newenergytimes | Omar A. Hurricane, chief scientist for the inertial confinement fusion program at the NIF lab, explained the facts to New Energy Times:
The total laser energy delivered to the
target was 2.05 MJ and the total fusion yield was 3.15 MJ of energy. The
laser pulse duration was about 9 nanoseconds long. The duration of the
fusion reaction was 90 picoseconds long. Very short time-scales,
obviously, which are the nature of inertial fusion systems.
Practically speaking, the result is irrelevant. The NIF device did
not achieve net energy. The scientists who are promoting this result to
the news media are playing word games. They use multiple definitions for
the phrase “net energy.” Only the fuel pellet achieved “net energy.”
This does not account for the energy required to operate the device.
The 3.15 megajoules of fusion output energy were produced at
the expense of 400 megajoules of electrical input energy. A fusion
device that loses 99.2 percent of the energy it consumes, in a reaction
that lasts for 0.00000000009 of a second, does not indicate technology
that could provide an abundant zero-carbon alternative to fossil fuels.
On Monday, CNN implied that the reactor produced a small amount of power, but too little to be practical:
“It’s about what it takes to boil 10
kettles of water,” said Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for
Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College in London. “In order to
turn that into a power station, we need to make a larger gain in energy –
we need it to be substantially more.”
The “10 kettles” represents the 3.15 megajoule output. CNN didn’t
mention the 400-megajoule input. It’s a deceptive material omission,
bordering on fraud.
The public promotion of this result as evidence that fusion is a
potential energy solution is a scam and promotes false hope. NIF is a
taxpayer-funded project that is never going to power any house. NIF is
useful only to test nuclear weapons. Are there other laser fusion
results that are better than NIF? No.
We have already explained the technical details but it seems that some journalists didn’t get the memo. See our reports #73, #102, #103, #104.
P.S.: Let us not forget that half of the fuel mixture required for commercial fusion reactors does not exist. Does. Not. Exist.
To summarize: The “breakeven” achieved was between the output
energy of the lasers and the fusion. Even just looking at that, Houston we have a problem. 2.1 megajoules of laser output energy went
into a pellet and 2.5 megajoules of heat energy came out. So a 0.4 megajoule gain in energy! Woohoo!
But let’s use more familiar units. One kWh of
energy is 3.6 megajoules so 0.4 megajules is 1/9 of a kWh or around 111 Watt hours. So
enough energy to run an old-school 100W light bulb for a bit over an
hour
1) Lasers provoke the fusion. The amount of electrical energy dumped into those lasers yields an approximate energy of 1%.
2) Capturing the heat energy produced by the fusion and transforming it into
actually usable current would incur a conversion loss on the order of
60% (heat to electricity).
3) The technology used (relying upon lasers focused
on a pellet of material that is compressed to fusion) was originally
designed and is only useful to manufacture detonators for atomic bombs;
it is not a viable technical path to a power
plant.
So, the end-to-end cycle
(electricity to power lasers – fusion – heat transformed to electricity) would require a 250 times factor improvement in
energy efficiency.
In other words: a meaningless "achievement" about which very big and very misleading lies are being mass broadcast at a clueless and non-technical audience.
For decades it has been touted that fusion will be feasible and power our societies maybe 50
years from now. I contend it is time to pull the plug on these
never-ending projects that never come to fruition. If Russia or China don't turn their attention to fusion, it will never get done period. The
U.S. needs to redirect the gargantuan
resources devoted to this white elephant to something feasible — it
is becoming urgent.
llnl.gov |“We have had a theoretical
understanding of fusion for over a century, but the journey from knowing
to doing can be long and arduous. Today’s milestone shows what we can
do with perseverance,” said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, the President’s chief
adviser for Science and Technology and director of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“Monday, December 5, 2022, was a
historic day in science thanks to the incredible people at Livermore Lab
and the National Ignition Facility. In making this breakthrough, they
have opened a new chapter in NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program,” NNSA
Administrator Jill Hruby said. “I would like to thank the members of
Congress who have supported the National Ignition Facility because their
belief in the promise of visionary science has been critical for our
mission. Our team from around the DOE national laboratories and our
international partners have shown us the power of collaboration.”
“The pursuit of fusion ignition in the
laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever
tackled by humanity, and achieving it is a triumph of science,
engineering, and most of all, people,” LLNL Director Dr. Kim Budil said.
“Crossing this threshold is the vision that has driven 60 years of
dedicated pursuit — a continual process of learning, building, expanding
knowledge and capability, and then finding ways to overcome the new
challenges that emerged. These are the problems that the U.S. national
laboratories were created to solve.”
“This astonishing scientific advance
puts us on the precipice of a future no longer reliant on fossil fuels
but instead powered by new clean fusion energy,” U.S. Senate Majority
Leader Charles Schumer (NY) said. “I commend Lawrence Livermore National
Labs and its partners in our nation’s Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF)
program, including the University of Rochester’s Lab for Laser
Energetics in New York, for achieving this breakthrough. Making this
future clean energy world a reality will require our physicists,
innovative workers and brightest minds at our DOE-funded institutions,
including the Rochester Laser Lab, to double down on their cutting-edge
work. That’s why I’m also proud to announce today that I’ve helped to
secure the highest-ever authorization of over $624 million this year in
the National Defense Authorization Act for the ICF program to build on
this amazing breakthrough.”
“After more than a decade of scientific
and technical innovation, I congratulate the team at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory and the National Ignition Facility for their
historic accomplishment,” said U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA). “This
is an exciting step in fusion and everyone at Lawrence Livermore and
NIF should be proud of this milestone achievement.”
“This is an historic, innovative
achievement that builds on the contributions of generations of Livermore
scientists. Today, our nation stands on their collective shoulders. We
still have a long way to go, but this is a critical step and I commend
the U.S. Department of Energy and all who contributed toward this
promising breakthrough, which could help fuel a brighter clean energy
future for the United States and humanity,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed
(RI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“This monumental scientific
breakthrough is a milestone for the future of clean energy,” said U.S.
Senator Alex Padilla (CA). “While there is more work ahead to harness
the potential of fusion energy, I am proud that California scientists
continue to lead the way in developing clean energy technologies. I
congratulate the scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
for their dedication to a clean energy future, and I am committed to
ensuring they have all of the tools and funding they need to continue
this important work.”
“This is a very big deal. We can
celebrate another performance record by the National Ignition Facility.
This latest achievement is particularly remarkable because NIF used a
less spherically symmetrical target than in the August 2021 experiment,”
said U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA-19). “This significant
advancement showcases the future possibilities for the commercialization
of fusion energy. Congress and the Administration need to fully fund
and properly implement the fusion research provisions in the recent
CHIPS and Science Act and likely more. During World War II, we crafted
the Manhattan Project for a timely result. The challenges facing the
world today are even greater than at that time. We must double down and
accelerate the research to explore new pathways for the clean, limitless
energy that fusion promises.”
nuclear-news | The plutonium for this was produced from uranium during the operation of
other nuclear power plants and recovered from the used fuel assemblies
through reprocessing.
MOX fuel is manufactured from plutonium recovered from used reactor
fuel, mixed with depleted uranium which is a by-product from uranium
enrichment.
“Full conversion of the BN-800 to MOX fuel is a long-anticipated
milestone for the nuclear industry. For the first time in the history of
Russian nuclear power, we proceed to operation of a fast neutron
reactor with a full load of uranium-plutonium fuel and closed nuclear
fuel cycle,” said Alexander Ugryumov, Senior Vice President for Research
and Development at TVEL JSC.
“This is the original reason and target why the BN-800 was developed,
and why Rosatom built the unique automated fuel fabrication facility at
the Mining and Chemical Combine. Advanced technologies of fissile
materials recycling and re-fabrication of nuclear fuel will make it
possible to expand the resource feed-stock of the nuclear power,
reprocess irradiated fuel instead of storing it, and to reduce the
volumes of waste.”
The unit is a sodium-cooled fast reactor which produces about 820
MWe. It started operation in 2016 and in 2020 achieved a capacity factor
of 82% despite having an experimental role in proving reactor
technologies and fuels.
emeatribune | The end of France’s coal era seemed so certain last year that the
operator of one of the country’s last coal-burning plants posted an
upbeat educational video on YouTube titled “Let’s visit a coal plant
that’s going to be destroyed!”
The plant in the northeastern town of Saint-Avold indeed halted coal
production as scheduled earlier this year — but not for long. This week,
its workers were back at the controls, transporting coal from storage
heaps and refiring furnaces, as part of emergency efforts to keep the heat and electricity on this winter.
The energy crisis across Europe unleashed by Russia’s war in Ukraine has paved the way for coal’s comeback in some regions, to the dismay of politicians and activists who warn this endangers climate goals, the climate itself and public health.
“Working here we know the negative impact of the coal plant, but
nonetheless we see it as a necessary evil,” said shift supervisor Thomas
About at the Emile-Huchet Power Plant in Saint-Avold.
“Given the current state of the electrical network, I nonetheless
fear greatly that this production tool is necessary in the medium term,”
he told The Associated Press.
Nearby, wheel loaders scooped mounds of coal and dumped it onto
conveyor belts, and gray fumes rose from the plant’s smokestacks.
In France the return to coal is surprising because the country
started phasing it out decades ago and relies heavily on nuclear power
instead. But this year, on top of Russia largely cutting off natural gas
to Europe, nearly half of France’s nuclear reactors shut down for maintenance or corrosion and other problems.
Facing a worst-case scenario of rolling power cuts to households, the
government issued a decree in September to allow Saint-Avold to start
again and continued activity at another coal plant in western France,
citing the “exceptional” and “unforeseeable” context of energy supply
challenges.
President Emmanuel Macron had initially vowed to close all
coal-burning plants in the country by the end of this year due to
climate-related concerns.
As an aside: France does not depend on Russia for uranium: everything
comes from Niger (34.7%), Kazakhstan (28.9%), Uzbekistan (26.4%), and
Australia (9.9%) and is then processed into actual fuel in France.
However, it is entirely dependent on Russia for reprocessing depleted uranium.
The French can perform a first phase (separating plutonium from spent
fuel), but their much-touted prowess in turning “nuclear waste” into
usable fissile uranium is only possible thanks to the Rosatom
reprocessing plant in Seversk.
The last transport with depleted uranium from France to Russia took
place in October, and the French firm Orano, which supplies French
atomic power plants, does not intend to renew the contract. Which means
that spent fuel may soon start to accumulate as genuine waste on the
premises of French power plants…
thegrayzone |A November 9 email from the
Anti-Defamation League to The Grayzone provided a twisted defense of
Ukraine’s Azov Battalion. Despite its self-proclaimed “anti-hate”
mission, the ADL insisted in the email it “does not” consider Azov as
the “far right group it once was.”
The Azov Battalion is a neo-Nazi unit
formally integrated into the US government-backed Ukrainian military.
Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who has infamously vowed to “lead the white
races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led untermenschen,”
Azov was once widely condemned by Western corporate media and the human
rights industry for its association with Nazism. Then came the Russian
invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the months that immediately
followed, Azov led the Ukrainian military’s defense of Mariupol, the
group’s longtime stronghold. As the militia assumed a frontline role in
the war against Russia, Western media led a campaign to rebrand Azov as
misunderstood freedom fighters while accusing its critics of echoing
Kremlin talking points. The New York Times has even referred to the unit
as the “celebrated Azov Battalion.”
Like the Washington Post and other mainstream outlets, the ADL ignored Azov’s atrocities this April in Mariupol, where locals accused the group of using civilians as human shields and executing those who attempted to flee. One video
out of Mariupol showed Azov fighters proudly declaring the Nazi
collaborator and mass murderer of Jews, Stepan Bandera, to be their
“father.”
The Azov Battalion has long served as a magnet for the international white nationalist movement, attracting recruits from the terrorist Atomwaffen Division to a US Army Specialist arrested on charges of distributing bomb-making instructions.
Back in March 2022, just a month before the battle of Mariupol, the ADL itself issued a report acknowledging that white nationalists see Azov “as a pathway to the creation of a National Socialist state in Ukraine.”
Eight months later, however, the ADL
has changed its tune, asserting to this outlet that Azov has rooted the
fascists from its ranks. So did Azov change its Nazi ways, or did the
ADL simply shift its messaging to conform to the imperatives of a Biden
administration still intent on sending billions in military aid to
Ukraine?
NYTimes | President
Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke with the leaders of the United
States, France and Turkey on Sunday, stepping up diplomatic activity in
the 10th month of the war and shoring up military and humanitarian
support.
Mr. Zelensky’s push comes as the latest round of Russian airstrikes have targeted and damaged critical
Ukrainian infrastructure, leaving millions without reliable heat and
power as winter sets in, and ahead of meetings this week — a virtual
gathering of the Group of 7 nations, a meeting of E.U. foreign
ministers, and an international conference focused on aid for Ukraine.
In Yesterday's NYTimes - An APC Proudly Bearing The OUN Banderite NAZI Flag
While
the weekend calls with Mr. Zelensky touched on issues central to the
war, including grains, the global economy and defending against Russia,
there were no signs that Russia and Ukraine were closer to meeting to
discuss an end to the war that began in February when Russia invaded.
Mr.
Zelensky “coordinated positions” with President Biden about the
upcoming G7 summit in their phone call on Sunday, the Ukrainian
president said on social media, adding that Ukraine would participate in the meeting. The White House said in a statement that Mr. Biden emphasized that the U.S. would prioritize strengthening Ukraine’s air defense system.
President Biden had said earlier this month that he was open to speaking
with the Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, about ending the conflict
but had “no immediate plans” to do so. Despite some hope that a recent
prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia might lead to
more substantial talks on Ukraine, Mr. Putin has not expressed a willingness to advance talks.
In the call with the French leader, Mr. Zelensky said that he and President Emmanuel Macron discussed how to “synchronize positions” ahead of the G7 talks on Monday. In his nightly address, he described the hour-long phone call as “very meaningful.” He added that Mr. Macron supported his peace plan.
Mr. Macron said
on Twitter that he discussed with Mr. Zelensky two upcoming conferences
taking place in France, including one that will link French companies
seeking contracts in Ukraine with officials from that country. The other
event will focus on raising money to help Ukraine get through the
winter.
Mr. Zelensky also spoke with President Recep TayyipErdogan
of Turkey about building on the grain deal that Mr. Erdogan brokered
between Ukraine and Russia. Earlier in the war, Mr. Erdogan pushed for
talks between the two nations that ended without a peace deal, but got
Ukraine and Russia’s top diplomats to sit down.
Mr.
Erdogan also spoke to Mr. Putin earlier on Sunday by phone, during
which he expressed to Mr. Putin his “sincere wish” for the war to end as
soon as possible, according to Mr. Erdogan’s office.
kunstler | Startling fact of the week: Twitter’s
senior ranks of content moderators included over a dozen former FBI and
CIA agents and analysts who let child porn run loose all over the app
while surgically removing any utterance contradicting the government’s
claim that mRNA “vaccines” are “safe and effective” — not to mention the
effort this elite crew expended against anyone objecting to the
Woke-Left’s race and gender hustles. Wouldn’t you like to know how much
they were paid? Probably more than government work.
Here’s another awful reality (better
fasten your seatbelts): What also emerged in the tweet record of Yoel
Roth, the company’s chief censor (former “Head of Trust and Safety”),
begins to look like a gay mafia assault on the collective American
psyche. Having gained official federal government sanction and
protection, a statistically tiny homosexual demographic left in charge
of the country’s main public forum has been out for revenge against
their perceived enemy, political conservatives — Americans disinclined
to join the cheerleading for drag queen story hours, “minor-attracted
persons,” transsexuals in the military, and other LBGTQ cultural pranks.
There seems to be little limit to Elon Musk's predatory and malevolent nature. He is now insinuating that the fmr head of Trust & Safety at Twitter, an openly gay Jewish man, is a pedophile. Just another level of this is that Roth actually stayed on for several weeks under Musk.. pic.twitter.com/hTHZ6SNQEO
In the process, that gay mafia running
the public dialogue supported every lie that the government, its
protector, put out, to keep it happy and well-fed. Shocking, I’m sure…
but there it is. That means they also promoted the most-deadly psy-op in
world history: the Covid-19 scare and the mass “vaccination” crusade
that will end up killing many millions world-wide, after destroying the
economies of the Western Civ nations. The whole package looks like an
attempt to turn the world upside down and inside out. Is it any wonder
that so many feel the USA has gone crazy?
Of course, that aroused the widespread
suspicion that these now-exposed nefarious operators in social media
were merely tools for some murky plutocrat elite led by the likes of the
WEF, Bill Gates, and George Soros. Could that be the greatest
“conspiracy theory’ of all? More likely, I hesitate to suggest, all
these characters in one way or another are merely tools of history
itself, as the world enters the darkest days of a Fourth Turning secular
winter. As TS Eliot observed: “Humankind cannot bear too much reality.”
Thus, so many sense we live in
dangerous times. Everything appears to veer out-of-control, including
thought itself. Disorder incites more disorder. While all this madness
is going on in-country, the US government, led by the phantom president
“Joe Biden,” continues to prosecute its insane proxy war in Ukraine in
order to antagonize Russia. Lately the US has sent drones hundreds of
miles inside Russia to blow up military airfields. How is that not an
escalation of hostilities, and exactly how far do the American people
want their government to take this crazy project?
theatlantic | If leaders have to answer for the violence they inspire, they will have a
harder time gaining traction in the future. Since the beginning of the
Trump era, far-right groups have recruited new members
with fantasies of armed conflict; adherents are convinced that they can
be on the winning side of history. Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, floundered for years
until the Oath Keepers found kinship with the Trump movement and with
Trump himself, who flirted with extremist groups before fully embracing
them after his election loss. This week’s verdict further dispels the
idea that the Oath Keepers are winners in any way. Every criminal
conviction of figures implicated in the January 6 attack at any
level—even on the misdemeanor charges facing some rank-and file
rioters—helps discourage would-be recruits from seeing militia groups as
a path to glory.
Although the jury likely did not debate the intricacies of how violence works, Rhodes’s conviction is a condemnation of stochastic terrorism—a
technique the Oath Keepers share with the Islamic State. Leaders of
such groups incite their followers in ways that make bloodshed all but
inevitable, even if the specifics of how the violence will play out are
unknowable beforehand.
In
recent weeks, right-wing commentators have criticized the very notion
of stochastic terrorism, treating it as just another broad accusation
that Trump’s political opponents level against the former president and
his supporters. Yet Rhodes’s trial points to a highly specific way in
which some groups incite and normalize violence. They have used tools of
intimidation, such as wearing military costumes and brandishing
weapons, to achieve political goals—while also acting like what they’re
doing is no big deal. Casual threats of civil war, when coupled with the
means to wage it, are no longer casual. The standard for criminal
conviction for promoting violence is justifiably high, but some leaders
of some groups act egregiously enough to reach it.
Rhodes’s
jury made a statement for the future. Although a single criminal case
will not deter all hate and violence, a series of similar verdicts could
significantly hamper violent groups’ ability to organize. Fomenting a
bloody riot isn’t a game, and it isn’t mere protest. Criminal
prosecution will find you.
city-journal | I browsed the news recently only to discover that, according to a
popular science magazine, I was responsible for the attempted murder of
Paul Pelosi, husband to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In an opinion piece for Scientific American, writer Bryn Nelson insinuated that my factual reporting
on Drag Queen Story Hour was an example of “stochastic terrorism,”
which he defines as “ideologically driven hate speech” that increases
the likelihood of unpredictable acts of violence. On the night of the
attack, Nelson argued, I had appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight
to discuss my reporting, and, hours later, the alleged attacker, David
DePape, radicalized by “QAnon” conspiracy theories about “Democratic,
Satan-worshipping pedophiles,” broke into the Pelosi residence and
attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
This is a bizarre claim that, for a magazine supposedly dedicated to
“science,” hardly meets a scientific standard of cause and effect. There
is no evidence that DePape watched or was motivated by Tucker Carlson’s
program; moreover, nothing in my reporting on Drag Queen Story Hour
encourages violence or mentions Nancy Pelosi, QAnon, or
Satan-worshipping pedophiles. My appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight
and DePape’s attack against Paul Pelosi are, in reality, two unrelated
incidents in a large and complex universe. And Nelson, a microbiologist specializing in human excrement, is full of it.
But Nelson isn’t trying to prove anything in a scientific sense.
Under the concept of “stochastic terrorism,” logic, evidence, and
causality are irrelevant. Any incident of violence can be politicized
and attributed to any ideological opponent, regardless of facts.
The scheme works like this: left-wing media, activists, and officials
designate a subject of discourse, such as Drag Queen Story Hour,
off-limits; they treat any reporting on that subject as an expression of
“hate speech”; and finally, if an incident of violence emerges that is
related, even tangentially, to that subject, they assign guilt to their
political opponents and call for the suppression of speech. The
statistical concept of “stochasticity,” which means “randomly
determined,” functions as a catch-all: the activists don’t have to prove
causality—they simply assert it with a sophisticated turn of phrase and
a vague appeal to probability.
Though framed in scientific terms, this gambit is a crude political
weapon. In practice, left-wing media, activists, and officials apply the
“stochastic terrorism” designation only in one direction: rightward.
They never attribute fire-bombings against pro-life pregnancy centers,
arson attacks against Christian churches, or the attempted assassination
of a Supreme Court justice to mere argumentation of left-wing
activists, such as, say, opposition to the Court’s decision in Dobbs.
In those cases, the Left correctly adopts the principle that it is
incitement, rather than opinion, that constitutes a crime—but
conveniently forgets that standard as soon as the debate shifts to the
movement’s conservative opponents.
In recent years, the Left has not only monopolized the concept of
“stochastic terrorism” but also built a growing apparatus for enforcing
it. Last year, left-wing organizations and the Department of Justice collaborated
on a campaign to suppress parents who oppose critical race theory,
under the false claim that sometimes-heated school-board protests were
incidents of “domestic terrorism.” Earlier this year, left-wing
activists and medical associations called
on social media companies and the Department of Justice to censor,
investigate, and prosecute journalists who question the orthodoxy of
radical gender theory. The obvious goal is to suppress speech and
intimidate political opponents. “Stochastic terrorism” could serve as a
magic term for summoning the power of the state.
variety | However you might classify Cross’ tone, her particular brand of
outspokennnes had helped her win a bake-off for the weekend host slot
against two other hopefuls in 2020. She took the job that year — a seat
that had been vacated by anchor Reid, who moved to weeknights. In
announcing her eponymous show, Cross promised
to “touch on politics, culture, humanity, and the inhumanity of some
yet-to-be-addressed disparities.” She also pledged to place Black women
at “the center” of her program. What followed was a series of blunt and
headline-grabbing segments and appearances by Cross in a news cycle rife
with discourse over (and outward displays of) white supremacy. Notable
sound bites from Cross included an interview with radio personality
Charlamagne Tha God calling
the state of Florida the “dick of America,” one that should be
castrated. Comments like these led to extreme reactions from media
personalities on the right, including Megyn Kelly, who has called Cross a
“dumbass” and the “most racist person on TV.”
By far the most incendiary reaction to Cross was from Fox News’
Carlson. On Oct. 19, four days after Cross aired her Clarence Thomas
segment, Carlson accused Cross of inciting a “race war” with her
commentary. He even likened
her broadcast to the Rwandan radio station that played a significant
role in the country’s 1994 genocide. In the days following Cross’
firing, reports speculated that Jones had handed Carlson and Fox News “a win” by terminating her.
“No other cable news show regularly examined the many ways that white
supremacy is embedded structurally and historically throughout American
society,” wrote Salon in an analysis of her firing.
At the top of the year, “The Cross Connection” attracted around 4.6
million monthly viewers, according to an internal research document
issued by NBCUniversal and obtained by Variety. Cross’ audience skewed 55% female and 35% Black, an audience intersection that MSNBC has been chasing, Variety
reported earlier this month. All told, Cross’ program was MSNBC’s
most-watched by Black viewers, second only to “Politics Nation With Al
Sharpton.” The week before her termination, according to Nielsen media
research, she averaged 605,000 viewers in her time slot and rated third
behind competitors CNN and Fox News.
Jones’ defenders called her a fierce advocate for diversity, having
hired or elevated journalists of color including Katie Fang, Alex Wagner
and Symone Sanders to anchor roles. For many industry observers, the
situation has been heightened by the fact that two prominent Black women
journalists are at public odds.
“I don’t want to see someone like Tiffany move backwards, and I don’t
want there to be a double standard for Rashida,” Rev. Al Sharpton, the
host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation,” told Variety.
Cross’ future is unclear. The question she has inspired — about the
question of different standards surrounding Black voices on cable news —
continues to inspire anxiety in the many sources Variety spoke with. Last Friday, the Washington Post ran an op-ed calling the “cancellation” of Cross a “chilling signal” to the wider industry.
“We feel the chill,” said one network anchor of color who, of course, spoke to Variety on the condition of anonymity.
glamour |GLAMOUR spoke to author and body-positive activist Emily Lauren Dick on the impact of pretty privilege, its' dangers, and why we need to be talking about it.
How does pretty privilege impact us?
“[Pretty
people] are perceived to be happier, healthier, more confident, and
successful. It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because those
perceptions are why attractive people actually become those things. An
attractive person is more likely to be confident because of their
socially accepted looks, so they present well in interviews and stand
out.”
Is pretty privilege dangerous?
“I think that any
form of privilege can be dangerous if gone unchecked. The fact that a
whole group of people can be treated poorly simply because they don’t
look a certain way is extremely harmful to a person’s self-esteem and
self-worth. Everyone is worthy of love, respect, and kindness.”
“It’s
disappointing that anyone would be treated differently than someone
more attractive, but it’s downright irresponsible when companies and
marketers are upholding this concept by purposefully using it as a
strategy to sell more of their products or services.”
Never afraid to use her voice, Leigh-Anne knows how to call out the BS!
"When
companies provide free products to ONLY attractive people (not just
high follower accounts) to amplify their brand, they actively exclude
people who support them. Marketers must stop indirectly and directly
telling their customers that they should be like “pretty people” to get
them to buy their products.”
“Beauty and diet businesses have
created a multi-billion-dollar industry that is built upon the lie that
people need to change how they look to be accepted. It’s irresponsible
to continue utilising marketing strategies that purposely leave people
out and make them feel bad about themselves.”
What can we do?
“It’s
up to all of us to challenge internalised biases about privileged
people, especially if we are one of the privileged. We must actively
challenge our inner thoughts about how unattractive people are less
worthy than attractive people. We must ensure that everyone is on a
level playing field, especially when they are not. This is inclusion!"
"How
is this possible? Question your beliefs, speak up when someone speaks
badly about someone who is considered unattractive, recognise your own
privilege, hold public officials accountable, and determine other ways
to challenge systems of privilege.”
coveteur | Every so often, I’ll receive the occasional you’re so lucky comment
from a fellow trans woman. The sentiment is usually in reference to my
body or my looks and their proximity and similarities to that of a
cisgender woman. In other words, it’s usually in reference to my ability
to “pass” in a cisgender world. At first, that comment, you’re so lucky,
made me viscerally uncomfortable. It was easy for me to comprehend how
passing privilege is a gateway to survival for many trans people, and
while it isn’t a privilege afforded to all of us, words like “lucky” or
“easy” left me thinking. Thoughts would race in my mind, a feeling of
guilt would weigh on my heart, and I would wonder if my attractiveness
or “passability” negates how difficult it is to exist as a trans woman
in a cis-normative society. To counter my discomfort, I would often
reply to such comments with a self-deprecating joke, as if to minimize
the existence of my attractiveness as a privilege. A privilege I did not
earn nor work for.
I
suppose you can say the word “lucky” had become a sore spot for a
while. Uncomfortable with looking at the ways in which I benefit from my
looks, I was adamant to prove how I wasn’t lucky. After all, at the end
of the day, I will always be transgender and that comes with its own
prejudice and discrimination, right? To acknowledge the unearned
advantages of physical attractiveness felt as if it would undermine
everything I had to overcome to get to where I am. I mean, how lucky
could I actually be?
In my search to validate how I was feeling, I stumbled across the opposite: Pretty privilege.
Pretty
privilege is the concept that pretty people benefit in life from being
perceived as beautiful. Studies have shown that pretty people will more
than likely receive higher earnings or better grades. But what is beautiful? Like the saying beauty lies in the eye of the beholder,
what we find attractive is often thought to be subjective. However,
society inherently bases value on certain attributes over others. Those
attributes are often based on whiteness, able bodiedness, leanness,
straightness, and cisness, to mention just a few. Pretty privilege is
much like how being white or being male provides people with unearned
advantages in society.
Pretty privilege benefits and hurts all
types of people, both cis and trans, across all races and sexualities.
The intersectionality of our existence must be addressed when speaking
to the topic. Kelsey Yonce refers to intersectionality perfectly in
their 2014 thesis, “Attractiveness Privilege: the unearned advantages of physical attractiveness.”
Yonce states “intersectionality refers to the idea that different areas
of privilege and oppression do not exist in isolation from one another;
instead, they overlap and interact with each other in ways that create
unique experiences of privilege and oppression for each individual.” For
example, the privilege and oppression experienced by a trans woman of
color will look very different from the privilege and oppression
experienced by a white trans woman, despite both experiencing the
stigmatization and oppression of being transgender because of the
inherent societal hierarchy towards race.
When speaking to pretty privilege in the context of cisness, it could
be argued that the barrier for entry to such a privilege is more
difficult for a transgender person because that hurdle is our very sex
assigned at birth, my “maleness.” It’s the belief that in order to
achieve such a standing in society it would require a distancing from,
squandering of, and rejection of our transness as a whole. This
reinforces the false reality that in society, a transition is deemed
“successful” only when one is conventionally beautiful by cisgender
standards. When in actuality we all know the real value a transition can
bring to one’s life is more than mere aesthetics or looks, but rather
living more fully and freely. Suddenly, it began to feel like not
addressing my own pretty privilege head-on would be disadvantageous to
what my mission is, and that's to uplift and advocate for all
transwomen.
Having defined it, it has become shockingly easy
to see how I benefit from such a privilege. In hindsight, pretty
privilege in the context of cisness wasn’t something I was always
presented with and might be why it has felt so obvious. I haven’t always
existed in the world looking like this. While I can acknowledge how
I’ve always benefitted from certain privileges like whiteness, able
bodiedness, and leanness, benefitting from my “cisness” was a very
foreign thing for me. I started my transition 21 months ago, and only
two years ago started hormone replacement therapy, followed by a recent
facial feminization surgery. As my body and features began to change and
become more cis-passing, I had started to witness peoples’ treatment of
me change—it was almost as if one day people saw me differently, they
started smiling at me as they walked by, doors were held open, and
drinks were being bought for me from those who simply wanted my
attention. These are only a few small examples, but at first it all
seemed unnatural and uncomfortable because my experience in the world
had been different for nearly 30 years. The exact moment where it
changed is hard to pinpoint, but looking at my transition in its
totality, it’s jarring and impossible for me to not see the difference.
It is now my responsibility to swallow my guilt and acknowledge that
such experiences are not afforded to everyone and I have benefitted from
the unearned privilege of assimilating into a cisgender society because
of my pretty privilege. This has, in fact, made my transition easier
than most but not without its own challenges.
Slate | On
Thursday night, the latest installment of what CEO Elon Musk has dubbed
the “Twitter Files” was published on the social media platform, this
time with a bombshell-promising thread
from former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss, who now runs an
online magazine called the Free Press. Weiss, like fellow Twitter Files
author Matt Taibbi,
was given access to internal documents of the company by its new owner
in order to interrogate the content-moderation actions of Twitter’s
leadership before Musk bought the company. Many extremely online
right-wingers have long accused Twitter of being biased against
conservatives. Weiss’ thread, like Taibbi’s from a week earlier, tells
them just what they want to hear.
Weiss’
focus is on Twitter’s ability to deamplify accounts so that, for
example, they are boosted less by the platform’s news-feed algorithm or
are barred from trending topics or search (a policy Twitter has been
open about, publicly describing it in a blog post in 2018).
Among several examples, Weiss cites the platform’s treatment of Libs of
TikTok, a Twitter account that remains active despite its connection to
multiple acts of terror and intimidation from far-right extremists,
including multiple bomb threats
against a children’s hospital. This portrayal of Libs of TikTok as
representative of accounts posting conservative views is alarming. The
implication seems to be that platforms that seek to protect users from
harassment and violence—which is what Libs of TikTok has repeatedly
inspired—are engaging in anti-conservative bias when they do so. Weiss
contrasted the treatment of Libs of TikTok by Twitter with a post
harassing Libs of TikTok using personally identifying information that
was not taken down by Twitter staff, which seems to have been an error
on Twitter’s part. (All content moderation involves human error, and
thus far Weiss has not demonstrated any sort of consistent pattern on
any side.)
Weiss may be best known for a column introducing “the intellectual dark web,”
a group of anti-progressive types fixated on the concept of cancel
culture and the idea that liberals routinely censor conservative ideas.
With the Twitter Files, she describes herself leading a team that has been given “broad and expanding access” to Twitter’s internal documents and communications. This group includes opinion writer Abigail Shrier, who is best known for writing Irreversible Damage,
a book opposing transition for female-assigned people on the grounds
that an unproven social contagion is the root cause of transmasculine
identities.
Contrary to the extremist rhetoric, gender-affirming care is supported by all mainstream medical organizations
as potentially lifesaving for young people with gender dysphoria. It is
also perfectly possible to speak with children about the existence of
transgender people and about families headed by same-sex parents in an
age-appropriate, nonsexual way. All-ages drag events are places where
kids can see members of the drag community in elaborate full-body
costumes providing innocent entertainment in the name of inclusivity and
fun, and even adult drag shows are raunchy rather than sexual in
nature. However, the issues with Libs of TikTok and the Twitter Files
are fundamentally not about anyone’s opinion on gender-affirming care,
diversity in schools, or drag. They’re about the conflation of
stochastic terrorism with conservative opinions, and the refusal of many
conservatives to recognize or respect any line drawn between the two.
Armed
white supremacist gangs seem to closely monitor Libs of TikTok’s posts
to find new targets, based on the multiple incidents associated with
those named on its Twitter feed. Account owner Chaya Raichik,
meanwhile, has done nothing to attempt to calm, dissuade, change how
she communicates, or otherwise bring an end to the pattern of violence
and near-violence driven by her posts. These often include misinformation
as well as a conflation of healthy, age-appropriate discussions of
diversity with child abuse. Instead of seeking to end the violence
directed at the targets she chooses, Raichik and Libs of TikTok are
constantly toeing the line, attempting to stop short of what is
officially considered either harassment or hate speech, and occasionally
catching a ban when Twitter decides that line was crossed.
CTH | Twitter is simply a discovery vector to reveal the larger dynamic of
DHS being in control of social media. That was the DHS/ODNI problem
James Baker was trying to mitigate by his filtration of the released
documents. The “Twitter files” are one tentacled element in a much
larger story.
To put it in brutally honest terms, The United States Dept of
Homeland Security is the operating system running in the background of
Twitter.
You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before
purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the
scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself.
For me, I feel confident that all of the conflicting and odd
datapoints only reconcile in one direction. DHS, via CISA, controls
Twitter.
Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of that govt controlled enterprise.
If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being
released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered
outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic. And with that
intelligence framework solidly in mind, I warn readers not to take a
position on the motive of the new ownership.
Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of
the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating public
exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and
feeding selected information about their prior Twitter operations.
If TikTok is a national security threat, then TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.
The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always
been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then
ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.
dailycaller | Twitter kept secret “blacklists” that included a doctor at Stanford
and several prominent conservative voices that suppressed their ability
to be found or heard on the social media platform, according to
journalist Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press and former
Wall Street Journal and New York Times columnist, who launched the
second chapter in Elon Musk’s so-called “Twitter Files” Thursday
evening.
Weiss tweeted what appeared to be a photo of Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy,
with his account being prominently marked as being under a “Trends
Blacklist.” Bhattacharya was secretly blacklisted because he “argued
that Covid lockdowns would harm children,” and was thus unable to trend
on the platform, according to Weiss.
In addition to Bhattacharya, Twitter placed
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk under a “Do Not Amplify” notice,
while right wing talk radio personality Dan Bongino, who has appeared
on Alex Jones’ InfoWars, was placed
under a “Search Blacklist,” according to Weiss. The practice of
limiting the access or reach of users’ content, commonly referred to as
“shadow banning,” is something that Twitter has denied doing in the
past, and is referred to internally as “Visibility Filtering” or “VF,”
Weiss reported.
“Think
about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what
people see to different levels,” a senior Twitter employee reportedly told Weiss. “It’s a very powerful tool.”
-took billions from us -banned opposition parties -nationalized all TV stations -rejects calls for peace deals -banned the Orthodox Church -attacked Elon Musk on Twitter -took photoshoots for magazines -framed Russia for strikes in Poland
Time | Greatest single news event of 1938 took place on September 29, when four
statesmen met at the Führerhaus, in Munich, to redraw the map of
Europe. The three visiting statesmen at that historic conference were
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, Premier Edouard
Daladier of France, and Dictator Benito Mussolini of Italy. But by all
odds the dominating figure at Munich was the German host, Adolf
Hitler.
Führer of the German people, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army,
Navy & Air Force, Chancellor of the Third Reich, Herr Hitler reaped on
that day at Munich the harvest of an audacious, defiant, ruthless
foreign policy he had pursued for five and a half years. He had torn
the Treaty of Versailles to shreds. He had rearmed Germany to the
teeth— or as close to the teeth as he was able. He had stolen Austria
before the eyes of a horrified and apparently impotent world.
All these events were shocking to nations which had defeated Germany
on the battlefield only 20 years before, but nothing so terrified the
world as the ruthless, methodical, Nazi-directed events which during
late summer and early autumn threatened a world war over Czechoslovakia.
When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German
puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive
alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting
a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf
Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.
Most other world figures of 1938 faded in importance as the year drew to
a close. Prime Minister Chamberlain's "peace with honor'' seemed more
than ever to have achieved neither. An increasing number of Britons
ridiculed his appease-the-dictators policy, believed that nothing
save abject surrender could satisfy the dictators' ambitions.
Among many Frenchmen there rose a feeling that Premier Daladier, by a
few strokes of the pen at Munich, had turned France into a second-rate
power. Aping Mussolini in his gestures and copying triumphant Hitler's
shouting complex, the once liberal Daladier at year's end was reduced
to using parliamentary tricks to keep his job.
During 1938 Dictator Mussolini was only a decidedly junior partner in
the firm of Hitler & Mussolini, Inc. His noisy agitation to get Corsica
and Tunis from France was rated as a weak bluff whose immediate
objectives were no more than cheaper tolls for Italian ships in the
Suez Canal and control of the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad.
Gone from the international scene was Eduard Benes, for 20 years
Europe's "Smartest Little Statesman." Last President of free
Czechoslovakia, he was now a sick exile from the country he helped
found. Pious Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, Man of 1937, was
forced to retreat to a "New" West China, where he faced the possibility
of becoming only a respectable figurehead in an enveloping
Communist movement. If Francisco Franco had won the Spanish Civil War
after his great spring drive, he might well have been Man-of-the-Year
timber. But victory still eluded the Generalissimo and war weariness
and disaffection on the Rightist side made his future precarious.
Time | The call from the President’s office came on a Saturday evening: Be
ready to go the next day, an aide said, and pack a toothbrush. There
were no details about the destination or how we would get there, but it
wasn’t difficult to guess. Only two days earlier, on the 260th day of
the invasion of Ukraine, the Russians had retreated from the city of Kherson. It was the only regional capital they had managed to seize since the start of the all-out war in February, and the Kremlin had promised it would forever be a part of Russia. Now Kherson was free, and Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to get there as soon as possible.
His bodyguards were urging him to wait. The Russians had
destroyed the city’s infrastructure, leaving it with no water, power, or
heat. Its outskirts were littered with mines. Government buildings were
rigged with trip wires. On the highway to Kherson, an explosion had
destroyed a bridge, rendering it impassable. As they fled, the Russians
were also suspected of leaving behind agents and saboteurs who could try
to ambush the presidential convoy, to assassinate Zelensky or take him
hostage. There would be no way to ensure his safety on the central
square, where crowds had gathered to celebrate the city’s liberation,
within range of Russian artillery.
NYPost | White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday it was
“not healthy” for Twitter owner Elon Musk to publish internal company
files revealing Twitter’s censorship of The Post’s 2020 reporting on
Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“What is happening — it’s frankly, it’s not healthy. It won’t do
anything to help a single American improve their lives. And so look, we
see this as an interesting, you know, coincidence, and you know, it’s a
distraction,” Jean-Pierre concluded during her Monday briefing, offering
a lengthy denunciation of Musk’s Friday reveal of how Twitter execs decided to suppress The Post’s damning expose.
“We see this as an interesting, or a coincidence, if I may, that he
would so haphazardly — Twitter would so haphazardly push this
distraction that is full of old news, if you think about it,”
Jean-Pierre said, brushing off the politically motivated denial of free
speech protections raised by Musk’s document dump.
“And at the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious
questions about the rising volume of anger, hate and anti-Semitism on
their platform and how they’re letting it happen.”
The voice of the Biden administration did not note that the Musk-led Twitter booted rapper Kanye West
last week for tweeting a swastika after making a series of anti-Semitic
remarks — or that as of Monday, the nation’s most famous Jew-basher’s
18.4 million-follower account on Facebook-owned Instagram remains
active.
Jean-Pierre’s denunciation of Musk’s moves toward transparency came
in response to questions from Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
“On Twitter, because you guys said you’re keeping a close eye on Elon
Musk’s ownership and this is the first time we’ve talked to you since
he released the files a few days ago — is it the White House view that
decisions at Twitter were made appropriately in terms of decisions to
censor this reporting ahead of the election?” Heinrich asked.
Soylent Green: Overbudget and Behind Schedule
-
But we get there. There is human food ecosystem collapse. No technological
rabbit pulled out of a hat will fix this. By 2052 or earlier, no more food
exc...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
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Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
As an aside: France does not depend on Russia for uranium: everything comes from Niger (34.7%), Kazakhstan (28.9%), Uzbekistan (26.4%), and Australia (9.9%) and is then processed into actual fuel in France.
However, it is entirely dependent on Russia for reprocessing depleted uranium. The French can perform a first phase (separating plutonium from spent fuel), but their much-touted prowess in turning “nuclear waste” into usable fissile uranium is only possible thanks to the Rosatom reprocessing plant in Seversk.
The last transport with depleted uranium from France to Russia took place in October, and the French firm Orano, which supplies French atomic power plants, does not intend to renew the contract. Which means that spent fuel may soon start to accumulate as genuine waste on the premises of French power plants…