Month: March 2024

Authored by Marty Bent via BombThrower.com,

Fix The Money, Fix The World

This chart has been making the rounds on Twitter this week and I think it’s a good image to send you freaks into the weekend with.

It’s easy to get swept up in the chaos of the day-to-day volatility that exists in our world. Recently, our minds have been inundated with headlines about illegal immigration, squatters and the degradation of private property rights, war across the world, small battles within the larger “culture war”, increasing prices, and the decisions made by central banks around the world. In the midst of all of this chaos it is important to take a step back and remind yourself of what lies at the core of most of these issues; the fact that we’ve completely broken money.

When you break money, the most important tool humans use to facilitate economic activity, a ripple effect of negative consequences begins to emanate from the root of the world’s engine. Those ripples create the momentum that leads to chaos that we are witnessing today.

Broken money leads people to store their value in sub optimal vehicles like housing. This drives the cost of real estate up unnaturally and increases the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”. Sowing seeds of animosity. Seeds that, when left to germinate and grow via the further degradation of the money people use, blossom into ugly flowers of Anarcho Tyranny.

This has manifested in the trend of people claiming other’s houses by squatting in them when they are left unattended for an extended period of time. The preferential treatment that has been given to squatters over homeowners in recent years can be seen as the regime which controls the money printers throwing the plebs a bone as they struggle to get by, an attempt to push the productive class to violence against a state unwilling to respect private property rights, or a combination of the two.

Broken money incentivizes governments to allow their borders to be bum rushed by cheap laborers who will take low paying jobs that enable the systemically fragile economy to keep chugging along while simultaneously increasing the chaos that already exists and diluting the values that the natives of this country believe in.

The excess and decadence enabled by a world run on broken easy money allows people to live in a detached reality that leads them to push objectively false narratives. This is why there are running debates about gender and a retreat from merit based compensation.

All of this stems from broken money.

The chart above should act as a reminder to you all that the biggest problem in the world right now is the money. The chart above should also prove to you that the most powerful people throughout the economy are going to fight tooth and nail to protect the broken money because they benefit massively from the fact that it is broken.

Keep this in mind as the chaos increases and narratives begin to form around using bitcoin as money.

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Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here and receive a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto, which outlined all this. However, by the time you read this it may already be too late to sign up for The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter: new subscriptions will be closed once Bitcoin hits a new all-time high.
Follow Marty’s Bent via TFTC.io

Russian state media has underscored that “partners and geopolitical rivals alike have joined the chorus expressing horror in the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack.”

This has somewhat surprisingly included a statement of solidarity from Washington, as the death toll has has risen to 137 killed. “The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Saturday statement. “We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event.”

Even NATO issued a statement of condolence, with NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah saying on X that the Western military alliance “unequivocally condemn the attacks targeting concertgoers in Moscow.” 

“Our deepest condolences to the victims and their families,” she said, adding that “nothing can justify such heinous crimes.” Pope Francis too has offered special prayers for victims on Sunday.

But still Western officials hit back at President Putin’s attempts to link the terror attack, which ISIS-K has reportedly taken responsibility for, to Ukraine. Both the president and Kremlin officials have alleged the gunmen were trying to escape through Ukraine territory, utilizing a ‘window’ of support from across the border.

The fire which raged for many hours in the wake of the terror attack gutted the Crocus complex and part of the roof caved in. Below is stunning video of the aftermath:

Citizens in Russia are observing a national day of mourning today for the more than 130 people who were killed in an ISIS attack at a concert venue outside of Moscow. Russian Pres. Putin claimed it was linked to Ukraine — a charge Ukraine and the U.S. deny, @Debora_Patta reports. pic.twitter.com/9elHW10yLv

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 24, 2024

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has told Sky News that Britain has “very little confidence in anything the Russian government says.”

“We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a tragedy when innocent people lose their lives, when you have horrible bombings,” Hunt said. Hunt further emphasized that London takes “what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt… after what we have seen from them over the last few years.”

Meanwhile Russia continues to investigate who was ultimately behind the attack as it currently has eleven people in custody, and among them are said to be the four gunmen.

Videos have emerged online showing some of their apprehensions as well as confessions, surrounded by several Russian security service personnel.

Wild confession by the captured Moscow mall attacker. He claimed to have done it for money https://t.co/iNvNK8Ejg1

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) March 23, 2024

While Russian authorities are still very early in their investigation, the ‘confessions’ and claims and counter-claims which are still emerging remain bizarre and murky:

On Saturday, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan posted footage of the interrogation of one of the suspects. The man in the video claims that he went on the killing spree after he was promised 500,000 rubles ($5,400).

The suspect also claimed that his handlers had instructed him as to where the attack should take place. He said he was ordered to “kill people there… doesn’t matter who.” The suspect claimed that the terrorist act was organized on Telegram with an unknown person who provided weapons.

Russia has said the attackers are not Russian citizens…

Tajik terrorists were brought to #Moscow for interrogation.

Investigative actions will be carried out with them.#MoscowTerroristAttack #Moscou #isis #russia #CrocusCityHall pic.twitter.com/m5NkagP5W3

— WorldNews (@FirstWorldNewss) March 24, 2024

The gunmen had later the same day of the attack been apprehended in Bryansk Region, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” according to Russian official statements.

Amid an ongoing flurry of speculation over the circumstances surrounding the Crocus Hall massacre, and the question of whether state actors or intelligence services may be involved, more videos have emerged which appear to tie the attackers to the Islamic State.

Prior social media claims that asserted one or more attackers were Ukrainian appear to have been debunked. Various theories continue to be advanced, also by mainstream pundits. Independent journalists such as Glenn Greenwald have pointed out that there are many more questions than there are answers at this point, but an MSM narrative has already quickly solidified.

I have no idea who perpetrated that horrific attack in Moscow but note how immediately, mindlessly and unquestioningly most of the US corporate media treats the evidence-free pronouncements of the US Government as Gospel Truth.

Some informed analysis/questioning here: https://t.co/3j9yjPCVr8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 24, 2024

In a statement released Sunday, the Russian Investigative Committee detailed that “Four sets of combat ammunition, with more than 500 bullets and 28 magazines, and two Kalashnikov assault rifles, which the attackers were armed with, were confiscated from the scene of the tragedy.”

The SITE Intelligence Group, which is often cited and relied upon in Western media, claims that the Islamic State through its official channels has “revealed the four fighters involved in the Moscow concert hall operation” and is “boasting” about its “fiercest attack in years.” Russia has long been an avowed enemy of ISIS, especially after the Russian military intervention in Syria starting in 2015, when Putin joined Assad in battling jihadists in the war-ravaged country.

ISIS propaganda channels have reportedly released cell phone videos from the attackers themselves…

BREAKING:

The official ISIS outlet Al-Amaq releases the video recorded by the terrorists from the Moscow attack

It shows the slowly walking out of the place after killing 140+ people

In the video, 1 of them shouts Allahu Akbar & that they have punished the “kuffars” (infidels) pic.twitter.com/QQre7KhXfF

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 23, 2024

Meanwhile, the Russian government has continued to question what intelligence concerning the planned attack that Washington may have had ahead of time. In a March 7 emergency alert, the US Embassy in Moscow said it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.”

The embassy further urged all US nationals in the country to remain vigilant and “monitor local media for updates.” The Kremlin has demanded answers and even raised the possibility of Western involvement, given also the current claims that the terrorists may have had a ‘Ukraine connection’. 

Some of the newly released footage is extremely graphic, in one instance showing a man’s throat being slit (the below is censored for online release):

Al-Amaq, a Media Outlet linked to ISIS has released several Minutes of Footage which was Filmed by the 4 Terrorists during last night’s #Terrorist Attack on the #Crocus Concert Hall in the #Russian Capital of #MoscowAttacks pic.twitter.com/QXPffT2DPM

— Mumin Ahmadi (@MuminAhmadi) March 24, 2024

Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov has on Sunday issued a statement saying that it was the United States which first destroyed anti-terrorism cooperation between the two countries. However, anonymous US intelligence officials who spoke to major US media outlets claim that Moscow was notified that a big terror act was going to happen. But Antonov has said “some things [in this cooperation] worked out… and it is all destroyed today through no fault of our own.”

“We did not receive any notifications or messages in advance,” Antonov told RIA. However, White House spokesman John Kirby has sought to clarify, “I’m not aware of any advance knowledge that we had of this.”

By Jacob Burg of the Epoch Times

An unlikely source of aid for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—who is facing a motion from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to oust him after bringing the government funding package to a floor vote—might come from House Democrats.

After all House Democrats voted with a gang of eight Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023, several House Democrats are signaling they would save Mr. Johnson from a similar fate.

“It’s absurd he’s being kicked out for doing the right thing, keeping the government open. It has two-thirds support of the Congress, and the idea that he would be kicked out by these jokers is absurd,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) told CNN on March 22. He said he would vote to retain Mr. Johnson as House Speaker and hoped other Democrats would do the same.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) expressed a similar sentiment in a March 22 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.  “I do not support Speaker Johnson, but I will never stand by and let [Ms. Greene] take over the people’s House,” he said.

I do not support Speaker Johnson but I will never stand by and let MTG to take over the people’s House. https://t.co/qK9vNnN7tE

— Jared Moskowitz (@JaredEMoskowitz) March 22, 2024

However, some Democrats said their support would be predicated on Mr. Johnson reconsidering the Senate’s foreign-aid package passed in February.

“I’d want to see his good-faith action before that happened,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said, referring to the possibility of voting to retain Mr. Johnson as speaker.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), before Ms. Greene filed her motion, mentioned that he would vote to prevent Mr. Johnson’s ouster depending on the speaker’s actions regarding aid for Ukraine.

“If we get a vote on the appropriations bills and we get a vote on the supplemental, there’ll be enough Democrats that Johnson will not be removed as speaker,” Mr. Smith told The Hill in February.

“That’s just my view.”

Republicans Against Johnson Ouster

Ms. Greene filed her motion to vacate Mr. Johnson from the speaker’s chair the morning before the House approved the funding package, 286–134, which is now headed to the Senate before the 11:59 p.m. shutdown deadline.

However, not all Republicans are eager to face the same gridlock and uncertainty that bedeviled the GOP caucus in the weeks after Mr. McCarthy’s ouster. Even some of Mr. Johnson’s harshest critics from the House Freedom Caucus have dismissed Ms. Greene’s efforts.

Mr. Gaetz, who initiated Mr. McCarthy’s downfall, said he would not support a motion to vacate Mr. Johnson.

“When I vacated McCarthy, I made a promise to all of you, to the entire country, that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker,” Mr. Gaetz said on his “Firebrand” podcast on March 22, after the House vote.

He expressed concern with the dwindling House GOP majority and the possibility of at least a few Republicans voting for a Democratic speaker in the event of Mr. Johnson’s potential ouster.

“And because I’m not sure of that, do not count me among those who would support a motion to vacate at this time,” Mr. Gaetz added.

Some Republicans, however, were not nearly as restrained in their responses to Ms. Greene’s motion to vacate.

“It’s not only idiotic, but it actually does not do anything to advance the conservative movement. And in fact, it undermines the country and our majority,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) of the House Freedom Caucus said Mr. Johnson is the only House Republican capable of leading the caucus “through these dark and challenging times” and that Ms. Greene “just made a big mistake.”

Ms. Greene told reporters on the Capital steps on March 22 that she is not the only Republican supporting her motion to vacate Mr. Johnson but stopped short of naming anyone.

“I’ve talked to many who probably won’t go public, but silently, they’re breathing a sigh of relief,” she said.

That support, at least so far, does not appear to come from others who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy last year.

Continue reading at The Epoch Times

Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday announced a new national office that will assist states in implementing “red flag” laws – which allow for a judge like this…

…to approve the temporary removal of firearms from a person believed to be a danger to themselves or others, by a prosecutor like this:

Harris announced the new office, the federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center (Erpo), at a Saturday visit to Parkland, Florida, where she toured the site of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting that killed 17.

“The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school occurred after there were clear warning signs, but there were no tools to remove the shooter’s firearm,” the White House said in a statement announcing the resource office.

The office is being funded by a Justice Department grant, and will be operated through the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. It will help state and local governments, as well as law enforcement and others (including behavioral health and social service providers), to “optimize” the use of red flag laws, and will provide training and technical assistance “for a wide variety of stakeholders.”

Red flag laws have already been implemented in 21 states, of which the White House said that just six had taken advantage of $750 million in funding made available by the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act enacted by the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, the father of a victim of the Parkland shooting, Ryan Petty, slammed Harris in an interview on Fox News, telling the outlet “The vice president and the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention made it very clear to families early on that nothing short of new gun control was going to satisfy them in protecting our nation’s schools. And that is just a slap in the face to those of us that have worked for six years now to try to protect our nation’s schools.”

“There are so many ways that we can protect our kids and our teachers at school that don’t require the infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners around the country,” Petty added. “But the vice president and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention don’t want to hear any of those solutions. What they want to do is create an opportunity for the vice president to spout gun control talking points at a site that, quite frankly, is hallowed ground at this point.

“What’s frustrating to me is that this building should have been demolished years ago, and it’s now being used as a photo op for politicians that want to push an agenda,” he continued.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We trust what we own / control, and the difference between elites and commoners is the elites own / control the wealth and power that dominate our daily lives.

It sounds too obvious to be profound: we trust what we own / control. Of course we do. But it becomes profoundly consequential when we add the shadow half of the statement: we don’t trust what we don’t own / control without constant feedback providing verifiable evidence that it is worthy of our trust.

Absent this positive verifiable (i.e. factual evidence based on both data and personal-anecdotal experience) feedback, we have good reason to assume whatever we don’t own / control is primarily serving the interests of those who do own / control it. And since this means the product/service’s trustworthiness is suspect despite claims that it serves our interests, we must seek a steady flow of feedback substantiating that the product/service is still providing the value the owners / managers are claiming, either explicitly or implicitly.

In other words, hands-on knowledge about the inner workings of the product/service generates trust. Absent this experiential knowledge, we’re flying blind as to the true value of the product/service. If the actual value is less than the owners / managers claim, both the owners / managers and the product/service they’re providing are unworthy of our trust.

Consider a simple example: the food we put in our mouths to sustain ourselves.

When I collect fruits and vegetables I’ve grown here in our yard, I have direct knowledge of what went into the care and nurturing of the plants/trees/soil, so I know that there are no pesticides or herbicides and there are an abundance of micronutrients in our food due to the careful management of compost and fertilizers.

The food we eat from our homestead is therefore trustworthy.

We get lettuce and beets from a longtime family friend who has been farming for decades. He takes great pride in his produce and works extremely hard to raise te highest quality produce. Though I don’t have direct knowledge of his day-to-day practices, I know and trust him and I can see the vibrancy of his produce and taste its quality.

These are the people in our trusted personal network.

You see the gradient of trust: first level is first-hand experience/knowledge, second level is trusted personal network.

Compare this to produce labeled “organic” in a supermarket. We are making a great many assumptions about the produce this label is attached to. We assume the agency monitoring the actual farm practices is thorough and accurate, but this is quite stretch in the real world. Are inspectors onsite every day? What exactly do they test? Where are the results posted?

Produce, organic or not, is a commodity, and nobody is testing the nutritive content of the produce. Maybe one field hasn’t been depleted of micronutrients, while the rest have been over-farmed and depleted of the micronutrients we need to be healthy.

Since all produce is a commodity in global markets, they’re all interchangeable: one kilo of organic tomatoes or wheat is interchangeable with any other kilo of organic tomatoes or wheat, so there’s no way to tell if the “organic” produce or meat has high or low nutritive value. All that’s being claimed is that no pesticides or herbicides were applied and whatever compost and fertilizer were applied were organic. That’s entirely different than claiming the produce/meat is high in nutritive value.

Plants have immune systems, too, and a healthy plant provided with sufficient nutrients and water will resist insect infestations, fungi, bacteria, etc. far better than plants raised in depleted soils. Anyone with experience in actually growing fruits and vegetables is keenly alive to signs of nutrient deficiency or infestation.

The point is “organic” doesn’t mean the produce or meat is packed with nutrients. It just means the minimal guidelines qualifying the product as organic (or “bio”) were met. Those guidelines don’t guarantee a product packed with micronutrients. That takes extra care and tracking that isn’t done in a commoditized economy.

Consider efficacy claims and side-effect labeling on pharmaceuticals. If you actually study the Phase III trial data (I have), you find that the medications were not actually tested in conjunction with other commonly consumed medications. The potential interactions are completely unknown. You also discover the statistical legerdemain that goes into claiming efficacy that may be just barely above random results.

Since we have very little knowledge or control of all the medications deemed “safe” by untrustworthy agencies, all these medications are intrinsically untrustworthy until proven otherwise by multiple independent sources over a decade.

How Two Pharmacists Figured Out That Decongestants Don’t Work: A loophole in FDA processes means older drugs such as those in oral decongestants weren’t properly tested. Here’s how we learned the most popular one doesn’t work.

Now consider social media sites such as Facebook or X/Twitter. You may have noticed that what appears in your feed/scroll changes. These changes are not within our control or transparent; we presume the algos are being tweaked to maximize the income being generated by our content and our attention.

When Big Tech notifies you that your content “violated our community standards,” the violation is not specified, and if you ask, you won’t get a reply or explanation. We have no idea who is seeing what we post, or what’s being done with our attention-data. We have no knowledge or control of these algos and processes, and so they are intrinsically untrustworthy.

If we examine all the agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels that control the vast majority of our lives, we find that we have near-zero knowledge or control of any of their inputs, processes or outputs, and so all of these agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels are intrinsically untrustworthy until they consistently prove themselves trustworthy in some verifiable fashion.

Few of these agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels provide this feedback.

Consider the labels on processed foods for humans. Anyone caring for animals knows the labeling on food for animals is far stricter and more detailed than food for humans, for a good reason: those profiting from selling processed “food” to humans might have a harder time selling their low-quality products if we knew more about the low quality ingredients, high sugar and salt content, etc.

This is why commoners have lost trust in the nation’s agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels, while the top 1% elites that own and control these entities still trust them: they trust them because they serve their interests.

The commoners intuitively sense these entities do not serve their interests, they only claim to do so to maximize profits / “shareholder value” or to divert attention from the poor quality service/products. We know the claims being made are false because we experience the absence of transparency and accountability first-hand, and the abysmally low quality of the products and services first-hand.

The only viable solution is to own/control as much as you can, and nurture our own trusted personal networks. The only way to escape being stripmined and shorn by the entities owned and controlled by the top 1% elites is to abandon those agencies, institutions, monopolies and cartels as much as possible. That is the essence of what I call self-reliance.

We are blind to the decay of the hierarchy of trust because we’ve been trained to trust sprawling, unaccountable agencies and corporations without actually having any evidence that they are trustworthy.

At the top is owning / controlling the products/services ourselves. We trust our produce because we grew it. We trust our home repair because we did the work. Very few of us own or control anything other than our house or financial abstractions controlled by others.

The second level is personal trusted networks. Very few of us have personal trusted networks that provide the essentials of life. Virtually everything essential to modern life is commoditized and globalized; it comes from far away and we know nothing about its origin, quality or value.

The third level is local enterprises and agencies that are local enough to generate feedback we can access simply by listening to our neighbors and peers. On a very practical level, most communities once had local dairies and bakeries and broader networks of local businesses that provided services that are no longer available: shoe repair, etc.

The fourth and lowest level is commoditized feedback from a variety of sources that can be compared for completeness and accuracy, feedback that enables us to assess the relative trustworthiness of commoditized products and services sold by private monopolies and cartels theoretically monitored by unaccountable sprawling state agencies.

Our essential public services are also provided by other unaccountable sprawling state agencies that can fail in every way but are not influenced by their failure because we have no alternative to the DMV, tax office, etc.

These public-private monopolies and cartels provide very little feedback, and what little is available is itself suspect due to self-interest.

We control and own so little of what we need to live and what impacts our lives, and very few of these essentials are produced locally. We receive very little if any trustworthy feedback about the mega-entities (universities, hospital chains, Big Ag, Big Pharma, government agencies, Big Tech, Big Finance, Big Retail, etc.) that dominate our economy and our lives or the quality / value of the products and services they provide.

Professional elites still trust these mega-entities because they serve the interests of the elites who own / control them. The commoners no longer trust these entities because there is no reason or evidence to generate trust while there is a wealth of evidence supporting distrust.

We trust what we own / control, and the difference between elites and commoners is the elites own / control the wealth and power that dominate our daily lives.

As I noted in A Low-Trust Society Is an Impoverished Society, our only positive option is to regain as much ownership and control of our lives as we can manage, and nurture trusted personal networks and local enterprises and organizations. As I put it a few years ago: Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency).

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Overnight, Ukraine’s capital of Kiev as well as Lviv in the West came under a “massive” Russian aerial attack, Ukraine officials said, describing that in total 29 cruise missiles and 28 drones were launched. 

Ukraine’s military said it was able to intercept 18 of the missiles and 25 drones, but significantly one of the Russian cruise missiles reportedly breached Polish airspace while en route, causing Warsaw to demand answers.

Poland scrambled NATO F-16 jets in response to the breach which it said occurred at about 4:40am near the village of Oserdów on the Polish-Ukraine border. 

“The object flew into Polish [air]space near the village of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and spent 39 seconds in it,” Operational Command said. “It was observed by military radar systems throughout its flight.” Over half a minute is a significant about of time for a cruise missile to spend over Poland.

Poland’s Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters in a briefing, “As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish air space,” he said.

The incident occurred as other Russian missiles were raining down around the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, and the missile entered up to about one or two kilometers into Poland, Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

The defense ministry in follow-up stated, “Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems.”

Since the war began there’s been a few similar incidents of an errant missile entering Poland. In one of the most notable, which occurred in November 2022, it was later determined that a stray Ukrainian anti-air missile hit a Polish border village, tragically killing two people.

The Zelensky government has meanwhile continued to desperately appeal for more anti-air defense systems and missiles from the West. 

In this latest overnight missile and drone raid, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced early Sunday that there are “explosions in the capital” while urging to populace, “do not leave shelters” – given that “air defense is not working.”

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• At the COP28 climate summit at the end of last year, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacities by 2050.

• Most Western governments – with the notable exception of Germany – are now betting on nuclear power to help them with the carbon emission targets.

• The West has seen in recent years several cautionary tales of huge delays and cost overruns in looking to boost nuclear capacity.

Western nations may be getting ahead of themselves in their ambition to swiftly roll out new nuclear power capacity in the current push to reduce dependence on Russian uranium and meet net-zero targets with more nuclear-generated electricity.   

At the COP28 climate summit at the end of last year, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacities by 2050, saying that incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades.   

The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach,” the U.S. Department of State said.

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, says there are “trillions of dollars” available that could be used for investment in nuclear energy.

“We are not making the argument to anybody that this is absolutely going to be the sweeping alternative to every other energy source — no, that’s not what brings us here. But you can’t get to net-zero 2050 without some nuclear power,” he told reporters at the time.

“Too Optimistic”

Most Western governments – with the notable exception of Germany – are now betting on nuclear power to help them with the carbon emission targets.

But many may have become too optimistic they would see a fast rollout of nuclear reactors and capacities in an industry notoriously known for years of delays and huge cost overruns.  

“Clients, governments and ourselves as the industry players . . . we all become too optimistic,” Ian Edwards, chief executive of Canada’s engineering giant AtkinsRéalis, told the Financial Times.

“We have this optimism bias towards being able to deliver faster.”Related: Big Oil Grows Bolder in Transition Pushback

The stakeholders need to plan better and get the execution phase done right, according to the executive of the company, which manufactures the CANDU reactor, the only nuclear reactor that doesn’t need enriched uranium.

The CANDU technology stands for Canada deuterium uranium because it uses deuterium oxide, or heavy water, as a moderator and coolant and uses natural – not enriched – uranium as a fuel.

The West has seen in recent years several cautionary tales of huge delays and cost overruns in looking to boost nuclear capacity. Two of the glaring examples are the UK’s Hinkley Point C project by French energy giant EDF and the Vogtle nuclear power plant in the U.S. state of Georgia.

Early this year, EDF pushed back – again – the probable operational start at Hinkley Point C to 2029-2031, depending on various scenarios, compared to the original intention to have the first unit at the plan running in 2025. The costs have gone through the roof – to an estimated $43.5 billion (£34 billion), from $23 billion (£18 billion) budgeted initially.

In Georgia, a new reactor at the Vogtle nuclear power plant began commercial operation last summer in what was the first new nuclear reactor to start up in the United States since 2016. Construction at the two new reactor sites at Vogtle began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. The total cost of the project is now estimated at more than $30 billion.  

New Technology Promises Revival of Nuclear Power

AtkinsRéalis, whose natural-uranium reactor design differentiates it from the competition, has a sales pitch advantage because of the Russian dominance in enriched uranium supply, Edwards told FT.

But he warned that demand for AtkinsRéalis’s technology is likely to exceed the company’s capacity to meet it.

Last year, AtkinsRéalis’s revenues from its nuclear division rose by 16.5% compared to 2022, thanks to higher sales volumes from Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Despite the West’s attempts to reduce its reliance on Russian uranium, the EU doubled its imports of Russian nuclear fuel last year, mostly due to former Soviet bloc countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia importing Russian fuel for their Soviet-era nuclear plants, NGO Bellona said in an analysis last week, citing data from Eurostat and the UN’s international trade service Comtrade.

The United States is doubling down on its own supply of nuclear fuel and technology, including innovative reactor designs.

Soaring uranium prices and a supply squeeze on the global uranium market have prompted U.S. uranium producers to revive abandoned mines that haven’t been operational in more than a decade.

Early this year, Uranium Energy Corp said it would restart uranium production at its fully permitted site in Wyoming as the resurgence in nuclear power has led to a new bull market in uranium.

“Uranium market fundamentals are the best the industry has witnessed,” Uranium Energy president and CEO Amir Adnani said in January.

The U.S. is also backing advanced nuclear technology and small-scale reactors, hyped to be the future of nuclear energy.

This week, TerraPower, a company working on small-scale nuclear reactor development backed by Bill Gates, said it would begin construction on its next-generation nuclear reactor in the United States as soon as June.

TerraPower has been developing the Natrium technology for advanced reactors, which features a sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. The Natrium demonstration plant will be built near a retiring coal facility in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

There’s a whole lot of former Star Wars fans out there today, and we say “former” because once George Lucas made the fatal (but lucrative for him) decision to sell the franchise to Disney the beloved brand was doomed to lose a majority of its existing audience.  To date, Disney has burned every ounce of fan capital it once had and each successive Star Wars movie and series has performed worse than the the last in terms of box office and viewership.  And, it was all done in the name of going woke.

Disney as a company has become the mascot for “Get Woke, Go Broke” with an extensive list of theatrical and streaming service failures the past few years, and they continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes.  The bottom line?  Legacy companies like Disney are willing to destroy their own brand in the pursuit of political propaganda; they’ll keep on pontificating about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion until they are bankrupt.  

Their upcoming Star Wars streaming format release called ‘The Acolyte’ is expected by many to become the worst woke/feminist disaster in the company’s history handling the franchise.  And, it might not be a coincidence that their latest DEI endeavor will be directed by a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, the very man that the “Me Too” movement was created to admonish.

How aware was Leslie Headland to the casting-couch activities of her boss when she was his assistant?  It’s hard to say.  However, Hollywood has determined that her status as a lesbian and queer activist negates any connections she might have had to that ugly association. 

Interviews with Headland suggest she will be bringing all her activism and politics to the latest Disney Star Wars installment along with a predictable interest in making the classic archetypal tale about good and evil “morally ambiguous.”  As she notes in the Hollywood Reporter:

“People who are good guys can be bad guys, and people who are bad guys can be good guys. There’s a lot of moral ambiguity, which is why Jodie’s [Turner-Smith] line in the trailer is so important: “This isn’t about good or bad; this is about power and who is allowed to use it.” And I believe, of course, that the Jedi are a benevolent, well-intentioned institution, but they are an institution and they have amassed all the power…”

As with all woke activism, good and evil are considered relative social constructs that don’t really exist, and Headland wants to bring that philosophy to Star Wars.  In other words, the Sith might do things that are considered evil, but did you ever ask yourself how they feel about it?  What if they have an emotional justification for their actions? 

Any normal person would say “Who cares?”  But writers and directors with narcissistic tendencies don’t understand the world of heroism or moral principle.  They are also incapable of writing from another person’s perspective and are only capable of injecting their own views into everything they touch.  Moral ambiguity is a completely counterintuitive interpretation to the symbolism of Star Wars, as well as contrary to what the vast majority of audiences connect with.

The entertainment media is also buzzing with excitement over the amount of LGBT representation in The Acolyte, with a number of gay and trans actors and crew members involved.  Not to mention, the show trailer is noticeably devoid of white male characters; par for the course in today’s far-left content.  Kathleen Kennedy’s mantra of “the force is female” is heavily present here.  

As usual, the show is being sold on the basis of its diversity rather than the merit of its storytelling, with cast and crew asserting that Star Wars is finally “safe for black nerds” and other minorities because now they can see themselves represented on screen.  Of course, if you can’t relate to a well written story unless the characters share your skin color or ethnic background, then there’s probably something very wrong with you.  

The production is tied directly to Disney’s ‘The High Republic’ book series, which is widely regarded as an epic marketing blunder and dismal seller.  The books showcase an array of leftist ideological concepts that immediately turned off readers, and fans have long suspected that Disney’s agenda was to eventually replace all Star Wars lore with High Republic wokism.  Added to the terrible base material is Headland’s own fan fiction, which she admits she wrote when she was younger and is at least partially ingrained into the show. 

At this time, The Acolyte trailer has received 366,000 dislikes on YouTube, compared to 160,000 likes and Disney executives are allegedly scrambling to produce positive PR.  Disney denies that their DEI based content has anything to do with the growing public skepticism for the show.  In what has become an endlessly repeating cycle, Hollywood produces woke bomb after woke bomb, refuses to admit that wokeness is the problem, the movies or series are quickly forgotten and then they start all over again.   

Authored by Susan Harris via The Epoch Times,

It’s been hard to watch the effects of forced diversity, multiculturalism, and mass immigration on the tiny island of Great Britain—the most densely populated nation in Europe. At least in America we still have so much land area that most people are not yet feeling the effects of large-scale population displacement stemming from all forms of immigration.

In the UK, however, every day feels like an episode of “Survivor” as people who are being crammed in like sardines are increasingly made to fear that they’ll be voted off the island.

Recently, protests surrounding the Israel–Hamas war have exposed the fragility of a British culture—and nation—on the verge of capsizing from the weight of immigration and cultural divides.

Well-known British YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson has been covering events there, addressing the British prime minister’s remarks that his country is descending into “mob rule” and that the situation is urgent. The prime minister was referring to pro-Palestinian protesters currently flooding the streets of Britain.

Mr. Watson shared a genius chart from a user on social media platform X supposedly detailing the rise of mob rule in London. The user commented, “HOW DID WE GET HERE? After importing millions of people from countries with a culture of mob rule into London, mob rule has taken over London. Experts are crunching the numbers to figure out if systematically undermining basic law and order could have affected basic law and order.”

Meanwhile, Pro-Palestinian protesters across Britain vowed more marches, ostensibly to protest Israeli attacks in Gaza.

Mr. Watson has also been covering reactions to another member of parliament recently claiming there were “no-go zones” in Birmingham. To support the existence of “no-go zones,” Mr. Watson cited the Birmingham Mail newspaper, which reported that “due to soaring crime being committed by ‘urban youths,’ parts of the city center are no-go zones and the areas immediately surrounding Birmingham are no-go areas for the same reason,” according to Mr. Watson.

All of this comes after a huge blow-up about a comment made by a Conservative member of parliament on conservative-leaning GB News. Lee Anderson told the news outlet (where he also hosts his own show) that “I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of [Mayor of London Sadiq] Khan and they’ve got control of London. … He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.”

Mayor Khan then responded with three strikes against Mr. Anderson, saying his remarks were “Islamophobic, anti-Muslim and racist” and poured “fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred.”

It was all downhill from there. Mr. Anderson was suspended from the Conservative Party after refusing to apologize and later defected to the Reform UK party.

After that, a GB News guest said Mayor Khan was “not British. He doesn’t support Britain.” Which led to calls for GB News to be investigated by Ofcom, Britain’s communications regulator, similar to our FCC. And it won’t be the first time; Ofcom seems to be targeting GB News for investigations quite a lot lately.

Another British YouTuber who’s been weighing in on the ongoing cancel culture wars in her country is Katie Hopkins. In a video titled, “How cancel culture (evisceration) REALLY works,” Ms. Hopkins outlines what she believes is “currently being done to GB News by those that want to see it done away with.” She also claims that “Ofcom is the weapon wielded in a war of attrition against GB News.”

And she should know.

The controversial celebrity, journalist, and comedian has done her share of shocking the public and angering many over these last many years, but she’s also become quite the conservative hero. She’s been re-tweeted by President Donald Trump multiple times, banned from Twitter, reinstated on Twitter (now X), and thrown out of Australia for mocking quarantine lockdowns. She’s called Islam the “single biggest threat” to Europe and was named as a target in a planned terror attack by ISIS supporters. Most recently, she’s done a hilarious must-see YouTube short dedicated to all the people who “pushed the jab.” It currently has over 1 million views.

In 2020, Ms. Hopkins told conservative host Candace Owens that her situation in Britain was so much more than the cancel culture that was overtaking America. She explained that in the UK it had become “acceptable” to think that a targeted physical attack against her would be “welcomed and applauded.”

She continued to explain to Ms. Owens that she lost her jobs, her home (which she said had to be sold due to litigation), and even experienced having her children reported to social services with the intent to have them taken away. She concluded by saying that, in the UK, “[T]he darkness is that when they come, it’s not something flippant that is cancel culture, it is taking you to the point where I truly believe they will only stop when they find that you will swing from a tree.” Her fundamental commitment, she added, was to not allow that to happen.

In the few short years since that interview, America has seen cancel culture morph from online censorship to real-life consequences: We’ve watched helplessly as former President Trump has been indicted in four separate prosecutions, 91 criminal counts, and threatened with financial ruin. We’ve seen the entire MAGA movement labeled “as something representing domestic, violent extremism” by our own government. And being banned on Twitter was nothing compared to the ongoing persecution of Jan. 6 rally attendees.

Keep an eye on the United Kingdom. Not unlike the dark days of World War II, that tiny island country may once again be the canary in the coal mine for predicting the survival of Western civilization.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Almost half of the world’s approximately 7,000 signed and spoken languages are currently endangered.

Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti introduces this graphic, from Stephen Jones, CEO of Derivation.co, examines the current global landscape of languages that could become extinct.

Almost 90 million Speak Languages at Risk of Extinction

An extinct language is one that no longer has any first-language or second-language speakers.

In modern times, languages have usually become extinct due to cultural assimilation, leading to language shift, and the gradual abandonment of a native language in favor of a foreign language, primarily those of European countries.

For instance, numerous Native American languages were supplanted by English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, or Dutch due to European colonization of the Americas.

Currently, out of the world’s 7,168 living languages, 3,078 (43%) are classified as Endangered. Over 88 million people speak languages at risk of extinction.

Additionally, 100 of them face the genuine threat of extinction within a few decades if no action is taken.

While every language matters to the individuals speaking, writing, and signing them across the planet, 80% of endangered languages (2,484) exist within just 25 countries.

Of those, the top four countries alone – Indonesia (425), Papua New Guinea (312), Australia (190), and the U.S. (180) – account for well over a thousand endangered languages.

Just as during the colonization period, the majority of endangered languages are spoken in Indigenous communities, putting their inherent culture and knowledge at risk of loss.

Languages, however, can be revitalized.

Over the last 50 years, for example, government support to teach native languages in schools has helped increase the number of speakers of the Māori language in New Zealand, and Hawaiian in the American state.

Advancements in AI are also providing tools to preserve languages.