Back in February, CBS News reported that food prices had continued to rise faster than the rise in the overall Consumer Price Index. Restaurant prices were increasing at an annual rate of 5.1 percent, while grocery prices were up 1.2 percent. But the real story is that supermarket prices are 25 percent higher now than in January 2020, while inflation had increased by 19 percent. So what’s the solution for the planet? Fewer people mean fewer crops, fewer livestock, and of course fewer “gas guzzling” motor vehicles, fewer buildings, fewer everything.
When President Joe Biden and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis met at the White House last week, the praise for Romania's commitment to NATO and the protection of Europe reaffirmed the country's role as a cornerstone of Western defense against the threats posed by Russian aggression in Ukraine. The need to advance the legitimate interests of the critical U.S. ally may now be more important than ever. The importance of giving Romania the freedom of travel it has earned and clearly deserves goes far beyond its own borders. Ukraine's future may depend on its continued ability to send its grain freely throughout Europe and to destinations beyond the continent's borders.
Three decades ago, a little-known automotive engineer named Stanley Meyer obtained patents for what he called an electric water fuel cell that allegedly divided water (including tap water and salt water) into hydrogen and oxygen using a process he said was far simpler than electrolysis. Ecoticias reported last September that the Austrian automotive engineering company AVL had developed an “innovative [400-horsepower] hydrogen combustion engine” that runs on hydrogen fuel while providing performance comparable to traditional ICE vehicles. Hyundai, Kia, and the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) also introduced a new engine design that combusts hydrogen directly – also without the need for fuel cells. Whether or not hydrogen fuel cells, direct hydrogen injection, or even this “water-based” engine) can ever compete with either EVs or ICE vehicles remains to be seen.
Much has been written about the downsides of offshore and onshore wind turbines, from noise pollution to the major problem of disposing of used turbine blades. But nothing has shaken the determination of the Biden Administration – and the wind industry – to continue to subsidize and fast-track their permitting despite rising opposition. One might ask why. Odd, is it not, that the same administration that has blocked multiple onshore mining permits, revoked oil and gas leases, and demanded protection for not-so-endangered species is so bent on wind energy projects that it is willing for the right whale to join the passenger pigeon in extinction?With neither profit nor environmental protection as legitimate rationales, one has to wonder about the true motives for pushing offshore wind.
Prabowo is urging a ceasefire in Gaza today, for the same reasons he has urged a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine for nearly a year. These wars must stop, "because innocent civilians are paying with their lives; because lives and livelihoods are being destroyed; because wars of this magnitude impact not just the countries and people involved but can spread and engulf entire regions and continents."But Prabowo went further, and in this there can be hope."As a Muslim, as an Indonesian," he said, "I believe in peace and coexistence, in moderation and harmony."These values are in the DNA of our nation and our people. And to us, they are just as relevant when those suffering are Europeans as they are when the victims are Asians or Africans, when they are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish."
n the world of high-stakes investment, the debacle involving Tomales Bay Capital (TBC), under the helm of Iqbaljit Kahlon, and its ill-fated SpaceX investment deal with Shanghai-based Leo Group, represents more than just a missed opportunity -- it's a clarion call for a reevaluation of ethical investing and the need for transparency within the venture capital sphere. As the legal confrontation with Leo Group unfolds, revealing potential stonewalling tactics and a lack of transparency from TBC, the spotlight on the Tomales Bay Capital Global Growth Fund I amplifies critical questions about ethical investment management practices.This situation not only underscores the importance of adhering to established fiduciary standards but also serves as a pivotal moment for introspection and reform within the venture capital industry -- to prioritize investor protection and foster trust in an increasingly complex and globalized investment landscape.
Today, thanks to the Netflix release of a 2022 movie based on Stephen Camelio’s screenplay, “Mending the Line,” America is learning that fly fishing can play an important role in the physical and emotional healing of disabled veterans – true social change.Upon its streaming release last month, “Mending the Line” was Netflix’ most watched movie. It has also become a major recruiting tool for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc. (PHW), which helps disabled veterans cope with physical and emotional damage and builds camaraderie many had lost when they left the military.Retired Navy Captain Ed Nicholson had no idea that the idea he birthed while recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2005 would grow to serve 65,000 veterans just since 2012, including women vets who have just formed a PHW offshoot called Women on the Fly.
While nuclear energy has accounted for about 20% of the electricity generated in the U.S., and in 2023 supplied nearly half the nation’s carbon-free electricity, a new report from the Government Accountability Office says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must more fully consider possible impacts of climate change on the nation’s mostly aging nuclear power plants. Dichotomous messages from the DOE and NRC are highlighted in a recent article by ThorCon International co-founder Robert Hargraves, who bluntly stated that the U.S. is not building commercial nuclear power plants – while 16 other nations are – “because NRC and EPA regulators are so misinformed about radiation.”
The energy-poor nation of Ethiopia has just become the first in the world to ban the import of all non-electric automobiles. This despite the fact that barely half of Ethiopian citizens have any access to electricity. Other sources say that number may be as low as 30 percent. And wouldn’t you know it? Clean Technica reports that the primary beneficiaries of these changes are Chinese automakers! Made-in-China new and low-mileage used vehicles are “selling quite well” in Addis Ababa, though there are also Toyotas and other models. Who, though, is buying and driving these low-cost (but not by Ethiopian standards) Chinese EVs? Not very many Ethiopians, for whom even a $25,000 EV costs 20 times the GDP per capita. The much more likely suspects are the 30,000 Chinese who run much of the nation. Curiously, there are almost no public charging stations, suggesting that EV owners charge their vehicles in private, secure garages.
Remember the American love for the open road? That paean to American freedom built on the automobile, but made possible by highways that also enabled trucks to deliver goods to just about any location quickly and safely? And then came the Progressives to spoil all the fun.First, they hopped on the “climate emergency” bandwagon to justify massive subsidies for “clean” vehicles to “save the planet,” emphasizing no tailpipe emissions while ignoring the darker realities of cobalt and lithium mining, Chinese labor camps, or the cost of an entirely new infrastructure the private sector was not about to underwrite. ansportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, announcing the new rules, boasted that, “We estimate that today’s rule will prevent 5.5 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide from going into our atmosphere between now and 2050.” Citing the tougher mileage standards, Papa Pete also claimed that the new rules will "save a typical American household hundreds of dollars.”
In the Foreword to Magatte Wade’s book, The Heart of a Cheetah, the late Ghanaian economist George Ayittey wrote that the hope for a prosperous African future requires that young Africans take the “Cheetah pledge” – to seek their wealth in the private sector, shunning government service.After decades of frustration despite creating successful African-based businesses, Wade has learned that African Cheetahs must overcome the world’s most laborious and most corrupt regulatory bureaucracies. In far too many African nations, those in power benefit from the status quo, as it gives them near-total authority to decide who can make a profit, usually for a price.
When long-time friends Kelvin “PJKev” Mensah and Aaron Wilson decided to turn their love for private jet travel into a new business, they had already established what was once described as a "stellar track record as entrepreneurs working with premiere startup organizations and influencers". Wilson and Mensah, who in early 2020 co-authored the widely praised 'How To Get Funding for Your Startup', around the same time launched Approved Jets, which began as a private aviation brokerage but has since morphed into a one-stop luxury travel booking destination. The dynamic duo generated first-year revenues in the millions of dollars – and both today believe they have just gotten started.
Here’s an unspoken truth. While it is true that governments have subsidized the rich who buy electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines, and other products, their motives are far from the altruistic myth they spread across even kindergarten classrooms. They are rubbing our faces in the mud, saying, “Gimme your lunch money, or you will be sorry!” And they are not ashamed, even when their pet policies create great harm to their “subjects.” The massive wealth transfers to largely unregulated tech giants, the Big Three hedge funds (Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard), and well-protected Big Pharma reveal just how much influence government has today over who wins and loses — and how the rich skew the game to their own advantage. At the same time, leaders have brought the entire world to the brink of nuclear war. A reckoning is coming.
As is the case for the United States and many other nations, 2024 is a presidential election year in Ghana, a nation whose 1992 constitution is in large part based on the British and U.S. constitution models, notably in guaranteeing fundamental human rights and freedoms.But Ghanaians, many of whom are eager for new leadership for a nation that ought to be an African prosperity and human rights leader, are bewildered by the actions by Ghanaian officials to suppress an emerging political bloc intent on changing Ghana’s future for the better.
Leave it to Joe Biden. When the 80-year-old plutocrat John Forbes Kerry steps down as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC), he chose 75-year-old John David Podesta, Jr., to finish out the year. The two climate czars could not have come from more different beginnings. For his self-important mission to “save the planet,” Kerry has been called a “climate clown” on social media and “the Forrest Gump of Climate” by Bloomberg Media. Ever the aloof Eurocentric diplomat, Kerry never lets anyone forget how important he is. Podesta, from much more humble roots, prefers to work behind the scenes, often in a supporting role. It was clearly past time for Kerry to go. The day before he “retired,” Kerry spoke at a press conference and raised eyebrows and temperatures when he blurted out that people might “feel better” about the Russian government if Russia would just commit to fighting climate change as hard as he has done.
Twenty years ago the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis posed the question whether the social benefits of light rail outweigh its costs. The essay assumed that transit must be publicly owned and regulated – yet the very history of the trolley shows that as soon as government took control, once-profitable vehicles became a huge liability.The most shocking revelations in the Fed’s essay were that fare revenue covered so little of the operating cost (let alone maintenance, expansion finance, or other things real businesses must find answers for): St. Louis 28.2 percent; Buffalo, 21.4 percent; Baltimore (19.4 percent). The Fed’s conclusion? No privately owned system could ever be built or operated with such a dismal balance sheet.The Fed made two errors. First, not calculating whether the public investment would stimulate the local economy enough to justify the cost. Second, not comparing the cost of allowing private entities to bid for individual routes.Throwing public dollars at public transportation has long been popular among city mayors and increasingly with the federal government. It’s other people’s money, but you get the photo ops.
Even more than SMRs, microreactors are fast becoming the rage among those seeking to decarbonize energy generation. Microreactor designs allow them to operate as part of the electric grid, independently of the grid, or as part of a microgrid to generate up to 20 megawatts thermal energy for both electricity generation and heat for industrial applications. In sum, as development of microreactors continues, the primary hurdle may not be on the manufacturing end. Adapting the nuclear regulatory framework to accommodate microreactors, perhaps with a general permit structure, could be the key to revolutionizing electricity generation for industry, remote communities, and other applications without straining the electric grid or building massive new transmission infrastructure.
Much as with the space program, the federal government has spent huge sums subsidizing the construction and purchase of electric vehicles, including 18-wheelers, airplanes, and tanks. All of this has been driven, ostensibly, by the perceived threat posed by the plant food carbon dioxide. Much as with the Edsel, the electric vehicles that European, American, and other Western governments have been subsidizing are “the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time.” As Mark Knopfler’s Romeo said to Juliet, “the timing was all wrong,” perhaps the only real flaw with the current EV mandates is that the supply chain – especially in the West – is just not ready for prime time.
Fear has led to the neglect and downplaying of important, even urgent, human concerns and allowed the elites to begin restructuring world society to accommodate their belief (or tool for control) that carbon dioxide is an evil that must be eradicated. The carbon conundrum has even confabulated the field of geopolitics and turned allies into enemies and vice versa. Europeans are now questioning UN, EU, and WEF mandates that would force them into buying expensive heat pumps, electric vehicles, and other inconveniences while adapting to routine blackouts and brownouts resulting from the shuttering of reliable sources of energy. They also see how their leaders’ policies are benefiting the Chinese, whose own cheaper electric vehicles (made with slave labor) are flooding markets. Isn’t it time for people everywhere to demand answers to the serious questions about the real-world costs of imposing the “renewables” agenda be laid out in full?
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) city of Dubai has placed its bid to be the crypto capital of the world. The cosmopolitan city, which is hosting four separate crypto events in April alone this year, created the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) to oversee the development of its virtual asset business environment in terms of regulation, licensing, and governance.But it appears the UAE and Dubai are facing strong competition from The Bahamas and Nassau, which in 2020 created its own Digital Asset Registered Exchanges (DARE) legislation, then bolstered that legislation in 2023 in the wake of the FTX scandal.Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis, while opening up the 2022 Crypto Bahamas conference in Nassau stated that, "We have the vision to transform the Bahamas into the leading digital asset hub in the Caribbean."
When auto (even EV driving) enthusiast Rowan Atkinson – Mr. Bean to his fans – last June wrote in The Guardian that there are “sound environmental reasons” why “keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV,” he was vilified as a eco-traitor.Atkinson had added, “We’re realizing that a wider range of options need to be explored if we’re going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created.” These include, he said, hydrogen fuel cells and synthetic fuels that would extend the lives of older vehicles long after governments are demanding they be scrapped.
Although the West is preoccupied with the European Parliament elections in June and the U.S. presidential elections in November, another significant election will be occurring later this month, when Indonesians go to the polls on February 14. In the political arena, Prabowo Subianto emerges as a figure of seasoned statesmanship, having adeptly softened his domestic image while simultaneously asserting a commanding presence on the global stage. As the incumbent Defense Minister, his tenure has been marked by the forging of pivotal agreements, showcasing his diplomatic acumen. In contrast, Ganjar Pranowo offers a fresh, media-savvy persona, appealing to the populace with his approachable style and populist rhetoric. However, his track record reveals a shortfall in executing significant initiatives and in articulating a vision that resonates with the aspirations of the world’s fourth-largest populace. Anies Baswedan, on the other hand, stands as a polarizing contender, championing an anti-establishment message that finds resonance among conservative Muslim factions, yet his policy proposals have faced scrutiny for their lack of depth and tangible outcomes.Among these contenders, Prabowo is positioned as the frontrunner, embodying Indonesia’s most promising pathway to realizing its aspirations on both a domestic and international stage.
Elections for the European Parliament will be held in June, and big changes appear on the horizon. The Green parties, who won big in 2019 and pushed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to present an ambitious climate agenda, are in decline. Led by disgruntled (and targeted) farmers, voters in at least 18 of the EU’s 27 member nations are expected to express disapproval of EU policies at the ballot box. What if, said Professor Simon Hix, an author of the ECFR report, this “backdrop” of stirring populism is fueled by the return of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November? “Parties of the political mainstream need to wake up and take clear stock of voter demands,” he said. Hix added, “They should make clear, on key issues relating to democracy and the rule of law, that it is they, and not those on the political fringes, who are best placed to protect fundamental European rights.” That’s a funny way of describing opposition to climate alarmist legislation and to policies the people by their vote have determined are not in their interest.
The Biden Administration’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget included a new proposal for the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax with a goal of taking 30 percent of the cost of electricity used in cryptocurrency mining for the federal treasury. While the proposal failed to win support last year, it remains a goal of the Biden Administration.But a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute urges the White House to “Don’t Depower Crypto.” The report concludes that the DAME tax would do more harm than good, stifling innovation and consumer well-being. And, given the rapid pace of change in the fledgling industry, the tax would make almost no real-world sense.
Although much of the 2024 electoral focus in the West will be on the U.S. presidential elections in November, another significant election will be occurring in February --- when Indonesians go to the polls on Valentine’s Day. The Presidential contest has come down to a three-horse race between former General and current Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, and academic and former governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan.One of the latest polls conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at the end of December put Prabowo in a commanding lead. One of the latest polls on the race, in January, reported Prabowo's lead standing at 56%.
“For cryptocurrencies,” says Forbes staff writer Maria Gracia Santilana Linares, “2023 was neither the best nor the worst of times.” On the one hand, the overall crypto market, which fell hard in 2022 after reaching $3 trillion in 2021, rebounded to $1.7 trillion. On the other hand, the industry “found itself in the crosshairs” of regulators, led by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and lawmakers.For all those, and other, reasons, many in the crypto universe are looking for a brand-new start in 2024, including the SEC. Noting that Blackrock recently adjusted its bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) application to allow JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs access and the recent allowance of ETF trading as authorized by the SEC, Eric Swartz, who heads up the Web3 practice at the Sterlington law firm, says he is “super excited” about crypto’s future.
It is high time for the U.S. nuclear energy industry to revive, regardless of whether the planet is marching towards a carbon-neutral energy future. In France, whose nuclear reactors that today supply about two-thirds of that nation’s energy are decades old, President Macron’s government has proposed an energy bill that calls for constructing six to 14 new nuclear reactors. The reason? To ensure “energy sovereignty.” The era of micro SMRs and SMRs in general is just beginning. Yet, the regulatory framework available for bringing these innovative solutions to the energy crisis to market is irrational and unsuitable – it is overkill that impedes the energy transition.
The anti-carbon crowd’s newest villain is Castor canadensis, otherwise known as the North American beaver. This methane producer, we are told, must be stopped from destroying Alaska. And, we are told, “beavers are on the move in northern Canada, too.” Imagine if Russia began reintroducing European beavers (Castor fiber) to Siberia! [Oops! They are.] What is the beavers’ crime? The ecofreaks tell us they are causing MORE climate change simply by building dams in areas formerly too bleak for occupation. But hold on a minute. Even these Arctic researchers admit that the “humble beaver” is a highly skilled “environmental engineer” who, in the face of increasing wildfires and droughts, is an ally in the “fight against climate change.” As environmental science professor Emily Fairfax explains, “They build these dams, which slow the water down, they dig canals that spread the water out, and ultimately they just give it time to sink into the earth like a big old sponge.”
In his first week in office, President Biden announced his goal of electrifying the entire 600,000-vehicle federal fleet of civilian vehicles, to be “made right here in America.” He pledged, “I’m going to start the process where every vehicle in the U.S. military is going to be climate friendly.” Biden’s dream of an all-electric vehicle fleet is further compounded by an April 2023 Gallup Poll that showed only 12% of American auto buyers (and just 1% of GOP voters) were “seriously considering” purchasing an EV. In the U.S., 2024 will mark a major turning point. Those who still prefer their gas appliances, gasoline-powered vehicles, rare steaks, and innumerable other benefits of modern society need to recognize that this may be the last time they have a chance to keep those choices available in the future.
The horde has left Dubai, many in their private jets. Next stop in the champagne and caviar COPcon is Baku, Azerbaijan, which, at 92 feet below sea level, seems an appropriate place to bury Net Zero. The award came on the heels of an historic agreement between Azerbaijan and next-door Armenia, which both nations hope will bring peace to intertwined peoples with a long history of deadly strife. The UN admits that developing countries would need nearly six trillion dollars over the next few years to give up fossil fuels and try to power entire nations on intermittent energy sources – all of which would depend on either debt to mostly European banks or heavy strings attached to government-to-government loans or grants. Yet prior promises of $100 billion have yet to materialize. Allison Pearson chastises the eco-religionists who ‘claim that they alone are on the right side of humanity” despite the fact that their project to “save the planet” spells a “painful reduction in comfort and joy for millions” (I would say billions). Pearson chides the fearmongers who predict a “climate catastrophe” without Net Zero for ignoring the elephant in the room – that we are “certain to have an economic and societal catastrophe if we persist in trying to reach that goal by 2050. Humanity cannot bear it.”
China, Russia, India, and the United States all came to President Ramaphosa in Johannesburg, each with different, perhaps irreconcilable, goals – and pitfalls for the host nation which has a vested interest in staying in both camps. As noted by the nonpartisan Wilson Center, there is an ongoing debate in the U.S. over South Africa’s compliance with the eligibility criteria for preferential trade benefits under AGOA, one that revolves around two sets of concerns – barriers to U.S. trade and actions that undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Could a U.S. move to deprive South Africa of AGOA’s benefits foster a further downward spiral in the South African economy? Does the U.S. want to risk further destabilization of the largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa and a major U.S. trading partner?
For decades, the masses have been in the dark about the identities of the puppet masters [dark money] pulling the strings of their acolytes “chosen” to run the world’s powerful institutions. People thought, with much instruction from “official” channels, that public office holders themselves were in charge. The problem with most public protests, says Seamus Bruner in his blockbuster book, Controligarchs, is that the real targets – the puppet masters – have long been hidden, not even recognized by a public that is fed, from the right and the left, to focus on celebrities (effectively, the sales reps and public faces of the “controligarchs”). With artificial intelligence aiding in the creation of a “superhuman” class, the bulk of humanity lacking such access becomes “useless,” says Harari. The tough decision, then, is “what to do with all these useless people.”
It was like 1938 all over again. On their way to sunny Dubai, the private jets of the scam artists pretending to care about planetary warming while not so secretly plotting to obliterate the freedoms of billions of world citizens were frozen on the glaciated runways. The planet had to be laughing. It seems the Earth knows it is being used as the fall guy for their evil deceit. Just to prove a point – that they are NOT in charge – Mama Gaia threw down the heaviest snowfall in Munich’s memory to show them who’s really boss. Maybe she has finally grown weary of the luxury liner class who disguise their schemes for world domination with scary scenarios implying that they can “save the planet” if we just give them more power to diminish our lives.
If only there were a cryptocurrency backed by legitimate assets – a cryptocurrency that had the same type of backing as a bank, but with a lot more flexibility.Then you learn there is such a currency – and that it is structured democratically such that individual holders of this currency can choose to help you fund your project; that it is not just the board of directors who decides your fate.Not long ago, such a currency was a dream, but today, that dream has come true, thanks, in part, to a group of investors who pooled some of their assets to roll out the Unicoin two years ago.By 2025, over $525 million worth of Unicoins will have been sold, according to the company website. Now, others appear to be copying the template to create additional asset-backed cryptocurrencies.
Emerging technologies like global positioning satellites, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence hold immense value for commercial and defense applications. When these technologies are developed for dual use, they can help our country stay competitive – and protect our own national security in the process.Dual-use tech can create jobs, keep our country competitive, and let Americans live more comfortably. Meanwhile, those same emerging technologies and capabilities can help people survive on the frontlines and thwart cyber attacks.
Growing resistance to the dystopian visions of the global elites may truly mean that COP 28 is their “Custer’s last stand” against the “barbarians” who (in their eyes) are unwilling to submit to a Panem-style society in which elites get richer and everyone else gets poorer. Rumblings against zero-emission vehicle mandates, expressed by drivers and automakers, have prompted serious challenges to the globalist demand for decarbonization (humans are “carbon units” – Soylent green was people) in the oddest places. The entire [COP 28] event appears to focus on how the elites can maintain total control over the world’s wealth, its people, and the planet’s natural resources. They claim they are “saving the Earth”, but their true goal requires sacrificing its people not to “save the Earth” (which, as an inanimate object, hardly needs “saving”) but to protect their wealth and power. Trouble is, people from Argentina to Amsterdam are figuring this out – and they are mad. And they are getting organized. The time is near for a showdown at the COP 28 corral – and for a final reckoning on whether the elites – or the people – will win this war.
The U.S. Congress is currently embroiled in discussions of allegations of money laundering by high government officials and their family members. Yet, even if the wildest accusations being tossed around are true, they would pale in comparison to the shenanigans of two prominent Lebanese bankers – both now under multiple indictments for money laundering to aid Hezbollah’s extra-legal activities. Despite promises by SGBL CEO Antoun Sehnaoui, U.S. Treasury official Daniel Glaser wondered whether the Bank of Lebanon (BDL) and its CEO, Riad Salameh, might use the acquisition of LCB “as a launching pad” for a new round of Hezbollah-linked money laundering. Glaser, it now appears, was right to worry. Salameh and Sehnaoui, both facing ruin, are the likely chief culprits in what may become a “high-tech lynching” of a prominent Lebanese anti-corruption campaigner.
Radical interest in the Green movement grew quickly as the battle shifted from “criteria pollutants” to “decarbonization,” which they rightly saw as an engine for weakening Western civilization. Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have their roots in New Left Marxism. Even Greta Thunberg voices tacit support for Hamas.Campus radicals shifted from “free speech” to banning speech that challenged their growing power. Their blatant hatred of their “enemies” is a far cry from the energy that drove the civil rights movement. The New Left scoffed at Dr. King’s, mantra, “Hate cannot drive out hate – only love can do that.”
Like the biblical “voice crying in the wilderness,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner this week left Green Party activists and others enamored by the green religion gnashing their teeth. “Until it is clear,” said Lindner, “that energy is available and affordable, we should end dreams of phasing out electricity from coal in 2030. Now is not the time to shut down power plants.”
The modern American version of “the environmental emperor has no clothes” until now has been the rise and fall of Enron. As former Ken Lay speechwriter Robert Bradley, Jr., says, “(T)he cause of Enron’s financial bankruptcy were at root philosophical…. Enron’s leaders were certainly engaged in massive philosophical fraud – an attempt to cheat reality itself.” Like Ken Lay with Enron, the Green revolution has relied heavily on government subsidies and a “revolution always” business philosophy aimed at making pariahs of anyone who dares oppose the grandiose – but fatally flawed – plan.
Martin Scorsese’s newest blockbuster, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is based on David Grann’s nonfiction book, tells the story of how Oklahoma cattle baron William King Hale and his nephews Bryon and Ernest Burkhart, outwardly pretended to be friends and benefactors of the oil-rich Osage Nation community while under cover of night and masks robbed and murdered (or tried to murder) their own wives. While charity watchdog organizations say no more than 35% of donations should go to fundraising costs, charities with high-sounding names (cancer foundations, firefighters and police associations, veterans’ organizations, and “children’s” charities) turn out to just be shills for their principals to rake in sizable salaries on the backs of the truly charitable. The truly worst paid over 90% of collections to solicitors, and two-thirds paid at least 70%.
BCCI had tried to obscure the source of laundered monies by rapidly shuffling ill-gotten cash through “a kaleidoscope array of banks and shell corporations” before returning the “cleaned” cash to narco kingpins, including Panama’s General Manuel Noriega and Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi (uncle of the slain Jamal Khashoggi). What is transpiring now may become for SGBL and BDL the equivalent of what happened to BCCI three decades ago. In January, the U.S. Treasury placed sanctions on Lebanese money exchanger Hassan Moukalled and his company CTEX for conducting financial transactions to benefit Hezbollah at the expense of the Lebanese people and economy and pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself.
Real estate can be a very lucrative career, but there are many risks beyond the agent’s control, including price and interest rate fluctuations, credit availability, liability and other legal matters. Most agents are independent contractors whose income is strictly based on commissions from the sale, purchase, or rental of houses, offices, and other property. The first big idea on which Elwell and Co-Founder and president President Daniel Kennedy founded RLTY Capital was buying a portion of agents’ commissions when the contract is signed. This solved the pain point of agents having to wait weeks or even months until the closing. This singular decision opened the door for the kind of 2023-era dialogue with agents that is bringing about major changes in the broker-agent relationship.
When Joe Biden wanted to cut a deal with Iran to secure the release of five Americans being held hostage, his negotiators turned to their “best friend” in the Middle East – Qatar. Qatar, which just last year hosted European football’s World Cup, has over the past decade become, as one reporter put it, “indispensable as a geopolitical fixer.” According to Fiona McDonald, “The U.S. privately acknowledges that it doesn’t do anything in the Gulf without Qatar.” To back up her claim, she cites Ayham Kamel, who oversees the Middle East and Africa for the political risk consultant Eurasia Group, who said, “Few other regional parties have the depth of the relationship to move the needle on this [hostages] issue.”
Green goals, it turns out, have fueled the fires of war and left the West awkwardly needing fossil fuel energy more than ever while publicly declaring fossil fuel energy as the greatest threat to humanity, dwarfing even an increasingly likely nuclear holocaust. But then again, those who claim that fossil fuels inspired an artificial prosperity built on slowly destroying the planet may prefer a post-nuclear world without electricity and without the great majority of Earth’s current population.
As Hezbollah-backed protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in support of Hamas, Americans may not realize these two terrorist organizations (not acknowledged by the United Nations, which lavishes millions on them) have received hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. financial aid in the last three years alone. The sins of Hezbollah and its coterie of Lebanese bankers – including Bank of Lebanon governor Riad Salameh and Antoun Sehnaoui, chief executive of Société Générale Bank of Lebanon (SGBL) – have recently been exposed in courtrooms in both Lebanon and the United States. Hamas was established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood among others in 1987 and shortly afterwards, asserted its own intention to wage a never-ending holy war against Israel. A 2005 report by the Washington Institute chronicles Iran’s financing of Hezbollah’s campaign of terror and Hezbollah’s widespread criminal operations. Even two decades ago, Iran was providing up to $200 million a year in cash and weaponry.Iran also funds Hezbollah through purportedly private charities and front organizations. Notably, the widely banned al-Aqsa International Foundation has funnelled millions of dollars and weapons to Hamas, al Qaeda, and Hezbollah.
And then there is the high profile case of capitalizing upon stolen valor regarding Donato Tramuto, who claimed he “almost died” in the second plane to hit the Twin Towers but was saved by a toothache that led him to deboard from United Flight 175. Tramuto’s lie enabled him to create a foundation and raise millions of dollars – not for 9/11 victims (as many donors may have supposed) but to raise his profile as a philanthropist. Some of the donated funds went to Christ the King Seminary, which was shut down after its president, Father Joe Gatto, was accused of molesting children. But perhaps the biggest recipient of the Tramuto Foundation’s ill-gotten gains is the RFK Human Rights Foundation.
Modern-day Lebanon, though, is rife with corruption at the highest levels that includes funneling monies to terrorist organizations, notably Hezbollah. In recent years, attempts by both the Lebanese and American judicial systems to unmask the corruption within the nation’s banking industry have been met with stout opposition. In the civil suit filed in U.S. district court by the families of victims of Hezbollah terrorism, plaintiffs allege collusion with Hezbollah by SGBL, Middle East Africa Bank, BLOM Bank, Byblos Bank, Bank Audi, Bank of Beirut, Lebanon and Gulf Bank, Banque Libano- Française, Bank of Beirut and the Arab Countries, and Fenicia Bank.
The geopolitical tensions clouding today’s world make it easy to trigger alarm bells, especially in Washington. However, in the case of Hesai and its lidar systems, facts ought to triumph over sensationalism. Any damaging claims against Hesai, particularly those emanating from vested competitors like Ouster, warrant skepticism. Apart from generating an imbalanced competitive landscape, sidelining Hesai could have a more pernicious effect: delaying the advent of safer American roads.
One problem facing Indonesia’s logistics industry, stemming from its weak connectivity infrastructure, is the challenge of high costs. Djohan says that his nation’s logistics costs could reach as high as 23 percent of GDP, while Thailand, China, and Malaysia have logistics costs no higher than 15 percent of GDP. Logistics costs in Japan and Taiwan, by contrast, are under 10 percent of GDP. The biggest challenge to continued improvements, therefore, lies with modernizing operations by Indonesian-owned private companies, many of which lag far behind. One problem is that local trucking companies, many still manually recording delivery logs, typically lack the technology and skills – and money – to digitize their processes.
Mann’s thesis seems to be that an army of activists who condemn the Industrial Revolution can defeat the desires of Chinese, Russian, Indian, and pan-African people who want the benefits from using fossil fuels and create a utopian world powered solely by renewable energy. This thesis is as phony as a Biden dollar, for far too many reasons to list in a brief column. While his European counterparts stray from dogma, Biden--like a Moses held up on each side by John Kerry and Al Gore--is standing firm. But despite the posturing, even a diminished Biden ought to know the climate war is over. China won.
It will take great courage to stand up to teacher unions, indoctrinated children, the deplatforming media, the Justice Department, and hate speech from on high to demand an end to the climate hysteria that elitists use to scare people into accepting a massive decline in their prosperity. But that is the battle – more than immigration, funding foreign wars, or even “structural racism” – that ought to be the dividing line in 2024. Like 2020’s vaccine mandates, EV mandates force tremendous losses of personal freedom. And our children are being taught that freedom – speaking out against government and the ruling class – is a bad thing. But so is darkness.
According to British academic Matthew Hedges, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened its friendship with the Russian Federation since Russia invaded Ukraine. A fact that taken together with the UAE joining the BRICS alliance, may prove to be a major test of the strength of the West to maintain hegemony over the world order. The chief question now for both sides is whether the UAE will stop acting as a gateway for Russian access to sanctioned dual-use goods. In a war whose victors may well be determined by which side’s new technologies are most effective and not compromised, it is critical to the West that Russia not gain access to weapons through illegal third-nation technology transfers.
The Biden Administration’s love of mandates – forcing people to comply whether they want to or not – extends to automobiles and fuels. In his first year of office, President Biden issued an executive order that included a goal of “50 percent of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in 2030 be zero-emission vehicles.” The disconnect between Biden’s EV policy and the American public is playing havoc with U.S. automakers, who just two years ago “seemed to be in raptures” with Biden’s EV policy. As Biden announced his mandate, he warbled, “We’ve just got to step up – government, industry, labor working together. We have a playbook, and it’s going to work.”
Some Western nations appear to be waking up to the reality that they are being duped – that Net Zero is a fabrication of their own egos that other nations hardly take seriously. Just don’t count on the world’s two leading English-speaking nations, or the plutocrats in Paris, Geneva, and Davos, to follow suit. They still talk as if they still control the unfolding of world affairs. Yet the modern-day utopians in the U.S. and the UK still cling to the myth that emerging superpower nations like China, India, and Russia will bow before the World Economic Forum and United Nations grifters. Why have the U.S. and the UK backed away from fossil fuels even as other nations double down to upgrade their own economies with coal? One might believe that Western leaders just want to transfer their guilt for mismanaging their power by punishing the citizens who let them do it?
[E]ven as we memorialize genuine acts of heroism, we cannot ignore those who have capitalized on America’s collective grief. Among these are Donato Tramuto, and several others who have fraudulently asserted their involvement in the events of 9/11 to enhance their professional standing. In spite of leveraging a dubious 9/11 narrative to build a philanthropic empire and political cachet, Tramuto asks for Maine voters’ trust.
There seems to be a connection between Heads of State seeking to silence dissent and the threat, and reality, of war in the world today. War, after all, has been used for millennia to rally “the people” behind a distraction that keeps them from focusing on their loss of freedom. The sad reality is that, when the thirst for power and control cannot be quenched, it is the intimidated or indoctrinated masses who suffer the most. It was quite a shock, then, for the world to learn that Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti, who began his career organizing nonviolent protests against the Serbian regime and was later arrested by the Serbian police and put in prison, would resort to anti-democratic attacks on major media outlets in his own nation during the summer of 2023 – and would wage an anti-democratic campaign against Kosovo citizens of Serbian origin. The Putin doctrine of distraction, suppression and control, only recently festering publicly within nations like Serbia cannot be ignored by Washington. The problem facing the West however is that certain Western nations and nongovernmental organizations, too, have been infected with this “distract and control” disease of the paranoid.
What a paradox! The Scandinavian nations -- Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland – remain at the top of the World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index for 2023. Yet Sweden and Finland rely heavily on nuclear energy, and Norway is a significant producer of oil and gas. Norway’s geography makes hydro-a-affordable, so it hardly uses fossil fuels for electricity. Norway also leads the world in electric vehicles -79 percent of new registrations in 2022 were EVs - but has no intention of foregoing its primary source of export revenue. North Sea oil and gas will bring Norway $131 billion in revenues in 2023 alone. Swedes and Finns, while relying significantly on hydropower, are for now, firm believers in nuclear energy. Finland just fired up the first European nuclear plant in 15 years, and Sweden is on a path to double its own nuclear capacity. Only Denmark is backing away from fuels the World Economic Forum does not declare to be “renewable.”
On the same day that Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Hilary brought record rainfall to the Los Angeles area (nearly 6 inches to Lake Palmdale and 4.26 inches on the UCLA campus), a magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred in nearby Ojai. To the truly enlightened, these rare disasters should serve as a warning from on high that the Golden State is headed for a massive downfall – punishment for trying to force smog-fighting electric vehicles on smog-free America and the world. And rightfully so. After all, every hurricane, every heat wave, every forest fire, and every flood today anywhere in the world is blamed on climate change. Climate change even eats children’s homework! Yet the same humans who cannot stop the heat, the wind, the water, and the fire believe that they can control the climate through electrification.
Thirty-five years ago, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas wrote a book entitled, The Death of Ethics in America, citing (among many others) a 1987 Wall Street Journal headline, “Ethics can be nice, but they can be a handicap, some executives declare.” [I]t is arguable that only a society lacking in ethical standards could produce the recent FTX customer funds scandal; and worse, when charged with fraud and conspiracy, the CEO could honestly (yet naively) say, “I don’t think I tried to do anything wrong.” And yet despite perhaps veering off the ethical course our forefathers sought for us, in politics, academics, business and in life, on the horizon, there is optimism and tangible prospects for lasting change.
According to Lauren Fix, the Car Coach®, China is well on its way to becoming a world leader in climate policy and is quickly taking over the electric car industry – and thus (barring mandate reversals) the entire auto industry. Will Europe and the U.S. admit they have been snookered by the Chinese into an all-EV future in an effort to “save the planet”? Meanwhile, China mocks “net zero” as it builds more coal-fired power plants to power the manufacture of cheap Chinese EVs that can easily undercut every other nation’s auto industry. Can the West even come close to creating a China-free EV supply chain big enough to meet global demand before the Chinese capture the world market for themselves?
The higher costs for auto insurance only add to the already-higher costs of purchasing an EV, then procuring a personal charging station and spending more money to upgrade home wiring boxes (especially for older homes). The inconvenience of having your nearly new vehicle totaled – and then having to wait perhaps months for a replacement – further adds to the “buyer avoidance” that has frustrated those who demand an immediate end to the traditional gasoline-powered vehicles that most people around the world rely upon. As automakers continue to lose money on EVs and consumers worldwide continue to prefer the vehicles they have learned to trust over decades, will EV mandates fall by the wayside – or will elites again double down, believing that “resistance is futile”?
The primary reason for higher costs and longer development times is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which appears designed to thwart any new power plant development. Way back in 1992, the Reagan-appointed NRC chairman Kenneth Rogers boasted that his agency “had been pushed in the right direction [obstructing new nuclear reactors] because of the pleas and protests of nuclear watchdog groups.” A 2016 study by the Breakthrough Institute confirms this sobering fact. Senior author Jessica Lovering explains that, “The biggest thing we found is that there’s nothing intrinsic to nuclear that leads to cost escalations. It depends on what policies are in place, on the market dynamics. You get very different cases in different countries.”
A full year before the Biden Administration enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled his France 2030 green investment plan that commits 30 billion euros (about US$35 billion) to reducing carbon dioxide emissions while also revitalizing France’s industrial sector.This, on top of the 100-billion-euro allocation for pandemic recovery approved earlier, much of which was dedicated to developing green energy, is enhancing France’s reputation as a top destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). But the forgotten driver of the French renaissance is likely the nation’s generous research tax credit (CIR) system.The CIR is Europe’s most generous tax incentive in support of innovation, and the most generous of the 30 OECD countries with similar tax incentives, according to journalist Frederique Perrotin. More than 20,000 companies benefit from the R&D tax credit every year, saving about 7 billion euros in combined taxes. This, says Perrotin, makes France “the country with the highest relative weighting of all private research grants in relation to GDP.”
Kosovar journalist Adriatik Kelmendi expressed shock that this kind of censorship against the nation’s leading media outlet could occur in a democracy, done to intimidate “a people whose ideal to live freely has never been suppressed,” he stated on Klan Kosova’s website, in remarks translated from Albanian. The station, he said, “maintains a critical and watchdog approach toward various phenomena within the institutions of the government and society.”
The American south may see many hot days in summer, and, yes, the highest temperature on record was 134o F in Death Valley (in 1913), but countries like Qatar, Libya, Mali, and even Mexico are much hotter – and yet millions of people live in these nations. India, with over a billion people, has an average daily high temperature of 87.5o F. Does Lassman believe India is uninhabitable?
Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, on just one day (June 28), over 1,200 flights were canceled, and another 5,600 were delayed. Again, good news for the planet! Airplanes account for up to 3.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions – far more than gas stoves. And global CO2 emissions from international air travel more than doubled from 1990 to 2017. So, 1,200 flights canceled help the environment, we are told. There is an exception, though, as John Kerry once so clearly explained. For guys like him and his fellow Davos billionaires, a private jet is “the only choice for somebody like me.” And you can bet that Al Gore and his chums at Davos are not dining on insects as they rake in the cash from scaring the bejeezus out of our children and gullible adults.
The euphoria of EV zealots is rarely challenged directly by little things like facts – like the fact that the vast majority of people just do not want one. A recent Rasmussen survey found that 52% of American adults think EVs are not practical compared to just 25% who think otherwise; the rest are just not sure. Ten years ago, 19% favored EVs – that’s a 6% jump in a full decade. According to the 2022 Deloitte Global Automotive Study, more than two-thirds of Americans said their next vehicle will not have any kind of electrification, while only 5% saw their next vehicle as an EV; 17% would consider a hybrid car. In southeast Asia, China, and India majorities also had no desire for an EV.
The 2022 African Youth Survey, sponsored by the Ichikovitz Family Foundation, found that 78 percent of youth surveyed from 14 countries want to start their own businesses, and two-thirds believed their nation is in the process of creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. But that won’t happen unless national – and local – governments, lenders, and investors both inform eager, young would-be entrepreneurs of ways they can take advantage of this big change in economic potential. The AfCFTA is now five years old, but a huge majority of young Africans know little about how they can leverage the free trade agreement to their economic advantage, and fewer still have acquired the capital to take advantage. That’s not good enough.
A report issued last September by Human Rights Watch cited Russian media reports that over 3.4 million Ukrainians — including 555,000 children – had “entered” the Russian Federation from Ukraine. The humanitarian organization called these transfers “a serious violation of the laws of war that constitute war crimes and potential crimes against humanity. White Ribbon has been developing support programs for refugees who have suffered from domestic violence, with special emphases on workplace gender equality, early gender equality education for children, affordable and supportive housing, and female economic empowerment.
Despite the “thaw” in Europe, hardly any European politician is grappling with disparities in global temperature data or evidence of a growing (not shrinking) Antarctic ice shelf. Questioning “the science” – even if “the science” is partly pure speculation – is grounds for deplatforming across the European (and American) metaverse. Questioning the economics, therefore, is the only viable brake on the climate lemmings. The questions are now coming rapidly – but the absolutists refuse to budge. Will Europe follow the wisdom of Giorgia Meloni and the Norwegians – and belatedly, Emmanuel Macron? Or will the Barons of Brussels continue to push Europe over the edge?
New York state senator George Borrello (a Republican) introduced a bill that would require that the manufacture and distribution of electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar collectors, and infrastructure to upgrade the power grid be conducted using only wind and solar energy – no fossil fuels, not even nuclear energy, not in New York State. Borrello explained that, “We are being told that we must make an immediate change to wind and solar as we are polluting our state and planet. If that is true, there should be no fossil fuel energy used to create wind and solar technology.” After all, he said, “the [ongoing, extensive] environmental toll from coal-fired power, diesel fuel, and the mining of rare-earth metals … exists at cross-purposes with the stated goals of those advancing the climate agenda.”
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the lockdowns that even today are encouraging government workers in particular to stay home and work (if at all) remotely, the value of downtown office space in many U.S. cities has been a question in the minds of the U.S. and global investment communities. The result – for the ready large-scale investor – is the best buying opportunity in a very long time.
Is it any wonder, then, that some less famous people have also gone off the deep end? They are surely influenced by the hordes of jet-setters at the World Bank, European Union, United Nations, and other fat-cat institutions that decry “climate change” as a catastrophe or a crisis. Meanwhile, have you heard Greta Thunberg, Antifa, Extinction Rebellion, and other such groups condemn Gore, Kerry, and their ilk for their massive use of jet fuel and electricity? Have they blocked entrances to the IPCC meetings or other jet-fuel-guzzler events? “Eco-anxiety” – the chronic fear of environmental doom – is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic (and in many areas worldwide). Scientists at Imperial College London say eco-anxiety “risks exacerbating health and social inequalities between those more or less vulnerable to these psychological impacts.”
shisekedi has resurrected the careers of convicted war criminal Jean-Pierre Bemba and convicted embezzler Vital Kamerhe and sought to bar, through spurious legislation, likely main rival Moise Katumbi from running for the presidency. This latter move, which has been in the works since 2021, was recently again condemned by the Congolese Association for Access to Justice (ACAJ). This sinister campaign, which still awaits a final vote, specifically targets Katumbi, the popular former Governor of Katanga Province, who did not announce his candidacy for president until December 2022. The legislation would bar anyone without two Congolese parents from seeking the presidency, thereby excluding Katumbi, whose father was a Greek-born Jew of Sephardic descent.
The Beatles once sang, “All you need is love.” But will Kamala Harris’ professed LOVE for electric school buses – plus the $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies she announced last October – be enough to usher in the new paradise?Hmm. Let’s do the math. The $1 billion in rebates pledged is to help purchase 2,500 electric school buses in some 391 school districts around the nation. But there are in fact about 500,000 school buses transporting children to and from school, to and from ball games and other events, nearly every school day. By simple calculation, this suggests it will take a $200 billion investment just to replace existing school buses – which must be done, Kamala tells us, by the 2030 deadline or else CHILDREN WILL DIE.
The day is coming – and we hope soon – that the world public will realize that the Gorean Dream of prosperity through decarbonization is a fairy tale spun by deceivers who grow rich because we believe their deceptions. The wrath of the public can only be held in sway while they believe that their suffering – higher taxes, appliances becoming illegal, the cars they love no longer available, their paychecks shrinking in purchasing power, and on and on – is “necessary to save the planet.”
The Italian parliament, demonstrating confidence in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, this week formally backed her plan to reintroduce nuclear power plants into Italy’s energy mix, reversing the nation’s 1987 moratorium on nuclear power. Meanwhile, energy-starved Germany is feeling the pinch from shuttering all of its 17 nuclear power plants. The U.S. has closed 11 nuclear reactors since 2013, with another eight of the 94 remaining reactors scheduled for decommissioning by 2025. Although Presidents Trump and Biden have favored bolstering the U.S. nuclear energy portfolio, America’s bureaucrat-heavy regulatory jungle remains designed to drag out facility permitting and construction for decades. White House energy spokesman John Podesta said delays caused by the current permitting process “are pervasive at every level of government,” with the result that “we got so good at stopping projects we forgot how to build things in America.”
According to the World Health Organization, 31 million Europeans have no access to public sanitation and 48 million do not have piped water at home. At least 300,000 Europeans follow San Francisco’s practice of defecating openly – but in the countryside rather on public streets. But just as in the United States, water quality has taken a back seat to “climate change.” On another front, the European Commission has adopted a “Sustainable EU Food System,” an initiative that intends to set agricultural policies for European farmers from the top down – by bureaucrats most of whom have never plowed a field. The Czech-based Society for Animals commented that a mandatory sustainable food system framework must cover areas related to the environment, climate, water, air, soil, the impact on farmed animals for food – as well as trade, transport, economic instruments, and strict food import rules.No farmers need apply. Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Europe, the European Environmental Bureau reported in 2021 that over a fifth of all Europeans were at risk of falling into poverty or social exclusion because food is seen as a commodity and not a human right. Only bureaucrats can save Europe, they add. No farmers need be consulted.
The local elections in Albania take place in less than two weeks, and the Socialist Party of Albania has made an impressive move by allocating part of their campaign budget to plant trees in every city across the country, as part of their campaign. Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama has stated that his and his party’s aim is to seed the future for the generations to come, by leaving something good behind after these elections. Thus, the slogan “Only Forward. Never Backwards.”
Since 2015, Soltan’s persecution has been mainly due to his son’s activism. After his son Mohamed’s November 2015 testimony before the U.S. Congress, Soltan was beaten until he lost consciousness and his jaw and two front teeth were broken. More torture came after Mohamed took his father’s case to the European Parliament. Mohamed, too, had been arrested in Egypt in 2013 but was freed in May 2015 following intense negotiations in which he gave up his dual Egyptian citizenship. Egypt still claims the deal included keeping Salah Soltan in a U.S. prison for life, but that did not happen. Since regaining his freedom, Mohamed Soltan has increased his advocacy through The Freedom Initiative, which he founded as a vehicle for human rights and informing U.S. foreign policy. The Freedom Initiative has also documented continued mistreatment of the elder Soltan in Badr 1 prison – including multiple times in which he was beaten, denied medical care, and twice more lost consciousness.
Now that the American Dream has been turned into a nightmare in part by overspending that has led to the highest interest rates in the 21st Century, it is high time to admit that, as Melanie Mcdonagh writes in The Telegraph, the electric vehicle dream, too, “has turned into a nightmare.” Mcdonagh, who admits she does not drive, points out many problems, among them the horrific impact when a heavy, quiet-running electric vehicle hits an unsuspecting pedestrian or a cyclist. She also notes that some of these “vehicles” are collecting data on route history and road speed that governments (and corporations) can use for remote surveillance (and marketing gimmickry). Another problem is that the much heavier EVs could collapse bridges and force lengthy detours.
Cybersecurity expert Melvin Ejiogu says he founded VeeMost Technologies in 2002 after realizing that most of the key players in the industry at that time focused more on billing their customers and responding to current attacks than on building and managing a secure cyber environment to protect those customers over the long term. Ejiogu said he was motivated – despite a lack of capital at the time – to provide a variety of services to ensure the security of customer data rather than rely on gimmicks. His focus was on long-term maintenance protection rather than quick fixes over and over again.
Pandu Patria Sjahrir is one of Indonesia’s leading entrepreneurs. He serves as general chairman of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association. Yet the Boston-born entrepreneur is also leading the effort to increase his nation’s move towards green energy transition, as well as to develop its economic infrastructure. As managing partner at Indies Capital and founding partner of a leading venture capital firm that focuses heavily on early-stage tech startups, Sjahrir has helped raise over $1bn to support over 100 of them. These companies have gone on to generate more than US$60bn in shareholder value, create 100,000 new jobs, and usher in more than 200 new entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.
Imagine an energy future based on the decentralized distribution of solar energy in which energy producers and consumers can directly exchange energy without going through utilities or energy companies. That is the visionary goal of Romanian entrepreneur Radu Puchiu, co-founder of technology company Tinia Group. Puchiu says that, while it is increasingly easy and inexpensive to produce solar energy, it is much harder to share that energy efficiently, especially at the local level. The whole idea of the green revolution, he contends, does not fit with transporting solar energy over long distances. The challenge, then, is to produce and use solar energy at the individual and community level.
The once-Titanic environmental movement has is dead — crushed by the climate iceberg. The world has shifted from clean air and clean water to “clean” energy that is not clean at all. Real environmental concerns over renewable energy – damage to endangered right whales and bald eagles from wind turbines, water use and contamination and toxic waste from lithium and cobalt mining – are not even part of the conversation.The ill-fated voyage of the Titanic ended when it ran smack dab into a giant iceberg, 90 percent of which was below the surface. The worldwide push for electric vehicles, which has no greater cheerleaders than U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is like a killer iceberg with dirty little secrets hidden far under the surface by a compliant media.
The latest poll shows that 78 percent of Americans disapprove of the performance of the U.S Congress, while just 18 percent approve. Yet in the latest poll that matters, Congressional incumbents had a 98 percent win rate. The reason most offered is that, while people despise Congress, they are quite fond of “their” Congress member. Of course, in the entrenched Congress very few seats are even contestable, and party leaders support those whose votes can be counted on. The entire system is so corrupt that hardly anyone even knows what their representatives are voting on beyond the headlines. By contrast, while public support for wind power is high (77 percent according to a 2021 poll), huge numbers of people oppose individual wind farms that impact their daily lives. Opposition to onshore and offshore wind spans the political spectrum to include environmentalists, chambers of commerce, fishermen, Native American tribes, ferry operators, airport commissions, business groups, municipalities, and homeowners.
Just a month ago, Georgia Power announced that its Vogtle nuclear reactor Unit 3 had started a nuclear reaction inside the reactor – meaning that the nuclear fission process has begun splitting toms and generating heat. The DOE [has] admitted it takes 3 million solar panels or 400-plus wind turbines to produce the same power as a single 1-gigawatt reactor. With the four Vogtle units collectively generating nearly 5 gigawatts, replacing them would require 15 million solar panels or 2,000 wind turbines – just to provide a portion of the energy that Georgia needs. But solar panels and wind turbines last a maximum 20 years, while nuclear facilities have an 80-year lifespan. So the real number is 12 million solar panels, or 1,600 wind turbines, per gigawatt of nuclear energy. Nationwide, the nation’s 94 nuclear reactors collectively generate nearly 100 gigawatts of electricity. To replace all this energy over an 80-year lifespan, America would have to purchase 1.2 billion mostly Chinese-made solar panels or build 160,000 wind turbines.
‘Deepfake’ videos, fast becoming the rage, leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other technologies to, for example, superimpose the face of a real person onto the face of another to make it appear that the real person is saying or doing something they did not in fact do. The technology is so advanced that it can be quite difficult to tell whether it is “live … or Memorex.” However, deepfakes can be utilized with nefarious purposes in mind, such as using a celebrity personality to convince people to contribute to campaigns or make rash purchases; indeed, the unscrupulous are now using technology to distort business and politics.
What if you were able to tie crypto to underlying assets that have a relatively stable cash flow value? Is it possible today to connect tech-oriented real estate with crypto capital? Mitch DiRaimondo, whose father founded the west coast commercial real estate company Steelwave Inc., has been testing that market for the past few years. He started Steelwave Digital with the idea of moderating the craziness of the crypto world with the institutional governance of the commercial real estate world. Will the digital ecosystem supplant the current financial system? No, says DiRaimondo, “but we do think that it will augment the current system.” Digital currencies can create more frictionless transactional environments for trading interests in a wide variety of assets – not just hard assets. Moreover, it opens the door for a much broader global investor base.
It seems that, led by luxury carmakers, the future may be bright for the venerable internal combustion engine if new synthetic fuels technologies can produce an affordable replacement for gasoline and diesel fuels. The revolt had been brewing ever since Europe got a wakeup call with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that upset the Net Zero applecart and led even Germany to reopen coal-fired power plants.
The ongoing campaign by U.S.-based hedge fund Argentem Creek Partners to seize all assets of the Ukrainian GNT Group offers a vivid example of wrongdoing. GNT Group’s owners have struggled, in the wake of the pandemic and the Russian blockade of the Port of Odesa, to timely repay a $75 million loan negotiated by distressed asset investing funds.
Montenegro’s decades-long battle to escape Russian influence and join the free nations of the Western alliance is once again in jeopardy. On April 2, the nation will choose as president either a man who helped secure the nation’s independence and its NATO membership or a candidate endorsed by the same forces who prefer that Montenegrins live under Serbian hegemony – a position favored by the Russian bear. Though small in size and population, Montenegro’s alliance with NATO and its intention to join the European Union ensure NATO’s full control of the Adriatic Sea. This protects trade routes from the Italian cities of Trieste, Venice, and Padua and down through Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the north and Albania and Greece to the south. All but Bosnia-Herzegovina (which is aligned with NATO) are NATO members.
Sahir Berry, cofounder and CEO of the Nigeria-based financial services firm NowNow Digital Systems, says the key to his company’s success – and a critical component for hundreds of millions in the developing world who have until now lacked access to financial services – is the universality of the smartphone and the widespread acceptance in digital payment platforms.
In his new book A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with Natural Resources, Cameroonian attorney NJ Ayuk, founder and chairman of the African Energy Chamber, lays out the blueprint for bringing that hopeful vision to reality. Ayuk, an avoked capitalist, found great wisdom in a statement that Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin applied to Communism: “Industry cannot be developed without electrification” of the whole continent. Fortunately, Ayuk added, Africa is endowed with an abundance of energy sources that can and must be developed to the greatest extent – by Africans. Ayuk sums up his proposal for creating an African Century this way. Start with gas in order to quickly beef up African electricity production – the key to just about everything. Explore options for developing all energy resources. Use oil domestically in the manufacture of petrochemicals, lubricants, plastics, and other products. Phase in renewables, which admittedly do not yield as much energy today for the money as fossil fuels; and use energy growth – electricity – to support agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, and other sectors that can create jobs and expand the economy. Seize every opportunity to acquire new technologies and skills along the way, and work with partners who can help train Africans to use them.
The key chapter (4) in noted author and Renaissance Man Vaclav Smil’s newest book, How the World Really Works, is subtitled, “The four pillars of modern civilization.” To the uninitiated, this means cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia. Smil continues, stating that, “a poor understanding of energy has the proponents of a new green world naively calling for a near-instant shift” from fossil fuels to green, solar energy. They lack any comprehension of energy density, which is highest by far in liquid hydrocarbons. The idea of decarbonizing society also ignores the manifold petroleum byproducts – including asphalt and plastics — and made affordable by the production of gasoline, kerosene, and other fuels.Smil then warns that total reliance on intermittent wind and solar energy will require mass-scale, weeks-long electricity storage and/or extensive (low-loss) energy grids of high-voltage lines to transmit electricity across time zones from rural to urban areas.Almost mockingly, Smil asks if renewables can actually supplant the energy now received from fossil fuels as well as the energy now supplied by liquid fuels to vehicles, ships, and airplanes – especially within the very short mandated timeframes?
At the 15th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), hosted by Heartland Institute, Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks revealed how globalist U.S and world leaders, government scientists and bureaucrats, and media are quickly implementing policies that reflect the “Cultural Revolution” horribly implemented by China’s Chairman Mao. According to Oaks, the globalist community, enamored by the total control the Chinese Communist Party exhibits over its populace, is using Maoist tactics to undo the “inalienable rights” of life, liberty, and property born from the Magna Carta that are the hallmark of the American “experiment” that has brought the vision of freedom to billions worldwide. Like Mao, Deng, and Xi, these globalists favor an atheistic, amoral power structure to which all humanity must bow in worship.
Just last week Austrian humanities professor Ralph Schoellhammer blasted German energy research as being tainted by adherence to a green agenda. Schoellhammer said that, as with many other Western nations, the German focus on energy transition had blinded them to the serious risk of a shortage due to deteriorating geopolitical circumstances. A decade ago the German government announced it would shutter all of its nuclear power plants by 2022. Reinforcing that decision, Robert Habeck, Germany’s minister for the economy, last summer outrageously claimed that nuclear power could not help offset reduced gas supplies. Habeck then decided, based on claims by contracted think tanks that any disruptions to the agenda would cost the Germany economy a trillion dollars through 2050, to push ever harder for a quick energy transition. Germany had already joined dozens of nations pledging to stop using coal by 2028 in keeping with commitments to strive for Net Zero.
In the aftermath of Turkey’s devastating earthquake, 78 people have been arrested — not necessarily as scapegoats of the tragedy but because they are accused of “sharing provocative posts” on social media. Twenty have been placed in pretrial detention, and hundreds of others face legal proceedings. These arrests, in combination with the Turkish government’s outrageous blocking and throttling of social media access right at the peak of the response effort, have drawn renewed attention to the country’s draconian and restrictive social media law, which lawmakers passed last fall.
The 15th International Conference on Climate Change had as a major focus how the climate catastrophists used the COVID pandemic as a template for ratcheting up the so-called “great reset” to grow the role of government. Key speakers included Climate Depot founder Marc Morano and Fossil Future author Alex Epstein on Friday and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) on Saturday (more on the Saturday messages in a follow-up article). The conference also included numerous breakout sessions on topics ranging from global temperature to the green assault on agriculture to government overreach to the green agenda’s impact on people. All plenary and breakout sessions can be found at www.climateconference.heartland.org.
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