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Sunday, September 8, 2024

Kentucky residents urged to stay 'vigilant' as highway shooter sought

 A manhunt was underway Sunday for a gunman whose rampage on a rural Kentucky highway wounded five people, damaged nine cars and caused an hours-long shutdown of Interstate 75.

Gilbert Acciardo, spokesperson for the Laurel County Sheriff's office, said deputies responding to a 911 call at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday found some of the wounded to be "severely" injured, though he said no fatalities were expected.

"Some of them were injured so badly and bleeding so bad that our deputies actually loaded them up and took them to an area hospital," he said at a briefing Sunday. "Everything was chaotic."

Joseph A. Couch, 32, was identified as a person of interest in the investigation. Acciardo said Couch should "definitely" be considered armed and dangerous and that he would "more than likely" be considered a suspect by the end of the day.

Initial reports indicated road rage incident

Acciardo said initial reports indicated the shooting was a road-rage incident between two vehicles. Officers later determined the shooter was camped out near Exit 49 and was shooting at passing cars, Acciardo said.

"In a chaotic scene like this, you got to weed through everything and figure out what's going on," Acciardo said. "Yeah, we got some breaks in the in this case to identify a suspect early on, and I really think this is going to be the guy."

Acciardo said the initial hunt for the gunman was hampered by darkness and the terrain of the remote, wooded, hilly area about 160 miles southeast of Louisville. He said helicopters with infrared search tools were being used in the search. The interstate in the area was shut down in both directions for more than three hours.

"I've been in law enforcement here for 48 years, and I can never remember a situation such as this in our little county."

More than a dozen first-response agencies are assisting the investigation, according to Laurel County officials. Gov. Andy Beshear was monitoring the case and thanked first responsers for their efforts. Kentucky State Police was aiding the search and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Louisville said in a statement its officers were assisting.

"I understand that the community is seeking more answers, but this is all the information I have at this time," London Mayor Randall Weddle wrote in a social media post early Sunday morning. "Please remain vigilant and call 911 if you see the individual in question."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kentucky-shooting-sunday-updates-search-115313807.html

Dems shouldn’t be so sanguine about Kamala’s ‘Root Causes’ strategy

 In recent weeks, the vice president’s defenders have been eager to point out that Kamala Harris was never the “border czar,” responsible for securing America’s wide-open Southern border. Instead, they claim, she was only in charge of addressing the “root causes” of migration in Central America.

Even if that were true, the vice president’s supporters shouldn’t be so keen to brag about it.

In 2021, the Biden administration launched the “Root Causes” strategy, a lofty initiative led by Vice President Kamala Harris which purported to address the challenges of mass migration through U.S. development aid to Central America. Three years and $3 billion later, however, the impact of Harris’ root-causes initiative is practically indiscernible.

USAID points to dubious and unfalsifiable metrics as evidence of the success of the “Root Causes” strategy, obfuscating its meager impact, saying its support “helped create or sustain more than 70,000 jobs” in Northern Central America since 2021. During a recent congressional hearing, USAID officials even touted an increase in H-1B visas for Central Americans as a top achievement of the Root Causes strategy.

The reality is that the Biden administration’s 2021 plan was not new, but a simple repackaging of failed development strategies used for decades with added emphasis on liberal wish list priorities. Aid programs for controversial climate change, social activism, gender ideology, labor unions and regional journalism were added to a series of other priorities that were admirable but ultimately tangential to the challenge of mass migration, such as gender-based violence, workers’ rights and corruption.

This controversial liberal activism, especially on gender ideology, not only failed to fix the migration crisis, it actually hurt U.S. relations in the region and generated backlash from with Central America’s socially conservative leaders and people. But even without its progressive foibles, Vice President Harris’s plan to address the “root causes” of the migration crisis was on shaky ground from the outset.

Consider the ineffectiveness of economic development as a solution to the migration crisis, for example. Mexico has benefitted from deep trade integration with the U.S. for decades, helping it achieve a GDP per capita more than twice that of Guatemala and nearly three times that of Honduras. Still, Mexican nationals remain the largest group of new illegal migrant arrivals to the U.S. Even if Vice President Harris were somehow able to massively accelerate Central American economies, the lesson from Mexico is that illegal migration will continue to flow.

Another folly of Vice President Harris’ “root causes” strategy is its failure to contend with the reality of hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving to Latin America from Asia and Africa before making their way to the U.S. Should we also seek to massively increase aid to these regions to address their root causes? No. To do so would waste further billions more and likely yield even poorer results.

There is simply no alternative to a secure border when it comes to combatting illegal migration. The first step for the next administration must be to stop outsourcing the problem to the development industry or the Mexican military and instead exert control over the U.S. border.

Additionally, the next administration should fundamentally rethink its development aid strategy in Latin America, aligning it toward vital U.S. economic and national security interests to ensure its effectiveness. The first Trump administration made important strides toward this goal by focusing on increasing hemispheric trade and investment rather than pouring billions of taxpayer funds into failed social programs, but much remains to be done.

Congress can also play a fundamental role toward this goal by demanding accountability for aid funds and ensuring that development funds are not hijacked by controversial social activism.  

What won’t work is four more years of Vice President Harris’s “root causes” strategy, which was poorly conceived and had predictably poor outcomes. Rather than bragging about it, the U.S. should learn from its failures and craft a strategy that addresses the migration crisis head on and helps put Central America on a sustainable path.    

Andres Martinez-Fernandez is a senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Allison Center for National Security.

https://thehill.com/opinion/4866441-vice-president-harris-root-causes/

Biggest Armies In The Middle East

 The Israel-Hamas war has raised fears that the conflict could spread to other parts of the Middle East.

While Israel has the support of the United States, which has the most advanced army in the world, Hamas is backed by Iran, one of the world’s 15 largest military powers.

This chart shows the top 10 countries in the Middle East by total military personnel as of August 2024. The data comes from GlobalFirepower.com and includes both active and reserve personnel.

Egypt and Iran Have the Largest Armies in the Region

Egypt and Iran have the largest armies in the Middle East, each country with over 1 million personnel.

In third place, Turkey has over 800,000 personnel. In fourth place, Israel’s forces include 170,000 active personnel and over 465,000 in reserve, as conscription to military service is compulsory for all Israelis who turn 18.

In addition to its sizable force, Iran possesses the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East and the fifth-largest rocket artillery globally. Moreover, Iran has the largest standing military in the Middle East, with over 500,000 active-duty forces.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/these-are-biggest-armies-middle-east

We Are Now Entering The Total Censorship Stage Of Global Tyranny

 by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

The authoritarian regimes of the past century have all followed a pattern of events that is generally predictable. Almost every totalitarian government has been inspired by the ideologies of the political left. Meaning, increasingly bigger government, socialist control of resources, the melding of bureaucracy and corporate entities, demands for “social justice”, collectivist propaganda, the abandonment of individual merit for the sake of the state and the “greater good”, Marxism not just from an economic standpoint but also a cultural standpoint, and finally, the adoption of Futurism.

Futurism is, in my view, the key to all modern authoritarianism. It’s a philosophy that has been present at the birth of nearly every major despotic government in recent memory and it’s the root of leftist ideology today. Futurists argue that history is, for the most part, dead weight. They believe that every notion of heritage, the lessons of the past, the ideals and principles of our forefathers are all irrelevant.

Futurists think nothing is sacred and all new ideas are superior to all old ideas. Therefore, they claim, any society that clings to (or conserves) the old ways needs to be dismantled because it is holding humanity back from progress. In other words, anyone promoting or defending traditional norms must be silenced in the name of “progress.”

I suspect most people reading this at least intuitively understand the monstrous nature of this belief system. The very structure of futurism is based on a lie – The idea that all change is good and that any oppression committed in the name of change is justified.

The Process Of Tyranny

In this process of tyranny there are usually stages of escalation. The first stage is the exploitation of existing social divisions to create an enemy that the rest of the population can be convinced to rally against. This is not to say these divisions aren’t legitimate, they often are. In our era of “multiculturalism” globalists have been inviting many groups of people into the west that are simply incompatible with western values and morals. They will not assimilate and they will only cause conflict, which is the very reason why political puppets continue to keep our borders open.

These divisions can be exploited to create conflict and chaos, which is then used by governments as an excuse to crack down on their political enemies. In the US and EU it’s conservatives, the very people that are trying to defend the historical ideals of our respective nations, that are being labeled public enemy #1. We are the ever present bogeyman of the 21st Century.

It’s not only because we defend the heritage and principles that helped to create the greatest civilization in the history of the world (western civilization). It’s also because because we keep talking about uncomfortable truths.

The futurists rely on disinformation in order to spread their Utopian philosophy and they can only continue to survive by silencing all other contrary ideas. All futurist regimes eventually turn to mass censorship in order to function. They cannot stand in the light of truth, so they must keep the people in perpetual darkness.

Slow At First, Then All At Once…

There are many readers who will argue that we’ve been in this stage for decades now. I would argue that we haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve only been living under covert censorship. The pandemic lockdown effort was the moment of the shift when Democrats and Big Tech companies began to openly demand that counter-information be suppressed. Though, most of that censorship was still under the table.

Meta CEO and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg recently admitted that the Biden Administration pressured Facebook behind the scenes to censor Covid-19 information that was contrary to the government narrative.  This is highly unconstitutional and criminal.  Biden and Harris should be up on impeachment charges and, in my view, anyone involved should face prison time.  Will that happen?  Probably not.

This brand of censorship is insidious, but rigging algorithms to hide search results or booting people off of social media is not exactly the same as creating laws to intimidate or punish those that speak out. That’s the stage we’re entering right now; the open mass censorship era has arrived.

In Brazil, leftist authoritarians have shut down Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) because Musk has refused to institute their censorship model on his social media site. To Musk’s credit, he has been willing to lose Brazil’s business and stand by his principles.

The developments in the UK are another blatant example, with the government now trying to hunt down and imprison people for the most minor of actions (a British teen was recently put in prison for two years for merely flying a British flag near a Mosque). Anyone who stands against multiculturalism (and futurism) risks being arrested and thrown in a cage.

UK authorities have suggested that Elon Musk should be charged and that other Americans should be extradited for promoting conservative values on immigration or arguing in favor of British protests. We’re just pointing out that there’s only two ways this can go: Either the British people rebel and violently overthrow the globalist puppets in their own government, or, they will become slaves living in fear within their own country.

It sounds truly insane; all of this drama over basic free speech rights, but this is the world we are now approaching and leftists are happily supporting the transition.

Mass Censorship Is A Path To Inevitable Rebellion

Musk has stated that he believes X will eventually be shut down in the US should Kamala Harris gain the presidency in the November election, and I’m inclined to agree. Look at what the establishment did to social media newcomer Parler when they started gaining traction; the elites simply shut down their ability to function efficiently on the web grow their user base. Under a Harris regime they will feel emboldened to go even further.

The rhetoric of the Democrats is quite clear – They are anti-free speech and they view certain ideas as a threat to our THEIR society.

For example, the far-left New York Times published an article this week that gave credence to mass censorship, including the Brazilian government’s decision on X. They highlight the positives of giving Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes sweeping online censorship powers. They described this move as an ‘effective solution to the vexing problem of right-wing threats to Democracy.’

They fall just short of institutionally endorsing the censorship of X and even ask if Brazil perhaps “went too far” (obviously the answer is yes), but at the same time they suggest that this trend is a “new normal” that Big Tech companies will have to navigate. And, their article insinuates that if Musk wants to counter government censorship demands he should do it through civil courts instead of defying such tyranny directly. In other words, they argue Musk doesn’t have the right to stand against them.

Frankly, a rebellion doesn’t need to ask for permission to rebel.

The New York Times also had a lot to say about the problem of freedom and the US Constitution in an article titled ‘The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?’ They again try to tie the events of January 6th to the necessity of censorship, promoting the false narrative of an attempted “insurrection” in which no one was armed and no one was killed (except one of the conservative protesters).

The Times asserts that the danger of the constitution is that it gives the public the freedom to vote for a person like Trump. An act which they claim allows for the document’s own destruction.

The true irony is that Trump’s popularity would be non-existent if it wasn’t for the political left’s constant attempts to institute a socialist dystopia that erases the Bill of Rights. Nothing happens in a vacuum and these people never take responsibility for their own behavior. They spent three years ignoring the constitution in the name of medical authoritarianism over a virus with a tiny median Infection Fatality Rate of only 0.23%. Then they started gaslighting the public about how conservatives are a threat to democracy.

I argue this is not the new normal, it’s a recipe for war in the US, Europe, or both. Globalists know full well that rebellion is coming but I don’t think most leftists truly appreciate how at risk they are if they continue down this path.  It’s not going to go well for them.

Rebellion is ALWAYS on the minds of the elites. In a way, they want it, but they want it in small doses that are easy to manage. They want a “terrorist” enemy they can use to frighten the public into supporting martial law, but what happens if too many in the public join that rebellion?

What globalists and leftists are truly afraid of is large scale rebellion that they can’t control. The kind of rebellion that could end with the elites on the chopping block. They will do anything to avoid widespread revolution which is why they’re willing to take the risk of open mass censorship today. They know what is coming and they’re moving to mitigate the spread of anti-globalist views as much as possible before things get out of hand. I believe it’s too late for them.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/time-rebel-we-are-now-entering-total-censorship-stage-global-tyranny

Bugs And Goo: Welcome To "Alternative Protein"

 by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Sometimes it feels like writing for OffG has fallen into a recognizable pattern the last two years, one that could be best summed up “as ignoring the (mostly) fake stuff on the front pages and collating the real stuff on the back”.

Regular reminders that no matter who you vote for, or which side wins what war, the overarching agenda is still out there, eating and growing. Like the Blob or the Thing.

  • Censorship? We all know that’s on the elite’s shopping list.

  • Digital currencies? They’re still going.

  • Digital ID? Absolutely on the cards.

And we’ll be returning to talk about all of them no doubt until they eats any more or we’re finally shut down (whichever happens first)

But today we’re talking about eating the bugs.

Not just the bugs though –   goo too.

Everything in fact that academics and journalists have decided to group under the umbrella term “alternative protein” in headlines like this one, from Sky News:

Are alternative proteins going mainstream? This multimillion pound new project hopes so

This story is in response to the launch of the UK’s new National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC), a £38million research project co-founded with Imperial College London (of Covid modelling fame).

Professor Karen Polizzi of Imperial’s brand new “Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein” (yes, that Bezos) described the new initiative thus:

Transitioning to healthy, sustainable sources of protein is a pressing global challenge. The National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre will help facilitate this transition by supporting researchers and industry in all parts of the process from product design through to consumer acceptance. At Imperial, we will focus on developing economical, sustainable processes for producing newly discovered alternative proteins on a large scale.”

The “alternative proteins” that are the focus of this  research being…

edible proteins that are derived from sources other than animal agriculture: from plants such as cereals, legumes, tubers and nuts; fungi such as mushrooms; algae such as seaweed; insects; proteins derived via lab-grown microbial cells or fermentation; and lab-grown meat

Like I said:  bugs and goo – oh and some plants too.

What exactly is the appeal of the bugs and the goo  (and plants) as far as the overlords go?

That’s a complex question, with a multi-faceted answer.

Part of me thinks they just like to see ordinary people humiliate themselves in the “I think we could get them to brush their tongues” model. But that’s just a theory, we can expound upon it another time.

Outside of sadism and other psycho-social motivations there are practical questions of profit and control. As we covered in our recent piece on genetically modified gene-edited food, intellectual property laws play a role.

An egg is an egg. Beef is beef. You can’t patent a cow or a chicken, and it’s quite difficult to prevent people keeping their own animals.

But when your product is a few thousand freeze-dried crickets ground into a powder (including their eyes, intestines and faeces), mixed with chemical preservatives, thickeners and artificial flavourings to mimic real meat…

well, you can patent the hell out of that.

That’s part of the reason the edible insect market is expected to grow to ten times its current size in the next decade.

In one of those ever-so-timely coincidences, the announcement of the new research project has just so happened to accompany a full-court press on “alternative protein” propaganda.

Last week The Guardian ran a glossy advertisement interview with the CEO of Meatly, the lab grown meat company, where he claimed “Cultivated meat is safer, kinder, more sustainable”

The very next day The Guardian (again) reported on a “new study” that (shockingly) found “Plant-based meat alternatives are eco-friendlier and mostly healthier”.

Four days ago, another new study found proteins extracted from peanut shells could be used to supplement animal proteins.

Good Food Magazine thinks eating mealworms can cure diabetes. Medical journals are publishing pieces “investigating the health benefits of alternative proteins”

MSN is reposting articles from the Metro headlining“Lab-grown meat is coming. Here’s why you might have no choice but to eat it”

Yahoo Finance tells us “Why Lab-grown meat is a win for the UK’s investment industry”

And it’s not just the UK. Obviously. It never is, just like prices don’t change at just one Walmart and the menu doesn’t change at just one MacDonald’s. Because globalism is already a reality, and your “national government” is just a  local branch of a multinational conglomerate.

In the US, the University of California is being pretty straightforward:

Good grub — why you should consider eating bugs

While Finland’s “Solein” company, which makes bacteria pancakes out of “air and sunlight”, has been “Generally Recognised as Safe” by the FDA (the next step, I suppose, would be being “generally recognised as food“).

Australia’s “next superfood” is Hoppa, a bag of powdered cricketsNext month, Melbourne will be playing host to AltProtein24, a conference for the promotion of “alternative proteins”.

Last week Singapore approved 16 different types of insects for human consumption. Singapore is also getting its own “Sustainable Protein Research Centre”, again funded by huge donations from Jeff Bezos.

The silver lining here is that, despite all these efforts, there’s a good possibility this will never work. Article after article highlights the problems of “consumer acceptance” or “public enthusiasm” or similar phrases meaning the same thing:

Most people don’t want to eat bugs.

Hence the propaganda, I suppose.

I want to close by pointing out the truly hilarious modern irony of the story.

The same outlets that are happily promoting the fact the elites want us to eat bugs and goo:

Are simultaneously calling it a crazy “conspiracy theory”:

We are quite literally in the age of doublethink.

But never mind, we’ll be OK as long as we keep refusing to eat ze bugs…or ze goo.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/bugs-and-goo-welcome-alternative-protein

X Complies With EU Data Laws, Stops AI Chatbot Data Collection

 by Savannah Fortis via CoinTelegraph.com,

The European Union’s investigation into social media platform X has officially concluded after the platform agreed to meet the compliance requirements set by the European Data Protection Commission (DPC).

On Sept. 4, X agreed to cease using personal data from users located in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA). Previously, X used this data to train its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. 

EU data erasure

The court required that Twitter International, the company behind X’s operations, permanently comply with the data collection requests. 

X said it would erase previous data from May 7 to Aug. 1 and agreed not to collect any further data for the sake of developing, enhancing or training Grok. 

The DPC filed the initial complaint, citing a risk to the “fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.” According to the EU data watchdog, this was the first time it had had to take such action and invoke its powers under Section 134 of the 2018 Data Protection Act.

DPC Commissioner Des Hogan said he “welcomed” the outcome and that it protects the rights of EU and EEA citizens. When the complaint was initially filed, Hogan further commented on the DPC’s role in citizen data protection: 

“One of our main roles as an independent regulator and rights-based organization is to ensure the best outcome for data subjects and today’s developments will help us to continue protecting the rights and freedoms of X users across the EU and EEA.”

“This action further demonstrates the DPC’s commitment to taking appropriate action where necessary,” he said. 

Prior to accepting the conditions, Twitter International rejected the DPC’s allegations and claimed that it met all of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation requirements. The company even referred to the orders as “draconian” and said they hinder crucial functions of the platform in the region. 

However, since X agreed to the measures, the case has been dismissed. 

X’s global battles

The case against the DPC is not the only battle X is currently engaged in. On Aug. 30, regulators in Brazil suspended X in the country after Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, refused to name a legal representative for the firm in Brazil. 

The Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the order on Sept. 2 in a unanimous decision by five justices. 

Musk has hinted to X users in Brazil that they should defy the judge’s ruling against using VPNs to access the platform despite the fines that they could incur. 

He has also previously spoken out against Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of being “evil” and a “dictator” for allegedly engaging in “illegal political censorship” on X.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/x-complies-eu-data-laws-stops-ai-chatbot-data-collection

Erdogan Calls For Greater Islamic Alliance To Combat Israeli 'Expansionism'

 On Saturday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a blistering speech at an Islamic schools' association event near Istanbul once again condemning Israel. But this time he ratcheted the rhetoric as the remarks came a day after a Turkish-American woman was shot during a protest by Israeli troops in the West Bank.

Erdogan essentially called for an Islamic uprising against the Jewish state, saying that a Muslim alliance of countries and populations is needed against what he called "the growing threat of expansionism" from Israel.

"The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry, and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries," Erdogan said.

And in a very rare positive reference to Assad of Syria, he described that recent steps by Turkey to advance ties with Egypt and Syria are aimed fundamentally at "forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism."

Interestingly, this would bring NATO's number two largest miliary into an indirect alliance with Iran. But improvement of Turkish ties with the Syrian state also has a lot to do with squeezing out the Kurds in northern Syria. Both Ankara and Damascus have long wanted to see US troops, who are supporting local Kurdish militias, kicked out of the region.

This week Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with Erdogan in Turkey, and heavily focused their discussions on the Gaza crisis. Egypt-Israel tensions have been evident over accusations from Tel Aviv that Egyptian border troops have turned a blind eye to smuggling and underground tunnels.

Erdogan's threats against Israel have grown of late, sending Turkey's relations with Israel spiraling, and with trade embargos on a list of export items to boot.

In late July Erdogan had threatened that his country could intervene militarily in Gaza to defend Palestinians against the Israelis.

"We need to be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do something similar to them," Erdogan had said in a speech to his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party.

But now given Turkish citizen (and American dual national) Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed Friday in the West Bank, such rhetoric from Turkish leaders is set to ratchet further.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/erdogan-calls-greater-islamic-alliance-combat-israeli-expansionism