WEF convenes to address ‘most severe global risk’ anticipated: brushfires of truth

 “It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Samuel Adams, a son of liberty in every sense of the word, would be proud—the Self-Imagined Elites currently circling the wagons in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum’s annual summit meeting are panicked, thanks to the “irate, tireless minority” lighting brushfire after brushfire of truth (or what the WEF acolytes call “misinformation” and “disinformation”).

Men like Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, António Guterres, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and every other unelected globalist bureaucrat moving hell and earth to usher in worldwide tyranny coaxed with carrots and scourged with sticks, but now they’re out of both, and running scared; here’s this, published over at Rebel News:

The biggest threats to global security are ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’ according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The 2024 WEF Global Risks Report says addressing ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ take priority, even over extreme weather events, war, terrorist attacks and inflation.

…

‘Emerging as the most severe global risk anticipated over the next two years, foreign and domestic actors alike will leverage misinformation and disinformation to further widen societal and political divides,’ the report reads.

The global consortium warned that peddling false narratives contributes to civil unrest and ‘undermines the legitimacy’ of governments.

Truth. Truth is a greater threat than that “existential” climate change emergency about which they’ve peddled for more than a century. more dangerous than terror attacks, and more devastating than a collapsed worldwide economy.

The truth about COVID and bioterrorism, and government-funded abominations in foreign labs and underground military bases.

The truth about warhawks and defense profiteers.

The truth about human trafficking and what they do to children.

The truth about central banking, fiat money, and national debt.

The truth about socialism and communism.

The truth about rigged elections and Self-Imagined Elites.

The truth about abortion and the war on families.

The truth about their long march through the institutions.

The truth about limited government, and political sovereignty.

The truth about Judeo-Christian culture, morality, and heritage.

Seemingly, they are even making a pretense of being reformed; according to a Turkish news agency:

Against the backdrop of escalating geopolitical tensions, evolving economic policies, and rapid technological advancements, the 54th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) kicked off Monday in Davos, Switzerland, with the theme ‘Rebuilding Trust.’

(Funny enough, no mention of why the trust was lost in the first place.)

Well done to the “irate, tireless” few, well done!

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/wef_convenes_in_switzerland_to_address_the_most_severe_global_risk_anticipated_in_the_near_future_brushfires_of_truth.html

Deep State is still plotting against Trump

 By Monica Showalter

As President Trump rises in the polls, don't think for a minute that Deep State functionaries burrowed within the U.S. government aren't watching and plotting.

According to Nick Arama at Red State, citing NBC (whose site is temporarily down, possibly due to high traffic):

According to an NBC report, the powers that be are already trying to work to put Trump in check. People talk about the deep state. Check out what they're saying here, it's something else. They're worried that Trump may win so the unelected people want to thwart how the elected representative of the people might exercise his power. 

Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return, a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.

Those taking part in the effort told NBC News they are studying Trump’s past actions and 2024 policy positions so that they will be ready if he wins in November. That involves preparing to take legal action and send letters to Trump appointees spelling out consequences they’d face if they undermine constitutional norms.

“We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

They seem to have already written the election off and aren't putting their faith in cheating, which is what seems to have gotten Joe Biden elected in 2020. The numbers are too strong, and too widespread, particularly in the swing states.

The conspiracy to save the election, as Molly Ball wrote, are now at it again.

So now they've got to Plan B, with a newly hated plan to throttle an incoming President Trump, through lawsuit warfare, suing the president at every turn. They hope to hamstring his presidency now that multiple impeachment efforts, a phony dossier, ham-sandwich indictments, and other sleazy games haven't done the trick. They've trying to go the well a few times on this -- and they can't even go to the well once.

So now it's lawsuits all the time, no matter what President Trump does as the dutifully elected president and choice of the voters.

President Trump and his team seem to know that they are plotting away -- and leftists know that President Trump knows, so it's getting pretty war-like out there.

According to this hysteric writing in the New York Times last November, a man by the name of Donald P. Moynihan who must be pals with the Mary McCord woman named above, also of Georgetown (Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has a lot on her):

Donald Trump, the former president and current candidate, puts it in apocalyptic terms: “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” This is not an empty threat. He has a real and plausible plan to utterly transform American government. It will undermine the quality of that government and it will threaten our democracy.

A second Trump administration would be very different from the first. Mr. Trump’s blueprint for amassing power has been developed by a constellation of conservative organizations that surround him, led by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025. This plan would elevate personal fealty to Mr. Trump as the central value in government employment, processes and institutions.

He shudders that Trump plans to place his "loyalists" into every government agency and government will grow less efficient as a result. 

Say what? Is this clown saying the government isn't already larded up with Biden loyalists, approximately 100% of them actually, as if that hasn't already happened from the other side? To claim that the bureaucrats of Deep State are non-partisan is ridiculous.

He's also concerned that Trump plans to get rid of the partisans in government:

The second part of the Trump plan is to terrify career civil servants into submission. To do so, he would reimpose an executive order that he signed but never implemented at the end of his first administration. The Schedule F order would allow him to convert many of these officials into political appointees.

Meaning, he can fire them. Here's the laughable part:

Schedule F would be a catastrophe for government performance. Merit-based government personnel systems perform better than more politicized bureaucracies. Under the first Trump administration, career officials were more likely to quit when sidelined by political appointees.

Schedule F would also damage democracy. 

Where did this boob get the idea that DEI-infested government full of leftists protecting each other and plotting against Trump is somehow an effective 'performance' government that runs on merit?

The argument is built on sand. Voters know what the government is like and they are voting for change.

Anybody want to call this 'democracy'? 

The irony is that they call Trump the dictator when it is they themselves who cannot either effectively rig nor accept the results of a U.S. election, so they now use the courts to do their dirty work. Sound like a working democracy?

All it does it tell voters they better get out and vote for Trump or these creatures will be running the country into the ground.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/deep_state_is_still_plotting_against_trump.html

Microsoft offers $20 consumer AI subscription to boost business

 Microsoft on Monday said consumers and small businesses can buy subscriptions to access more capabilities in its artificial intelligence "Copilot," as it moves to grow sales beyond large enterprises.

After introducing a free AI Copilot for its Bing search engine last year, Microsoft will offer what it calls Copilot Pro to individuals for $20 a month.

The subscription will add a text-drafting, number-crunching AI assistant to Microsoft's widely used applications including Word and Excel, and it will give purchasers access to new tools and AI models such as GPT-4 Turbo.

The company also said it was removing a 300-person minimum requirement to buy the enterprise version of the software, making the security controls and Microsoft Teams upgrade that come with the $30 per-month per-user Copilot available to smaller businesses.

Microsoft now expects virtually all of its business customers to sign up, Corporate Vice President Jared Spataro said in an interview.

"I can't imagine a commercial organisation out there that will not buy at least a seat of Copilot to see what it's all about," he said.

Alphabet's Google is competing with Microsoft in marketing AI for productivity and cloud software to business customers.

Microsoft's Copilot Pro is also entering an increasingly competitive consumer market. ChatGPT's creator OpenAI, which Microsoft has funded, announced a $20-per-month subscription nearly a year ago called ChatGPT Plus that gives early access to new features and AI models.

Spataro said Copilot Pro would stand apart because it is integrated into applications that "people use every day".

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-offers-20-consumer-ai-211624719.html

Top Issue in Iowa is Immigration, Not the Economy, 75 Percent Say Immigration Hurts

 Trump wins Iowa easily. Results declared with only 3% of the vote in. Surprisingly, immigration, not the economy is the top concern.

The above clip from the Wall Street Journal.

Live Stream

Trump was declared the winner with only three percent of the vote in.

This is how it looks with 6% in according to CBS Live Stream

Entrance Poll Data

I don’t know if that lead image holds. But it is a major uphill battle for Biden if immigration decides this race.

Heck, Biden is well behind on the economy as well.

Next up, is New Hampshire.

https://mishtalk.com/politics/top-issue-in-iowa-is-immigration-not-the-economy-75-percent-say-immigration-hurts/

Novel regulator of immune evasion in cancer identified

 Northwestern Medicine investigators have identified a previously unknown regulator of tumor immune evasion, which may help improve the efficacy of current and future anti-tumor immunotherapies, according to recent findings published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

"The study provides a molecular insight into understanding why some cancer patients cannot be treated by the checkpoint blockade antitumor therapy, but others can," said Deyu Fang, Ph.D., the Hosmer Allen Johnson Professor of Pathology and senior author of the study.

Antitumor immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system in fighting cancer and includes a range of therapy types, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. Immune checkpoints help prevent the immune system from being too strong and eradicating other cells, including cancer cells.

By targeting these checkpoints using checkpoint inhibitor drugs, the immune system can better respond to and fight off cancer cells. However, not all patients will respond well to immunotherapy and the underlying reason has remained unclear.

"The big question is whether we can find a better approach to make this therapy work for all patients," Fang said.

A common immune checkpoint protein targeted by anti-tumor immunotherapy drugs is PD-L1, which is expressed on the surface of immune cells and is also increased on the surface of certain cancer cells, helping them evade the immune system.

Therefore, identifying novel regulators of PD-L1 expression in tumors may improve the efficacy of antitumor immunotherapies, according to Fang.

In the current study, Fang's team developed a CRISPR-based screening platform to analyze the entire family of deubiquitination genes from both mice and human PD-L1 lung cancer cell lines. Using this approach, the investigators discovered that the ATXN3 gene promotes tumor immune evasion by promoting PD-L1 expression in tumor cells at the transcriptional level.

Further analysis using The Cancer Genome Atlas database revealed a positive correlation between the genes ATXN3 and CD274—which encodes PD-L1—in more than 80% of human cancers. Notably, ATXN3 was positively correlated with PD-L1 expression and its transcription factors in lung adenocarcinoma, the most common type of non-small cell lung cancer, and melanoma.

"Since ATNX3 promotes PD-L1 expression, we posed that ATXN3 suppression may enhance antitumor immunity in vivo," said Fang, who is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Using CRISPR and other targeted gene expression techniques to knockout ATXN3 in mouse models of PD-L1 lung carcinoma, the investigators found that suppressed ATXN3 enhanced antitumor immunity in the mice and improved the efficacy of PD-1 antibody therapy.

The findings suggest that ATXN3 is a positive regulator for PD-L1 tumor expression and tumor immune evasion. According to Fang, the findings also suggest that selectively targeting ATXN3 may improve the efficacy of antitumor immunotherapies as well as reduce toxicity and adverse side effects for all patients.

"If we combine an ATXN3 inhibitor and the current anti-tumor immunotherapy, we can improve the therapeutic efficacy and reduce the amount of antibody needed, meaning reduce the side effects," Fang said.

More information: Shengnan Wang et al, CRISPR screening identifies the deubiquitylase ATXN3 as a PD-L1–positive regulator for tumor immune evasion, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2023). DOI: 10.1172/JCI167728

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-immune-evasion-cancer.html

Google eyes AI-based diagnostic dialogue tool as part of medical interview system

 A team of AI researchers at Google Research and Google DeepMind has developed the rudiments of an AI-based diagnostic dialogue system to conduct medical interviews. The group has published a paper describing their research on the arXiv preprint server.

When a doctor interviews a patient to determine what medical situation needs to be addressed, the research team noted, they come armed with a deep background in medical education and practical experience. Though it might seem at times to a patient that such interviews are cursory at best, most are both efficient and result in accurate results.

But there is also room for improvement, the researchers note. One of the areas where many doctors fall short is in their bedside manner. Due to personality quirks, a tight and busy work schedule, or dealing with patients who are not always kind and polite, some medical interviewers may be seen as stiff or stilted, creating the perception that the doctor does not care much for the patient's welfare.

In this new effort, the team at Google has noted that many LLMs, such as ChatGPT, often come across as quite empathetic and more than eager to help—traits sometimes lacking in doctor interviews. That gave them the impetus to begin working on an LLM that might one day evolve into a real-world diagnostic dialogue system.

The new system is called the Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer, or AMIE. The team at Google is quick to point out that it is still purely experimental. They also note that building their system has been both unique and difficult due to the dearth of doctor/patient medical interviews available for use as training material.

That led them to try a novel approach to teaching their system how to query a patient. First, they trained it on the limited amount of publicly available data. They then attempted to coax the system into training itself by prompting it to play the part of a person with a specific illness. Next, they asked the system to play the part of a critic who has witnessed multiple interviews that the system conducted.

The system then interviewed 20 volunteers trained to pretend to be patients. The results were rated by medical professionals to determine accuracy. The volunteers who had played the patients evaluated the system's bedside manner.

The researchers found AMIE to be as accurate in diagnosing the patients as trained doctors. They also found that it scored better with its bedside manner. The team at Google plans to improve the system's capabilities when tested in more realistic real-word conditions and to improve its bedside manner further.

More information: Tao Tu et al, Towards Conversational Diagnostic AI, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2401.05654

Google Research blog: blog.research.google/2024/01/a … r-diagnostic_12.html

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-google-ai-based-diagnostic-dialogue.html

Yemen's Houthis say they will target US ships

 The Yemeni Houthi movement will expand its targets to include US ships, an official from the Iran-allied group said on Monday.

"The ship doesn't necessarily have to be heading to Israel for us to target it; it is enough for it to be American," Nasruldeen Amer, a spokesperson for the Houthis, told Al Jazeera.

"The United States is on the verge of losing its maritime security."

Amer also said British and American ships had become "legitimate targets" due to the strikes launched by the two countries on Yemen last week.

Attacks on ships since October by the Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, have hit commerce and alarmed major powers in a regional escalation of Israel's more than three-month war with Hamas militants in Gaza.

In the latest apparent attack, a missile struck a US-owned cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, a British security agency and maritime risk company said, a day after Houthi rebels fired a cruise missile at an American destroyer.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations security agency, run by Britain's Royal Navy, reported a "vessel hit from above by a missile" in the Gulf of Aden. It did not provide further details.

According to Ambrey, a British maritime risk company, a fire broke out on board the Marshall Islands-flagged, US-owned bulk carrier, but it remains seaworthy and there were no injuries.

United States Central Command identified the ship as the MV Gibraltar Eagle.

The incident will further heighten shipping and security fears for the volatile region where the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have for weeks fired drones and missiles towards vessels they deem Israeli-linked in the adjacent Red Sea.

United States and United Kingdom forces responded on Friday with strikes against scores of rebel targets in Yemen, which the Houthis said would not deter them.

Three missiles were launched by the Houthis, Ambrey said, with two of them not reaching the sea.

Ambrey "assessed the attack to have targeted US interests in response to US military strikes on Houthi military positions in Yemen", the report said, adding that the vessel was "assessed to not be Israel-affiliated".

"The impact reportedly caused a fire in a hold. The bulker reportedly remained seaworthy, and no injuries were reported," it said.

The ship was transiting the International Recommended Transit Corridor, a passage of the Gulf of Aden that is patrolled for pirates, when it was struck, Ambrey added.

There was no immediate statement from the rebels, but Houthi military and a Yemeni government source told AFP that the insurgents fired three missiles today.

The US military said yesterday its forces shot down a cruise missile fired at an American destroyer warship from Houthi controlled areas of Yemen.

It appeared to be the first such attack on an American destroyer.

The Houthis say their attacks on Red Sea shipping are in solidarity with Gaza, where Iran-backed Hamas militants have been at war with Israel for more than three months.

Around 12% of global trade normally passes through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea entrance between southwest Yemen and Djibouti, but the rebel attacks have affected trade flows.

Washington last month announced a maritime security initiative, Operation Prosperity Guardian, to protect maritime traffic in the area. But the Houthis have kept up attacks despite several warnings.

On Jan. 14 at approximately 4:45 p.m. (Sanaa time), an anti-ship cruise missile was fired from Iranian-backed Houthi militant areas of Yemen toward USS Laboon (DDG 58), which was operating in the Southern Red Sea. The missile was shot down in vicinity of the coast of Hudaydah by… pic.twitter.com/jftZHQhA2e

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 15, 2024

Meanwhile, at least six more oil tankers were steering clear of the southern Red Sea, as disruptions on the vital route for energy shipping increase in the wake of US-led strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.

Following the strikes, the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) based in Bahrain warned all ships to avoid the Babal-Mandab Strait at the south end of the Red Sea for several days, according to tanker body INTERTANKO.

Prior to the US and British strikes it had been mostly container ships which were avoiding the Red Sea, with oil tanker traffic largely unchanged in December.

But since the CMF's warning, a growing number of oil tankers are avoiding the region, increasing the potential for disruptions to east-west oil supply via the Suez Canal.

The news agency Reuters counted a six tankers to have altered their course since the strikes, making a total of at least 15 vessels to do so since the start of the strikes last week, ship tracking data from LSEG and Kpler showed.

The tankers Torm Innovation, Proteus Harvonne, and Alfios I appeared to have turned away from the Suez Canal in favour of the longer route around Africa's Cape of Good Hope for voyages to Europe and the US.

The Pacific Julia and STI Topaz are also heading straight for the Cape route.

The Octa Lune performed a U-turn in the northern part of the Red Sea on 12 January and has returned to the Mediterranean with a Taiwan-bound cargo of naphtha.

Tankers tracked by Reuters on Friday that had diverted or paused have either taken the longer Cape route or paused in the Gulf of Aden or northern Red Sea.

Taking the longer route around the Cape can add up to three weeks' sailing time.

The list of diversions could grow as shipowners exercise policies of navigating away from the Red Sea.

Tanker owners including Torm, Hafnia and Stena Bulk said they would avoid Bab al-Mandab from Friday, while Euronav reaffirmed its temporary suspension of transits through the Red Sea.

https://www.rte.ie/news/middle-east/2024/0115/1426636-yemen-shipping/