Victor Davis Hanson identifies the groups backing illegal immigration which, in addition to the standard white hating Leftist groups, also include business and agricultural interests; and which also explains why we can't depend on the Republican party to do anything to control immigration.
VIDEO: "Exposing the Puppeteers Behind Illegal Immigration"--Victor Davis Hanson (11 min.)
As in, "we'd love for you to leave." New York City has long been a sanctuary city. Supposedly sanctuary cities were those cities that welcomed illegal aliens, but all it really meant was that they intended to thumb their nose at federal immigration enforcement so long as it benefited the Democratic party. But, as Tip O'Neill used to like to say, all politics is local. And so, when put to the test, it turns out that many Democrat strongholds aren't nearly as welcoming to illegals when those communities wind up being stuck footing the bill.
Thus Gateway Pundit reports: "New York City Hires COVID Company in $432 Million No-Bid Contract to Ship Illegal Aliens Out of the City." From the article:
Back in May New York City Mayor Eric Adams claimed the illegal alien crisis was so bad that 50% of the hotel rooms were occupied by illegal aliens.
Over seven million illegal aliens entered the US through its open borders under Joe Biden. And, over 90,000 illegal aliens have been shipped to New York City during the crisis.
The article, quoting from the New York Times, reports:
The city awarded DocGo a $432 million contract, which took effect in early May, without subjecting it to competitive bidding. The contract called for DocGo to house migrants and provide them with services including case management, medical care, food, transportation, lodging and round-the-clock security…
The article also notes that DocGo "once contracted with the city to provide Covid testing and vaccination services, but pivoted to migrant care as the pandemic waned and a new crisis emerged."
Typically we hear or read that about a third of Americans own guns. For instance, this Gallup Poll from 2020 showed that 32% of U.S. adults said they personally owned a gun, while a larger percentage, 44%, report living in a gun household--that is, a gun in their home or anywhere on their property. And that is pretty typical. The report on that poll, for instance, noted that the numbers hadn't changed since 2007.
But was that ever the case? Gun owners are generally reluctant to share information concerning gun ownership with strangers, government officials and employees (e.g., teachers), and even health care providers. So it has always been suspected that many gun owners lie to pollsters about gun ownership.
The Washington Examiner reports on an effort to ascertain the true percentage of Americans that own firearms, and its headline says it all: "Boom: Up to 60% of Americans could own guns, twice estimate." From the article:
A surge in “quiet gun owners,” much like the so-called “silent majority” in political circles, is leading firearms analysts to believe that far more Americans own weapons than the accepted 30% cited in polls.
At the highest end, it’s possible that up to 60% of Americans own guns, especially with the pandemic-era rise in gun buying among women and minorities, especially in suburban and urban areas.
At the lowest end, it’s likely that at least 40% of Americans own guns, according to a groundbreaking study of those who lie to pollsters about firearms.
The study from Rutgers University's New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center is spreading like wildfire in the industry, which for years has tried to accurately estimate United States gun ownership and determine why polls show support for gun control, but then there is little follow through when legislation is proposed.
Reason Magazine’s J.D. Tuccille put part of the study in the spotlight in an early July post that began the buzz in the gun industry about the potential of far higher U.S. gun ownership.
He highlighted the study’s conclusion that nearly a third of those polled might be lying when they deny having a firearm.
Tuccille wrote, “The report dealt in probabilities, with the researchers building profiles of confirmed gun owners. They then applied the profiles across their sample of 3,500 respondents to estimate who was likely fibbing about not owning guns. The results depend on the probability threshold applied, but they came up with 1,206 confirmed owners, between 1,243 and 2,059 non-owners, and between 220 and 1,036 potential but secretive owners lying about their status.”
That caught the attention of Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload blog, who featured Tuccille yesterday in a video post about the numbers and potential impact of the study.
“This is something that we assumed, perhaps, for a long time,” said Gutowski. “But now there is a study that is quantifying it to some degree. I mean, the amount that they put on it is that almost half the people who said that they don’t own guns fit the model, at least to a certain threshold, for people who do own guns. So that’s a huge discrepancy. That put — the number would rocket up from something like 33% into the 60 percentage range,” he added.
The Daily Mail reports that the "Toronto schools launches probe into suicide of principal Richard Bilkszto who killed himself after being 'bullied and harassed' following dust-up with KOJO Institute 'anti-racism trainer' Kike Ojo-Thompson". The article reports:
Richard Bilkszto, 60, killed himself in July after suing the Toronto District School Board for emotional distress which he says began in spring 2021, when he disagreed with KOJO Institute 'anti-racism' trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson.
The KOJO Institute is a for-hire diversity and inclusion consultancy firms that had been brought in by the school board.
Now, the board and Canada's education minister are investigating Bilkszto's death and whether the obsession with woke policies may have contributed to it.
The article continues:
Ojo-Thompson had been brought in to Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke to teach an anti-racism session. Bilkszto, who was a teacher for 24 years before retiring, was serving as a fill-in principal.
He took issue with Ojo-Thompson's claim that Canada is 'more racist' than the US because it has 'never reckoned with its anti-black history.'
When he disagreed politely, she snapped back.
'We are here to talk about anti-black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for black people?' she responded.
Bilkszto tried to de-escalate the situation, according to his lawsuit, but was shouted down by another member of the KOJO Institute who told him his views weren't 'relevant'.
A week later, at a second session, Ojo-Thompson said Bilkszto's comments were a 'real life example of resistance in support of white supremacy. '
Bilkszto claimed the disagreement led to him missing out on contract work and that inflicted emotional distress.
Although the KOJO Institute tried to downplay the incidents, "Canada's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board agreed with Bilkszto and described Ojo-Thompson's comments as 'abusive, egregious and vexatious', " and "[t]he adjudicator said the remarks rose to a level of 'workplace bullying and harassment'." And remember this is from a government that loves wokeness, and even it found the incident egregious.
But this may not be the end of the matter. "Since his suicide," the article continues, "a number of other teachers and school workers have contacted his attorney on social media to share similar stories of abuse."
It's plain as day that the die-hard DEI (or, as I prefer, DIE) supporters hate white people and wish that white people would just die, already. Apparently they got their wish in this case.
The review is from Ally Corless at Primer Peak. If you don't know what one of these are, Corless explains:
The Flashbang is a holster that attaches to the bra. These are kydex holsters that have a strap to affix to the center of the bra. The gun sits, and hides, in the natural dip between breasts. The bottom of the holster is open, and is held shut by the bra and breasts.
So the drawing of the weapon is quite similar to the same movement a woman might make if flashing her breasts. But it ends with a bright flash and a loud bang.
As to her experience with Teddy bra holster, she writes:
The Teddy Flashbang holds up pretty well, which is to be expected with a kydex holster. I have worn The Flashbang during the different desert seasons. One edge of the suede was starting to peel up, but I was able to stick it back down. That is something to be aware of, and I would say is the only potential concern with The Teddy. After 10 months of fairly regular wear, I can't complain too much.
She had purchased a new bra to use with the holster and reported no additional wear on the bra or straps. She did have some issues with fit and comfort at time that was variable and which she associate with changes in her ovulation/menstrual cycle. And she noted that boob sweat could be a problem in hot weather.
But, she writes, "[t]he Flashbang has been incredibly convenient for me to conceal carry with. It's easy to throw on before I run to the grocery store, and I'm able to wear it with outfits I couldn't ordinarily conceal carry with." She even believed it concealed better than the Enigma holster.
She has some tips and other considerations, so if this holster interests you, be sure to read her full review.
When the Sig 320 first was released to the civilian world, there were a few instances (and tests which verified) that if the firearm was dropped such that it struck the back of the slide, it could induce a discharge by imparting some movement to the trigger. Apparently this was due to Sig omitting the trigger safety such as you see on Glocks. It was remedied in the military model by adding a trigger of a greater mass (i.e., more inertia to overcome if struck from behind). And while Sig never admitted to there being a safety issue, it did offer a free upgrade to correct the issue.
Apparently, though, there have also been some issues with unintentional discharges in holsters. According to this article from The Trace, there have been more than 100 such incidents, with at least 80 injured. Now I wouldn't trust a reporter from The Trace any farther than I could throw them and I disagree with the "expert" they cite--Jeff Webb of Grey Wolf Armory--that the absence of an external safety makes the weapon inherently unsafe. Even the cherry picked stories of incidents included in the article sound like user error was most likely the culprit.
Nevertheless, some of the incidents suggest that something is going on. One such incident is shown in a video post by The Truth About Guns. Sig's response is:
... it appears that the involved firearm was not fully seated in its holster and the holster retention hood was not fully closed over the pistol at the time of discharge (images below). This improperly holstered condition would have left the firearm’s trigger exposed and vulnerable to actuation. Even if properly holstered, the features of the involved holster allow for foreign object intrusion and interaction with the trigger, as has been seen in other incidents.
The video isn't the greatest, but it doesn't look to me that anything was in the trigger guard when the discharge occurred. The Yankee Marshal does a breakdown of the surveillance video which does note that the discharge occurred after the officer had been caught up between the officer with the firearm and another officer, and that the firearm had not been fully seated in the holster prior to the incident.
Interestingly, going back to the article from The Trace, it cites reports from James Tertin, a gunsmith at the Minnesota-based gun manufacturer Magnum Research, in which he "opined that the P320’s primary internal safety was too easily disabled. He found that pulling the trigger 0.075 inches — about the width of a nickel — would disengage it, leaving the pistol vulnerable to accidental discharge." That is, "the gun is vulnerable to firing when the trigger is only partially pulled, as it might be in a warped holster or when a finger or object inadvertently brushes the trigger from its side."
I don't know what type of holster was used by the officer, but the TTAG article references a safety advisory issued by Safariland (see here) concerning its Safariland Duty Holsters 7000 Series for Streamlight TLR 7 or similar. Although Safariland does not admit that the holsters could cause a discharge, the advisory does acknowledge:
... our review has identified that some of these holsters may not perform to our retention requirements when put under extreme force in certain circumstances, such as a violent struggle that a law enforcement officer or security professional might encounter. For those holsters that did not perform to our retention requirements, the holster could potentially allow access to the trigger or open enough to compromise the security features of the holster. Notably, aside from the recent incident, we are not aware of any previous incident with this retention issue.
So it might be a combination of a poor holster design, the need for very little take-up to disengage the internal safeties, and something--like here--of brushing up against someone.
... the school’s senior pastor said the teachers were fired because of a line in the school’s operating policies manual that states “I will act in a godly and moral fashion at work, on Facebook and in my community.”Maris said she had no idea she was breaking that clause in the manual by attending a drag show.
Sure. She also has a bridge in Brooklyn she is looking to sell.
A five-year-old boy high on cocaine shot his toddler brother in the head, and prosecutors have charged their parents with neglect.The boy, who has not been named, shot and killed his little brother, Isiah Johnson - who had marijuana in his system - back in March at the family's home in Lafayette, Indiana.Deonta Jermaine Johnson, 27, and Shatia Tiara Welch, 24, have been charged with neglect and various drug charges after cops swooped on their property.Prosecutors say little Isiah, 16 months, died from a gunshot wound to the head and had marijuana in his blood, while his older brother, who shot him, tested positive for cocaine.Johnson was asleep inside the apartment at the time of the shooting. Welsh, a nursing graduate, was not present during the incident, according to authorities.Initially, Johnson told police Isiah fell or was injured by his brother and denied owning a gun.He claimed Isiah had not been shot before admitting the children's mother, Welch, had a gun on the property.Welch confirmed she owned the gun but told police that she usually kept it locked in a box under her bed but had lost a second set of keys to it.Police found a gun in the safe under a bed but also found a gun in the drawer of a dresser on the property.Johnson also faces a charge of obstruction of justice for removing marijuana from the apartment before police arrived after the shooting.Surveillance footage caught him placing a bag into a car after the shooting - police searched the vehicle and found marijuana.Officers also found 93 fentanyl pills, marijuana and drug paraphernalia inside the apartment when they searched it after the horror.
I'm sure the mother made a fine nurse.
Imirowicz allegedly threw lye powder on her father with water, in order to produce a chemical reaction and cause severe burns on 1 October 2021.The powder is often used in drain cleaner and has the ability to corrode things on contact, including metal, paint, cloth and skin. It is even more dangerous when lye is wet, as mixing it with water creates an exothermic reaction which causes a dramatic temperature increase of the water, getting up to 200F.Prosecutors said that Imirowicz threw the power on her father because she was upset with him for being too drunk to take her to a hair appointment ahead of her 18th birthday party. Konrad is said to have been an alcoholic.Police reported that teenager Imirowicz had been home when the incident began and left her father unconscious on the couch in their home before leaving the residence.They later found the lye powder and water strewn over the couch after the 64-year-old was found by a neighbor in his Groveland Township home and was taken to hospital.He had suffered significant injuries, including chemical burns to the head, torso and 'extremities'.While in hospital, Konrad had his legs amputated, endured multiple infections, a tracheotomy, skin grafts and kidney dialysis, reports The Oakland Press.Imirowicz was identified as the suspect in the attack by Michigan State Police after officers spoke to her father in Ascension Genesys Hospital, Grand Blanc, where he was being treated.On Tuesday Imirowicz was reunited with her mother upon her release from the Oakland County Jail, where she had been incarcerated for the last 17 months.
Unbelievable: walking free after the sentencing hearing for what should have been a death penalty case.
On July 4, the BBC published a story, "Nigel Farage bank account shut for falling below wealth limit, source tells BBC," which countered British Brexit leader Nigel Farage's claim that Coutts bank closed his account for political reasons. It turned out that Farage was correct about the real reason why his bank account was closed and to its credit, BBC not only updated a correction at the top of the story but on Monday issued a full apology to Farage.
Chinese automakers are looking to flood the United States market with cheap Electric Vehicles (EVs) as President Joe Biden’s administration has made a rapid all-electric, green energy push without having first ensured domestic manufacturing capacity.According to Axios, Chinese automakers like BYD Co. Ltd., Li Auto, Xpeng Motors, Nio Inc., and Geely are looking to the U.S. market to sell cheap EVs to Americans as the Biden administration makes its push for an all-electric economy.
“William Li, CEO of Chinese EV company Nio, recently told the Financial Times that the U.S. should offer Chinese EVs equal access to the American market, arguing that carmakers shouldn’t be victims of U.S.-China political tensions,” Axios reports:
And this is where those past (and future) bribes to Biden (or family members) will come in handy.
A CDC study claimed that occurrences of myocarditis from the COVID vaccines amounted to only 0.001% or one out of 100,000 doses. But according to a new Swiss study, it’s nearly 3%… roughly 3,000 times greater than our own federal government claimed.
So, 3,000 out of every 100,000 doses.
... among Harari’s flock are some of the most powerful people in the world, and they come to him much like the ancient kings to their oracles. Mark Zuckerberg asked Harari if humanity is becoming more unified or fragmented by technology. The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund asked him if doctors will depend on Universal Basic Income in the future. The CEO of Axel Springer, one of the largest publishing houses in Europe, asked Harari what publishers should do to succeed in the digital world. An interviewer with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) asked him what effect COVID would have on international scientific cooperation. In favor of Harari’s half-formed edicts, each subverted their own authority. And they did it not for an expert in any one of their fields, but for a historian who, in many ways, is a fraud—most of all, about science.
Former New York Post editor Emma-Jo Morris testified last week to the House Weaponization of Government Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan. ...Morris was the deputy politics editor leading national coverage at the Post, where she also reported the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” series. Her work for the Post is collected here. She has moved on to Breitbart News, also in an editorial capacity.In her statement Morris recounts her reporting on the laptop as well as the suppression of her reporting by the FBI, the intelligence community, and social media, all with the cooperation of the media. Morris rightly singles out Politico, which ran the statement of the Deep State 51. She leaves Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand unnamed. Bertrand is the reporter who ran the story that regurgitated the statement straight. She has since moved on to CNN.
On Thursday of last week. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released the FD-1023 summary of confidential human intelligence documented by the FBI. The source reported that the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes so that the then-vice president would “protect” Burisma “from all kinds of problems.”
But the FBI did not do anything with this information and, in fact, withheld it from IRS investigators looking into Hunter Biden's tax issues.
John Wilder has a more cynical (and, therefore, realistic) take on all of this which is this: the UFO stories are intended to be a distraction from the corruption and incompetence of our leaders. And, he notes, Scott Adams takes an even more cynical stance: that the UFO stories are a test of how gullible we are when it comes to government lies and disinformation since we must otherwise believe that these craft are prone to crashing and, by coincidence, only crash in the United States. That is, Adams believes that the government is trying to figure out how far they can go with their lies. Of course, stepping up the cynicism further, Anonymous Conservative has suggested that if ETs actually are visiting our planet, they undoubtedly have compromised and subverted all of our significant organizations for their own aims. I guess under that circumstance, the new UFO information coming out is either gaslighting or in preparation or some great reveal.
Sen. Chris Coons wrote in The News Journal last year that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked. Surprisingly, the Senator either did not see or did not understand the multiple ways that actions by the U.S., NATO and the current government of Ukraine threatened Russia’s security and provoked the invasion. By moving NATO missile bases (which can instantaneously switched into offensive mode) right up to the Russian border in Poland and Romania, and stating repeatedly that Ukraine would join NATO, which could bring NATO missiles within 6 minutes of Moscow, the U.S. and NATO created severe threats to Russia’s national security.When Russia reacted to these threatening Western moves and warned the U.S. that it was crossing Russia’s red lines, President Joe Biden ignored the warnings. Why? American experts on Russia and foreign policy had warned U.S. politicians that pushing NATO right up to the borders of Russia would be seen as a severe threat by Russia, and stated that that perception was very reasonable.Think what the U.S. would do if Russia engaged in a military alliance with Canada and Mexico and constructed missile bases right on our borders in those countries. In fact, when Russia brought missiles into Cuba in the 1960s to prevent a U.S. invasion of the island, the U.S. threatened a blockade and an invasion, both of which were totally illegal. After secret, behind-the-scenes negotiations, the U.S. agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey and Italy. Russia then withdrew the missiles and Kennedy, in turn, removed U.S. missiles from Turkey and Italy. The Russian missiles in Cuba were close to the U.S. border, but not nearly as close as those in Poland and Romania are to Russia, nor as close as NATO missiles threatened for Ukraine would be.Our other provocations include our withdrawal from two treaties with Russia that limited missiles: the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Our withdrawal increased Russian vulnerability to a U.S. first strike. We have also conducted many NATO military exercises near Russia’s border, including live-fire exercises simulating attacks on Russian air defense systems.
Read the whole thing.
"The flow of faces and names between government and 'news' media has turned what was supposed to be a watchdog over the destructive power of the state into little more than a forum for political marketing and an extended battleground for factional fighting," I noted in 2019. In particular, Politico media writer Jack Shafer observed in 2018, TV news networks are heavily leavened with former (and often future) security state apparatchiks. "Almost to a one, the TV spooks still identify with their former employers at the CIA, FBI, DEA, DHS, or other security agencies and remain protective of their institutions" Shafer wrote. "This makes nearly every word that comes out of their mouths suspect."Many elite journalists can get quotes from politicians across the breakfast table. CNN's Christiane Amanpour married former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell married former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and Joe Scarborough (formerly a congressman) married co-host Mika Brezezinski (daughter of a former national security advisor). The Washington Post's Matea Gold is married to FBI chief of staff Jonathan Lenzner. "What to make of all the family ties between the news media and the Obama administration?" The Washington Post's Paul Farhi asked a decade ago in a query that could be posed continuously about government and media in general.Prominent journalists and government officials often meet not on the job, but in the college dorm. "Forty-one percent of senior- or mid-level Biden White House staffers — or 82 people out of 201 aides analyzed — have Ivy League degrees," Politico reported in 2012. That expands on dominance by elite colleges dating back at least to JFK. And many faces those Ivy League grads saw in the White House press room were familiar. "Almost half of the people who reach the pinnacle of the journalism profession attended an elite school," found a 2018 paper in the Journal of Expertise focused on The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. "Roughly 20% attended an Ivy League school."To a great extent, interactions between prominent reporters and powerful officials are like private parties that never end. These people know each other, drink with each other, share attitudes, marry, and trust each other. Elite journalists have few doubts about the wisdom of their friends, for whom they do glorified public relations, to censor, spy, and coerce. About the rest of us… Who are we, anyway? Better to be safe and encourage the folks they know to keep a cap on the unseemly mob.
James Gordon Meek, 53, who served as a national security journalist at ABC, is scheduled to appear in a Virginia federal court on Friday following his January 2023 indictment on child rape charges. He faces up to 20 years behind bars.The disturbing crimes were exposed after the FBI conducted a raid on the journalist’s Arlington home in April 2022. FBI officials were alerted by Dropbox in March 2021 of ‘sickening child rape’ materials of minors stored on Meek’s account.
According to the Post, an FBI agent claimed in an arrest affidavit that upon analyzing Meek’s devices, three phone calls were discovered in which the former ABC News journalist was actively making plans to rape various young children.In a disturbing message that Meek sent, he asked an unnamed user, “Have you ever raped a toddler girl? It’s amazing.”
Meek is the journalist that went missing last year after the FBI raided his home and supposedly found classified documents on his computer. Except, as we are now being told, it wasn't classified documents they found. According to reports at the time:
Meek was to publish a book with Simon & Schuster that tells the story of a retired Green Beret who helped evacuate more than 500 Afghans during the scandalous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under Joe Biden, along with co-author Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret.
After the raid, his name and photo were scrubbed from the book and book jacket, and ABC disavowed him.
When the women swimmers complained to the athletic department, they were told Thomas' presence was 'non-negotiable' and were offered counselling to 'reeducate us to become comfortable with the idea of undressing in front of a male,' she added.
'To sum up the university's response, we, the women, were the problem, not the victims,' Scanlan said.
South Korea only had 18,988 births in May, 2023 which is the lowest births since the agency started compiling the data in 1981. This was a drop of over 5% from May 2022. The number of deaths in the country moved up 0.2 percent over the period to 28,958, resulting in a natural decrease in population by 9,970. South Korea is losing about 120,000 people per year and the total birth is about 230,000 per year which is down from 705,000 from 1990 to 1994 and 669,000 from 1995 to 1999. However, after the 1997-98 Asian Economic Crisis, the number plummeted to an average of 500,000 in the early 2000s.Korea’s fertility rate dropped to a new low of 0.78, the lowest among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and possibly the world.Korea would need to triple its annual births to 700,000 per year to maintain and stabilize its population.Statistics Korea expected people aged 65 and above will take up 20 percent of the population in 2025, marking a sharp rise from 18.4 percent estimated for this year.The Korean government sees the next five years as critical to increasing fertility and salvaging the country.Korea’s government is considering easing the burden of gift taxes exclusively for newlywed couples, by raising the minimum amount of cash they can receive from parents without being taxed to either 100 million won ($76,000) or 150 million won.
But South Korea is not alone on this issue. The article continues with discussions about China, Japan, Spain, Poland, and Italy. Even India's fertility rate has fallen below replacement level.
Last year, Monash University scientists created the "DishBrain" – a semi-biological computer chip with some 800,000 human and mouse brain cells lab-grown into its electrodes. Demonstrating something like sentience, it learned to play Pong within five minutes.The micro-electrode array at the heart of the DishBrain was capable both of reading activity in the brain cells, and stimulating them with electrical signals, so the research team set up a version of Pong where the brain cells were fed a moving electrical stimulus to represent which side of the "screen" the ball was on, and how far away from the paddle it was. They allowed the brain cells to act on the paddle, moving it left and right.Then they set up a very basic-reward system, using the fact that small clusters of brain cells tend to try to minimize unpredictability in their environment. So if the paddle hit the ball, the cells would receive a nice, predictable stimulus. But if it missed, the cells would get four seconds of totally unpredictable stimulation.It was the first time lab-grown brain cells had been used this way, being given not only a way to sense the world, but to act on it, and the results were impressive.Impressive enough that the research – undertaken in partnership with Melbourne startup Cortical Labs – has now attracted a US$407,000 grant from Australia's National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants program.
Burns' concept, called the "helical engine," is not a single closed loop. Instead, it's a helical structure that resembles a stretched-out spring. Burns described the engine as accelerating ions confined in a loop to moderate relativistic speeds, and then varying their velocity to make slight changes to their mass.The engine moves ions back and forth along the direction of travel to generate thrust. Notably, the engine has no moving parts, except for ions that travel in a vacuum line and are trapped inside electric and magnetic fields.This concept sounds impressive in theory, but it has some significant practical challenges to overcome. According to New Scientist, the helical chamber would have to be quite large, precisely around 200 meters (656 feet) long and 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter.Generating 1 newton of thrust would require producing 165 megawatts of energy, which is equivalent to the power output of a power station required to accelerate a mass of 1 kilogram per second squared. Therefore, despite the enormous input, the output is incredibly small, making it a terribly inefficient process.But in the vacuum of space? It just might work. "The engine itself would be able to get to 99 per cent the speed of light if you had enough time and power," Burns told New Scientist.
A new study by a group of economists found what might seem to be an obvious correlation: Attending an elite school ups a person’s chances of ascending the ranks of elite society. The study, conducted by Raj Chetty of Harvard, David Deming of Harvard, and John Friedman of Brown University, looked at waitlisted students’ outcomes and showed that compared with attending one of America’s best public colleges, attending a member of what’s known as the “Ivy Plus” group—the Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago—increases a student’s chances of reaching the top of the earnings distribution at age 33 by 60 percent.
The finding is not actually so obvious. Over the past two decades, a body of research has shown that students’ average incomes end up about the same after they graduate from a flagship public institution versus an Ivy Plus school. The new study confirms this finding about average incomes, but it complicates the bigger picture: When it comes to other metrics of life in the American elite—“Supreme Court clerkships, going to a tippy-top graduate program, making it into the top 1 percent of earners at the age of 33”—schools such as Harvard and Yale matter a lot. “In general, [elite schools have] this propulsive quality,” Annie told me.
Of course, this being 2023, the author's main concern is that there are too many white kids attending.
The article is from Minuteman Concepts and summarizes information from Rory Miller's book, Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected. (You can read my review of the book, here). From the article:
According to Miller, a predator is defined as someone who has developed the ability or made the choice to ignore your humanity. He further defines two different types of predators: Resource Predators, and Process Predators. By far the majority of threats we will encounter are Resource Predators who choose their targets based on them having something the predator wants. Whether the object of desire be money, jewelry, or other valuables does not matter. The Resource Predator identifies targets based on opportunity, often acts on a whim, and may or may not become violent toward their target. They have developed the ability to marginalize the humanity of their targets, often with a “have vs. have-not” mentality.
Process Predators are a completely different class of threat. They target individuals for the sake of the hunt, often becoming violent murderers, rapists, and sociopaths. Process predators consider themselves to be the top of the food chain, often completely ignoring the humanity of those around them as they pursue their desires. They are the true wolves stalking the flock.
Regardless of the level of predator you encounter, understand that the predator has decided that what they want is more valuable than your life. Any armed encounter with a predator of any type has the potential to turn lethal in the blink of an eye. You are prey to them, pure and simple.
He summarizes some ways of avoiding being attacked from the book, so be sure to read the whole thing. Or, better yet, get Miller's book and study it.
An article from Bev Fitchett's Guns. Because this question can be approached from different perspectives, Fitchett focuses on guns purchased legally where the legal purchaser turned around and used them to commit to crimes, and firearms that were obtained illegally (although they may have, initially, been purchased legally by someone). An excerpt:
If the question is actually “What percentage of criminals legally buy a gun and commit a crime with it,” the percentage is extremely small. The last data suggests that a fraction of one percent of those who commit a gun related crime will legally purchase a gun and then commit a crime with it. ...
However, if the question is “What percentage of crimes are committed with legally purchased guns” the answer is about six percent of murders – and very few other crimes. ...
The overwhelming majority of gun related crimes are committed with guns that have been stolen, and traded for drugs. Those guns are passed from criminal to criminal, sold and resold, and may very well be used in hundreds of crimes before they are recovered from someone accused of a crime.
He also discusses why it is impossible to clearly answer the question because of the large number of crimes which are never solved, so be sure to read the whole thing.
The review is over at Spotter Up. The author also discusses why its difficult to design a semi-auto .22 Magnum without having issues with cases bulging or rupturing on extraction, and how S&W dealt with it in this design. He explains:
Smith and Wesson’s answer to delaying unlocking and extraction is a floating barrel “liner” that lets the barrel freely recoil with the slide for about a quarter-inch on firing. That imparts momentum into the slide but keeps the round chambered until the projectile leaves the barrel and the pressure drops. The barrel “liner” stops, but momentum causes the slide to continue rearward, extracting and ejecting the fired case. From there, it’s business as usual feeding the next round from the magazine and locking it in-battery. Simple and elegant.
The downside to this design, the author relates, is that it won't be a good host for a sound suppressor. Short take on the review, though:
I took a liking to this gun right away. As someone who carries an M&P 9mm as my CCW, I liked the ergonomics and familiar feel. Recoil is almost non-existent. The grip is basically as large as my 9mm to accommodate 30-rounds of double-stacked .22 magnum. The slide is milled from the factory for a red-dot. Trigger pull is crisp at a few ounces shy of 5-lbs. There is a Picatinny rail under the front part of the polymer frame for the attachment of lights or lasers. The factory sights include a fiber-optic front and a basic square-notch rear.
The only thing he didn't really like was that it had a manual safety (although there was nothing wrong with the operation of the safety).
The New York Post reports that "Jeffrey Epstein helped JPMorgan land Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his $4B in investments as client: lawsuit." The article begins:
Jeffrey Epstein brought a slew of deep-pocketed clients to JPMorgan Chase — including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who became one of the bank’s biggest clients with investments worth more than $4 billion, according to court papers.
A bombshell legal filing in the US Southern District of New York late Monday revealed that “Brin became a client of JPMorgan’s San Francisco Private Bank in 2004” — one year after Epstein introduced Brin to Jes Staley, a former executive at JPMorgan.
“The overall Brin relationship is one of the largest in the Private Bank, of +$4BN,” wrote banker Robert A. Keller in a memo, who the documents claim was introduced to Epstein by Staley.
Brin, who’s also behind the single-family office Bayshore Global, also met with the CEO of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division, Mary Erdoes, plus other JPMorgan executives and members of Bayshore, the memo filed in court states.
“We work very closely with the Sergey Brin family office … and communicate with them at least 1 x per day,” Keller added on the memo.
At the time, in 2004, Brin was No. 19 on Forbes’ Billionaires list.
The article explains:
The fresh evidence is part of the Virgin Islands’ lawsuit claiming JPMorgan benefitted from Epstein’s infamous sex-trafficking ring while ignoring his sordid misdeeds, where the isle’s government is seeking at least $190 million to settle the suit.
The sum includes $150 million in civil fines and at least $40 million in penalties for maintaining a 15-year relationship with Epstein.
And for those keeping score, Wikipedia mentions that "Brin was born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union, to Russian Jewish parents, Mikhail and Eugenia Brin, both graduates of Moscow State University (MSU). His father is a retired mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother is a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center."
I recently came across this 2022 article from Organic Prepper entitled "How Gangs Operate Post-Collapse" by J.G. Martinez D. As some of you may already know, Martinez, who is a citizen of Venezuela, has contributed a long series of articles about the economic collapse in that country and his experiences and lessons learned.
In this article, he turns his attention to criminal gangs. A few points:
Returning to our carjacking scene, the thugs in the car parked behind will open fire if the owner defends himself. The best chance of getting through this (depending on if your vehicle is beefed up enough with heavy-duty-thick-gage custom bumpers) is to brake hard, destroying the front of the car behind, and floor it to push the front car out of the way. No mercy. Getting down and surrendering is the last option.
A feel good story about a new (but very expensive) treatment to reverse scarring on the cornea caused by a flaw in a gene required to produce collagen. According to the article:
The patient is Antonio Vento Carvajal who was born with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa causing flaws in the gene responsible for producing collagen 7, a protein that holds layers of the skin together. Scarring on his corneas had accumulated over time, causing his vision to deteriorate so much that he did not feel safe walking around.
Mr Carvajal participated in a clinical trial testing the topical gel for EB-related skin lesions with much success. His doctor Alfonso Sabater, encouraged by Antonio’s progress, posited that the gel which used a deactivated herpes virus to deliver working copies of a collagen-producing gene could be reconfigured as eye drops – and he was right.
The patient’s eyes recovered from the latest round of surgery and, with the help of the drops, his vision has been restored to near perfection.
The article explains:
Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) is one of the major forms of epidermolysis bullosa that hampers the production of collagen encoded in the COL7A1 gene. Roughly 3,000 people in the world have it.
Collagen makes up the skin’s anchoring fibrils, or special structures in the skin and other tissues that act like strong glue to hold the outer layer of the skin – the epidermis – together with the layer beneath called the dermis.
Without a fully functioning COL7A1 gene, the connection between both layers of the skin becomes weaker, making them exceedingly fragile to the point where the slightest bit of friction can lead to blisters and open sores vulnerable to infection.
Those same anchoring fibrils in the skin also reside in the cornea, the transparent part of the eyeball. People with DEB who have a faulty collagen-producing gene also lack that crucial connective tissue between layers of the cornea, making painful abrasions and a build-up of scar tissue more likely.
According to the article, a topical gel had been developed to treat skin lesions resulting from DEB, which introduces the correct gene via a virus. The treatment involves using "an inactive herpes-simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) as the viral vector - a genetically modified virus that is used to deliver therapeutic genes to the patient's cells - because it has more space on its genome compared to other vectors to ferry large DNA sequences." Also, "HSV is also highly efficient at entering cells and delivering its genetic material."
The article goes on to relate that the boy's doctor was aware of the therapy's success in treating skin lesions and thought it might also work on eye conditions. He approached the manufacturer, Krystal Biotech, which reconfigured it so it could be safely delivered into a patient's eyes.
And, more to the point, that materials used are abundant and the process to make the material is simple. From The Quantum Insider:
While it has yet to be peer-reviewed and likely faces a great deal of scrutiny, a team of scientists are reporting on the preprint server ArXiv that they have achieved room-temperature superconductor using a modified lead-apatite — LK-99 — structure
According to the paper, operating at ambient pressure, LK-99 exhibits superconductivity with a critical temperature greater than or equal to 400 K, or 127°C.
The researchers demonstrated LK-99’s superconducting properties through various key parameters, including zero-resistivity, critical current (Ic), critical magnetic field (Hc) and the Meissner effect. Unlike previous attempts, the scientists said that LK-99’s superconductivity arises from a minute structural distortion caused by a slight volume shrinkage of 0.48%. This distortion is induced by the substitution of Cu2+ ions for Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate, generating internal stress.
The stress then transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column, resulting in the distortion of the cylindrical column interface. The team said that this unique phenomenon creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) within the interface, contributing to LK-99’s superconducting capabilities.
Heat capacity measurements provided supporting evidence for the proposed model, reinforcing LK-99’s ability to maintain its superconducting state at room temperatures and ambient pressure, the researchers report.
The article outlines a few of the advances and benefits that could come from a room temperature superconductor including "power transmission and distribution systems experience minimal energy losses due to virtually zero electrical resistance", improved energy storage systems, more widely available quantum computers because they wouldn't need elaborate cooling systems. And a lot more.
As this article at The Register points out, however, there are reasons for being skeptical, not the least that there have been other researchers make similar claims but later prove to not work.
Come July 27, the Ontario Knife Company’s factory in Franklinville, NY will be shutting down operations, leaving 56 employees out of work and the OKC legacy in question. The news dropped in the Olean Times Herald, which recounted a county-wide attempt to keep the factory running that ultimately came up short.
OKC’s parent company, Servotronics--a manufacturer of various high-tech equipment--sold OKC's remaining inventory to Blue Ridge Knives for $2.1 million, the article reports, but the sale didn't include plant or equipment.
