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Fireball

Best of the Web: 'Strange' connection between plagues and changes in Earth's atmosphere discovered

Antarctic ice
© Thomas BauskaAir bubbles in Antarctic ice, akin to ice cores.
Scientists have discovered in Antarctic ice a strange link between past levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and centuries-long global pandemics, reminding us of just how easily humans - or the lack thereof - can shape planet Earth.

Bubbles of air encased in ancient ice are like teensy time capsules, trapping tiny samples of gases from atmospheres thousands or even millions of years ago.

The best records for the past 2,000 years come from just two ice cores that have greatly influenced modeling studies of climate and carbon cycles in the Common Era: the Law Dome, an Antarctic ice 'hill'; and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide ice cores.

Comment: It seems likely that the drivers of this 'feedback' are the solar cycle, as well as increased cometary and fireball activity, both of which have been shown to cause significant shifts to Earth's climate, and correlate with the deadliest outbreaks of plague; and which are of particular note in our own time, considering how we appear to be at a similar point on the cycle:


Airplane

Best of the Web: "Treason!" Bombshell report reveals Biden regime has secretly flown 320,000 illegals INTO the United States

flight
© UnknownMigrant flight in progress.
A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit has revealed that the Biden administration has flown at least 320,000 migrants into the United States in an effort to reduce the number of crossings at the southern border, according to Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies, wrote:
"The program at the center of the FOIA litigation is perhaps the most enigmatic and least-known of the Biden administration's uses of the CBP One cellphone scheduling app, even though it is responsible for almost invisibly importing by air 320,000 aliens with no legal right to enter the United States since it got underway in late 2022."
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had initially refused to disclose information about the flights, which use a cell phone app, CBP One, to arrange.

Bensman continues:
"Under these legally dubious parole programs, aliens who cannot legally enter the country use the CBP One app to apply for travel authorization and temporary humanitarian release from those airports. The parole program allows for two-year periods of legal status during which adults are eligible for work authorization."
The flights resulted in illegal immigrants being placed in at least 43 American cities from January through December 2023.

Yoda

Best of the Web: Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson: The Geopolitics of Dialogue

painting tucker carlson putin intrview
© The Postil Magazine
Why is Tucker Carlson's interview momentous for both the West and Russia?

Let us start with the simpler part — Russia. Here, Tucker Carlson has become a focal point of convergence for two different — polar — segments of Russian society: the ideological patriots and the elite Westernizers who nevertheless remain loyal to Putin and the Special Military Operation (SMO). For the patriots, Tucker Carlson is simply ours. He is a traditionalist, a right-wing conservative, a staunch opponent of liberalism. This is what walking to the Russian Tsar looks like in the 21st century.

Putin does not often interact with the brightest representatives of the fundamentally conservative camp. And the attention that the Kremlin pays him kindles the heart of a patriot, inspiring him to continue the conservative-traditionalist course in Russia itself. Now it is possible and necessary to do so: the Russian authorities have decided on an ideology. We have taken this path and we will not turn away from it. But patriots are always afraid that we will turn back. No.

Cowboy Hat

Best of the Web: Supreme Court rules states can't kick Trump off the ballot

trump
© Drew Angerer / Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Monday handed a sweeping win to former President Donald Trump by ruling that states cannot kick him off the ballot over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.

In an unsigned ruling with no dissents, the court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, which had determined that Trump could not serve again as president under Section 3 of the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

The provision prohibits those who previously held government positions but later "engaged in insurrection" from running for various offices.

The court said the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly assumed that states can determine whether a presidential candidate or other candidate for federal office is ineligible.

Black Magic

Best of the Web: Israeli tanks deliberately crush dozens of Palestinian civilians alive, some were families sleeping in tents

gaza tank palestine
The Israeli army's repeated killings of Palestinian civilians by deliberately running them over alive with military vehicles was vehemently denounced by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on Sunday, as was the widespread destruction of civilian property. These crimes are part of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the rights group said, ongoing since 7 October 2023.

Euro-Med Monitor documented the Israeli army's killing of a Palestinian man who was deliberately run over in Gaza City's Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood on 29 February after he was arrested. The man was subjected to harsh interrogation by members of the Israeli army, who bound his hands with plastic zip-tie handcuffs before running him over with a military vehicle from the bottom to the top of his body.

Comment: Israel's crimes against the Palestinians has always been legion - with rampant organ harvesting and trafficking, rape and abuse of prisoners, endless terror raids and murder with impunity - but it seems that the nefarious infection that has possessed these perpetrators is worsening. Perhaps because, on some level, they know that their reckoning will come soon enough:


People 2

Best of the Web: Neil Oliver tears into 'unelected puppet' Rishi Sunak for 'gaslighting' the British people

Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver says that after years of neglect, politicians are starting to feel afraid as their poor decisions catch up with them.


Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Expelling US troops: Iraq's resistance efforts gain steam in Baghdad

iraq
© The CradleAs the Iraqi Resistance continues to pressure the US to halt support for Israel's war on Gaza, Baghdad - and Moscow - align closer with their agenda to expel US troops from Iraq.
Surveillance devices on a local Baghdad thoroughfare captured on camera the assassination of an Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in a 7 February US missile attack. The images show a missile piercing the roof of his vehicle, then deviating to the right of Al-Baladiyat street, leaving a wake of flames in its incendiary path.


Against the backdrop of the widening, US-backed and armed Israeli war on Gaza, the US airstrikes against Iraq and Syria were meant to deliver a strong message of deterrence to Iran's allies in the Axis of Resistance, who are targeting US military interests in West Asia in response to the carnage in Gaza.

But the strikes have instead served mainly to embarrass the Iraqi government and its domestic allies, prompting a reevaluation of the country's relationship with Washington and reviving calls for an end to the US military presence in Iraq.

Despite a steady stream of US threats and intimidation tactics employed to deter the Iraqi resistance since late last year, these factions have incrementally increased and expanded their engagement in the region-wide war, driven by their commitment to the Palestinian resistance and its liberation goals. The Iraqi groups have a specific goal: pressure Washington until it forces a Gaza truce - a strategic target that reflects the unity of purpose among the resistance factions in Iraq and the region.

Gavel

Best of the Web: Nicaragua files genocide case against GERMANY at ICJ for abetting Israel's crimes in Gaza


Comment: They deserve this. Germany is culpable of genocide TWICE in one century...


ICJcourt
© Remko ce Waal/ANP/AFPICJ President Joan Donoghue (C) and ICJ judges arrive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) prior to the verdict announcement in the genocide case against Israel, brought by South Africa, in The Hague on January 26, 2024
Nicaragua accuses Germany of facilitating genocide and failing to prevent the commission of genocide at The Hague.

Nicaragua accused Germany on Friday of enabling genocide in Gaza in a lawsuit brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for supporting "Israel" and blocking financing for the UN Palestinian refugee agency.

The Central American country officially filed a case at the ICJ against Germany for supporting "Israel" financially and militarily.

"Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case, has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide," Nicaragua asserted in a petition issued by the court in The Hague.

Comment: It's unlikely to have any discernible impact, however it at least highlights Germany's complicity - in spite of its history - and on the record: UN special rapporteur: Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians and it should be held accountable for genocide


USA

Best of the Web: The Silent Eulogy

Russian Yars Flight Test
© Scott Ritter ExtraThe flight test of a Russian Yars ICBM, February 29, 2024.
I was planning on publishing Part 2 of my article on Alexei Navalny.

However, today Alexei Navalny's body is being laid to rest in a funeral service in Moscow attended by a few thousand well-wishers and supporters.

My wife has always cautioned me not to speak ill of the dead.

Especially on the day their mortal remains are being returned to the earth.

Instead, I am compelled to write about something else.

It is the funeral that will never be held.

The obituary that will never be read.

The eulogy that will never be spoken.

Who's passing do I lament?

My own.

My family.

My friends.

My fellow Americans.

Humanity.

Robert Oppenheimer
© Scott Ritter ExtraRobert Oppenheimer
The mechanism of our deaths will only too late be revealed, most likely in a blinding flash of light that will bring us to our knees, awaiting the shockwave that proceeds the unbearable heat that will transform our flesh and bones, instantaneously, to ash.

We cannot claim that we were not forewarned of our imminent demise — ever since Robert Oppenheimer proclaimed himself to be "Death, the destroyer of worlds," we have known that we possessed the mechanism of our own destruction, and yet we have done nothing to remove this danger from our lives.

Instead, we continued to perfect this most horrible of weapons, devising even more deadly warheads, and more efficient delivery systems upon which to deliver them to our enemies, all the while knowing that any large-scale use of these weapons would signal our own passing.

For an all-too-brief moment, the insanity of the course we had set became apparent, and we undertook to return the genie to the bottle, to reverse course, to save ourselves and our fellow human beings.

Pills

Best of the Web: Liberal Oregon U-turns, passes bill to recriminalize hard drugs as overdose deaths skyrocket

tent city drug use portland oregon
© Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News DigitalTents cover an open space near the Steel Bridge in Portland, Oregon on July 7, 2023. Drug use has become rampant in the area.
Oregon lawmakers have voted to recriminalize certain drugs after a surge in overdose deaths resulted in the governor declaring a state of emergency for Portland's fentanyl crisis - all but ending a flagship liberal policy.

In 2020, a measure to decriminalize small amounts of all drugs and redirect much of the state's marijuana tax revenue to fund grants for addiction services was passed into law under Ballot Measure 110 with 58% of Oregon residents approving the measure.

Since then, addiction and overdose deaths have skyrocketed in Oregon and nationwide as fentanyl swept across the country.

Comment: Hot Air adds:
The real story here, which most of the news outlets writing about this completely skip over, is that the city of Portland has been a mess ever since 2020. That's when police were defunded and crime began to go up sharply. And thanks to the passage of Measure 110 (also in 2020) drug use on the streets and homelessness have gotten worse as well.

[...]

For the last several months, Gov. Tina Kotek has gone through a series of steps involving a task force making recommendations about what to do about these problems. All of this was political theater designed to reach the obvious conclusion that the state needed to do something about Measure 110. And that's where we are now.

Just a few years ago, Measure 110 was sold as a bold new vision for dealing with the drug problem, one that would replace the old, harsh system of imprisoning people. The results have been a disaster.

[...]

My own take on this, having watched the downfall of Portland from afar for many years now, is that neither decriminalization nor locking people up with solve this problem because this isn't a problem that can be solved. There is no magic pill that turns homeless addicts into reformed, productive members of society. Offering clean needles and endless services won't do it and neither will putting them in jail. Even those interventions that work can't keep up with the pace of new addicts showing up on the streets.

But the addicts aren't the only ones who matter.

That's what I think the ACLU and similar activists tend to overlook. We can't solve the problem of fentanyl addiction, but we can keep the street cleaner and open for business so people who aren't fentanyl addicts have a nice place to live. We can make it possible for people with physical handicaps to move down the sidewalk rather than being forced to traverse the streets because of all the tents blocking the way.

Locking people up is a brute force means of doing that but it's better than not doing anything at all. If the choice is between lots of addicts walking around, stealing and pissing on the street and lots of addicts locked up in jail, jail is the better option for everyone else. At some point, everyone else has to matter.

You don't have to take my word for it. It's Oregon Democrats who are about to repeal Measure 110. They have learned this lesson the hard way. The new bill should pass sometime in the next 10 days.