Wednesday, June 09, 2021

Sam Cooper Talks about his new book: How a Criminal Network of Narcos, Tycoons and Communist Party of China Agents Infiltrated the West

Recommendable! I have little doubt that the Communist Party of China, Putin the Terrible, North Korea, Iran and other bad state actors are involved in the global narcotics trade and money laundering business to undermine Western countries and to make money.

"In Canada, transnational criminals are exploiting government casinos to import deadly narcotics into Canada. And they’re laundering billions of dollars into real estate in Vancouver, the most expensive housing market in all of North America.

Behind all this crime are hidden links to China’s Communist Party. 

This is detailed in a new book by investigative journalist Sam Cooper, titled “Wilful Blindness: How a Criminal Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West.” It is the result of ten years of research and reporting. "

Major depression is no laughing matter or is it? Try laughing gas!

Good news! According to latest research inhaled low concentration laughing gas may help with treatment-resistant major depression.

Is it not common wisdom that laughing is good for your mental health? Laugh more, be happier!

"Laughing gas improves depression
About one-third of individuals suffering from depression are at risk for treatment resistance. Whereas inhaled 50% nitrous oxide has early antidepressant effects on individuals with treatment-resistant major depression (TRMD), adverse effects can occur at this concentration. In this phase 2 clinical trial, Nagele et al. studied the effects of a single 1-hour treatment with 25% nitrous oxide on depression symptoms in those with TRMD, finding that this lower concentration had comparable efficacy to 50% nitrous oxide over several weeks but was associated with significantly fewer adverse effects. These results highlight that lower concentrations of nitrous oxide may be a useful treatment for TRMD."

A phase 2 trial of inhaled nitrous oxide for treatment-resistant major depression | Science Translational Medicine (no public access)

Google to build its 16th submarine cable from the U.S. East Coast to Argentina

Amazing stuff! Google does not appear to disclose the transmission speed of the new cable yet.

"... It’s estimated that subsea cables carry 98% of all internet traffic today, and for Google they are vital to to increasing speeds and lowering latency for its billions of consumer and enterprise users globally. ...
Google is bolstering its cloud credentials with a new subsea cable running from the U.S. East Coast to Argentina, with additional touchpoints in Brazil and Uruguay. Firmina, as the cable is called, is the16th submarine cable Google has invested in and the sixth it’s building entirely on its own dime.  ..."

"... Firmina will be the longest cable in the world capable of running entirely from a single power source at one end of the cable if its other power source(s) become temporarily unavailable—a resilience boost at a time when reliable connectivity is more important than ever. ..."

In the age of political correctness and racism, Google explained: "The cable is named after Maria Firmina dos Reis (1825 - 1917), a Brazilian abolitionist and author whose 1859 novel, Úrsula, depicted life for Afro-Brazilians under slavery. A mixed-race woman and intellectual, Firmina is considered Brazil’s first novelist."

Google bolsters cloud push with new Firmina subsea cable | VentureBeat

The official Google announcement:



Google: A graph placement methodology for fast chip design

Good news! This could signify a breakthrough! In a new paper, Jeff Dean, Quoc V. Le and other researchers at Google use reinforcement learning to improve chip design beyond human capabilities!

"... AI-powered chip design could cut the cost of bespoke chips, leading to an explosion of special-purpose processing for all kinds of uses. ..."

"Chip floorplanning is the engineering task of designing the physical layout of a computer chip. Despite five decades of research1, chip floorplanning has defied automation, requiring months of intense effort by physical design engineers to produce manufacturable layouts. Here we present a deep reinforcement learning approach to chip floorplanning. In under six hours, our method automatically generates chip floorplans that are superior or comparable to those produced by humans in all key metrics, including power consumption, performance and chip area. ..."

"... Google engineers used a reinforcement learning system to arrange the billions of minuscule transistors in an upcoming version of its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips optimized for computing neural networks. The system generated the design in six hours rather than the usual span of weeks, as detailed in Nature.

Key insight: Designing a chip is like playing a board game. A silicon wafer’s area resembles a board, parameters like macro counts and netlist topologies resemble pieces, and evaluation metrics resemble victory conditions. Reinforcement learning (RL) excels at meeting such challenges: Think of DeepMind’s AlphaGo — the RL model that, in 2015, became the first computer program to beat a Go master on a full-size board without a handicap. ..."

A graph placement methodology for fast chip design | Nature (no public access)

Scientists reveal role of genetic switch in pigmentation and melanoma

Good news! Cancer is history! Maybe the researchers are on to something to treat melanoma in the near future.

"... [a study] reveals new insights about a protein called CRTC3, a genetic switch that could potentially be targeted to develop new treatments for melanoma by keeping the switch turned off. “We’ve been able to correlate the activity of this genetic switch to melanin production and cancer,” ...
Melanoma develops when pigment-producing cells that give skin its color, called melanocytes, mutate and begin to multiply uncontrollably. These mutations can cause proteins, like CRTC3, to prompt the cell to make an abnormal amount of pigment or to migrate and be more invasive. ... 
The researchers observed that eliminating CRTC3 in mice caused a color change in the animal’s coat color, demonstrating that the protein is needed for melanin production. Their experiments also revealed that when the protein was absent in melanoma cells, the cells migrated and invaded less ...
The team characterized, for the first time, the connection between two cellular communications (signaling) systems that converge on the CRTC3 protein in melanocytes. These two systems tell the cell to either proliferate or make the pigment melanin. ... Essentially, a baton (chemical message) is passed from one protein to another until it reaches the CRTC3 switch, either turning it on or off.
“The fact that CRTC3 was an integration site for two signaling pathways—the relay race—was most surprising,” ..."

Salk scientists reveal role of genetic switch in pigmentation and melanoma - Salk Institute for Biological Studies Study suggests that turning molecular switch off could be a strategy to treat deadly type of skin cancer

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

Nail polish robot paints and dries in 10 minutes per hand

What a slow robot! 20 minutes total for both hands! Does it work for men too?

Nail polish robot paints and dries in 10 minutes per hand - ISRAEL21c After his date arrived late due to a manicure malfunction, Omri Moran founded Nimble to automate the process at home.

Looks like this subject is en vogue these days. The New York Times had recently an article about this subject too!



Waste Recycling is a waste

Recommendable! Exporting recyclables to China makes about as much sense as buying prohibited gain of function research from a Virology lab in Wuhan, China!

How many resources and tax payer money were actually wasted on waste recycling over the past four or five decades? I am afraid a lot!

"... As Discover magazine pointed out a decade ago, recycling is tricky business. A 2010 Columbia University study found that just 16.5 percent of the plastic collected by the New York Department of Sanitation was “recyclable.”
“This results in nearly half of the plastics collected being landfilled,” researchers concluded. ...
Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a story detailing how hundreds of cities across the country are abandoning recycling efforts. ...
One reason for this is that China, perhaps the largest buyer of US recyclables, stopped accepting them in 2018. Other countries, such as Thailand and India, have increased imports, but not in sufficient tonnage to alleviate the mounting costs cities are facing. ...
And since there's no shortage of landfill space (the crisis of 1987 was a false alarm), there's no reason to make recycling a legal or moral imperative. ..."

America Finally Admits Recycling Doesn’t Work - Foundation for Economic Education It’s time to admit the recycling mania is a giant placebo.

G-7 Corporate Tax Agreement: Bullying at its worst

Recommendable! This is bullying at its worst!

If businesses would form a cartel to raise the minimum price, they would be sued by government!

"Leaders of the G-7 countries agreed on the weekend to pressure other countries to impose corporate tax rates of at least 15 percent. They also agreed to reallocate the earnings of some multinational corporations if too much was deemed to be in low‐​tax countries. ...
However, ... look at the data. It does not show eroding or insufficient revenues overall.
The chart below shows corporate tax revenues as a percent of GDP for the G-7 countries from 1965 to 2019. Despite huge increases in cross‐​border investment, the rise of the Internet, and the mobility of modern industries, corporate tax revenues have hovered in roughly the same range [2-3%] for half a century, although with fluctuations from economic booms and busts. The data is from the OECD. ..."

G-7 Corporate Tax Agreement | Cato at Liberty Blog



The Origins Of Mussolini's Italy narrated by Charlton Heston

Very recommendable! Il Duce often looks like clown! Italians used poison gas in their war 1935-37 with Ethiopia. Nazi Germany provided weapons to Ethiopia to fight the Italians. Like Japanese Americans, Italian Americans were also rounded up into internment camps in the U.S.
When Italy invaded Greece, Germany assisted the underperforming Italian military, which may have delayed Hitler's invasion of Russia.
Famous organised crime boss Lucky Luciano was involved in the Allied invasion of Sicily.
Just a reminder that the so called Interwar Period was anything but peaceful!

Quantum Computers, Explained With Quantum Physics

Recommendable!

Tuesday, June 08, 2021

Is California Over?

Recommendable! Big government has ruined the California dream over the decades!

A map of Antarctica and surrounding areas

Sometimes a particular viewpoint can make all the difference! E.g. follow the Tropic of Capricorn on the map below. Did you know that the tip of South America is so close to Antarctica?

Credits: National Geographic




New algorithms show accuracy, reliability in gauging unconsciousness under general anesthesia

Good news! It is quite surprising that we still know so little about anesthesia and anesthesiology although it is applied daily to thousands and thousands of patients every day around the world.

"Anesthestic drugs act on the brain, but most anesthesiologists rely on heart rate, respiratory rate, and movement to infer whether surgery patients remain unconscious to the desired degree. ...
More than providing a good readout of unconsciousness ... the new algorithms offer the potential to allow anesthesiologists to maintain it at the desired level while using less drug than they might administer when depending on less direct, accurate, and reliable indicators. That can improve patient’s post-operative outcomes, such as delirium. ...
In the new work ... the team trained versions of their AI algorithms, based on different underlying statistical methods, on more than 33,000 2-second-long snippets of EEG recordings from seven of the volunteers. This way the algorithms could “learn” the difference between EEG readings predictive of consciousness and unconsciousness under propofol. ..."

"... We applied machine learning approaches to construct classification models for real-time tracking of unconscious state during anesthesia-induced unconsciousness. ...
These results indicate that EEG spectral features can predict unconsciousness, even when tested on a different anesthetic that acts with a similar neural mechanism. ..." 

New algorithms show accuracy, reliability in gauging unconsciousness under general anesthesia | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Machine learning software advances could help anesthesiologists optimize drug dose.

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

Here’s a cool green way to upcycle millions of old tires

Good news! A toast to human ingenuity!

"... EcoTech’s nontoxic process produces a unique material, Active Rubber (AR), from end-of-life tires. With1.6 billion tires manufactured annually, and 290 million tires discarded each year in the United States alone, tires are the world’s largest source of waste rubber. ...
ECOINSUL, Drori says, “is literally a new standard that outperforms the current standard 10-fold. There’s almost no difference in price and it’s easy to handle and apply. It does very effective acoustic and thermal insulation. And it’s all made out of waste.” ...
With 21 worldwide patents issued, EcoTech finished testing and scaling in early 2020 and signed a strategic partnership with Austria-based Sibur International, one of the largest synthetic rubber manufacturers. ..."

Here’s a cool green way to upcycle millions of old tires - ISRAEL21c EcoTech Recycling’s patented thermodynamic process turns waste rubber into a nontoxic synthetic material for new tires, auto parts and insulation.

Globale Mindeststeuer: Die Doppelmoral der Hochsteuerländer

Leider ist der Artikel nicht allgemein zugänglich! Jedoch aus der Schweizer Sicht ist die globale Mindeststeuer ein affront!

Die Geldgier des Staates kennt kein Grenzen! Vorsicht ist geboten wenn sich die G7 Länder wie ein Kartell zusammenschließen, um Steuern zu erhöhen!

Globale Mindeststeuer: Die Doppelmoral der Hochsteuerländer (behind paywall) Die globale Mindeststeuer kommt. Sie höhlt den Steuerwettbewerb teilweise aus, was der Schweiz schadet. Die Argumentation der großen Länder offenbart eine schwer erträgliche Doppelmoral.

New study shows how to boost muscle regeneration and rebuild tissue

Good news! This is very early stage research, but promising. Aging without much muscle loss will become attainable in the near future!

"... To counter this loss, scientists at the Salk Institute are studying ways to accelerate the regeneration of muscle tissue, using a combination of molecular compounds that are commonly used in stem-cell research.

In a study published on May 25, 2021, in Nature Communications, the investigators showed that using these compounds increased the regeneration of muscle cells in mice by activating the precursors of muscle cells, called myogenic progenitors. ...
The compounds used in the study are often called Yamanaka factors after the Japanese scientist who discovered them. Yamanaka factors are a combination of proteins (called transcription factors) that control how DNA is copied for translation into other proteins. In lab research, they are used to convert specialized cells, like skin cells, into more stem-cell-like cells that are pluripotent, which means they have the ability to become many different types of cells. ...
Muscle regeneration is mediated by muscle stem cells, also called satellite cells. Satellite cells are located in a niche between a layer of connective tissue (basal lamina) and muscle fibers (myofibers). In this study, the team used two different mouse models to pinpoint the muscle stem-cell-specific or niche-specific changes following addition of Yamanaka factors. They focused on younger mice to study the effects of the factors independent of age.

In the myofiber-specific model, they found that adding the Yamanaka factors accelerated muscle regeneration in mice by reducing the levels of a protein called Wnt4 in the niche, which in turn activated the satellite cells. ..."

New study shows how to boost muscle regeneration and rebuild tissue - Salk Institute for Biological Studies Salk research reveals clues about molecular changes underlying muscle loss tied to aging

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

Monday, June 07, 2021

Herbert Hoover: Beyond the Great Depression

Recommendable! A tragic presidency, but an impressive career of a humble man!

Dangerous Volcanoes of Iceland

Very recommendable! Iceland is a very unique place on this planet in more than one way. First settled by Irish and Vikings in the 8th and 9th century AD. For example one of the most famous biopharmaceutical companies of the world, i.e. deCode genetics, is located in Iceland. 

Learn about one of the most consequential volcanic fissure eruptions of human history, i.e. Laki of 1783, in the last 350 years that severely affected weather all over the globe for three years.

The Art of Islam with Waldemar Januszczak

Very recommendable! 

Sunday, June 06, 2021

Remember Tank Man

Do you have the courage to do this or anything like it?



Tank Man - Wikipedia

Kristi Noem: "I Watched People in 2020 Roll Over and Give Up Their Freedoms"

Kristi Noem, Governor of South Dakota, for president!

Richard Pryor: Have Your Ass Home by 11:00

Hilarious! Don't use the n word n!

Engineers create a programmable fiber

Amazing stuff! This is almost science fiction! After smart phones, smart textiles are next?

"MIT researchers have created the first fiber with digital capabilities, able to sense, store, analyze, and infer activity after being sewn into a shirt. ...
Until now, electronic fibers have been analog — carrying a continuous electrical signal — rather than digital, where discrete bits of information can be encoded and processed in 0s and 1s.
“This work presents the first realization of a fabric with the ability to store and process data digitally, adding a new information content dimension to textiles and allowing fabrics to be programmed literally,” ..."

"... Fibres containing digital devices could enable fabrics with digital system capabilities for applications in physiological monitoring, human-computer interfaces, and on-body machine-learning. Here, a scalable preform-to-fibre approach is used to produce tens of metres of flexible fibre containing hundreds of interspersed, digital temperature sensors and memory devices with a memory density of ~7.6 × 105 bits per metre. The entire ensemble of devices are individually addressable and independently operated through a single connection at the fibre edge, overcoming the perennial single-fibre single-device limitation and increasing system reliability. The digital fibre, when incorporated within a shirt, collects and stores body temperature data over multiple days, and enables real-time inference of wearer activity with an accuracy of 96% through a trained neural network with 1650 neuronal connections stored within the fibre.  ..."

Engineers create a programmable fiber | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology In a first, the digital fiber contains memory, temperature sensors, and a trained neural network program for inferring physical activity.

Presumably, this is the link to the underlying research article:

Extensive study identifies over a dozen existing drugs as potential COVID-19 therapies

Good news! Very interesting research into whether existing drugs can be repurposed to treat e.g. Covid-19. 

"Mining the world’s most comprehensive drug repurposing collection for COVID-19 therapies, scientists have identified 90 existing drugs or drug candidates with antiviral activity against the coronavirus that’s driving the ongoing global pandemic.

Among those compounds, the Scripps Research study identified four clinically approved drugs and nine compounds in other stages of development with strong potential to be repurposed as oral drugs for COVID-19, according to results published June 3 in the journal Nature Communications. ...
the study tested more than 12,000 drugs in two different types of human cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. ...
In the ... study, the scientists treated two different types of laboratory-cultured SARS-CoV-2-infected human cells with each of the 12,000 drugs ... After 24 or 48 hours, they measured the level of viral infection in the cells to determine if the drugs prevented the virus from replicating. In some cases, they applied two drugs at a time to see if the compounds would work together against the virus. ..."

Extensive study identifies over a dozen existing drugs as potential COVID-19 therapies | Scripps Research FDA-approved drugs or experimental drugs with ample health data could be rapidly tested in humans for treatment of COVID-19.

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

Versatile coronavirus antibody may be starting point for broader-acting vaccines

Good news! Perhaps finally, we will develop a vaccine against the common cold thanks to SARS-CoV-2!

"... In a new study that appears in Nature Communications, scientists from Scripps Research investigated how the immune system’s previous exposure to cold-causing coronaviruses impact immune response to COVID-19. In doing so, they discovered one cross-reactive coronavirus antibody that’s triggered during a COVID-19 infection.
The findings will help in the pursuit of a vaccine or antibody treatment that works against most or all coronaviruses ...
In later tests, the antibody also neutralized SARS-CoV-1  ...
“We were able to determine that this type of cross-reactive antibody is likely produced by a memory B cell that’s initially exposed to a coronavirus that causes the common cold, and is then recalled during a COVID-19 infection,” ..."

Versatile coronavirus antibody may be starting point for broader-acting vaccines | Scripps Research A special type of antibody is produced in patients who’ve had COVID-19 as well as less-serious coronaviruses that cause colds.

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

Can Single Cells Learn?

Very recommendable! Very long article! A fascinating subject whether primitive forms of life like single cell organisms are able to learn. Research into this subject was ignored or ridiculed for several decades by fellow scientists!

Can Single Cells Learn? | The Scientist Magazine® A controversial idea from the mid-20th century is attracting renewed attention from researchers developing theories for how cognition arises with or without a brain.

Thor: Destructive God of Thunder

Recommendable!

Saturday, June 05, 2021

G7 nations sign historic pact to make tech giants pay fair taxes

The cognitively impaired and most socialist 46th U.S. President since FDR is doing everything to ruin the U.S. and now also other Western economies.

This harmonization of corporate tax rates is a dangerous move! Tax competition among jurisdictions and countries is an important challenge and correction to greedy governments! Resist Big Government!

In my estimation Ireland maybe the next country to leave the European Union after Brexit!

Human folly is boundless!

India intends the indigenous construction of six conventional submarines

Taking control of the Indian ocean! Countering submarine programs by Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Plastic Bags Help the Environment

Recommendable! Don't let extreme environmentalists with their religious fervor run your life!

"... This moral panic is intensifying even as evidence mounts that banning plastic is both a waste of money and harmful to the environment. If you want to protect dolphins and sea turtles, you should take special care to place your plastic in the trash, not the recycling bin. ...
During the 1970s, environmentalists wanted to restrict the use of plastic because it was made from petroleum. When the “energy crisis” abated, they denounced plastic for not being biodegradable in landfills. They blamed it for littering the landscape, clogging sewer drains and global warming. Plastic from our “throwaway society” was killing vast numbers of sea creatures, according to a 2017 BBC documentary series. ...
More than 100 countries now restrict single-use plastic bags, and Pope Francis has called for global regulation of plastic. The European Parliament has voted to ban single-use plastic straws, plates and cutlery across the Continent next year [2021]. In the U.S., hundreds of municipalities and eight states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont—have outlawed or restricted single-use plastic bags. Greens in California are pushing a referendum to require all plastic packaging and single-use foodware in the state to be recyclable, and the European Union has unveiled a similar plan.

Popular misconceptions have sustained the plastic panic. Environmentalists frequently claim that 80% of plastic in the oceans comes from land-based sources, but a team of scientists from four continents reported in 2018 that more than half the plastic in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” came from fishing boats—mostly discarded nets and other gear. Another study, published last year by Canadian and South African researchers, found that more than 80% of the plastic bottles that had washed up on the shore of Inaccessible Island, an uninhabited extinct volcano in the South Atlantic, originated in China. ...
Another myth—that recycling plastic prevents it from polluting the oceans—stems from the enduring delusion that plastic waste can be profitably turned into other products. But sorting plastic is so labor-intensive, and the resulting materials of so little value, that most municipalities pay extra to get rid of their plastic waste, mostly by shipping it to Asian countries with low labor costs. The chief destination for many years was China, which two years ago banned most imports. ...
Once discarded, [plastic bags] take up little room in landfills. That they aren’t biodegradable is a plus, because they don’t release greenhouse gases like decomposing paper and cotton bags. ...
If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions and plastic pollution, we can take some obvious steps: Repeal misguided plastic-bag bans. Stop exporting plastic waste to countries that allow it to leak into the ocean. Help those countries establish modern systems for collecting and processing their own plastic waste. Send plastic waste straight to landfills and incinerators.  ..."

Plastic Bags Help the Environment | Manhattan Institute Banning them provides no benefit other than to let activists lord their preferences over others.

More extreme life forms discovered in Antarctica under the ice shelf

Amazing stuff!

"Life finds all kinds of ways to survive extremes. Tube worms thrive in the superheated, super-sulfurous water near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Tardigrades, also known as water bears or moss piglets, can go up to 30 years without food or water. Lichens that make their homes in the pores of sandstone survive such extremes that scientists have proposed them as possible analogs for Martian life forms.

And now, newly discovered Antarctic sea sponges are joining this rarefied group of extremophiles. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey got a surprise when they drilled a bore hole through a half-mile thick ice shelf—and hit a boulder. Normally that’s a bad thing. But they dropped a camera down the hole (pictured above) and found something far more exciting. Beneath the ice, in total darkness and in near-freezing water, they saw a variety of animals clinging to the rock, including 16 sponges and 20 other unidentified creatures. ..."
Credits: National Geographic

"... New observations from two boreholes in the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf challenge the idea that sessile organisms reduce in prevalence the further under the ice you go. The discovery of an established community consisting of only sessile, probably filter feeding, organisms (sponges and other taxa) on a boulder 260 km from the ice front raises significant questions, especially when the local currents suggest that this community is somewhere between 625 km and 1500 km in the direction of water flow from the nearest region of photosynthesis. This new evidence requires us to rethink our ideas with regard to the diversity of community types found under ice shelves ..."

Frontiers | Breaking All the Rules: The First Recorded Hard Substrate Sessile Benthic Community Far Beneath an Antarctic Ice Shelf | Marine Science (open access)

The complete sequence of a human genome

You thought it was long done about 20 years ago? This probably a huge improvement eventually benefiting humanity!

"In 2001, Celera Genomics and the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium published their initial drafts of the human genome, which revolutionized the field of genomics. While these drafts and the updates that followed effectively covered the euchromatic fraction of the genome, the heterochromatin and many other complex regions were left unfinished or erroneous. Addressing this remaining 8% of the genome, the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium has finished the first truly complete 3.055 billion base pair (bp) sequence of a human genome, representing the largest improvement to the human reference genome since its initial release. The new T2T-CHM13 reference includes gapless assemblies for all 22 autosomes plus Chromosome X, corrects numerous errors, and introduces nearly 200 million bp of novel sequence containing 2,226 paralogous gene copies, 115 of which are predicted to be protein coding. The newly completed regions include all centromeric satellite arrays and the short arms of all five acrocentric chromosomes, unlocking these complex regions of the genome to variational and functional studies for the first time."

The complete sequence of a human genome | bioRxiv

Signs of Ancient Microbial Life Abundant in Earth's Crust

Amazing stuff! Life on earth never stops to amaze!

"... Researchers analyzed mineral samples from more than 30 underground sites in Sweden and nearby countries and identified molecular and isotopic signatures of microbial activity stretching back at least 50 million years, adding further support to the idea that life has long survived deep beneath the surface of the Earth. ..."

"Earth’s crust contains a substantial proportion of global biomass, hosting microbial life up to several kilometers depth. Yet, knowledge of the evolution and extent of life in this environment remains elusive and patchy. Here we present isotopic, molecular and morphological signatures for deep ancient life in vein mineral specimens from mines distributed across the Precambrian Fennoscandian shield. Stable carbon isotopic signatures of calcite indicate microbial methanogenesis. In addition, sulfur isotope variability in pyrite, supported by stable carbon isotopic signatures of methyl-branched fatty acids, suggest subsequent bacterial sulfate reduction. Carbonate geochronology constrains the timing of these processes to the Cenozoic. We suggest that signatures of an ancient deep biosphere and long-term microbial activity are present throughout this shield. We suggest that microbes may have been active in the continental igneous crust over geological timescales, and that subsurface investigations may be valuable in the search for extra-terrestrial life."

Signs of Ancient Microbial Life Abundant in Earth's Crust: Study | The Scientist Magazine®

Ukraine Wants to Be Cryptocurrency Central

Recommendable! Amazing! If you have the energy to mine cryptocurrency ... Behind it e.g. some investment firms located/registered in Malta & Cyprus ...

"... A plant for mining bitcoin, a process by which computing power is effectively exchanged for the cryptocurrency, will soon rise near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, not far from Ukraine’s border with Russia. Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, but the to-be-constructed cryptocurrency operation—signed by Ukraine’s government-owned nuclear plant operator Energoatom and a private firm called H2 last year and involving a $700 million investment ...
Another bitcoin-mining plant is being built next to the Rivne nuclear plant in western Ukraine, a three-way partnership between Energoatom, a regional authority, and Bitfury, a Dutch company that specializes in building Bitcoin infrastructure. ...
So far, Ukraine already has around 100 companies in the cryptocurrency sector, according to the government, even without the legislation having been fully passed. According to a new report by the cybersecurity firm Hacken and the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, between July 2019 and June 2020 $8.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency went out of Ukraine, while $8 billion worth arrived in the country. The country’s average daily cryptocurrency transaction volume now corresponds to $150 million to $200 million.

“Once we pass the legislation, Ukraine will become one of the world’s very top destinations for cryptocurrencies,” Bornyakov said. “There are not that many countries that are crypto-friendly, so companies go to the ones that are.” When the legislation is in place, he estimates, Ukraine could become home to around 2,000 cryptocurrency firms. ..."

Ukraine's Cryptocurrency Bet Could Make Corruption Worse Kyiv’s big bet on digital money could backfire and make the country’s corruption problems worse.

What Caused The Collapse Of Ancient Sparta? with Bettany Hughes

Very recommendable!

Friday, June 04, 2021

Ben Domenech: The pandemic revealed who is really in charge

Recommendable! Ben is not mincing words!

Is Islam a Religion of Peace? with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Very recommendable!

„Grüne“ Agenda der US-Notenbank wird die nächste Wirtschaftskrise beschleunigen

Sehr empfehlenswert! Dem Klimawahn wird alles untergeordnet! Sehr gefährlich!

Neuer Klimaschutz-Entwurf: 40.000 Euro mehr für ein Haus

Die Deutschen spinnen immer mehr! Wie die Lemminge! Wann wird endlich dem Klimawahn Einhalt geboten! Die Bananenrepublik Deutschland gleicht einem Tollhaus im Superwahljahr! 

In den 1930er Jahren waren die Nazis die Verführer mit Hitler! Seit mehreren Jahrzehnten hat die Grüne Religion übernommen das deutsche Wesen übernommen!

Neuer Klimaschutz-Entwurf: 40.000 Euro mehr für ein Haus Die Regierung will Solaranlagen auf Hausdächern verpflichtend machen und die Dämmvorschriften weiter verschärfen. Auch in anderen Bereichen zeigt sich, was Klimaschutz im Alltag bedeutet – und kostet.

Studien zu Kippelementen: Fällt ein Stein, beginnt das riskante Klima-Domino

Wie die deutschen Bürger täglich auf Neue für dumm verkauft werden! Apokalypse, drohender Weltuntergang ... Als ob die Journalisten u.a. Intellektuelle in Deutschland einer Sekte angehören!

Und wieder mal, wie so oft, werden fragwürdige Klimamodellrechnungen für diesen Unsinn herangezogen! Wieder mal wird die beruechtigte 1.5 Grad Celsius Kriterium herangezogen. 1.5 Grad Celsius globaler Anstieg seit vorindustrieller Zeit ist beinahe so viel wie ein Messfehler oder entspricht der zu erwartenden Messungenauigkeit! Hier wird selbst von Wissenschaftlern eine Präzision vorgegaukelt die so nicht existiert!

Die Wissenschaftler präsentieren Modellrechnungen von 400-1200 Jahren in die Zukunft! Absolut lachhaft!

"... as Ende der Welt müsse es nicht bedeuten, so schrieben noch im April vier britische Wissenschaftler nach der Auswertung ihrer Klimodellrechnungen in der Zeitschrift Nature, wenn bestimmte kritische Schwellenwerte für die globale Erwärmung überschritten würden – das System Erde könne durchaus wieder stabilisiert werden. ..."

"... To demonstrate this, we consider transparently simple models of tipping elements with prescribed thresholds, driven by global warming trajectories that peak before returning to stabilize at a global warming level of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. ..."

Studien zu Kippelementen: Fällt ein Stein, beginnt das riskante Klima-Domino Die Eispanzer an den Polen, der Amazonas-Regenwald und die Ozeanströme – wie die Kippelemente den Klimawandel in noch gefährlichere Fahrwasser bringen können, verdeutlicht eine neue, brisante Studie.

Thursday, June 03, 2021

The Titans That Built America: Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. the Titans of Wall Street

Looks like this is a piece of crap produced by the History Channel! So the worst and most socialist U.S. president of all times, i.e. Franklin D. Roosevelt also engaged in targeting, vilifying, and scapegoating selected major business leaders. 

Besser als E-Autos? Klimafreundlicher Kraftstoff für Verbrennungsmotoren

Sehr empfehlenswert! Erdgas oder synthetische Kraftstoffe als Alternative to Elektroautos.

Temporary Halt on all Activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Relating to the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program

Another very stupid move by the cognitively impaired most socialist 46th President! As stupid as canceling the Keystone pipeline on day one in office!

The 46th President is a purveyor of the demagoguery of a "Climate Crisis" together with his even dumber pal John Kerry!

"Sec. 1 Purpose. This Order is taken in furtherance of Section 4(a) of Executive Order (EO) 13990, entitled, "Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis" (January 20, 2021 ). "

Secretary's Order 3401

Milestone: Over 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered worldwide

Given that there are only about 7.8 billion humans roaming this planet! This is mind boggling and unprecedented history is in the making!  Behold and be amazed!

Around 4/26/2021, the 1 billion milestone was reached! This speed of vaccinations is breath taking and stunning!


The Rolling Stones - You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Official Video)

Enjoy!

Rebellion | Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire | BBC Documentary

Not recommendable! Way too much reenactment for a documentary! This is almost an action movie!

What is truly remarkable that the Jews were such formidable foes of the Roman Empire around 60-70 AD also known as the First Jewish-Roman War!

Wednesday, June 02, 2021

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht als Erfüllungsgehilfe der Politik

Sehr empfehlenswert! Ist der jetzige Präsident des Gerichts tatsächlich eine Getreuer der SED Kanzlerin Merkel? Das Bundesverfassungsgericht verkommt zum Reichsgericht 1933-45 in der Bananenrepublik Deutschland unter SED Kanzlerin Merkel! 

Das kürzlich ergangene Klimawahnurteil des BVerfG ist ein weiteres Beispiel für politisch motivierte Justiz/Travestie des höchsten Gerichts!

Brexit: Why Britain Left the European Union with Nigel Farage

Very recommendable! A bit dated! However, Nigel Farage is one of the greatest living politicians of our time as far as Western Countries are concerned! He ranks up there with other luminaries like Lech Walesa of Poland or Margaret Thatcher!

Ben Domenech: Consider the distinct possibility we are led by idiots

Very recommendable! The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) by Karl Popper

Tucker Carlson: Fauci deserves to be under 'criminal investigation'

Recommendable! Indict and jail Anthony Fauci for the rest of his life if these allegations against him are upheld in court!

Emails Show Anthony Fauci Scrambled At Beginning Of Pandemic To Determine Potential U.S. Role In Funding Coronavirus Research ‘Abroad’

One of the biggest mistakes by President Trump was not to fire or retire this lifelong career and one of the highest paid federal bureaucrat and 80 year old clown Anthony Fauci of Faucian Bargain!

...Said 'Drug Store' Masks 'Not Really Effective'...

...Worried Virus Could 'Look Engineered'...


Emails: Fauci Rushing to Know U.S. Role in Coronavirus Testing ‘Abroad’



Let Trans Athletes Have Their Own Sport Competitions

I am sure not the only person proposing this common sense solution (see e.g. here published in March of this year)!

Let Trans Athletes Have Their Own Sport Competitions | Intellectual Takeout

Review: BERTology Meets Biology: Interpreting Attention in Protein Language Models

This appears to be an interesting paper by two frequent and highly cited collaborators at Salesforce, i.e. Richard Socher and Caiming Xiong. It has recently been accepted for ICLR 2021. I did not yet have time to read this paper.

It is particularly noteworthy that Richard Socher was focused on computational linguistics and natural language processing while a student at Stanford University. He is now bringing his expertise to bear on the language of proteins.

Most likely, machine learning will make many valuable contributions to understanding the three-dimensional structure/folding of proteins and their function and properties!

"... In this work, we demonstrate a set of methods for analyzing protein Transformer models through the lens of attention. We show that attention: (1) captures the folding structure of proteins, connecting amino acids that are far apart in the underlying sequence, but spatially close in the three-dimensional structure, (2) targets binding sites, a key functional component of proteins, and (3) focuses on progressively more complex biophysical properties with increasing layer depth. ..."

BERTology Meets Biology: Interpreting Attention in Protein Language Models | OpenReview

Tesla: Transitioning to Tesla Vision without any radar only in North America

I am not sure it is very smart to eliminate radar and to rely solely on camera vision! E..g. in situations were visibility is low or or the view is obstructed, a radar might still be able to prevent accidents etc.

"We are continuing the transition to Tesla Vision, our camera-based Autopilot system. Beginning with deliveries in May 2021, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built for the North American market will no longer be equipped with radar. Instead, these will be the first Tesla vehicles to rely on camera vision and neural net processing to deliver Autopilot, Full-Self Driving and certain active safety features. ..."

Transitioning to Tesla Vision | Tesla

Hans-Jürgen Irmer, MdB: "Unser deutscher Alleingang hilft dem Klima nicht"

Empfehlenswert! Hatte leider nicht die Zeit den ganzen Beitrag zu lesen, aber Herr Irmer liegt weitgehend richtig mit seiner Einschätzung! So lange die Gartenzwerge die deutsche Politik dominieren ...

"... Schaut man sich nur die letzten 1000 Jahre an, so kann man feststellen, dass die Wikinger um das Jahr 900 herum Gründland, also das heutige Grönland, entdeckten. Sie nannten es Gründland, weil man dort Ackerbau und Viehzucht betreiben konnte. Um 1400 herum begann eine Kaltzeit, die sogenannte Kleine Eiszeit zwischen 1420 und 1570, und danach noch einmal zwischen 1650 und 1715. Dies bedeutete, die Winter waren lang, die Vegetationsperioden kurz. ...
In der Natur haben wir rund 165.000 Milliarden Tonnen CO2, ein lebensnotwendiges Spuren-Gas. Ohne CO2 gibt es keinerlei Leben. Der Anteil von CO2 am Luftvolumen beträgt 0,040 Prozent. Das Luftvolumen besteht zu 78 Prozent aus Stickstoff und rund 21 Prozent aus Sauerstoff sowie 0,9 Prozent Edelgase. Von diesen 0,040 Prozent CO2 in der Luft sind 96 Prozent naturgemacht, 4 Prozent verursacht der Mensch, was einem Anteil von 0,0016 Prozent entspricht, dies sind in Masse umgerechnet nämlich rund 35 Milliarden Tonnen CO2-Ausstoß jährlich. Deutschlands Anteil an diesen 35 Milliarden liegt bei ca. 700 Millionen Tonnen, also etwa 2 Prozent. Das heißt, der deutsche Anteil am gesamten CO2-Ausstoß liegt bei 0,00003 Prozent. Diese Zahlen muss man erwähnen, um die „Bedeutung“ Deutschlands hervorzuheben, wenn es darum geht, zu glauben, dass man als Mensch beschließen kann, die Erderwärmung auf 1,5 Grad zu begrenzen. Welch eine Hybris!
... Um die Dimension der deutschen CO2-Hysterie deutlich zu machen, muss man darauf verweisen, dass in den nächsten 24 Jahren bis 2045 das, was Deutschland unter hohem Aufwand mit viel Geld einsparen will, genau die Menge ist, die China in sechs Monaten verbraucht. ...
"

Hans-Jürgen Irmer, MdB: "Unser deutscher Alleingang hilft dem Klima nicht" In einem offenen Brief an seine Kollegen in der CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion kritisiert der CDU-Bundestagsabgeordnete Hans-Jürgen Irmer die aktuelle deutsche Klimapolitik. "Hysterie, Hektik und Ideologie" seien keine guten Ratgeber. Wir dokumentieren seinen Grundsatzartikel.

Allensbach-Umfrage: Die Mehrheit der Atomkraftgegner schmilzt

Good news! Wäre großartig, wenn die Bürger wieder zur Vernunft kommen. Die Deutschen Michel dümpeln seit vielen Jahren in einem grünen Rausch zurück zum Mittelalter! Windmühlen und Sonnenenergie trotz schlechten Wetters!

Am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen! Gilt leider immer noch! Was für ein Unfug! Was für eine Arroganz!

Der Atomausstieg war einer von vielen schweren Fehlern der SED Kanzlerin Merkel!

Allensbach-Umfrage: Die Mehrheit der Atomkraftgegner schmilzt Als Angela Merkel 2011 den endgültigen Atomausstieg durchsetzte, hatte sie dafür die Zustimmung von fast drei Vierteln der Bevölkerung. Nach einer aktuellen Umfrage sind es nur noch 56 Prozent. Sogar ein Teil der Grünen-Wähler befürwortet Atomkraft.



Israel: Guardian of the Walls operation against Hamas

Recommendable! A summary of the Israeli defense operations against the latest Hamas terrorist war crimes on Israel!

"... A review of the results of Operation Guardian of the Walls reveals a partial success. Israeli military deterrence capabilities have been restored through the almost total destruction of rocket production capacity in the Gaza Strip and critical damage to the “Gaza Metro,” Hamas’ tunnel network. ...
Hamas made it clear to Israel and the entire world that it has no problem sacrificing Gaza, and its two million citizens, to gain Jerusalem. This was confirmed in a speech given by Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau, from his seat in Qatar, in which he states that Hamas is fighting not for the Gaza Strip, but for Jerusalem. ...

Operation Guardian of the Walls in numbers:
– 11 days of fighting
– 12 Israelis killed
– 4,000 +  rockets fired at Israel, 90% of them intercepted by the IDF
– 5 senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders killed
– 680 rockets launched by Hamas misfired hitting Gazan civilians
– 200 + Gazan civilians killed
– 20 terrorist operatives killed by Hamas fire
– 100 + kilometers of terrorism tunnels demolished
– 100 + terrorist operatives eliminated
– Over two million Gazan civilians held hostage by the terrorist organization Hamas
– One Iron Dome system ..."

Guardian of the Walls - Jerusalem Institute of Justice



The Dark Underworld of Brezhnev's Kremlin narrated by Charlton Heston

Very recommendable!

Energy Revolution in the Northern Territory of Australia

Good news! A shale gas bonanza in the Beetaloo Sub-Basin!

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

National Geographic Documentary about Anthony Fauci

The Faucian Bargain gets worse! Why did President Trump fail to fire or retire this  80 year old clown Anthony Fauci early on after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out! He turned out to be a total failure!

Anthony Fauci: Expect the Unexpected: Ten Lessons on Truth, Service, and the Way Forward

The Faucian Bargain gets worse! Why did President Trump fail to fire or retire this  80 year old clown Anthony Fauci early on after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out! He turned out to be a total failure!

"... With more than three decades spent combating some of the most dangerous diseases to strike humankind-- AIDS, Ebola, COVID-19--Dr. Fauci has worked in daunting professional conditions and shouldered great responsibility. The earnest reflections in these pages offer a universal message on how to lead in times of crisis [?????] and find resilience in the face of disappointments and obstacles. ..."

Expect the Unexpected: Ten Lessons on Truth, Service, and the Way Forward: Fauci, Anthony: 9781426222450: Amazon.com: Books



Still no answers on Ashli Babbitt: Husband speaks out

This is a huge scandal! Who killed the only person and she was unarmed  during the United States Capitol protests on Jan. 6th? And why? Hope, the husband will soon file a law suit!

JAMA editor to depart following podcast that questioned racism in medicine

There is nothing to celebrate here! This is medieval inquisition all over again in the 21st century! Indoctrination and orthodoxy reign! Awful!

JAMA editor to depart following podcast that questioned racism in medicine Following a huge backlash that flared after the Journal of the American Medical Association aired a podcast and posted a tweet questioning whether structural racism exists in medicine, the American Medical Association announced Tuesday that the journal’s editor-in-chief, Howard Bauchner, will be stepping down at the end of June.

Cancer May Be Driven by extrachromosomal DNA

Good news! Very recommendable! Cancer is history! Every day we learn more about this disease! This research could be a major breakthrough! Following long and well written article is actually authored by a subject matter expert and cancer researcher!

"... This work revealed the presence of [extrachromosomal DNA] ecDNA in almost every cancer type we looked at. We further found that ecDNA enabled cancers to change their genomes quickly, and even to move genes back onto chromosomes, but not in their original locations. ...
We first demonstrated that ecDNA is circular. These ecDNAs differ from the more common small extrachromosomal circular DNA particles (eccDNAs) that are found in the genomes of eukaryotes from yeast to flies to humans. For one, eccDNAs average only about 100–1,000 base pairs in length and are thus relatively unlikely to contain intact genes or other functional elements, while ecDNAs are relatively large, averaging around 1.3 million base pairs. ecDNAs are chock-full of growth-promoting oncogenes, and they contain other genes and regulatory regions that may be involved in tumor formation and progression. 

Moreover, unlike other types of small circular DNAs such as eccDNAs and ribosomal DNAs that can be found in normal cells at low levels, ecDNAs are unique to cancer, and they are highly amplified. ..."

Cancer May Be Driven by DNA Outside of Chromsomes | The Scientist Magazine® In the last decade, researchers have come to realize that tumors harbor bits of extrachromosomal DNA that can drive malignancy.

Researchers design long-lasting, solid-state lithium battery

Recommendable! 

Do not accept electric vehicles is the only solution as politicians and propagandists want you to believe! There is hydrogen power or synthetic and recyclable fuels and more out there. Anyway, thanks to modern technologies like video conferencing and home office, the need for e.g. commuting or business travel will be significantly reduced in the future.

Do not believe the myth that electric vehicles are much more environmentally friendly than gasoline powered vehicles when you consider e.g. the entire lifecycle of a vehicle and its components!

I am not sure the "cycling performance" of this new battery is really impressive and meets the demands of e.g. frequent drivers.

"Long-lasting, quick-charging batteries are essential to the expansion of the electric vehicle market, but today’s lithium-ion batteries fall short of what’s needed — they’re too heavy, too expensive and take too long to charge. ... “A lithium-metal battery ... But the stability of these batteries has always been poor.” ...
This battery technology could increase the lifetime of electric vehicles to that of the gasoline cars — 10 to 15 years — without the need to replace the battery. ... With its high current density, the battery could pave the way for electric vehicles that can fully charge within 10 to 20 minutes. ...
These [dendrites] grow like roots into the electrolyte and pierce the barrier separating the anode and cathode, causing the battery to short or even catch fire. ... The battery is also self-healing; its chemistry allows it to backfill holes created by the dendrites."

"... However, in practice it still remains challenging to realise a lithium metal anode for batteries, because micrometre- or submicrometre-sized cracks in ceramic pellets can frequently be generated during battery assembly or long-time cycling3,5. Once cracks form, lithium dendrite penetration is inevitable. Here we describe a solid-state battery design with a hierarchy of interface stabilities (to lithium metal responses), to achieve an ultrahigh current density with no lithium dendrite penetration. Our multilayer design has the structure of a less-stable electrolyte sandwiched between more-stable solid electrolytes, which prevents any lithium dendrite growth through well localized decompositions in the less stable electrolyte layer. ... The cycling performance of the lithium metal anode paired with a LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 cathode is very stable, with an 82 per cent capacity retention after 10,000 cycles at a 20C rate (8.6 milliamps per centimetre squared) and 81.3 per cent capacity retention after 2,000 cycles at a 1.5C rate (0.64 milliamps per centimetre squared). ..."

Researchers design long-lasting, solid-state lithium battery – Harvard Gazette Harvard researchers design long-lasting, stable, solid-state lithium battery to fix 40-year problem

Here is the link to the underlying research article:

This picture from the Harvard Gazette article is just too cute! It suggests that the chemistry going on in your car battery is like a healthy, wholesome sandwich. This is disturbing propaganda!


Millions Died Thanks to the Mother of Environmentalism Rachel Carson

Recommendable! This important story about environmentalism gone mad cannot be told often enough! To ban DDT without an effective substitute was reckless, but the victims of malaria were mostly located in poor countries (still true today)! Who cares!

"... Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives. ... On Sept. 27, 1962, Rachel Carson changed her tone. Her next book, Silent Spring, which she called her “poison book,” was an angry, no-holds-barred polemic against pesticides: especially DDT. The first chapter of Silent Spring, titled “A Fable for Tomorrow,” was almost biblical, appealing to our sense that we had sinned against our Creator. ...
In May 1963, Rachel Carson appeared before the Department of Commerce and asked for a “Pesticide Commission” to regulate the untethered use of DDT. Ten years later, Carson’s “Pesticide Commission” became the Environmental Protection Agency, which immediately banned DDT. ...
Although DDT soon became synonymous with poison, the pesticide was an effective weapon in the fight against an infection that has killed – and continues to kill – more people than any other: malaria. By 1960, due largely to DDT, malaria had been eliminated from 11 countries, including the United States. As malaria rates went down, life expectancies went up; as did crop production, land values, and relative wealth. ... Since the mid-1970s, when DDT was eliminated from global eradication efforts, tens of millions of people have died from malaria unnecessarily: most have been children less than five years old. ...
DDT was arguably one of the safer insect repellents ever invented – far safer than many of the pesticides that have taken its place. ...
In 2006, the World Health Organization reinstated DDT as part of its effort to eradicate malaria. ..."

Millions Died Thanks to the Mother of Environmentalism - Foundation for Economic Education

Staatsquote in Österreich erreicht Rekordhoch

Eine Staatsquote jenseits der 40% sollte als verfassungswidrig abgelehnt werden! Zu viel Staat ist schädlich und freiheitswidrig!

Die deutsche Staatsquote sieht mit Sicherheit nicht besser aus!

Die Staatsquoten schossen aufgrund der Corona-Hilfsmaßnahmen überall in Europa in die Höhe. In Österreich stiegen die öffentlichen Ausgaben im Vorjahr auf 217 Milliarden Euro. Damit erreichte die Staatsquote im Jahr 2020 mit 57,5 Prozent gemessen an der Wirtschaftsleistung ein neues Rekordniveau, wie eine Grafik der Agenda Austria zeigt.

„Es ist wichtig und richtig gewesen, dass der Staat in der Krise einspringt. In den kommenden Monaten wird er sich aber wieder zurückziehen müssen“ ... Die Abhängigkeit von der Staatshand sei nicht nur teuer, sie bremst auch die Wirtschaftstätigkeit. Die Rückführung der Staatsquote werde auf viel Gegenwind stoßen ... Das sei aber unausweichlich, wenn wir in Zukunft wieder zu einem soliden Wachstum zurückkehren wollen. 



Grafik: Staatsquote erreicht Rekordhoch

Russia's environmental issues

What a wonderful life in Putin the Terrible's Russia! (Caution: irony)

Biden addresses nation at Arlington National Cemetery | Memorial Day

What a shoddy, pathetic speech! Dishonest! It is not "democracy", but the Declaration of Independence Americans died for!

You wonder what medications he was on for this event as he did not have the usual moments of confusion etc.