Volume 23, Number 9 – 5/1/20

FUTURE FACTS – FROM THINK LINKS

DID YOU KNOW THAT–

• Stanford team finds evidence COVID-19 mortality rate is 17 times lower than WHO’s estimate.
• For the first time, researchers have coaxed ridged cactus coral to reproduce in “captivity”.
• As the Coronavirus strikes prisons, hundreds of thousands are released.
• The US military contractors rely heavily on companies in Mexico for supplies involved in weapons systems manufacturing.

PUNCTUATIONS
by John L. Petersen

An Amazing Time of Change . . . That Will Only Increase

We’re on the edge of an extraordinary shift. In almost every direction that one looks, the very fabric of the familiar world that we all grew up with is coming unraveled. The parallels to Orwell´s 1984 are almost breathtaking – the political system is up for grabs, the economy is potentially headed for the greatest depression since 1929, lawmakers in the US (at least), have thrown out the Constitution, robbing citizens of basic rights . . . over the threat of a pandemic . . . which didn’t show up, and in the process, the government and big technology and media companies are eliminating the right to free speech and dissent.

Tucker Carlson, in his always crisp, direct way highlights where this is all taking us. Take a look.

Tucker: Big Tech censors dissent over coronavirus lockdowns

The situation is almost surreal, with the mainstream media parroting government and big pharma lines as truth – that have now been proven to be wildly erroneous, if not fallacious. All in an apparent effort to shape and control what’s left of the country and social system after it falls apart — with objectives that could not be achieved in legal ways.

It’s very hard to know what is true anymore. One really has to work and dig to try to find sources – all “alternative”, of course – that attempt to report what is real and not contrived. In the case of the coronavirus, it’s become clear that they’re lying about the number of “cases”, the number of deaths, what the virus is, if they can even measure it, what is really being done about it, what can be done about it, why they demand we unhinge our lives and livelihoods, what their objectives are, and what the future implications of all of this are likely to be. It’s rather amazing.

That said, there’s a new world emerging out of all of this – a wonderful new chapter in life for humanity. You’ll hear much more from us on that in the near future. But right now, we’re surrounded by what may be the largest, fastest decomposition of organized life that this planet has ever seen – certainly in history as we understand it.

There are plenty of “conventional” sources opining about how life “will never be the same”, but what I find particularly interesting are those prognostications that come from people like astrologer Joni Patry. Joni, from the beginning – 2016, at least, when I first started seeing her YouTube astrological analysis – has clearly outlined the extraordinary magnitude of the inbound events, pinpointing specific turning points . . . all from the configurations and timing of the movement of the planets in our solar system. The accuracy of her predictions offer a valuable resource for planning in a time of highly disruptive change.

She – and others like economist Martin Armstrong – make it clear that there’s much more on the horizon heading this way.

Joni will be with us at TransitionTalks later this year or early next year, but between now and then, I’d certainly encourage you to follow her monthly predictive broadcast. Here’s what she has to say about May: “The Big Change is Coming!”

William Henry Coming to TransitionTalks

The big question for all of us during this period is “What should we be doing to best navigate the path ahead?” Our next TransitionTalks speaker, William Henry, is going to provide a two-day workshop specifically focused on that subject.

William is a Nashville-based author, investigative mythologist, art historian, and TV presenter. Through his unique ability to incorporate historical, religious, spiritual, scientific, archaeological and other forms of such knowledge into factually-based theories and conclusions he brings an in-depth understanding of the profound shift we are actually experiencing in our lifetime. You may know him from being the spiritual voice and Consulting Producer of the global hit History Channel program, Ancient Aliens, and host of the Gaia TV series The Awakened Soul.

William will be presenting a two-day workshop on Ascension Activation – which is exactly the process that we all need to be addressing to be able to adapt to the new world that is emerging.

Gregg Braden Coming in July

Our friend Gregg Braden will be with us again in July. Check out the details by clicking below.

Complete program and registration information at TransitionTalks.org.

CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)

Will Antibody Tests for the Coronavirus Really Change Everything? – (Nature – April, 2020)
Antibody tests have captured the world’s attention for their potential to help life return to normal by revealing who has been exposed, and might now be immune, to the new coronavirus. Dozens of biotech companies and research laboratories have rushed to produce the blood tests. Kits have flooded the market, but most aren’t accurate enough to confirm whether an individual has been exposed to the virus. The UK government learned about this the hard way after it ordered 3.5 million tests from several companies in late March, only to later discover that none of these tests performed well enough. And even if tests are reliable, they can’t indicate whether someone is immune to reinfection, say scientists. It seems that many tests available now are not accurate enough at identifying people who have had the disease, a property called test sensitivity, and those who haven’t been infected, known as test specificity. A high-quality test should achieve 99% or more sensitivity and specificity. That means that testing should turn up only about 1 false positive and 1 false negative for every 100 true positive and true negative results. But some commercial antibody tests have recorded specificities as low as 40% early in the infection. In an analysis of 9 commercial tests available in Denmark, 3 lab-based tests had sensitivities ranging 67–93% and specificities of 93–100%. If a test is done too soon after a person is infected and the body hasn’t had time to develop the antibodies the test can show a false negative. False positives crop up if a test uses an antigen that doesn’t only target antibodies produced to fight SARS-CoV-2, and instead picks up antibodies for another pathogen as well. An analysis of EUROIMMUN’s antibody test found that although it detected SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in three people with COVID-19, it returned a positive result for two people with another coronavirus. See also: Coronavirus Antibody Tests: Can You Trust the Results? for a look at the analysis of 14 antibody tests now on the US market.

Stanford Team Finds Evidence COVID-19 Mortality Rate Is As Low as .2%;17 Times Lower Than WHO’s Estimate – (Green Med Info – April 19, 2020)
A recent article published in the Wall Street Journal titled, “New Data Suggest the Coronavirus Isn’t as Deadly as We Thought,” confirms what I, and many who have been questioning the mainstream narrative on COVID have been saying since the lockdowns began: fatality statistics have been dramatically over-inflated due to the vast submerged iceberg of asymptomatic or mild cases that were never accounted for within the official statistics used as justification to shut down the entire country. Even Dr. Fauci himself raised these concerns in his recent NEJM editorial on the topic, where he estimates that fatality rates may be 10x lower than official projections. The WSJ article goes on to explain how a preliminary study introduced by a team of Stanford researchers titled, “COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California,“ found that approximately 50 to 85 times more people have been infected by COVID-19 than official testing statistics have revealed, based on a recent sampling of blood antibodies for the virus in a cohort of 3,330 people living in Santa Clara County, California. There are at least two ways to interpret this data. First, given that testing kits for COVID-19 antibodies may not be accurate enough to distinguish COVID-19 from naturally occurring background coronavirus strains, of which there are several dozen known to circulate regularly within human communities, the test may have been picking up the natural virome of the population, creating what are known as “false positives.” Another possibility is that somehow this Wuhan virus did, in fact, spread throughout the Santa Clara county at an extremely rapid rate, surreptitiously, but that the virus is actually no worse than any other coronavirus, which causes the common cold. If true, this would indicate the catastrophizing of the medical community and media has no basis in science. The WSJ report offers this interpretation: “It suggests that the large majority of people who contract Covid-19 recover without ever knowing they were infected, and that the U.S. infection fatality rate may be more than an order of magnitude lower than authorities had assumed. Based on this seroprevalence data, the authors estimate that in Santa Clara County the true infection fatality rate is somewhere in the range of 0.12% to 0.2%—far closer to seasonal influenza than to the original, case-based estimates.”

Recovered, Almost: China’s Early Patients Unable to Shed Coronavirus – (Reuters – April 22, 2020)
Chinese doctors in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, say a growing number of cases in which people recover from the virus, but continue to test positive without showing symptoms, is one of their biggest challenges as the country moves into a new phase of its containment battle. Those patients all tested negative for the virus at some point after recovering, but then tested positive again, some up to 70 days later, the doctors said. Many have done so over 50-60 days. So far, there have been no confirmations of newly positive patients infecting others, according to Chinese health officials. Disclosures by Chinese hospitals indicate there are at least dozens of such cases. In South Korea, about 1,000 people have been testing positive for four weeks or more. In Italy, the first European country ravaged by the pandemic, health officials noticed that coronavirus patients could test positive for the virus for about a month. Experts and doctors struggle to explain why the virus behaves so differently in these people. Paul Hunter, a professor at the University of East Anglia’s Norwich School of Medicine, said an unusually slow shedding of other viruses such as norovirus or influenza had been previously seen in patients with weakened immune systems. In 2015, South Korean authorities disclosed that they had a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome patient stricken with lymphoma who showed signs of the virus for 116 days. They said his impaired immune system kept his body from ridding itself of the virus.

Did Trump Ship 17 Tons of ‘American’ Masks and Medical Supplies to China? – (Washington Post – April 22, 2020)
“Trump gave China more than praise. He shipped China 17 tons of American masks and medical supplies. Our masks and supplies. Supplies we need now.” — voice-over of ad via American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC, released April 17, 2020. It’s certainly fair game to highlight that the president played down the emerging crisis for weeks. The Washington Post reported on April 18 that “U.S. manufacturers shipped millions of dollars’ worth of face masks and other protective medical equipment to China in January and February with encouragement from the federal government [which] underscores the Trump administration’s failure to recognize and prepare for the growing pandemic threat.” But the specific instance highlighted in the ad is framed in a misleading way. In the case highlighted in the ad, the State Department’s role was providing the aircraft. The department sent chartered planes to Wuhan to pick up some 800 consulate workers, their families and other Americans. The planes otherwise were going to be empty on the way to China, so officials decided to fill the jets with goods donated by Samaritan’s Purse, the Boeing Company, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Intermountain Healthcare. Money to help underwrite the effort was provided by Kenneth Griffin, a hedge fund manager who is chief executive of the investment firm Citadel. However, a top official from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, in late March said: “Under the direction of President Trump, the United States Government is responding rapidly. The U.S. was among the first nations to offer help to the Chinese people, and we are the largest financial backers of the World Health Organization and UNICEF. In early February, the United States delivered more than 17 tons of medical supplies to China donated by the American people. These supplies included masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials.”

Shelter in Place Is Weakening the Immune Systems of Everyone Who Complies – (Forbidden Knowledge TV – April 25, 2020)
Dr. Dan Erickson, owner of Accelerated Urgent Care clinics in Bakersfield, California is exasperated by the lockdown, finding it to be completely unnecessary and much more harmful than a disease that has a lower mortality rate to the annual flu. He says that putting people who are not acutely ill on lockdown will have the effect of weakening their immune systems. Further, by collapsing the small businesses, the loss of income is causing people to lose their dreams. People are turning to drugs and alcohol and there’s been a noticeable spike in child abuse. “The initial models were woefully inaccurate. They predicted millions of cases of death; not of prevalence or incidence – but death. That is not materializing. What is materializing in the state of California is 12% positives. We’ve seen 1,227 deaths in the state of California, with a possible incidence or prevalence of 4.7 million. That means you have a 0.03% chance of dying from COVID-19 in the state of California. “I also wanted to mention that 96% of people in California who get COVID recover with almost no significant sequelae or no significant continuing medical problems.”

Yes, I Still Oppose the Lockdown — Principles and Fear in the Age of COVID-19 – (Sarah Westall – April 23, 2020)
On March 24, I wrote one of my most controversial articles, “Two Hundred and Thirty Years of Rights and Liberties Shredded: Why I Oppose the Lockdown.” https://www.activistpost.com/2020/03/why-i-oppose-the-lockdown.html I merely stated my opposition to the “lockdowns” taking place all across the country, the violations of the 1st and 4th Amendments, and the deliberate crashing of the economy. In a well-educated rational society, such a statement would raise no eyebrows and even agreement would be expressed in the generic, “yes, of course” manner. But a well-educated rational society we do not have. In its place, is a society of emotion and fear and that is perhaps the most dangerous kind. In response to my article, I saw criticism that I was putting money over people, claims that I was ignoring the severity of the virus, and insinuations that I was selfishly holding on to “rights” that apparently only exist in times of peace, prosperity, and good health. Further absurd accusations came that anyone who opposed the “lockdown” is a right wing extremist or even a neo-Nazi. I was arrogantly challenged by another writer to “give it a week” and see if my position is still the same. Presumably, the virus outbreak would have worsened by then and I would be so horrified by the death and horror around me, I would retract my previous position about rights being sacred and come to love Big Brother. What my critics, of course, fail to understand is that, if one has rights, those rights do not take a back seat to their fear of getting sick, being a victim of a terror attack, or of dying by any means. Ever. If my critics were right and the numbers of dead and infected people began skyrocketing in the days and months ahead, my position would not change. But it is worth pointing out the absurdity of the fear in real-time when one observes the statistics related to Coronavirus and/or COVID-19. We have to ask ourselves just what we are so afraid of? For anyone listening to the mainstream media, you would be led to believe that COVID-19 is affecting everyone of all ages with a 100% kill rate and that thousands have died of the virus in every city in the country. You might be shocked to see the numbers of deaths vs the numbers of the population of the country, state, and city. You might be shocked to see the number of full recoveries.

Coronavirus Lockdown and What You Are Not Being Told – (Off –Guardian – April 20, 2020)
The World Health Organization (WHO) is financed through a combination of assessed and voluntary contributions. Assessed contributions are paid by nation states for WHO membership and figures are released quarterly. Voluntary contributions are additional contributions from member states and “other partners.” For some reason these figures haven’t been reported for more than three years. About 80% of the WHO’s finances come from voluntary contributions. In its most recent 2017 voluntary contribution report the WHO accounted for the $2.1 billion it received from private foundations and global corporations. This compared to just over $1 billion voluntarily provided by governments. Contributors included GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer AG, Sanofi, Merck and Gilead Sciences whose drug remdesivir is currently being trialled as a possible preventative treatment for COVID 19. The third-largest single contributor in 2017 was GAVI. Formerly called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, they contributed nearly $134 million. GAVI are partnered with the WHO, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank to sell vaccines globally. The World Bank contributed nearly $146 million themselves and the largest individual payment, by some margin, at nearly $325 million came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Though like many other foundations and corporations, through their various networks of interlinked partnerships, their overall contribution was much higher. Among other beneficiaries of the BMGF’s generosity are the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC) led by Professor Neil Ferguson. They are based at Imperial College London and are directly funded by the BMGF and GAVI. Their objective is to provide statistical data analysis for the BMGF and GAVI in order for them to sell more vaccines.

AbelDanger on COVID-19 Rules – (Phi Beta Iota – April 20, 2020)
Here is a sample of a few of the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” rules. Basically, you can’t leave the house for any reason, but if you have to, then you can. Masks are useless, but maybe you have to wear one, it can save you, it is useless, but maybe it is mandatory as well. Stores are closed, except those that are open. You should not go to hospitals unless you have to go there. Same applies to doctors, you should only go there in case of emergency, provided you are not too sick. This virus is deadly but still not too scary, except that sometimes it actually leads to a global disaster. Gloves won’t help, but they can still help. There is no shortage of groceries in the supermarket, but there are many things missing when you go there in the evening, but not in the morning. The virus has no effect on children except those it affects. You will have many symptoms when you are sick, but you can also get sick without symptoms, have symptoms without being sick, or be contagious without having symptoms. You can get restaurant food delivered to the house, which may have been prepared by people who didn’t wear masks or gloves. But you have to have your groceries decontaminated outside for 3 hours. Article includes other rules as well.

NEW DISCOVERIES

Longest Animal Ever Discovered in Deep-sea Canyon off Australian Coast – (Live Science – April 13, 2020)
Underwater explorers found a 150-foot-long siphonophore — a translucent, stringy creature that, like coral, is made up of smaller critters — living in a submarine canyon off the coast of Australia. It’s “seemingly the largest animal ever discovered,” they said. Every individual siphonophore is made up of many little “zooids,” which each live lives that are more similar to animals we’re used to talking about, albeit always connected to the larger colony. Zooids are born axsexually, and each one performs a function for the siphonophore’s larger body. Linked together in long chains, the colonies were already known to reach lengths of up to 130 feet according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium — though each siphonophore is only about as thick as a broomstick. The researchers used a remotely operated vehicle to explore and collect samples from deep ocean areas that hadn’t been investigated before.

GENETICS / HEALTH TECHNOLOGY / BIOTECHNOLOGY

The Healthiest Way to Brew Your Coffee — and Possibly Lengthen Your Life – (CNN – April 22, 2020)
The new study followed over half a million healthy Norwegian men and women between the ages of 20 and 79 over a 20-year period. Results showed drinking boiled or pressed unfiltered coffee raised the risk of death in men aged 60 and above, due to elevated cardiovascular mortality. But drinking filtered coffee — that through a paper filter, for example, was found to be healthier than drinking no coffee at all. Filtered coffee was linked to a 15% reduced risk of death from any cause, a 12% decreased risk of death from cardiovascular disease in men and a 20% lowered risk of death from heart disease in women when compared to drinking no coffee. In fact, the study found those who drank one to four cups of filtered coffee per day had the lowest mortality rate. “The finding that those drinking the filtered beverage did a little better than those not drinking coffee at all could not be explained by any other variable such as age, gender or lifestyle habits. So we think this observation is true,” study author Dag Thelle, a senior professor in the public health and community medicine department of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. “Unfiltered coffee, like Greek and Turkish coffee, which is boiled, or coffee made in a French press contain higher amounts of cafestol and kahweol — chemicals found in oil droplets floating in the coffee and also in the sediment,” said registered dietitian Lisa Drayer, a CNN health and nutrition contributor. “Studies have shown that these substances can raise triglyceride levels and LDL cholesterol levels,” she added.

Molecules Identified That Reverse Cellular Aging Process – (New Atlas – April 26, 2020)
Central to a lot of scientific research into aging are tiny caps on the ends of our chromosomes called telomeres. These protective sequences of DNA grow a little shorter each time a cell divides, but by intervening in this process, researchers hope to one day regulate the process of aging and the ill health effects it can bring. A Harvard team is now offering an exciting pathway forward, discovering a set of small molecules capable of restoring telomere length in mice. Boston Children’s Hospital’s Suneet Agarwal, senior investigator on the new study, has been studying the biology of telomerase for the past decade, and back in 2015 he and his team discovered a gene called PARN that plays a role in the action of the telomerase enzyme. This gene normally processes and stabilizes an important component of telomerase called TERC, but when it mutates, it results in less of the enzyme being produced and, in turn, the telomeres becoming shortened prematurely. For the new study, Harvard researchers screened more than 100,000 known chemicals in search of compounds that could preserve healthy function of PARN. This led them to small handful that seemed capable of doing so by inhibiting an enzyme called PAPD5, which serves to unravel PARN and destabilize TERC. Article includes further details of the study design and outcome.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES/CLIMATE

When Humans Are Sheltered in Place, Wild Animals Will Play – (New York Times – April 1, 2020)
With businesses closed and towns and cities emptied out, people are getting a glimpse of what animals that usually keep their distance do when they are left alone. For example, a herd of Great Orme Kashmiri goats galloped through the desolate streets of Llandudno, a small seaside town in Wales, looking for food. Some goats got their fill from hedges, others climbed building walls. The goats live in Great Orme Country Park, in Conwy, Wales. They were a gift from Queen Victoria, from the royal herd, but their descendants are wild animals that roam and forage in the large park. There is also hardly anyone outside in San Francisco — except for the coyotes. Social distancing has not increased wild animals’ populations, but it does seem to have changed their behavior in seeking new food sources, said Jim Fredericks, chief entomologist at the National Pest Management Association. “What we are also seeing is that they are looking for food in places they had not before,” he said. Ever since Louisiana imposed a lockdown, causing restaurants to shut down, the rats in New Orleans are almost certainly wondering where the usual French Quarter crowds — and their trash — have gone. “There is not much we can do,” Mr. Stuart said of getting the goats to go home. “There is no sort of truck that they can put them in to get them back up there. They go back of their free will, or when they get bored.”

India Sees Coronavirus Threat to Fragile Population: Tigers – (New York Times – April 22, 2020)
India is home to 2,967 wild tigers, roughly three-quarters of the world’s total remaining non-captive population. The cats are known to suffer from respiratory ailments, such as rhinotracheitis. And the announcement that a captive 4-year-old tiger at New York’s Bronx Zoo had tested positive for the coronavirus — the first confirmed case of the virus in a big cat — intensified concerns. “This coronavirus could turn out to be very dangerous,” said Anup Kumar Nayak of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the government agency charged with protecting India’s big cats. Dr. Nayak’s agency and India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change have advised wildlife wardens in all states with tigers to restrict the movement of people into national parks, sanctuaries and reserves. Tigers must also be observed for respiratory symptoms, such as nasal discharge, coughing or labored breathing, the authority said. In the two weeks since the advisories were issued, Dr. Nayak said wildlife wardens have not reported behavioral changes in tigers that would indicate any had become infected. In a series of lab experiments at China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, researchers demonstrated that the virus reproduces “efficiently” in domestic cats and can be transmitted by respiratory droplets between animals. The results were uploaded last month to a preprint website, and have not yet been subject to peer review. Ullas Karanth, the director of the Center for Wildlife Studies in India, thinks fears over the virus are misdirected. Illegal hunting of the tiger’s prey species (e.g. deer) for meat by desperate locals during the lockdown is a bigger threat to wild tigers than the disease itself, he says.

‘Insect Apocalypse’ More Complicated Than Thought – (BBC News – April 23, 2020)
Previous research indicated an alarming decline in numbers in all parts of world, with losses of up to 25% per decade. Case studies, such as one from nature reserves in western Germany, indicated a dramatic fall, with around a 75% decrease over 27 years. Many other, similar reports have followed. But many of these were specific to a region or a species. This new study, the largest on insect change to date, aims to give a more complete understanding of what’s really happening to bugs worldwide. Drawing on data from 166 long-term surveys across 1,676 sites, it paints a highly nuanced and variable picture of the state of insect health. The compilation indicates that insects like butterflies, ants and grasshoppers are going down by 0.92% per year, which amounts to 9% per decade, lower than many published rates. The losses were strongest in the US West and Midwest and in Europe, especially in Germany. Trends in Europe have become more negative in recent years, with the biggest declines since 2005. However while many land-based species are declining, the new study shows that insects that live in fresh water, like midges and mayflies, are growing by 1.08% per year. This positive trend was strong in northern Europe, in the western US and since the 1990s in Russia. The researchers believe this is because of legislation that has cleaned up polluted rivers and lakes. However the increase in water based insects will not compensate for land losses. The scientists say there is no smoking gun on insect declines but they find the destruction of natural habitats due to urbanization, to be key.

Discovery That Will Help Save America’s Great Coral Reef – (Good News Network – April 23, 2020)
Researchers from The Florida Aquarium have just made history by becoming the first in the world to reproduce ridged cactus coral in human care. This may be able to help conservationists restore “America’s Great Barrier Reef”—which is the third largest reef in the world. Ridged cactus coral—also known as Mycetophyllia lamarckiana—are one of the most common species of coral currently populating the Florida Reef Tract. Since the underwater ecosystem has been in danger following major outbreaks of stony coral tissue loss disease in 2014, scientists have been caring for several coral samples that were collected prior to the outbreaks in hopes of one day being able to restore the reef. The Florida Aquarium Senior Coral Scientist Keri O’Neil said, “To date, we have now been able to sexually reproduce eight different species of coral affected by stony coral tissue loss disease at The Florida Aquarium’s Center for Conservation campus.” Ridged cactus corals are often brightly colored with ridges that don’t connect in the center. They are a brooding coral, which means their sperm is released into the water, but their eggs are not, and fertilization and larval development occurs inside the parent coral. The corals release a fully developed larvae that swims immediately after release. Brooding corals release fewer and larger larvae, that already carry the symbiotic algae from their parents that is critical for survival.

COMMUNICATIONS/COMPUTING

Chinese WeChat Users Are Sharing a Censored Post about COVID-19 by Filling It with Emojis and Writing It in Other Languages – (BuzzFeed – March 11, 2020)
People on WeChat, the Chinese messaging app, are evading censors by translating a viral interview from a Wuhan, China, coronavirus whistleblower by rewriting it backward, filling it with typos and emojis, sharing it as a PDF, and even translating it into fictional languages like Klingon. The heavily shared interview from the March edition of the local state-run magazine, People, was with Ai Fen, the director of the emergency department of Wuhan Central Hospital. Ai was the first doctor to pass along information about the then–mystery illness inundating her hospital. The pictures that Ai took of her patients’ charts made their way to a group of eight doctors who shared the information on WeChat in late December. Wuhan police arrested them in late December on charges of “spreading rumors.” One of those doctors, ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, contracted the virus while treating patients and died in February. WeChat’s censors — which monitor blacklisted characters and use “optical character recognition” to scan images or screenshots — immediately started blocking messages that included text from the interview. So to avoid the censorship, people have converted parts of the interview into Morse code, filled it up with emojis, or translated it into fictional languages like Sindarin from The Lord of the Rings or Klingon from Star Trek. In one particularly creative example, someone inserted it into the iconic opening crawl of Star Wars. Article includes screen shots of some of these WeChat messages.

Researchers Unveil Electronics That Mimic the Human Brain in Efficient Learning – (PhysOrg – April 20, 2020)
A team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered, while on their way to better understanding protein nanowires, how to use these biological, electricity conducting filaments to make a neuromorphic memristor, or “memory transistor,” device. It runs extremely efficiently on very low power, as brains do, to carry signals between neurons. As first author Tianda Fu, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering, explains, one of the biggest hurdles to neuromorphic computing, and one that made it seem unreachable, is that most conventional computers operate at over 1 volt, while the brain sends signals called action potentials between neurons at around 80 millivolts—many times lower. Fu reports that using protein nanowires developed at UMass Amherst from the bacterium Geobacter by microbiologist and co-author Derek Lovely, he has now conducted experiments where memristors have reached neurological voltages. Those tests were carried out in the lab of electrical and computer engineering researcher and co-author Jun Yao. Yao says, “This is the first time that a device can function at the same voltage level as the brain. People probably didn’t even dare to hope that we could create a device that is as power-efficient as the biological counterparts in a brain, but now we have realistic evidence of ultra-low power computing capabilities. It’s a concept breakthrough and we think it’s going to cause a lot of exploration in electronics that work in the biological voltage regime.” Lovely points out that Geobacter’s electrically conductive protein nanowires offer many advantages over expensive silicon nanowires, which require toxic chemicals and high-energy processes to produce. Protein nanowires also are more stable in water or bodily fluids, an important feature for biomedical applications.

TRANSPORTATION

Fly Around the World (Virtually) in a DC-3 – (Granite Geek – April 22, 2020)
The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire has launched a new distance learning program: a virtual around-the-world flight that can be followed online by everyone as it progresses around the globe. Using the museum’s Elite Flight Simulator and Lockheed Martin’s Prepare 3D terrain software, the flight will take off from Manchester, NH on May 1 for an extended round-the-world odyssey. Through the Museum’s website, travelers can soar over iconic world landmarks and touch down at airfields as the flight works its way around the world. Along the way, they’ll learn history, geography, and information about the world’s nations, cultures, and people. Portions of the journey will trace routes flown by historic aviation pioneers, including the course followed by famed aviator Amelia Earhart in her 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The Douglas DC-3 is a vintage two-engine propeller plane that played a major role in early aviation history, and which continues to be flown to this day. It has a range of about 1,000 miles, so the journey will be broken into many segments. The first part of the global journey will follow the historic North Atlantic Air Ferry Route used during World War II, making stops in Canada, Greenland, and Iceland before reaching Great Britain and Europe. The actual flying is being handled by a “celebrity guest pilot.” The pilot’s identity will be kept secret until the around-the world flight arrives back at Manchester. Follow the flight’s progress.. After take-off on Friday, May 1, a new segment will be posted every two days.

AGRICULTURE/FOOD

The Pandemic Is Bringing Us Closer to Our Robot Takeout Future – (Ars Technica – April 24, 2020)
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, small sidewalk robots like this seemed to be slowly gaining traction here and at large. Generally, these bots are light and slow-moving enough that they’re unlikely to hurt anyone. That has allowed companies to start using them in real-world applications, with minimal supervision, at a time when larger autonomous vehicles designed for road use still seem far from mainstream commercial use. Now coronavirus lockdowns have created a surge in demand for food deliveries. Two different sidewalk robot companies, Starship and Kiwibot, both say they’re scrambling to build new robots and roll out service to new areas in the face of unprecedented interest. Robot deliveries remain rare enough that it’s easy to dismiss them as curiosities. But that’s a mistake. The technology works now. Starship already has hundreds of robots in service delivering food to real customers. Spurred by demand from locked-down customers, that number could soon soar to the thousands and eventually into the millions. With lower costs and no need to tip, robots could make takeout more popular than ever as it gradually displaces human-driven food deliveries. Sidewalk robots won’t eliminate human-driven food delivery entirely. We’ll need bigger, faster robots that travel in the street to reach customers in many suburban and rural areas. But Starship’s rapid growth is a sign of what’s to come. In a decade or two, having a human being bring you food could seem as anachronistic as paying for long-distance phone calls. Article includes photo of the sidewalk delivery bots.

SECURITY AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE

As Coronavirus Strikes Prisons, Hundreds of Thousands Are Released – (New York Times – April 26, 2020)
At least 125 countries hold more prisoners than their correctional systems were designed for, including 20 that have more than two times the number of inmates they’re equipped to secure, according to the World Prison Brief, a database kept by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research at the University of London. The virus’s ease of spreading behind bars became clear in February, when at least 555 inmates in China were infected at facilities in Hubei, Shandong and Zhejiang Provinces. As prisons across the world have become powerful breeding grounds for the coronavirus, governments have begun to release hundreds of thousands of inmates in a mad scramble to curb the spread of the contagion behind bars. This article focuses largely on Brazil which has the world’s third largest prison population, behind the United States and China, according to the World Prison Brief. Overcapacity average in Brazilian prisons is 168%. Even with the releases, tensions are escalating inside several Brazil facilities, where some gang leaders are threatening violent rebellions and others have smuggled out messages to relatives saying they’re going hungry. A group of gang members detained at a prison in Minas Gerais state recently recorded a video calling on all criminal gangs, which hold considerable sway inside Brazilian prisons, to join forces to wage “war against the government.” Reading from a statement, one of the prisoners said they were not being provided with medicine and complained about rancid food. He threatened to direct gang members outside to set buses on fire and execute prison guards as detainees standing behind him mimicked a decapitation. A state official said in a statement that the men in the video had been identified, and that the authorities had confiscated the cellphone used to make the video.

TRENDS OF GOVERNANCE

CIA’s COVID 19 Weaponization Program Outed in Long-buried NY Times Expose – (Veterans Today – April 18, 2020)
In 2001, a week before 9/11, the New York Times published a massive expose, U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits of America’s secret program under the Clinton and Bush administrations to manufacture and covertly use bio-warfare weapons. Because of 9/11, this article was lost and allowed to stay lost. This is the program that created COVID 19 in research dating from 2002 through 2017 and the facilities discussed here weaponized and eventually deployed COVID 19 against China, Iran, Italy, Spain and, worse of all, against the United States. (Editor’s note: This article reviews, summarizes, and expands upon the original New York Times article. It does not support the direct link between the US bio-warfare research and Covid-19 suggested by the article’s title. What it certainly does show is that not only the US, definitely Russia, likely other countries, and possibly non-state actors, have been involved in germ research for potential military use.)

How Would You Like to Live in the Nation of New England? – (New York Times – April 23, 2020)
Three groups of governors in the East, West and Midwest announced that they would work together on plans to lift the lockdowns in their states once the peak of the coronavirus outbreak has passed. At a time of federal abdication, these state leaders are thinking seriously about alternatives to the existing model of American federalism. The regional partnerships may signal the emergence of a new framework for dealing with other pressing issues on which Washington has failed to lead — issues like infrastructure, transportation, health insurance and climate change. The long-overdue process of replacing America’s outdated federal system has perhaps already begun. As it has in many areas of life, the coronavirus has exposed and exacerbated this country’s unresolved conflicts and contradictions. Neither the paralyzed, sclerotic central government nor the 50 unequal and arbitrarily determined states turn out to be most reliable or effective for determining policy related to all-consuming emergencies like a pandemic. There are practical reasons these regional coalitions should be seen as a positive development for our deadlocked, dysfunctional nation and perhaps even expanded to focus on other issues. The Federal Reserve is already organized by 12 regional districts. The Census Bureau splits the country into nine divisions. The Department of Transportation designates 13 “megaregions,” cross-state territories centered on urban cores and “connected by existing environmental, economic, cultural and infrastructure relationships.” These megaregions may be the building blocks of a new post-pandemic federalism. Looking further ahead, regional compacts might be the way to control and fend off national dissolution rather than accelerate it. The form of the United States of America would be retained, but limited to something more akin to a loose league like the Articles of Confederation. The constituent pieces of this new Union would be eight to 12 regions, between the states and the federal government, which would take on many of the responsibilities of both.

INTERNATIONAL TRENDS

Pentagon Pressures Mexico to Reopen Factories Vital to Making US Weapons – (Zero Hedge – April 21, 2020)
It took a global pandemic and corresponding economic shutdown of entire nations’ economies for the American public to realize that surprisingly, the US military relies heavily for supplies involved in weapons systems manufacturing just south of the border. The Pentagon’s defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, urged that Mexico reopen those factories which many US defense firms rely on, especially aircraft manufacturers, previously shuttered due to COVID-19. Among major defense suppliers that have outsourced vital portions of their supply-chain to Mexico include General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Textron, General Electric, and Honeywell. Military news site Defense One cites a United States International Trade Commission 2013 report which helps explain why over the past decade US defense firms’ supply chains have increasingly relocated to America’s southern neighbor. “Lower manufacturing costs (largely due to a lower wage structure), proximity to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the United States, duty-free access to other important aerospace markets, and a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) with the United States all contribute to Mexico’s greater appeal compared with other global manufacturing locations,” the report outlined.

LIFE STYLE/SOCIAL TRENDS AND VALUES

Out of the Shadows – (Out of the Shadows website – no date)
The Out Of Shadows documentary lifts the mask on how the mainstream media and Hollywood manipulate and control the masses by spreading propaganda throughout their content. The organization’s goal is to wake up the general public by shedding light on how we all have been lied to and brainwashed by a hidden enemy with a sinister agenda. This project is the result of two years of blood, sweat and tears by a team of woke professionals. It’s been independently produced and funded and is available on many different platforms for free for anyone to watch. Patriots made this documentary with the sole purpose of getting the truth out there. Article includes links to 4 short trailers and a link to the 1 hour + documentary. (Editor’s note: If you had any questions about the pedophilia problem in Hollywood and in high levels of our society, you should watch this documentary. This is a serious problem.)

CONTACT AND THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE

Memento Mori: Dutch University Digs Grave for Students to Reflect on Life & Death – (RT – November 5, 2019)
Radboud University in the Dutch town of Nijmegen offers a novel solution for those struggling from everyday challenges of student life and anxious uncertainty about the future – a ‘purification grave’. The project uses “memento mori” – Latin for “remember you will die” – as its motto, offering a unique glimpse to what comes after death. The “purification grave” is – quite traditionally – an open hole in the ground in the garden behind the student church. It is equipped with a yoga mat and a pillow – basic necessities to make yourself comfortable and meditate: below you there’s earth, above – the sky. The grave experience can be booked for a minimum of 30 minutes and up to three hours – students decide for themselves how long they want it to last. But cellphones and books are prohibited during the session. The author of the idea John Hacking, who works at the student chapel, thinks that the creation would help the youth appreciate the beauty of life and realize its transience. Ajuna Soerjadi, one of the students who tried the “purification grave” experience, describes what she felt when she was inside in an embedded video clip. The Memento Mori project is so popular that there is a waiting list.

The Influencer Economy Hurtles Toward Its First Recession – (Wired – April 16, 2020)
Privately, some influencers have watched with a growing sense of dread as the world collapses, taking their earning potential with it. Brand deals have dried up; sponsored posts have been delayed. The great reckoning is unlikely to topple the influencer industry—by now, it’s already too big—but the business of influence is going to change. For years, the influencer economy has operated in boom times. Flush marketing budgets funded closets full of expensive clothes and paid vacations to exotic locales. With more Americans taking cues from social media about where and what to buy, brands had started to go all in; a survey by Mediakix, an influencer marketing agency, found that 17% of companies spent over half their marketing budget on influencers in 2019. As recently as six weeks ago, one report estimated that influencer marketing would grow to $9.7 billion in 2020. As the new coronavirus sends the world hurtling toward a recession, though, more glamorous trappings of the influencer lifestyle have come to a halt. Paid trips have no place amid lockdowns, nor do street-style photoshoots to model #sponsored clothes. There’s an unsavoriness in hawking a product while a record number of people are unemployed or facing life-threatening illness, and brands don’t want to risk the wrong messaging. If a recession brings shopping to a halt, marketers are unlikely to return to the type of broad branding campaign that’s come to define the influencer world. The recession stands to remake the industry and in some ways force it to grow up. For influencers, massive followings alone won’t guarantee security. Those who can’t connect with their followers or prove their value to brands may find that their place in the industry grows precarious. Even influencers who can demonstrate that value will have to remain adaptive to a rapidly changing world. Seits believes that brands will demand more evidence that their marketing dollars are being put to good use, and that influencers give them sales, not just exposure.

CONTACT AND THE EXPLORATION OF SPACE

How ‘Oumuamua, First Interstellar Visitor to Our Solar System, May Have Formed – (CNN – April 13, 2020)
The object dubbed ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “a messenger that reaches out from the distant past”, was first observed interstellar object blazed through our solar system more than two years ago. And debate emerged over whether it’s an interstellar asteroid or comet. Yun Zhang, postdoctoral researcher at the Université Côte d’Azur and Douglas Lin, professor emeritus in the department of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, used simulations to show how they believe ‘Oumuamua formed. The study postulated that ‘Oumuamua was once part of a planetary body in another solar system, ripped apart by its host star before being kicked out into space. Using simulations, Zhang and Lin modeled what would happen if a smaller planetary body came too close to its host star. They found that if the planet was close enough to the star, within 186,411 miles, it would be ripped into long pieces. Then, they would be shot out into interstellar space. They also included thermal modeling to determine what would happen to the fragment split off from the planet. Elements like water, would melt on the surface of the object before re-condensing into a strong, stable crust as the object moved further away. “[This] not only explains ‘Oumuamua’s surface colors and the absence of visible coma [comet tail], but also elucidates the inferred dryness of the interstellar population,” Zhang said. Astronomers have wondered what is essentially powering the object forward. ‘Oumuamua doesn’t have the tail of a comet, but if condensed water existed on the object, it could be releasing and melting, accelerating the object in a comet-like way. This would explain its odd motions.

Interstellar Comet, Visiting from Deep Space, Is Stranger Than We Thought – (CNet – April 20, 2020)
As far as tourist destinations go, our solar system appears to be fairly low on the universe’s list of best places to visit: Astronomers have only ever detected two interstellar visitors passing through our neighborhood. Even though our visitor count remains low, those two wanderers have given us a glimpse of the truly unusual vagabonds traversing the cosmos. The first — ‘Oumuamua — was so weird scientists suggested it may even be an alien probe. The second visitor, rogue comet 2I/Borisov, seemed pretty ordinary by comparison — but new analysis shows our second interstellar visitor is pretty odd, too. Borisov is extremely rich in carbon monoxide. It’s not strange to find carbon monoxide in a comet, but the levels seen by Hubble and ALMA are off the charts, measuring about three times higher than comets from our home solar system. Because carbon monoxide only freezes at extremely cold temperatures, the research teams suggest it likely formed at the dark, outer edges of a distant star system before being flung toward us. The team suggests a giant planet orbiting such a star may have kicked Borisov loose, launching it into the depths of space. From there, it wandered, incredibly cold, for millions of years until physics and fate brought it close enough to our sun for it to heat up and burst to life. As it streams through our region of space now, Borisov appears to be crumbling like a cookie dunked in tea. Recent images of Borisov showed it cracking apart and a small fragment being ejected into space.

STATISTICS/DEMOGRAPHICS

The Fed’s Only Choice – Exacerbate the Wealth Gap, or Else – (Seeking Alpha – March 20, 2020)
The rise of populism, evidenced by the success of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is rooted in the emergence of the greatest wealth and income inequality gap since the roaring ’20s. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the top 1% take home 21% of all income in the United States, the largest share since 1928. There are a variety of social, political, and economic factors driving this growing discrepancy, but one critical factor is ignored – The Federal Reserve. Over the last decade, as stock markets surged, household net worth reached historic levels. If one just looked at the data, it was clear the economy was booming. However, for the vast majority of Americans, it really wasn’t. This was previously shown in data from the WSJ: “The median net worth of households in the middle 20% of income rose 4% in inflation-adjusted terms to $81,900 between 1989 and 2016, the latest available data. For households in the top 20%, median net worth more than doubled to $811,860. And for the top 1%, the increase was 178% to $11,206,000.” Not understood, especially by the Fed, is that the natural rate of economic growth is declining due to its very practices. Supporting economic growth through increasing levels of debt only makes sense if “growth at all cost” uniformly benefits all citizens. Unfortunately, we are finding out there is a big difference between growth and prosperity. An inflationary policy that minimizes concern for debt burdens, while accelerating the growth of those burdens, is taking a serious toll on economic and social stability. (Editor’s note: We highly recommend this article for its extensive analysis of the difference between economic growth and overall national prosperity. And, given the enormous levels of new debt being incurred by federal and state governments to address the economic realities of Covid-19, this situation little chance of doing anything other than becoming even less stable.)

NEW TOOLS/NEW PROCESSES

These Engineers Just Solved the Biggest Problem with N95 Masks – (Popular Mechanics – April 15, 2020)
As the majority of the U.S. population embraces N95 respirators and cloth masks, people with pre-existing respiratory issues are at a crossroads. N95 masks are estimated to reduce oxygen intake by anywhere from 5% to 20%. That’s significant, even for a healthy person. “Do they don the masks to protect themselves and others from COVID-19, or do they risk possibly permanently damaging their lungs due to oxygen restriction while wearing the protective covering? Mechanical engineers, Enter Stanford mechanical engineers, John Xu and Friedrich “Fritz” Prinz, are working to re-engineere the N95 face mask to counteract oxygen deficiencies by creating a mask that can circulate oxygen. The two scientists regularly work on fuel cells for next-generation automobiles, so they’re familiar with trying to achieve high levels of oxygen in a concentrated flow. Work is currently underway, and Xu and Prinz are experimenting with a few separate ideas.

Artificial Intelligence Is Evolving All by Itself – (Science – April 13, 2020)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving—literally. Researchers have created software that borrows concepts from Darwinian evolution, including “survival of the fittest,” to build AI programs that improve generation after generation without human input. The program replicated decades of AI research in a matter of days, and its designers think that one day, it could discover new approaches to AI. So Quoc Le, a computer scientist at Google, and colleagues developed a program called AutoML-Zero that could develop AI programs with effectively zero human input, using only basic mathematical concepts a high school student would know. “Our ultimate goal is to actually develop novel machine learning concepts that even researchers could not find,” he says. The program discovers algorithms using a loose approximation of evolution. It starts by creating a population of 100 candidate algorithms by randomly combining mathematical operations. It then tests them on a simple task, such as an image recognition problem where it has to decide whether a picture shows a cat or a truck. In a preprint paper published last month on arXiv, the researchers show the approach can stumble on a number of classic machine learning techniques, including neural networks. The solutions are simple compared with today’s most advanced algorithms, admits Le, but he says the work is a proof of principle and he’s optimistic it can be scaled up to create much more complex AIs. Still, Joaquin Vanschoren, a computer scientist at the Eindhoven University of Technology, thinks it will be a while before the approach can compete with the state-of-the-art. One thing that could improve the program, he says, is not asking it to start from scratch, but instead seeding it with some of the tricks and techniques humans have discovered. “We can prime the pump with learned machine learning concepts.” That’s something Le plans to work on. But Le also believes boosting the number of mathematical operations in the library and dedicating even more computing resources to the program could let it discover entirely new AI capabilities. “That’s a direction we’re really passionate about,” he says. “To discover something really fundamental that will take a long time for humans to figure out.”

ECONOMY/FINANCE/BUSINESS

The Second Phase of Unemployment Will Be Harsher – (Atlantic – April 19, 2020)
When more than 20 million people file for unemployment in a month, even the hard-hearted will have trouble casting them as idlers or parasites. But eventually, the outbreak will subside, and economic conditions will improve. Yet, for workers who remain unemployed, the situation will worsen. We are likely to see a repeat of the unemployment crisis of the Great Recession—but the underlying dynamics will be amplified. During this second phase, companies will begin to rehire workers. If the past is any guide, many employers will use this opportunity to replace some of their former workers with cheaper and more contingent labor. During normal economic times, slashing wages or stripping away job security prompts a backlash of protest and bad publicity. But lowering such labor costs is easy when the economy is stalled and workers are grateful for any opportunity. More broadly, the crisis will accelerate some long-running market trends toward industry consolidation (which reduces one’s choice of potential employers), automation (in which machines replace human labor), and worker precarity (which happens when the convenience of employers and customers entirely overrides the well-being of individual workers). Even with the payroll subsidies that the stimulus legislation provides to small businesses, the prolonged shutdown will likely destroy many mom-and-pop businesses that have already suffered from decades of brutal competition with the likes of Walmart and Amazon. One thing that kept service jobs from being automated was the sense that customers prefer human interaction, but social distancing has enhanced the appeal of self-service kiosks—and even delivery drones. Once the pandemic subsides, people may go back to their old habits, but corporations do not typically let such opportunities for cutting costs go to waste—as we have seen whenever efforts to organize workers prompt employers to suddenly bring in more computers and robots, outsource work to contractors, or move jobs entirely offshore. In particular, companies eager to hold down payroll costs will hesitate to hire back older and more experienced workers. Many of those now laid off may well remain unemployed for a prolonged period.

The 2020-2022 Great Depression Coming to Neighborhood Near You! – (Armstrong Economics – April 19, 2020)
Shutting down the economy is unleashing a Great Depression far worse than that of the 1930s. Our political leaders are absolute morons. This has demonstrated that they have no common sense and the abuse they have inflicted upon society for the political benefits is just mindboggling. There is no hope in hell that the economy will recover. We are looking at a crash and burn into 2022. All the headstrong people talking about hyperinflation and the dollar will crash who lost a fortune on the way down since January, are going to lose everything between now and 2022. They remain absolutely clueless as to even what capital formation is all about. The newspapers have to support the lockdown. They all got their orders. This is beyond fake news – we are now entering state censorship. I personally know some journalists who have expressed their frustration about not being able to report what is really going on. Nobody is allowed to write an article on connecting the dots or what economic damage has truly been done collectively beyond a single incident. This just looks to be deliberate or the work of absolute fools moved by the Climate Change contingent to shut down the world economy to save the planet trying to get to zero CO2.

The Post-pandemic Workplace Will Hardly Look Like the One We Left Behind – (Washington Post – April 23, 2020)
“Sneeze guard” partitions. “Safe zones” demarcating spots to stand in elevators. Contact tracing apps to detect interactions between co-workers and infrared temperature readings. businesses, design firms, real estate developers and corporate advisers are starting to envision how a return to the corporate office will work. The transition is likely to be slow, uneven and cautious as employers navigate workers’ continued fears, government and public health restrictions, school and child-care closures, and — most of all — the prospects of a second, and possibly even more deadly, wave of the coronavirus. Even so, companies are actively starting to prepare for the eventual return of at least some office workers who have been working remotely — rethinking floor layouts, staggering work schedules and making changes that could fundamentally shift relationships with employers, such as scanning temperatures. PricewaterhouseCoopers has had conversations with more than 50 clients about a new contact tracing tool for businesses it plans to launch in early May. The tool adds a new app or line of code to business apps that workers already have on their phones, then runs in the background, using Bluetooth or WiFi signals to catalogue other co-workers’ phones that come near. When a worker reports a positive covid-19 test, authorized managers can quickly identify and notify any colleagues the employee has come into contact with to help avoid a wider outbreak, bypassing the lengthy process of interviewing workers and asking them to recall their interactions. The tracing works only on corporate properties, doesn’t collect location data, and can only be accessed by certain managers, PwC said. Article goes on to cover specific companies and the plans they each have to prepare for reopening. (Editor’ note: We recommend this article for its fulsome projections of the corporate office in the near future.)

JUST FOR FUN

The Dogs’ Breakfast Grand Final – (You Tube – March 27, 2020)
You’d usually hear Andrew Cotter’s hushed voice telling you what’s going on at Wimbledon or the Olympics. These days, he’s stuck at home, and in a virtuoso display of sportscaster ingenuity, doing the play-by-play on his labradors, Olive and the younger, undeniably spryer Mabel. (Editor’s note: Let this piece make you smile – it’s charming.)

A FINAL QUOTE

You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret…is to press play. ― Jay Asher, author

A special thanks to: Chas Freeman, Ursula Freer, Diane Petersen, Gary Sycalik, Steve Ujvarosy and all of you who have sent us interesting links in the past. If you see something we should know about, do send it along – thanks.
johnp@arlingtoninstitute.org

CONTACT US

Edited by John L. Petersen
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