Differential Increases in Excess Mortality in the German Federal States During the COVID-19 Pandemic
July 2nd, 2024Via: Preprint, Christof Kuhbandner and Matthias Reitzner:
The most obvious expectation of an effective vaccination would be that the increase in excess mortality would be lowest in the federal states in which the most vaccinations were administered. However, the opposite is the case.
Happiness
July 2nd, 2024Via: Steve Cutts:
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Immunity for Official, Not Private Acts
July 1st, 2024Update: Trump Moves To Overturn Manhattan Conviction After Supreme Court Immunity Decision
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Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Supreme Court found on Monday that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but can for private acts, in a landmark ruling recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, threw out a lower court’s decision that had rejected Trump’s claim of immunity from federal criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The six conservative justices were in the majority, while its three liberal members dissented.
FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network
July 1st, 2024Is there more to FedEx than meets the eye?
FedEx was founded by Frederick W. Smith, a member of Skull & Bones.
Smith, a former Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, has developed a close relationship with the U.S. Government. FedEx is a major contractor to U.S. Government agencies and military branches. FedEx participates in U.S. Air Force airlift operations.
FedEx’s operations depend on tracking employees, vehicles, aircraft and millions of packages throughout its global shipping system in realtime. FedEx had to develop massive, proprietary information systems to do this.
And now we come to this headline:
“FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network”
I think I know at least part of why this is happening.
I worked for FedEx in the 1990s. There are (or at least were) terrifying security vulnerabilities in FedEx’s operations that I will not discuss. If you know what these vulnerabilities are, please don’t feel motivated to mention them here. These vulnerabilities may or may not be known to state and non-state actors who intend to cause serious harm to the U.S. I’d rather not give anyone any ideas.
I would like to think that FedEx’s partnership with Flock Safety is related to addressing these vulnerabilities. Maybe that’s the goal. Maybe there are multiple goals.
FedEx is a strategic asset to the U.S. Government that happens to be vulnerable. I’m almost certain that The Department of Homeland Security and/or the Department of Defense is coordinating this mass surveillance operation with FedEx and Flock Safety. My guess is that, besides protecting FedEx, a copy of all the collected data is being used elsewhere. Maybe, “They’re keeping track of where you are and where you’ve been.”
What happens to all of the data that the Flock Safety systems are collecting in and around FedEx assets?
Does it get deleted after 30 days, which is the default retention period for Flock Safety systems?
*wink*
Via: Forbes:
Twenty years ago, FedEx established its own police force. Now it’s working with local police to build out an AI car surveillance network.
Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has with at least four multi-billion dollar private companies. But publicly available documents reveal that some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx — a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus.
To civil rights activists, such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock’s car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers. Lisa Femia, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said because private entities aren’t subject to the same transparency laws as police, this sort of arrangement could “[leave] the public in the dark, while at the same time expanding a sort of mass surveillance network.”
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was “profoundly disconcerting” that FedEx was exchanging data with law enforcement as part of Flock’s “mass surveillance” system. “It raises questions about why a private company…would have privileged access to data that normally is only available to law enforcement,” he said.
FedEx declined to answer questions about the nature of its partnership with Flock. Spokesperson Phalisha Jackson told Forbes, “We take the safety of our team members very seriously. As such, we do not publicly discuss our security procedures.”
Biden Family Now ‘Expected To Discuss Future Of Campaign’ After Disaster Dementia Debate
June 30th, 2024Update: Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On, Blames Debate Disaster On Advisors And CNN
Via: ZeroHedge:
At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most.
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Via: ZeroHedge:
After Jill Biden spent Saturday in the Hamptons orchestrating Weekend at Bernie’s 3, NBC News reports that the Biden family is expected to discuss ‘the future of his re-election campaign’ at Camp David on Sunday following a horrendous debate on Thursday which laid bare to the world the fact that Joe Biden is not running the country.
Related: Don’t Let The Elite Get Away With Gaslighting That They Didn’t Know About Biden’s Senility
State Farm Seeks Major Rate Hikes for California Homeowners and Renters
June 29th, 2024Absolutely nuts.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
State Farm General is seeking to dramatically increase residential insurance rates for millions of Californians, a move that would deepen the state’s ongoing crisis over housing coverage.
In two filings with the state’s Department of Insurance on Thursday signaling financial trouble for the insurance giant, State Farm disclosed it is seeking a 30% rate increase for homeowners, a 36% increase for condo owners and a 52% increase for renters.
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The company’s bid to sharply increase home insurance rates seeks to utilize a little-known and rarely used exception to the state’s usual insurance rate-making formula. Typically, such a move signals that an insurance provider is facing serious financial issues.
In one of the filings, State Farm General said the purpose of its request was to restore its financial condition. “If the variance is denied,” the insurer wrote, “further deterioration of surplus is anticipated.”
Just Your Average Night Near Downtown Los Angeles…
June 29th, 2024Via: Scott Lane – On Scene TV:
John Deere Laying Off Hundreds in Midwest Amid Production Shift to Mexico
June 29th, 2024Via: Fox Business:
John Deere, the world’s largest seller of tractors and crop harvesters, has announced another wave of layoffs Friday, telling around 610 production staff at plants in Illinois and Iowa that they will be out of a job by the end of the summer, according to reports.
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The company says it generated $10.166 billion in profits last year.
The Land, Water and Air Around Us Are Chock-Full of DNA Fragments from Fungi that Mycologists Can’t Link to Known Organisms
June 28th, 2024Via: Scientific American:
If you want to discover a hidden world of new life-forms, you don’t have to scour dark caves or slog through remote rainforests. Just look under your feet. When then-graduate student Anna Rosling went to northern Sweden to map the distribution of a particular root-loving fungus, she found something much more intriguing: Many of her root samples contained traces of DNA from unknown species. Weirder still, she never encountered a complete organism. When the field season ended, she had only isolated bits of raw genetic material. The fragments clearly belonged to the fungal kingdom, but they revealed little else. “I got obsessed,” recalls Rosling, now a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.
Since then mycologists have realized that such phantoms are everywhere. Point to a patch of dirt, a body of water, even the air you’re breathing, and odds are that it is teeming with mushrooms, molds and yeasts (or their spores) that no one has ever seen.
First 2024 U.S. Presidential Debate: Do You Want To Discuss It?
June 28th, 2024I usually ignore U.S. Presidential Debates. I broke with tradition this time and tried to watch, but I only lasted about ten minutes. I mainly had morbid curiosity, similar to how one feels drawn to look at a traffic accident. I found it hard to believe that Biden would be able to participate at all. As we all know, he has been gone for a long time.
But there he was.
Millions basked in the warm glow of the blazing Biden dumpster fire. He was sputtering and malfunctioning as per routine.
Watching his mouth hanging open and his baffled gaze, I found myself moving from contempt to pity.
I looked at some crackpot globalist media and there was no attempt to prop up the Biden disaster anymore. They seem to have have collectively decided to throw Biden under the bus.
Here are some examples:
NBC:
Some Democrats call for Biden to step aside and ‘throw in the towel’ on 2024
Debate takeaways: Biden confirms some voter fears as Trump leans into grievances
After a devastating debate performance, Biden aides try to reassure panicky Democrats
New York Times:
‘It’s Frightening’: Democratic Voters Worried by Biden’s Struggles in Debate
Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.
Washington Post:
Democrats panic over Biden’s debate performance, doubt his future
Biden’s performance: halting, meandering — and unnerving for Democrats
Biden stumbles in fiery debate as Trump spreads falsehoods
So, what do you think? Will Biden even make it to the election? Will the Democrats run someone else?
