Tag: news

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

The idea Electric vehicles are less damaging to the environment has been broadly accepted by many people as fact. The notion EVs are good for the planet is a key factor for many of those deciding to buy an electric car. This debate has become rather political with a recent article in Barron’s pointing out that some of the research damning electric cars has been funded by Saudi oil interest. Part of the argument flowing out of this centers on the idea that policies incentivizing electric-car production will lead to the creation of more carbon emissions during coming years than if we were to instead encourage the use of efficient gasoline engines.

EVs Still Charged By Electricity From Fossil Fuel

It is not surprising that people are going to try and shape conclusions and public opinion to serve their strategic interests. The direction society takes is a high-stakes game since the EU, Japan, Korea, and 110 other countries have pledged carbon neutrality by 2050. This is why countries such as China have extended $100 billion thus far in EV subsidies, the fact is China wants to make many of these vehicles. This is the main reason shares in Chinese EV manufacturers such as NIO and Xpeng have followed Tesla stock higher in recent months.

Adding to claims of agenda “propaganda” is the fact that a lengthy and detailed EV study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), published in the scientific journal “Nature Communications,” was paid for by oil giant Saudi Aramco, which counts China as its largest customer. This indicates how little transparency exists around private companies’ financial or other involvement in the U.S. Department of Energy’s research. Some analysts say that Aramco’s role in producing the research is a potential conflict of interest and that the relationship between Aramco and ORNL highlights a broader concern about how some companies fund scientific research only to directly support their business interests. 

As this article is being written those ready to curse my take on this issue are gathering in the wings. On one side we have those that think EVs are the solution, on the other is an even larger group ready to scream about freedom of choice or how climate change is a hoax. To the first group, I say you are being deceived by those conveniently forgetting that most electricity is still generated by fossil fuel and that EVs also have a few other issues. To the second group, my message is, self-indulgent, self-centered, people with the attitude the world is their oyster and the hell with everyone else. Some of these people are not even open to the idea that what humans do here on earth has any effect at all on our climate.

Gas-guzzlers Are Often Used As Family Cars

As a strong environmentalist, I get tired of hearing that “EVs are good for the environment. “While my stand may rile those promoting EVs my attitude towards the four-door pickups driven by many average citizens angers and appalls many others. The fact is vehicle manufacturers maximize profits by prioritizing these big-ticket gas-guzzlers. These trucks are not used for work and should carry a heavy “poor mileage tax.” All the high horsepower petroleum vehicles that fill our streets with engines able to get us from stoplight to stoplight in the blink of an eye and the huge low mile per gallon vehicles often occupied by one person are the bane of environmentalist.

As to whether EVs are as environmentally friendly as many people claim is a topic that is hotly debated. The chart near the top of this article screams that they are not. Electricity demand is still rising across the world, most nuclear plants getting very old, and the most ecologically friendly sources are running full out. This means the slack is being taken up by fossil-fuel generated plants. Under the idea of, last in first out, this would mean that almost all the juice being pumped into EVs comes from fossil-fuel generated juice. To make matters worse, other issues exist.

Below are a few comments, or parts of comments, about EVs that have been gathered from different recent articles. I have not fully researched all these but they do add to my doubts about these vehicles.

• The Greenwashing Industrial Complex is one of the evilest and fraudulent scams of the 21st century. As an example, the pollution and environmental destruction created by the manufacturing and disposal of EV batteries, and also the magnets for power-generating windmills, is 10X worse than pollution created by fossil-fuel vehicles.

• In Germany about 40% of the energy mix is produced by coal and 30% by renewables – a mid-sized electric car must be driven for 125,000 km, on average, to break even with a diesel car, and 60,000 km compared to a petrol car. It takes nine years for an electric car to be greener than a diesel car, assuming an annual average mileage of 13,500 km. Most consumers will have bought a new car by then. The case is similar in the U.S. but less pronounced in nuclear-powered France.

• Battery production causes more environmental damage than carbon emissions alone. Consider dust, fumes, wastewater, and other environmental impacts from cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; water shortages and toxic spills from lithium mining in Latin America, which can alter ecosystems and hurt local communities; a heavily polluted river due to nickel mining in Russia; or air pollution in northeastern China, as mentioned above.

• There isn’t enough cobalt in the world to replace even half of the current ICE vehicles.  Never mind the fact they have kids mining the stuff in the Congo. InsideSources, says, every EV battery contains cobalt, with most of it mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This area has been an ugly mess for years as the Congo government and armed militants duke it out over the control of mines. Much of the DRC cobalt is then hauled to South Africa and shipped to China for processing.

Also flowing into the issue of ” less damaging to the environment” is something recently brought to my attention, and that is, EVs tend to rapidly eat through tires. While many people may not think this is a big deal, it is. Since electric car batteries are heavier than petrol engines they need a more robust tire. Also, because of their accelerating faster from a standstill. If you want to take advantage of that without too much wear then you need a more robust tire, these cost more, and it has been said, you are lucky if you get 20,000 miles out of a set of tires. All this is addressed at, https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-electric-cars-wear-out-tires-faster-than-fossil-fuel-cars

Pollution From Tires Is A Growing EV Issue

Like many people I had forgotten or brushed aside the thought something as simple and common as the tire was such a problem. This should have been high on my radar because years ago I was given a building simply because it had been filled with tires. The officials in my city were all over the owner to get rid of them. It cost me a bit of money and a lot of work to have them hauled away and properly recycled. With that in mind, below are a few of the many articles voicing pollution issues concerning tires.

Homeguides.sfgate.com claims; Toxins released from tire decomposition, incineration, or accidental fires can pollute the water, air, and soil. While 42 states regulate tire disposal to some degree, eight states have no restrictions on what you must do with your discarded tires. Even with laws in place, illegal dumping still occurs, presenting negative environmental impacts.

Tiretechnologyinternational.com states; Air pollution from tire wear particles can be 1,000 times worse than what comes out of a car’s exhaust, Emissions Analytics found harmful particle matter from tires is a serious environmental problem. What is even more frightening is that while exhaust emissions have been tightly regulated for many years, tire wear is not. With the increasing growth in sales of heavier SUVs and battery-powered electric cars, non-exhaust emissions are a growing problem.

And, www.politico.eu/article/tires, delves into how driving affects the environment in ways beyond the well-known pollutants spewing from tailpipes and leaking from engines. Tires shed tiny pieces of plastic as they wear down, accounting for about 10 percent of the microscopic pieces of the pollutant found in the sea, according to one estimate. Tire waste was addressed in the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy earlier this year. The EU executive is looking into how to cut down on microplastics that may be coming from tires and is considering regulations.

With all the above in mind, the buzz in EV trading over the last couple of weeks has interestingly been surrounding legacy automakers like General Motors and, even Ford moving strongly in the direction of manufacturing more EVs. This may someday be seen as a huge environmental misstep. The best answer may be a shift to more efficient gasoline engines in smaller vehicles.  

Alarmed over recently emerged strains of coronavirus which are said to be more infectious, Germany is mulling taking the drastic step of cutting all international air travel in and out of the country to “almost zero,” according to the AFP.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced Tuesday the government is now reviewing the implementation of further “drastic measures” amid restrictions in the country which took effect in November. He cited the example of Israel which recently went to a full-on 2nd lockdown of the entire country.

“The danger from the numerous virus mutations forces us to consider drastic measures,” Seehofer said to the Bild newspaper. “That includes significantly stricter border checks, especially at the borders of high-risk areas, but also reducing air travel to Germany to almost zero, as Israel is currently doing,” he added.

“The people in Germany who accept the tough restrictions expect us to protect them as best we can from an explosion in infection numbers,” Seehofer said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to back a plan that would effectively shut down all borders, saying in new comments the government will take “certain precautions at border,” according to her address before a meeting of conservative CDU/CSU bloc lawmakers.

“Everyone understands that now is not the time to travel,” she added. Currently Germany has had over two million COVID-19 infections and more than 52,000 deaths from the virus.

A week ago Merkel announced that renewed pandemic restrictions, especially the closure of schools and ‘non-essential’ stores and markets, would last until at least mid-February.

BREAKING Germany is considering to stop all international flights https://t.co/xJiLg9prI5

— AIRLIVE (@airlivenet) January 26, 2021

The proposal of shutting off borders altogether also comes as there’s been widespread disappointment at the slowness of a vaccine rollout in Europe, also amid worrisome reports of severe adverse effects and even deaths among elderly patients reportedly from the shot, particularly out of Norway in the middle of this month amid the rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

A ban on most or all international flights would have immediate and major repercussions for the aviation industry and global travel, given Germany remains a central international hub of flights across Europe but also the rest of the world, including to the Middle East and Africa.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Native American tribe called on the Biden administration to “immediately amend” a White House executive order “to provide an exception for energy permits and approvals on Indian lands.”

“The Ute Indian Tribe and other energy-producing tribes rely on energy development to fund our governments and provide services to our members,” the Ute Indian Tribe said in a letter to Acting Secretary of the Interior Scott de la Vega last week. “Your order is a direct attack on our economy, sovereignty, and our right to self-determination. Indian lands are not federal public lands.

“Any action on our lands and interests can only be taken after effective tribal consultation.”

One of Biden’s orders requires the agency to “conduct a review of the monument boundaries and conditions of the Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears, Northeast Canyons, and Seamounts Marine National Monuments” and will be done “in consultation with other agencies and Tribal governments, to determine whether restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions would be appropriate,” according to a statement from the Interior Department on Jan. 21,

The Epoch Times has reached out to the agency for comment.

The Ute tribal lands produce about 45,000 barrels of crude oil per day in the Uintah Basin, along with about 900 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, according to a document the tribe filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2017, Reuters reported.

The tribe added that the order was issued “in violation [of] our government-to-government relationship,” as well as of previous federal directives about coordinating with Native American tribal governments.

The Jan. 20 executive order suspended the authority of Interior Department offices to issue new fossil fuel permits and leases—a move that could be a first step in delivering on Biden’s campaign promise to ban all new federal drilling permits.

“The Order does not impact existing ongoing operations under valid leases and does not preclude the issuance of leases, permits, and other authorizations by those specified. In addition, any actions necessary in the event of an incident that might pose a threat to human health, welfare, or safety will continue,” the Interior Department said in the statement.

Other Native American tribes—including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota—are also big producers of oil and gas and might push back against the order.

Some GOP lawmakers, meanwhile, said the move to suspend oil and natural gas drilling will imperil tens of thousands of American jobs and raise energy prices for U.S. families.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The global semiconductor shortage continues to put significant pressure on the auto industry, where manufacturers are rushing to try and find how they can fix (and in the future back up) their supply chains. 

Major players like VW, Toyota and GM are still suffering from a shortage of chips that are becoming more common in everyday vehicles. The drain on the supply chain has come from a corresponding rise in the sales of gaming consoles, TVs and computers – mostly as a result of the pandemic. The chips are now being used in everything from vehicle entertainment centers to anti-lock brakes. 

Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, told the Financial Times: “I am here to protect the fact that my company is treated fairly. I will look for all possible solutions. If I need to I will fight back [to ensure its chip contracts are met].”

The unexpected disruption is the first time the industry has truly thought long and hard about the supply chain it uses for semiconductors. Only about 10% of semiconductor fabrication plants are used for automotive parts, FT notes. Since there is no “quick fix”, the shortage is expected to drag on for “at least” 6 months. Companies like Taiwan Semiconductor are, at the same time, still trying to address fallout from U.S. sanctions. 

One China based supplier told FT: “The sanctions meant some clients redirected their orders from SMIC to other places, such as TSMC. Inside the industry, we are all pretty panicked, because the scope of the chip shortage is too big, and affects too many types. In the short term, we can’t see any way of resolving it.”

As a result, more than 280,000 vehicles have already been put on hold. As many as 500,000 vehicles could be affected in total, according to IHS market forecasts. 

Richard Dixon, senior principal analyst at IHS Markit, added: “Everything is run so tightly in semiconductor fabrication plants that you always get this issue when there is a demand surge especially after a downturn.” 

Automakers are left scrambling, trying to make sure that the chips they do have are being used in their most profitable vehicles, the report says. At the same time, chipmakers like NXP and Renesas are looking to increase prices – not only as a result of the demand, but as also as a result of the rising cost of raw materials. And rising costs could be a small problem compared to where some analysts think the next supply chain bottleneck is going to come from.

“After semiconductors, the next one is going to be potentially when we run out of rare-earth materials to make batteries. There is always that next thing that they have got to keep their eye on,” said Joseph McCabe, chief executive of AutoForecast Solutions.

Recall, just days ago we noted that VW lost production of “tens of thousands” of vehicles due to the chip shortage. 

VW’s China head, Stephan Wollenstein, commented Wednesday: “It was hurting us already in December and we lost some 10,000 cars since then simply because we lost 50,000 cars in production in December because of some chips.”

For VW, the impact has been felt the most in vehicles that use the automaker’s Electronic Stability Program, “a system of sensors that works with a car’s Anti-lock Braking System to prevent the wheels seizing up after an unexpected swerve.”

“You see how vulnerable our industries are if only one chip is missing. This will unfortunately continue in the first quarter,” Wollenstein continued. 

China is the world’s largest auto market and a critical market for VW, who has about 40% of its vehicle operations in the country. In China, VW delivered 3.85 million cars in 2020, down 9.1% from the year prior as a result of the pandemic. 

2021 was thought to be a year where many automakers could play catch-up, but the chip shortage could stand in the way of an easy recovery for some automakers. We first reported just days ago that the ongoing global chip shortage was wreaking havoc with the auto industry, which has become far more reliant on semiconductors due to “smart cars”, than it ever has been.

Authored by C. Hamilton via econimica.blogspot.com (emphasis ours)

Pretty simple story today. Covid is primarily an old persons disease and the elderly population of “at-risk” is in the process of ballooning, thus Covid (or like diseases that might not have even previously qualified as pandemics)…are finding fertile ground among the significantly enlarging elderly populations.

With almost 96% of the US Covid related deaths among the 50+ year old population, despite the majority (65%) of cases among the under 50 year old population, it should be obvious Covid is a higher risk for elderly than younger persons.

According to the CDC Covid Data Tracker (found HERE), mortality among under 50 year old Covid patients is rare. Of the nearly 12 million cases among under 50 year olds, nearly 13,000 resulted in death (less than 2,000 deaths among the over 6 million cases among under 30 year olds). This is a mortality rate of 0.11% among under 50 year olds. Meanwhile, the 6.4 million Covid cases among 50+ year olds resulted in nearly 280,000 deaths, a mortality rate of 4.57% (yes, CDC data differs from other sources in total cases, deaths…but the CDC demographic breakdown of those deaths is the critical part…bear with me).

Below, mortality rates by age groups. Again, the older the infected, the higher the risk of mortality while, by and large, the immune systems of the under 50 year olds are statistically nearly always up to the task.

The big point we should be discussing is the ballooning of the most at-risk populations over the last decade and ongoing over the next two decades. According to UN World Population Prospects 2019, the 65+ year old US population is amid peak growth…and the highest rates of growth will be shifting to the oldest population segments of 75-85 and 85+ year olds. These populations will double over the next two decades and significantly higher rates of death will be observed due to this. Even a rather tough flu or mild “pandemic” agent among this population will likely see pandemic-like results.

Focusing on the wealthier nations elderly populations, again, the most at-risk segments will see the largest increases in size. Thus, even normal illnesses will have significantly higher mortality rates than previously seen. Even a tough new variant of the flu or new virus like Covid (or Covid mutations) will find multitudes of at-risk elderly with a high likelihood for abnormally higher death rates.

Viewing the population change by age groups over 20 year periods, the current 2020 through 2040 period stands out as something we have never seen. A collapse among the populations of low-risk and explosion of those at high-risk. This must be included in the thinking of what is pandemic and appropriate responses.

Given these demographics, the big question should be; are large numbers of deaths among the vulnerable elderly truly a pandemic? Reason enough to shut down economies, close schools, saddle young with unrepayable quantities of debt? Are there other means to safeguard the elderly while allowing the majority of the world to remain open? Is Covid a one-off or the beginning of virus’ that are mild for the larger population but that will play havoc among the elderly? Are ongoing shut downs and massive increases in debt the appropriate long term response to what is likely a long term problem? Hopefully food for thought.

A surge of student suicides across Las Vegas has pushed the Clark County School District to reopen schools as soon as possible, according to NYTimes. 

By December, eighteen students in the district had taken their own lives; an early-warning mental health system embedded within computers and tablets issued to students for remote learning received 3,100 alerts since schools shuttered their doors last March. 

“When we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives, we knew it wasn’t just the Covid numbers we need to look at anymore,” said Jesus Jara, the Clark County superintendent. 

“We have to find a way to put our hands on our kids, to see them, to look at them. They’ve got to start seeing some movement, some hope,” Jara said. 

Efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 across the country have led to drastic changes in the way children and teens learn and socialize. 

Government data show a 24% increase in the number of children who arrived in emergency departments with mental health issues from mid-March through mid-October, compared with the same period in 2019. 

Countrywide, tens of millions of students have been thrown into a new distance learning environment that has resulted in many extracurricular activities being canceled. Recreational spaces have closed, sports canceled, and playdates shifted to Zoom calls, resulting in many kids developing mental issues, especially in Clark County. 

Clark County administrators had GoGuardian Beacon alert system installed on every device given out to students after the sixth student suicide last year. The system alerted administrators of more than 3,100 cases where a student searched suicide-related material between June and October.

In one instance, a 12-year boy searched “how to make a noose” on his iPad.” Administrators quickly reached out to the boy’s parents as he was about to hang himself. 

The alerts have been so disturbing to Jara that he doesn’t sleep near his phone anymore. 

“I can’t get these alerts anymore,” said Jara. “I have no words to say to these families anymore. I believe in God, but I can’t help but wonder: Am I doing everything possible to open our schools?”

Dr. Anthony Fauci has called for schools on a countrywide basis to reopen safely. 

An indirect consequence of the pandemic and forcing children to learn at home has contributed to a rise of mental health issues and suicides among America’s future generation. 

Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

A sweeping, radical rule is pending for Illinois K-12 teachers that should prompt everyone, of all political stripes, to fear about the fundamental roles that teachers and classrooms are assigned to fulfill.

We will get to the specifics of what is in the rule, but first ask some basic questions: What does it mean to be a teacher? What should it mean?

At least some answers are probably shared by most everybody — right, center and left – and certainly by the best of our teachers.

• It should mean devotion to training our young people to think critically, free from any doctrinaire political mandates imposed on classrooms.

• It should mean prioritizing basic skills for students in systems that have failed to teach them to read or compute at the most basic levels.

• And it definitely should mean freedom to enter and stay in the teaching profession without any political litmus test.

Those answers, however, will be void if a pending rule in Illinois is allowed to become effective. The rule, proposed by the Illinois State Board of Education, is called the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, or CRTL Standards. It will get final ratification on February 16 unless heavy opposition materializes.

As you will see, it’s no exaggeration to say the standards would tell teachers what they must think, believe and teach – in broad political terms — and they would disqualify teachers who don’t conform.

We wrote about the proposal in November when we first heard of it. Unfortunately, the scope of its threat to education got little attention, with a couple important exceptions.

One who wrote about it is Nathan Hoffman, a black education policy researcher.

In an op-ed opposing the standards, he wrote they would “force onto teachers a singular view for some of our country’s most-heavily debated topics that they are then expected to carry forth into the classroom.”

Even if well-intentioned, Hoffman wrote, the standards would “impose one view of our culture and politics. They strip teacher candidates of a presumption of good faith intent and distract from the primary goal of providing a basic quality education to our students.”

Harsher criticism came this week from Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Illinois is literally about to mandate that every one of its licensed teachers adopt progressive political orthodoxy and impart that ideology to students,” Kurtz wrote.

“The entire Illinois teacher corps will be effectively forced into political re-education and compelled to turn their classes into woke indoctrination sessions.”

We hope Kurtz’s article sparks further national attention to the pending standards.

What do the proposed standards say?

On the surface, the CRTL Standards might appear to be only about required teaching of critical race theory – alleged systemic racism, gender discrimination, systems of oppression, white supremacy, etc – centering on a requirement to be a “culturally responsive teacher.”

But each section of the rule starts by saying what a culturally responsive teacher will do. A few examples:

• Mandatory counterculture curriculum. The culturally responsive teacher, the standards say, will “co-create content to include a counternarrative to dominant culture.”

• Training students to be progressive activists. Culturally responsive teachers and leaders, the standards say, will “Research and offer student advocacy and activism content with real world implications and [h]old high expectations in which all students can participate and lead as student advocates or activists.” Teachers are also encouraged to substitute “social justice work” or “action civics projects” for more traditional forms of testing when deciding on a student’s grade.

• Required thinking for teachers. The “culturally responsive teacher and leader will,” according to the standards, “engage in reflection about their own actions and interactions and what ideas motivated those actions,” and “explore their own intersecting identities, how they were developed, and how they impact daily experience of the world.” Teachers must “assess their biases and perceptions” about, among other things, “unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.”

The first and most obvious problem is that the standards would force dogmatic answers to what indeed are some of our country’s most-heavily debated topics.

More importantly, compulsory answers on those topics necessarily imply compulsory viewpoints on broader political matters. As Kurtz put it, “the concept of systemic oppression detects racism and bigotry in almost every conservative policy position, from the environment to the budget. That means teachers who want to get and keep their licenses in Illinois have got to be full-spectrum progressives.”

Hoffman’s op-ed focused on the distraction away from what is a crisis at hand in many schools:

Consider that in 2019, only 37% of Illinois third graders could demonstrate grade-level proficiency in English-language arts and only 41% could demonstrate grade-level proficiency in math. In this same year, the Illinois General Assembly eliminated the basic skills test required for all teachers in Illinois, which assessed basic content understanding and application of core academic areas such as math and literacy.

With these new proposed standards in place, a teacher in Illinois will need not demonstrate competency in their basic knowledge of academic material but will have to demonstrate knowledge in concepts that are not only contentious but push an overtly political ideology outside the mainstream of the social and cultural debate.

What would happen to noncompliant teachers?

First, those who think differently would probably never get that far. The proposed regulation would govern how teachers are licensed and trained in Illinois. It would be incorporated into teacher preparation programs at college and university schools of education in the state. All public schools require licensed teachers, and many private schools prefer licensed teachers, although licensure in private schools is not legally required.

If a free-thinking teacher made it past that, they would face an evaluation process and the new standards would be part of how all teachers and administrators are evaluated. The new rule would make it easy for schools to force them into therapeutic “mitigation” of their deficiencies, as Kurtz put it.

Truth, in short, is something the rule’s authors think they own, and teachers better accept it.

That’s really the core problem with the standards: They are dogma sought to be imposed by extremists intent on making their truth the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Don’t even think about touching it. And their truth is not about whether the earth is round or how to do math. It’s about political ideology.

Kurtz put it this way:

The most inadvertently hilarious part of the standards is their insistence that there is “not one ‘correct’ way of doing or understanding something.” Except for Critical Race Theory, that is. Woke ideology is the one correct way of teaching, according to the new Illinois standards. The notes of the committee that created the proposed standards include a passage saying teacher preparation programs must be “forced” to teach Critical Race Theory. Relativism for thee but not for me.

How will Illinoisans react if the CLTL Standards go live?

Most are probably unaware of the proposal so far, but many surely will be livid when they wake up. That’s especially true for Illinoisans outside of the Chicago area.

The origins of the proposed standards are mostly in Chicago, where radically left educators dominate.

But beyond the Chicago area many Illinoisans will be repulsed by the standards. They are people of basic decency already fed up with what they see as the moral bankruptcy of Chicago area leadership.

“The backers of the new civics bill, Kurtz wrote, “openly concede that the ‘social justice frame’ of the Chicago civics curriculum won’t easily fly in more conservative parts of the state. (Note the implicit admission that the Chicago civics curriculum is thoroughly politicized.)”

You can expect many of them to join the growing diaspora of Illinoisans if the standards are finalized. Illinois expats who left for other reasons already fill Cubs bars in Nashville, music joints in Austin and retirement communities throughout the Southeast. The regions they are in will welcome parents who want apolitical schools for their kids.

*  *  *

All is not yet lost. The final word on the CLTL Standards is up to an obscure Illinois legislative committee known as JCAR, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. It will make its final decision on February 16. Opposition to the standards seems to be led by Rep. Stephen Reick (R-Woodstock), a JCAR member. However, JCAR is usually a rubber stamp and it is dominated by Chicago area legislators and others who support the standards. Unless they are overwhelmed by complaints, the standards will take effect. JCAR’s members are listed here. Tell them what you think.

China has announced plans to hold military exercises in the South China Sea this week, a mere days after the Pentagon confirmed a US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt had entered the disputed waters in a “freedom of the seas” operation and after daily Chinese incursions of Taiwan’s airspace had been reported the prior week.

Beijing, indignant at the US muscle-flexing in its own backyard, will hold the drills in the Gulf of Tonkin also during a crucial week top Communist Party leaders of Vietnam are meeting for the once in five years National Congress to select a new leader for the country.

Reuters reports of the new Chinese military drills, “A notice issued by the country’s Maritime Safety Administration prohibited entry into a portion of waters in the Gulf of Tonkin to the west of the Leizhou peninsula in southwestern China from Jan. 27 to Jan. 30, but it did not offer details on when the drills would take place or at what scale.”

The new drill notification came after on Monday Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian slammed the nearby US military movements:

“It does no good to regional peace and stability for the United States to frequently send military vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea to show off muscles,” Zhao said.

He further said, “We urge the US side to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related issues, and refrain from sending any wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces so as to avoid damaging China-US relations and peace and fefrain from sending any wrong signals to the “Taiwan independence” forces so as to avoid damaging China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

Meanwhile, over the past week Taiwan has on multiple occasions scrambled jets to warn off Chinese aerial provocations, including over the weekend multiple Chinese bombers being sent in a flyover.

As we noted earlier, with fighter jets from both countries now on the verge of engaging above Taiwan’s ADIZ, we are one false flag “accidental” missile discharge from all out war.

China for its part sees such actions as aimed at defending the country’s sovereignty and designed to act as a warning against “collusion” between the United States and Taiwan.

The presence of the USS Roosevelt carrier in the area most certainly complicates things further, inching the two sides closer to direct military conflict.