Author: admin

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

UPDATE: It looks like the suspension was lifted just after I hit publish on this. A lot of my fans and even a few haters made a big noise in objection to Twitter’s actions, and it worked! As we discussed recently, the plutocratic manipulators work so hard to manufacture our consent because they need that consent, and they can’t act if we don’t give it to them. I’ve left the article as-is below for posterity, and so people can see my experience with #Resistance Twitter’s attempt to silence dissident speech. Never stop fighting.

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I’ve received an email from Twitter which reads as follows:

Hello Caitlin Johnstone,

Your account, caitoz has been suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.

Specifically, for:

Violating our rules against abusive behavior.

You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

They’re calling it a “suspension”, but nobody can view my page and I can’t perform any activities on it, and it appears to be permanent unless I succeed in going through the anonymous and unaccountable appeals process. Now when people try to access my account, they get a screen that looks something like this depending on what device they’re using:

I haven’t abused anybody, and I’ve been observing extreme caution with my language for the last few days ever since I made a political tweet about John McCain which drew the wrath of #Resistance Twitter. The offending tweet reads as follows:

“Friendly public service reminder that John McCain has devoted his entire political career to slaughtering as many human beings as possible at every opportunity, and the world will be improved when he finally dies.”

I posted this four days ago when John McCain was trending because Donald Trump didn’t pay him any respect when signing the bloated NDAA military spending bill that was (appropriately) named after him. My reason for doing so was simple: the establishment pundits responsible for manipulating the way Americans think and vote have been aggressively promulgating the narrative that McCain is a hero and a saint, and I think it’s very important to disrupt that narrative. If we allow them to canonize this warmongering psychopath, then they’ll have normalized and sanctified his extensive record of pushing for psychopathic acts of military violence throughout his entire political career. They’ll have helped manufacture support for war and the military-industrial complex war whores who facilitate it. Saying we’ll be glad when he’s gone is a loud and unequivocal way of rejecting that establishment-imposed narrative.

Interestingly, I’ve been saying this exact same thing repeatedly for over a year. An article I wrote about McCain in July of last year titled “Please Just Fucking Die Already” received a far more widespread backlash than this one, with articles published about it by outlets like CNN, USA Today and the Washington Post. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar talked about me on The View. I was never once suspended or warned by any social media outlet or blogging platform at that time; it was treated as the political speech about a public figure that it clearly and undeniably is. The only thing that has changed since that time is the climate of internet censorship.

What does an Assad apologist look like?

It looks like someone who would say John McCain deserves to die for his role in promoting US wars… but that Assad is just a family man who definitely hasn’t slaughtered civilians. pic.twitter.com/ZuNq90nve0

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) August 17, 2018

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/4iIy0NUNbX

— Patrick (@TrickFreee) August 17, 2018

So anyway, I tweeted the thing about McCain, it was getting some angry backlash, and I received an email that a different tweet I’d made about McCain had been reported, reviewed and found not to be in violation.

Then a popular #Resist account condemned my post and was retweeted by Caroline Orr, a pundit with hundreds of thousands of followers who works with the David Brock propaganda firm Shareblue. Instantly, my Twitter notifications began filling up with comments like these:

To all the people who are reporting @caitoz to the Twitter police, what exactly are you reporting her for? She is not advocating anyone harming #JohnMcCain. She just thinks the world will be better off when he is dead.

If you think her opinions are tasteless, you can block her. https://t.co/1yFgZXNMbL

— Luca Clemente (@LucaClemente) August 16, 2018

I also got a bunch of notifications like these from bot accounts as soon as Orr shared the response to my tweet:

And I’ve received furious, vitriolic notifications from Clintonite Twitter accounts ever since, up until my account was shut down.

So it looks like anyone who voices a political opinion that is deemed sufficiently offensive to Centrist Twitter can be purged in this way now. If you can get enough people reporting the same thing over and over again for a few days, one of those reports will eventually land in the lap of an admin whose personal bias allows them to squint just right at political speech about a public figure and see a violation of Twitter policy.

I’ve been writing about the dangers of internet censorship so much lately because this is becoming a major problem. In a corporatist system of government, wherein government power and corporate power are not separated in any meaningful way, corporate censorship is state censorship.

The plutocratic class which effectively owns the US government also owns all the mass media, allowing that plutocratic class to efficiently manipulate the way Americans think and vote so as to manufacture public consent for the establishment status quo upon which those plutocratic empires are built.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. The only cracks in plutocratic narrative control have come in the form of alternative media outlets and social media, the access to which is unfortunately guarded by plutocrats with well-documented ties to secretive and unaccountable government agencies. The plutocratic alliance has successfully funneled online audiences into platforms that can be easily regulated, and now they are censoring those platforms.

An ungoverned media landscape would cripple the consent-manufacturing propaganda machine of the ruling oligarchs, making us impossible to manipulate and control. This would give us our only real shot at ending the wars that the John McCains of the world have devoted their lives to facilitating, our only shot at creating true and authentic democracy, and our only shot at turning the world around from the omnicidal, ecocidal trajectory that these sociopathic oligarchs have us on.

They can’t allow that. Their rule depends upon it, and, historically, rulers do not give up power willingly.

The longer we wait to fight this, the more marginalized our voices become, and the smaller our window to escape the cage they are building around us shrinks. Make your voices heard and refuse to consent to allowing a few Silicon Valley plutocrats to manipulate public discourse in their own interest. The time to act is now.

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Internet censorship is closing in, so the best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to get on the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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Hedge fund manager and noted Tesla bear Crispin Odey, in the wake of Tesla’s nearly 10% crash on Friday, talked in his most recent investor letter about how difficult it was to be short the name. He also made the revelation that he believes that the company is “entering the final stages of its life”.

Odey, like many shorts, has ridden out the seemingly never-ending bullishness in Tesla stock as, despite failed promises and erratic behavior from CEO Elon Musk over the last couple of years, the equity has done very little but move higher since it has been a public company.

Odey also compared Musk’s behavior to Donald Crowhurst, “the amateur sailor who set off in the 1960s on a solo voyage around the world and never came back,” according to a Bloomberg article. 

Tesla shares were pummeled on Friday, dropping almost 10% after Thursday night’s New York Times piece, in which Musk tearfully broke down and admitted not only that no one had reviewed his going private Tweet before he put it out whilst driving, but also that he would voluntarily resign the position of CEO to somebody who could do it better.

“…if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know,” he told the New York Times. “They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.”

Also in Musk’s interview with the New York Times, published Thursday evening, he again couldn’t help himself and had to take a shot at short-sellers like Odey.

Musk said he was bracing for “at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla’s destruction.”

Referring to  short-sellers, he added: 

“They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”

It’s not just short sellers that Musk thinks are “not supersmart” – he reserves that designation for virtually anyone, especially if they happen to disagree with him: in recent months, in addition to wrangling with short-sellers and sending David Einhorn “short shorts”, Musk has belittled analysts for asking “boring, bonehead” questions.

The Bloomberg article noted that Tesla is Odey European Inc’s second biggest equity short position.

“The path this fund has taken to reach this place was so painful, but now I would not swap this portfolio for anyone else’s,” Odey wrote in the letter. “It is a pity you daren’t give it a try.”

Perhaps over the coming weeks, we will truly see who is smart and who is “smartish”.

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Authored by Brian Quinlivan via Hackernoon.com,

Let’s Face It

The crypto markets are currently f*cked. Between the consistent manipulation they face, as well as specific issues per individual major exchanges like Coinbase Pro, Binance, and Bittrex, there is a lot to be concerned about when making even the simplest of token swaps and transfers. There are bots to beat, whales to wade through, advisors to avoid, and ICO’s to ignore. But adorable wordplay aside, the numerous obstacles in crypto markets today have jaded many investors and traders, and the hinderances have cost both annoyingly small to devastatingly large fortunes to many.

Regulating cryptocurrency would not necessarily unf*ck the markets by any means. In fact, it may just end up f*cking it even more. Here is a short list of cons associated with making crypto more regulated:

• People have invested their money into crypto as a way to break free from centralized governments. If the biggest advantage to cryptocurrency (decentralization) was taken away, it would defeat the purpose of using it as an investment vehicle, and values would plummet as more and more limitations are imposed on what investors and exchanges can and can’t do. The ideological objective of cryptocurrency would ultimately be lost.

• Regulatory practices can lead to abuse of power, and with decentralized assets in the hands of a centralized power, there would be major concern over how those in power are using cryptocurrency for their own agenda.

• Unless regulations are entirely unflawed and seamless, those savvy enough to find loopholes in them would greatly be able to manipulate the new system in place.

As for the pros of centralization and regulation of cryptocurrency:

• Regulation would strongly encourage the reduction of ICO scams, manipulative tactics, and complete exchange implosions. There would also be more price stability due to the strong decrease in pump and dump groups and manipulative tactics like wash trading.

• Intentions of regulatory practices would be to build a safer space to invest in cryptocurrency. Ensuring the safety of exchanges would not necessarily end the deregulatory nature of cryptoassets themselves.

• There would be an increase in awareness, and central authorities would be able to inform the masses of what crypto is and how to invest in it.

The irony of it all is that the unregulated nature of crypto brokers and exchanges is something cryptocurrency and its traders would like to maintain at all costs (even if many don’t realize it) in order to break away from the lack of freedom and flexibility typically synonymous with traditional brokerages. Michael Maisch from Handelsblatt Global explains,

“Regulators and policymakers should, of course, ensure that trading takes place in a regulated manner, and they should try to immunize the market as much as possible against attempts at manipulation. But beyond that, there is currently no reason to regulate the cryptocurrency just because overzealous politicians believe that cybercoins are as harmful to uninhibited investors as smoking or hard drugs.”

The pain, manipulation, and corruption involved in the markets can incur steep side effects. Staying unregulated is a double edged sword in the sense that there are so many obstacles intended to take your money, yet you have the power to be the shark of these markets yourself and use the lack of established rules to your advantage. Manipulation, the disadvantages that low-capital traders face, the amount of shoddy advice that pose as professional knowledge, and the minefield that are ICO’s are all legitimate concerns that we all keep our heads on a swivel for. Even the most experienced traders can fall prey to these, and the successful ones have simply found a fortunate way to work around them.

The foregone conclusion revolving around crypto is that the markets are not going to be unf*cked any time soon, and the best way to survive trading in them is to simply be knowledgeable of the problems they face. That is not to say there aren’t bright spots on the horizon — the new algorithmic trading platform, Samsa.ai, is looking at ways to help traders move away from all of the landmines they face in these highly volatile markets. But, until the following market environment conditions outlined below are improved, crypto traders currently are, to be blunt, f*cked.

Disadvantaged Trading

When it comes to trading cryptocurrency, there is a pretty pronounced and glaring disadvantage to being a small fish in a big pond full of whales. And yes, it’s a lot more glaring than the discrepancy in traditional markets. Making good decisions based on market news and research to accurately assess coin values can be very helpful in being a profitable trader. But what if you’re one of the fortunate ones to have the capital to at least temporarily sway the market in the direction you’d like it to go whenever you please? Do rational, research-based decisions even matter?

“We’re going lower, folks!” warned nobody who actually had control over the price of Bitcoin, ever.

According to a fascinating article by Hackernoon author Bitfinex’ed, there is a bot he has discovered, which he dubs “Spoofy”, that is able to pull and manipulate the price of Bitcoin on the Bitfinex exchange just as he pleases. He states,

“Spoofy makes the price go up when he wants it to go up, and Spoofy makes the price go down when he wants it to go down, and he’s got the coin… both USD, and Bitcoin of course to pull it off, and with impunity on Bitfinex.”

To assume Spoofy is an isolated instance of this kind of trader, one that manipulates the market as it pleases using its overwhelmingly large capital (from God knows what source), would be incredibly optimistic. The reality is that there are numerous Bitcoin and other altcoin whales that skew the markets in their favor on a daily basis. If you are not someone who can singlehandedly push prices up and down as you please, then you are effectively at a disadvantage and at the mercy of accounts like Spoofy, who can essentially dictate the direction markets go.

The fact of the matter is that most of us are not Spoofy, nor do most of us own millions in cryptoassets that can effectively sway the markets in our favor just from using sheer capital. We are small players in a giant room full of millions of other small players and a handful of big players, who more or less tell us when it’s time for us to enjoy crypto growth or alternatively bury our heads and panic.

Bad Advising Sources

As much as we like to joke about fake news in politics and various topics that pour all over our Facebook feeds, these bogus sources are a legitimate problem for crypto traders. It is disheartening that we have the sheer number of contradictory, biased, and ulterior motive-laced stories telling traders exactly what they should do next, but it should be expected in such a young and booming asset class. Unless you really know what news stories are significant, let alone real, it can be easy to get caught up in following the market’s lead in the wrong direction.

Sources may tell you a certain coin is going to change the world, only to pull the rug out from underneath you as soon as they’ve completed their agendas.

Take the news in late 2017 about IOTA partnering with Microsoft and Cisco, for example. Initially announced in late November 2017, IOTA’s market cap quickly soared from $3 billion to $17 billion. The excitement of a coin adopting real world use in tandem with two technological leaders was enough to cause mass hysteria across the crypto community. However, just two weeks later IOTA cooled off the rumor by claiming that they had no formal partnership, and they were simply “…working together with more than 30 of the largest companies in the world on the marketplace as a co-innovation exercise.” As you may guess, the value of IOTA plummeted right back to where it began, and many traders who had jumped on board the bullish news ended up becoming very light bag-holders.

Here are a few tips for avoiding fake news and incorrectly reacting to news and falsified/exaggerated stories:

• Take social media crypto news with a grain of salt — There are plenty of reliable Facebook and Twitter posters out there who provide great source-based content with cited and fact-based information. They usually have a high number of followers and active, insightful comment sections. However, literally anyone can post on social networks about Bitcoin’s impending demise or a new sh*tcoin’s path to reaching the top 5 on Coinmarketcap by next week (despite it currently being ranked 1,064th). Don’t assume they know what they’re talking about. For all you know, they are making their predictions as a tongue in cheek comment to get laughs, or to follow through on a cruel social experiment to see how many sheep they can convince of nonsense. If half of their posts are rehashed memes from a year ago and their comment sections are full of people putting each other down and inciting internet fights, it may be an indicator that you’re paying attention to the wrong people.

• Follow experts who have been through the ups and downs — Long-time crypto traders who have been through the Mt. Gox debacle, numerous country bans and unbans, and ridiculous hoaxes such as the fake death of the founder of Ethereum tend to press the panic button only when needed. Having people in your newsfeed that are reliable voices of reason is a great way to avoid overreacting yourself.

• Look for sources within your sources — If a major news story is being reported on a non-credible site or one you’re unfamiliar with, see what types of citations/links they have for their story. Are there similar reports of this story literally anywhere else on the web besides this Reddit post you’re viewing with 6 upvotes? Maybe wait for it to show up elsewhere before assuming it as truth.

Initial Offering Hype — The Real Bubble Indicator

For starters, one thing notable during the peak of the dot-com bubble was how companies raised funding simply through the notion that it had potential to grow into something big. Initial public offerings, better known as IPO’s, were commonly used as vehicles for these companies to gain traction and go public despite many of them having no history of public use or generation of any profit or revenue. Does this sound familiar? Well cryptocurrencies use similar methods for new crypto tokens looking to fundraise, known as initial coin offerings (ICO’s).

“Yes, peasants. My ICO will indeed cure cancer, fly us to Neptune, and provide the ability to time travel to meet Marty and Doc in their DeLorean. It’s the latest new Bitcoin of Bitcoins! Just trust me on this one.”

These ICO’s are based on attracting investors to buy into coins with potential use cases and they essentially function as a “crowdfund” in the cryptocurrency world. They are opportunities for individuals with interest in a coin to “get in on the ground floor” in hopes that the coin and team running the respective coin will turn it into something successful, thus generating significant profitfor investors. ICO’s are certainly helpful for getting deserving coins to emerge, and there are several success stories, such as Ethereum’s 2014 ICO, which raised over $18 million for $0.40 per coin (now currently sitting at $281 as of August 15, 2018). However, there are more than a handful of unsuccessful ICO’s as well. According to the article from Kai Sedgwick, a crypto analyst at news.bitcoin.com,

“Many of the 531 ICOs that have failed or are failing from last year looked sketchy from the very start. In most cases, investors were able to spot the signs and steer clear. Not everyone escaped unscathed though: these projects still raised $233 million between them… Thanks to diminished returns, increased competition, and a never-ending stream of opportunistic ICOs, crypto investing in 2018 is riskier than ever.”

Just as we saw during the internet bubble, ICO’s with very little promise received tremendous backing, particularly during the latter part of 2017 when cryptocurrency went on its massive historic bull run. Investors enjoy making gambles on small projects in sectors that are thriving. But their own choices can often lead them astray.

ICO and S-Token Scams

Initial coin offerings (ICO’s) can often be very appealing to investors for the massive return potential of a coin and huge risk/reward payoff if it breaks through to market. But the success rate of ICO’s have historically been dreadfully low, hence the risk. In fact, the list of coins that funded through ICO’s and made it to market is alarmingly small compared to the massive list of total ICO’s that have historically been offered to investors. However, the tokens that have succeeded have rewarded their investors beyond handsomely, with lists revealing that ICO’s like NEO have returned a 294,000% ROI since becoming publicly traded.

Investing in an initial coin offering can be a major risk, and it’s really the ultimate gamble in investing. Nearly every ICO token these days claims to be world changing, yet very few live up to their promises. Many don’t even have any intention of ever going public. Raw data suggests that the majority of the time, investors simply shouldn’t believe the hype of even the most well put together white papers. Keep in mind that looking at a coin’s initial plans on these feature documents can vary drastically from what their actual publicly listed product will end up being. Many modifications, tweaks, additions, and subtractions can be made to their initial plans before things are actually made official. This is why white papers are best used as a guide for investors to understand what big points a particular coin’s ICO is addressing on the blockchain. Not as the end all be all basis for deciding whether they are worth your time to invest in.

Rob May, the CEO of Talla.com, voices his opinion, stating:

“I think it is much better to evaluate a blockchain the way you evaluate a startup — you assume the starting point is a starting point, not an end point. Crypto buyers, it seems to me, evaluate a white paper like a final product, and that is where they go wrong.”

In 2016, $95 million was raised by 43 different initial coin offerings. In 2017, the number ballooned roughly 39 times that value to $3.7 billion, spread across 209 separate ICO’s. As of the first half of this year, 2018 ICO’s raised $12 billion, and there is no sign of a slow down with the price and volume of Bitcoin picking up significantly in recent weeks (mid-July). If the year continues at this overall rate, $30 billion in ICO funds raised is certainly within reach.

Beating the Markets — David vs Goliath Mentality

Beating the cryptocurrency markets can seem daunting and impossible at times, but the best thing to do is focus on long-term goals and investments. Spend the time to really do research on some of the coins out there with recent attention, particularly the ones that currently have top rankings on CoinMarketCap. These popular coins may not necessarily be the ones you want to invest in, but it will generally be significantly easier to do solid research on those with already established followings. Understand the use cases that so many of these coins are aiming to have. Some projects, such as Bitcoin, are much further along than others and are already being used for transactions in the real world. But there are a handful of others that have either already been publicly listed or are still in the ICO phase that have potentially groundbreaking ideas and impressive white papers.

With large price swings happening in cryptocurrency on a literal hourly basis, it can be easy to get caught up in trading fluctuations that would normally be massive in the crypto market. But don’t get caught up in this. Focus on rebalancing your portfolio when the opportunity strikes. Sell the profits of your winning coins to add on to the losing positions you may have. Sites out there, such as Samsa.ai, will even automate this process for you so you can minimize your attention to charts and go enjoy your day while making profitable trades. Dollar cost averaging your buys and sells is another way to ensure you are removing emotions such as greed and fear from the equation of your deals.

Knowing your role as a trader in a deregulated market full of predators may seem absolutely terrifying, and to an extent, it is. But being self aware of your position and knowledgeable of the fact that others likely can’t be trusted should only incentivize you to do your own research about tokens you are considering. Those who make rational and emotionless decisions are the ones who find ways to maximize their returns while minimizing their risk in spite of how f*cked things currently are in the good ol’ land of crypto.

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I write in depth cryptocurrency analysis at Samsa, the passive investing tool for crypto. See what we’re doing at Samsa.ai and see our other analysis at our magazine.

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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani has for two years maintained an Instagram account, and despite the well-known elite Iranian force commander being formally designated a terrorist by the U.S. Department of the Treasury since 2011, the account hasn’t been suspended. 

Among a number of prior threatening images, Gen. Soleimani recently posted an artistic rendering of himself standing in front the White House, which is depicted as on fire after an explosion. 

Soleimani’s account has been authenticated as his own by the Middle East Media Research Institute’s (MEMRI) Cyber and Jihad Lab in a new report.

The above image post appeared on the following account authenticated as Gen. Soleimani’s by MEMRI: His Instagram handle is @sardar_haj_ghasemsoleimani; he first posted on July 28, 2016. At the time of this writing, he had 710 posts and 69,100 followers, and is following 30 accounts. His account bio reads “Major General in Iranian Army, IRGC and commander of Qods Force since 1998,” and links to his Telegram account, T.me/sardar_haj_ghasem.

Since MEMRI’s analysis was published Thursday, Soleimani’s account has grown to over 70,000 followers and continues to be very active with a dozen more updates since the report was issued. 

Notably the post, which includes both English and Farsi words that read, “Ready for Jihad – We will crush the USA under our feet,” was published on July 28 — at the end of the same week that included threats and counter threats exchanged between President Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rohani.

Trump had started that week responding to Rouhani’s warnings for the US not to provoke Iran or halt Iranian oil exports.

In a tweet addressed to Rouhani, Trump said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

And days that followed, Gen. Soleimani weighed in during a provocative July 26th speech wherein he likened the US president to a “gambler” in a casino or a bar while declaring according to MEMRI’s translation:

Know that we are near you, in places that don’t come to your mind. We are near you in places that you can’t even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom… You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end.

Other recent posts include images with “Death to America” written on them…

And further some feature Iranian leaders greeting Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, such as the below photo which shows Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Nasrallah in an official visit. 

As MEMRI notes, some of the content on Gen. Soleimani’s page appears to violate Instagram’s Terms and Conditions, which state: “Instagram is not a place to support or praise terrorism, organized crime, or hate groups… We can remove any content or information you share on the Service if we believe that it violates these Terms of Use, our policies (including our Instagram Community Guidelines), or we are permitted or required to do so by law.”

This begs the obvious question: does posting an image of the White House being blown up not constitute a clear violation of Instagram’s conditions? 

If it doesn’t, then we don’t know what does. Others recognizable political figures have been kicked off for much less. 

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Via Political Calculations blog,

There are certain things that are understood without having to be said, because they’re very obvious. Things like “never get involved in a land war in Asia” or “never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line” are examples of these kinds of things. Other examples can be found in the kinds of things that Captain Obvious might say, such as “the sky is blue” or “Philadelphians sure drink a lot of alcohol”.

But what drives Philadelphians to drink so much alcohol?

The short answer is that outside of prohibition, Philadelphians have always consumed large quantities of alcohol. And as many Philadelphians might point out, prohibition wasn’t much of an obstacle for the city’s dedicated alcohol consumers.

When it comes to alcohol consumption then, the city of Philadelphia is starting out with a strong base. So what might prompt already heavy-drinking Philadelphians to boost their alcohol consumption to even higher levels?

Believe it or not, the city’s controversial tax on soft drinks would appear to be behind the city’s recent surge in alcohol sales. Last August, Scott Drenkard and Courtney Shupert of the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that Philadelphia’s “high tax rate on nonalcoholic beverages makes them more expensive than beer in some cases”, which they believed was “likely to drive consumers to more alcoholic beverage consumption”.

Philadelphia’s monthly liquor tax collections confirm that this outcome has come to pass, where the revenues from the city’s 10% tax on alcoholic beverage sales is documented within its tax reports for School District revenue collections. The following chart, which covers the City of Philadelphia’s last five fiscal years, reveals that in the 18 months since the implementation of the city’s controversial tax on all naturally and artificially-sweetened beverages distributed for retail sale within the city went into effect, the city’s is collecting an average of $6.5 million more per month from its alcohol taxes, up from the average of $5.5 million per month it collected in the 18 months preceding the soda tax implementation, an increase of $1 million per month on average.

The same phenomenon is not evident on the opposite side of Pennsylvania, where Allegheny County’s revenues from its 7% tax on alcoholic beverage sales indicate no meaningful difference in the level of alcohol sales in that region of the same state over the same period of time (the data for June 2018 is preliminary).

The two observations together are important because Allegheny County, being in the same state as Philadelphia and thereby subject to all of the same state laws and regulations on the sale of alcohol, represents the control in what amounts to a natural experiment for measuring the effect of Philadelphia’s soda tax upon liquor sales.

And what a difference it appears to be. Doing the math to work out the corresponding level of liquor sales, Philadelphia’s residents would appear to have increased their average monthly consumption of alcoholic beverages from an average of $55 million to $65 million, an increase of $10 million in the sales of taxed alcoholic beverages per month.

Let’s put that figure into a more fun context! In January 2017, just after Philadelphia’s soda tax went into effect, the Tax Foundation documented that the sale price of a 12-pack of Icehouse beer, which had just become cheaper than a 12-pack of non-alcoholic Propel sports drinks, was $7.99 in Philadelphia. For the sake of argument, let’s say that after Philadelphia’s soda tax went into effect, Philadelphia’s residents began exclusively consumed $10 million worth of Icehouse beer per month at this price. How many extra bottles of beer per month is that?

Dividing the average increase of $10 million per month by $7.99 for the 12-pack of Icehouse beer, we find that corresponds to the equivalent of roughly 1.25 million 12-packs per month, which works out to be about 15 million extra 12-oz bottles of beer consumed in the city. Per month.

Philadelphia’s total population in July 2017 was estimated to be 1.581 million people. So, after the City of Philadelphia imposed its sweetened beverage tax in January 2017, every man, woman and child living in the city responded by increasing their consumption of Icehouse beer by 9.5 bottles per month. Multiplied by 12 months, that’s an increase of 114 bottles per year.

Of course, that’s a ridiculous number, because Pennsylvania prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages to individuals under the age of 21. That prohibition blocks some 26% of the city’s population from even being able to buy Icehouse beer, assuming that the law is actively enforced against Philadelphia residents under that age. If we do the back-of-the-envelope math to estimate how many extra equivalent 12-fluid-ounce bottles of Icehouse beer that Philadelphia’s adult population is consuming, we come up with a monthly increase of 12.9 bottles per legal drinking-age Philadelphian, or over 154 bottles of Icehouse beer per adult in the city per year.

If we convert 12-fluid-ounce bottles of Icehouse beer into the equivalent number of calories, we find that at 149 calories per 12-fluid ounce container, Philadelphia’s adults are drinking in an additional 1,916 calories per month, or just over 22,989 calories per year.

Since a 12-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola has 140 calories, that’s a nearly one-for-one swap where calories are concerned, so there’s no realized health benefit from calorie reduction for the portion of Philadelphia’s adult population who have changed out sugary soft drinks for beer. For consumers who switched from low-to-no calorie soft drinks to beer, their calorie consumption would have substantially increased.

That of course doesn’t consider the impact of other potential health and safety issues that city health officials believe would go along with the increased alcohol consumption in Philadelphia that have come about as a direct consequence of the city’s controversial soda tax.

No matter what, one solid fact holds true. Philadelphians sure drink a lot of alcohol, and since the city’s soda tax went into effect, they are sure drinking a lot more!

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China has lodged a diplomatic protest in response to the latest Pentagon annual assessment on “China’s Military Threat” delivered to Congress and made public late Thursday evening, saying it “firmly opposes” the report as a gross misinterpretation of its true military aims and intent, and is indicative of a false “Cold War mentality” on the part of US leadership. 

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense posted a statement to its website on Friday rebutting the idea that its strategic interpretations are expansionist or that China constitutes a threat to the United States.

The statement noted that the Pentagon assessment harms the “mutual trust” and shared interests between the two countries.

The statement said further:

We call on the US to abandon its Cold War mentality, regard China’s defense and military construction in an objective and rational way. We also request that the US stops releasing the related reports and safeguards the stable development of the two countries’ military with real actions. 

The Pentagon report, released under the full title of  Military and Security Developments Involving The People’s Republic of China 2018, hyped the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) expansionist intent and trajectory as it is “undergoing the most comprehensive restructure in its history”.

A key line in the report that received a lot of attention in international press throughout Friday is as follows: “Over the last three years, the PLA has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against U.S. and allied targets.” 

In the Defense Ministry statement which quickly followed, Beijing charged that the U.S. is the real threat to regional stability.

The Pentagon report also mentioned that the PLA has the “capability to strike US and allied forces and military bases in the western Pacific Ocean, including Guam.”

Responding to sections of the report that note China is investing in building up its cyberspace defense capability, China’s Defense Ministry said “it is proper and reasonable” that it would develop such defensive weapons, according to a Bloomberg report on the statement. 

The US report had highlighted China’s growing space program “despite its public stance against the militarization of space” — something which likely factored into President Trump’s mid-June announcement that he would “immediately” establish a “space force” as an independent service branch of the Department of Defense. 

The report also addressed the contentious Taiwan issue, saying that China “is likely preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with China by force”.

And the Pentagon assessment further spelled out that China is ready to go to war to protect its claim over the island: “Should the United States intervene, China would try to delay effective intervention and seek victory in a high-intensity, limited war of short duration.” 

The report was issued amidst heightened trade tensions and concerns that China is attempting to gobble up territory in international waters through its militarizing artificial islands in the South China Sea.

China’s defense ministry statement also responded to this latter issue specifically, saying it has rights to “peaceful construction activities” on islands and reefs in South China Sea.

Meanwhile, the Chinese daily Global Times quoted a military analyst for the PLA’s Naval Military Studies Research Institute: “It aims to treat China as an imaginary enemy and creates a confrontation between China and the US. Actually, China’s defense policies are defensive in nature,” Zhang Junshe, a senior military research fellow said. 

And another Chinese state-associated researcher further noted the report’s “anti-China sentiment” and said it dangerously “adds fuel to the fire,” according to the Global Times. 

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Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

Ocean temperatures continue to rise, and scientists are extremely alarmed as a mass die-off of sea creatures appears to be imminent. 

This week, environmental experts were stunned when ocean water off of the San Diego coast hit an all-time record high of 81.3 degrees Fahrenheit.  Daily measurements began all the way back in 1916, and since that time a higher ocean temperature has never been recorded off of the California coast.  Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.  Studies have shown that ocean temperatures have been rising rapidlyall over the planet, and this has already had a devastating impact on many ecosystems.  The oceans are the foundation of the food chain, and if sea life starts dying off on a massive scale it could mean unprecedented famine all over the planet.

So I hope that people out there are taking this very seriously.  Our planet is going through dramatic changes, and the numbers don’t lie.  The reading of 81.3 degrees off of the San Diego coast was confirmed by two separate buoys…

Two buoys off the coast of San Diego last week recorded what researchers believe could be the highest temperature ever measured in California waters.

A sea-surface temperature of 81.3 degrees was logged Thursday by both the Torrey Pines buoy (7.3 miles offshore) and the neighboring Scripps Nearshore buoy (.7 miles from the coast). The buoys are two of 25 managed by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

81 degrees may not sound that high to you, but it is extremely unusual.

And other records have been set recently as well.  For example, a record high of 78.6 degrees was recorded at the Ellen Brown Scripps Memorial Pier on August 1st…

Scripps researchers have been taking daily measurements by hand at the Ellen Brown Scripps Memorial Pier in San Diego since 1916. On Aug. 1, a reading of 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit (25.9 degrees Celsius) was recorded, surpassing a previous high set during an unusually warm period in July 1931.

NOAA also operates a series of its own buoys off the California Coast, but they are unlikely to have ever recorded a temperature above 78 degrees because they are farther off the coastline than the Scripps buoys.

Some sea creatures are capable of relocating to areas with lower temperatures, but others are not.

And those creatures “are in real peril” according to ecologist Michael Burrows…

Some free-swimming sea animals may shift their routines, but stationary organisms like coral reefs and kelp forests “are in real peril”, said Michael Burrows, an ecologist at the Scottish Marine Institute, who was not part of the research.

In 2016 and 2017, persistent high ocean temperatures off eastern Australia killed off as much as half of the shallow water corals of the Great Barrier Reef.

You may or may not be concerned with the fate of our coral reefs, but they are actually extremely important to our underwater ecosystems.

According to marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, one out of every four fish on the entire planet “lives in or around coral reefs”…

“One in every four fish in the ocean lives in or around coral reefs,” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. “So much of the ocean’s biodiversity depends upon a fairly small amount of the ocean floor.”

If all coral reefs were wiped off the map, we would have global famine starting almost immediately.

So what is causing this stunning rise in ocean temperatures?

Needless to say, many in the climate change community are blaming global warming…

Between 1982 and 2016, the number of “marine heat waves” roughly doubled, and likely will become more common and intense as the planet warms, a study released Wednesday found. Prolonged periods of extreme heat in the oceans can damage kelp forests and coral reefs, and harm fish and other marine life.

“This trend will only further accelerate with global warming,” said Thomas Frolicher, a climate scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, who led the research.

And now there is a hot new term for global warming that is really starting to catch on.

The term “Hothouse earth” was recently used in a study published by a research institute in Sweden, and it is becoming very popular…

Hothouse earth – aka ‘climate change’; aka ‘global warming’; aka ‘global climate disruption’; aka ‘global weirding’ – was invented by a bunch of activists at a hitherto deeply obscure scientific institution calling itself Stockholm Resilience Centre. Until they got a study published last week nobody – probably not even the people who work there – had heard of the place.

But because Stockholm Resilience Centre said all the right scary things about the imminence of global man-made climate doom, the left-wing media treated it like the voice of God.

Others are blaming another source for the stunning rise in ocean temperatures.

In recent years, I have chronicled the immense changes that our planet is going through.  Earthquakes are happening more frequently, volcanoes that were once dormant are springing to life all over the globe, and we are witnessing shaking in unusual locations.

Well, the same things are happening on the ocean floor.  Underwater volcanic eruptions are generating immense amounts of heat, underwater earthquakes are producing giant cracks in the crust of our planet, and magma from the core of the Earth is pushing up toward the surface.  The ongoing eruption in Hawaii is an example above the surface of the water that we can see, but anything going on below the surface generally does not make the news.

These “Earth changes” are completely and utterly outside of our control, and there is nothing that we can do to stop them.  If they continue to get worse, ocean temperatures will continue to rise even higher, and that will be absolutely devastating to the global food chain.

This should be one of the biggest news stories of the year, but unfortunately the mainstream media is almost entirely ignoring it.

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Thanks to strained manufacturing supply chains and a booming economy, an unprecedented run of orders for new big rigs has nearly doubled the backlog at truck factories to nine months, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing industry analysts. 

North American freight-haulers ordered over 300,000 Class 8 trucks through July of this year, and are on track to order a record 450,000 of the heavy-duty haulers for the full year, according to ACT Research. The surge in demand would be the largest since 2004, when orders reached 390,000. 

Meanwhile, the typical backlog is around five months for truck industry manufacturers – the longest wait since early 2006 when truckers stocked up on vehicles before harsh new environmental restrictions kicked in. 

“It is longer than it should be,” said Magnus Koeck, vice president of marketing for Volvo AB’s North America operation, where Class 8 truck orders this year soared to 25,000 from 11,000 during the first six months of 2017. “Of course we are not alone in this situation,” he said. “Everyone is in the same boat.” –WSJ

North American fleets ordered over 52,000 trucks alone in July, an all-time monthly record, in an effort to keep up with swelling demand amid a booming economy and a shortage of drivers. 

The orders are coming at a rapid pace as more U.S. companies, from construction equipment makers to retailers, say rising transportation costs and tight truck capacity are crimping their ability to grow and slicing into profit margins. Cass Information Systems Inc., which processes freight payments, says its monthly index of U.S. trucking costs rose more than 10% in July, the first double-digit year-over-year increase in the 13 years of the measure. –WSJ

Unfortunately for producers, it might be months before trucking capacity can scale up to meet the growing demand for transportation. Because many of the new trucks are aimed at replacing older vehicles, production has been strained. Manufacturers delivered 30,000 new trucks in June, according to ACT – however factories are still playing catch-up after manufacturing supply-chain issues threw a wrench in the gears. 

“There’s basically a shortage of trucks right now because of supply-chain issues,” said FTR analyst Don Ake. Manufacturers “can’t build trucks fast enough because their suppliers can’t keep up.”

Cummins, Daimler, Volvo and Navistar International Corp have all reported supply-chain issues earlier this year. “It doesn’t matter if it’s one tiny screw or one tiny hose, if it’s missing or late, you can’t complete the truck,” said Volvo’s Koeck.

Any delays at one supplier can ripple across the business, companies say, because companies often build certain parts for several different truck manufacturers. And companies say the low national unemployment rate makes it tougher to fill vacant jobs. –WSJ

“The challenge was finding the labor, I suppose the next challenge is keeping the labor,” said Kenny Vieth with ACT.

In order to remedy the backlog, manufacturers report that their suppliers have hired the necessary staff to push through key parts at a faster pace. Meanwhile, Volvo Trucks North America deliveries spiked 71% over Q1’17 with 15,658 vehicles delivered. 

“With the strong demand and the corresponding increases in production levels, the entire industry has been faced with supply constraints and pressure on delivery timing,” said Daimler Trucks senior VP of operations, Jeff Allen. “Recently we have begun seeing these constraints lifting and an overall improvement of the situation.”

That said, “The situation is week to week,” said FRT’s Don Ake. 

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Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

Two thirds of Americans want the Mueller investigation (inquisition, someone called it) over by the midterm elections. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said that if Mueller wants to interview Trump, he’ll have to do so before September 1, because the Trump camp doesn’t want to be the one to unduly influence the elections. Mueller himself appears to lean towards prolonging the case, and that may well be with an eye on doing exactly that.

And there’s something else as well: as soon as the investigation wraps up, Trump will demand a second special counsel, this time to scrutinize the role the ‘other side’ has played in the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath.

He’s determined to get it, and he’ll fire both Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein if they try to stand in his way.

There have of course been tons of signs that it’s going to happen, but we got two significant ones just the past few days.

The first is the termination of John Brennan’s security clearance. It looks impossible that no additional clearances will be revoked. There are more people who have them but would also be part of a second special counsel’s investigation. That doesn’t rhyme.

The second sign is Senator Rand Paul’s call for immunity for Julian Assange to come talk to the US senate about what he knows about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Obviously, we know that he denies its very existence, and has offered to provide evidence to that end. But before he could do that, a potential deal with the DOJ to do so was torpedoed by then FBI chief James Comey and Senator Mark Warner.

Both will also be part of the second investigation. Rand Paul’s motivation is simple: Assange’s testimony could be a very significant part of the process of figuring out what actually happened. And that should be what everybody in Washington wants. Question is if they all really do. That’s -ostensibly- why there is the first, the Mueller Russian collusion, investigation. Truth finding.

But Mueller doesn’t appear to have found much of anything. At least, that we know of. He’s locked up Paul Manafort on charges unrelated to collusion, put him in isolation and dragged him before a jury. But don’t be surprised if Manafort is acquitted by that jury one of these days. The case against him seemed a lot more solid before than it does now. A jury that asks the judge to re-define ‘reasonable doubt’ already is in doubt, reasonable or not. And that is what reasonable doubt means.

But it wasn’t just Brennan and Comey and Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and all the rest of them in the intelligence community who played questionable roles around the election and the accusations of Russian meddling in it. The American media were also there, and very prominently. Which is why when 300 papers publish editorials pushing against Trump ‘attacking’ the media, you can’t help but -wryly- smile.

Why does Trump attack the press? Because they’ve been attacking him for two years, and they’re not letting go. So the press can attack the president, but he cannot fight back.

That’s the rationale, but with the Mueller investigation not going anywhere it’s a hard one to keep alive.

There are three reasons for the behavior of the New York Times, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN et al.

The first is political, they’re Democrat hornblowers.

The second is their owners have a personal thing against Donald Trump.

But these get trumped by the third reason: Trump is their golden goose. Their opposition makes them a fortune. All they need to do is publish articles 24/7 denouncing him. And they have for two years.

That puts the 300 papers’ editorials in a strange light. Many of them would have been fighting for their very lives if not for anti-Trump rhetoric. All 300 fit neatly and easily in one echo chamber. And, to put it mildly, inside that chamber, not everyone is always asking for evidence of everything that’s being said.

It’s not difficult to whoop up a storm there without crossing all your t’s. And after doing just that for 2 years and change, it seems perhaps a tad hypocritical to claim that you are honest journalists just trying to provide people with the news as it happened.

Because when you’ve published hundreds, thousands of articles about Russian meddling, and the special counsel that was named to a large degree because of those articles, fails to come up with any evidence of it, it will become obvious that you’ve not just, and honestly, been reporting the news ‘as it happened’.

You have instead been making things up because you knew that would sell better.

And when the second special counsel starts, where will American media be? Sure, it may not happen before the midterms, and you may have hopes that the Democrats win those bigly, but even if that comes to pass (slim chance), Trump will still be president, and the hearings and interviews won’t be soft and mild. Also, there will be serious questions, under oath, about leaks to the press.

Still, whichever side of this particular fence you’re on, there’s one thing we should all be able to agree on. That is, when we get to count how many of the 300 editorials have actually mentioned, let alone defended, Julian Assange, and I’ll bet you that number is painfully close to zero, that is where we find out how honest this defense of the free press is.

If for you the free press means that you should be able to write and broadcast whatever you want, even if it’s lacking in evidence, as much of the Russiagate stuff obviously is, and you ‘forget’ to mention a man who has really been attacked and persecuted for years, for publishing files that are all about evidence, you are not honest, and therefore probably not worth saving.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the essence of the free press. A press that is neutral, objective, fearless and determined to get the truth out. The New York Times and CNN simply don’t fit that description -anymore-. So when their editors publish calls to protect free press, but they leave out the one person who really represents free press, and the one person who’s been tortured for exactly that, you have zero credibility.

Sure, you may appear to have credibility in your echo chamber, but that’s not where real life takes place, where evidence is available and where people can make up their own minds based on objective facts provided by real journalists.

You guys just blew this big time. You don’t care about free press, you care about your own asses. And the second special counsel is coming. Good luck. Oh, and we won’t forget your silencing of Assange, or your attacks on him. If you refuse to do it, WE will free the press.

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Lake Mead – the West’s largest reservoir – is running dry again and is on track to fall below a critical threshold in 2020, according to a new forecast by the Bureau of Reclamation.

In 2016, Lake Mead water levels drop to new record lows (since it was filled in the 1930s) leaving Las Vegas facing existential threats unless something is done. Las Vegas and its 2 million residents and 40 million tourists a year get almost all their drinking water from the Lake and at levels below 1075ft, the Interior Department will be forced to declare a “shortage,” which will lead to significant cutbacks for Arizona and Nevada.

And now, two years later, the situation appears to be getting worse as The Wall Street Journal reports, in a prediction released Wednesday, the Bureau of Reclamation, a multistate agency that manages water and power in the West, said there is a 52% probability that water levels will fall below a threshold of 1,075 feet elevation by 2020.

Source

“The very big concern is the perception that water supplies are uncertain,” said Todd Reeve, chief executive officer of Business for Water Stewardship, a nonprofit group in Portland, Ore., that works with businesses on water use nationally.

“So if a water shortage is declared, that would be a huge shot across the bow that, wow, water supplies could be uncertain.”

The Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles, has been in long-term decline amid what bureau officials call the driest 19-year period in recorded history.

Lake Mead, which serves as the biggest reservoir of the river’s water, resumed its decline this year after the region returned to drought conditions. As of Wednesday, it stood at 1,078 feet, about 150 feet below its peak.

If Lake Mead’s water levels fall below the 1,075 feet threshold, it could trigger the first ever federal shortage declaration on the Colorado River – which experts say could undermine the Southwest’s economy.

Farmers in Arizona – which would be among the first states hit with cutbacks – are taking precautionary measures. Officials of the Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, which could lose about half its Colorado River water if a shortage were declared, say they are working on alternatives such as digging more wells. The district, with 60,000 acres under cultivation between Phoenix and Tucson, might see as much as 15% of its planted fields left fallow under a shortage, said General Manager Brian Betcher.

“We’re not sure how much acreage will go out,” he said, “but we know there will be a hit.”

As one water research scientist warned, “this problem is not going away and it is likely to get worse, perhaps far worse, as climate change unfolds.”

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