Month: December 2023

Closing Thought–19Dec23

I love whiners….like Justice Thomas of SCOTUS….it seems he does not think the judges are paid enough….

ProPublica’s deep dive into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial dealings continued on Monday with a new report that describes Thomas as under financial strain in early 2000 “just as he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy benefactors.” It cites interviews and documents in describing the conversation that allegedly took place in January 2000 as Thomas returned home from a high-end Georgia beach resort where he gave the keynote at a conservative conference.

Friends tell the site Thomas had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to purchase an RV the month prior. He sat beside GOP Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns on the flight home and allegedly discussed his frustration with his $173,600 salary—more than $300,000 in today’s dollars—saying Congress should raise the justices’ pay. If they failed to, Thomas predicted one or more justices would leave within a year or so. As ProPublica puts it, “the lawmaker left the conversation worried that Thomas might resign” and subsequently sent Thomas a letter vowing to look into a bill that would raise Supreme Court salaries. ProPublica has a copy of the letter, and reports Stearns did undertake an effort to raise the issue.

ProPublica reports that in other conversations around the time, Thomas discussed killing the ban on justices giving paid speeches. There was no substantial raise or end to the ban, but ProPublica says the conversations give context to what it has previously reported came next: “Thomas accept[ing] a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appears to be unparalleled in the modern history of the Supreme Court,” though it notes there is “no evidence the justice ever raised the specter of resigning with [those] wealthy benefactors.”

What a whiny titty baby!

He has been sucking at the taxpayers teat for 30 years….and in all that time he has been finding his supplemental pay in  plain brown envelopes from his wealthy patrons.

Move on if you are not happy with your pay….we can do better.

He also said a couple others would leave….I say let the corrupt political hack bastards move on.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Just What Makes Trump’s Policies Attractive?

I have asked myself that question many times….I cannot see where a normal rational person could find anything Trump has to offer appealing in the least.

But that is just me…..and I do not fall for fear mongering and race baiting.

Now I read an article that could explain this phenom somewhat…..

Today I want to suggest why so many working-class Americans are attracted to a sociopathic liar who advocates neofascism.

IN 2010, A MAJORITY OF THE SUPREME COURT decided in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission that corporations are people under the First Amendment, entitled to freedom of speech. Therefore, said the court, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (commonly referred to as the McCain-Feingold Act), which had limited spending by corporations on political advertisements, violated the Constitution and was no longer the law of the land.

Yet as a practical matter, freedom of speech is the freedom to be heard, and most citizens’ freedom to be heard has been reduced as big corporations with deep pockets get the loudest political voice.

Nowhere did the five members in the majority acknowledge the imbalance of power between ordinary citizens and big corporations able to bribe politicians with campaign donations. In practice, the “freedom of speech” granted by the Supreme Court to big corporations has drowned out the speech of ordinary people — especially those without college degrees who had been losing economic ground for decades.

Nowhere did the five members in the majority acknowledge the imbalance of power between ordinary citizens and big corporations able to bribe politicians with campaign donations. In practice, the “freedom of speech” granted by the Supreme Court to big corporations has drowned out the speech of ordinary people — especially those without college degrees who had been losing economic ground for decades.

There is no countervailing power. By the 2016 campaign cycle, corporations and Wall Street contributed $34 to political campaigns for every $1 donated by labor unions and all public interest organizations combined. (And the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent of Americans accounted for 40 percent of all personal donations.)

Citizens United opened the floodgates to big money, but big money was already polluting American politics. The flow really began in 1971, when future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell wrote a memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urging corporate America to finance a massive lobbying operation in Washington,

WHAT HAVE BIG CORPORATIONS and the ultra-wealthy received for all their money? Among other things:

https://www.rawstory.com/why-so-many-americans-feel-powerless-and-some-are-turning-to-trump-s-neofascism/

Whatcha think?  Is this characterization accurate?

But before you answer….a little something to think about….read it and be amazed.

Donald Trump believes in eugenics. He really does. Of course, his understanding of it is purely based upon his own belief in his superior genes and good “German blood.” He’s said it many times in public:

…

Trump’s out campaigning in earnest now as the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are just weeks away. And if anyone thought he was going to soft-peddle the “Hitleresque” rhetoric, they were way off base. His basic stump speech is all about banning immigration by those who don’t “share our ideology” (whatever he means by that), and rounding people up here in the U.S. and putting them in camps. He’s not being subtle about who he’s talking about.

…

Trump is always looking for a way to thrill his followers with a new outrage so it’s easy to say he’s just putting on a show. But I think he means it. He’s very bitter and angry at half of America for not loving him unconditionally and his thirst for revenge is overwhelming. It’s not about ideology, it’s personal. But the program that he’s contemplating as his instrument to pay back all those who’ve refused to bow and scrape before him is a full-on fascist agenda. And he knows it (the man watches a lot of TV.) He just believes it will work for him.

https://www.salon.com/2023/12/18/echoes-hitler–and-maga-hears-it-loud-and-clear/

This is a person that has about a 40% approval rating among GOPers.

Are amazed yet?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–18Dec23

WE all have heard or read some of the insane things Donald the Orange would do as president….but one of his aides has mentioned one I had not considered…..the internet.

One of Donald Trump‘s former staffers claims the former president may “turn off the internet” if he is re-elected.

Miles Taylor, Mr Trump’s former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, made the claim during an appearance on MSNBC.

Mr Taylor was asked what kind of damage Mr Trump could potentially do if he were re-elected to the Oval Office in 2024.

“The possibilities are almost limitless,” Mr Taylor said. “The biggest concerns for me are on the national security side. I think Americans still don’t understand the full extent of the president’s powers and things Donald Trump could do, bubble-wrapped in legalese, that would be damaging to the republic.”

He claimed that Mr Trump could “invoke powers we’ve never heard a President of the United States invoke” which include decisions to “potentially shut down companies or turn off the internet, or deploy the US military on US soil”.

“We don’t know because the things that are in there, the emergency powers of the president, aren’t widely known to the American people,” he said.

He said the potential for Mr Trump to use his presidential powers as bludgeons against his political enemies is “a big worry for people like me and others”.

“But that weaponisation of the government could extend across the interagency to places where we haven’t seen it before — the Department of Education, the Department of Veteran Affairs — ways to wield that power and those budgets to help his allies and to hurt his enemies,” Mr Taylor said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-turn-off-internet-aide-b2465020.html

Can he do that?

He may try but keep in mind that he has a uber-conservative Supreme Court that may allow him to do as he desires.

So again…can he do that?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Vermin And Blood

Since the next general election is less than a year away now is a good time to start paying attention to the candidates and their messages.

Some may think that I and others spend too much time on the possibility of a Trump victory in November….but people need to know what they will get with their precious vote.

Donald the Orange seems to be channeling his inner Adolph….I wrote about his Veterans Day speech which was a re-word of a Hitler speech…..but in case you were too damn business to read it…..

Trump’s Veterans Day Speech

For Christ sake READ IT!

But wait there is more…..

In that speech he term ‘vermin’ was thrown about….

The word “vermin” – in German “das Ungeziefer” – was frequently used by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and other Nazis to refer to Jews, Roma, queers, communists, socialists, and others considered undesirable. They picked up the term from, among others, the late 19th C. Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso, and the German/Hungarian physician Max Nordau who used it to describe the scourge of delinquency and the supposed degeneracy of contemporary literature and art. From them, and from the writings of Frederick Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler, the Nazis developed the idea that Jews, socialists and other proscribed persons were parasites, vampires, and vermin. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: “[The Jew] remains the eternal parasite, a sponger who, like a terrible bacillus, spreads out more and more as soon as a favorable medium invites him to do so.”

When questioned about the Nazi resonance of “vermin”, Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung both denied it and doubled down: “[T]hose who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” Realizing that the phrase “entire existence will be crushed” sounded Nazi, Cheung amended his statement. He was only referencing his opponents’ “sad, miserable existence” he said, not their “entire existence.”

Vermin

But wait there is even more….

“Blood traitor” or “blood poisoning”….I have heard these terms used many times here in the South meaning inter-racial marriages and fornication…..and guess who jumped on this fascist bandwagon?

Former President Donald Trump said immigrants coming to the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country,” a remark on Saturday that quickly drew a rebuke from his chief Democratic rival as President Joe Biden’s campaign likened the words to those of Adolf Hitler.

“They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire. “That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

Trump then repeated the use of “poisoning” in a post on his social media website Truth Social, saying overnight in an all-caps post, that “illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions — from all over the world.”

The term “blood poisoning” was used by Hitler in his manifesto “Mein Kampf,” in which he criticized immigration and the mixing of races. “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning,” Hitler wrote.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-immigrants-poisoning-blood-181843345.html

Terms staright out of a fascist playbook.

Anyone using the terms ‘vermin’ or ‘blood poisoning’ is a fascist….they pretend top be something else but their words give them a way.

Please learn everything you can about any candidate before you give them your vote.

Do not sleep through this portion of the campaigns for while you snooze our country is bleeding and to the point that death could be certain.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Alzheimer’s: The Great Thief

It is yet another Sunday and time for one of IST’s famous FYI posts.

I recently wrote a post about dementia and the signs to watch….now I would like to do another one on a disease that seems hell bent on destroying a seniors life…Alzheimer’s

I am always worried about losing my mental capabilities as I grow older so I watch for any signs and will act immediately if I spot any…..

While this article is about the UK the signs are the same and I want to help my readers understand and what to look for in the future.

It’s thought that there are over 900,000 people living with dementia, which is caused by Alzheimer’s disease, in the UK. Women are disproportionately affected, being twice as likely to develop the condition than men. Although research on why this is the case is in progress, some factors like hormonal changes (as estrogen has a protective effect on the brain and encourages healthy brain function), differences in sex chromosomes, brain structure, and life expectancy are thought to play a role why someone might enter the stages of Alzheimer’s, per research published in the journal of Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy. 

Other health conditions can also increase the risk, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression, along with lifestyle factors like smoking and drinking alcohol. 

While some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s may seem obvious, they can also appear as symptoms of other conditions – such as symptoms of menopause – which is why, no matter your age, it’s important to know the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

We’re all prone to repeating ourselves sometimes but if this is happening all the time, it could be one of the early signs of Alzheimer’s. Dr Lucy Andrews, an ageing expert and specialist in dementia services with BrainGuard System International, says this includes not remembering something someone has just said, repeating the same story multiple times, or asking the same question over and over again. 

It’s symptomatic of one of the more common signs of Alzheimer’s in general: issues with short-term memory. Along with these social problems, someone might forget where they’ve left something and put everyday items in the wrong place – such as the hairdryer in the fridge or keys in the washing machine. 

“Simple episodes of forgetfulness and confusion are frequently the first signs of dementia,” says London NHS GP Dr Semiya Aziz. “With Alzheimer’s though, the symptoms may not be severe enough to stop the individual from carrying out their daily activities.” When the symptoms become severe, the condition is then categorised as dementia. 

https://www.womanandhome.com/health-wellbeing/early-signs-of-alzheimers/

Those are the signs to watch for in either yourself or your family members.

If signs are there then please consult a medical professional….do not put it off for it will not get better.

Enjoy your Sunday….and as usual….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–16Dec23

Well the news has been as boring as boring can get…..we have wars raging with NO end in sight, we have celebs wearing their underwear our in public as a fashion statement and attention getter….and most everything after that is mindless dribble as far as the news goes….enter the ‘news dump’….

Locally we had an idiot that stole $3.2 million from a non-profit and deposited it into his personal account….and he got caught (go figure). Just Can’t Fix Stupid.

The big news was the the FDA has okayed a gene therapy for sickle cell….

Two gene therapies for sickle cell disease received government approval on Friday, one of which could represent a major turning point in medical treatments. To combat the blood disorder, the Food and Drug Administration for the first time endorsed gene editing therapy for humans, the New York Times reports. The other sickle cell treatment approved uses conventional gene therapy. The development brings hope to 100,000 American patients, their families, and their doctors. “I’ve been taking care of kids with sickle cell for over 30 years, and I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen for a long, long time,” said Lewis Hsu, chief medical officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, per the Washington Post.

One treatment, called Lyfgenia, uses a harmless virus to place a gene in a patient’s stem cells. It’s approved for patients 12 and older with repeated instances of pain. The risk of cancer means the treatment will come with the FDA’s top-level warning, a black box. The gene-editing treatment, Exa-cel, uses the brand name Casgevy. In that method, the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing tool, CRISPR, is used on bone marrow cells. The patients later receive the edited cells, which produce fetal hemoglobin. There are obstacles to the treatments for the patients, most of whom have African ancestry, dealing with a disease that can cause great pain, strokes, and organ damage.

“It is practically a miracle that this is even possible,” said another expert, adding, “I am very realistic about how hard this is.” The companies that developed the treatments estimated their wholesale prices at $2.2 million and $3.3 million. That’s against the lifetime average of $1.7 million spent on patients with the disease who have commercial insurance, and the $44,000 the patients pay out of pocket. The editing process could be a breakthrough for treating other diseases, as well. “We are very gratified and celebrating,” Hsu said, “but at the same time we have to roll up our sleeves and figure out how to make it happen.”

I think it is great that they have found something to treat sickle cell….but be warned editing genes could lead to something more dangerous….think Khan.

Do you like your corn flakes for breakfast…..they were not originally made for the meal…..read about 15 foods that were not made for what we think….

As soon as a thing is born into the world, it begins to mutate, changing at a sometimes exponential pace, to the point where it might turn into something else entirely. Food, of course, is no exception. From humble beginnings as medicinal aids or as items that were not even destined for human consumption, these foods have undergone a real metamorphosis.

Take the supposedly innocent graham cracker, for instance. You would never know it to look at it, but it was invented to help people become masters of their own domain, if you catch our drift, while today it is primarily used by children, of all people, to hold together their s’mores. Similarly, Worcestershire sauce originally came together as an attempt to mimic an Indian condiment, whose true identity we may never know, but after a happy accidental fermentation, it became the umami goo we know and love today. So let us embark on a culinary journey to unravel the stories of foods (or even non-foods) that have strayed from their original purposes and onto (or in some cases off) our plates.

Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/1455799/foods-we-dont-use-as-intended/

Is the concept of ‘Skynet’ getting closer to reality?

Researchers at Western Sydney University in Australia have teamed up with tech giants Intel and Dell to build a massive supercomputer intended to simulate neural networks at the scale of the human brain.

They say the computer, dubbed DeepSouth, is capable of emulating networks of spiking neurons at a mind-melting 228 trillion synaptic operations per second, putting it on par with the estimated rate at which the human brain completes operations.

The project was announced at this week’s NeuroEng Workshop hosted by Western Sydney’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS), a forum for luminaries in the field of computational neuroscience.

Once operational in April of next year, DeepSouth could provide researchers with an unparalleled look at how the human brain processes information.

“Progress in our understanding of how brains compute using neurons is hampered by our inability to simulate brain like networks at scale,” said ICNS director and Western Sydney professor André van Schaik in a statement.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-computer-neural-human-brain

I am not so sure that this is a good thing…..you?

Researchers are zeroing in on just how much longer we humans have on this planet…..

The Doomsday Argument by Brandon Carter from 1983, which provides such predictions, is based on a fundamental assumption, Focus reports. This assumption is that we humans as observers do not occupy a prominent position, but are here purely by chance. This idea is also known as the ‘Copernican principle’ and is often used in cosmology. It is used to argue that our environment is nothing special and is more common in space.

According to Focus, scientists are now 95 percent certain that we humans will inhabit this planet for another 17,100 years at most before we disappear from its surface.

As we all know, there were far fewer people living on Earth in the past than there are today – currently there are around 8.03 billion. At some point, humanity will perish, that much seems certain. We will either destroy ourselves or die at the hands of the sun, which will have used up its fuel and subsequently swallowed up the earth.

https://www.ohmymag.co.uk/explore/stories/mathematicians-claim-the-end-of-the-world-is-coming-sooner-than-expected_art20460.html

I have my rations stocked up how about you?

The Japanese have a crappy way to launch a rocket into space…..

Japanese engineers have successfully test-fired a space rocket engine, which runs on — not even joking — locally-sourced cow poop.

A Japanese startup called Interstellar Technologies Inc. trumpeted in a statement that the company was able to kickstart ZERO, its space rocket engine, in a 10-second “static fire test” in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island prefecture. And powering up the rocket’s engine is liquid biomethane, derived from cow dung sourced from Hokkaido dairy farms.

Video on the social media platform X shows the engine firing up and shooting a super-hot jet of blue, horizontal flame.

The company, which plans to perform more tests fires into the month of January, is positioning the rocket to be used to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/japan-tests-rocket-engine-cow-dung

I will bet it is cheaper than what Musk is charging the US government for launching stuff into space.

My Saturday is done…..that is the best I could sort out of the news no one can use….I hope everyone has a lovely Weekend and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Climate Summit–2023

As I type this post there is a conference going on and the world is in attendance…..found it interesting that it would be held in a country that sole purpose in existence is to pump oil.

I have been skeptical of these conferences ever since they have been called and that was back in the 1970s (yes I am old I remember them)….and this newest ‘Summit’ is No different….

For the past two weeks, the world’s best and brightest have been meeting in Dubai — under a glittering, color-changing dome built to resemble Islamic geometric art — as the petrostate hosts the United Nations’ latest climate change conference.

And experts are calling bull. In interviews with The Guardian, climate scientists and advocates said the “solutions” offered at the COP28 conference, which include such goofiness as a panel on “responsible yachting,” are “distractions” at best and “frightening” at worst.

Troublingly, the conference is presided over by Dubai’s Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who also runs the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company in what seems very much like a massive conflict of interest.

Al Jaber sparked controversy last week when he publicly expressed pessimism about a gradual fossil fuel phase-out and said there was “no science” behind it, which is categorically false given that the vast majority of scientists — not to mention the UN’s secretary-general — say that eliminating fossil fuel pollution is absolutely the biggest and most important way to turn back the tide on the worst of what climate change has in store.

https://futurism.com/dubai-climate-conference-warning

I expecting nothing better than crap….there is never anything coming out of these waste of time other than false promises and unfilled deadlines.

As long as we are writing about the environment…how about the Green New Deal that has been offered up by Dems?

You would be right if you think that I have had something to say about this ‘Deal’…..most are sitting around either scratching their ass or their head and could possibly do both since both are in the same location.

How About A “Green New Deal”?

Some think that the real ‘opiate of the masses’ is the green new deal….because it let’s too many off the hook for the problem they are feeding…..

What kinds of measures are you taking, personally, to prevent global warming? Have you bought a reusable shopping bag to reduce your reliance on disposable plastic ones? Do you carry a thermos so you don’t end up buying drinks in plastic bottles? Did you buy an electric car?

Let me make one thing clear: These good deeds are meaningless. They can even cause more harm than good.

Simply thinking that such actions are effective countermeasures can prevent us from taking part in the larger actions that are actually necessary to combat climate change. They function like Catholic indulgences, allowing us to escape the pangs of our conscience via consumerism and to look away from the danger around us, allowing the forces of capital to swaddle our concerns in environmental impact statements and tuck them away beneath the form of deception known as greenwashing.

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/degrowth-communism-green-new-deal/

Few people are truly committed to preserving the environment….but it is fun to rattle on at gatherings and parties…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Jack Boots And Brown Shirts

There seems to be a consensus in some circles that Donald the Orange will win the 2024 election. There are many things that that vision conjures up…..authoritarianism, fascism, rule by a steel hand, loss of rights and so on and on…..but the one thing that disturbs me the most is his rhetoric about using the military within out own borders.

I wrote about the possibility after I heard him speak….in case no one was paying attention I give you my thoughts then….

Will ‘Jack Boots’ Come Home To Roost?

How could he get this across where American people would go along?

I read what one person thought of a way he could possibility use the military….

When my colleague Tom Nichols, who taught at the Naval War College for 25 years, warns people that Donald Trump might be a threat to democracy, they often ask him to prove it. Yes, Trump has said dictator-like things, but if he won a second term, aren’t there barriers in place to prevent him from acting on his rhetoric? Would he really be able to persuade senior command in the military to use force against American citizens? Would he be able to get past the Geneva Conventions? Wouldn’t Congress or the courts intervene to stop him from acting on his worst impulses?

Nichols has never served in the military, but he knows its rules and its culture well. And he has watched over the years as some of his students became more openly partisan. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Nichols explains how a reelected President Trump could bend the military to his will and how political schisms in the military could happen. He emphasizes how close Trump came to achieving some of his goals in his last term, how ill prepared we are as a democracy that assumes a “minimum level of decency in the people who are elected to public office.” And he breaks down his personal nightmare scenario.

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2023/12/how-trump-could-manipulate-military/676341/

The podcast is fascinating…..

If you want to be afraid of another Trump presidency then look no further for a reason NOT to vote for this megalomaniac….

How can anyone with half a brain want this person anywhere near the levers of power?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Stop Eating Meat!

For decades we have heard that cow farts(Burps) is the culprit that is putting dangerous amounts of gases into our atmosphere….and recently the rash of ‘plant based’ food is becoming a fad that makes some happy and others it is a waste of time.

Ask yourself what would actually happen if we all stopped eating meat?

Humans eat a stunning amount of meat every year — some 800 billion pounds of it, enough flesh to fill roughly 28 million dump trucks. Our carnivorous cravings, particularly in industrialized, beef-guzzling countries like the United States, are one reason the planet is warming as fast as it is. Raising animals consumes a lot of land that could otherwise soak up carbon. Cows, sheep, and goats spew heat-trapping methane. And to grow the corn, soy, and other plants that those animals eat, farmers spray fertilizer that emits nitrous oxide, another potent planet-warming gas.

For all those reasons, and many more, activists and scientists have called for people to eat less meat or abstain altogether. At last year’s United Nations climate conference in Egypt, activists chanted slogans like “Let’s be vegan, let’s be free.” At this year’s conference, which starts November 30, world leaders are expected to talk about ways to shift diets toward plant-based foods as a way to lower animal agriculture’s climate pollution, the source of 15 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Cutting out meat can be an effective tool: The average vegan diet is linked to about one-quarter the greenhouse gas emissions of a meat-intensive one, according to a paper published in Nature in July.

But what would happen if everyone actually stopped eating meat tomorrow?

“It would have huge consequences — a lot of them probably not anticipated,” said Keith Wiebe, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Such a quick shift probably wouldn’t cause the sort of turmoil that would come if the planet immediately ditched fossil fuels. But still, the upshot could be tumultuous, upending economies, leaving people jobless, and threatening food security in places that don’t have many nutritious alternatives.

Livestock accounts for about 40 percent of agricultural production in rich countries and 20 percent in low-income countries, and it’s vital — economically and nutritionally — to the lives of 1.3 billion people across the world, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. One-third of the protein and nearly one-fifth of the calories that people eat around the world come from animals.

What Would Happen if Everyone Stopped Eating Meat Tomorrow?

These people state that 15% of greenhouse gases comes from the cow and such farting….what the neglected to tell you is the we humans throw away too much food whether meat or pant based and 30% of greenhouse gases comes from landfills that we load up with the scraps.

I was born a predatory and I shall die a predatory….is that simple enough?

If plant based stuff is so good then why does it taste like meat?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Is Africa A Failure?

In this case I am talking about US operations against terrorism in Africa.

The US has asked for $500 million to fund our ops in Africa for the next year…..would that be money well spent?

Probably not.

America’s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its “Forever Wars,” however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa.

“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,” President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on “vast regions” of Africa.

To shore up that front, the U.S. began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on all manner of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in direct ground combat with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realize how dramatically America’s shadow war there has failed.

The raw numbers alone speak to the depths of the disaster. As the United States was beginning its Forever Wars in 2002 and 2003, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in Africa. This year, militant Islamist groups on that continent have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6,756 attacks. In other words, since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.

Let that sink in for a moment.

75,000%.

The Pentagon Proclaims Failure in its War on Terror in Africa

But that matters not…..it is money that must be spent….even if it is ill-advised.

More waste money and time…..it is what we do best.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”