The Price of Electric Car Batteries Has Dropped 89% in 10 Years
December 31st, 2020Via: Fast Company:
A decade ago, a lithium-ion battery pack used in an electric car cost around $1,110 per kilowatt-hour. By this year, according to a new survey, the cost had fallen 89%, to $137 per kilowatt-hour. And by 2023, the cost is likely to fall far enough that car companies can make and sell mass-market electric vehicles (EVs) at the same cost as cars running on fossil fuels.
UK Woman Arrested For Filming Inside Empty Hospital
December 31st, 2020Via: Summit News:
A woman in the UK was arrested by police after she filmed a video inside an almost completely empty hospital and posted it online.
The clip shows the woman walking through virtually empty corridors and filming empty wards at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
…
According to reports, a 46-year-old woman was subsequently arrested by police for filming the video and has been charged on suspicion of a public order offence.
“The woman has been bailed to return to police on 21 January, with conditions that she cannot enter any NHS premises or the grounds of any such premises, unless in the case of an emergency or to attend a pre-arranged NHS appointment,” said a statement by Gloucestershire Police.
While the footage shows the inside of the hospital to be virtually empty, UK health authorities have continually asserted that the NHS is at risk of being “overwhelmed” as a result of rising COVID-19 infections.
NHS England says that there are now more COVID-19 patients in hospitals than there were during the April peak of the first wave.
However, public data shows that hospitals are indeed emptier than at this time last year, with beds being at 89% occupancy compared to 95% occupancy in December 2019.
In regions across the country, critical care occupancy rates are also lower than the 3 year average.
“Los Angeles Vaccine Recipients Can Put the Proof in Apple Wallet”
December 30th, 2020Here we go.
Via: Bloomberg:
Covid-19 vaccine recipients in Los Angeles County, a major virus hot spot, will be offered a digital record that will help ensure they get a second shot and could, eventually, be used to gain access to concert venues or airline flights.
The offering is being provided starting this week through a partnership with the startup Healthvana. It’s initially geared toward ensuring people receive both doses of the two-shot regimens that have been authorized in the U.S., including through follow-up notifications before a second appointment.
It will also give recipients a way to verify they have been vaccinated, which they can put into an Apple Wallet or competing Google platform “to prove to airlines, to prove to schools, to prove to whoever needs it,” said Healthvana Chief Executive Officer Ramin Bastani.
Social Engineers Use Weaponized Psychology to Push Unproven Vaccines
December 30th, 2020Via: The Daily Bell:
In a recent Gallup poll on Americans’ willingness to submit to a COVID-19 vaccine, a mere half of the respondents said they would be willing to receive the vaccine once it becomes available.
This hesitancy on the part of the American public poses a potentially unforeseen dilemma for pharmaceutical firms and their cronies in government, which have spent billions developing these vaccines at breakneck speed: how best to prod, cajole, shame, or otherwise manipulate the American citizenry into accepting the vaccine once it has achieved FDA approval?
We can already see several strategies at work in this regard; the PR campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination is now approaching climax.
Humans are hardwired to seek inclusion in social groups. In earlier epochs, our survival depended obviously and heavily on the social groups to which we belonged. Although the material reality of life has changed dramatically for humans since the dawn of civilization, those social imperatives carved deep into our innate psychology have remained.
Social engineers know and understand the basic desire for social inclusion, and use it as a tool.
Humans intuit the in-group/out-group dynamic. We are sensitive to lines drawn between insiders and outsiders and, whether consciously or subconsciously, modify our behavior to fit the mold of the inside group. If atomized outsiders can be convinced that the “insiders” in society get vaccinated, they are more likely to adopt conformative behavior as a result.
You can glimpse this strategy at play in public campaigns to promote vaccination.
The Threat of Authoritarianism in the U.S. is Very Real, and Has Nothing To Do With Trump
December 30th, 2020Via: Glenn Greenwald:
The COVID-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political freedom.
…
The hysterical Trump-as-despot script was all melodrama, a ploy for profits and ratings, and, most of all, a potent instrument to distract from the neoliberal ideology that gave rise to Trump in the first place by causing so much wreckage. Positing Trump as a grand aberration from U.S. politics and as the prime author of America’s woes — rather than what he was: a perfectly predictable extension of U.S politics and a symptom of preexisting pathologies — enabled those who have so much blood and economic destruction on their hands not only to evade responsibility for what they did, but to rehabilitate themselves as the guardians of freedom and prosperity and, ultimately, catapult themselves back into power. As of January 20, that is exactly where they will reside.
U.S. Poverty Jumps the Most in 60 Years
December 30th, 2020The pandemic did this. The pandemic did that.
Wrong.
Governments caused this disaster.
Via: CBS:
Of the various measures of the coronavirus pandemic’s comet strike on the U.S. economy, one especially reveals the size of the crater: Over a six-month period, nearly 8 million Americans have tumbled into poverty.
The nation’s poverty rate in November jumped to 11.7%, up 2.4 percentage points from 9.6% in June — the biggest one-year increase in the 60 years that the government has been keeping numbers, according to new research from three universities.
UK: Nano Bug Drone
December 30th, 2020Via: BAE Systems:
The Bug is a nano-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) weighing 196g – similar to the weight of a smartphone – with 40 minute battery life and a 2km range. It boasts a stealthy low visual profile and the ability to fly even in strong winds of more than 50mph. It was the only nano-UAV able to cope with the uncompromising weather during a recent Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE) event hosted by the Ministry of Defence’s Future Capability Group.
COVID-19 Bill Started a 180-Day Countdown for More UFO Disclosures
December 30th, 2020More bullshit, threat narrative UFO disclosures, that is.
Via: New York Post:
President Trump’s signature Sunday on the $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief and government funding bill started a 180 day countdown for the Pentagon and spy agencies to say what they know about UFOs.
The provision received very little attention in part because it wasn’t included in the text of the 5,593 page legislation, but as a “committee comment” attached to the annual intelligence authorization act, which was rolled into the massive bill.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), said in the comment it “directs the [director of national intelligence], in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other agencies… to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena.”
The report must address “observed airborne objects that have not been identified” and should include a “detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by: a. geospatial intelligence; b. signals intelligence; c. human intelligence; and d. measurement and signals intelligence,” the committee said.
The report must also contain “[a] detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was derived from investigations of intrusions of unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted United States airspace … and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries.”
More: INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2021:
Advanced Aerial Threats
The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified
Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval
Intelligence to standardize collection and reporting on
unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to
adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to
U.S. military assets and installations. However, the Committee
remains concerned that there is no unified, comprehensive
process within the Federal Government for collecting and
analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena,
despite the potential threat. The Committee understands that
the relevant intelligence may be sensitive; nevertheless, the
Committee finds that the information sharing and coordination
across the Intelligence Community has been inconsistent, and
this issue has lacked attention from senior leaders.
Therefore, the Committee directs the DNI, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other
agencies as the Director and Secretary jointly consider
relevant, to submit a report within 180 days of the date of
enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and
armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena
(also known as “anomalous aerial vehicles”), including
observed airborne objects that have not been identified.
The Committee further directs the report to include:
1. A detailed analysis of unidentified aerial
phenomena data and intelligence reporting collected or
held by the Office of Naval Intelligence, including
data and intelligence reporting held by the
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force;
2. A detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data
collected by:
a. geospatial intelligence;
b. signals intelligence;
c. human intelligence; and
d. measurement and signals intelligence;
3. A detailed analysis of data of the FBI, which was
derived from investigations of intrusions of
unidentified aerial phenomena data over restricted
United States airspace;
4. A detailed description of an interagency process
for ensuring timely data collection and centralized
analysis of all unidentified aerial phenomena reporting
for the Federal Government, regardless of which service
or agency acquired the information;
5. Identification of an official accountable for the
process described in paragraph 4;
6. Identification of potential aerospace or other
threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to
national security, and an assessment of whether this
unidentified aerial phenomena activity may be
attributed to one or more foreign adversaries;
7. Identification of any incidents or patterns that
indicate a potential adversary may have achieved
breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put
United States strategic or conventional forces at risk;
and
8. Recommendations regarding increased collection of
data, enhanced research and development, and additional
funding and other resources.
The report shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may
include a classified annex.
Back to the Future with Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack
December 30th, 2020
Via: Organic Consumers Association:
President-Elect Joe Biden has nominated Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.
For anyone who is familiar with our Millions Against Monsanto campaign or who participated in March Against Monsanto during the Obama-Biden years, you know why this is bad news.
For everyone else, this is the first installment in our series of articles that will recount this history to explain why we opposed Vilsack’s nomination in 2009 and why we still do in 2021.
Tom Vilsack was “Mr. Monsanto” even before he started at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2009. As Iowa’s governor (1999–2007), he had been named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Today, he continues to serve agribusiness as the head of the US Dairy Export Council, which is deeply invested in perpetuating the system of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), the use of pesticide-drenched genetically modified feed, and the practice of keeping prices paid to farmers below the cost of production to drive the consolidation of ever-larger factory farms.
As USDA Secretary from 2009-2017, Vilsack approved more new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) than any Secretary before him or since.
Boston Dynamics: Dancing Robots
December 30th, 2020Via: Boston Dynamics:
