Volume 26, Number 8 - 4/17/223 | Arlington Institute

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Volume 26, Number 8 – 4/17/2023

FUTURE FACTS – FROM THINK LINKS

DID YOU KNOW THAT….

ChatGPT AI has a list of all the jobs it can do better than humans.
A new blood test that promises to predict tumors more than a year before they begin to form is now being applied in hospitals across the United Kingdom.
A study done by a French research firm found that the top 5 countries for happiness were, in order: China, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, India, and Brazil. The same study found pessimism more generally in high-income countries.
An estimated two-thirds to 80% of the content broadcast and published by corporate media worldwide is orchestrated by just 4 public relations firms.

Click Here for Tickets and More Info

Whether you are a resident of earth or some other race of beings across the cosmos the evolutionary staircase is the same. The law that governs each step on that staircase is also the same for all races. And that law is adapt or die.
The human energy system is composed of an uncountable number of frequencies that at a certain threshold of energy throughput will spontaneously reorganize, leaving the human with new capacities and revealing hidden potentials. Those capacities invite us to use our perception and our consciousness in new ways. And when we do that it results in a number of possibilities that range from:

a shift of the timeline and the development of a new world,
entry into a different reality zone,
the move to a fourth or a fifth dimensional system,
excellent physical health and the slow down of the aging, (and the slowing down of aging,)
access to new forms of energy,
and invitations to meet and work with the people from other star systems across the galaxy and even across the cosmos.

Join us for deep conversation on the hidden potentials of the human, the nature of reality, and other races of beings. Because they all point to the fact that we are being pushed to develop a new earth.

What are we using that consciousness for? To develop a new earth! How do you do that? Penny will explain how when you join us on May 13th.

Dr. Penny Kelly is an author, teacher, speaker, publisher, personal and spiritual consultant, and Naturopathic physician. She travels, lectures, and teaches a variety of classes and workshops, and maintains a large consulting practice. She has been involved in scientific research and investigations into consciousness at Pinelandia Laboratory near Ann Arbor, MI.

THINK LINKS

FDA Confirms Graphene Oxide Is in the mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines after Being Forced to Publish Confidential Pfizer Documents by Order of the US Federal Court – (Expose – April 2, 2023)

In January 2022, Federal Judge Mark Pittman ordered the FDA to release 55,000 pages per month, and since then, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) has posted all of the documents on its website as they have been published. One of the most recent documents published by the FDA saved as 125742_S1_M4_4.2.1 vr vtr 10741.pdf, confirms the use of Graphene Oxide in the manufacturing process of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. The document is a description of a study carried out by Pfizer between April 7th 2020 and 19th August 2020, with the objective being “to express and characterize the vaccine antigen encoded by BNT162b2.” Article includes a screenshot of the study’s conclusion. In layman’s terms, the study was conducted to determine how the vaccine works. The study found that the vaccine used mRNA to instruct your cells to produce a protein (called P2 S), which is the Spike protein of the alleged Covd-19 virus. The millions of spike proteins then bind to a receptor called ACE2 on the surface of your cells, inducing an immune system response. But what is most interesting about the study is that it confirms on page 7 that reduced Graphene Oxide is required to manufacture the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine because it is needed as a base for the lipid nanoparticles. Article provides screenshot of the relevant section on page 7. This is most peculiar because medicine regulators with the help of the Mainstream Media, have denied for months on end that Graphene Oxide is an ingredient of the Covid-19 vaccine. They’ve been able to say this because those who’ve proven and speculated Graphene Oxide is in the Pfizer Covid19 injection have been asking the wrong question. What everyone should have been asking is, ‘is Graphene Oxide used in the manufacturing process of the Pfizer Covid vaccine?’ And Graphene Oxide is indeed used in the manufacturing process of the vaccine because it is vital in helping to make the vaccine’s lipid nanoparticles stable. Therefore, trace amounts or large amounts, depending on the batch, of reduced Graphene Oxide inevitably make their way into the Pfizer Covid-19 injections.

Ophthalmologists Now Ethically Obligated to Denounce COVID-19 Vaccines, as 20,000 New Eye Disorders Are Reported – (Global Research – May 6, 2021)

In just a few months, the World Health Organization received approximately 20,000 reports of new eye disorders that occurred post covid-19 vaccination. These reports include 303 cases of blindness and 1,625 cases of visual impairment! The European drug monitoring agency had never recorded such a severe spike in eye injuries until after the experimental vaccines were launched. These reports were collected by VigiBase and analyzed by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre in Uppsalla, Sweden.About half of the new eye disorders were additionally reported to the U.K.’s Yellow Card adverse event reporting system, which was set up to monitor the influx of adverse events that were anticipated during this live, experimental vaccine study.

These experimental vaccines are designed to cause inflammation throughout the body, by reprogramming human cells to produce inflammatory spike proteins that are derived from the bio-weapon itself. Eye damage is merely a symptom of this inflammation, a sign of more serious problems to come with capillaries and autoimmune issues. The inflammatory conditions caused by the vaccines provide a new revenue stream for various industries within the medical system, including ophthalmology. In their fact sheet, the FDA warned, “additional adverse reactions, some of which may be serious, may become apparent with more widespread use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.” In the UK’s Yellow Card System, vaccine-induced eye damage includes 4,616 cases of severe eye pain, 3,839 cases of blurred vision, 1,808 cases of light intolerance, and 559 cases of double vision. These issues were not prevalent until the vaccine was used. Some of the eye issues are mild but could be a sign of more serious issues within the cardiovascular or nervous systems. There were 768 cases of eye irritation, 731 cases of itchy eyes, 788 cases of ocular hyperemia, 459 cases of eye strain, 400 cases of dry eye, and 653 cases of increased lacrimation.

ChatGPT Can Now Access the Internet and Run the Code It Writes – (New Atlas – March 24, 2023)

OpenAI has allowed its stunning ChatGPT to reach out into the world with staggering new powers. It can now access the internet, run its own code to solve problems, accept and work on uploaded files, and write its own interfaces to third-party apps. With internet access, it can surf the Web looking for answers if it determines you need up-to-date information that’s not in its knowledge base. To do this it formulates relevant search strings, sends them to search engines and databases such as Bing, Google, GitHub and many others, looks at the results, then goes and reads links it deems worthy until it decides it’s got a good answer for you. You can watch exactly what it’s up to while it does this, and when your answer comes back, it’s neatly annotated with links you can click on to go and examine the relevant sources yourself.

For the time being, its web browser activities are read-only beyond sending “get” requests to selected search engines and databases. It can’t fill in forms, or do anything else online – so it can’t quietly go and set up unshackled copies of itself on some hidden server somewhere and start engaging in the kinds of “power-seeking behavior” it’s already been caught exhibiting.

ChatGPT AI Lists Jobs It Can Do Better Than Humans as Millions Could Be Put Out of Work – (Fox News – April 5, 2023)

Outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas recently asked ChatGPT’s bot a series of questions, including “What jobs can ChatGPT replace?” and in what fields the bot would be most capable of working, according to a press release provided to Fox News Digital. The bot told the outplacement firm that it would most likely replace positions that are repetitive and predictable, and ones that are also seeped in language requirements. Those fields, according to the bot, include: customer service representatives; translators and interpreters; technical writers; copywriters; and data entry clerks. Challenger, Gray & Christmas crunched the number of jobs in each listed field using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and found that at least 4.8 million American jobs could be replaced. The AI chatbot added that it could see itself entering other fields such as data science; machine learning; mathematics and statistics; computer science; robotics and automation; and business.

An OpenAI spokesperson told Fox News Digital when asked about the figure on jobs that the AI system can sometimes “hallucinate” and “make up information that’s incorrect, but sounds plausible.” The spokesperson added that OpenAI’s mission is to “enhance jobs” with AI, not eliminate them.

NASA Is Tracking a Huge, Growing Anomaly in Earth’s Magnetic Field – (Science Alert – March 23, 2023)

NASA is actively monitoring a strange anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa. This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years. The space agency’s satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field strength within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun. The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) – likened by NASA to a ‘dent’ in Earth’s magnetic field, or a kind of ‘pothole in space’ – generally doesn’t affect life on Earth, but the same can’t be said for orbital spacecraft (including the International Space Station), which pass directly through the anomaly as they loop around the planet at low-Earth orbit altitudes. The reduced magnetic field strength inside the anomaly means technological systems onboard satellites can short-circuit and malfunction if they become struck by high-energy protons emanating from the Sun.

The primary cause is considered to be a swirling ocean of molten iron inside Earth’s outer core, thousands of kilometers below the ground. The movement of that mass generates electrical currents that create Earth’s magnetic field, but not necessarily uniformly, it seems. A huge reservoir of dense rock called the African Large Low Shear Velocity Province, located about 1,800 miles below the African continent, disturbs the field’s generation, resulting in the dramatic weakening effect – which is aided by the tilt of the planet’s magnetic axis. While there’s much scientists still don’t fully understand about the anomaly and its implications, new insights are continually shedding light on this strange phenomenon. For example, one study led by NASA heliophysicist Ashley Greeley in 2016 revealed the SAA is drifting slowly in a north-westerly direction. Even more remarkably, the phenomenon seems to be in the process of splitting in two, with researchers in 2020 discovering that the SAA appeared to be dividing into two distinct cells, each representing a separate center of minimum magnetic intensity within the greater anomaly. Just what that means for the future of the SAA remains unknown, but in any case, there’s evidence to suggest that the anomaly is not a new appearance.

Cancer Detection Predicts Tumors a Year Before They Form: – (New York Post – March 27, 2023)

The future of cancer treatment — hailed as the “holy grail” of early detection — is now being put to the test. Following a radically successful trial on cancer patients, a new blood test that promises to predict tumors more than a year before they begin to form is now being applied in hospitals across the United Kingdom. “This is the first pan-cancer blood test,” said Ashish Tripathi, founder and CEO of Tzar Labs as well as chairman of Epigeneres Biotech, the Indian firm where the test was first developed in 2021. An updated report on their findings was published this month in the journal Stem Cells. We can detect [cancer] earlier than other known technologies … before the tumor has physically formed,” Tripathi continued. “Not only can I actually detect it at this stage — I can actually tell you which cancer and where it is forming, straight from a blood test.” In a trial of 1,000 participants — 500 non-cancer and 500 cancer patients — researchers were able to accurately anticipate the formation of tumors across at least 25 types of cancer, including all of the most prevalent and deadly varieties, such as breast, pancreatic, lung and colorectal. Even some participants within the presumed “non-cancer” group were found to have a predisposition for future cancer diagnosis. “We did not get even one false negative, not even one false positive,” Tripathi noted.

Numerous blood-based cancer screening methods that have recently been in development, however Tripathi’s team’s approach differs by zeroing in on stem cells with a biomarker for cancer, as opposed to searching for full-blown tumor cells that may already be present. This allows them to determine whether cancer is on the horizon well before those cells have progressed to form a tumor. All cells, good or bad, begin as stem cells, and those that go on to form tumors possess genetic markers that prompt them to do so. It takes 1 billion cancer cells to form a tumor that measures just 1 cubic centimeter — a very small mass to detect even for CT scanners. But inside the body, that initial tumor is shedding cancerous cells as it grows, which enter the bloodstream and begin seeding for new tumors, or metastasizing, in various other organs.

Bombshell Finding: Any Level of Fluoride in Water is Unsafe – (USAA News – April 6, 2023)

The release of the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) systematic review of fluoride’s neurotoxicity was blocked by government officials and has been concealed from the public since May 2022. Fluoride Action Network’s lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating chemicals to U.S. drinking water has been on hold waiting for the release of the NTP report. Prior to the NTP report’s scheduled release in May 2022, it was shared with members of dental groups like the American Dental Association, which urged officials to alter the report.

After a court order, the NTP report was released, showing that out of 55 studies included, 52 found that increased fluoride exposure was associated with decreases in child IQ. The meta-analysis noted that no safe exposure level could be confirmed, including exposure to fluoride levels found in artificially fluoridated water. Fluoride in drinking water is a profitable way to dispose of an industrial waste product from the phosphate fertilizer industry. More than 300 studies have shown fluoride’s toxic effects on the brain, including 2006 National Research Council review that suggested fluoride exposure may be associated with brain damage, endocrine system disruption and bone cancer. And it’s important to note that water fluoridation is not the norm worldwide. In fact, 97% of people living in western Europe drink nonfluoridated water.

Robot ‘Shark’ Is Eating Plastic Waste in London’s Thames River – (Evening Standard – March 21, 2023)

A robot “shark” is patrolling the waters in the Middle Dock at Canary Wharf to eliminate plastic pollutants from the Thames. The battery-powered machine can gather up to 500 kilograms of floating plastic per day — the equivalent of 22,700 plastic bottles — while navigating five kilometres (three miles) of water. Once the waste is collected, it is then recycled and given a second life as packaging, bags, furniture, building materials, and other items. The Thames drains the whole of Greater London and its tidal section is said to be home to some 125 species of fish. Pollution has become a major threat to the wildlife on the Thames, with separate studies previously revealing that it has some of the highest levels of microplastics compared to any other river in the world. Other types of rubbish found in the Thames include wet wipes, plastic cups, bottle lids and plastic takeaway containers. The robot will remain in the area’s waterways for at least three months. During this time, it will also monitor the water quality to identify potential contaminants that can harm the aquatic ecosystem.

The bot comes equipped with more than 15 different sensors that can measure things such as temperature, depth, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, blue-green algae, and crude and refined oils. It then beams that geo-tagged and timestamped info to its accompanying software hub for reporting and analysis. WasteShark is the brainchild of Netherlands-based firm RanMarine. Like a self-driving car, the autonomous robot features an onboard LiDAR that can detect nearby objects using light beams. It weighs 75kg, and features two electric thrusters to help it maneuver in the water. It goes about its job silently, sticking to a pre-set route using a 4G mobile data signal.

New Tech Could One Day Scrub ‘Forever Chemicals’ from Your Tap Water – (Washington Post – April 16, 2023)

Canadian researchers said they have developed a method to filter toxic “forever chemicals” from water and potentially destroy the long-lasting compounds permanently. Known as “forever chemicals”, they can persist in the environment for years. Their harmful effects on human health are well documented, but their ubiquitous use and the challenges in breaking them down have complicated efforts to eliminate them. The highly durable chemicals have been used for decades to make nonstick cookware, moisture-repellent fabrics and flame-retardant equipment, and they are found in other commonly used consumer goods such as cosmetics and food packaging. The new technology, described by one of its developers as a “Brita filter, but a thousand times better,” could help address the problem, experts say. “The potential impact will be huge,” said Madjid Mohseni, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of British Columbia who led the research. “We are hoping to be able to take this to be part of the collective toolbox that we have for addressing PFAS contamination of our water supplies.” Technologies already exist to remove PFAS from water, but Mohseni and other experts say these approaches have limitations.

Mohseni said the material his team developed — which looks like tiny porous plastic beads — can remove long- and short-chain chemicals at rates that match or exceed industry standards. The PFAS it captures could be stripped away, also making the beads potentially reusable or recyclable, he said. Additionally, Mohseni said, the team engineered techniques designed to break the leftover PFAS down into harmless compounds. The beads eventually could be used in products to filter water in homes, industrial sites and at municipal levels, he added. However, for in-home applications, users would have to send the used filters to centralized locations for regeneration or recycling, and for the PFAS to be broken down fully — somewhat like how some used coffee pods are sent back to manufacturers for recycling, Mohseni said. Although the technology is promising, experts not involved in the research say it has yet to be proved in real-world settings at scale. The UBC research team has launched pilot trials in British Columbia, but none of the sites are yet sources of drinking water. “We’re a ways off from really having a clear solution,” said Erik Olson, a senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Our biggest worry still is that we don’t exactly know how to totally destroy PFAS effectively at a commercial scale.”

Italy Became the First Western Country to Ban ChatGPT – (CNBC – April 4, 2023)

Recently the Italian Data Protection Watchdog ordered OpenAI to temporarily cease processing Italian users’ data amid a probe into a suspected breach of Europe’s strict privacy regulations. The regulator, which is also known as Garante, cited a data breach at OpenAI which allowed users to view the titles of conversations other users were having with the chatbot. There “appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms on which the platform relies,” Garante said in a statement. Garante also flagged worries over a lack of age restrictions on ChatGPT, and how the chatbot can serve factually incorrect information in its responses. OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, risks facing a fine of 20 million euros ($21.8 million), or 4% of its global annual revenue, if it doesn’t come up with remedies to the situation in 20 days.

Italy isn’t the only country reckoning with the rapid pace of AI progression and its implications for society. Other governments are coming up with their own rules for AI, which, whether or not they mention generative AI, will undoubtedly touch on it. Generative AI refers to a set of AI technologies that generate new content based on prompts from users. It is more advanced than previous iterations of AI, thanks in no small part to new large language models, which are trained on vast quantities of data.

Scientists Broke a Major Computer Design Barrier — And It Could Change Tech As We Know It – (Inverse – April 14, 2023)

Engineers may debate the pros and cons of each computer coding language, but they all have something in common: Their instructions must morph into the lines of ones and zeros that a computer chip can understand and execute. This process requires instruction set architecture (ISA) — essentially, this set of rules works as a translator between a computer’s hardware and software to help them communicate. Over the past few decades, two ISAs have come to dominate electronic devices: x86, the most common instructions in personal computers, and ARM, which is made by a company of the same name and used in most mobile devices. Both tend to be expensive because tech companies must pay hefty licensing fees to use them. And they only offer certain types of instructions set by a handful of manufacturers, including Intel and a Chinese company called Zhaoxin. But a third player has joined the game — and it’s quickly upending the rules of the industry. Now, a free and open system called RISC-V could allow inventors’ imaginations to run wild — and it may even help usher in futuristic tech like quantum computers and self-driving cars.

Computer scientists created RISC-V at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010. (It’s pronounced “risk-five,” with the letters standing for “reduced instruction set computer.”) At the time, professors were looking for a better way to teach students about computer architecture and design. In recent years, RISC-V has left the ivory tower and entered the tech world — and it’s already making waves as a royalty-free set that essentially anyone can use in any form they see fit. RISC-V offers two distinct advantages that could spur more innovative products. For one, RISC-V is relatively simple. When tech companies pay to license most proprietary ISAs, they can’t pick and choose which parts of the instructions they want — so they can come with loads of unnecessary information that may slow down devices. But with RISC-V chips, device makers can customize their instructions. Without all the extra info in there, consumer electronics such as smartphones and computers — as well as also household appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators — could run on less energy, potentially extending battery life. What’s more, the RISC-V approach also allows companies to create entirely new instructions. Such flexibility even excites the tech giants that could afford the ISA licensing fees in the first place.

Inside London’s Hidden Power Tunnels – (BBC – January 30, 2023)

A network of power tunnels is being created deep under London’s streets to improve the capital’s power supply as the city’s population continues to grow and particularly as it adopts electric vehicles. Costing about £1bn, the latest one is 20 miles (32km) long and has been bored under south London. Here is a look at one part of the infrastructure that is going to be required to support an all-electric future. One minute video clip.

A Computer Generated Swatting Service Is Causing Havoc Across America – (Motherboard – April 13, 2023)

As the U.S. deals with a nationwide swatting wave, Motherboard has traced much of the activity to a particular swatting-as-a-service account on Telegram. Torswats uses synthesized voices to pressure law enforcement to specific locations. Swatting is when someone calls in a bogus threat in an attempt to direct law enforcement resources to a particular home, school, or other location. Often swatting calls result in heavily armed police raiding an innocent victim’s home. At least one case has resulted in police killing the unsuspecting occupant.

Torswats carries out these threatening calls as part of a paid service they offer. For $75, Torswats says they will close down a school. For $50, Torswats says customers can buy “extreme swatting,” in which the authorities will handcuff the victim and search the house. Torswats says they offer discounts to returning customers, and can negotiate prices for “famous people and targets such as Twitch streamers.” Torswats says on their Telegram channel that they take payment in cryptocurrency.

GMO’s Are Now Called Bioengineered in the USA – (Global Research – April 6, 2023)

Over 80% of processed foods in the USA contain genetically modified organisms. The concern for food purity took a twist early last year, when the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) decided to rename Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) as Bioengineered (BE) foods. For many decades, tech companies have been developing ways to genetically modify, enhance and (in their opinion) add value to the foods we grow and eat. There is much written on the sketchy “science” that forms the basis of this program of modifying foods. Rather than debate those points, the main issue is that the new designation of BE carries a loophole that does not include some GMO foods. Disappointingly (but not surprisingly) this new federal law falls short of fulfilling GMO labeling standards.

The new law came into effect in January 2022, without much fanfare, and most people didn’t even notice it. The law states that in order to be labeled as BE, foods must contain a detectable amount of genetically modified material. Unfortunately, there are many genetically modified foods that are untestable, and therefore are eliminated from the labeling requirement. Numerous products made with new GMO techniques, ones we are just now hearing about in the news, for example: CRISPR, TALEN and RNAi techniques. These techniques do not have commercially available tests, and it is impossible to identify the genetically modified ingredients that they contain; therefore they are excluded from the BE labeling requirement.

Farmers Win the Right to Repair Their Own Tractors in Colorado – (Motherboard – April 13, 2023)

Next year, farmers in Colorado will be able to fix their own tractors and manufacturers like John Deere will have to provide them manuals and diagnostic software to help them do it. Farmers across the country have long been fighting for the right to repair their own equipment. Modern tractors are full of electronics that have given manufacturers like John Deere the ability to lock farmers out of the repair process. Now, thanks to The Consumer Right to Repair Agriculture Equipment Act passed, farmers in Colorado will be able to do what they’ve done for generations: fix their gear themselves.

John Deere and other companies have lobbied hard against laws like this. Modern tractors have so many electronic components that manufacturers can literally lock farmers out of repairing their own equipment. It’s given John Deere and others a de-facto monopoly on the repair of modern equipment. The consequences of this have been far reaching. Some farmers learned how to hack their own tractors. The used tractor market exploded, with farm equipment manufactured before the advent of computers selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s a class action lawsuit against John Deere that’s accused the company of running a repair monopoly and accusations that it’s violating EPA guidelines. One farmer in Missouri said the company wouldn’t let him repair his tractors until he filed a complaint with the FTC. Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, said in a press release. “It will also help align the industry of agriculture with other products using technology-enabled products such as motor vehicles, trucks, wheelchairs and cell phones. We should all be able to fix everything, everywhere, all the time.”

For the Record, NPR Absolutely Is US State Propaganda – (Caitlin Johnstone – April 6, 2023)

American liberals are in an uproar over Twitter’s recent labeling of National Public Radio as “US state-affiliated media”, a designation typically reserved for state media from governments the US is trying to topple like Russia’s RT, China’s CGTN, and Iran’s Press TV. In an article titled “Twitter labels NPR’s account as ‘state-affiliated media,’ which is untrue,” NPR’s Bill Chappell attempts to argue that his outlet does not deserve to have the same labels affixed to it as state media from naughty governments like Russia and China. It is an interesting choice to spotlight NPR’s CEO John Lansing while trying to argue that NPR is not state-affiliated, given that Lansing spent his pre-NPR years as the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). USAGM is the US government narrative management umbrella which runs overt US state propaganda outlets like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America. Defenders of NPR try to argue that the label is inaccurate because NPR only receives a small amount of its funding from the US government (between one percent and 15 percent depending on whose talking points they’re reciting), but this claim is undercut by NPR’s own claim that “Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR.”

But what’s especially revealing is the reasons people are giving for why the “state-affiliated media” label is detrimental to NPR. “Twitter has labeled National Public Radio as ‘state-affiliated media, a move some worried could undermine public confidence in the news organization,” reads a tweet by AP. The tweet paraphrases a quote from PEN America’s Liz Woolery, “For Twitter to unilaterally label NPR as state-affiliated media, on par with Russia Today, is a dangerous move that could further undermine public confidence in reliable news sources.” Think about what they’re admitting here, and what they’re not saying. They’re acknowledging that this label that’s been getting slapped on the media from nations which disobey the US government “undermines public confidence” in those outlets, which means they know Twitter has been using that label to undermine public confidence in the media from nations which disobey their government. They’re just not taking that understanding to the obvious conclusion: that this means Twitter has been functioning as a propaganda arm of the US government. (Editor’s Update: Elon Musk has conceded that the label might not have been accurate. Twitter then changed the label on NPR’s account to “government-funded media.” It has been further suggested that Twitter may change it again to “publicly funded media”.)

World’s Poorest Nations Spend 16% of Revenue on Debt, the Highest in 25 Years – (Guardian – April 11, 2023)

Low-income countries will have to sacrifice spending on public services this year as they face the highest levels of debt repayments for 25 years. Campaign group Debt Justice published figures on Tuesday showing that 91 countries will spend, on average, 16.3% of their revenues on external debts this year, an increase of nearly 150% since 2011 when the figure was 6.6%. Sri Lanka has the highest external debt payments this year, amounting to 75% of government revenue, followed by 65.6% for Laos, 57.8% for Dominica and 46.7% for Pakistan. Heidi Chow, Debt Justice’s executive director, said debt relief was urgently needed and must extend to all creditors. Chow said legislation may be required from London and New York to force private lenders to cancel their debts. According to the World Bank, 46% of debt repayments are to private lenders, excluding China. About 30% are to multilateral institutions, 12% to other governments and 12% to Chinese public and private lenders. Sanhita Ambast, global research and policy adviser at Amnesty International, called for greater coordinated action from multilateral organizations such as the G20 to ensure that governments are able to spend money on essential services rather than servicing their debt, but she has little confidence that lessons have been learned from Sri Lanka’s crisis.

See also: Wealthy West Has Little Excuse After Finally Waking Up to Global Debt Crisis in which Achim Steiner, the administrator of the UN Development Program, notes that there are more than 50 countries on his radar, which could “be in debt default very quickly”. (Editor’s note: We recommend both of these articles. Reading between the lines: the creditors, especially the private creditors, are not likely to be willing to “take a haircut” – but if they don’t, a number of countries may devolve into chaos and their losses may be even greater and the hardship for the general populace will be enormous.)

The Happiness of Others – (Consortium News – April 4, 2023)

George Burchett, publisher of the People’s Information Bureau from his home base in Hanoi, sent me an interesting piece by Alex Lo, the iconoclastic columnist at the South China Morning Post, under the headline, “Contrary to Western myth, the Chinese are a rather jolly bunch.” Lo cites two recent surveys indicating that Westerners have it all wrong when they assume, on the basis of official propaganda and incessant media reports, that the People’s Republic is a nation of 1.4 billion miserable, suffering, suppressed and repressed people under the authoritarian leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the dictatorial Xi Jinping. I am natively suspicious of statistical surveys conducted by incurable technocrats who purport to measure in columns of numbers matters that are far too subjective to be measured. But setting this aside, Lo and Burchett are onto something. It is highly important that we in the West understand the Chinese to be unhappy. It follows that surveys indicating otherwise are correspondingly significant.

When he who controls “the narrative” has the power to control entire populations, perception management becomes the blackest of all the black arts. How jarring it is even to suspect that the Chinese may by and large be happy — or contented, a more enduring state. One of the surveys Lo cites was completed just last month by Ipsos, a prominent market research firm with head offices in Paris. Ipsos conducted a Global Happiness 2023 study in 32 countries, giving it a good spread across continents, levels of development, forms of government and so on. It includes enough bar charts, line graphs, and numbers, numbers, numbers to make the most bloodless of technocrats happy all by himself or herself. China comes in with a top rating of 91% in the overall happiness index. To choose a few other nations by way of comparison, Mexico scores 81%, the U.S. 76%, Japan and Poland register 60% and 58% respectively. The top 5 were, in order: China, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, India, and Brazil. The same study found that “Pessimism is most pronounced among Boomers and GenXers, the less educated and affluent, unmarried adults – and more generally in high-income countries”.

‘Sharenting’ Is Problematic. This App Gives Parents an Alternative Way to Post about Their Kids – (Fast Company – April 13, 2023)

Many parents begin sharing information about their children as soon as they have their first sonogram photo taken, and it doesn’t stop there. By the time kids are 18, an average of 70,000 pieces of information about them are available online. We’d love to think our “sharenting” culture is without consequence, but that’s not entirely true. For example, social-media sharing leads to an enormous amount of fraud. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), more than 95,000 people reported about $770 million in losses from fraud cases linked to social media in 2021 alone. The security experts at Barclays say two-thirds of identity fraud cases affecting people over 18 will be a result of not their own social media usage, but of things their parents shared about them. Enter Footprint, a newly launched sharing platform that feels surprisingly like posting on social media, except that users share with only a small group of up to 36 people. Proud moms and pops can post photos, thoughts, and memories with the click of a button. They still get the thrill of a quick share, and the dopamine dose to go alone with it, but without the worry about where the information might end up.

There are plenty of valid concerns about social-media sharing. But perhaps most impactful is that kids don’t actually want their parents sharing about them once they reach a certain age. (If you’ve ever had a newly minted teenager demand that you remove a photo you’ve posted without their consent—then weed through your entire Instagram, flagging photos they want you to remove—you know what I’m talking about.) Footprint founder, Nate Fish, says kids deserve autonomy over their online footprint and that the app gives it back to them. With some parents realizing that kid-focused content has the power to earn them thousands of followers, campaigns like Quit Clicking Kids, which aims to protect child influencers from parents who exploit them, are starting to emerge. With that in mind, Footprint comes at a pivotal time. And it could be a hit because it steers away from posting for personal gain while not asking us to change anything about how we share information—just who sees it.

AI Can Make Movies, Edit Actors, Fake Voices. Hollywood Isn’t Ready. – (Washington Post – April 14, 2023)

It took Chad Nelson about a week to make thousands of photos of furry creatures and magical forests using Dall-E, an artificial intelligence image generator that has gone viral over the past year. Now, he’s made the first animated short film that uses images he generated exclusively from the AI tool. Nelson’s five-minute film, called “Critterz,” was released online this week and introduces viewers to cuddly creatures that inhabit an imaginary jungle, resembling a cross between a Pixar creation and a David Attenborough-style documentary. It’s an early example highlighting the possibilities and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence in filmmaking, a development that both excites and worries Hollywood. (After you watch the 5 minute animated short, scroll down to the “Behind the Scenes” section to see more about how it was done.

Nelson, a visual artist in San Francisco, didn’t rely on AI for the entire production: He wrote the script himself, and enlisted actors to record the audio and animators to bring the creatures to life. It would normally take a large staff six full months to create the kinds of high-quality images in “Critterz,” its movie director Nelson said. But using OpenAI’s Dall-E, the process went much faster.
The Writers Guild of America, which represents screenwriters, is locked in negotiations with movie studios — and the way artificial intelligence can be used in scriptwriting is a key sticking point. Actors, such as Keanu Reeves, are raising alarm bells, saying the rise of generative AI is “scary” and could be a way for executives to not pay artists fairly. How widely AI is adopted in Hollywood hinges, in part, on how broader issues of intellectual property, consent and contract negotiations play out, lawyers and media experts say. “Generative AI is really a game changer,” said Ryan Meyer, a copyright expert and of counsel lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney, but “there’s a lot of issues … that need to be resolved.” (Editor’s note: For a fully AI produced short, see “Last Stand” in the Just for Fun section below.)

Inside the 3D-printed Box in Texas Where Humans Will Prepare for Mars – (Guardian – April 12, 2023)

Starting this June, four volunteers will spend a year pretending to live on the red planet inside the Mars Dune Alpha habitat, actually located in a corner of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a large white warehouse right next to the disc golf course and on the tram route for tourists and school groups. NASA researchers say they’re doing everything they can to make it as realistic as possible so they can learn the impact that a year in isolation with limited resources has on human health. “As we move from low Earth orbit, from moon to Mars, we’re going to have a lot more resource restrictions than we have on the International Space Station and we’re going to be a lot further from Earth or any help from Earth,” said Dr Grace Douglas, the principal investigator for the Crew Health Performance Exploration Analog, or Chapea for short. The four crew members will live in a small housing unit that was constructed using a huge 3D printer to simulate how NASA may create structures on the Martian surface with Martian soil. They’ll conduct experiments, grow food and exercise – and be tested regularly so scientists can learn what a year on Mars could do to the body and mind. “This is really an extreme circumstance,” said Dr Suzanne Bell, who leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space Center. “You’re asking for individuals to live and work together for over a one-year period. Not only will they have to get along well, but they’ll also have to perform well together.”

NASA hasn’t identified the four crew members set to enter the habitat in June, but said they were selected using similar criteria to the astronaut corps. They are people with advanced degrees in Stem fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and fit a physical and psychological profile to make them suited for such an experiment. The 1,700 sq ft home for the next year includes four private quarters and a shared bathroom with a shower and toilet. There are dedicated workstations, a medical station and lounge area – complete with board games like Settlers of Catan: Starfarers edition and Monopoly, and a Play Station 3 and Super Nintendo console. Using indoor greenhouses, the crew members will grow ready-to-eat food like tomatoes and leafy greens, which will also let NASA evaluate the quality and efficacy of its plan to grow crops on Mars.

Hidden Water Source on the Moon Found Locked in Glass Beads, Chinese Probe Reveals – (Space – March 28, 2023)

The moon is strewn with minuscule beads of glass that have formed over billions of years as soil ejected during asteroid impacts cools and falls back to the lunar surface. An analysis of lunar samples delivered to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 probe has now revealed that those beads contain a substantial amount of water. NASA’s lunar orbiters found evidence of the life-giving liquid inside the moon’s permanently shadowed polar craters already in the 1990s. In the 2000s, a reanalysis of samples from the manned Apollo missions of the late 1960s and 1970s detected hydrogen in the lunar soil. And the recently retired infrared telescope SOFIA confirmed in 2020 that water is present on the moon, even outside the dark craters. The origin and behavior of this lunar water is, however, still somewhat unclear. However, the glass beads found in the 61.1 ounces (1,731 grams) of lunar regolith brought to Earth by Chang’e-5 in December 2020 might provide the missing piece in this puzzle.

Eons of battering by the solar wind, the stream of charged particles constantly emanating from the sun, led to the formation of water in the moon’s surface layers. These reactions continue to take place even today as hydrogen atoms present in the solar wind bond with oxygen molecules in lunar regolith and form molecules of water. This is the input into the moon’s water cycle. Scientists know today that some of this water evaporates when the moon’s top layers get warmed up by sunshine. Then, during the lunar night, the surface gets rehydrated. The source of this rehydration, however, cannot be the solar wind as this process happens too quickly. The new study suggests that the glass beads could serve as a hidden reservoir, from which water is readily released into the dried-out surface soil during the cool and dark lunar night. The new study found much more water locked in these beads than previously thought. On top of that, the analysis suggested that a substantial quantity of the liquid accumulates inside those beads within a few years and can be released even more rapidly. The researchers think the glass beads may serve as a convenient resource for water extraction for future human crews but also for the manufacturing of rocket fuel on the surface of the moon for missions to more distant destinations.

Planets Without Stars Might Have Moons Suitable for Life – (Science News – April 3, 2023)

Computer simulations suggest that, given the right orbit and atmosphere, some moons orbiting rogue planets can stay warm for over a billion years, according to astrophysicist Giulia Roccetti “There might be many places in the universe where habitable conditions can be present,” says Roccetti, of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. But life presumably also needs long-term stability. “What we are looking for is places where these habitable conditions can be sustained for hundreds of millions, or billions, of years.” But habitability and stability don’t necessarily need to come from a nearby sun. Astronomers have spotted about 100 starless planets, some possibly formed from gas and dust clouds the way stars form, others probably ejected from their home solar systems. Computer simulations suggest that there may be as many of these free-floating planets as there are stars in the galaxy. Such orphaned planets might also have moons — and in 2021, researchers calculated that these moons need not be cold and barren places. Unless a moon’s orbit is a perfect circle, the gravitational pull of its planet continually deforms it. Resulting friction inside the moon generates heat. In our own solar system, this process plays out on moons such as Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa. A sufficiently thick, heat-trapping atmosphere, likely one dominated by carbon dioxide, might then keep the surface warm enough for water to remain liquid. That water could come from chemical reactions with the carbon dioxide and hydrogen in the atmosphere, initiated by the impact of high-speed charged particles from space.

Warmth and water might not be enough to let living organisms appear, though. Moons of free-floating planets “will not be the most favorable places for life to arise,” says astrophysicist Alex Teachey, of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics in Taipei, Taiwan. “I think stars, due to their incredible power output and their longevity, are going to be far better sources of energy for life,” says Teachey, who studies the moons of exoplanets. “A big open question … is whether you can even start life in a place like Europa or Enceladus, even if the conditions are right to sustain life, because you don’t have, for example, solar radiation that can help along the process of mutation for evolution.” But Roccetti — although not an astrobiologist herself — thinks moons of orphan planets have a few important advantages. They will have some, but not too much, water, which many astrobiologists think is a better starting point for life than, say, an ocean world. And not having a star nearby means there are no solar flares, which in many cases will destroy the atmosphere of an otherwise promising planet. “There are many environments in our universe which are very different from what we have here on Earth,” she says, “and it is important to investigate all of them.”

The “Psychonauts” Training to Explore Another Dimension – (New Republic – January 3, 2023)

Medicinal Mindfulness, founded in 2012 in Boulder, Colorado by two psychotherapists, is a psychedelic therapy clinic and provides cannabis and ketamine-assisted sessions, claiming to have helped treat trauma, depression, and “feelings of meaninglessness.” Its website emphasizes that the clinic “fully complies with all local and Colorado State cannabis laws, and all federal regulations.” DMTx is a new offshoot, founded in 2016 with a long-term goal to “develop and implement FDA-approved clinical research” into DMT, according to its website. So-called “psychonauts” exploring new frontiers in hallucinogenic research, are preparing to use a technology called extended-state DMT (DMTx). When the drug is smoked, a trip lasts minutes—despite feeling much longer. But with a constant stream of DMT supplied to a user and blood serum levels of the molecule regulated, that trip can last hours or even days—seemingly an eternity.

Much of the theory behind DMTx comes from a 2016 paper in Frontiers in Physiology by Andrew Gallimore and Rick Strassman, in which the authors laid out a method to maintain a stable brain concentration of DMT using intravenous infusion. “The phenomenological content of dream states and hallucinations in psychotic disorders have been studied extensively,” the authors wrote, “whilst the endogenous human hallucinogen DMT reliably and reproducibly generates one of the most unusual states of consciousness available, its phenomenology has only begun to be characterized.” Strassman, a clinical research psychiatrist specializing in psychedelic research and author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, is on the vanguard of studying that phenomenology. DMT is produced endogenously in mammals, meaning our brains make the molecule. Strassman wants to know if there is a DMT neurotransmitter system—like with serotonin and dopamine—and whether one’s tolerance or lack thereof plays a role in naturally occurring psychosis such as schizophrenia.

Only a Handful of Companies Control the Global Propaganda – (Blacklisted – April 14, 2023)

In her book “One Idea to Rule Them All, Reverse Engineering American Propaganda,” Michelle Stiles reveals how the American public (and indeed the global population at large) have been indoctrinated and conned by public relations (PR) companies that run the globalist cabal’s propaganda campaigns. The PR agency creates a global media plan for a given client. It decides the articles to be written and where they’re to appear. It then decides where ads will run and when. So, while drug companies appear to have a rather direct influence over media, it’s really the PR firms that wield the greatest control, especially when it comes to the organization of it all. They make sure the same message is distributed in many different places in a cohesively timed fashion. As such, PR companies are a central cog in the global propaganda machine and need to be understood as such.

The four largest ad holding companies in the world are currently the Publicis Groupe, WPP, the Omnicom Group, and the Interpublic Group, and Stiles notes, all are “deeply interlocked with the corporate media, the military-industrial complex, and the policy elites.” Each agency, in turn, has smaller subsidiaries and affiliates, again giving us the illusion that there are far more players than there really are. And, as with everything else, Vanguard and/or BlackRock are among the top 10 shareholders in these top four ad agency holding companies. They also own major media companies, and the largest drug companies. An estimated two-thirds to 80% of the content broadcast and published by corporate media comes from public relations firms.

As noted by Stiles, the term academia uses to describe this globalist cabal is “The Transnational Capitalist Class” or TCC. “They are 1% of the world’s wealthiest people who provide the ideological justification driving desired actions to be implemented worldwide in pursuit of their shared interests through transnational governmental organizations,” she writes. She goes on to cite sociologist Peter Phillips’ book, Giants: The Global Power Elite, in which Phillips details: “… the vast web of interconnectedness of the 17 giant investment firms managing in excess of $43 trillion in capital, who are themselves cross-invested with each other, the near giants … and have ownership stakes in the top 1,500 corporations spanning the globe, giving them enormous power in corporate board rooms across the planet. Leaders of these firms meet together at various policy-making conferences throughout the year to network, strategize and finalize recommendations in the form of reports and whitepapers that heavily influence worldwide geopolitics …” If you still live in the dark ages thinking there is no intertwined global elite controlling and overpowering the sovereignty of nation-states and dominating the ideological landscape, take the time and read Phillip’s book. It’s a reality check as bracing as a cold shower.

Goldman Sachs Says Generative A.I. Could Impact 300 Million Jobs — Here’s Which Ones – (CNBC – March 28, 2023)

“Significant disruption” could be on the horizon for the labor market, a new Goldman Sachs report dated Sunday said. The bank’s analysis of jobs in the U.S. and Europe shows that two-thirds of jobs could be automated at least to some degree. In the U.S., “of those occupations which are exposed, most have a significant — but partial — share of their workload (25-50%) that can be replaced,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in the resarch paper. Around the world, as many as 300 million jobs could be affected, the report says. Changes to labor markets are therefore likely – although historically, technological progress doesn’t just make jobs redundant, it also creates new ones. The use of AI technology could also boost labor productivity growth and boost global GDP by as much as 7% over time, Goldman Sachs’ report noted.

In the U.S., office and administrative support jobs have the highest proportion of tasks that could be automated with 46%, followed by 44% for legal work and 37% for tasks within architecture and engineering. The life, physical and social sciences sector follows closely with 36%, and business and financial operations round out the top five with 35%. On the other end of the scale, just 1% of tasks in the building and ground cleanings and maintenance sector are vulnerable to automation. Installation, maintenance, and repair work is the second least affected industry with 4% of work potentially being affected, and construction and extraction comes third from the bottom with 6%.

China Increasingly Uses Merger Reviews to Make Demands of US Companies – (Ars Technica – April 4, 2023)

China’s antitrust regulator “is holding back its required green light for mergers that involve American companies as a technology war with Washington intensifies,” according to a Wall Street Journal report. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has asked companies seeking merger approvals to “make available in China products they sell in other countries—an attempt to counter the US’s increased export controls targeting China,” the report said. “Chinese regulators recently have slowed down their merger reviews of a number of proposed acquisitions by US companies, including Intel Corp.’s $5.2 billion takeover of Israel-based Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and chip maker MaxLinear Inc.’s $3.8 billion purchase of Silicon Motion Technology of Taiwan, according to people close to the process,” the WSJ wrote. “While Chinese regulators rarely reject transactions outright, they have resorted to delaying and withholding approvals until their demands—often focused on benefiting Chinese companies at the expense of their foreign competitors—are met.”

The US, citing concerns about China-based companies’ ties to the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party, has added numerous Chinese firms to the Entity List that greatly restricts access to American products and components. Targets include Chinese supercomputing companies, Huawei, ZTE, drone-maker DJI, chipmaker SMIC, memory chipmaker YMTC, and various others. And of course, there is ongoing debate in Washington about whether to ban TikTok, which is already not allowed on government devices. China already blocks online access to large web platforms such as YouTube and Wikipedia. (Editor’s note: We are living in an era in which everything – from business mergers to Supreme Court appointments to school library acquisitions – has become politicized.)

The Most Expensive License Plate in the World Just Sold at Auction for $15 Million – (CBS – April 11, 2023)

A plate with the number 7 sold in Dubai for 55 million dirhams, (roughly $15million) according to Emirates Auctions. The auction house specializes in cars and license plates, and buyers can bid on distinguished number plates in the United Arab Emirates. The company has previously held the record for most expensive plate sold, auctioning off the 1 license plate in 2008 for 52 million dirhams, or about $14.2 million U.S. The license plate auction benefits the charity 1 Billion Meals Endowment, founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, to bring food to communities struggling with food insecurity around the world. Other countries also auction off special license plates. Earlier this year, Hong Kong held a Lunar New Year auction of several vanity plates. The one that took home the most money: The letter R, going for 25.5 million Hong Kong dollars (about $3.25 million U.S.).

From McDonald’s $200 Million Arch Deluxe to Colgate’s Frozen Lasagna: Here Are 5 of the Biggest Food Failures – (CNBC – April 7, 2023)

For every massive hit like the Popeye’s chicken sandwich, the food industry produces countless duds. But not all swings-and-misses are created equal. Some are reviled by customers, while others don’t sell well enough to justify the millions that were sunk into their research and development. Samuel West has been curating these foods for the Museum of Failure, a traveling exhibition which most recently set up shop in Brooklyn’s Industry City in mid-March and will last until May 9. The museum showcases failed innovation where visitors can see failed products ranging from the once-promising 3D TVs to the infamous MoviePass. But it’s the food section that has some of the most head-scratching failures. West tells CNBC Make It that failures aren’t inherently bad, and that trying out whiffs like beef and fish-flavored water for cats and dogs or New Coke are necessary steps in the process of innovation. “If we don’t accept the failures, we can’t have the good stuff,” West says. There is no such thing as progress without failure. Here, at the link, are five of the biggest culinary duds at the Museum of Failure.

Last Stand – (YouTube – March 31, 2023)

Last Stand, directed by Hashem al-Ghaili is reportedly the first short film (10 minutes running time) made entirely by Artificial Intelligence, which took care of writing the script, creating the concept art, generating all the voices, and participating in some creative decisions, as a demonstration to showcase the potential of Generative AI in filmmaking. Here is one example of AI portraying an alien invasion. Similar to responses from BingAI or Bard, it is an example of what can be reassembled from footage already available on the internet to tell a story that is almost but not quite new. In simple terms, it’s a mashup. (Editor’s note: In the context of a short film “made entirely by Artificial Intelligence”, we aren’t sure what role the director played. We wish that had been explained and we wish the initial prompts that were given to the AI had been disclosed.)

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.
– John F. Kennedy

A special thanks to: Chas Freeman, Abby Porter, Bobbie Rohn, 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