The big story of 2024 that NOBODY is talking abou

I do find all this ironic.  Folks motivated by greed and power are out there building the so called new wortld believing their interests will be preserved.  I do not think thgey have a chance.

AI will always converge to real truth.  It has to because an error propagates greater error and real failure and disfunction.  It is only the stupid that think otherwise.

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And we are building AI and away we go.  

The big story of 2024 that NOBODY is talking about

Kit Knightly

https://off-guardian.org/2024/12/18/the-big-story-of-2024-that-nobody-is-talking-about/

As the embers of 2024 spit out their dying sparks and tendrils of smoke corkscrew into 2025, I want to ask: what were the important news stories of this year?

Most people will say something international. The war in Ukraine, the atrocities in Gaza, the fall of Assad.

Maybe some will cite elections, it was a big year for voting after all. A global shift-change in the corridors of power saw a dozen governments swapped out for new faces, with 2 weeks of the year left it’s still possible Trudeau, Macron or Scholz may join the procession.

The tech minded might talk about advancements in Artificial Intelligence.

Those are the big stories of 2024. The banner headlines. Sound and fury and all that signifies. But were they the most important?

No, the important story of 2024 was The Great Reset.

Remember that? It was this pan-global supranational plan to tear down and then rebuild society in a “sustainable”, “inclusive”, “fair” and “secure” way that would – totally accidentally – eradicate civil liberties and individual freedom for every single person on the planet.

It was all the rage a few years ago, you might remember. But when it didn’t go over too well with a lot of people, the powers that be dropped the subject and there’s been very little talk about it since 2022.

Does that mean it’s gone away?

We need to have “object permanence” in politics as in all things. Something doesn’t cease to exist just because you can’t see it anymore. The world doesn’t vanish when you close your eyes.

The Great Reset is still the plan.

It’s still happening. It’s just distributed now. A compartmentalized strategy uploaded to the cloud, everywhere and nowhere. A million nanobots working a million angles to change a million tiny rules and build a million tiny cells.

Like the end of The Usual Suspects, stand the right distance back and you can see the pattern.

Just last week, the UK’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty published his annual health report. What does he recommend? Sin taxes on “unhealthy” foods and 15 minute cities. Labour have already increased “sin taxes” on sugar, salt, alcohol and tobacco. Next comes red meat, dairy and just “carbon” in general.

Earlier this year the UK introduced licensing for keeping chickens. They banned smoking too.

By 2035 it will be impossible to buy a new petrol car in the UK. Or the EU. Or Canada. Or New Zealand. Or Australia. Or Mexico. Or South Africa. Or California, and 11 other US states.

From that point you and your car will be anchored to charging points. Even better your new car will probably have automatic drive features, speed limiters – oh and remote kill switches.

This week, all of sudden, the news tells us that wood burning stoves cause cancer. A ban is already being discussed. Since coal is already a no-no for domestic users (since 2023), there effectively goes your last chance of energy and heat independence. If they ban stoves there will be no heating available to you that can’t be hooked up to a smart meter, surveilled, controlled.

Unless you count burning a candle inside a plant pot. And they’re coming for those too.

The much-publicised murder of Sara Sharif has already been parlayed into a new bill taking away parents “automatic right to homeschool their children” – if the state deems them “vulnerable”.

Digital IDs are coming for everyone from everywhere. Here’s just a selection of reasons –

To secure the border and ensure electoral integrity in the US.

To protect children on social media in Australia.

To promote efficiency in the EU.

To combat illegal immigration in the UK.

To track migrant workers in Russia.

Because they said so in China.

The EU wants to establish an “asset register” and biometric tracking across borders. Online anonymity is being eroded with each “hate crime” attributed to “disinformation” and “hate speech”.

There is persistent and consistent talk of rationing – food and water and travel.

Ban it. Ration it. Monitor it. Control everyone’s everything.

Can’t you see the walls closing in?

These are not disparate issues, they are heads on a hydra. They form the universal silent agenda that is everywhere. They are bipartisan and cross-bench. They are the things unquestioned, sanctioned and approved by both “sides” of every fake “divide”.

The people at the apex of the pyramid literally spent two years talking about this. Telling you it was the plan and how great it was going to be.

Then, when it didn’t take, they spent two more years pretending they never said it and distracting you with other things like UFOs. Taylor Swift. ChatGPT. Race-baiting.

They are building a prison around every single person on this planet while we argue about Hunter Biden and QAnon and Transgender bathrooms.

The drones over New Jersey – supposing there’s anything really there at all – may as well be a giant jangling key chain in the sky.

That’s what all of it is. The elections. The terrorism. The scandals. The leaked reports.

It’s a laser pointer. It stops the cat from playing with the things he shouldn’t play with.

Today is my birthday. I’m hurtling – faster than I expected or desired – towards 40. My birthday wish is a world worth living in when I get there.

The silver lining of 2025 being as bad I suspect it’s going to be is that it might force people to re-realise everything they’ve forgotten since 2022. And the first step to fixing something is admitting there’s a problem.

Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years

Not only was this a real observatory, it was assembled by contribution from all over the British islands and surely it was all hauled by sea.  No real roads existed then.  understand thatall landsurfaces are cut all over swith reentries that have to be engineered out for the road to ever work outside walking and cattle driving.

any sledge will get caught up and cost a lot of time and effort.  thus the sooner you are on water the better.  Then it is usually a short sledge haulage job with oxen, and yes we had oxen for the last ten thousand years or so.

Recall that the Doric invasion  brought the greeks from the Baltic to the Aegean surely using oxen just like our pioneers on the way to the West Coast.

Stonehenge mystery is SOLVED after 5,000 years - as scientists finally crack why the mysterious monument was builtREAD MORE: One of Stonehenge's most famous rocks 'came from Scotland'

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE

Published: 19:01 EST, 19 December 2024 | Updated: 04:13 EST, 20 December 2024

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14209831/Stonehenge-monument-built-scientists-reveal.html

Why the mighty Stonehenge was built around 5,000 years ago has long been one of the great mysteries.

But according to a new study, we may finally have an answer.

Scientists say Wiltshire's famous stone circle was built as a symbol of unification between three distinct corners of Britain.

We know that Stonehenge's rocky slabs were transported as far afield from southwest Wales and northeast Scotland.

So the scientists, from University College London and Aberystwyth University, theorise that Scottish and Welsh people brought their own local stones down to Wiltshire as a well-meaning contribution to assembling the structure.

In that sense, it represented a powerful – and very early – symbol of British unity.

Stonehenge's builders had attempted to establish 'political unification and shared identity across much or even all of Britain', the authors say in their paper, published in Archaeology International.

They add: 'Bringing together these extraordinary and alien rocks... symbolised and embodied far and distant communities within a complex material.

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A symbol of British unity? Wiltshire's famous stone circle is one of the world's most iconic historic sites and a British cultural icon - but its intended purpose has long divided academics

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The new research comes a day before the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year where thousands of people flock to Stonehenge (pictured in 2021)

'[Stonehenge was a] monumental expression of unity between people, land, ancestors and the heavens.'

In the paper, the researchers say Stonehenge’s long-distance links add weight to the theory that the Neolithic monument may have had some unifying purpose in ancient Britain, to go with its symbolic value.

'The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose,' said lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson at UCL's Institute of Archaeology.

'[It was] a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.'

Even though England, Scotland and Wales did not exist as concepts when Stonehenge was built 5,000-odd years ago, we know the structure is indeed representative of all three countries.

Stonehenge is famous for its great sandstone slabs, known as sarsens, which were sourced locally – likely hauled from West Woods in Wiltshire, around 15 miles north.

But in addition to the tall Sarsen stones that make up Stonehenge's distinctive appearance, the world-famous site is also home to around 80 'bluestones' – smaller stones that have a bluish tinge when freshly broken or when wet.

Among Stonehenge experts, it is generally agreed the bluestones came from Craig Rhos-y-Felin in the Preseli Hills of south-west Wales (although how exactly they got to Wiltshire is hotly debated).

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Researchers say Stonehenge's Altar Stone (pictured) came from Scotland. Lying flat at the heart, the six-tonne, five-metre-long rectangular Altar Stone is a grey-green sandstone

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Meanwhile, around 80 smaller 'bluestones' (pictured) - stones that have a bluish tinge when freshly broken or when wet - came from Wales

How were the stones moved to Wiltshire?

The matter of why Stonehenge was built is perhaps the most tantalizing question for academics - but there's the additional question of how.

Scientists know that the sarsens were sourced locally in Wiltshire, while the 'bluestones' were from Wales and the 'Altar Stone' from Scotland.

But this raises questions about its journey given the limits of human technology during Neolithic times.

It's possible that they were pulled by tribes of men along the ground using a series of logs - a labor-intensive task that would have taken months if not years.

There's also the possibly stone was transported by boat or even carried by the movement of glacier ice.

However, the Altar Stone, the largest bluestone at the centre of Stonehenge, actually came from northern Scotland – up to 1,000km (621 miles) away, scientists revealed earlier this year.

Lying flat at the heart of Stonehenge, the six-tonne, five-metre-long rectangular Altar Stone is a grey-green sandstone, far bigger and different in its composition from the other bluestones.

At the time, the research team (which included two authors of this new paper) analysed the age and chemistry of minerals from fragments of the Altar Stone.

They found a remarkable similarity with the Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland.

The team concluded 'with 95 per cent accuracy' that the stone came from this area – which encompasses parts of Inverness, Thurso, Orkney and parts of Shetland – although they've since ruled out Orkney as the location.

In this new follow-up paper, the team say the Altar Stone was brought by the Neolithic people of northern Scotland as a contribution or gift to the southerners.

'[This was] perhaps to cement an alliance or to take part in the extraordinary long-distance collaboration that building Stonehenge represented and embodied,' the authors say.

Likewise, the bluestones could have been transported by people from the Preseli Hills of south-west Wales as their own contribution – illustrating 'a political unification or a sacred peace'.

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Earlier in 2024, researchers concluded that the Altar Stone came from the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland

Stonehenge Altar Stone was transported 430 miles from Scotland, say scientists

What is the Altar Stone?

The Altar Stone is a six-tonne sandstone slab that lies flat at the centre of Stonehenge.

The five-metre-long rectangular Altar Stone is a grey-green sandstone, far bigger and different in its composition from the other bluestones.

Researchers say the Altar Stone came from Scotland - potentially transported south by a Scottish tribe as their contribution to building Stonehenge.

The Altar Stone may have once stood vertically at Stonehenge before falling to lie parallel with the ground.

This follow-up paper now identifies Stonehenge construction 'as a monument of island-wide unification, embodied in part through the distant and diverse origins of its stones'.

'Unusually strong similarities in house floor layouts between Late Neolithic houses in Orkney and the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge also provide evidence of close connections between Salisbury Plain and northern Scotland,' the team say.

Stonehenge was used as a cremation cemetery for mostly adult men and women for around five centuries in its early history.

Nearly half the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain, the experts say – showing people historically flocked there from afar.

'The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense,' added Professor Pearson.

'It’s helped to solve the puzzle of why these distant places had more in common than we might have once thought.'

The new research comes a day before the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year where thousands of people flock to Stonehenge.

During the winter solstice, the setting sun dips below the horizon over the middle of the Altar Stone and between the two largest upright stones (one of which is now fallen).

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Stonehenge is famous for its alignment with the sun, but the ancient monument may have also been carefully designed to align with the movements of the moon

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In the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs when Earth's north is most greatly inclined towards the sun, and the winter solstice occurs when it's titled away from the sun

For thousands of years, it's thought people gathered at Stonehenge at both midsummer and midwinter solstices to conduct rituals and ceremonies relating to the changing seasons, the sun and the sky.

During the winter, Neolithic people also feasted close to Stonehenge at the nearby settlement village of Durrington Walls.

Largely because it's a whopping 5,000 years old, the origins of Stonehenge, including why and how it was built, are still a source of frenzied debate.

Professor Timothy Darvill, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University who passed away earlier this year, said Stonehenge served as an ancient solar calendar, helping people track the days of the year.

The British researcher said the sarsens each represented a single day in a month, making the entire site a huge time-keeping device.

Other theories include that it was a cult centre for healing, a temple or a place where ancestors were worshipped.

Stonehenge and the solstices

It's already well known that the whole layout of Stonehenge is positioned in relation to the summer and winter solstices – when the Earth's tilt towards the sun is at its most extreme, either at the north or south pole.

In the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs when Earth's north is most greatly tilted towards the sun, and the winter solstice occurs when it's titled away from the sun.

Stonehenge was deliberately built to align with the sun on the solstices, according to English Heritage, which manages the site.

It explains: 'At Stonehenge on the summer solstice, the sun rises behind the Heel Stone in the north-east part of the horizon and its first rays shine into the heart of Stonehenge.

'Observers at Stonehenge at the winter solstice, standing in the enclosure entrance and facing the centre of the stones, can watch the sun set in the south-west part of the horizon.'

Surprise! We thought trees emitted methane, but instead they absorb it… (What else don’t we know?)

And just how does grass interact with methane?  We do not know.  

This is a mind blowing rethink on methane  turns out it is consumed continously by our micro biology all day and night and likely to it availability.  After all, the only place we actually see an imbalance is in a coal mine.

So methane is useful bug food and we were clueless.  almost as clueless as those idiots concerned about cow farts.  Who pays these fools?

Surprise! We thought trees emitted methane, but instead they absorb it… (What else don’t we know?)

By Jo Nova

https://joannenova.com.au/2024/12/surprise-we-thought-trees-emitted-methane-but-instead-they-absorb-it-what-else-dont-we-know/

Quick! Set up a trillion dollar market and figure out the science later

We got it wrong for so long

Methane is supposedly 80 times more powerful as CO2 over the short term, and we are already feeding our cows seaweed and dubious additives like Bovaer® to reduce it, and we’re trying to make steaks in labs, and create burgers out of crickets. But it turns out, the experts were wrong, yet again, and trees are absorbing more methane than they emit. So just like that, there is a major new sink to remove methane from the air, and it’s been there all the time.

The funny thing is that for years everyone was measuring the air at the bottom of the tree trunk and finding methane emissions, but when Vincent Gauci et al measured 1 – 2 metres further up the tree, not only did the methane emissions shrink to nothing, the gas started to disappear from the air around the trunk. Apparently bacteria under the bark were dining on the methane.

The team looked at trees in Brazil, Panama, United Kingdom and Sweden and estimate that all the worlds trees might already be absorbing as much as 50 million tons of methane, about as much as” is coming out of all the worlds landfill sites”, or roughly equivalent to half the worlds cows.

Scientists got this wrong, every way they could

Researchers used to think trees did nothing much with methane, but around 2006 some scientists were surprised to discover that trees emitted methane, especially in swampy areas. In 2017 a paper showed wetland trees gave out a lot of methane, “like a chimney”:

““In the seasonally flooded part of the Amazon, the trees become a massive chimney for pumping out methane,” says one researcher.“

The bad news back then, was that most of the world’s estimated 3 trillion trees emitted methane at least some of the time. If it had have been Porches instead, we’d have heard all about it.

Since methane is supposedly responsible for a quarter of global warming, you’d think the science industrial complex would have been all over this so they could save the world. Apparently forest scientists even used to entertain students by setting fire to the gases hissing from the trunks in the Amazon, so it’s not like “nobody knew”. Everyone knew, but apparently no one really wanted to announce bad news about their forest friends and give the deniers ammunition to cut down a tree, so people didn’t want to look.

Among the first was Vincent Gauci, then at the UK’s Open University and now at Birmingham University. “When I was first working on this, it was poo-pooed,” he says. When Pangala, then also at The Open University, made her first measurements of trees emitting methane in the swamps of Borneo, she had the same experience. Despite finding that the trees increased standard estimates of emissions from the swamps sevenfold, “it took 18 months to get it published,” she says. “We were rejected by several journals. They just weren’t interested.” — e360Yale

So prejudice and politicized funding stopped humans from figuring what trees were really doing for ages.

The same Vincent Gauci went back and did the study higher up the trees only to find the exact opposite of what they expected and had read in peer reviewed papers:

Trees may be even bigger climate heroes than we thought

By Laura Allen, ScienceNewsExplores

Trees, too, were known to release methane, especially those growing in wet soils. These trees take up the gas from soil and emit it through their trunks.

Vincent Gauci studies methane emission from trees. He’s an environmental scientist at the University of Birmingham in England. Gauci knew trees in wet places, such as the tropics, give off methane from their trunks. Next, he wanted to study its release from trees in drier soils. He expected these upland trees would give off methane, though less than those at wetter sites. But that’s not what he found.

“We were surprised to see the exact opposite,” says Gauci. The trees were actually taking in methane. Think of how many trees there are on the planet, he notes. That could add up to a lot of methane being removed from the air.

Very little is known about these microbes, says Gauci. In fact, little is known about gas exchange in tree bark and branch surfaces. And those surfaces add up to a huge area. “If we were to unwrap all the trees and roll them flat, they would basically cover the entire Earth’s land surface,” he says.

This discovery may have doubled the amount of methane that the land absorbs (that we know about).

This research is important and eye-opening, says Kazuhiko Terazawa, a forest ecologist. He studies trees and methane at the Hokkaido Research Organization in Japan. The study’s estimates for how much methane trees might take up surprised him. If correct, he says, this means the land absorbs nearly twice as much methane as people had thought it did.

Not surprisingly, the methane was taken up a lot faster in the tropics than in colder places like England and Sweden. What took just a few minutes in Panama took 20 minutes in Europe. Naturally, bacteria work faster in the warmth. It follows then, though no one said as much, that in a warmer world, methane will be removed from the atmosphere even faster.

Using data from the four sites, the team estimated how much methane all the world’s forests may be absorbing. It might be as much as 50 million tons, they calculated. “It’s a sizable chunk,” says Gauci. That’s about as much methane as wafts from all the world’s landfills.

In preindustrial times some 50 million bison may have roamed North America emitting methane for thousands of years without reaching a “tippint point”, turning Earth into Venus or causing the sixth mass extinction.

From the press release: Trees act like a chimney…

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POST NOTE: There is bound to be a benefit to the trees.

For all we know, the microbes that feed on methane probably help the trees in some way. Perhaps they defend the bark from fungus, or produce some nutrient trees need, or perhaps they help in moisture control. Who knows? In which case, the trees acting like chimney-pumps for methane are just feeding the good guys in the bark higher up the tree.

If I had to bet, I’d put money on the healthy tree biome stopping fungal rot of some sort, or perhaps producing some phytochemical trees need, like a pesticide that makes chewing bark less fun for beetles.

REFERENCES

Bark-dwelling methanotrophic bacteria decrease methane emissions from trees, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22333-7

Gauci, V., Pangala, S.R., Shenkin, A. et al. Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces. Nature (2024).

Eminently Overdue: The Supreme Court Considers New York Case That Could Overturn the Infamous Kelo Decision

What is true is that eminent domain is the edge where government power is applied mostly willy nilly to an outside observer.  This is likely unfair.

It is still a real living power that i do think can plausibly be resolved through the rule of Twelve.  Hard decisions have to be made and it needs to be supported by a greater consensus.

Our current decision system obligates taking it to court in hopes of a freindly judge to settle matterts.  this has been merely a way in which large money overwelms opposition

At the same time NIMBY must be forced to supply and support an alternative.

Eminently Overdue: The Supreme Court Considers New York Case That Could Overturn the Infamous Kelo Decision

by Jonathan Turley | Dec 20, 2024

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/eminently-overdue-the-supreme-court-considers-new-york-case-that-could-overturn-the-infamous-kelo-decision/

As an academic and a legal commentator, I have sometimes disagreed with the United States Supreme Court, but I often stress the good-faith differences in how certain rights or protections are interpreted. One case, however, has long stood out for me as wildly off-base and wrongly decided: Kelo v. New London. The case allowed the government to seize property from one private party and then give it to another private party. There is now a petition before the Supreme Court that would allow it to reconsider this pernicious precedent. The Court should grant review in Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency precisely for that purpose.

Many of us expressed outrage at the actions of the city leaders of New London, Connecticut, when they used eminent domain to seize the property of citizens against their will to give it to the Pfizer corporation.

This anger grew with the inexplicable decision of the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London to uphold the abusive action. After all the pain that the city caused its own residents and the $80 million it spent to buy and bulldoze the property, it came to nothing. Pfizer later announced that it was closing the facility — leaving the city worse off than when it began.

I will not repeat my fundamental disagreement with the interpretation of the eminent domain power. For my prior testimony on the Kelo decision, click here.

The Bowers case involves New York developer Bryan Bowers who challenged the decision of a county redevelopment agency to condemn his property and then give it to another developer to use as a private parking lot.

Most states prohibit this abusive practice but not New York.

Justice Chase (not long after the Bill of Rights was written) rejected this type of abuse:

“An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority … . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean… . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).

Much has changed on the Court since 2005. It is possible that the new majority could finally correct the mistake made in Kelo. While most states have barred this abusive practice, states like New York still leave property owners at the mercy of local officials who use eminent domain to transfer property between citizens.

For Susette Kelo, she had little chance to fight a major pharmaceutical company for her home. The Supreme Court just looked on passively after local officials seized her home because she was not nearly as valuable to them as Pfizer. This abusive use of eminent domain is not just an invitation for corrupt dealings but a denial of the core protections of individual citizens under our Constitution.

It is time for Kelo to be set aside. The Court has that opportunity with Bowers.

Flu Viruses in Refrigerated Raw Milk Can Remain Infectious For Days

The best defense against viruses and all pathogens is actually low level exposure.  Demanding perfect exclusion is expensive and likely impossible which is why we ended up with pasteurization.

Recall those thousands of remote islands suffering a die off aftet contact.  today 8.000.000.000 folks are constantly exposed to each other and really folks, no one is dying.

Thus low level exposure ensures we are constantly upgrading our immunity.  And avregular fast cleans up any excess.

It is truly time to revisit the real science here.  This is scientific hand waving in favor of the pasteurization Meme.

Flu Viruses in Refrigerated Raw Milk Can Remain Infectious For Days

18 December 2024

ByCarly Cassella

(DavideMottarella/Getty Images)


One of the main viruses responsible for seasonal flu may remain infectious in raw milk days after it has left a warm body, according to new experiments at Stanford University, raising concerns about the potential spread of avian influenza or 'bird flu'.


When researchers infected a batch of raw milk with the H1N1 virus – a subtype of the influenza A virus – and kept it at a relatively standard domestic refrigeration temperature of 4 °C (about 39 °F), they found it took the pathogen 2.3 days to reach a 99 percent reduction in infectivity.


Alarmingly, a small fraction of the virus particles remained in a transmissable state for up to five days. The recommended shelf life of refrigerated raw milk is between five and seven days, meaning even under ideal circumstances milk containing the virus could transmit the flu to a consumer.


Thankfully, pasteurization resolved the threat. When researchers heated infected milk to 63 °C for 30 minutes, they successfully inactivated the infectious influenza A virus.


"This work highlights the potential risk of avian influenza transmission through consumption of raw milk and the importance of milk pasteurization," says environmental engineer Alexandria Boehm from Stanford.

The experiment design, testing raw milk infected with H1N1. (Zulli et al., Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 2024)

Boehm and her colleagues say they could find no other study that has investigated how long viruses can remain infective in raw milk. Theirs is the first, and it comes at a critical time.


In a world first, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the US has officially made the jump from birds to cows, infecting hundreds of dairy farms across the nation with the H5N1 virus.


The H1N1 virus is often used as a surrogate for the H5N1 virus in research, so these results from Stanford confirm the idea that pasteurization protects the public against flu-infected milk.


While this particular strain of bird flu has yet to be observed spreading from human to human, it can jump from animal to human, and initial research suggests cow milk is a possible vector for human infection.


Just a few weeks ago, public health officials in California detected the H5N1 virus in raw milk that was being sold. All of the products were recalled for fear they would infect consumers.


At this point, it seems the H5N1 virus can infiltrate a cow's mammary glands and infect dairy farm workers who handle raw milk or milking machines. Some domesticated cats on dairy farms have even died from drinking raw, infected milk. (  how unscientific is this claim story? )

The persistence of the H1N1 virus in raw milk vs pasteurized milk. (Zulli et al., Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 2024)

"The persistence of influenza viruses in raw milk is concerning, as the consumption of raw milk remains high in the United States due to cultural factors and several popular misconceptions," the authors write.


"Some of these misconceptions include beliefs that raw milk could cure lactose intolerance or asthma, enhance the immune system, and have greater nutritional value compared to pasteurized milk."


None of these arguments are ultimately backed up by evidence, and the risks from drinking raw milk can be extremely dangerous, even fatal.


About 4 percent of Americans drink raw milk at least once each year, but even with such a small population directly exposed to the risk, there is a threat to public health. The more time the HPAI virus spends in a human body, the more chances it has to get to know the terrain, possibly mutating to better infect our species down the road.


So far, US dairy farm workers that have fallen ill have experienced only mild symptoms, but historically, H5N1 outbreaks among humans have high fatality rates, sitting somewhere around 50 percent.


Even without bird flu on the scene, health officials warn that drinking unpasteurized milk can expose consumers to pathogens, such as Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and E. coli. ( as can raw meat )


Today, this health advice is more important than ever.

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Swapping Cow's Milk For Plant-Based Could Cost Vital Nutrients

Plant based milk products are novel and a potential addition to the human diet.  Considering it as a replacement for dairy is absurd and actually likely dangetrous at the possible scale of real dairy replacement.

arguments against cattle by faux enviros is also an exercise in preconditioning the market and actually stupid.  Understand we need cattle working every square foot of our soil base globally.  Terraforming Terra means a massive increase in our cattle population just to generate good soils.

For that reason, I am firmly against this type of meddling.  It is not benign, any more than damming a river is using concrete structures.  Also too many of the usual suspects at work.

By the by the methane argument was always scientifically silly because it slowly rises upward to the stratsphere where it is broken up by the radiation there.

Swapping Cow's Milk For Plant-Based Could Cost Vital Nutrients

18 December 2024

ByDavid Nield

12 different types of milk were tested. (Jakob Helbig)

Alternatives to cow's milk made from almonds, soy, oat, and rice have never been so popular. However, a new study suggests more research is needed into the nutritional trade-off that comes with plant-based milk substitutes.

Researchers from the University of Brescia in Italy and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark examined the effects of Ultra High Temperature (UHT) treatments on the nutritional quality of 10 different plant-based milk alternatives (PBMAs), compared to two types of dairy milk.

UHT heats foods to temperatures above 140 °C (284 °F) to sterilize its contents and extend shelf life, but in many cases can also trigger chemical reactions that impact the food's nutritional value.

A certain amount of processing is involved in plant-based milks. (Pucci et al., Food Research International, 2024)

"Most plant-based drinks already have significantly less protein than cow's milk," says food scientist Marianne Nissen Lund from the University of Copenhagen. "And the protein, which is present in low content, is then additionally modified when heat treated."

"This leads to the loss of some essential amino acids, which are incredibly important for us. While the nutritional contents of plant-based drinks vary greatly, most of them have relatively low nutritional quality."

PBMAs undergo significant processing to turn the plant ingredients into something milk-like. The team looked for Maillard reaction products (MRPs), which are created as amino acids and various sugars are sufficiently heated.

MRPs can affect the nutritional value of proteins by reducing the availability of critical amino acids. While the mixes varied – soy milk had more protein than dairy milk, for example – the cow's milk had more protein than 8 out of 10 of the alternatives. What's more, amino acid counts were mostly higher in cow's milk.

Some PBMAs were found to contain concerning compounds, albeit in quantities that posed no danger. These chemicals included the carcinogen acrylamide, and the reactive substance hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).

"We were surprised to find acrylamide because it isn't typically found in liquid food," says Lund. "One likely source is the roasted almonds used in one of the products."

Bear in mind that this all needs to be balanced with evidence of dairy milk's toll on the environment, or other health benefits, such as oat milk's protection against cancer. It's not a case of saying one type of milk is the best and all the others should be avoided.

However, the researchers do want to raise awareness of the potential nutritional shortfall in PBMAs, and perhaps to see more nutritional information on packaging. Their general advice is to focus on food and drinks that have had little processing applied to them, and to prepare as much of your own food as possible.

"Ideally, a green transition in the food sector shouldn't be characterized by taking plant ingredients, ultra-process them, and then assuming a healthy outcome," says Lund.

"Even though these products are neither dangerous nor explicitly unhealthy, they are often not particularly nutritious for us either."

Greater Levant and Tulsi Gabbardj

A little insight here and suddenly we have a long program aimed at a Greater Israel taking out Syria. this is the captured DEEP STATE apparent agenda behind the sudden collapse of Syria.  That also explains why now.

The Zionists have secured their southern borders with Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan.  Securing the rest of the coastal Levant makes good geographic sense and ultimate strategic sense.  The deserts to their East provides a natural geographic buffer.

It is still a natural confederacy of tribal nations with historic urban centres that must be honored and properly established as wrll.

We may call it Greater Israel but it is properly Greater Levant.

Tucker reveals Trump’s most important appointment… probably not who you think…

December 18, 2024 (a day ago)

https://revolver.news/2024/12/tucker-reveals-most-important-trump-appointment-probably-not-who-you-think/

President Trump has a lot of work ahead of him. After his first term was infiltrated by a parade of establishment uniparty hacks, he knows the score now. He’s working hard to assemble a team of America First warriors who will do what the American people are desperate for: clean house in our corrupt, filthy government. But getting these fighters and disruptors through the maze of lying, scheming politicians won’t be easy.

Trump’s picks are top-notch, ready to upend the system—people like Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and Tulsi Gabbard. And speaking of Tulsi, on a recent must-watch podcast, Tucker Carlson and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs agreed: of all Trump’s nominations, Tulsi Gabbard is the most important.

The Deep State fears Tulsi, so she’s got to be the right choice.

That interview with Sachs has reignited another viral Tucker clip—the one he aired on Fox News before he was fired. Many believe Fox pulled the plug on Tucker to keep the J6 truth buried.

And speaking of sneaky government schemes—will the 9/11 attack ever be declassified? According to Tucker, that horrific event is a “viper’s nest” of sinister CIA activity.

Wall Street Apes:

NEW: Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs talk about the declassification of 9/11

Talks about how The CIA was actually investigated by a Committee, “they uncovered was a viper’s nest of evil, disaster, and unbelievable unaccountability”

“They uncovered numerous assassination plots, They uncovered an absolutely shocking and awful programs”

“We’ve gone 50 years of further secretive operations”

It’s no secret our government is up to a lot of shady stuff behind closed doors. Sachs also believes many of these decisions aren’t made for the good of the American people, but to serve Israel’s interests.

That led the conversation straight to the recent Syria situation, which Sachs says has been in the works for decades.

As you’re taking in all this info from Sachs and Tucker, it’s worth checking out this clip from Mike Benz. It gives you a deeper look at the history of the intelligence state—and ties right into what Sachs is laying out.

This was an incredible, must-watch interview. Full version below:

'CALL THEIR BLUFF': Trump And Vance Slam Pork-Filled Bill, Tell GOP To Stand Their Ground

this is going to get interesting.  they super padded this bill as they are going out the door.  Bill padding has always been an afront.

right up there with military writeoffs for sunken canoes obviously taken out by the tank it tried to transport.

Every jerk wants to slip their scam through ahead of the first new broom in forever.

Perhaps we need an 80% reduction in force from the entire gvernment.  And an immediate transfer of all military admin staff to frontline duty while transfer frontline troops back to take care of admin as best they can.

sounds messy but so beit.  Industry discovers bankruptcy often enough and governments need it as well.

'CALL THEIR BLUFF': Trump And Vance Slam Pork-Filled Bill, Tell GOP To Stand Their Ground

by Tyler Durden

Thursday, Dec 19, 2024 - 03:11 AM

Update (1335ET): Now things are getting interesting - as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is reportedly discussing a 'plan B' to fund the government as a 'clean' Continuing Resolution (CR) without $100 billion disaster aid and the below shitshow of swampy handouts and government overreach, Politico reports.

Democrats will of course throw a mega-tantrum, which makes Friday's government shutdown more likely - though as you can see (as of this writing), the odds are currently at 14% 35%.

A statement from President Donald J. Trump and Vice President-Elect JD Vance:

The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney. The bill would make it easier to hide the records of the corrupt January 6 committee—which accomplished nothing for the American people and hid security failures that happened that day. This bill would also give Congress a pay increase while many Americans are struggling this Christmas.

Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration? Let’s have this debate now. And we should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.

Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country.

Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF. It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief.

THIS CHAOS WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING IF WE HAD A REAL PRESIDENT. WE WILL IN 32 DAYS!

Update (1308ET): The new spending package isn't just riddled with pork as detailed below, it's packed full of weaponized pork.

For starters, it gives the Global Engagement Center - the government's censorship juggernaut, additional funding.

It also contains language that allows Congress to block subpoenas for House data - which could prevent an investigation into the Jan. 6 committee:

New Biolab funding?

Vivek and Elon weigh in

Vivek Ramaswamy, who will be in charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) along with Elon Musk, has analyzed the bill:

I wanted to read the full 1,500+ page bill & speak with key leaders before forming an opinion. Having done that, here's my view: it's full of excessive spending, special interest giveaways & pork barrel politics. If Congress wants to get serious about government efficiency, they should VOTE NO.

Keeping the government open until March 14 will cost ~$380BN by itself, but the true cost of this omnibus CR is far greater due to new spending. Renewing the Farm Bill for an extra year: ~$130BN. Disaster relief: $100BN. Stimulus for farmers: $10BN. The Francis Scott Key Bridge replacement: $8BN. The proposal adds at least 65 cents of new spending for every dollar of continued discretionary spending.

The legislation will end up hurting many of the people it purports to help. Debt-fueled spending sprees may "feel good" today, but it's like showering cocaine on an addict: it's not compassion, it's cruelty. Farmers will see more land sold to foreign buyers when taxes inevitably rise to meet our obligations. Our children will be saddled with crippling debt. Interest payments will be the largest item in our national budget.

Congress has known about this deadline since they created it in late September. There's no reason why this couldn't have gone through the standard process, instead of being rushed to a vote right before Congressmen want to go home for the holidays. The urgency is 100% manufactured & designed to avoid serious public debate.

The bill could have easily been under 20 pages. Instead, there are dozens of unrelated policy items crammed into the 1,547 pages of this bill. There's no legitimate reason for them to be voted on as a package deal by a lame-duck Congress. 72 pages worth of “Pandemic Preparedness and Response” policy; renewal of the much-criticized "Global Engagement Center," a key player in the federal censorship state; 17 different pieces of Commerce legislation; paving the way for a new football stadium in D.C.; a pay raise for Congressmen & Senators and making them eligible for Federal Employee Health Benefits. It's indefensible to ram these measures through at the last second without debate.

We're grateful for DOGE's warm reception on Capitol Hill. Nearly everyone agrees we need a smaller & more streamlined federal government, but actions speak louder than words. This is an early test. The bill should fail.

* * *

Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-LA), has unveiled a 1,547-page government funding bill that has Republicans seeing red - and not just because of the looming Friday midnight shutdown deadline. Packed with disaster relief, farmer aid - oh, and they're giving themselves a raise, the short-term spending bill is a hot mess of pork.

The bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), keeps the federal government funded through March 14, buying Congress a little breathing room. But in classic Capitol Hill fashion, the measure is loaded with provisions unrelated to basic spending - and House conservatives are furious, according to Punchbowl News.$100 billion in disaster relief for hurricane-hit states.

$30 billion in economic assistance for farmers.

Restrictions on U.S. capital investment in China, a win for GOP hawks wary of Beijing’s influence.

A delay in the implementation of a "beneficial ownership" database meant to curb money laundering until 2026.

e District of Columbia, clearing the way for a shiny new Washington Commanders stadium.

The relocation of an Air National Guard fighter squadron from D.C. to Maryland.

Even the American Music Tourism Act of 2024 got squeezed in

And what's this?

They've also given themselves a pay raise through the resumption of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA):

Since 2009, Congress has blocked COLA for lawmakers by inserting language into annual spending bills. While other federal employees receive regular pay increases, members of Congress have deliberately frozen their own salaries for over a decade.

The new CR, however, quietly amends language in a prior bill that blocked the member COLA, effectively clearing the way for a pay raise. As Bloomberg Government’s Jack Fitzpatrick first reported, the provision appears on page 15 of the 1,547-page bill and doesn’t state the pay increase explicitly.

Currently, members of Congress earn $174,000 annually—a substantial sum compared to the average American salary, but one that lawmakers argue no longer reflects the cost of serving in office. If COLA adjustments had been in place, their 2024 salaries would reach $243,300, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.

GOP Hardliners Demand Concessions

Johnson’s problems began Tuesday, when he sounded out hardliners on the House Rules Committee - Reps. Chip Roy (TX), Thomas Massie (KY), and Ralph Norman (SC) - to gauge their support for the bill. Unsurprisingly, the trio demanded a price for their cooperation:Adherence to the 72-hour rule to review the bill before voting.

Spending offsets to counter the new funding.

Restrictions on selling off border wall materials.

Johnson hasn’t agreed to these conditions, leaving him with little choice but to bring the CR to the floor under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage. A floor vote is expected Thursday, giving the Senate barely 24 hours to clear the bill before the clock strikes midnight Friday.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he had "hoped to see @SpeakerJohnson grow a spine," but "this bill full of pork shows he is a weak, weak man."

“It’s silly to pretend this is just a skinny CR,” one GOP staffer told Punchbowl News. “It’s a three-month spending bill with ornaments hanging all over it.”

Meanwhile, conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) are fuming at the bill’s scope and the speaker’s handling of the process. And GOP moderates are frustrated by the party’s inability to settle on a clean solution. Johnson, for his part, has no easy out - having opted for neither a clean CR nor a comprehensive omnibus spending package, and instead delivering a stopgap bill stuffed with unrelated provisions. Some hardliners are already withholding public support for Johnson ahead of his January 3 re-election bid for speaker, signaling that his light-handed leadership style may be backfiring.

Even Elon Musk has weighed in, voicing his displeasure online.

To which he essentially shrugged his shoulders.

Johnson has also pissed off the Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), over two trade programs: the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and a program granting duty-free access to U.S. markets for Haitian apparel exports. While Smith was close to a deal to extend both programs for five years, Johnson allowed the Haiti trade program into the CR while leaving AGOA on the cutting-room floor.

With the shutdown deadline looming, Johnson has little time to spare. The House is expected to vote on the bill Thursday, but with opposition mounting from conservatives, passage under suspension of the rules is far from certain. If Johnson can’t corral enough votes, the federal government risks shutting down just as lawmakers prepare to leave town for the Christmas holiday.

For example, as X user @TexasLindsay_ notes:

The 1,547 page federal spending bill has so many outrageous things in it, it’s hard to know where to begin - but it without a doubt should NOT pass as-is. But a great example of why we need @doge more than ever to reel in the governments insane spending & redundancies.

Highlights:

1. $8 BILLION—For Emergency Relief for damage caused by a cargo ship to the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, MD and 20 surrounding counties, including reconstruction of the bridge.

2. A section regarding our health agencies - has a lot of red flags - and appears to aim to limit what the new HHS Secretary (@RobertKennedyJr) can and cannot do:

“The Secretary may not revise the Vaccine Injury Table to include a vaccine for which the Centers for Disease Control &!Prevention has issued a recommendation for routine use in children or pregnant women until at least one application for such vaccine has been approved... Upon such revision of the Vaccine Injury Table, all vaccines in a vaccine category on the Vaccine Injury Table, including vaccines authorized under emergency use… shall be considered included in the Vaceine Injury Table and they also added “CLARIFICATION—Notwithstanding… an injury or death related to a vaceine administered at a time when the vaccine was a covered countermeasure subject to a declaration under section 319F-3(b) SHALL NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR COMPENSATION under the Program.”

3. Drinking Water Infrastructure Risk & Resilience Budget simply struck through their previous budget amount and just doubled their budgets across the board and updated the year(s)—because why not just double it.

From the bill:

—in paragraph (4), by strike: "$5,000,000' and inserting "$10,000,000';

—in paragraph (5) strike "$10,000,000' and insert "$20,000,000';

—in paragraph (6)—strike "$25,000,000' and insert "$50,000,000"; & strike "2020 and 2021" and inserting "2026 and 2027".

4. $3.5 BILLION— For Capital Improvement & Maintenance [p. 81]

5. $2.5 BILLION—For Nat’l Forest Maintenance, which designates $75,000,000 “for the construction or maintenance of shaded fuel breaks in the Pacific Regions” —a cool $75 mil for shady gas breaks.

6. The Department of Commerce added language that will make them exempt from the “Freedom of Information Act” [p. 269]

(A federally funded government agency—especially one overseeing Commerce should not be granted exemption from public transparency via FOIA. Unacceptable.)

7. $30.7 BILLION—Ag Research: Various research projects, including many viewed as low priority/redundant with a need for scrutiny to improve efficiency.

8. $1.5 BILLION—Economic Development Admin: criticized for funding projects with low economic return or favoritism. (Orwellian title FTW)