We trust that countries who have previously imported South Georgia toothfish will not accept the catch of what is now an unregulated fishery.''

Scale Back: America supplier Mark Foods, which buys from Argos Froyanes, said it's working with US officials to resolve the dispute, but won't import anything they deem illegal. In the meantime, this salmon roasted in butter recipe looks nice.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:11

(C) Provided by Metro The Polish fighters were reportedly killed in the fight for the separatist Donetsk region (Pictures: EPA/Getty) Almost 100 Polish fighters have been killed in the fight for Ukraine's separatist states, Russia claims.

While the war in Ukraine continues to rage on in the country's eastern region, tensions between the Kremlin and Europe are getting worse.

Most recently, Moscow's defence ministry said its troops had destroyed 'up to 80 Polish fighters, 20 armoured combat vehicles and eight Grad multiple rocket launchers in precision strikes on the Megatex zinc factory in Konstantinovka'.

This is in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which Vladimir Putin is trying to seize full control over.

In the Russian city of Smolensk, Kremlin officials have removed the Polish flag from the Katyn memorial '' erected in memory of 25,000 Poles massacred by the Soviet Union's police in 1940.

Most of the victims were army officers thought be to be anti-communist, who were killed on the orders of Joseph Stalin in a forest near the city.

(C) Provided by Metro Russia is currently continuing its advance on the east of Ukraine (Picture: Getty) (C) Provided by Metro The Polish flag was removed from the the Katyn memorial were 25,000 Poles were killed (Picture: PA) The Soviet Union tried to deny responsibility and blame the Nazis for the mass killing but they eventually admitted the atrocity in 1990.

Speaking about the flag's removal, Smolensk's mayor Andrei Borisov said: 'There cannot be Polish flags on Russian monuments. Even less so after the frankly anti-Russian comments by Polish political leaders.

'The culture ministry of the Russian Federation made the right decision by removing the Polish flag. Katyn is a Russian memorial.'

Poland has supported Ukraine since Putin sent his soldiers across the border in February.

It has supplied weapons and has taken in the largest number of Ukrainian refugees of any European country '' some 1.1 million.

As a Nato member, a military strike on Poland would mean all other members, including Britain, would leap to its defence.

The Kremlin has also recently threatened Lithuania for blocking EU-sanctioned goods from reaching the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad has land borders with Lithuania and Poland and is isolated from the rest of Russia.

Goods normally reach the territory by rail via Belarus and Lithuania '' there are no transport routes through Poland.

Russia is still able to supply Kaliningrad by sea, without falling foul of EU sanctions but has demanded Lithuania lift its ban, warning that if transport links are not restored in full 'Russia reserves the right to take action in defence of its national interests'.

Lithuania is also a Nato member state, so any attack on it would be seen as an attack on the alliance.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:04

Changes to the smart charging regulations for electric vehicles (EVs) come into force on Thursday (June 30). The Government is regulating EV charge points sold in Britain to manage the increase in demand for electricty as motorists move away from petrol models.

There were twice as many plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on our roads in June 2021 compared to the end of 2019. And with most EV charging likely to take place at home, the Government is taking steps to make sure the electrical grid can keep up with demand.

Below, automotive experts at Leasing Options have outline three key points that EV drivers need to know about the new smart charging regulations.

All new chargepoints must have important feature All new chargepoints must have a data connection, and they must have the ability to measure, record and transmit usage, both in minutes and as units of energy.

The connection must also be able to delay charging or slow it down during periods of high grid demand. Chargepoint manufacturers will also have to provide a user interface for drivers, such as an app.

New chargepoints will be pre-configured to avoid charging in peak hours Designed to encourage smarter behaviour, new EV chargepoints will be pre-configured to avoid charging during peak hours (8-11am and 4-10pm on weekdays).

This is aimed at lightening the load on the grid '' the only exceptions are units that are configured to respond to periods of high demand, based on intelligence from energy suppliers.

It's worth remembering that peak-time charging isn't being banned. EV drivers can choose not to accept the factory presets and override these settings, even if controlled remotely.

They can also set their own charging schedules to take advantage of cheaper overnight tariffs '' functionality that not all plug-in vehicles have built-in.

Charging will randomly defer off-peak charging sessions by ten minutes As part of their 18-month smart charging trial which involved 700 drivers, Electric Nation noted a surge in electricity demand at 10pm as chargepoints came online after peak hours.

In order to avoid this, new units will randomly defer off-peak charging sessions by ten minutes, and allow utility companies to extend this to half an hour if grid demand is high.

Mike Thompson, Director at Leasing Options explains ''The Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021 will come into force on 30th June 2022. These regulations will set out the minimum standards for all home and workplace chargepoints sold in England, Scotland, and Wales from that date.

''The most important things that EV drivers need to be aware of are the changes to chargepoint data and connectivity, new off-peak charging configurations, and staggered charge times.

''These new smart charging regulations don't apply to public chargepoints, as these face different challenges in terms of grid supply.''

Why do chargepoints need regulating? According to National Grid Group, the actual capacity for EV charging isn't as big a problem as most people might think. Thanks to even more solar panels being installed and people using more energy-efficient appliances, peak demand for power reduced by 16% between 2002 and 2020.

We work that out as being enough headroom for the projected 10% increase if everyone switched to electric cars, but that's only as long as that demand is managed effectively.

The Department for Transport launched a consultation in 2019 to assess potential solutions as their first step to addressing any potential issues with grid power supply.

The results helped inform an Impact Assessment in July 2021, which suggested that smarter, regulated charging could provide a range of benefits, including:

Deferring costly grid upgrades, which would be needed to increase peak capacity Helping drivers utilise cheaper overnight energy tariffs Standardising the chargepoint functionality between different manufacturers

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:43

Ghislaine Maxwell was put on suicide watch ahead of her Tuesday sentencing. APGhislaine Maxwell is on suicide watch '-- but isn't really suicidal, her attorney said Saturday.

The declaration of a suicide watch for the disgraced British socialite and Jeffrey Epstein pal had her attorney promising that she'd look to delay Maxwell's sentencing on charges that she recruited underage girls for Epstein to abuse.

''If Ms. Maxwell remains on suicide watch, is prohibited from reviewing legal materials prior to sentencing, becomes sleep-deprived, and is denied sufficient time to meet with and confer with counsel, we will be formally moving on Monday for an adjournment,'' Attorney Bobby Sternheim wrote in a letter to U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan.

Maxwell, 61, hasn't been able to ''properly prepare'' because officials at a Brooklyn federal prison abruptly put her in solitary confinement and informed her she was on suicide watch Friday, the letter said, according to Reuters.

As part of her suicide watch, her regular clothes, toothpaste, soap and papers were taken away, Sternheim said.

Maxwell was put on suicide watch though she ''is not suicidal,'' according to her attorney. A psychologist evaluated Maxwell and backed up that assessment, according to Reuters.

Maxwell was convicted five counts, including sex trafficking. Patrick McMullan via Getty ImageEpstein '' Maxwell's one-time boyfriend '-- killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 awaiting his trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell was convicted last year on charges she had groomed girls for Epstein between 1994 and 2004 that he abused. She and her attorneys have complained about the conditions of her incarceration since she was first arrested, with complains she was subjected to strip searches and awakened every 15 minutes.

A spokesman for US Attorney Damian Williams declined comment to the wire service.

With Post wires

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:40

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating a ''large, ongoing outbreak'' of a rare disease in Florida.

In a press release, the CDC said Wednesday that meningococcal spread among homosexual males, including those with HIV, in the Florida outbreak.

''Getting vaccinated against meningococcal disease is the best way to prevent this serious illness, which can quickly become deadly,'' said Jose R. Romero, the head of the CDC's immunization and respiratory disease division, in the release.

''Because of the outbreak in Florida,'' he added, ''and the number of Pride events being held across the state in coming weeks, it's important'' that homosexual men get the vaccine.

At least 24 cases and 6 deaths among homosexual males have been reported so far, according to the agency.

''People can find a meningococcal vaccine by contacting their doctor's office, pharmacy, community health center, or local health department,'' the news release said.

''Insurance providers should pay for meningococcal vaccination for those whom it is recommended for during an outbreak. In Florida, anyone can get a MenACWY vaccine at no cost at any county health department during the outbreak.''

The Florida Department of Health first issued an alert about an outbreak in Leon County several months ago.

...

Despite treatment, 10''15 in 100 people die of the disease, the agency says. Up to 20 percent of survivors may have long-term disabilities such as loss of limbs, deafness, brain damage, and problems with the central nervous system.

...

Read more here...

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:37

Authored by Yves Engler via AntiWar.com,

The Liberals are intent on funneling ever more of our collective resources to bolster the US Empire, spending lavishly to "modernize" Canada's chief bi-national military accord. Early this week, Canada's Defense Minister Anita Anand announced the government would spend $4.9 billion to upgrade the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The federal government said it will devote $40 billion to NORAD over 20 years, but it may be far more than that noted David Pugliese in a story headlined: "Cost to modernize NORAD set at $40 billion, but will final tally be higher?"

The media and government framed the announcement as strengthening Canada's defenses. According to the Globe and Mail report, "the Canadian government has pledged $4.9 billion over six years to help upgrade North America's air defenses, addressing the growing threat posed by hypersonic missiles and advanced cruise missile technology developed by Russia and China."

Image source: Canadian Armed ForcesBut it's absurd to present NORAD as a defensive arrangement. Its lead actor has 1,000 international bases and special forces deployed in 149 countries. Rather than protect Canada and the US, NORAD supports violent missions led by other US commands. In 1965 NORAD's mandate was expanded to include surveillance and assessment sharing for US commands stationed worldwide (United States European Command, United States Pacific Command, United States Africa Command, etc.).

The Pentagon has put satellites into space to enable first strike ballistic missile defense (BMD). While Paul Martin's Liberals claimed to oppose BMD, they granted "full cooperation by NORAD in missile defense work," explained Richard Sanders in a Press for Conversion report on the subject. In 2004 Ottawa formally permitted the US BMD system to use data from NORAD's "Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment."

It's called "missile defense" because it's designed to defend US missiles sites after they launch offensive operations. US-installed missile defense systems in Romania and Korea, for instance, are designed primarily to stop opponents' missiles following a US first strike. US space-based missile defense interceptors able to eliminate Russia's early warning satellites without warning puts that country on edge. This ratchets up the arms race and the likelihood of nuclear war.

NORAD has also drawn Canada into US belligerence in other ways. During the July 1958 US invasion of Lebanon NORAD was placed on "increased readiness" while US troops checked secular Arab nationalism after Iraqis toppled a Western-backed king (at the same time British troops invaded Jordan to prop up the monarchy there).

In a higher profile incident, Canadian NORAD personnel were put on high alert when the US illegally blockaded Cuba in October 1962. This transpired even though Prime Minister John Diefenbaker hesitated in supporting US actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

During the 1973 Ramadan/Yom Kippur/Arab '' Israeli War NORAD was placed on heightened alert. Washington wanted to deter the USSR from intervening on Egypt's behalf. NORAD systems offered surveillance and communications suppozsart to the 1991 war on Iraq. It monitored the region and provided information to launch US Patriot surface-to-air missiles. NORAD ballistic missile warnings were also sent to Ottawa and Canadian units in Bahrain.

Department of National Defence Photo: Underground Canadian NORAD complex under Armed Forces Base North BayNORAD also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The same can be said for US bombing in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, etc.

Thousands of Canadian military personnel assist NORAD's operations. One hundred and fifty Canadians are stationed at NORAD's central collection and coordination facility near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hundreds more work at regional NORAD outposts across the US and Canada and many pilots are devoted to the Command.

A Royal Canadian Air Force general is the vice commander of NORAD and runs the entire command when the US commander is absent. In discussing the two countries' most significant bilateral military accord, Ann Griffiths explains, "NORAD brings the Canadian military more deeply within the US defense establishment than any other ally. The United States quite simply, would not entrust such responsibilities to the military of any other close ally, not even Britain."

NORAD makes Canada a junior partner to US militarism. If Canada was truly a force for good in the world, a peacekeeper and adherent of a rules based international order, Ottawa would withdraw from NORAD, rather than spend billions more strengthening it.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:31

A military vehicle is pictured in a grain field previously mined with explosives, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Chernihiv region, Ukraine May 24, 2022. Picture taken with drone. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLUXEMBOURG, June 20 (Reuters) - The European Union is divided on how to help poorer nations fight a growing food crisis and address shortages of fertilisers caused by the war in Ukraine, with some fearing a plan to invest in plants in Africa would clash with EU green goals.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted a global food crisis and fears of worse to come because of a drop in grain exports from Ukraine and a spike in prices of chemical fertilisers, of which Russia and Belarus are major producers. read more

The EU has for weeks tried to help its poorer neighbours in Africa and the Middle East to weather the crisis by offering them fresh funds, while trying to convince them EU sanctions against Moscow and Minsk are not to be blamed for the food emergency.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAt a summit of EU leaders later this week, the EU was planning a new initiative that would structurally decrease poorer nations' reliance on Russian fertilisers by helping them develop their own fertiliser plants.

But at a meeting with EU envoys last week, the EU Commission explicitly opposed the text, warning that supporting fertiliser production in developing nations would be inconsistent with the EU energy and environment policies, officials said.

The production of chemical fertilisers has a big impact on the environment and requires large amounts of energy. However they are crucially effective in boosting agriculture output.

Draft conclusions of the June 23-24 summit, seen by Reuters, urge the EU executive commission to devise a plan "to support the development of fertiliser manufacturing capacity and alternatives in developing countries".

The text, dated June 15 and prepared by the aides of European Council President Charles Michel, is to be discussed and likely tweaked at a meeting of EU ambassadors late on Monday, officials said.

The Commission urged governments to change the text and refer only to a plan to promote alternatives to fertilisers or a more efficient use of fertilisers, officials said. The Commission had no immediate comment on the matter.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Jan Harvey

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:26

The water along the Bay Area coast has been so cold lately that surfers have wished they had thicker wetsuits.

Farther offshore, it's been even colder. For example, a weather buoy at Bodega Bay recorded water temperatures as low as 47.8 degrees on June 21, the coldest it's been that day for over a decade. That compares to a mean over the decade of around 51 degrees for June, typically the coolest month for that buoy, and other buoys in the area have shown similar trends. It's been so cold that some fish appear to have been staying in the warmer waters of the bay.

The temperature warmed up a bit during this week's heat wave: By Friday, the Bodega Bay buoy was recording temperatures over 50 degrees, which is still cooler than normal for late June. Scientists say they aren't sure whether things will continue to get warmer or cool down again.

Such cold spells this time of year are a unique feature of the Central California coast. They are triggered by high winds that stir up cold water from the deep in a process known as upwelling. The recent frigid temperatures have appeared from Point Arena (Mendocino County) to Monterey Bay, though coastal upwelling can occur all the way south to Point Conception (Santa Barbara County).

Jan Null, meteorologist for Golden Gate Weather Services, said that a ''relatively small pocket of water (has been) below normal.''

Upwelling is what makes Bay Area beaches unpleasant for casual dipping in summer: High inland temperatures in spring and summer create northwest winds that run parallel to the coast, pushing warmer surface water offshore and pulling the cold water up.

This is the reason that summer ocean temperatures at Point Reyes can be lower than on the Oregon or Washington Coast, where wind patterns and temperature differences don't cause upwelling.

Some oceanographers attribute the recent extra-chilly temperatures to a La Ni±a weather pattern that is typically associated with cooler water.

''There has been a persistent La Ni±a for about two years so far, which can drive additional ocean upwelling that relates to cooler, nutrient-rich water coming to the surface where it adds to feeding the marine food web,'' said Henry Ruhl, director of the Central & Northern California Ocean Observing System at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. La Ni±a should last through the end of the year, according to current forecasts, which could help the cool ocean conditions stay for a while, he said.

Null believes that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation '-- a long-term pattern that can be associated with unusually warm or cold sea surface temperatures '-- and climate change are key factors behind the recent cold spell, as opposed to La Ni±a.

''Every weather and climate event right now has climate change in its DNA,'' he said.

Upwelling delivers essential nutrients particularly to what are called forage fish, like sardines and anchovies, said Ruhl. Over time, salmon get pinker and richer-tasting from their abundant diet, and whales come close to shore to feast on anchovies and krill. With more to eat, sea bird populations can boom, and kelp forests, the vital habitat for marine life that have recently been decimated by climate change, grow stronger.

Some fishers even think halibut has been staying in the San Francisco Bay longer this year to avoid the frigid ocean temperatures, resulting in an epic fishing season in the bay.

The recent extra-cold sea surface temperatures may seem surprising when climate change is heating up the world's oceans. As recently as 2014-2016, a marine heat wave on the California coast '-- known as the blob '-- caused a disruption to the state's lucrative Dungeness crab fishery. It also triggered long-lasting damage to the kelp forest in Sonoma and Mendocino counties and as a result, its abalone and red urchin fisheries.

Recently, there have been signs the kelp forest is starting to recover, with cooler temperatures dominating during the past few years.

Despite the recent cooling trend locally, there is no escaping the fact that the overall direction of ocean temperatures is going up, said Ryan Walter, associate professor in the physics department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he researches ocean dynamics.

''We know that long term there's climate change and warming,'' he said. ''In the meantime, you have all these ups and downs.''

San Francisco Chronicle data reporter Yoohyun Jung contributed reporting.

Tara Duggan (she/hers) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 12:53

HomeReferencesLivescience.com-little-mystery Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. President and a Republican (left), and Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. President and a Democrat. The Republican and Democratic parties effectively switched platforms between their presidencies. (Image credit: Public domain)The Republican and Democratic political parties of the United States didn't always stand for what they do today. The more liberal Democrats and the right-wing Republicans each have a defined set of belief systems, but these were once very different.

What did the Republicans and Democrats originally believe? During the 1860s, Republicans, who dominated northern states, orchestrated an ambitious expansion of federal power, described by the Free Dictionary as "a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units." This helped to fund the transcontinental railroad, the state university system and the settlement of the West by homesteaders, and instating a national currency and protective tariff. The Democrats, who dominated the South, opposed those measures. Indeed, according to the author George McCoy Blackburn ("French Newspaper Opinion on the American Civil War (opens in new tab) ," (Greenwood Press, 1997) the French newspaper Presse stated that the Republican Doctrine at this time was "The most Liberal in its goals but the most dictatorial in its means."

Post-Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Emergency Banking Act in 1933. (Image credit: Getty/Bettmann)After the United States triumphed over the Confederate States at the end of the Civil War, and under President Abraham Lincoln, Republicans passed laws that granted protections for Black Americans and advanced social justice (for example the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (opens in new tab) though this failed to end slavery). Again Democrats largely opposed these apparent expansions of federal power.

Sounds like an alternate universe? Fast forward to 1936.

Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt won reelection that year on the strength of the New Deal. This was a set of reforms designed to help remedy the effects of the Great Depression, which the FDR Presidential Library and Museum (opens in new tab) described as: "a severe, world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the stock market crash on "Black Thursday," October 24, 1929." The reforms included regulation of financial institutions, the founding of welfare and pension programs, infrastructure development and more. It was these measures that ensured Roosevelt won in a landslide against Republican Alf Landon, who opposed these exercises of federal power.

So, sometime between the 1860s and 1936, the (Democratic) party of small government became the party of big government, and the (Republican) party of big government became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power.

The highly influential Democrat William Jennings Bryan, giving a speech. (Image credit: Getty/ Bettmann) How did this switch happen? Eric Rauchway (opens in new tab) , professor of American history at the University of California (opens in new tab) , Davis, pins the transition to the turn of the 20th century, when a highly influential Democrat named William Jennings Bryan (best known for negotiating a number of peace treaties at the end of the First World War, according to the Office of the Historian) blurred party lines by emphasizing the government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of federal power '-- traditionally, a Republican stance.

But Republicans didn't immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government.

Related: 7 great congressional dramas

"Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice," Rauchway wrote in an archived 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education (opens in new tab) . Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift toward the counterarguments. The party's small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal.

But why did Bryan and other turn-of-the-century Democrats start advocating for big government?

Big Government According to Rauchway, they, like Republicans, were trying to win the West. The admission of new western states to the union in the post-Civil War era created a new voting bloc, and both parties were vying for its attention.

Related: Busted: 6 Civil War myths

Democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: Republican federal expansions in the 1860s and 1870s had turned out favorable to big businesses based in the northeast, such as banks, railroads and manufacturers, while small-time farmers like those who had gone west received very little.

Both parties tried to exploit the discontent this generated, by promising the general public some of the federal help that had previously gone to the business sector. From this point on, Democrats stuck with this stance '-- favoring federally funded social programs and benefits '-- while Republicans were gradually driven to the counterposition of hands-off government.

From a business perspective, Rauchway pointed out, the loyalties of the parties did not really switch. "Although the rhetoric and to a degree the policies of the parties do switch places," he wrote, "their core supporters don't '-- which is to say, the Republicans remain, throughout, the party of bigger businesses; it's just that in the earlier era bigger businesses want bigger government and in the later era they don't."

In other words, earlier on, businesses needed things that only a bigger government could provide, such as infrastructure development, a currency and tariffs. Once these things were in place, a small, hands-off government became better for business.

Originally published on Live Science on Sept. 24, 2012. This article was updated on Dec. 14, 2021.

Natalie Wolchover was a staff writer for Live Science from 2010 to 2012 and is currently a senior physics writer and editor for Quanta Magazine. She holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Tufts University and has studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with the staff of Quanta, Wolchover won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing for her work on the building of the James Webb Space Telescope. Her work has also appeared in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best Writing on Mathematics, Nature, The New Yorker and Popular Science. She was the 2016 winner of the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award, an annual prize for young science journalists, as well as the winner of the 2017 Science Communication Award for the American Institute of Physics.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 12:20

On June 22, farmers from across the Netherlands are coming together in Stroe to once again protest the Dutch government's nitrogen policy, or stikstofbeleid. But what is it that the farmers are protesting exactly, and what will Wednesday's protest mean for you? Here's everything you need to know about the Dutch farmers' protests.

How does farming create nitrogen emissions?Practically everyone living in the Netherlands is contributing to the country's so-called nitrogen crisis, known in Dutch as the stikstofcrisis. If you have a stove that runs on gas in your home, then this also contributes to the country's nitrogen emissions.

Of course, this is only on a very small scale. Nitrogen oxides are also released by cars and planes, and in a number of factories and industries - including farming. In the agricultural industry, the production of ammonia is the key issue.

But why does farming emit so much nitrogen? It all comes down to the livestock. Ammonia is produced when animal excretion comes into contact with oxygen, releasing nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Figures suggest that Dutch farms - specifically dairy farms - are responsible for a significant amount of the country's overall nitrogen emissions.

What is the Dutch government's nitrogen policy?Since the 1990s, the Dutch government has worked to implement policies to limit the Netherlands' carbon footprint and nitrogen emissions. Many of these policies have proved successful, significantly reducing nitrogen emissions across a number of sectors and industries. However, one industry in particular has spent years fighting the government's approach.

Nitrogen emissions in the Dutch agricultural sector haven't been falling at the rate the government and environment groups had hoped, meaning that back in 2019 the cabinet moved to introduce tougher rules for farmers. These measures include ensuring livestock receives feed with low protein levels, and providing funding to buy livestock from farmers who want to stop farming.

Over the past three years, farmers from across the Netherlands have held and attended various protests in order to fight back against the government's approach. But earlier this month, Christianne van der Wal, Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, brought the situation to a head when she presented a controversial 10-step plan outlining one key goal: three regions - the Gelderse Vallei, North Brabant and Limburg - need to reduce nitrogen emissions by more than 50 percent by 2030.

Why are Dutch farmers protesting?Van der Wal's goal has huge consequences for farmers operating in these areas, as they'll have to significantly reduce their livestock. The proposal features five options for reducing emissions:

Invest in sustainable technologies to ensure cleaner stables Switch to circular agriculture (i.e. use only the space and resources that are absolutely necessary) Adjust the farm's business model (i.e. limit livestock numbers, change crops, use land to establish another business)Move house Quit farmingPerhaps unsurprisingly, thousands of farmers have expressed anger about these proposed solutions, explaining that Van der Wal's suggestions have left them feeling uncertain about their futures and the future of their families. They also argue that, for years, the Dutch government invested heavily in agriculture, encouraging farmers to expand their businesses, and that the new plan is in complete opposition to earlier policies.

They say that the government's plan will lead to the wide-scale destruction of rural society in the Netherlands and the disappearance of a number of family businesses. They also argue that the policy to buy livestock and farms will cost Dutch citizens more in taxes than investing in innovation would, and that scaling down the Dutch agricultural industry would mean the country would have to import more food from abroad, thereby increasing the country's overall carbon footprint.

What do the farmers want? The main point the farmers are making is that the current approach for reducing nitrogen emissions isn't feasible or fair. Instead, they would like to see the government explore other solutions to the nitrogen crisis.

When and where are farmers in the Netherlands protesting?20.000 people are expected to travel from The Hague, Groningen, North Brabant, and Limburg to the protest in Stroe, a small village located in the province of Gelderland, between Amersfoort and Apeldoorn, on Wednesday, June 22.

Some protesters met in The Hague at 7am on Wednesday morning before travelling to Stroe together. Some farmers from further afield set off at 5am on Wednesday morning, and many aren't expected to arrive at the protest until midday.

Several politicians and speakers will also be in attendance on Wednesday, including Mark van der Oever from Farmers Defence Force and BBB party leader Caroline van der Plas.

What does the boerenprotest mean for me?Wednesday's protest is expected to cause disruption in various Dutch towns and cities and on the roads. Many will be travelling by tractor, which means that hundreds of tractors will be on Dutch roads and highways throughout the day on Wednesday. Traffic jams have already been recorded on a number of roads near The Hague, Eindhoven, and Den Bosch, and both the Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB) and Rijkswaterstaat have called on members of the public to postpone any trips in or to the middle of the country if possible.

''The Hoevelaken junction'...[and] the entire area around it - the A1 and A28 at Amersfoort, the A30 and the A12 - will be busy. The farmers will probably also travel a lot via N-roads, but it's hard to predict which ones will get busy,'' the ANWB explains. Many roads in and around Stroe will be closed throughout Wednesday, including the N310 between Harskamp and Stroe and entrance and exit ramps on the A1.

Public transport in the local area is also expected to be affected by the protest. On Tuesday afternoon, public transport operator Syntus Utrecht warned passengers that there would likely be a number of delays across various routes throughout the entire region on Wednesday.

Municipalities, companies, and schools in and around Stroe have also taken measures in order to limit the risk of disruption or disputes. A number of local schools and businesses have closed their doors for the day.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 05:25

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Vita Alari, a server at a 24/7 restaurant in New York, is used to reading customers' special requests submitted in food-delivery apps.

''Can you add more ketchup?''

''Please don't forget the forks,'' the notes often read.

On Sunday, Alari, 47, and a colleague working the early-morning shift at the Chipper Truck Cafe in Yonkers received a cheeseburger order around 5 a.m.

But the woman who placed the order was not craving an early meal. Her Grubhub submission was instead a cry for help, according to Alari and the restaurant.

''Please call the police his going to call me when u delivered come with the cones please don't make it obvious,'' read the message under Grubhub's ''additional instructions.''

It took Alari and her co-worker a couple of minutes to decipher the message, which seemed to be written in a rush, Alari told The Washington Post. But from what they could gather, the woman wanted them to call police and have officers sent to that address as soon as possible.

A woman slipped a note to a KFC worker. It led to her partner's arrest.

Alari and her colleague took action. They simultaneously called the police and their boss to report the incident.

''It was something like you only see on TV,'' Alari, who has worked at the restaurant for six years, told The Post. ''I don't think anybody would joke about anything like that, so as soon as we saw it, we took it seriously.''

Police arrived at the address around 6:20 a.m. and arrested 32-year-old Kemoy Royal. He was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of strangulation and unlawful imprisonment, among other felonies, a New York Police Department spokesperson said via email.

An attorney representing Royal did not immediately respond to a message early Thursday.

Police said Royal had been charged in connection with the attempted rape of a different woman on June 15, four days before the other woman placed the Grubhub order. After Royal was arrested on Sunday, an officer called the Chipper Truck Cafe to thank the workers for alerting police, Alari said.

''I've never seen anything like this,'' Alari said. ''We are just so happy she is okay. I'm glad we're 24 hours and that she had somewhere to grab help from. There's not that many restaurants [open at that hour] anymore where she could have written that note to save her.''

Royal is due back in court Friday at 9 a.m., court records state. A judge set his bail at $25,000. He remains in custody, jail records show.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:54

Global Planned Financial Tsunami has Just Begun P 21.06.2022 U F. William Engdahl

Since the creation of the US Federal Reserve over a century ago, every major financial market collapse has been deliberately triggered for political motives by the central bank. The situation is no different today, as clearly the US Fed is acting with its interest rate weapon to crash what is the greatest speculative financial bubble in human history, a bubble it created. Global crash events always begin on the periphery, such as with the 1931 Austrian Creditanstalt or the Lehman Bros. failure in September 2008 . The June 15 decision by the Fed to impose the largest single rate hike in almost 30 years as financial markets are already in a meltdown, now guarantees a global depression and worse.

The extent of the ''cheap credit'' bubble that the Fed, the ECB and Bank of Japan have engineered with buying up of bonds and maintaining unprecedented near-zero or even negative interest rates for now 14 years, is beyond imagination. Financial media cover it over with daily nonsense reporting , while the world economy is being readied, not for so-called ''stagflation'' or recession. What is coming now in the coming months, barring a dramatic policy reversal, is the worst economic depression in history to date. Thank you, globalization and Davos.

Globalization

The political pressures behind globalization and the creation of the World Trade Organization out of the Bretton Woods GATT trade rules with the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, ensured that the advanced industrial manufacturing of the West, most especially the USA, could flee offshore, ''outsource'' to create production in extreme low wage countries. No country offered more benefit in the late 1990s than China. China joined WHO in 2001 and from then on the capital flows into China manufacture from the West have been staggering. So too has been the buildup of China dollar debt. Now that global world financial structure based on record debt is all beginning to come apart.

When Washington deliberately allowed the September 2008 Lehman Bros financial collapse, the Chinese leadership responded with panic and commissioned unprecedented credit to local governments to build infrastructure. Some of it was partly useful, such as a network of high-speed railways. Some of it was plainly wasteful, such as construction of empty ''ghost cities.'' For the rest of the world, the unprecedented China demand for construction steel, coal, oil, copper and such was welcome, as fears of a global depression receded. But the actions by the US Fed and ECB after 2008, and of their respective governments, did nothing to address the systemic financial abuse of the world's major private banks on Wall Street and Europe , as well as Hong Kong.

The August 1971 Nixon decision to decouple the US dollar, the world reserve currency, from gold, opened the floodgates to global money flows. Ever more permissive laws favoring uncontrolled financial speculation in the US and abroad were imposed at every turn, from Clinton's repeal of Glass-Steagall at the behest of Wall Street in November 1999. That allowed creation of mega-banks so large that the government declared them ''too big to fail.'' That was a hoax, but the population believed it and bailed them out with hundreds of billions in taxpayer money.

Since the crisis of 2008 the Fed and other major global central banks have created unprecedented credit, so-called ''helicopter money,'' to bailout the major financial institutions. The health of the real economy was not a goal. In the case of the Fed, Bank of Japan, ECB and Bank of England, a combined $25 trillion was injected into the banking system via ''quantitative easing'' purchase of bonds, as well as dodgy assets like mortgage-backed securities over the past 14 years.

Quantitative madness

Here is where it began to go really bad. The largest Wall Street banks such as JP MorganChase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup or in London HSBC or Barclays, lent billions to their major corporate clients. The borrowers in turn used the liquidity, not to invest in new manufacturing or mining technology, but rather to inflate the value of their company stocks, so-called stock buy-backs, termed ''maximizing shareholder value.''

BlackRock, Fidelity, banks and other investors loved the free ride. From the onset of Fed easing in 2008 to July 2020, some $5 trillions had been invested in such stock buybacks, creating the greatest stock market rally in history. Everything became financialized in the process. Corporations paid out $3.8 trillion in dividends in the period from 2010 to 2019. Companies like Tesla which had never earned a profit, became more valuable than Ford and GM combined. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin reached market cap valuation over $1 trillion by late 2021. With Fed money flowing freely, banks and investment funds invested in high-risk, high profit areas like junk bonds or emerging market debt in places like Turkey, Indonesia or, yes, China.

The post-2008 era of Quantitative Easing and zero Fed interest rates led to absurd US Government debt expansion. Since January 2020 the Fed, Bank of England, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan have injected a combined $9 trillion in near zero rate credit into the world banking system. Since a Fed policy change in September 2019, it enabled Washington to increase public debt by a staggering $10 trillion in less than 3 years. Then the Fed again covertly bailed out Wall Street by buying $120 billion per month of US Treasury bonds and Mortgage-Backed Securities creating a huge bond bubble.

A reckless Biden Administration began doling out trillions in so-called stimulus money to combat needless lockdowns of the economy. US Federal debt went from a manageable 35% of GDP in 1980 to more than 129% of GDP today. Only the Fed Quantitative Easing, buying of trillions of US government and mortgage debt and the near zero rates made that possible. Now the Fed has begun to unwind that and withdraw liquidity from the economy with QT or tightening, plus rate hikes. This is deliberate. It is not about a stumbling Fed mis-judging inflation.

Energy drives the collapse

Sadly, the Fed and other central bankers lie. Raising interest rates is not to cure inflation. It is to force a global reset in control over the world's assets, it's wealth, whether real estate, farmland, commodity production, industry, even water. The Fed knows very well that Inflation is only beginning to rip across the global economy. What is unique is that now Green Energy mandates across the industrial world are driving this inflation crisis for the first time, something deliberately ignored by Washington or Brussels or Berlin.

The global shortages of fertilizers, soaring prices of natural gas, and grain supply losses from global draught or exploding costs of fertilizers and fuel or the war in Ukraine, guarantee that, at latest this September-October harvest time, we will undergo a global additional food and energy price explosion. Those shortages all are a result of deliberate policies.

Moreover, far worse inflation is certain, due to the pathological insistence of the world's leading industrial economies led by the Biden Administration's anti-hydrocarbon agenda. That agenda is typified by the astonishing nonsense of the US Energy Secretary stating, ''buy E-autos instead'' as the answer to exploding gasoline prices.

Similarly, the European Union has decided to phase out Russian oil and gas with no viable substitute as its leading economy, Germany, moves to shut its last nuclear reactor and close more coal plants. Germany and other EU economies as a result will see power blackouts this winter and natural gas prices will continue to soar. In the second week of June in Germany gas prices rose another 60% alone. Both the Green-controlled German government and the Green Agenda ''Fit for 55'' by the EU Commission continue to push unreliable and costly wind and solar at the expense of far cheaper and reliable hydrocarbons, insuring an unprecedented energy-led inflation.

Fed has pulled the plug

With the 0.75% Fed rate hike, largest in almost 30 years, and promise of more to come, the US central bank has now guaranteed a collapse of not merely the US debt bubble, but also much of the post-2008 global debt of $303 trillion. Rising interest rates after almost 15 years mean collapsing bond values. Bonds, not stocks, are the heart of the global financial system.

US mortgage rates have now doubled in just 5 months to above 6%, and home sales were already plunging before the latest rate hike. US corporations took on record debt owing to the years of ultra-low rates. Some 70% of that debt is rated just above ''junk'' status. That corporate non-financial debt totaled $9 trillion in 2006. Today it exceeds $18 trillion. Now a large number of those marginal companies will not be able to rollover the old debt with new, and bankruptcies will follow in coming months. The cosmetics giant Revlon just declared bankruptcy.

The highly-speculative, unregulated Crypto market, led by Bitcoin, is collapsing as investors realize there is no bailout there. Last November the Crypto world had a $3 trillion valuation. Today it is less than half, and with more collapse underway. Even before the latest Fed rate hike the stock value of the US megabanks had lost some $300 billion. Now with stock market further panic selling guaranteed as a global economic collapse grows, those banks are pre-programmed for a new severe bank crisis over the coming months.

As US economist Doug Noland recently noted, ''Today, there's a massive ''periphery'' loaded with ''subprime'' junk bonds, leveraged loans, buy-now-pay-later, auto, credit card, housing, and solar securitizations, franchise loans, private Credit, crypto Credit, DeFi, and on and on. A massive infrastructure has evolved over this long cycle to spur consumption for tens of millions, while financing thousands of uneconomic enterprises. The ''periphery'' has become systemic like never before. And things have started to Break.''

The Federal Government will now find its interest cost of carrying a record $30 trillion in Federal debt far more costly. Unlike the 1930s Great Depression when Federal debt was near nothing, today the Government, especially since the Biden budget measures, is at the limits. The US is becoming a Third World economy. If the Fed no longer buys trillions of US debt, who will? China? Japan? Not likely.

Deleveraging the bubble

With the Fed now imposing a Quantitative Tightening, withdrawing tens of billions in bonds and other assets monthly, as well as raising key interest rates, financial markets have begun a deleveraging. It will likely be jerky, as key players like BlackRock and Fidelity seek to control the meltdown for their purposes. But the direction is clear.

By late last year investors had borrowed almost $1 trillion in margin debt to buy stocks. That was in a rising market. Now the opposite holds, and margin borrowers are forced to give more collateral or sell their stocks to avoid default. That feeds the coming meltdown. With collapse of both stocks and bonds in coming months, go the private retirement savings of tens of millions of Americans in programs like 401-k. Credit card auto loans and other consumer debt in the USA has ballooned in the past decade to a record $4.3 trillion at end of 2021. Now interest rates on that debt, especially credit card, will jump from an already high 16%. Defaults on those credit loans will skyrocket.

Outside the US what we will see now, as the Swiss National Bank, Bank of England and even ECB are forced to follow the Fed raising rates, is the global snowballing of defaults, bankruptcies, amid a soaring inflation which the central bank interest rates have no power to control. About 27% of global nonfinancial corporate debt is held by Chinese companies, estimated at $23 trillion. Another $32 trillion corporate debt is held by US and EU companies. Now China is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since 30 years and little sign of recovery. With the USA, China's largest customer, going into an economic depression, China's crisis can only worsen. That will not be good for the world economy.

Italy, with a national debt of $3.2 trillion, has a debt-to-GDP of 150%. Only ECB negative interest rates have kept that from exploding in a new banking crisis. Now that explosion is pre-programmed despite soothing words from Lagarde of the ECB. Japan, with a 260% debt level is the worst of all industrial nations, and is in a trap of zero rates with more than $7.5 trillion public debt. The yen is now falling seriously, and destabilizing all of Asia.

The heart of the world financial system, contrary to popular belief, is not stock markets. It is bond markets'--government, corporate and agency bonds. This bond market has been losing value as inflation has soared and interest rates have risen since 2021 in the USA and EU. Globally this comprises some $250 trillion in asset value a sum that, with every fed interest rise , loses more value. The last time we had such a major reverse in bond values was forty years ago in the Paul Volcker era with 20% interest rates to ''squeeze out inflation.''

As bond prices fall, the value of bank capital falls. The most exposed to such a loss of value are major French banks along with Deutsche Bank in the EU, along with the largest Japanese banks. US banks like JP MorganChase are believed to be only slightly less exposed to a major bond crash. Much of their risk is hidden in off-balance sheet derivatives and such. However, unlike in 2008, today central banks can't rerun another decade of zero interest rates and QE. This time, as insiders like ex-Bank of England head Mark Carney noted three years ago, the crisis will be used to force the world to accept a new Central Bank Digital Currency, a world where all money will be centrally issued and controlled. This is also what Davos WEF people mean by their Great Reset. It will not be good. A Global Planned Financial Tsunami Has Just Begun.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine ''New Eastern Outlook''.

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Sat, 25 Jun 2022 15:22

Guest Essay

June 21, 2022

Video Credit Credit... By Angie Wang By Agnes Callard

Dr. Callard teaches philosophy at the University of Chicago.

What should my friends do if I am being canceled?

A decade ago, when I was a nonpublic philosopher writing only for a small group of academics, it would never have occurred to me to ask myself this question. But things have changed. These days, anyone with a public-facing persona must contemplate the prospect of having her reputation savagely destroyed.

A few years ago, I wrote an essay that, in passing, questioned faculty solidarity with unionizing graduate students. I had not realized how sensitive that topic was, and I was inundated with angry and hateful messages and a few threats online. In the scheme of things, the episode was quite mild, lasting only a few weeks. But it felt all-consuming at the time. And it was a taste of what could come.

My most vivid memory from that period is how good it felt when people defended me on Twitter: a balm on my wounded soul. I desperately wanted people to speak up for me. I wanted to defend myself, too. My wise husband stayed my hand. He saw what I could not see, which is that there was no ''winning'' this war; every act of defense and every show of loyalty served to keep the fight alive. This explains the curious fact that for all the fighting people do against cancellation, no cancelee ever vanquishes her cancelers.

I know some of the people who agitated against me. They are not bad people; one shouldn't think of what was happening as a conflict between my team and theirs. There were no sides. You imagine that you are fighting against the mob, but actually you are becoming a part of it. Within the mob there is no justice and no argument and no reasoning, no space for inquiry or investigation. The only good move is not to play.

So this is my answer: If I am being canceled, I want my friends '-- and this includes not only my closest associates but any people who consider themselves friendly to me '-- to stand by, remain silent and do nothing. If you care about me, let them eat me alive.

When I try to imagine my own cancellation, two main avenues come to mind. The first is that I write something triggering a wave of offense, as I did when I wrote about unions. There are symbolic traps all over the cultural landscape; I do my best to avoid them, but they have a tendency to cluster near some interesting topics. Anyone who writes for the public, and who maintains a social media presence, must accept some measure of risk.

Second, I exhibit a personal failing. I wear many hats in addition to that of public intellectual '-- I am a mother, a teacher, a mentor, an administrator, a scholar, a member of the broader academic philosophical community. When asked how I juggle so many different roles, I explain that each time I add a new one, I do all the others a bit worse. The secret to success is failure. I try to keep the failure at a manageable level, but one day I might fail at that, too.

Because I am only a very minor public figure, not much worth canceling, I think it's likely I would have to go wrong in both ways '-- by causing offense, and by falling down on the job '-- to merit a coordinated public outcry. I am not saying that such a perfect storm is very likely, but it is far from impossible.

My plan, if I am being canceled, is not to fight it. If I can quickly put an end to the accusations with some clarifying explanation, I will: The public deserves to hear the truth. But my efforts to rehabilitate myself will cease before I get to the point of reorganizing my public persona around the battle to do so. The goal of my public engagement is a certain kind of open-mindedness, and that becomes impossible when all you ever think about is one thing '-- even if you call that thing ''freedom of speech'' or ''liberal tolerance'' or, for that matter, ''open-mindedness.''

The most important component of not fighting cancellation is not recruiting friends to my cause. The expectation that one's friends exhibit the ''courage'' to speak up on one's behalf, the inclination to see the cancellation as a test of the friendship, which suddenly requires proofs of loyalty '-- these are the first step on the road to the friend purge.

Here is how it goes: A few of the cancelee's friends meet the expectation to speak up in support, but those who remain silent '-- which is most of them '-- become suspect. New, publicly aligned friends are acquired to take their place. The beleaguered cancelee now feels she sees who her ''real friends'' are, but in fact she has no friends anymore. All she has are allies. First she turned her friends, and perhaps even her family members, into allies; and then she acquired more allies to fill the ranks of the purged friends. The end result is a united front, but what I would call real friendship has gone missing in the bargain.

I do not want any of that. I want friends who feel free to disagree with me both publicly and privately; friends who will admonish me, gently but firmly, with whatever grain of truth there is in any accusations against me. I want friends whose minds are not tethered to my own in bonds of allegiance, but spin freely of their own accord. I love my contrarian friends, and the way their thinking traces wonderful and mysterious paths, following a logic all their own; and I cherish my conformist friends, who keep me in touch with the wisdom of most people.

I want friends who ask the right questions, friends who bring me cookies, friends who help me up when I stumble, friends who expend so much attention on the inner me that they have little to spare for how I am perceived by others. I want friends, not allies. I value my public persona, but not enough to sacrifice the liberty of my friendships at its altar.

But what if, when the moment arrives, I come to see all this differently? Isn't there a chance that when I'm in the thick of it, I'll want ''my'' people to rally round me, to stand up for me, to call out my accusers, to be willing to risk their own reputations on my behalf, to show the world that I stand equipped with a team of supporters ready to fight at my side? Yes, of course.

My brief tangle with the mob taught me that it is not when I am most embattled that I see most clearly. Hence I, like Odysseus, am tying myself to the mast in advance. I commit now, publicly, in print: Please don't fight on my behalf. Don't stand up for me. Don't rescue my good name. Let it be tarnished. Let my reputation die.

Agnes Callard is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

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Sat, 25 Jun 2022 14:23

Porter J. Goss and a band of brothers, secret agents in cold-war Europe, settled here in retirement three decades ago and used the political skills they had learned in the Central Intelligence Agency to create and run a new community.

They established a profitable newspaper from scratch. They set up a local government to protect pristine beaches from commercial development. And they nursed the political career of Mr. Goss, the Republican Florida congressman named this week by President Bush to be director of central intelligence.

In interviews in the last two days, old friends of Mr. Goss recalled his years as a spy and a budding politician, who rose from City Council to county commission to Congress. In the late 1960's, they said, Mr. Goss was in London as a clandestine services officer for the C.I.A., recruiting and supervising spies and foreign agents, much as he had done earlier in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Donald F. Whitehead, a onetime professor of political science and international relations, was working for the C.I.A. in Paris at the time, said his widow, Grace E. Whitehead. And Fred Valtin was working for the agency in Germany.

His widow, Jane C. Valtin, said: ''Fred helped the Germans establish a postwar government under the auspices of the C.I.A. He hung around with Willy Brandt and helped build the Social Democratic Party.''

The three men ended up on Sanibel Island, a short drive from Fort Myers in southwest Florida. The Whiteheads arrived first, in 1969. They helped Mr. Goss recuperate on the island when his intelligence career was cut short by a nearly fatal infection in 1971. Mr. Valtin arrived a little later.

Mrs. Whitehead said the men had become friends in Europe and founded the weekly newspaper, The Island Reporter, in 1973. They supported stringent land use planning and the incorporation of Sanibel as a way for the city to control its destiny and prevent developers from spoiling its lush tropical vegetation and beaches.

The retired spies -- three spooks on an island, in the words of a friend -- ''used all their skills to manage this place,'' said Mrs. Whitehead, 86, who still lives in the area.

Developers were none too happy. They complained that ''the C.I.A. was coming down here, was buying up property and would take over the island,'' Mrs. Whitehead recalled.

The owners of the newspaper were adept at gathering political intelligence. ''Porter went to meetings of the Lee County commissioners and brought back information,'' Mrs. Whitehead said. ''My husband, who was editor of the paper, wrote it up.''

Mr. Whitehead, a former intelligence case officer, recruited Mr. Valtin to be business manager of the paper. From his years at the agency, Mr. Valtin ''knew how to take care of money,'' Mrs. Whitehead said.

Mrs. Valtin said her husband was ''budget director of the C.I.A.,'' at its headquarters in Northern Virginia, when he retired in 1973.

Mr. Valtin was born in Germany, but he and two brothers came to the United States in 1938 and served in the United States Army in World War II. Their father, a dentist, served in the German Army. Their mother, a Quaker, worked in this country at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Mark R. Twombly, who went to work for the newspaper in 1974, fresh out of college, said: ''This was a worldly group of people with a secretive background. They were expert at not saying anything about their C.I.A. past. That added to the intrigue and character of the place.''

In a preview issue of The Island Reporter, the owners said: ''We don't want to be too sophisticated, but neither do we want to be sloppy. We'll not be crusaders, predicting gloom as the byproduct of all growth. But we'll not be silent if we think that the overall interests of the community are being needlessly jeopardized by an individual or group.''

Mrs. Valtin said: ''The Island Reporter started in our house. Gracie addressed envelopes in our garage and it was showing a profit in six months.''

After Sanibel was incorporated in 1974, Mr. Goss was elected to the City Council and became the first mayor. He served on the Lee County Commission from 1983 to 1988, when he was elected to Congress.

Mr. Goss, 65, has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989. One of his four children, R. Mason Goss, 36, said the Whiteheads and the Valtins seemed like part of his family as he was growing up in Sanibel, which felt then like an idyllic ''little fishing village.''

Mason Goss said his knowledge of his father's career was sketchy, based mostly on surmise and speculation.

Porter Goss did serve ''on Hispaniola,'' in the Dominican Republic, perhaps gathering intelligence on Cuba, the son said. And his father ''spent some time in Miami'' working for the agency. ''The Cuban missile crisis was coming up right around then,'' said the son, who now teaches history and politics as headmaster of a private school here.

''I had no idea my father was even in the C.I.A. until I was 10 or 11 years old,'' in 1978 or 1979, Mason Goss said.

Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Valtin had retired after long careers in the agency. By contrast, Porter Goss retired after 10 years, when he was just 34.

''I wondered why,'' Mason Goss said. ''My mother just said he was ill, and that's why we got to come down here to Florida. That's what we were told.''

Some people have speculated that Mr. Goss's mysterious illness might have resulted from foul play in the spy wars. But Mrs. Whitehead, a nurse, and Mason Goss said they had never heard that. ''We sort of understood that we didn't need to ask more questions about that,'' the younger Mr. Goss said.

Mrs. Whitehead said Porter Goss ''had a terrible infection, spent four months in a hospital, received vast doses of antibiotics and had blood clots in his chest and his legs.'' A doctor told him he had to ''do nothing but sit in the sun,'' she added.

The ex-spies joined together in another business venture that was less successful than the newspaper. They operated Island Boat Rental, in the Sanibel marina. Mrs. Whitehead said the main purpose of the business was ''to give Porter something to do out in the sunshine.''

Mr. Twombly said: ''From a business point of view, it was a disaster. I don't think it ever made money.''

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Sat, 25 Jun 2022 13:00

Reserve RequirementsAs announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020. This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.

FAQsThe following content explains the Board's authority to impose reserve requirements and how reserve requirements were administered prior to the change in reserve requirement ratios to zero.

The Federal Reserve Act authorizes the Board to establish reserve requirements within specified ranges for purposes of implementing monetary policy on certain types of deposits and other liabilities of depository institutions.

The dollar amount of a depository institution's reserve requirement is determined by applying the reserve requirement ratios specified in the Board's Regulation D (Reserve Requirements of Depository Institutions, 12 CFR Part 204) to an institution's reservable liabilities (see table of reserve requirements). The Federal Reserve Act authorizes the Board to impose reserve requirements on transaction accounts, nonpersonal time deposits, and Eurocurrency liabilities.

Prior to the change effective March 26, 2020, reserve requirement ratios on net transactions accounts differed based on the amount of net transactions accounts at the depository institution. A certain amount of net transaction accounts, known as the ''reserve requirement exemption amount,'' was subject to a reserve requirement ratio of zero percent. Net transaction account balances above the reserve requirement exemption amount and up to a specified amount, known as the ''low reserve tranche,'' were subject to a reserve requirement ratio of 3 percent. Net transaction account balances above the low reserve tranche were subject to a reserve requirement ratio of 10 percent. The reserve requirement exemption amount and the low reserve tranche are indexed each year pursuant to formulas specified in the Federal Reserve Act (see table of low reserve tranche amounts and exemption amounts since 1982).

For more history on the changes in reserve requirement ratios and the indexation of the exemption and low reserve tranche, see the annual review table. Additional details on reserve requirements can be found in the Reserve Maintenance Manual and in the article (119 KB PDF) in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, the appendix of which has tables of historical reserve ratios.

Website Link '' https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

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Sat, 25 Jun 2022 11:41

In de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag werden meerdere schoten afgevuurd vlak buiten de London Pub. Een ooggetuige zei tegen de Noorse krant Dagbladet dat hij "15 tot 20 schoten" hoorde, waarop paniek ontstond en mensen begonnen te rennen. De dader zou een vuurwapen uit een zak hebben gehaald en gericht op mensen hebben geschoten. Kort na het incident werd in de buurt van de schietpartij met hulp van omstanders de verdachte man aangehouden. De politie gaat er vooralsnog van uit dat hij in zijn eentje handelde.

Hij was bekend bij de inlichtingen- en politiediensten die terrorisme bestrijden. Hij is ook al eens voor kleine vergrijpen opgepakt en veroordeeld. onder meer wegens het bezit van drugs. Er wordt ook naar de geestelijke gezondheid van de verdachte gekeken.

De London Pub is een in Noorwegen beroemde nachtclub voor gays. Dit weekend wordt op verschillende plaatsen in Oslo de Pride gevierd. Maar een optocht die zaterdag in Oslo hiervoor was gepland, is afgelast. De politie van Oslo heeft extra patrouilles de stad ingestuurd en alle agenten bewapend. De Noorse politie patrouilleert normaal ongewapend.

Koninklijke familie is 'geschokt'Koning Harald van Noorwegen is onthutst door het nieuws over de schietpartij. Hij liet weten dat de koninklijke familie geschokt is. "We leven mee met alle nabestaanden en getroffenen en wensen iedereen die nu bang, bezorgd en verdrietig is veel sterkte toe." Mensen hebben elkaar nodig om samen te strijden voor de waarden "vrijheid, diversiteit en respect", aldus de koning.

Noorwegen was in juli 2011 het toneel van een bloedige terroristische aanslag van de rechts-extremist Anders Behring Breivik waarbij 77 vooral jonge mensen werden gedood bij een bomaanslag in Oslo en een moordpartij in een vakantiekamp van sociaaldemocratische jongeren buiten de stad.

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Baby Lives Matter Benny : Yikes '-- @ananavarro is talking about her ''special needs'' family members with Autism and Down's Syndrome to make the'... https://t.co/CnyMGC22sE

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Sydney commuters are being warned of possible widespread disruptions to train services next week after the government cancelled a key post-budget meeting with unions.

Ministers were supposed to hold talks with the Rail Tram and Bus Union on Friday'...

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Great Briton : @jabU_Free Covered up by fraudulent data activity such as false positive PCR tests at too high a cycle, paid-for Co'... https://t.co/3G6ywWqMnp

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:51

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The Supreme Court struck down a restrictive gun-carry law in New York on Thursday, resulting in a meltdown from liberal analysts on CNN.

In a 6-3 majority opinion, the Court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, that New York put an unconstitutional burden on citizens applying for concealed carry permits by requiring they demonstrate a "special need" for protection.

CNN's liberal panel blasted the Court's decision to uphold New York citizens' rights under the Constitution.

A police officer maintains a watch during a demonstration by victims of gun violence in front of the Supreme Court. A helicopter landed near the building Friday after someone tried lighting himself on fire. (Joshua Roberts)

JEFFREY TOOBIN ARGUES, 'THERE'S A LOT OF RIGHT-WING TERRORISM IN THIS COUNTRY,' IGNORES LEFT-WING VIOLENCE

Immediately after the ruling was released, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin balked at Justice Clarence Thomas writing in the Court's opinion that the constitutionally protected right to carry a gun for self-protection was "not a second-class right."

"You know, we know that in the United States you have the right under the First Amendment to say pretty much anything anywhere because we have freedom of speech in the United States. What the conservatives on the Supreme Court are saying is we want the Second Amendment to be a first class right like the First Amendment," Toobin griped.

The CNN analyst then accused conservatives of wanting absolutely no restrictions or regulations on the ability to carry guns.

FILE - Lawyer and author Jeffrey Toobin attends the 2018 PEN Literary Gala in New York on May 22, 2018. Toobin has been suspended by the New Yorker and is stepping away from his job as CNN's senior legal analyst pending what the cable network is calling a "personal matter." (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

"And [they] want to be able to carry guns anywhere anytime without any sort of regulation by the government, without background checks, without restrictions on where you can take a weapon, without restrictions on how you can carry a weapon," he claimed.

Later he added that the Court had "expanded" the Second Amendment, and it was unclear whether they had "completely eliminated the possibility for any sort of gun regulation."

"CNN Newsroom" host Jim Sciutto fretted what this ruling meant for other "gun safety" laws around the country. Toobin suggested that the Court's decision would lead to more mass shootings.

DEMOCRATS RAISE ALARM AFTER SUPREME COURT STRIKES NY CONCEALED CARRY LAW

A banner hangs at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School on Friday, June 3. (AP/Eric Gay)

"We can't separate this issue from what is going on in the world where, you know, we have a tremendous problem with gun violence in this country. We have mass shootings. We have 18-year-olds with access to AR-15s. And the Supreme Court is moving in the direction of saying that the government cannot regulate that traffic at all," he complained.

This week, Toobin also attacked the Court ruling in favor of the rights of religious schools, claiming the Court was tearing down the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment.

Later on CNN, he claimed there was a "lot of right-wing terrorism in this country" ignoring recent patterns of left-wing violence against conservative justices and pro-life pregnancy clinics.

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Kristine Parks is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to kristine.parks@fox.com.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:46

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Wayne Kasper : NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet confesses there was NO science behind the Covid QR codes There was NO SCIENCE behi'... https://t.co/6IkVXzQXF7

Tue Apr 19 05:06:11 +0000 2022

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Justin Sponaugle : @DavidBCollum They must've got a good install as Dr. McCullough puts ithttps://t.co/fyrpzxkT6O

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 16:33

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U.S. Rep. Mary Miller immediately drew fierce backlash on social media and elsewhere at a Saturday night rally with former President Donald Trump when she credited him for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade calling it a ''victory for white life.''

''I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,'' Miller said, then raised her arms in an animated clap amid cheers from the crowd, which numbered in the thousands on a sweltering day in West Central Illinois.

But Miller's campaign said Saturday night that the congresswoman misread prepared remarks at a rally that Trump held for her in the village of Mendon.

"You can clearly see she is reading off a piece of paper, she meant to say 'right to life,'" Miller spokesman Isaiah Wartman said.

Miller, R-Illinois, later tweeted: ''I will always defend the RIGHT TO LIFE!''

The statement unleashed a forceful rebuke on social media, likening Miller to a white supremacist and recalling her quoting Adolf Hitler on Jan. 6, 2021 '-- the day a mob broke into the nation's Capitol. She later apologized.

The misstep Saturday couldn't come at a worse time for Miller, who is locked in a tight contest with Rep. Rodney Davis in Illinois' newly drawn 15th Congressional District.

Wartman made a subsequent statement in response to unforgiving coverage of Miller's gaffe.

''Joe Biden doesn't know where he is half the time and the Fake News refuses to cover it. Mary stumbles while saying 'Right to Life' and the fake news vultures are out,'' he said in a text message.

"To suggest that she is somehow not committed to defending all life is disgusting. She has the most Pro-Life voting record in Congress and is the proud grandmother of two beautiful grandchildren with down syndrome," Wartman said. "The fake news media is targeting Mary Miller because she is doing everything she can to stop the Democrats from allowing the massacre of babies like her grandchildren."

But her opponent, Davis, on Sunday didn't buy that this was a slip up. Citing her comment last year quoting Hitler, he said it was another example of her ''catering to the extremes.''

''Mary Miller's comments yesterday are just another part in a disturbing pattern of behavior she's displayed since coming to Congress,'' Davis said in a statement. ''This is why she uses the Biden basement strategy and refuses to answer questions or hold public events ... Miller has demonstrated she is not fit for public office. This is why it's so important to vote in our Republican Primary on Tuesday and show the country Miller's behavior is unacceptable.''

The Trump rally drew thousands of people on Saturday, at an event where Trump also endorsed GOP gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey.

Bailey has led in recent polls against Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, despite Irvin having the backing of billionaire Ken Griffin. Griffin, who poured tens of millions of dollars into Irvin's race, announced last week he was moving his hedge fund Citadel's headquarters from Chicago to Miami.

Natasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 15:37

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Thu Jun 23 23:14:03 +0000 2022

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Sun Jun 26 08:42:28 +0000 2022

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:32

HAWESVILLE, Ky. (WFIE) - A letter from Century Aluminum to some employees in Hawesville shows they are stopping operations for up to a year due to the rise in global energy prices.

The letter shows this will mean layoffs for 628 Hawesville smelter employees, including 504 union members.

The layoffs are expected to start August 5 and be complete by August 20.

It shows the layoffs are temporary, but could be for nine to 12 months.

Here is the full letter from Century Aluminum to employees:

In order to continue to operate its smelter located at 1627 State Route 3543, Hawesville, Kentucky (the ''Hawesville Smelter'''), Century Aluminum of Kentucky GP (''Century'' or the ''Company'') must be able to purchase reliable, affordable electric power. Unfortunately, an unprecedented rise in global energy prices arising from the Russian war in Ukraine has dramatically increased the price of energy in the U.S, and l around the globe. The cost required to run our Hawesville, KY, facility has more than tripled the historical average in a very short period, Given these circumstances it is necessary to fully curtail operations for a period of approximately nine to twelve months at Hawesville until energy prices return to more normalized levels. This is expected to result in the layoff of 628 Hawesville Smelter employees, including 504 employees represented by the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial Service Workers Union, AFL-CIO (USW'').

The Company intends to begin the curtailment process immediately, and at the same time, prepare the facility for a restart when energy prices stabilize. We expect that employees will begin to be laid off the week of August 5, 2022, and it is currently anticipated that all of the layoffs will be completed by August 20, 2022. The specific schedule of the layoffs will be determined based on the progress of the curtailment process described above. To the extent that employees are laid off less than 60 days from the date of this notice, they will be paid the difference in accordance with the WARN Act. All layoffs of employees represented by the USW will be conducted in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement currently in effect between Century and the USW. As such, some US W-represented employees may have bidding or bumping rights as set forth in the collective bargaining agreement. At this time, it is expected that these layoffs will be temporary, but the Company expects that the layoffs will be for nine to twelve months. When the Company's anticipated energy costs return to a level that makes the Smelter economically viable, the Company plans to restore manufacturing operations at the Hawesville Smelter up to previous levels.

Attached as Schedule ''A'' to this letter is a list of bargaining unit positions expected to be affected by the layoff, the dates of the anticipated layoff, and as the number of affected employees in each job classification. Attached as Schedule ''B'' to this letter is a list of the names of the workers currently holding these jobs, Should cireumstances change any of the Company's plans with respect to these layoffs, I will provide the USW with additional information regarding the impact on employment levels at the Hawesville Smelter...''

Century Aluminum sent out a news statement late Wednesday afternoon with the same information.

It says:

''Century Aluminum Company (NASDAQ: CENX), the largest producer of primary aluminum in the United States, has announced it will temporarily idle its smelter in Hawesville, Kentucky, as a direct result of skyrocketing energy costs. The smelter is expected to begin the idling process on Monday, June 27th.

The company says it expects to idle operations for a period of approximately nine to twelve months until energy prices return to more normalized levels. Century continues to explore all available options to avoid the temporary curtailment.

The Hawesville facility is the largest Century Aluminum smelter in the U.S. and the largest producer of military-grade aluminum in North America. It currently employs more than 600 workers, most of whom unfortunately received notice today under the WARN Act that they will be temporarily laid off. Century Aluminum is working with all of its employees and the local union to help identify unemployment support and training opportunities.

Jesse Gary, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, ''This unprecedented rise in global energy prices arising from the Russian war in Ukraine has dramatically increased the price of energy in the U.S. and around the globe. The power cost required to run our Hawesville, KY, facility has more than tripled the historical average in a very short period. Unfortunately, this makes it necessary to temporarily curtail operations for approximately nine to twelve months until energy prices return to more normalized levels. We are confident that energy prices will moderate in the next year and believe strongly in the future prospects of the Hawesville smelter given its recent performance and the continuing important role it plays in US national security.

''Our dedicated and highly-skilled employees are like family to us, and we are saddened that the current energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine has forced us to take this action. We will work with all of our employees to help them identify local unemployment resources and training opportunities.''

Given the unique circumstances at each of Century's plants, the company does not have any current plans to idle any other facility.''

Century Aluminum in Sebree just shared Monday that they have a hiring event next Wednesday.''

Copyright 2022 WFIE. All rights reserved.

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Sun, 26 Jun 2022 14:21

Following Exxon Mobil's scathing response to Joe Biden's threat to use ''emergency authorities'' against oil companies to make them produce more fuel, more industry leaders have issued equally damning come backs.

As we noted yesterday, after spending two years vowing and acting to shut down the production of fossil fuel energy, Biden is now imploring the companies to ramp up output.

Biden accused the companies of worsening the energy crisis by not doing enough and of exploiting Americans, while the White House proclaimed oil companies are not doing their ''patriotic duty.''

Since day one, the Biden administration has been on a campaign to end the oil and gas industry.Now they're blaming oil refineries for not doing a "patriotic duty." pic.twitter.com/lIdBniMwEs

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 15, 2022Karine Jean-Pierre, reading directly from her binder: Biden "is open to all reasonable uses of federal government's tools to increase output and lower costs at the pump."Gas prices have more than doubled since Biden took office. pic.twitter.com/PQCUmJbxeT

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 15, 2022Exxon Mobil blasted Biden's attempt to blame them for his own failing energy policies, noting ''We have been in regular contact with the administration to update the president and his staff on how ExxonMobil has been investing more than any other company to develop U.S. oil and gas supplies.''

Overnight, Chevron chimed in issuing a statement noting ''We understand the significant concerns around higher fuel prices currently faced by consumers around the country, and the world. We share these concerns, and expect the Administration's approach to energy policy will start to better reflect the importance of addressing them.''

The company added ''Unfortunately, what we have seen since January 2021 are policies that send a message that the Administration aims to impose obstacles to our industry delivering energy resources the world needs.''

CORRECT: ''What we have seen since January 2021 are policies that send a message that the Administration aims to impose obstacles to our industry delivering energy resources the world needs,'' Chevron spokesperson https://t.co/tsQKnyEphA via @dailycaller

'-- Ted Abram (@TedAbram1) June 16, 2022In addition, the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical penned a joint letter in response to Biden, noting that ''Refiners do not make multi-billion-dollar investments based on short-term returns,'' further explaining that ''They look at long-term supply and demand fundamentals and make investments as appropriate.''

''To that end, following on your campaign promise to 'end fossil fuel,' consider just some of the policy and investment signals being sent by various federal agencies and allied state governments to the market about our refining industry,'' the joint letter continued.

''The timing and reasons for shutdowns of several refineries, including the Philadelphia Energy Solutions and Shell Convent refineries, were primarily due to lack of buyers willing to continue operating the facilities as petroleum refineries given growing rhetoric about the long-term viability of the industry,'' the letter further noted.

In other words, Biden's own promise to shut down their industry is to blame for downward trending production.

When asked Thursday By Peter Doocy if the push to end fossil fuels is now off the table, the White House Press Secretary said 'no':

Doocy: "I know the President once said he's going to end fossil fuels. Is that now off the table?"Jean-Pierre: "No, we are going to continue to move forward with our clean-energy proposal, our climate change proposal."

Doocy: "And'...is that the priority'...over gas prices?" pic.twitter.com/rxJTwGOL1b

'-- Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 16, 2022Doocy also nailed Jean-Pierre to another Biden administration lie about inflation and fuel prices:

Doocy: "He says'...inflation is worse everywhere but here. That's not true. U.S. has worse inflation than Germany, France, Japan, Canada, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia'...Why is he saying that?"KJP: "Well, I think what we are saying is'...it is a global thing'...everyone is feeling" pic.twitter.com/FW46GK1LH0

'-- Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 16, 2022Meanwhile, Biden is attempting to cosy up to Saudi Arabia for oil, while ensuring that the Russian oligarchs his family previously did big business with are exempt from sanctions.

WATCH: Pres. Biden ignores questions when asked about his son's business dealings with Russian oligarch.''Why have you stopped taking questions from the press,'' a journalist shouts. ''What are you afraid of?!''

pic.twitter.com/HRptNwPURj

'-- Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 16, 2022SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:

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