7.2 Percent Of US Adults Identify As LGBT
USA - A total of 7.2 percent of US adults identified as LGBT in 2022, a new record high. As Statista's Katharina Buchholz notes, Gen Z, newly added in the Gallup survey's 2020 edition, is the gayest generation in terms of self-identification. Almost 20 percent of those born between 1997 and 2004 identified as LGBT, compared with around 11 percent of Millennials. While scientists believe that the share of LGBT individuals has not actually changed over time, younger people in the US are more likely to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual.
Even within the generation of Millennials, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, self-identification quotas rose in the past years. In 2014, only 6.3 percent of Millennials had said they identified as LGBT. For older generations, levels of self-identification did not change majorly in the past decade.
Car Loans: Distress Cycle Finally Arrives
USA - One month ago, when discussing the "perfect storm" hitting the US auto market, we showed that according to Fitch "More Americans Can't Afford Their Car Payments Than During The Peak Of Financial Crisis". Well, after a lengthy period in which nothing seemed to happen, suddenly the dominoes are starting to fall, and as Bloomberg reports, used car retailer and subprime auto loan lender, American Car Center, told employees the business was closing its doors, just one day after the company had hoped to pull off a funding Hail Mary by selling a $222 million bond (it failed).
According to Bloomberg, the used car retailer, which targets consumers regardless of their credit history (and thus targets almost entirely subprime borrowers who can't get a loan elsewhere), said in an email to employees on Friday the firm was ceasing all operations, closing its headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, and that all employees would be terminated by the end of the business day, the people said. It employed about 288 people at its headquarters. The long overdue collapse - the first of many - comes as more Americans are starting to fall behind on their car payments, and the distress cycle is rapidly accelerating.
California Wildfires in One Year Erased 16 Years of Emissions Cuts
USA - The raging California wildfires of 2020 created enough carbon emissions to offset 16 years of reductions through the state’s green policies — twice over — according to a UCLA study published by Environmental Pollution. As Breitbart News reported at the time, the wildfire season in 2020 was so intense that smoke from the fires reached cities on the East Coast of the United States. The CalFIRE state agency describes the fires as follows:
The 2020 California wildfire season was characterized by a record-setting year of wildfires that burned across the state of California as measured during the modern era of wildfire management and record keeping. As of the end of the year, nearly 10,000 fires had burned over 4.2 million acres, more than 4% of the state’s roughly 100 million acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season recorded in California’s modern history.
In his recent book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin considered the scientific data and concluded that “whatever influence a changing climate might have had on wildfires globally in recent decades, human factors unrelated to climate were dominant.” While climate change was “surely” playing a role by creating more fuel for fires, “factors other than climate must also play an important, if not dominant, role.” Many fires are caused by human activity; notably, Newsom has been criticized for poor forest management as he faces a recall election Tuesday.
What happened to the German military's €100 billion fund?
GERMANY - A year ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to upgrade the Bundeswehr with a massive one-off fund. Critics say not much has happened since. Just over a year ago, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the German parliament that is likely to define his chancellorship — and he was barely two months into it. The "Zeitenwende" speech (literally "turning of the times"), a response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was built on the announcement that the German military would receive a special one-off fund of €100 billion to be upgraded. On June 3, the center-right opposition in the Bundestag joined forces with the ruling parties to change the constitution and allow the additional debt — an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Federal Republic.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, head of the Bundestag defense committee and a member of the governing coalition's Free Democratic Party (FDP) ...listed what she said were the government's achievements of the past year: new orders of F-35 fighter jets and heavy transport helicopters from the United States and a new digitalization drive to modernize the forces.
For its part, the Defense Ministry says €30 billion of the €100 billion has already been earmarked for major purchases. There has been some criticism from European allies, and within Germany, that so many big orders have been placed in the United States, though ultimately most of the special fund is likely to stay in Germany, which has a strong weapons industry.
Scholz's famous "turning of the times" involves turning around the colossal ocean tanker that is the German military, its culture and its bureaucracy. Even one year isn't enough to do that.
Just think how far Germany has shifted in only a year
GERMANY - A nation scarred by its own history of aggression has swung away from a broadly bipartisan, pacifist consensus against supplying arms to conflict zones, and it is now agreeing to send tanks, armored fighting vehicles, air-defense missiles and artillery to Ukraine. It has also gone from relying on Russia for 40 percent of its gas to shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and ending all purchases of Russian gas since last September.
Berlin, once Moscow’s biggest Western business partner, has also embraced sweeping sanctions. These are giant, wrenching changes for any nation — and Germany is tackling the momentous changes with earnestness. No drama, no strikes and protests, no bragging about leading the world in standing up to Putin or being Kyiv’s best friend.
Moreover, this coalition, which includes detente-loving Social Democrats and anti-nuclear Greens, has initiated a fundamental — if belated — overhaul of Germany’s hollow armed forces and their rusting equipment. Just three days after the invasion, Scholz’s surprise announcement of an additional five-year €100-billion fund to refurbish the Bundeswehr now gives it the potential, over time, to fulfill its assigned core role in NATO’s land defense of continental Europe. This won’t happen overnight, but Scholz has begun to lay the foundations.
US Beef Cattle Has Lowest Inventory Since 1962
USA - The beef cattle inventory in the United States is at its lowest point since 1962, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA’s biannual cattle report showed that, as of January 1, 2023, there is a 89.3 million head inventory — which is three percent lower than the total from a year ago and the lowest since 2015. Of that number, 38.3 million cows and heifers have calved.
Additionally, there are 28.9 million beef cows, which are those explicitly bred for slaughter and meat sales, as of the start of this year — which is down nearly four percent from last year and the lowest the agency has recorded since 1962. According to Beef Magazine, some challenges and reasons for the decline in beef cows appear to be the input prices and the drought last year.
“There is a pretty substantial biological lag in the beef supply chain,” Mitchell noted. “What consumers experience at the grocery store is a product of what cattle producers were going through a year or two ago. It takes about two years for a new calf to become the steak on your dinner plate.”
G20 foreign ministers’ meeting: relevance under threat
INDIA - The G20 is in the throes of global dissonance ahead of a meeting of its member's foreign ministers in New Delhi this week. India holds its rotating presidency until November 30, 2023. The two-day event, which starts on Wednesday evening with a gala dinner, is an early gathering in the run-up to the heads of state summit that will be held in the same city in September. Representatives of the world’s 20 largest economies (including the 27-member European Union) are expected to attend the event.
An early jarring note was struck by Japan, whose foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will not attend the meeting, Kwatra confirmed. The top Indian diplomat cited the minister’s “domestic compulsions” — he has chosen to take part in parliamentary business back home — despite New Delhi’s “sterling relationship” with Tokyo.
But Hayashi’s decision should not be seen as a snub to New Delhi. Instead, it can be interpreted as a worrying sign that the G20 itself, for all its economic clout, is seen as insignificant in the current global political climate. With winds of change sweeping the world since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine over a year ago, and the Kremlin’s spokesman stating that NATO is de facto at war with Russia, what can the meeting hope to achieve?
Deranged Politico: ‘Block the Sun, Save the Planet?’
USA - Politico ran a headline promoting the mad science of solar geoengineering like it’s a legitimate solution to solve the leftist climate change boogeyman: “Block the sun, save the planet?” Reporter Arianna Skibell immediately hedged the insane headline by admitting that “[b]locking the sun’s rays to limit global warming has long been considered too dangerous to even study,” but then pivoted to promote woke drivel: “But 60 top scientists are breaking from their colleagues and calling for research into what they call solar radiation modification.”
The method, said Skibell, involves “spraying aerosol particles into the atmosphere that would reflect sunlight away from the Earth, thereby slowing warming.” The Scientific American editorial board noted in 2008 that “[t]he sulfates would slow or reverse the recovery of the ozone layer; they might also reduce global rainfall, and the rain that did fall would be more acidic. And those are just the foreseeable effects.”
Strange how Skibell didn’t even address the potential negative impact so-called “solar radiation modification” would have on one of the left’s favorite renewables: solar energy.
Sun entering most active cycle
USA - The sun may be waking up after almost a decade of relative calm, scientists say — and that could cause problems on Earth. According to a new report from Business Insider, the solar storms that rage on our star during its active period create bursts of electromagnetic energy that can affect everything from the power grid to GPS signals. These so-called solar maximums occur roughly every 11 years, and they haven’t been much of a problem in the past. Scientists, however, fear that our reliance on electricity and interconnectivity could mean we’re far more vulnerable to their effects this time around.
This Won’t End Well: Scientists Hope to Create AI from Human Brain Cells
USA - Scientists at John Hopkins University are working on research to enable AI to be constructed using human brain cells, arguing that the use of organic materials is more efficient than traditional computing systems. The technology has come to be known as OI, or “organoid intelligence,” and scientists have already achieved success in “programming” organic materials. In October, scientists in Australia linked a dish of 800,000 living brain cells to a computer, successfully teaching it to play the 1970s video game Pong.
Now, researchers are hoping that organic materials produced in vitro, known as “organoids,” can provide a more efficient alternative to silicon computer chips. To harness these capabilities, the scientists hope to employ “organoids,” 3D cultures of human brain cells that replicate parts of our noggin responsible for learning and memory. Their size allows the neurons within them to form significantly more connections than standard silicone computer chips, which could be rendered obsolete by this bold new biotech.
Israel’s Dangerous Shadow War With Iran
ISRAEL - Israel has long made clear its penchant for applying military pressure to disrupt Iran’s nuclear advances and weapons exports — and, more recently, its drone technology program. In the last few months, however, Israel’s appetite for risk seems to have increased. In early January, an Israeli strike aimed at pro-Iranian militant groups inside Syria put the international airport in Damascus out of service. Later that month, reports indicated that Israel had carried out a significant drone attack on a military site in the Iranian city of Isfahan.
Israel prepared for a retaliatory strike from Iran, possibly on civilian targets outside the country. Iran subsequently launched a drone attack on a commercial shipping tanker in the Arabian Sea owned by an Israeli businessman, according to US officials. And just last week, a considerable Israeli strike reportedly targeted Iranian officials meeting in a residential neighborhood in Damascus.
But now the ground is shifting in Iran, Israel, and the United States, causing the risks of escalation to grow once again. At the same time, US military coordination with Israel is expanding, another sign that Washington is not only accepting Israel’s confrontation with Iran but actively supporting it. Late last month, the US military engaged in a joint exercise with Israel that simulated offensive long-range strikes; it was the largest such exercise the two sides had ever carried out together.
Wokeism: The Insane New Religion That Has Taken Over America
USA - Today, in the United States of America, a new religion has somehow become the country’s de facto official church. This new state religion overtaking the United States of America – and increasingly, much of the Western (and formerly Christian) world – is Wokeism. To most outsiders, the expression “being woke,” or “going woke,” conjures up notions of a person or entity claiming to be acutely sensitive (“awake”) to “systemic social and political injustice” in every form.
The “injustice” being condemned by Wokeism is not simply alleged widespread bigotry against black people, but also – as noted in Joe Biden’s January 20, 2021 White House Executive Order – “Latino and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Bear in mind that all of these people, deemed victims of societal bigotry, are therefore regarded as intrinsically more virtuous and moral than the shameful oppressor class – primarily heterosexual white Christian males.
Heterosexual Children Healthier, Happier than ‘LGBQ+’ Peers
USA - A CDC report published in February assessed significantly increased rates of feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and suicidality among “LGBQ+” high school students relative to their “heterosexual” counterparts. The CDC’s “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” (YRBS) that polled high school students had two categories for “sexual identity”: “heterosexual” and “LGBQ+.”
The survey’s respondents classified their sexualities based on how they “identify” with the following options: “heterosexual,” “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” “questioning,” or “another non-heterosexual identity.” Among “heterosexual” students, 22 percent reported experiencing poor mental health across the previous month, against 52 percent of “LGBQ+” students. The CDC emphasized worsening trends for high school students in the aggregate across many of its metrics of wellbeing in 2021 relative to previous years.
“Unfortunately, almost all other indicators of health and well being in this report including protective sexual behaviors (ie condom use, sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing, and HIV testing), experiences of violence, mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors worsened significantly,” concluded the CDC in the YRSB’s executive summary.
Iran nuclear stockpile over 18 times larger than JCPOA cap
IRAN - The UN nuclear watchdog says Iran’s estimated stockpile of enriched uranium has reached more than 18 times the limit set out in the 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers. According to a confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report seen by AFP, it estimated Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was 3,760.8 kilograms (8,291 pounds) as of February 12. The limit in the 2015 deal was set at 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds) of uranium. It also confirms the presence of uranium particles enriched to just below 90 percent.
Vatican ‘Never This Marginalized’ in Past 60 Years
VATICAN - The Vatican risks falling into isolation and irrelevance, warns a veteran Italian journalist Tuesday, as world leaders are finding Pope Francis easier and easier to ignore. A case in point is the pontiff’s recent call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, which has fallen on deaf ears, writes the leftward-leaning Marco Politi, who began covering the Vatican in 1971. “Never in the last sixty years has the Holy See — in the face of events of international importance — found itself so marginalized.”
“After a year of war in Ukraine, Pope Francis appears isolated,” the 76-year-old journalist writes. “Britain ignores him. US President Biden does not want interference. Putin does not consider the Vatican an effective means of conducting negotiations.” Meanwhile, “Xi Jinping, for reasons of internal politics, does not intend to give excessive prominence to the position of the Holy See,” he argues.
In European chancelleries, “Francis’ voice is respected but marginalized, silenced,” he contends, while it is whispered among diplomats that Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Foreign Minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, feel “uncomfortable” with the pope’s intransigence.
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The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
