A Majority of Young Adults in the U.S. Live with Parents for First Time Since Great Depression
September 6th, 2020Via: Pew Research:
The coronavirus outbreak has pushed millions of Americans, especially young adults, to move in with family members. The share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents has become a majority since U.S. coronavirus cases began spreading early this year, surpassing the previous peak during the Great Depression era.
In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of monthly Census Bureau data. The number living with parents grew to 26.6 million, an increase of 2.6 million from February. The number and share of young adults living with their parents grew across the board for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest for the youngest adults (ages 18 to 24) and for White young adults.
Consumer Reports: Tesla’s Self Driving Features Are a Mess
September 6th, 2020Via: Consumer Reports:
Most features within Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Capability suite worked inconsistently, including the Autopark self-parking system that has been around for several years. Sometimes it would recognize a parking space as suitable, and we’d park in it. But when we drove by the same space again later, it was as if the parking spot didn’t exist. It also often didn’t park straight between the parking lines.
Smart Summon, which allows the car to drive remotely to a location within a private parking lot, would sometimes drive on the wrong side of parking lot driving lanes, and it didn’t always stop at stop signs in the lot.
Navigate on Autopilot, when activated, allows a Tesla traveling on the highway to autonomously take on- and off-ramps and make lane changes as long as a destination has been programmed into the navigation system. We found the performance to be inconsistent, with the system sometimes ignoring exit ramps on the set route, driving in the carpool lane, and staying in the passing lane for long periods of time. The feature also would completely disengage at times for no apparent reason.
Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control is designed to come to a complete stop at all stoplights, even when they are green, unless the driver overrides the system. We found several problems with this system, including the basic idea that it goes against normal driving practice for a car to start slowing to a stop for a green light. At times, it also drove through stop signs, slammed on the brakes for yield signs even when the merge was clear, and stopped at every exit while going around a traffic circle.
Related: Automakers Are Rethinking the Timetable for Fully Autonomous Cars
Vitamin D Nearly Abolishes ICU Risk in COVID-19
September 6th, 2020Via: Chris Masterjohn, PhD:
The results are absolutely stunning. 50% of the control group (13 people) required admission to the ICU. Only 2% of those in the vitamin D group (one person) required admission to the ICU.
Expressed as relative risk, vitamin D reduced the risk of ICU admission 25-fold. Put another way, it eliminated 96% of the risk of ICU admission. Expressed as an odds ratio, which is a less intuitive concept but is often used in statistics because it gives an estimate of the effect of the treatment that would be constant across scenarios with different levels of risk, vitamin D reduced the odds of ICU admission by 98%. Either way, vitamin D practically abolished the need for ICU admission.
This was statistically significant at p<0.001, and the 95% confidence interval was 0.002-0.17. This means that the probability of observing differences this large or greater if there is no true effect of vitamin D is less than one in a thousand, and that the probability is 95% that the true effect lies somewhere between an 83% and a 99.8% reduction in the odds of ICU admission. No matter how you slice it, the effect of vitamin D is extremely compelling.
DHS Braces For ‘Potential EMP Attack’ As Presidential Election Nears
September 5th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a new report warning about a “potential” electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the U.S.
DHS’s warning published Thur. (Sept. 2), or about 60 days until the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3, indicates there are “evolving threats against the American homeland, most recently highlighting efforts to combat an Electromagnetic Pulse attack which could disrupt the electrical grid and potentially damage electronics.”
Corpse Found in Ornamental Lake Outside Kensington Palace
September 4th, 2020Via: Daily Mail:
The body found in the pond remains unidentified. A Scotland Yard spokesman tells me: ‘The death is being treated as unexplained at this time, but is not thought to be suspicious. Inquiries are ongoing.’
The Pentagon Has Ordered Stars and Stripes to Shut Down
September 4th, 2020Update: After Criticism, Trump Says Pentagon Will Not Shut Down Military Newspaper
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Via: USA Today:
In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that “dissolves the Stars and Stripes” by Sept. 15 including “specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”
“The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo’s author.
Polio Vaccine Causing Polio Outbreaks in Africa, WHO Admits
September 3rd, 2020Via: Children’s Health Defense:
A year ago, news outlets briefly shone a light on the fact (a fact that makes public health officials squirm) that oral polio vaccines are causing polio outbreaks. With reports streaming in throughout 2019 regarding the circulation of vaccine-derived polioviruses in numerous African and Asian countries, a CDC virologist confessed, “We have now created more new emergences of the virus than we have stopped.”
This week, the same story is making the same headlines, with the WHO’s shamefaced announcement that the oral polio vaccine is responsible for an alarming polio outbreak in Sudan—“linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad”—with parallel outbreaks in a dozen other African countries. In fact, between August 2019 and August 2020, there were 400 recorded cases of vaccine-derived polio in more than 20 countries worldwide. Ironically, WHO disclosed this “setback” barely a week after it declared the African continent to be free of wild poliovirus—which has not been seen in Africa since 2016. While African epidemiologists cheerily claim that these outbreaks can “be brought under control with further immunization,” and Sudan prepares to launch a mass polio vaccination campaign, WHO is warning that “the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa” is high.
Starlink Engineer/Spokeswoman Confirms Optical Backhaul Operational on Two Satellites
September 3rd, 2020Wow. I thought that this capability was years away, even for testing.
Nope.
Via: CNBC:
Tice also said that the company recently conducted a test to see if it can connect two satellites in orbit with what SpaceX calls “space lasers.” Also known as intersatellite links, the space lasers would imporve the Starlink network by allowing it to exchange data in between the satellites in orbit, rather than beaming it back-and-forth to the ground. SpaceX tested two of the Starlink satellites in orbit that are equipped with the intersatellite links.
“With these space lasers the Starlink satellites were able to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data,” Tice said.
She added that, once SpaceX has “space lasers” working consistently throughout the network, “Starlink will be one of the fastest options available to transfer data around the world.”
High Dose Vitamin D, “Significantly Reduced the Need for ICU Treatment of Patients Requiring Hospitalization Due to Proven COVID-19”
September 3rd, 2020Via: The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology:
Our pilot study demonstrated that administration of a high dose of Calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a main metabolite of vitamin D endocrine system, significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19. Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease, but larger trials with groups properly matched will be required to show a definitive answer.
The Government’s Answer to Every Problem: More Government
September 3rd, 2020Via: The Rutherford Institute:
Have you noticed that the government’s answer to every problem is more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty?
The Great Depression. The World Wars. The 9/11 terror attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic.
Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn.
Indeed, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. To put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.
To the police state, this COVID-19 pandemic has been a huge boon, like winning the biggest jackpot in the lottery. Certainly, it will prove to be a windfall for those who profit from government expenditures and expansions.
Given the rate at which the government has been devising new ways to spend our money and establish itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems, this current crisis will most likely end up ushering in the largest expansion of government power since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
This is how the emergency state operates, after all.
