A Defensive Computing Checklist
March 17th, 2021For those who didn’t get enough from Who Controls Your Computer? (And How to make sure it’s you).
This is more hilarious than anything else: defensivecomputingchecklist.com
U.S. “COVID Relief” Was Enough To Give Every Taxpayer $41,870
March 17th, 2021Via: Foundation for Economic Education:
The sheer immensity of this spending is hard to grasp. For context, $6 trillion is more than one-fourth of what the US economy produces in an entire year, according to Fox Business. The COVID spending blowout is at least eight times bigger than the (inflation-adjusted) price tag of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”
Moreover, the COVID spending bills have all lost huge sums of money to unrelated carve-outs, politician pet projects, corporate bailouts, fraud, waste, and worse.
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The numbers here really are quite damning.
For the same $6 trillion in expenditure, the government could have given every federal taxpayer a $41,870 check. Or, to think about it a bit differently, it could have written every American roughly an $18,181 check.
Britain Increasing Size of Nuclear Arsenal
March 17th, 2021Via: Barrons:
Britain unveiled plans Tuesday to pivot its strategic focus towards Asia, counter Russian threats and bolster its nuclear stockpile, in one of the biggest overhauls of security, defence and foreign policy since the Cold War era.
The conclusions of the government’s so-called Integrated Review, crafted over the past year as London recalibrates its post-Brexit foreign policy, include labelling China a “systemic competitor”.
The document — entitled “Global Britain in a Competitive Age” — identifies Russia as the “most acute direct threat to the UK” which poses “the full spectrum” of dangers.
It also notably announces an increase to Britain’s nuclear arsenal, reversing a previous commitment to reduce the stockpile to 180 warheads by pledging to increase it to 260 by the end of the decade, “in recognition of the evolving security environment”.
VW Orders $14 Billion Worth of Battery Cells from Northvolt’s Gigafactory
March 16th, 2021Via: Electrek:
Volkswagen Group confirmed that it placed a new order for $14 billion worth of battery cells from Northvolt’s Swedish gigafactory, and it is taking a bigger stake in the battery manufacturer.
Northvolt is a battery startup founded by two former Tesla executives who worked on Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada with Panasonic.
Homesteading
March 16th, 2021It’s not a new message, but it’s one that’s worth repeating, for those who might be receptive to it.
I received an email from someone asking me how I saw “it” coming so long ago. The answer is that there have always been people who viewed the status quo as toxic and unbearable. For me, while living in Southern California around twenty years ago, my first thought upon waking each morning was, “I’m dead if I don’t get out of here.”
So, my move to a very rural area fifteen years ago was not done out of some philosophical, altruistic motivation. It was much more of a white knuckled, pell-mell escape. There were many questions about a lot of things and not a lot of answers…
Fuck it. Just go. It can’t be any worse than this.
Any regrets?
No. None at all.
There are annoyances, but all of that is noise level compared to the benefits.
Via: The Corbett Report:
Everyone knows that it is becoming harder and harder to maintain a life of independence or achieve community with like-minded people in the modern urban environment. Today Curtis Stone (formerly known as The Urban Farmer) joins us to discuss how he is creating a homestead in a rural area to provide food, water, energy and shelter for his family. We discuss the growing movement of people taking the “stead pill” and how others can explore the homesteading solution.
The Woke Mob Wants YOU! (Recruitment Video)
March 16th, 2021Via: Awaken with JP:
The Sovietization of the American Press
March 16th, 2021Via: National Post:
The old con of the Manufacturing Consent era of media was a phony show of bipartisanship. Legitimate opinion was depicted as a spectrum stretching all the way from “moderate” Democrats (often depicted as more correct on social issues) to “moderate” Republicans (whose views on the economy or war were often depicted as more realistic). That propaganda trick involved constantly narrowing the debate to a little slice of the Venn diagram between two established parties. Did we need to invade Iraq right away to stay safe, as Republicans contended, or should we wait until inspectors finished their work and then invade, as Democrats insisted?
The new, cleaved media landscape advances the same tiny intersection of elite opinion, except in the post-Trump era, that strip fits inside one party. Instead of appearing as props in a phony rendering of objectivity, Republicans in basically all non-Fox media have been moved off the legitimacy spectrum, and appear as foils only. Allowable opinion is now depicted stretching all the way from one brand of “moderate” Democrat to another.
Microbes Unknown to Science Discovered on The International Space Station
March 16th, 2021Via: ScienceAlert:
Researchers from the United States and India working with NASA have now discovered four strains of bacteria living in different places in the ISS – three of which were, until now, completely unknown to science.
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All four of the strains belong to a family of bacteria found in soil and freshwater; they are involved in nitrogen fixation, plant growth, and can help stop plant pathogens. Basically, good bacteria to have around if you’re growing things.
You might wonder what such soil bacteria were doing all the way up on the ISS, but the astronauts living on the space station have been growing small amounts of food for years, so it’s unsurprising that we’ve found plant-related microbes aboard.
Germany, Italy, France Suspend AstraZeneca Shots Amid Safety Fears
March 15th, 2021Via: Reuters:
Germany, France and Italy said on Monday they would suspend AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no proven link and people should not panic.
Dr. Byram Bridle on COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Programs: “We Are Optimizing The Chance For A Variant To Emerge That Can Bypass All Of These Vaccines”
March 15th, 2021New Zealand is particularly screwed:
A country like New Zealand, which has isolated itself and may not have substantial, naturally acquired immunity, which is gonna be very broad and is relying on these vaccines, may be able to vaccinate their population.
But if the rest of the world has these variants circulating, all those vaccinated individuals are gonna be susceptible to these variants that don’t care about that spike protein specific immunity anymore.
And you may, as a population, have wanted much more broad immunity that’s conferred by natural natural acquisition of immunity, meaning you acquire the infection and clear it. So I’m very concerned about this.
Via: Dryburgh.com:
If you were to ask me as a scientist, how would I design an experiment that would maximise our chance of generating a highly immunio evasive variant of the SARS Coronavirus 2?
My answer would be, essentially, the exact way we are rolling out these vaccines, precisely the way they’re rolling out these vaccines.
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The way we’re rolling this out, as I said, we are optimizing the chance for a variant to emerge that can bypass all of these vaccines.
Research Credit: Jb
