Some nice Banker people have turned up to give us the batteries we need to save the world. What could possibly go wrong?
The Leviathan BlackRock will soon spend a billion dollars on big batteries in Australia. It is the largest asset manager in the world — with some $10 Trillion in assets to direct. To put that kind of power in perspective, the entire GDP of Australia is about $1.4 Trillion, so if BlackRock chose to throw its weight around, to hypothetically, improve its chances of making a profit, it won’t need an army, it just needs to hint “nice business you have there”, and the path will presumably clear. There are only two countries on Earth with larger GDP’s — America and China.
If BlackRock was a country the Foreign Investment Review Board of Australia would need to pay attention to potential conflicts of interest. But as it is, BlackRock flies under that radar while it bullies other companies and governments to do things to “save the world” which also happen to make profits for BlackRock.
If say, the voters of Australia voted against Climate Action as electricity bills drew blood, it’s hard to imagine BlackRock wouldn’t be pulling strings to keep the government subsidy train pointed at its own tunnel. It would effectively be working against the interests of Australians. While all investors are supposed to work for their shareholders, most investors don’t wield the kind of power that’s larger than our GDP.
US Giant BlackRock to Invest $1 Billion Into Australian Battery Projects
Daniel Teng, The Epoch Times
U.S. investment giant BlackRock will invest $1 billion (US$701 million) into Australian battery projects after agreeing to acquire Melbourne-based Akaysha Energy.
Its largest project is the 1,600 megawatt Orana battery in Wellington, central-west New South Wales, which can provide around eight hours of energy storage.
Given that BlackRock is equivalent to a major foreign power, shouldn’t the government be asking harder questions before it opens the door to an entity that lobbies like a political activist, serves foreign investors, and shamelessly meddles in national policies?
The Energy debate in the most powerful nation on Earth is nothing more than stone age animism. Or perhaps it’s not that sophisticated. It’s just a kindergarten story.
The Democrats are the new Religious Caste. They have the hot-line to God, to Gaia, and luckily for Earth, at the eleventh hour they have managed to send a smoke-signal to Mother Earth to calm her down.
Nothing is too inane, too simplistic or too banal:
“How can they vote against The Planet? Mother Earth Gets Angry from Time to Time and this legislation will help us address all of that”. –– Nancy Pelosi
Worth noting: “People who are allergic to Shellfish may be allergic to Crickets”.
They are professional marketeers. Putting cricket flour into the junk food category first is a way to sneak it in and quietly normalize it. People buying junk foods at the supermarket probably aren’t reading the ingredients list too closely, and people eating puffs at parties definitely aren’t.
Remember eating crickets will change jet streams
Or at least make you feel saintly:
SUSTAINABLE
We prioritize the planet just as much as we do our health. Our superfoods produce less emissions and waste than traditional health foods, so they’re an easy choice for eco-friendly eaters.
This is food with all the fashionable buzz-words:
Powered by sustainably farmed, organic crickets, our puffs are high in protein, rich in vitamins such as B12, and a natural source of prebiotics.
I note these crickets are not free-range.
At $5.99 a bag they will be aimed at the wealthy-Greens seeking self-advertising or penance. Though not necessarily the vegan ones. Strict vegans will have a dilemma since insects are technically part of the animal kingdom. The Vegan Society warns that honey isn’t vegan because it exploits the bees. So presumably slaughtering millions of innocent crickets won’t fit the bill either.
The Keto-crowd also won’t be happy because the puffs are about 50% carbohydrate. Who will be happy?
Despite the news that the River Rhine is in a crisis due to “climate change” it has happened before, and many times. There are rocks in European rivers called Hunger Stones where people carved messages to mark the depth of the pain in the droughts. There are historical records of the Rhine drying up in spots so badly that people could walk across it with dry feet. In 1540 wells ran dry that had never run out of water. The whole decade was horrible, and in 1835 in Transylvania people were so hungry they ate dead cats and dogs.
In the summer of 1540, the people searched ever more desperate for drinking water. Even a meter and a half under the normal water table in Switzerland was not a drop of water to be found, noted Hans Salat at the time. Spring and upwellings that had never faltered now lay dry. Others were strictly guarded and water was drawn according to a time schedule. Thousands of people along the River Ruhr died of poisoning from dirty water.
These messages carved in hunger stones go back as far as 1417. The message was essentially “If you see me, weep”. Famine was coming.
The stone marks the low water levels of the Elbe with different dates. The oldest legible inscription dates from 1616. Older inscriptions (1417, 1473) were rubbed off over time by ships at anchor. The stone is also inscribed with the saying “Girl, do not cry and do not complain, when it is dry, spray the field”. This saying was probably made in 1938 by the pump manufacturer Frantisek Sigmund. The saying was based on the older saying “If you see me, then cry”. The Deciner Hungerstein is one of the oldest hydrological monuments on the Elbe.
Eleven months without rain, a million deaths – in 1540, a previously and since unprecedented drought devastated all of Europe. Can she repeat herself?
The result: For eleven months there was almost no rain, the temperature was five to seven degrees above the normal values of the 20th century, the temperature must have climbed above 40 degrees in midsummer. Countless forest areas in Europe went up in flames, acrid smoke obscured the sunlight, and not a single thunderstorm was recorded for the entire summer of 1540.
July brought such a terrible scorching heat that the churches sent out prayers of supplication while the Rhine, Elbe and Seine could be waded through without getting wet. Where water still flowed, the warm broth turned green, and fish floated in it keel up. The level of Lake Constance dropped to a record level, and Lindau was even connected to the mainland. The surface water soon evaporated completely, the floors burst open, some drying cracks were so large that a foot could fit in them.
And the groundwater dropped too: in the Swiss canton of Lucerne, desperate people tried to dig for water in a river bed, but found not a single drop even at a depth of one and a half meters. Christian Pfister therefore estimates that only a quarter to a maximum of a third of the usual amount of rain came from the sky that year.
In Würzburg in 1540 the grapes were ripe early but dried up and raisin-like, so the winegrowers pressed them anyway and invented the “late harvest”. It became a legendary harvest and four bottles still remain unopened. Some wine experts opened one of the batch in 1961 when it was 421 years old. They remarked on the flavour with some amazement but said it lasted only a few moments before it oxidized and “became vinegar in our glasses”.
The drought of 1539-1540 was extensive and severe
The 1540 summer precipitation totals in Europe expressed as percentage deviations (× 100) from the 1961–1990 mean; (b) summer Palmer Drought Severity Index for 1540 in Europe according to OWDA . (Brázdil et al)
Severe heat and drought in summer and autumn afflicted Silesia, where there was practically no rain for 6 months. Many streams dried up and the water in the River Oder turned green. There were frequent forest fires and livestock suffered from hunger and thirst (Büsching, 1819). Similarly, severe heat, forest fires, poor harvest, shortages, and famine were mentioned for Bohemia, Silesia, and Lusatia (Gomolcke, 1737). In Greater Poland, summer and autumn were also very dry; it did not rain until the beginning of winter. Rivers were exceedingly low, brooks, ponds, and wells dried up and the land was desiccated to dust (Rojecki et al., 1965).
… water levels were low everywhere; it was even possible to ride or walk across the River Rhine. — Brazdil et al
Best horror story goes to the 1535 famine in Transylvania
So great was the hunger that people of both sexes and all ages lost their minds, walking around almost naked and consuming “unclean things”. Bethlen also mentioned cannibalism. Thousands of people starved to death. Corpses could be encountered on the streets, their mouths full of grass (Bethlen, 1782). In Făgăraş, desperate poor people turned to eating dead dogs and cats (Trauschenfels, 1860).
When streams and rivers fell or dried out, it became difficult or impossible to grind grain in regions that relied upon water mills. For example, the dry summer of 1536 forced the Erfurt municipality to consider the creation of a Rossmühle, a mill powered by horses (von Falckenstein, 1738). — Brazdil et al
Reconstructions based on documentary data indicate that the summers of 1531–1540 were the driest summer decade in central Europe of the past 5 centuries…
…during the extremely hot, dry summer of 1540 in the Netherlands, the water levels in rivers were so low that people could cross substantial rivers such as the Lys, the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhine with “dry feet” (Descamps, 1852).
This “Drought Atlas” is largely based on tree rings, with all their confounded flaws, but at least it’s the same proxy all the way through. No one segued it into the modern record and pretended that trees were like glass thermometers. And at least these tree rings have some other documentary support.
Caption: The 1540 JJA precipitation totals in Europe expressed as percentage deviations (× 100) from the 1961–1990 mean (Pauling et al., 2006); (b) JJA scPDSI for 1540 in Europe according to OWDA (Cook et al., 2015). Brázdil, R., Dobrovolný, P., Bauch, M., Camenisch, C., Kiss, A., Kotyza, O., Oliński, P., and Řezníčková, L.: Central Europe, 1531–1540 CE: The driest summer decade of the past five centuries?, Clim. Past, 16, 2125–2151, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2125-2020, 2020.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, pays close attention to a warning from Viktor Orban
Orban points out how the Energy-crisis is pulling Europe apart.
The decision on decommissioning the last nuclear power plants in Germany during a crisis makes no sense and the rest of Europe is being expected to make up for this folly, as well as the climate change obsession that put the EU into this crisis in the first place:
Continent leaders preparing for winter rationing, shutdown of industries. Viktor Orban warned them
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has been warning for months now that Europe’s unqualified support for Ukraine is unsustainable … Inhis controversial speech in Transylvania, the West stupidly obsessed over his unwise “mixed-race” remarks, but these observations about the war and the coming winter were spot on, and far more important:
In passing, I will say a few words about European values. Here, for example, is the latest proposal from the European Commission, which says that everyone must reduce their natural gas consumption by 15 per cent. I do not see how it will be enforced – although, as I understand it, the past shows us German know-how on that. Furthermore, if this does not produce the desired effect and someone does not have enough gas, it will be taken away from those who do have it. So what the European Commission is doing is not asking the Germans to reverse the shutdown of their last two or three nuclear power plants still in operation, which enable them to produce cheap energy: it is letting them close those power plants down. And if they run out of energy, in some way they will take gas from us who have it, because we have stored it up.
–Viktor Orban
This is exactly what the experts David Wallace-Wells [in the NYT ] say could happen: EU members turning on each other. This winter could see the breakup of the EU over this crisis.
What Orban is warning about in the final lines I quoted is the prospect of mass political instability, even civil unrest, if Europeans suffer power cuts this winter, and can’t keep warm — that, and if their economies collapse because governments have to ration energy, shutting down industries to keep civilians from freezing. This is not an abstract concern!
I was talking to someone the other day who told me that a lot of Europeans are not going to feel a bit sorry for the Germans, given how hard the Germans treated them in the 2008 debt crisis. Nobody made Germany shut down its nuclear power plants, and grow dependent on Russian gas. That was Merkel’s deal.
And from another story. Look at the turmoil and effort required to cope with the current gas prices. This is a 200 year old company struggling to work 3 out 4 weeks, shifting to rolling 24 hour schedules in a desperate attempt to squeeze more efficiency out of the system.
Aluminium foundry fights for survival in European gas crisis (Reuters)
…Gerd Roeders is reluctantly preparing for the temporary shutdown of his German aluminium foundry to survive Europe’s growing gas crunch. Roeders is hoping that by moving the 200-year-old plant to three weeks of 24-hour shifts followed by a one-week shutdown, he can maintain output while cutting his gas consumption. His bill has already more than doubled this year from last, he said, fearing it will triple or even quadruple in 2023. The plan will save the cost of gas needed to fire up the ovens every morning, Roeders calculates, even if it means paying staff at family-owned G.A. Roeders more to work night shifts. Survival for G.A. Roeders GmbH and Germany’s 600 other foundries, most of which are small-to-medium enterprises with less than 250 staff, will mean cost cuts and tough talks with customers. “We’re laying out our prices to customers and telling them they have to pay more,” 59-year-old Roeders told Reuters as workers prepared the plant for the first week of rest. “We can’t deliver parts if we invest and don’t earn anything back.”
“They came into my home to make your favorite president look like a criminal. Such losers, such losers. But everyone still loves me so it’s ok. They didn’t even find anything! I’m gonna be the President again!”
Sources close to Trump say his first act as President will be to fire his own appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray and replace him with a used dust mop from the Capitol janitor’s closet before razing the Hoover building and banishing all FBI agents to Gitmo.
“I’m gonna fire everyone, literally everyone in government,” said Trump. Federal Reserve? Gone! EPA? Gone! CIA? Gone! Department of Education? ATF? HHS? Gone, gone, gone!”
The news media responded to Trump’s statement by calling him a “threat to democracy worse than Hitler” while tearing their clothes and heaping dust upon the crowns of their heads.
Then the news:
Half the country already knows the FBI Raid was not about “upholding the law” and 4 out of 5 Republicans say they are more likely to vote. The Democrats, and Team FBI may have miscalculated. They are desperate, which is perhaps the most promising sliver of light in a dark mess. They have most of the media, the Deep State, the electronic hackable voting machines, the harvesting teams, the mail in votes, no voter ID, support from the CCP, the UN and the EU, and a million new illegal voters, and despite all that, they are acting like they could lose. Remember the last two elections? They *knew* they were going to win. This is not the same.
Let’s not get cocky.
Poll: 83 Percent of GOP Voters Say FBI Raid on Trump Increases Desire to Vote
83.3% of Republicans say the raid increases their motivation to vote in 2022
47.9% of those polled say “Trump’s political enemies” were behind the FBI raid, compared to 39.7% who say the “impartial justice system” was behind it.
Governments pushing meat-free diets for weather control might want to follow the other science…
A 20 year study of 26,000 women showed that people who ate vegetarian diets were 33% more likely to break their hips. This is no small point because hip fractures are a surprisingly bad thing. Short term mortality risk increases by 2 to 8 fold. (Not just a 20% increase but a 200% increase or worse). Hip fracture victims are more likely to go back to hospital, and not for their hips but mostly for other things like infections and heart conditions. Sadly as much as 17% of their remaining post fracture life may be spent in a nursing facility. (see Lo et al 2022)
Among 26,318 women, 822 hip fracture cases were observed over roughly 20 years—that represented just over 3% of the sample population. After adjustment for factors such as smoking and age, vegetarians were the only diet group with an elevated risk of hip fracture.
Researchers can only guess why and suggest vaguely that it might be a lack of protein, calcium, and other micronutrients.
I suspect vegetarians are missing out on Vitamin K2 which is important for getting calcium into bones and comes from things like liver, eggs, meat, hard cheese, brie, and butter. It also comes from Natto (fermented soy) but not many people eat that outside Japan. But it could be many things, like deficiencies in zinc, iodine, choline, and B12, or just an imbalance of amino acids that make up bones (like glycine). The fracture itself might not raise mortality, but the same deficiencies that weaken bones or reduce balance might also weaken hearts.
Despite vegetarian diets “gaining popularity” lately, they are still only 5 to 7% of the population:
Vegetarian diets have gained popularity in recent years, with a 2021 YouGov survey putting the size of the UK vegetarian population at roughly 5-7%. It is often perceived as a healthier dietary option, with previous evidence that shows a vegetarian diet can reduce the risks of several chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer compared to omnivorous diets.
Get ready for the advertising:
There is also a worldwide call for reducing the consumption of animal products in an effort to tackle climate change.
So nine out of ten people say they “believe in climate change” but only half of one of them will give up meat?
Dietary information was collected using a food frequency questionnaire and was validated using a 4-day food diary in a subsample of women.
At the time they were recruited into the cohort study, the women ranged in age from 35 to 69 years.
Given the severity of hip fractures, bureaucrats might want to think twice about national policies which are essentially waving steaks at storms.
REFERENCES
Webster et al (2022) Risk of hip fracture in meat-eaters, pescatarians, and vegetarians: results from the UK Women’s Cohort Study, BMC Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1186/s12916-022-02468-0
Lo et al (2022) Trends in Mortality Following Hip Fracture in Older Women, The American Journal of Managed Care, March 2015, Volume 21, Issue 3
Nigel Farage: Many people were skeptical about the concept of a “Deep State” — they’re not any more.
” The World Is ‘Bewildered’ By The ‘Politicization Of America’s Justice System'” says Farage, and “It’s a war to save Western Civilization”, but despite that, Farage is cautiously upbeat.
I do think… the Democrats have completely overstepped the mark. … and whilst it’s a very bad thing that’s happened, I think this will play very very well for Donald Trump.
It’s a shocking day but it may well prove for all of us on the nationalist, populist cause, to be a good day.
Trumps populist message could be more potent now than it was in 2016. (Not half!)
All fingers are pointing at the FBI now
There was no FBI before 1908. But once it started, it was inevitable that the FBI was going to serve the government that feeds it. And since Big-government pays better than small government, it was also inevitable that the FBI would become a tool of Bigger-Government. Following the same trajectory, it’s just a matter of time before the FBI becomes One with Big Government and then we get Tyrannical-Government.
Monday’s raid on Mar-A-Lago is not the first time in this nation’s history that the FBI has been involved in using its law enforcement authority to benefit the political party in power. For 48 years, J. Edgar Hoover used the offices of the FBI to create political intelligence reports that were given to the president. It did not matter if you were a Republican or a Democrat; Hoover misused his power to benefit the president so that the president would ensure that the FBI expanded its scope, budget, and authority.
Congress created the FBI, and Congress has the full authority to reorganize, modify, or disband the organization. Nothing in the United States Constitution requires this nation to have an FBI. In fact, the argument could be made that the Constitution does not permit an FBI since the Tenth Amendment reserved the power to enforce the health, safety, and general welfare of the people to the states (police powers).
The Big Question is of course, can the US vote it’s way out of this and disband the FBI before the FBI becomes the fully fledged Stasi?
“We’re a Collapsing Empire”
Worth watching — Mark Dice who points out that Ron Paul said way back in 1988: It almost looks like the FBI was designed to spy on Americans who might be disagreeing with policy…”
The most dangerous power of prosecutors — is the selective choice of who to investigate.
The first major issue of prosecutorial discretion is the decision to investigate. Justice Robert Jackson (former Attorney General of the United States) called that “the most dangerous power of the prosecutor, because it enables the prosecutor to “pick people he thinks he should get rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.”
Irving Younger observed,” …that a prosecutors power to damage or destroy anyone he chooses to indict is virtually limitless.”
When a prosecutor focuses on a person, Jackson said, it is “not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him“. At that point, law enforcement “becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group…”
A few perspectives on the FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago that we didn’t hear on the ABC news tonight.
The word of the day is “Banana Republic”
There are two legal systems in the US now. If you’re on the same team as the Regime, the FBI will happily go slow on your laptop investigation, even if it implicates past Vice Presidents, and potential Presidential candidates and in an election year and on matters of national security. Likewise, using private servers while being Secretary of State and getting a subpoena and bleaching 33,000 emails. That’s OK too.
It’s my view that after the Biden regime takes power, as in many coup situations, they will want to have the previous leader arrested. I’m being perfectly serious here. It is the intention of the Democrat Party to put Trump in jail. So, when he launches the ‘Trump News Network’, it’s gonna need to be based out of Costa Rica or the Turks and Caicos or somewhere.
…it’s not enough for him not to be president, they don’t want him to be a former president either. They don’t want the Grover Cleveland scenario, where he comes back in four years. So it’s important to them, as I said this morning, that he be the most ex ex-president ever, more ex- than Nixon. Nixon they still invited when they had these photo ops in the Oval Office, where all the presidents get together and stand around the desk with the incumbent. They’re not gonna be inviting Trump to that. They want Trump to be an ex-president, they want to put him in jail…
This may backfire badly if it galvanizes Americans against corruption and injustice:
“If they raided his home just to find classified documents he took from The White House,” one legal expert noted, “he will be re-elected president in 2024, hands down. It will prove to be the greatest law enforcement mistake in history.”
Assuming that voting still matters, and Trump and his supporters are not in jail, this will turn Trump into an icon.
But was this more about provoking Trump supporters rather than just erasing Trump? If Trump supporters “take the bait” and do five percent of what the George Floyd fans did, that will be a handy excuse for the FBI to hike up the “War on Domestic Terrorism”. Beware, the brazen injustice of it may be the point.
Never in the entire history of the United States has a former president been indicted for any criminal conduct. This has not been because there was never such an incident. Most importantly, the historic precedent is that post-term indictment is NOT legally allowed.
Up until now, both political parties, as well as the public, see the prospect of post-term immunity as a guarantee that the country’s politics will remain civil and that power will transition peacefully from one party to the other. All of that is now crumbling before our eyes. That very percedent is what drove President Gerald Ford to pardon Richard Nixon. It was also the reason why the Office of the Independent Counsel decided not to indict former President Bill Clinton for perjury.
Locking Up Opposition Politicians Is What Putin Does
An indictment of former President Donald Trump would be a breathtakingly authoritarian turn. It would amount to the U.S. security state refusing to accept “no” from America’s voters yet again. An indictment would be an unelected and unaccountable federal agency overruling voters’ two-time rejection of impeachment through their elected representatives.
This is the core danger of the administrative state: Its now open propensity to go rogue. It is apparently hellbent now on turning the United States into a banana republic.
A two-tier justice system is not a justice system. It is a totalitarian system.
Certainly even more ordinary Americans are realizing through all of this that the entire federal deck is prejudiced against them. Desperation makes people do wild things. … Equality Under the Law Is the Nonviolent Way Out
Remember, 75 million people voted for Trump in 2020. This isn’t some fringe Davidian cult, it’s half of the nation’s voters. — read it all
The FBI and DOJ are already known political players:
It’s also a provocation to get Trump to declare his candidacy for President before the midterms. Democrats would love to turn 2022 into a referendum on Trump rather than the deliberate destruction of the national borders and inflation.
Would the FBI and DOJ do such a thing? Aren’t they “above” politics? The then FBI Director James Comey admitted to trying to set up the new President Trump by alerting him to the Steele Dossier, and then leaked the story of the briefing to CNN, which gave license to report on the false allegations in the dossier. So yes, the FBI and DOJ would do such a thing, and have done such a thing to Trump.
It appears to be out of all proportions: Is this really just about “archive material”?
Reports are suggesting that this raid may be in relation to classified documents that they think should be with the National Archives. But if that’s the case, it’s an insane overreaction rather than just pursuing the documents in a normal manner. The family said they had been cooperating in reviewing documents that the National Archives might want. But to send in agents and just grab documents right and left, even breaking into the safe in the home is just wild and it sounds like a fishing expedition. Is it to try to find other things, with that as an excuse?
Constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz is calling it “misconduct.” According to him, in an appearance on Newsmax, such a raid should be the method of last resort, unless they can’t get the documents through subpoenas or any other lawful methods.
Can Trump be ruled out of running for President in 2024?
There was a burst of excitement on Democratic legal Twitter after MARC ELIAS pointed out that one of the penalties for violating the statute on improper handling of government records is being “disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
But as NYT’s Charlie Savage expertly explains, that issue was well-ventilated back when conservatives wanted to throw HILLARY CLINTON in jail for allegedly violating the same law, and many scholars concluded that, as applied to a presidential candidate, it’s unconstitutional because the Constitution alone sets the eligibility criteria for the presidency. (Former A.G. MICHAEL MUKASEY was a fan of this theory, but Savage notes that he later recanted.)
There is nothing the Biden administration and the left at large want more than another January 6th moment before the mid-terms. They long for it, and they are willing to do anything to try to manipulate a reaction out of the right to feed into their narrative. Why? Because they believe it can save them from certain destruction in November.
Further, the FBI specifically wants justification to fight its war on “domestic terrorism.”
To add another new flavour of potential corruption to this cake: Apparently the Judge that signed the warrant is likely to be Judge Bruce Reinhart, who was also a donor to Barack Obama, once worked at the US Attorneys Office and left to become an attorney who represented employees of Jeffrey Epstein. By apparently flipping sides in the Epstein legal battle he was then accused of leveraging “inside information about Epstein’s investigation to curry favor with Epstein.”
It’s like a movie script.
h/t Mike of NQ, Johnny Rotten, Scott of the Pacific, Old Ozzie, Fuel Filter, and Bill who moved from AZ.
How many people have died of a vitamin D3 deficiency in the last 20 years?
If you are deficient in Vitamin D3, you may reduce chronic inflammation just by taking this five cent supplement and getting a bit of sun. A new study finds evidence that low levels of Vitamin D are not just linked, but cause the dreaded chronic inflammation which is so tied to aging that researchers talk about inflammaging in medical papers. The term captures the diabolic systemic effects of inflammation that accelerate aging, dementia and heart disease and a whole alphabet of other conditions. But don’t wait for your CDC, NHS, or AHPRA-approved-doctor to tell you. The global anti-inflammatory drugs market was worth USD 94 billion a few years ago. Imagine what it would do to that market if everyone sorted out their vitamin D levels?
Since Covid exacerbates inflammation, and people who are obese find it very hard to get their vitamin D blood levels up, it fits that aging, inflammation, obesity and low vitamin D3 make for a bad combination with SARS-2. And if inflammation causes some cases of Long Covid, then it seems to me that vitamin D3 may help with that too.
Combine it with Vitamin K2 as well to make sure the calcium ends up in your bones, not your arteries. (Though, people on blood thinners like warfarin need to get medical advice).
The study examined the genetic data of 294 ,970 participants in the UK Biobank, using Mendelian randomization to show the association between vitamin D and C-reactive protein levels, an indicator of inflammation.
“This study examined vitamin D and C-reactive proteins and found a one-way relationship between low levels of vitamin D and high levels of C-reactive protein, expressed as inflammation.
“Boosting vitamin D in people with deficiencies may reduce chronic inflammation, helping them avoid a number of related diseases.”
Supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council and published in the International Journal of Epidemiology the study also raises the possibility that having adequate vitamin D concentrations may mitigate complications arising from obesity and reduce the risk or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component, such as CVDs, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases.
From the study itself (below) we get some idea of just how intricately tied D3 levels are to our immune system and all those inflammatory cytokines. To make life difficult, medical papers are always acronym-hell, and blood levels of vitamin D3 are referred to as “serum 25(OH)D”. And interleukins, which are the master messengers of the immune system are listed as IL-x. These molecules rapidly spread out and activate different white blood cells. There are 15 different interleukins in the human body, and at least 5 are affected by vitamin D.
Having sufficient Vitamin D might even neutralize some of the downsides of obesity or reduce the damage caused by CVD (cardiovascular disease), diabetes, allergies, etc. There’s no end to the sunshine good news, except that there is an obvious way to benefit millions of people, but our governments won’t do it.
Vitamin D is a pro-hormone. Its anti-inflammatory property captured by our analysis could be mediated through its hormonal effect on vitamin D receptor-expressing immune cells, such as monocytes, B cells, T cells and antigen-presenting cells.4 Indeed, cell experiments have shown that active vitamin D can inhibit the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and IL-12, and promote the production of IL-10, an anti-inflammatory cytokine.4,5 Further, the anti-inflammatory effect also raises the possibility that having adequate vitamin D concentrations may mitigate complications arising from obesity and reduce the risk or severity of chronic illnesses with an inflammatory component, such as CVDs, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative conditions, among others.1 If the related effects are indeed true, given the high prevalence of serum 25(OH)D levels of <50 nmol/L across the world (≤40% in some European countries),36,39–42 population-wide correction of low vitamin D status (e.g. by food fortification) could potentially be a cost-effective measure to reduce the burden of chronic disease. In fact, in linear MR analyses higher 25(OH)D concentrations have been associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes43 and multiple sclerosis (a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system),44 with recent non-linear MR analyses providing evidence that correction of vitamin D deficiency can decrease the risk for CVDs15 and all-cause mortality.16
A recent study came out suggesting Vitamin D wasn’t any use to prevent broken bones, (see also Stop taking Vitamin D already!) but if researchers combine participants with high and low serum levels into one group, the results will be blurred to nothing — because people who are not deficient won’t benefit. I note neither story includes any mention of Vitamin K either (it almost looks designed to fail?).
In this experiment done at the University of SA, people were separated into high low and medium groups and the effect was clearly seen in the lowest group of <25nmol/L (which is a very low 10ng/ml level). [Convert your level here].
Having a severely low Vitamin D level sends the CRP levels through the roof
CRP or C-Reactive Protein is the standard marker of levels of inflammation. (Ask your doc, it’s a common blood test).
Click to enlarge. The biggest changes in CRP (a marker of inflammation) were found in the people with the lowest Vitamin D3. Grey bars are the 95% confidence interval.
A massive fire broke out in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar electric vehicle parking station. A total of seven fire tenders reached the spot to douse the raging fire.
The authorities are yet to conclude the reason for the fire. However, it could have happened because of a short circuit. As per reports, nearly 100 vehicles parked caught fire in the accident. But no one got injured.
As many as 30 new e-rickshaws, 50 old e-rickshaws, 10 private cars, 2 scooters and a motorcycle were gutted due to the fire spreading through the parking lot. The Delhi Fire Department received the call at 5 AM.
This is not an electric vehicle-related fire. … There are several hazards in the fuel pumps as well. We have seen several gruesome accidents in the fuel pumps and it is over the years that regulations have made them safer.
Apparently they don’t know what caused the fire, but they *know* it wasn’t the EV’s.
Naturally this was not reported in the western media. It was just a bunch of e-Rickshaws and a short circuit. It bears no relevance to national policies banning ownership of vehicles that don’t spontaneously combust. Gasoline burns too. There is no reason we should talk about charging stations, or parking lots filled with explosive lithium batteries or the particulate aerosols you may or may not think you see in this unverified photo.
What will electricity companies do if a million UK customers say they won’t pay their bill? We might find out in six weeks or so.
A group called Don’t Pay UK are gathering pledges from fed-up UK consumers, and so far 75,000 Brits have signed up. The Twitter account @dontpayuk started in June, and already has 91,000 followers. The group draws inspiration from the Poll Tax protests thirty years ago which likely ended Margaret Thatchers reign as PM.
With 12 million people in the UK facing energy poverty, there may be plenty of takers in the civil disobedience movement. The nation is only 6km away from 1,000 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. OK, so it’s 6 kilometers of solid rock, but if it were war-time, how long would that take? (Especially when the hole is already drilled. The hardest rock apparently is the paperwork just to stop it being concreted back in.)
It’s simple: we are demanding a reduction of energy bills to an affordable level. Our leverage is that we will gather a million people to pledge not to pay if the government goes ahead with another massive hike on October 1st.
Mass non-payment is not a new idea, it happened in the UK in the late 80s and 90s, when more than 17 million people refused to pay the Poll Tax – helping bring down the government and reversing its harshest measures.
The group DontPayUK, looks pretty polished. They are organizing mass leaflet drops, signing up local volunteers, and promise that they will only do this if a million people sign up and agree to cancel their direct debit payment if the price hikes keep coming.
Ofgem begs customers not to boycott paying their gas bills
While all the rats are jumping off the Unreliable Wreck, Australia is leaping onto it. Every country that uses electrical-generators for magical Global Climate Control has expensive electricity. They’ve lost industries, jobs and sovereign power as well as hot showers.
Our energy prices are already a train-wreck, but Super-Albo is here to take that failure and double it. While Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, Poland,China, India, Hungary, Greece and the United Kingdom are all ramping up their coal, we’re going to use less to fend off the floods and hold back the tide. It’s pretty much just down to us and our friends, those crazy Canuks and the cockoo-Kiwi’s to save the world. All doing the climate voo-doo.
Magical pagan symbols and messages
The term “action” doesn’t mean any actual activity — apart from lots of paperwork:
Albanese told parliament: “Passing this legislation sends a great message to the people of Australia that we are taking real action on climate change.”
Instead of a message, Australians were hoping to get a $275-a-year cut in their electricity bills.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is sending a message to Australia — and they are saying: We Want Your Fossil Fuels.
That’s a loud signal there in the price of coal and gas:
How exactly is Australia going to cut emissions even further? It’s through a hidden bomb called the “SafeGuard Mechanism” which a secret Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) designed to punish the biggest corporate emitters — which of course means they’ll pass on those costs to the sucker consumers. It was legislated in secret on the last night before Christmas in 2015. Thank Malcolm Turnbull for that gift buried in the fine print that apparently almost no one in Parliament even knew about.
Remember in July 2014, when Al Gore flew out to cuddle up to coal miner Clive Palmer, who held the last vote Prime Minister, Tony Abbott was waiting for so he could Axe That Carbon Tax? Palmer had forced him to add in a proviso for a review of an emissions trading scheme that would only happen if and when all the major players signed up. The Australian ETS came into force the day before the 2016 election, yet almost no voter knew. The dollar values were small and symbolic — but the legislation was locked and loaded just waiting for the Labor Government to win. And now all they have to do is turn the knobs up — adjust the targets, and the money will start to flow as a subsidy feeding unreliable energy in Australia. But its also possible that money will head offshore and subsidize jobs and unreliable projects overseas.
It was a brilliant piece of political maneuvering. Having brought in the hated ETS through the “conservative” Coalition, the conservatives could hardly campaign against “an ETS” they themselves had legislated, and presumably, neither could Clive. It thus neutralized and prevented a rerun of the landslide 90 seat victory Tony Abbott scored in 2013. It’s not clear how critical the Clive Palmer condition had been — perhaps it just meant Turnbull could say “it was part of the Abbott legislation” and Turnbull would have got it through anyway, but it might have stopped Abbott and other Liberals rebelling against it or even looking closely at it?
So now we have a 43% carbon reduction target, but no one really knows the details:
Yet, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen had to concede there will be changes to the mechanism, which will be subject of a discussion paper “later in August” and which provides an opportunity for the Greens to meddle.
“We’ll be releasing a discussion paper on the detailed design mechanism on the safeguard mechanism in August, probably. That will be up for consultation. The Greens have indicated they will probably have feedback on that,” Bowen said.
It is the treatment of this mechanism, not nearly as clear as Albanese makes out, that is creating deep concern within the resources sector and the 215 industries and entities subject to the rules.
The threat of technicalities about various types and classes of emissions ruling out new gas and coal projects or even nullifying existing projects is real and yet to be addressed as the government revels in its climate change success.
The cheapest way to generate carbon credits in Australia was the bargain auction system Tony Abbott organised. But those tons of “carbon” avoided were a mere $14 a ton, nothing like the cost of wind and solar projects. Presumably the Labor Government will have to curb that, or their co-dependent friends in the Renewables Industry and foreign banker traders won’t have much fun in the market. We can’t have farmers earning too many carbon credits can we?
Meanwhile the new “target” and labyrinthine carbon laws make bureaucrats absolute kingmakers. Should your coal mine go ahead? (Don’t run an election campaign against the ruling party.) Clive Palmer’s mine got axed today, (the irony) because even though the Great Barrier Reef is healthier than AIMS has ever measured, his coal mine (and not all the ones in China) threatens the reef. Perhaps if the Labor Party had needed the one Senator Clive has, it’d be different…
The mine would have seen the annual production of up to 10 million tonnes of thermal and coking coal for a quarter of century, creating up to $8.2bn in export revenues and employ as many as 500 people. The project is 130km northwest of Rockhampton – and just 10km from the Reef World Heritage area.
The new AIMS annual survey is in with the shocking result that not only was last year a record, but this year is even better. There is more coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef than ever recorded. We’ve had four bleaching events in the last seven years, and record hottest ever heat, the highest CO2 levels recorded since we invented ways to record CO2, and yet, despite all that, the reef is thriving.
The Great Barrier Reef has set a new record for hard coral cover over two-thirds of its 2300km length, results of the Australian Institute of Marine Science official long-term monitoring program show.
AIMS program leader Mike Emslie said the results were “good news” and showed that the Reef had “dodged a bullet” in bleaching this year.
“But the fact we have had four bleaching events in seven years is a major concern and highlights the impact of climate change here and now,” he said. “We are in uncharted territory and still trying to understand what this means.”
Or rather it highlights how irrelevant climate change is. If it had been a lowest ever year, they would have blamed climate change, yet when it’s a highest ever year, we still blame climate change as if great coral cover is a … bad thing?
Peter Ridd, of course, fearlessly speaks the truth and says the bleeding obvious — that we should have “a national celebration”:
“This brilliant result is proof that many science institutions have been misleading the public about the state of the Reef,” he said.
Bleaching happened in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022. The World Heritage Committee is still deciding if it should be listed as officially endangered. Possibly we should worry that rampant coral growth might deprive us of bare ocean spaces in between.
Peter Ridd congratulates AIMS on its data collection, and they really do look like they are doing a good job. They monitor 87 reefs, do 3,888 mantra ray tows (as the technique is called) which covers 881 kilometers of reef. (See this video). They tow people along behind a boat over the same reefs each year and record the amount of hard coral cover. As long as the technique appears so comprehensive and honest, it appears to be public money well spent.
The worst recent bleaching was in the northern Great Barrier Reef, yet this section has the most spectacular recovery.
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Yet defying all the odds, the Northern Reef has recovered so well.
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And which marine biologists predicted this kind of recovery? How well do we understand coral growth if we cannot explain why these natural cycles appear to dominate and describe which factors are driving it?
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has been warning for months now that Europe’s unqualified support for Ukraine is unsustainable … In
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