Month: April 2021

A 21-year-old senior at the University of North Carolina just cashed in on an infamous meme from when she was just a child.

In 2005, when Zoë Roth was four-years-old, her father – an amateur photographer – took her to a house fire in their neighborhood in Mebane, NC, where firefighters had intentionally set the blaze in a controlled burn.

Taking advantaged of the ‘relaxed affair,’ neighbors gathered. Roth’s father, snapping photographs, told her to flash a smile, according to the New York Times.

With her hair askew and a knowing look in her eyes, Ms. Roth flashed a devilish smirk as the fire roared behind her. “Disaster Girl” was born. –NYT

The image went super-viral. Her father, David Roth, even won a 2007 photo contest with it – while others have edited the image into various disasters from history such as the Titanic, the Notre Dame Fire, and even the meteor which took out the dinosaurs.

Now, Roth has cashed out – selling the original copy of “Disaster Girl” as a NFT (Non-Fungible Token) for just under $500,000.

At an April 17 online auction, an anonymous user identified as @3FMusic bought “Disaster Girl” for 180 Ethereum – which was valued at $495,000 on Thursday. The Roths have retained the copyright and will receive 10% of any future sales, according to the Times.

The market for ownership rights to digital art, ephemera and media known as NFTs, is exploding. All NFTs, including the “Disaster Girl” meme Ms. Roth just sold, are stamped with a unique bit of digital code that marks their authenticity, and stored on the blockchain, a distributed ledger system that underlies Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

In the meme hall of fame, “Disaster Girl” ranks alongside “Ermahgerd,” a pigtailed teenage girl posing with “Goosebumps” books; “Bad Luck Brian,” immortalized in a grimacing yearbook photo with braces; and “Success Kid,” a toddler on a beach with a clenched fist and an expression of intense determination.

…

Ben Lashes, who manages the Roths and stars of other memes including “Nyan Cat,” “Grumpy Cat,” “Keyboard Cat,” “Doge,” “Success Kid,” “David After Dentist” and the “Ridiculously Photogenic Guy,” said his clients had cumulatively made over $2 million in NFT sales. –NYT

Roth told the Times that selling the meme ‘was a way for her to take control over a situation that she has felt powerless over since she was in elementary school.’ Before selling, she even consulted Kyle Craven – known for the “Bad Luck Brian” meme, and Laney Griner, the mother of “Success Kid.”

“It’s the only thing that memes can do to take control,” Roth recalled Craven telling her.

Roth is now studying ‘peace, war and defense’ at the University of North Carolina, where she says nobody has recognized her as “Disaster Girl” outright. Most of her friends and acquaintances, however, know it’s her.

“People who are in memes and go viral is one thing, but just the way the internet has held on to my picture and kept it viral, kept it relevant, is so crazy to me,” she said, adding “I’m super grateful for the entire experience.”

Roth plans to take a year off after graduating before pursuing a graduate degree in international studies. She says she’ll donate the fortune she’s made from her likeness to charities, after she’s paid off her student loans.

Real Vision’s Jack Farley and Weston Nakamura break down an action-packed day of earnings, economic data, and price movement. Farley shares updates on Amazon’s eye-popping earnings and the U.S. GDP growth figure of 6.4% (measured by annualized quarter-over-quarter change), and Nakamura makes sense of the equity market reaction to the seemingly rosy news coming from the economy as well as companies. They put in context the seemingly unstoppable surge in commodities such as lumber, oil, copper, and palladium with Nakamura providing key insight on declining volumes in the latter two commodities. He also looks at the bond market through the lens of the Japanese investor, somewhat attributing today’s sell-off in U.S. Treasurys to the Japanese holiday of “Golden Week.” Lastly, Nakamura looks at how the Japanese Stock Monex Group (8698 JT) is trading as a proxy to Bitcoin. To hear Nakamura’s full thoughts on Monex, check out today’s “Real Vision Daily Briefing Afterhours” on the Real Vision Exchange: link coming soon.

Authored by Pat Buchanan,

“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” asked President Abraham Lincoln, who answered his own question:

“Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

And Congress’ saying that D.C. is a state would equally contradict truth and reality, as our nation’s capital lacks all of the attributes of a 51st state of the Union.

Whence came our capital of Washington, D.C.?

The city was carved out of Maryland and Virginia in 1790, which voted to cede 100 square miles on the Potomac for a capital city of the United States to become the domicile of the federal government.

In 1846, Virginia’s share of the land, some 32 square miles, was ceded back. What was left was today’s Washington, D.C., of 68 square miles.

Is that sufficient for a state of the Union? Only if one wishes to change the character and composition of that Union.

Consider. The smallest state for 230 years has been Rhode Island. At 1,214 square miles, it is still 18 times as large as D.C. If D.C. were to become a state, it would be a microstate, smaller than every one of the 24 remaining counties of the state, Maryland, from which it was carved.

The Maryland counties that border D.C., Montgomery and Prince George’s, are eight times the size of Washington, D.C., and each has a million people, dwarfing the 700,000 residents of D.C.

Directly across the Potomac in Virginia is Fairfax County, also eight times as large as D.C., and with hundreds of thousands more people.

Supporters of statehood say D.C. has more people than Wyoming.

True, but Wyoming is also roughly the size of the United Kingdom, and more than 1,000 times the size of Washington, D.C.

Even by the standards of American cities, Washington ranks no higher than 20th in population.

Texas — with Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth — and California — with Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego and San Francisco — both have four cities larger and more populous than our aspiring city-state of D.C.

By the terms of its admission to the United States as a state, the Republic of Texas was ceded a right to split into as many as five states of the Union, which it was joining. FDR’s future vice president, the Texan John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, was all for it.

“An area twice as large and rapidly becoming as populous as New England should have at least ten Senators,” Garner told The New York Times in April 1921, “and the only way we can get them is to make five States, not five small States, mind you, but five great States.”

Statehood for little D.C. could start a trend where mega-cities like Chicago and New York, with five and 10 times the size and population of D.C., secede from their respective states and seek full statehood as well.

What is at the root of this drive to make D.C. a state?

The answer may be found in the political character of our capital city.

Since the 23rd Amendment was ratified, 60 years ago, D.C. residents have voted in 15 presidential elections. In all 15 elections, D.C.’s three electoral votes have gone to the Democratic nominee.

Even in the 49-state Nixon and Reagan landslides of 1972 and 1984, D.C. went four- and five-to-one Democratic. In eight presidential elections since 1990, the GOP nominee has failed to win 10% of the D.C. vote.

Since the mid-1970s, D.C. has had home rule and, in every election since, has chosen a Democratic mayor and a Democratic city council.

How irredeemably Democratic is D.C.?

Voter registration statistics in the city as of last December was 403,000 Democrats and 30,000 Republicans, a ratio of 13-1.

Which brings the question: What is D.C.’s grievance that America must somehow rectify by making it a state?

Answer: Democrats want D.C. to have two senators to cement their control of the U.S. Senate, as they pack the Supreme Court by expanding the number of justices from nine to 13.

This is a naked national power grab — pure and simple.

If the real concern were the inability of the D.C. electorate to vote for members of Congress, that could be remedied — by returning the residential portions of D.C. to Maryland, whence they came, or by allowing D.C. residents to vote in Maryland’s congressional elections.

Making D.C. a state would send two Democrats to the Senate indefinitely. But it would violate the constitution and compact under which the nation was founded. And it would start a stampede for other disfiguring alterations, like packing the Supreme Court by adding four new justices.

Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and American Samoa could soon follow and enter claims to become states of the American Union.

And a second unraveling of the republic would begin.

On Saturday, we noted how India’s super-wealthy have been in a panic to flee the country’s exploding COVID-19 crisis – taking private jets to London before the UK adds their country to its “red list” of restricted pandemic-stricken nations.

Now, AFP reports that Indian expats who live and work in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but were on travel to India are desperately scrambling to return to Dubai. Fearing a prolonged flight ban between India and the UAE, the expats are trying to use an exemption granted to private business planes instituted last year during the first wave of the pandemic.

According to the report, “After the UAE shut its airspace to curb the spread of coronavirus in March last year, some residents raised the funds for seats on shared chartered planes that were permitted to fly to Dubai.”

India on Thursday reported 379,257 new COVID-19 cases and 3,645 deaths – the most since the pandemic began. To date, India has recorded nearly 18.4 million cases and almost 205,000 dead.

Meanwhile, some 3.5 million Indian expats are estimated to live and work in the UAE.

On Sunday, some 300 weekly commercial flights were suspended in the latest pandemic flight restrictions in one of the world’s most busy air corridors – stranding not only low-paid workers on short-term contracts, but also members of wealthy families who traveled to India for holidays, work or medical emergencies.

One Indian businessman living in Dubai, T Patel, is desperately trying to bring his brother’s wife and three children back from Bengaluru, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka which has a population approaching 10 million.

“I am exploring the private jet option. It is a lot of money but if I have no other way of bringing them back, then I will go for it,” said Patel, who added that he paid $10,500 to get his parents and niece to Dubai – around 20x the cost of regular tickets.

“I waited for two months and finally hired a private jet for $42,000, the cost of which was shared by a few equally desperate residents,” he said.

Days before the new travel ban, dozens of charter flights brought passengers from India to Dubai. Charter companies say demand has since surged.

To charter a 13-seat jet from Mumbai to Dubai costs between $35,000 and $38,000 – around 35x the price of a regular ticket. Prices are even higher between other cities. That said, operators are now looking to the government to clarify rules surrounding private planes landing in the UAE.

“Chartered flights need to get approval from the General Civil Aviation Authority and the foreign ministry to operate. But we do not know who is exempted to travel,” according to Tapish Khivensra, CEO of Enthral Aviation Private Jet Charter.

According to civil aviation authorities,UAE nationals, diplomats, official delegations and “businessmen’s planes” are excluded from the Sunday ban, as long as passengers adhere to a 10-day quarantine.

Purushothaman Nair, a long-term resident of Dubai, said he was ready to “spend a fortune” to return to the UAE.

“My wife and I came to India for just 10 days. We have to fly back to Dubai at any cost,” he told AFP. “here are many people who are willing to pay up. How can people with business interests and big responsibilities in the UAE afford to stay away for a longer period?” asked the government employee.

“The fear of contracting the virus is a bigger worry.”

Another worker, Jameel Mohammed who hasn’t seen his young son for more than two years, told AFP: “If I cannot make it in a few weeks, my job is on the line. My employer is already putting pressure on me and asking me to travel to the UAE via other countries.”

“I can’t afford that kind of money. But if the choice is between losing my job and borrowing money, I will do the latter and fly back.”

Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,

I’ve written many articles for The Organic Prepper about the coming food shortages. Not just in the United States but all across the world. Food isn’t the only thing that is soon going to be in short supply.

Fresh, clean water appears to be one of the prime shortages facing humanity today. And this problem is only going to get worse in the future. The American West is facing a water crisis not seen since the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl days. Ironic, since we’re also seeing a lot of similarities to the Great Depression, too.

This past year saw drought in the American West deepen

According to research published in the Journal Science, portions of the United States entered the beginning stages of megadrought. 

From the Columbia University site:

All told, the researchers say that rising temperatures are responsible for about half the pace and severity of the current drought. If this overall warming were subtracted from the equation, the current drought would rank as the 11th worst detected — bad, but nowhere near what it has developed into.

“It doesn’t matter if this is exactly the worst drought ever,” said coauthor Benjamin Cook, who is affiliated with Lamont and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “What matters is that it has been made much worse than it would have been because of climate change.” Since temperatures are projected to keep rising, it is likely the drought will continue for the foreseeable future; or fade briefly only to return, say the researchers.

“Because the background is getting warmer, the dice are increasingly loaded toward longer and more severe droughts,” said Williams. “We may get lucky, and natural variability will bring more precipitation for a while. But going forward, we’ll need more and more good luck to break out of drought, and less and less bad luck to go back into drought.” Williams said it is conceivable the region could stay arid for centuries. “That’s not my prediction right now, but it’s possible,” he said.

If not climate change, what caused the drought in the American West?

MSM, anti-human and anti-progress left are howling that climate change caused the drought. Then again, when are they ever howling any other culprit besides climate change, racism, or COVID? 

There are numerous causes for the drought in the American West, some human-made and some natural. Drought may be due solely to, or found in combination with, weather conditions; economic or political actions; or population and farming.

The fact is it is happening. Drought is here. Those of us in the know need to be prepared to deal with it.

The Colorado River is experiencing drought like never before

The Colorado River itself is experiencing a drought that will affect several states and Mexico. It will also affect the food supply, economic production, and land topography throughout the American West.

The biggest reservoir on the river, Lake Mead, has dramatically declined over the past twenty years. It is now standing at only 40% of its full capacity. This summer, Lake Mead is projected to fall to the lowest levels since filled in the 1930s, after the construction of Hoover Dam.

The reservoir near Las Vegas is fast approaching a point that will result in the first-ever shortage declaration by the federal government. That declaration will lead to dramatic cuts in water deliveries to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.

Arizona is in line for the most significant reductions under a 2019 agreement aimed at preventing Lake Mead from falling to critical lows.

Colorado River streams are shrinking due to the drought

Streams that feed the river in its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains have shrunk considerably in the past year. The arid soil in its watershed is soaking up the melting snow. The amount of water projected to fall into Lake Powell at the Arizona-Utah state line over the next four months is among the lowest totals in years. (About 45% of the long term average.)

This drought has dramatically worsened in the last year, not only for the Colorado River but across the West. One year ago, about 4% of the West was in severe drought. Now, that number is about 58%. That’s 58% that is in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought.

Wildfires, dying crops, shrinking water supply all potential results of drought

This means that grazing lands are parched, leading some ranchers to sell off cattle and reduce their herds. Some indigenous farmers who rely on rains have seen their crops wither.

In Arizona, officials are warning for the potential for especially severe wildfires as a result. In the Salt and Verde rivers, which supply Phoenix with water, the snowpack was far below average, reducing runoff and shrinking the amount of water flowing into the reservoirs.

Some say there is nothing we can do about the drought

But the Malthusians are hard at work, suggesting Climate Change is killing us all and there is nothing to be done but to live with less.

Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, stated:

We might have to learn to live permanently with less than 2.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water. “the challenge is going to be to find a path forward in which we continue to protect Lake Mead, continue to look at doing what we can do to make the Colorado River more sustainable for lots of different purposes, and to find a plan that is as simple as possible.

“It’s important for people to understand that we’re dealing with not only a limited system but a shrinking system and that that has real implications for water use throughout the Colorado River Basin,” said Anne Castle, Senior Fellow at the University of Colorado Law Schools’ Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources.

A couple of years back, California restricted water usage intensely. Although Politifact and Snopes tried to label Daisy’s article about this as fiction, it turned out that her article was indeed true. This came to the attention of a reader from South Africa who shared the restrictions of water usage for average citizens there which made California’s restrictions look downright generous.

Drought and other factors likely to lead to citizens begging for water

Whatever the cause or the proposed solution, the fact is the United States will soon be facing a water crisis. The crop shortages and migrations that will come from this shortage are likely to eclipse anything seen in American history.

Additionally, privatizing water resources and the fight over control of water independence could have Americans find themselves as actual peasants. Will we be begging for access to clean, drinkable water from private companies and the government?

In 2021, water is just one more casualty of the Great Reset.

A GoFundMe page created for a Bellevue, Idaho cop who mocked LeBron James has raised over $73,000, after a friend claimed officer Nate Silvester was suspended without pay.

On Wednesday, the Bellevue Marshal’s Office posted that the matter regarding Deputy Nate Silvester was being handled “internally” and that “The statements made do NOT represent the Bellevue Marshal’s Office.” There was no mention of a suspension in the statement.

Silvester posted a TikTok video last week which mocked James after the basketball star tweeted, then deleted, a comment about the officer who fatally shot Ma’Kahia Bryant in Ohio.

“So you don’t care if a Black person kills another Black person, But you do care if a white cop kills a Black person, even if he’s doing it to save the life of another Black person?” said Silvester in the TikTok. “I mean it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then again you are really good at basketball so I guess I’ll take your word for it.“

@nateswildn

#DoritosDuetRoulette #lebron #comedy #humanizethebadge #copsoftiktok #fypシ #foryou

♬ Spongebob – Dante9k

According to a GoFundMe user named “Gannon,” Silvester was suspended without pay.

“The recent viral TikTok video of a cop calling out Lebron James has cost the cop, my best friend in the world, Officer Nate Silvester a suspension without pay. He’s still got his job for now, but apparently the town where he polices didn’t find his TikTok as amazingly comical, and accurate as the 4.5 million viewers did, including some major news networks,” reads the GoFundMe.

As of this writing, more than 2,200 people have contributed to the fund, with the largest donation being $5,000 from an anonymous individual.

According to an update on the fundraising page, Silvester is going to donate a portion of to the First Responders Children’s Foundation, “a charity for the families of fallen officers and first responders.”