News of the World

• This is the way: "Texas shooting over stolen car leaves suspected thief dead, accomplice injured and robbery victim in the hospital"--Daily Mail. As best as I can tell from news reports on this and other stories, Texas law apparently grants greater rights to victims of property crimes if they are in hot pursuit of the criminals. In this case, two miscreants (a man and his girlfriend) stole a truck, but the owner tracked them down to a shopping center and confronted them, holding them at gun point while waiting for police to arrive. The male thief then made the mistake of drawing and firing at the owner. The male thief is dead, and the owner and the female thief were wounded. While I won't recommend chasing down the perpetrator because of the risk of harm, I also appreciate that this will increasingly be the only way people will be able to recover their property: if the police will not prevent crimes or deal with criminals, the public will do so.
• This is also the way: "Two Texas teachers fired after attending drag show"--KSAT.  They were apparently teachers at a Christian church run school, First Baptist Academy. One of the teachers had been then for 19 years, but better late than never. Money quote:

    ... 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. 

• Gun violence in the black community: "Boy, 5, high on COCAINE fatally shoots his 16-month-old brother who was high on marijuana inside Indiana home: Parents are charged with neglect"--Daily Mail. Yes, you read that correctly: The five year old boy was high on cocaine when he shot his 16 month old brother; and the 16 month old tested positive for marijuana in the blood system. The article relates:

    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. 

• Female privilege in action: "Michigan teen, Megan Imirowicz, 19, who killed her dad by dousing him in drain cleaner sobs as she walks free from court after getting one year sentence with credit for time served"--Daily Mail. From the article:

    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. 

• Get the elephant guns: "Burlington store in Sacramento is raided by trio of female shoplifters who make VERY slow getaway pushing shopping carts filled with stolen booty"--Daily Mail. God save the person that they happen to fall upon because no crane on earth will be able. On a more serious note, however, would your ammunition be able to penetrate sufficiently to reach vital organs if you were faced with a violent criminal of a similar size and physique?
• "Nashville Christian school shooter Audrey Hale had mysterious notes on clothing when she started shooting"--Daily Mail. The article reports that "[t]he Nashville Christian school shooter Audrey Hale had mysterious handwritten notes on her clothes, a knife inscribed with her chosen name of Aiden and an anklet with the number 508407 etched on it, an autopsy report revealed." Anonymous Conservative, who had linked to this story, remarked that quite a few of the recent mass shooters had also inscribed things on clothes, firearms, and so on. 
• Sometimes corporate worms can react to pain: "Anheuser-Busch to lay off hundreds of employees after Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney disaster"--Daily Mail. Per the article, "There are around 19,000 people employed by the company in the US, meaning approximately 380 staff are set to lose their jobs." Typically, when something like this "restructuring" occurs, the working stiffs generally get the short end of the stick and the upper management skates free. But in this case, the "restructuring" appears to be aimed at corporate positions, while "the layoffs will not affect frontline workers, such as 'brewery and warehouse staff, drivers, and field sales reps among others.'"
• This time they picked on the wrong guy: "British Bank CEO Fired After Revelations Tied to Canceling Nigel Farage's Bank Accounts"--PJ Media. In an effort to cancel Farage's popularity and influence because it didn't like his opinions, NatWest, one of Britain's largest banks had cancelled Firage's account. But the backlash has resulted in the bank now firing its CEO, Dame Alison Rose (obviously a diversity hire--makes me wonder what she did--or who she did--to be awarded a title by the crown). It came after Farage revealed documents showing that bank officers conspired to cancel him and family members because they viewed him "as xenophobic and racist" and he claiming he was "considered by many to be a disingenuous grifter." It wasn't just NatWest that cancelled accounts with Farage--his accounts with Coutts bank was also cancelled with the bank initially claiming it was because Farage had fallen below a certain wealth threshold. 
• "BBC Apologizes to Nigel Farage on Inaccurate Bank Canceling Story"--Newsbuster. 

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. 

• Now that they have been caught red-handed: "UK Banks Commit to 'the Principle of Non-Discrimination Based on Lawful Freedom of Expression' as to Clients"--Volokh Conspiracy. He cites the Independent which reports that "Economic secretary Andrew Griffith told the bosses of some of the UK's biggest banks on Wednesday that it is important to protect freedom of expression…." The author also notes that banks are free to engage in viewpoint discrimination in the United States, although Florida has passed a law that will impact such practices. It is more widespread than you might think.
• Of course: "Senate Democrats block oversight office to monitor US aid for Ukraine"--New York Post. Its harder to divert that money to the DNC or other NGOs and individuals if they had to fear an audit.
• "Report: China Looks to Flood U.S. Market with Cheap Electric Vehicles"--Breitbart. If you have been following the China Uncensored YouTube channel, you will have seen the videos showing hundreds of acres of fields and lots cram packed with unsold EVs (well, technically sold because the manufacturer "bought" them in order to boost sales figures, but that is another story...). So they have to do something to start bumping sales:

    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. 

• "Study Suggests U.S. Government Lied About Myocarditis Risk From COVID Vax"--PJ Media. Key point:

 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. 

• More: "Swiss study: heart injuries from COVID vaccine 3000x higher than thought"--Hot Air. More information from the study, including that it women were at a higher risk than men of having such complications.
• "KILL SHOT: Recent Peer-Reviewed Report Finds 1 in 35 People Who Took Moderna COVID Shot Had Signs of Heart Damage"--Gateway Pundit. But, remember, the shots have been, are, and always will be "safe and effective." Safe for whom and effective at what is another issue.
• In fact, the shots were so safe and effective that the government had to censor anything that suggested otherwise: ""‘Never-Before-Released’ Facebook Files Show Biden Regime Knowingly Violated Americans’ Rights"--Becker News. One of the memes the feds wanted taken down was one suggesting that in 10 years you will be seeing television commercials for class action lawsuits asking if you have been harmed by the Covid vaccine. 
• But that is not all that must be censored: "Top WEF Official: ‘Dangerous Conspiracy Theorists Must Be Eliminated’"--The People's Voice. Basically, Yuval Noah Harari, an official for the World Economic Forum which sponsors secret yearly meetings among a cabal of elites where they can discuss controlling ("reshaping") the world, "has called for so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ to be banned from accessing the internet due to their ‘dangerous’ belief that a global cabal of elites control the world." Harari, who is Jewish, also complained about theories that Jews controlled the world. A Current Affairs article has this to say about Harari:

    ... 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.

• And, of course, we can't forget the censoring the of Hunter Biden laptop story so that it would not impact the 2020 election: "THIS ELABORATE CENSORSHIP CONSPIRACY"--Powerline.

    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.

• "Joe Biden was 'a lot more involved' in Hunter business dealings than he admitted: James Comer"--Washington Examiner. 
• "The FBI Verified Details About Hunter Biden's Shady Business Deals, but It Didn't Matter to the Prosecutor"--PJ Media. 

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.

• While we were inundated with stories about Joe Biden's bribery scandal and how the FBI and DOJ tried to cover it all up, you might have missed news about the Congressional hearings on UFOs. Here are a few of the headlines:
• "Here are the 5 most memorable moments from Congress’ UFO hearing"--NBC News.
• "Former defense official Christopher Mellon says the US has recovered technology that 'did not originate on this earth'"--Daily Mail.
• "Air Force officer testifies under oath to Congress that U.S. military has recovered "non-human" bodies of alien pilots"--Not the Bee.
• "Commercial pilots were told not speak publicly about UFOs and had their jobs threatened, expert says"--Daily Mail. 

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.

• "10 Media Hack Factories That Pooh-Poohed The Biden-Burisma Scandal As A Conspiracy Theory"--The Federalist. As I've noted before, we live in an unprecedented age where one conspiracy theory after another is being revealed as true.
• "How the U.S. drove Russia to invade Ukraine"--Yahoo. An excerpt:

    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. 

• It's a small club and you aren't in it: "Elite Journalists Love Big Brother: Prominent reporters and powerful officials know each other, share attitudes, and trust each other."--Reason. An excerpt:

    "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.

• Of course: "ABC News Reporter, Who ‘Debunked’ Pizzagate, Pleads Guilty to Child Rape"--The People's Voice. From the article:

    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. 

• Leftists are Evil with a capital "E": "U-Penn women swimmers had to undress next to '6-foot-4 biological male' Lia Thomas '18 times a week' and were told to get 'reeducated' when they complained: Congress hears in bombshell testimony"--Daily Mail. Leftists sure like the term "reeducation". Key part:

    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.

• "Ex-FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried WON'T face federal charges over $90M donations to Dems and woke causes"--Daily Mail. According to the article, the charges were dropped because of complaints from the Bahamas: Bankman-Fried, the Bahamas claimed, was only extradited for defrauding his investors and not the campaign donation charges. In other words, if you steal money from investors in order to give to Democrats and other Leftist causes, its not fraud.
• Whistling past the graveyard: "Aviation industry is short 32,000 pilots, mechanics and air traffic controllers - as Pete Buttigieg says his office is actively investigating airlines for 'unrealistic scheduling'"--Daily Mail. Not a problem. We have millions of low-IQ, unskilled illegal aliens flooding across our southern border. Surely there are trained pilots, aircraft mechanics and air traffic controllers among them.
• "Hidden feature in Brazilian CBDC allows government to freeze funds"--Frontline News. CBDC is an abbreviation for "central bank digital currency" and it is the wave of the future. It is also another method by which someone who does not accept the mark of the Beast could be frozen out of the economy.
• Too little, too late: "Tracking the Population Crisis"--Next Big Future. From the lede:

    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. 

• Wetware: "Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding"--New Atlas. 

    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.

• "Breakthrough rocket engine could accelerate to 99% the speed of light"--Brightside. Per the article, David Burns, a NASA engineer, has been working in his spare time on a solution to the problem of traversing the vast distances of interstellar space. "He has developed a concept for an engine that he claims could reach up to 99 percent of the speed of light without requiring any propellant."

    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.

• "Why Elite-College Admissions Matter" by Isabel Fattal, The Atlantic.

    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.