Month: July 2021

To Stop Climate Change Americans Must Cut Energy Use by 90 Percent, Live in 640 Square Feet, and Fly Only Once Every 3 Years, Says Study


BulbdreamstimeKristofbellens

In order to save the planet from catastrophic climate change, Americans will have to cut their energy use by more than 90 percent and families of four should live in housing no larger than 640 square feet. That’s at least according to a team of European researchers led by University of Leeds sustainability researcher Jefim Vogel. In their new study, “Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use,” in Global Environmental Change, they calculate that public transportation should account for most travel. Travel should, in any case, be limited to between 3,000 to 10,000 miles per person annually.

Vogel and his colleagues set themselves the goal of figuring out how to “provide sufficient need satisfaction at much lower, ecologically sustainable levels of energy use.” Referencing earlier sustainability studies they argue that human needs are sufficiently satisfied when each person has access to the energy equivalent of 7,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per capita. That is about how much energy the average Bolivian uses. Currently, Americans use about 80,000 kWh annually per capita. With respect to transportation and physical mobility, the average person would be limited to using the energy equivalent of 16–40 gallons of gasoline per year. People are assumed to take one short- to medium-haul airplane trip every three years or so.

In addition, food consumption per capita would vary depending on age and other conditions, but the average would be 2,100 calories per day. While just over 10 percent of the world’s people are unfortunately still undernourished, the Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the daily global average food supply now stands at just under 3,000 calories per person. Each individual is allocated a new clothing allowance of nine pounds per year, and clothes may be washed 20 times annually. The good news is that everyone over age 10 is permitted a mobile phone and each household can have a laptop.

How do Vogel and his colleagues arrive at their conclusions? First, they assert that “globally, large reductions in energy use are required to limit global warming to 1.5°C.”  The 1.5°C temperature increase limit they cite derives from the 2015 Paris Agreement in which signatories agreed to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

To achieve that goal, the researchers focus on what they call provisioning factors, which are intermediary institutions that people use to satisfy their needs. Provisioning factors that affect the amount of energy a society uses include public service, public health coverage, access to electricity and clean fuels, democratic quality, income equality, economic growth, and extractivism. These provisioning factors are the basis for providing sufficient human needs such as nourishment, drinking water, sanitation access, basic education, and a minimum income, all of which help secure the basic need of healthy life expectancy.

In order to stay below the 1.5°C temperature increase threshold, they cite earlier research that calculated that the average person should be limited to using annually as little as 18 gigajoules (equivalent to 136 gallons of gasoline or 5,000 kWh) of total energy, but allocated more generously for their study a cap of 27 gigajoules (equivalent to 204 gallons of gasoline or 7,500 kWh) annually. They then checked to see if any country in the world had met their definition of decent living standards using that amount of energy per capita. “No country in the world accomplishes that—not even close,” admitted Vogel in an accompanying press release.

Vogel and his colleagues are undaunted by the fact that there are absolutely no examples of low-energy societies providing decent living standards—as defined by the researchers themselves—for their citizens. So they proceed to jigger the various provisioning factors until they find that what is really needed is a “more fundamental transformation of the political-economic regime.” That fundamental transformation includes free government-provided high-quality public services in areas such as health, education, and public transport.

“We also found that a fairer income distribution is crucial for achieving decent living standards at low energy use,” said co-author Daniel O’Neill, from Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment. “To reduce existing income disparities, governments could raise minimum wages, provide a Universal Basic Income, and introduce a maximum income level. We also need much higher taxes on high incomes, and lower taxes on low incomes.”

Two things that humanity for sure doesn’t need according to the study are economic growth or the continued extraction of natural resources such as oil, coal, gas, or minerals. Vogel concluded: “In short, we need to abandon economic growth in affluent countries, scale back resource extraction, and prioritize public services, basic infrastructures and fair income distributions everywhere.” He added, “In my view, the most promising and integral vision for the required transformation is the idea of degrowth—it is an idea whose time has come.”

The researchers’ assertion that “large reductions in energy use are required” is actually a non sequitur because it is not energy use per se that is contributing to man-made global warming, but the emissions of carbon dioxide associated with the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, when they set their 27-gigajoule per capita threshold, they specifically ruled out “speculative” technological progress. However, transitioning to no-carbon energy sources such as nuclear, wind, and solar power would solve the problem without forcing humanity to go on the ridiculously strict energy diet they call for.

Founder of the ecomodernist Breakthrough Institute Ted Nordhaus was correct when he argued, “The utopian dreams of those who wish to radically reorganize the world to stop climate change are not a plausible global future.” The far better course for addressing the problem of climate change (and many others) is for humanity to aim for a high-energy planet. Instead of energy abstinence and degrowth, ecomodernists call for a “massive expansion of energy systems, primarily carried out in the rapidly urbanizing global South, in combination with the rapid acceleration of clean energy innovation.”

Developing a high-energy planet will spur economic growth and innovation, helping to provide for all of the human needs that concern Vogel and his colleagues. Instead of trying to force Americans to live on the amount of energy currently available to Bolivians, the goal should be to enable people in energy-starved poor countries to gain access to energy supplies currently enjoyed by average Americans.

Disclosure: I have had the pleasure of attending several Breakthrough Dialogues and participating in discussions where I made the case that supporters of free markets are natural ecomodernists.

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To Stop Climate Change Americans Must Cut Energy Use by 90 Percent, Live in 640 Square Feet, and Fly Only Once Every 3 Years, Says Study


BulbdreamstimeKristofbellens

In order to save the planet from catastrophic climate change, Americans will have to cut their energy use by more than 90 percent and families of four should live in housing no larger than 640 square feet. That’s at least according to a team of European researchers led by University of Leeds sustainability researcher Jefim Vogel. In their new study, “Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use,” in Global Environmental Change, they calculate that public transportation should account for most travel. Travel should, in any case, be limited to between 3,000 to 10,000 miles per person annually.

Vogel and his colleagues set themselves the goal of figuring out how to “provide sufficient need satisfaction at much lower, ecologically sustainable levels of energy use.” Referencing earlier sustainability studies they argue that human needs are sufficiently satisfied when each person has access to the energy equivalent of 7,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per capita. That is about how much energy the average Bolivian uses. Currently, Americans use about 80,000 kWh annually per capita. With respect to transportation and physical mobility, the average person would be limited to using the energy equivalent of 16–40 gallons of gasoline per year. People are assumed to take one short- to medium-haul airplane trip every three years or so.

In addition, food consumption per capita would vary depending on age and other conditions, but the average would be 2,100 calories per day. While just over 10 percent of the world’s people are unfortunately still undernourished, the Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the daily global average food supply now stands at just under 3,000 calories per person. Each individual is allocated a new clothing allowance of nine pounds per year, and clothes may be washed 20 times annually. The good news is that everyone over age 10 is permitted a mobile phone and each household can have a laptop.

How do Vogel and his colleagues arrive at their conclusions? First, they assert that “globally, large reductions in energy use are required to limit global warming to 1.5°C.”  The 1.5°C temperature increase limit they cite derives from the 2015 Paris Agreement in which signatories agreed to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

To achieve that goal, the researchers focus on what they call provisioning factors, which are intermediary institutions that people use to satisfy their needs. Provisioning factors that affect the amount of energy a society uses include public service, public health coverage, access to electricity and clean fuels, democratic quality, income equality, economic growth, and extractivism. These provisioning factors are the basis for providing sufficient human needs such as nourishment, drinking water, sanitation access, basic education, and a minimum income, all of which help secure the basic need of healthy life expectancy.

In order to stay below the 1.5°C temperature increase threshold, they cite earlier research that calculated that the average person should be limited to using annually as little as 18 gigajoules (equivalent to 136 gallons of gasoline or 5,000 kWh) of total energy, but allocated more generously for their study a cap of 27 gigajoules (equivalent to 204 gallons of gasoline or 7,500 kWh) annually. They then checked to see if any country in the world had met their definition of decent living standards using that amount of energy per capita. “No country in the world accomplishes that—not even close,” admitted Vogel in an accompanying press release.

Vogel and his colleagues are undaunted by the fact that there are absolutely no examples of low-energy societies providing decent living standards—as defined by the researchers themselves—for their citizens. So they proceed to jigger the various provisioning factors until they find that what is really needed is a “more fundamental transformation of the political-economic regime.” That fundamental transformation includes free government-provided high-quality public services in areas such as health, education, and public transport.

“We also found that a fairer income distribution is crucial for achieving decent living standards at low energy use,” said co-author Daniel O’Neill, from Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment. “To reduce existing income disparities, governments could raise minimum wages, provide a Universal Basic Income, and introduce a maximum income level. We also need much higher taxes on high incomes, and lower taxes on low incomes.”

Two things that humanity for sure doesn’t need according to the study are economic growth or the continued extraction of natural resources such as oil, coal, gas, or minerals. Vogel concluded: “In short, we need to abandon economic growth in affluent countries, scale back resource extraction, and prioritize public services, basic infrastructures and fair income distributions everywhere.” He added, “In my view, the most promising and integral vision for the required transformation is the idea of degrowth—it is an idea whose time has come.”

The researchers’ assertion that “large reductions in energy use are required” is actually a non sequitur because it is not energy use per se that is contributing to man-made global warming, but the emissions of carbon dioxide associated with the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, when they set their 27-gigajoule per capita threshold, they specifically ruled out “speculative” technological progress. However, transitioning to no-carbon energy sources such as nuclear, wind, and solar power would solve the problem without forcing humanity to go on the ridiculously strict energy diet they call for.

Founder of the ecomodernist Breakthrough Institute Ted Nordhaus was correct when he argued, “The utopian dreams of those who wish to radically reorganize the world to stop climate change are not a plausible global future.” The far better course for addressing the problem of climate change (and many others) is for humanity to aim for a high-energy planet. Instead of energy abstinence and degrowth, ecomodernists call for a “massive expansion of energy systems, primarily carried out in the rapidly urbanizing global South, in combination with the rapid acceleration of clean energy innovation.”

Developing a high-energy planet will spur economic growth and innovation, helping to provide for all of the human needs that concern Vogel and his colleagues. Instead of trying to force Americans to live on the amount of energy currently available to Bolivians, the goal should be to enable people in energy-starved poor countries to gain access to energy supplies currently enjoyed by average Americans.

Disclosure: I have had the pleasure of attending several Breakthrough Dialogues and participating in discussions where I made the case that supporters of free markets are natural ecomodernists.

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Virus Z: A Thought Experiment

Virus Z: A Thought Experiment

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

What’s striking about our thought experiment is how little reliable data we have about the transmissibility of our hypothetical Virus Z and the long-term consequences of its mutations.

Let’s run a thought experiment on a hypothetical virus we’ll call Virus Z, a run-of-the-mill respiratory variety not much different from other viruses which are 1) very small; 2) mutate rapidly and 3) infect human cells and modify the cellular machinery to produce more viral particles.

Like other viruses, Virus Z continually improves the odds of future replication via the natural selection of any mutations which improve its replication capabilities. Since viruses need host cells to replicate, the key advantages selected through mutation are evading hosts’ immune responses to invading viruses.

As in all organisms in which advantageous mutations arise and eventually spread throughout the organism’s genetic instructions, the natural selection of mutations in viruses is not teleological, meaning there is no set goal to the evolutionary process other than whatever is advantageous in a particular setting.

To use a football analogy, the viral mutations don’t have a goal of advancing 10 yards to get a first down and continue down the field to score a touchdown. Any mutation which helps the virus evade getting tackled by the host immune system is conserved, as the viruses which get tackled and gobbled up by the immune system are no longer replicating, while the virus which evades the immune system continues replicating. Whatever mutations that enable it to evade getting tackled are conserved in the genetic coding of all future viruses.

In our thought experiment, Virus Z is a novel respiratory virus, i.e. it spreads via particles of moisture exhaled by human hosts, so most human hosts don’t have a natural immunity to it because their body’s immune system has never encountered it before. As a result, many people exposed to Virus Z become ill as the virus triggers an immune response (inflammation, fever, congestion) which disrupts various processes (oxygen uptake, digestion, etc.)

Like many other pathogens, Virus Z leads to the death of some infected people with compromised or weakened immune systems. In our thought experiment, Virus Z leads to the hospitalization of a percentage of infected people and the death of around 2% of all people who contract the illness.

This is not an exceptional rate in human history, and like many other pathogens, Virus Z tends to sicken the old and frail who have less robust immune systems.

But nonetheless, 2% is not zero, and so bioscience develops a vaccine to Virus Z which successfully reduces the severity of the illness and this naturally lowers the rate of those dying from the viral illness.

The vaccine is tested for one goal: does it reduce the severity of the illness or not? As a result of this goal and the testing protocol, it’s unknown if the virus can remain at low levels in vaccinated individuals and be transmissible to others.

In other words, it’s unknown if some vaccinated individuals might be contagious even though they exhibit no symptoms of illness.

Just as flu shots are not 100% effective against all strains of influenza, it turns out the Virus Z vaccine is highly effective in reducing the odds of contracting the virus and the severity of any subsequent illness, but it doesn’t reduce the transmissibility to zero or the number of those who become ill despite being vaccinated to zero.

Since it’s not practical to constantly test every vaccinated individual, the number of vaccinated individuals who still harbor low levels of virus while being symptom-free (i.e. asymptomatic) is unknown. A vaccinated individual might be virus-free but then be reinfected by exposure to a new variant that survives the immune onslaught but does not generate symptoms.

So in this pool of X number of vaccinated individuals, the virus continues to mutate, with those mutations which help the virus evade the vaccine-enhanced immune system of the host being the mutations which are conserved, as the viruses which get tackled by the immune system no longer replicate while those with the helpful mutation continue replicating.

The viruses which evade the immune system tacklers are also selected for improved transmissibility, meaning those with limited transmissibility don’t infect other hosts while those with improved transmissibility (i.e. are more contagious) spread with relative ease to other hosts, both unvaccinated and vaccinated, as the vaccine suppresses transmissibility but doesn’t reduce it to zero.

Since the goal of the vaccine program was to reduce the number of those becoming severely ill and requiring hospitalization, the system only counts individuals who become ill enough to require hospitalization: those hospitalized are tabulated in two fields, unvaccinated or vaccinated.

As expected, the majority of those hospitalized with severe illness are unvaccinated, as the vaccine effectively reduced the number of people who develop severe cases after contracting the disease.

What the vaccine doesn’t do is reduce the number of vaccinated people who contract the disease to zero, nor does it reduce the transmissibility of vaccinated carriers of the virus to zero.

This means some unknown percentage (unknown because it’s not practical to routinely test tens of millions of people) of vaccinated individuals become carriers of the virus. Some unknown percentage will contract the illness but not severely enough to require hospitalization, so they won’t be counted by the system. A relative few will require hospitalization, and will be counted as “breakthrough cases,” i.e. vaccinated individuals who contracted the virus, became ill and required hospitalization.

But because the system doesn’t count vaccinated people who become ill and stay at home, the number of officially tallied “breakthrough cases” is an undercount of the total number.

Since relatively few vaccinated individuals who are ill at home will drag themselves to a testing facility to confirm they have Virus Z, the total number of vaccinated individuals who are carriers (i.e. are contagious) and who became ill enough to stay home is also unknown.

Like many other viruses, Virus Z triggers long-term debilitating symptoms in a percentage of those who become ill, and some percentage of these long-term effects occur in individuals whose illness was relatively mild. Since it’s it’s not practical to routinely test tens of millions of vaccinated individuals, the number who contracted the illness and are experiencing long-term debilitating symptoms is unknown.

What we do know via careful contract tracing is that one vaccinated individual transmitted the virus to 20 other people, both unvaccinated and vaccinated, in one encounter in an enclosed space, and this variant is genetically distinct from the initial Virus Z.

This is worrisome, as the transmissibility of a virus is more dangerous than than the mortality rate of those infected. If a virus with low transmissibility causes the death of 5% of those who contract the illness, and it sickens 1,000 people, then 50 of those stricken will die. A highly transmissible virus with a mortality rate of 2% may appear less dangerous, but if it sickens 100,000 people and 2% die, that’s 2,000 people who lost their lives.

Since the virus has been mutating in X number of vaccinated individuals at a rate of mutation typical of viruses (i.e. a high rate), a small but significant number of these millions of mutations help the mutated virus evade the host immune system and whatever advantages were conferred by the vaccine.

Within this pool of mutations which evaded the immune system tacklers, those mutations which also enhance transmissibility spread rapidly to other human hosts, both unvaccinated and vaccinated, depending on the relative effectiveness of the vaccination in each individual, the relative robustness of their immune system and a variety of other complex factors such as partial natural immunity, exposure to previous variants of Virus Z and so on.

Within this pool of mutations that enhance transmissibility, some percentage will enhance transmissibility to younger, healthier individuals who were less susceptible to the initial Virus Z.

What’s striking about our thought experiment is how little reliable data we have about the transmissibility of our hypothetical Virus Z and the long-term consequences of its mutations. What’s striking is the number of important data fields which are unknown, only haphazardly collected, or in which data is so incomplete that it is misleading.

Science cannot advance if data is unavailable, unreliable or so selectively gathered that it’s misleading. What’s striking about our thought experiment is how little is reliably known about Virus Z’s transmissibility, virulence or long-term effects.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/02/2021 – 17:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3dEq40m Tyler Durden

Wisconsin Votes To Exempt Hair Braiders From Occupational Licensing Law


zumaamericasthirtyone492932

Wisconsin hair braiders may no longer need a permission slip from the government to make a livelihood using their skills. In June, the state legislature passed a bill to allow people to professionally braid hair without a license. The measure now awaits Gov. Tony Evers’ signature.

Wisconsin follows a number of states in the past decade that have begun allowing unlicensed braiding—either through legislative action or after a court ruled the license rules unnecessary. These include Mississippi, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington.

While it was not explicitly stated in any previous Wisconsin law that hair braiders needed to be licensed, Wisconsin rules do require a license in order to be a professional barber—with “barbering” defined as “for compensation, arranging, styling, dressing, shampooing, cleansing, curling, dyeing, tinting, coloring, bleaching, waxing, waving, straightening, cutting, shaving, trimming, relaxing, singeing, or performing similar work upon the hair of the head, neck, or face of any person by any means.”

The new law would revise the state’s definition to explicitly say that “barbering” does not include “natural hair braiding,” which it defines as “twisting, wrapping, weaving, extending, locking, crocheting, or braiding hair”—whether natural or synthetic—”by hand or with a mechanical device.”

This would exempt natural hair braiders from the extensive training required of licensed barbers. 

“Equity is about opening opportunities, and removing barriers,” said Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D–Madison), one of the bill’s sponsors in the House, in a statement. “This legislation will allow for more individuals, especially female entrepreneurs, to practice the art of natural hair braiding without unnecessary training. [It] removes restrictions and opens opportunities for hair braiders in our state, many of whom are Black women. This will not only improve their economic lives, but also stimulate our state’s economy as a whole.”

Natural hair braiding has long been practiced by black Americans as a natural way to style hair, with knowledge being passed down informally in families or communities. Licensing requirements make it unnecessarily difficult for hair braiders—who are primarily black women—to use this knowledge to become entrepreneurs.

“We shouldn’t have to go to school just to get licensed just to do something that’s always been in our household, what we grew up learning and is so natural to us,” Kiara Allen, owner of Kashis Cheveux salon in Madison, Wisconsin, told WMTV.

Barber licensing requirements are supposedly in place to ensure consumer safety. But natural hair braiding is a low-risk process that requires no heat or caustic chemicals

The Institute for Justice (IJ), an advocacy group that has sued state governments on multiple occasions over hair-braiding licensing, noted in a 2016 report that in Washington, D.C., and the nine licensure states that responded to a request for information, there were 9,731 licensed or registered hair braiders and only 103 complaints filed against them—by either a customer, another licensee, or a member of a cosmetology licensing board—from 2006 to 2012. Only four of these complaints were about health and safety concerns; the rest were about the fact that the hair braiders were unlicensed. Just one came from a customer. 

“Higher barriers to entry for braiders bring few benefits to the public, but
they do carry costs,” finds the IJ report. “States with more onerous licenses tend to have fewer braiders than states with less onerous ones…The states requiring 100 hours or fewer of training for their specialty licenses or registration had more braiders than the states requiring 300 hours or more—and most of these differences were statistically significant. These results suggest that more burdensome licensing regimes may be shutting braiders out—or driving them underground—without improving health and safety outcomes.”

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“They Just Want Our Money”: California’s Gas Tax Has Risen Again

“They Just Want Our Money”: California’s Gas Tax Has Risen Again

You know what we were just thinking California could use? Higher taxes.

And it must not just be us “thinking clearly” because the state is about to push through yet another gas excise tax increase that has the state’s citizens so annoyed they have committed to “not go anywhere”. This begs the Laffer-curve inspired question: what’s a 51.1 cent per gallon tax worth when people in the state have just abandoned buying gas altogether?

The new tax went into effect on Thursday, according to CBS 8. It comes from an automatic increase as part of Senate Bill 1 that was signed into law in 2017. The bill incrementally raises the fuel excise tax each year for road and bridge repairs. The report says the tax is now 51.1 cents per gallon, putting California’s gas and state taxes at the highest in the country.

California’s gas tax has risen by 21 cents since SB1 passed in 2017. At this rate, there will literally be nothing left to tax in a couple of years. 

Doug Shupe of AAA talked about the cost to drivers: “It’s about six-tenths of a cent per gallon, and for that typical 14-gallon size fuel tank, that means you’re paying about 8 cents more per fill up, so not a huge difference.”

Even better is the fact that voters had a chance to do away with the gas tax in 2018 as part of Proposition 6 – but the measure failed at the ballot. 

California drivers were livid.

“The politicians just keep gouging us for more and more. It doesn’t even matter if they’re Democrats or Republicans. They just want our money and the thing is, we’re not getting the value we’re paying for it,” said resident Richard Matz.

Another resident, Carl Demaio, said: “It’s a fraudulent tax because we were told we were going to get great roads. Well, our roads are the worst in the country according to a variety of indicators.”

San Diego currently averages $4.26 per gallon, for regular unleaded gas. The gas tax costs a family of four about $800 per year, the report notes.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/02/2021 – 17:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/36dlB0x Tyler Durden

Wisconsin Votes To Exempt Hair Braiders From Occupational Licensing Law


zumaamericasthirtyone492932

Wisconsin hair braiders may no longer need a permission slip from the government to make a livelihood using their skills. In June, the state legislature passed a bill to allow people to professionally braid hair without a license. The measure now awaits Gov. Tony Evers’ signature.

Wisconsin follows a number of states in the past decade that have begun allowing unlicensed braiding—either through legislative action or after a court ruled the license rules unnecessary. These include Mississippi, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington.

While it was not explicitly stated in any previous Wisconsin law that hair braiders needed to be licensed, Wisconsin rules do require a license in order to be a professional barber—with “barbering” defined as “for compensation, arranging, styling, dressing, shampooing, cleansing, curling, dyeing, tinting, coloring, bleaching, waxing, waving, straightening, cutting, shaving, trimming, relaxing, singeing, or performing similar work upon the hair of the head, neck, or face of any person by any means.”

The new law would revise the state’s definition to explicitly say that “barbering” does not include “natural hair braiding,” which it defines as “twisting, wrapping, weaving, extending, locking, crocheting, or braiding hair”—whether natural or synthetic—”by hand or with a mechanical device.”

This would exempt natural hair braiders from the extensive training required of licensed barbers. 

“Equity is about opening opportunities, and removing barriers,” said Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D–Madison), one of the bill’s sponsors in the House, in a statement. “This legislation will allow for more individuals, especially female entrepreneurs, to practice the art of natural hair braiding without unnecessary training. [It] removes restrictions and opens opportunities for hair braiders in our state, many of whom are Black women. This will not only improve their economic lives, but also stimulate our state’s economy as a whole.”

Natural hair braiding has long been practiced by black Americans as a natural way to style hair, with knowledge being passed down informally in families or communities. Licensing requirements make it unnecessarily difficult for hair braiders—who are primarily black women—to use this knowledge to become entrepreneurs.

“We shouldn’t have to go to school just to get licensed just to do something that’s always been in our household, what we grew up learning and is so natural to us,” Kiara Allen, owner of Kashis Cheveux salon in Madison, Wisconsin, told WMTV.

Barber licensing requirements are supposedly in place to ensure consumer safety. But natural hair braiding is a low-risk process that requires no heat or caustic chemicals

The Institute for Justice (IJ), an advocacy group that has sued state governments on multiple occasions over hair-braiding licensing, noted in a 2016 report that in Washington, D.C., and the nine licensure states that responded to a request for information, there were 9,731 licensed or registered hair braiders and only 103 complaints filed against them—by either a customer, another licensee, or a member of a cosmetology licensing board—from 2006 to 2012. Only four of these complaints were about health and safety concerns; the rest were about the fact that the hair braiders were unlicensed. Just one came from a customer. 

“Higher barriers to entry for braiders bring few benefits to the public, but
they do carry costs,” finds the IJ report. “States with more onerous licenses tend to have fewer braiders than states with less onerous ones…The states requiring 100 hours or fewer of training for their specialty licenses or registration had more braiders than the states requiring 300 hours or more—and most of these differences were statistically significant. These results suggest that more burdensome licensing regimes may be shutting braiders out—or driving them underground—without improving health and safety outcomes.”

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Arizona Auditors “Still Waiting” For “Missing Items” Subpoenaed From Maricopa County: Senate Leader

Arizona Auditors “Still Waiting” For “Missing Items” Subpoenaed From Maricopa County: Senate Leader

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

The Arizona state Senate will need to request routers and passwords that are being withheld by Maricopa County election officials to complete the audit of the 2020 election results, said an audit spokesman, while State Senate Leader Karen Fann said county executives still haven’t delivered several “missing items” related to a court-ordered subpoena issued earlier this year.

Former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (second from left) moves ballots during an election audit at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 1, 2021. (Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

Randy Pullen, a spokesman and liaison for the effort, said Thursday that after speaking with state Senators, they will determine the next steps to take. Some electronic data stored by Maricopa County needs to be evaluated by the audit team.

“We have none of that information has been provided to us, and it’s something that the Senate will have to go back to the county and request those items,” he told reporters as the audit team was moving out of the Phoenix Coliseum on Thursday. “So again, it’s very difficult to complete the audit without getting that information.”

What’s at stake, Pullen explained, are a “few minor things” over software additions to Maricopa County’s systems. He didn’t elaborate on the software.

“We got some additional information for the county,” he added. “Apparently there was a difference on how many duplicate ballots there were per batch, so they gave us a new list and so we had to create software that took that data and compared it to our data to deal with the duplicate ballots.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Karen Fann, in response to questions about the possibility of subpoenas being issued, told The Epoch Times that her office and auditors are “still waiting for the Maricopa County Supervisors to provide us with the missing items on the original subpoena as ordered by the court.”

“The Arizona Senate has extended our contract with the State Fairgrounds for two weeks at the Wesley Bolin building. Our vendor is finishing the aggregation process which is double and triple-checking the tallies of the hand counts, spreadsheet, tally sheets, image scanning etc.,” she continued in an email. “This is a critical step to ensure the tallies can be accurately verified which will give us a path forward in completing the audit.”

Before the audit commenced in late April, there was a back-and-forth legal battle between the Senate and Maricopa County’s executives. A judge ultimately ruled that the legislative body’s subpoenas were valid and could proceed with the audit.

Late last week, a spokesperson for the audit team confirmed that the paper ballot examination and counting phase of the audit is complete. More work is needed to be done offsite, and Republicans have said the final report will be released late in August or September.

Another liaison, Ken Bennett—a former Arizona secretary of state—told NBC News that the count is finished but, according to him, “the audit is just starting.” Election reviewers, Bennett added, recently obtained documents that are crucial to the process.

“Those documents are critical to understanding how many ballots were taken out of every almost every batch and sent to duplication and therefore have to be accounted for in accounting for all of the ballots,” he said Thursday, referring to the logs about duplicate ballots. Those records, Bennett added, were obtained through AUDIT USA, an outside group supporting the audit.

Democrats and legacy news outlets have frequently characterized the audit as being politically motivated as well as being fraught with errors and security lapses. Fann and other Republicans have categorically denied the claims.

And Maricopa County, meanwhile, declared that the election equipment that was reviewed by the auditors was compromised, announcing in a press release that the machines would be replaced. Fann described Maricopa County’s letter as another “attack on the audit” and argued Maricopa cannot provide any evidence suggesting the machines were “tampered with.”

Maricopa County has not yet responded to a request for comment about the possibility of new subpoenas. A spokesperson for the county told NBC that the Senate has not subpoenaed the logs about the duplicate ballots, saying that it fulfilled a request to hand over the documents after an AUDIT USA request in mid-June.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/02/2021 – 17:00

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Venezuela To Chop Off Six Zeros From Bolivar In 3rd Currency Redenomination In 13 Years

Venezuela To Chop Off Six Zeros From Bolivar In 3rd Currency Redenomination In 13 Years

Prior attempts of the Venezuelan government to get a handle on several years of hyperinflation included the dramatic and unprecedented recent step of issuing 1 million bolívar bills. The high denomination bill issued in March of course did literally nothing to solve the underlying problems which started in earnest in 2016 under a collapsing system, but it only made ordinary Venezuelans’ lives harder.

For example a single 1 million bolívar note would not currently be enough to buy a single cup of coffee, as a million bolivars is worth just over $0.32 US. The vast majority of working class people still need cash for daily transactions, including for public transit or local grocery and goods stores. 

And now the next iteration of an attempted “solution” to the ongoing crisis is a fresh currency redenomination, which will mark no less than the third one in 13 years.

This time it will simply involve chopping off a lot of zeros to make things practically easier for cash transactions, as Bloomberg reports, “Venezuela is preparing once again to eliminate zeros from the national currency, in order to simplify daily transactions that hardly fit on a calculator or that require swiping the card several times to complete a purchase.”

Starting in August the central bank will cut six zeros from the bolivar, thus a single dollar would cost 3.2 bolivars instead of the current whopping 3,219,000.

The central bank move to delete a bunch of zeros is beginning to appear a semi-regular intervention given that stemming back to 2008 a total of eight zeros have been progressively removed. 

The former president of retailers’ group Consecomercio Felipe Capozzolo had this to say of the anticipated move: “Not only has it become difficult to make payments because the amounts are too high, but printing such numbers is becoming difficult for the label makers,” according to Caracas Chronicles.

How many bolivars needed to buy one dollar?…

Because of this, clerks and store operators have already been known to routinely take away three zeros away to make daily accounting easier: 

“A redenomination leaves you with numbers that are more rational and easier to understand, but you also have to enable means of payment, as well as change, which affects the ease of trade on goods and services,” Capozzolo added.

According to a Bloomberg recap, “After the second-longest stretch of hyperinflation in the nation’s history, annual inflation is now at 2,339% a year, compared to more than 300,000% in 2019, according to the Bloomberg Café con Leche index.”

Over the years the country has printed higher and higher notes ad absurdum…

“On a monthly basis, the price increase slowed further, to about 20% in May, compared to April. The central bank no longer regularly publishes inflation data,” the report adds.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/02/2021 – 16:40

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If Sha’Carri Richardson Can Get High and Still Outrun Everybody, She Should Be Allowed To Do It


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Sha’Carri Richardson ran 100 meters faster than any other woman at the U.S. Olympic trials, but she won’t be able to compete in the event at the Olympic Games in Tokyo after testing positive for marijuana.

There are so, so many things wrong with this. The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which officially announced Richardson’s month-long suspension on Friday, should be ashamed for how they’ve handled the situation. More importantly, they should change their policies to ensure more athletes aren’t subjected to an unnecessary punishment for using a substance that is obviously not going to provide a competitive edge.

And while the situation seems fairly absurd on its face, it actually gets worse the deeper you go.

Start with the fact that the USADA doesn’t actually classify tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive chemical found in cannabis, as a performance-enhancing drug. But the USADA—whose sole purpose, ostensibly, is to ensure the integrity of athletic events—tests athletes for THC anyway because it regards marijuana as “a ‘Substance of Abuse’ because it is frequently used in society outside the context of sport.”

In the statement announcing Richardson’s suspension, the USADA acknowledged that “Richardson’s…use of cannabis occurred out of competition and was unrelated to sport performance.”

In other words, Richardson’s positive test had no bearing on the fact that she out-raced every other American woman at the Olympic trials—which were held in Eugene, Oregon, where marijuana is legal. Richardson engaged in legal activity that did not bestow upon her an unfair competitive advantage…and yet she’s been suspended anyway.

Yes, the USOC and the USADA are private organizations that can set whatever rules they want. And, yes, Richardson should have been aware of those rules and known she would be drug tested. None of that changes the fact that the rules are beyond stupid.

And not just stupid, but enforced with more than a touch of creepy paternalism. Take a look at the statement released by Travis T. Tygart, CEO of the USADA, in which he described Richardson’s suspension as “heartbreaking” before going on to say that “hopefully, her acceptance of responsibility and apology will be an important example to us all that we can successfully overcome our regrettable decisions, despite the costly consequences of this one to her.”

Okay, dad. Richardson is a 21-year-old woman who already took responsibility for her actions, not a child who needs a public reprimand for engaging in completely legal behavior. Yes, Tygart is just doing his job and applying the rules to the situation—but spare us the moralizing.

In an interview with NBC on Wednesday, Richardson admitted to using marijuana to cope with the emotional stress caused by the unexpected death of her mother last month—a death she learned about from a reporter. “It sent me into a state of emotional panic,” she said. Even world-class athletes, it turns out, are human.

But here’s where things get even more ridiculous for the USADA. If Richardson had learned of her mother’s death and emotionally coped by getting drunk instead of high, she’d still be allowed to compete in the Olympics. These rules governing what athletes do outside of competition (when there is no competitive advantage to be gained) are indefensible.

Richardson’s suspension drew widespread condemnation on social media Friday. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) tweeted their opposition to the USADA’s ruling. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D–N.Y.) said the incident showed why “we need to get rid of archaic rules” regarding marijuana.

Jen Psaki, the White House’s press secretary, called Richardson “an inspiring woman” on Friday but indicated that the Biden administration would not intervene. “This was an independent decision made by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and not a decision that would be made by the U.S. government, as is appropriate, and we will certainly leave them the space and room to make their decisions about anti-doping policies that need to be implemented,” she said, according to Politico.

“Banning Sha’Carri Richardson from the Olympic 100-meter race is an absurd act of injustice. It should outrage every American who believes in common sense, compassion, and fairness,” Matthew Schweich, deputy director at the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for legalization, said in a statement. “Like millions of other Americans, Sha’Carri Richardson is an adult who used cannabis in a state where it is legal. She should have the right to use cannabis without the fear that it could severely impact her athletic career and deprive her of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”

There’s still a chance that Richardson and her iconic hair could be a part of the 4×100 team relay race at the Olympics. That’s because the event is scheduled for August 6, after her 30-day suspension ends.

“If I’m allowed to receive that blessing, then I’m grateful for it, but if not right now, then I’m just going to focus on myself,” Richardson said during her interview with NBC on Wednesday—arguably demonstrating more maturity than the supposed authorities have throughout this whole mess.

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Sudden Shift In COVID-19 Lab Leak Narrative ‘Mysterious’: Bret Weinstein

Sudden Shift In COVID-19 Lab Leak Narrative ‘Mysterious’: Bret Weinstein

Authored by Isabel Van Brugen and Jan Jekielek (emphasis ours),

Bret Weinstein on The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders set on June 30, 2021.

The sudden shift in narrative over the possibility that COVID-19 could have emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, is mysterious and contingent to “just how corrupt our system has become,” according to evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein.

Weinstein, biologist and co-host of the DarkHorse Podcast, has since last year explored the possibility that COVID-19 could have emerged from a laboratory. He told Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” program (episode premiering on Sat. July 3) that the fact that the hypothesis is now receiving widespread recognition from the international community is “completely mysterious.”

“My channel was very early on this topic, and it was quite clear to many of us, starting with the tremendous coincidence of this virus having emerged first in Wuhan, where there is a biosafety level four lab studying these very viruses and enhancing them,” said Weinstein. “It was quite clear that there was at least a viable hypothesis that needed to be discussed.“

Weinstein, a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program at Princeton University, said that before the narrative surrounding the COVID-19 lab leak theory gained traction, those who did discuss it were stigmatized, demonized and “portrayed as everything from racist to reactionary.”

“All we were doing was following the evidence,” Weinstein continued. “The change in that story was, I have to say, completely mysterious.”

While the theory that the virus was the result of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was labeled a “conspiracy theory” last year, it has recently gained traction as a growing number of scientists and officials have lent credence to the hypothesis.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

A January State Department fact sheet raised questions about whether the outbreak could have been the result of a lab accident at WIV. It said the United States has “reason to believe” that several WIV researchers became sick with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses in autumn 2019. The department also said the lab had been conducting secret military experiments on animals since at least 2017, and that it has a history of conducting gain-of-function research on viruses. Such research involves modifying viruses to have new or enhanced capabilities.

President Joe Biden on May 26 ordered the intelligence community to produce a report in 90 days on the origins of the virus, saying that intelligence agencies are looking at rival theories, including the possibility of a laboratory accident in China.

Weinstein criticized the explanations provided in recent weeks by “all of those who had gotten the story wrong” after the lab leak theory gained wider recognition.

PolitiFact, for example, on May 24 quietly retracted a September 2020 fact check that labeled a Hong Kong virologist’s claim that COVID-19 originated in a lab as inaccurate and a “debunked conspiracy theory.”

“The claim is inaccurate and ridiculous,” the now-archived fact check previously said. “We rate it Pants on Fire!”

In an updated editor’s note, PolitiFact explained why it removed the label.

“When this fact-check was first published in September 2020, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed,” the note said. “For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute.”

Separately, the Washington Post quietly walked back its claims regarding the COVID-19 lab leak theory.

The paper in February 2020 published an article claiming the idea was a “conspiracy theory” that had been “debunked.” The article attacked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called for an investigation into the origins of the CCP virus.

Some reporters have said that they disregarded the lab leak theory because Republicans were largely the ones promoting the idea.

Weinstein described the phenomenon as “a headlong rush, by all of those who had gotten the story wrong to explain themselves—and their explanations made less than no sense.”

He said that certain journalists or media outlets “seemed to center on the fact that because [former President] Donald Trump had been favorable to the idea that this might have emerged from a lab, that that made it not true.”

“Which, of course, is such an illogical conclusion that it’s hard to imagine how anybody who considers himself a journalist could for a moment have been misled,” he continued. “I mean, at worst, if you thought everything that Donald Trump said was a lie—at worst, you would have to take it as no evidence either way.

“But that’s not how people treated it. They treated it almost as if the truth was always the opposite of what he said.”

Other outlets have also corrected or quietly updated stories, including Vox, while Facebook stopped banning posts suggesting the virus was man-made.

Weinstein said that he believes it eventually became “impossible to maintain the public lie that a laboratory version was somehow in conflict with the evidence.”

“And we now know from Dr. Fauci, his emails, that behind the scenes, the top people didn’t believe it either. They were just simply feeding the public a line that they had their own reasons for wanting the public to believe,” he said.

“It is contingent on the several different stories that surround COVID-19, revealing to us just how corrupt our system has become.”

Cathy He and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

Follow Jan on Twitter: @JanJekielek

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/02/2021 – 16:20

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