The troubled, terrorist-infested United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is preparing to close its doors after a half-century of fomenting violence rather than economic development and peace in Israel and Israeli-administered territory. The decision was not made because of some sudden wave of guilt and shame sweeping the agency after the savagery of the October 7, 2023, attacks launched on Israeli civilians but because of new Israeli laws; see Israel to UNRWA: Get Out. The laws, passed on October 28, 2024, forbid UNRWA to operate within Israel and, more importantly, forbid any Israeli official from communicating with UNRWA. //

Even though UNRWA resolutely denied all evidence of its complicity in the October 7 attacks and how its funding had been used to turn Gaza into a warren of terrorist tunnels (UNRWA Spokesman Gives Insane CNN Interview Amidst Hostage Scandal), there was a moment of high irony when Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed on October 17. Both of his bodyguards were UNRWA employees; see WILD: Incredible Footage Shows Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar Up-Close and Personal Just Before His Death.

Hold the Fort
16 hours ago
An apology given because an apology is demanded is not an apology.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities if the Iranians move towards a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20, in a meeting several weeks ago that remained secret until now, three sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios. //

Biden and his national security team discussed various options and scenarios during the meeting, which took place roughly one month ago, but the president did not make any final decision, according to the sources. ///

This is supposed to be a message to Iran but I don't think it will have the impact it might have if this discussion were to take place in 3 weeks.

The Biden administration finalized climate regulations to ban most natural gas-powered instantaneous water heaters—a move that critics say will drive up costs for consumers.

The Department of Energy—which formally published the rules the day after Christmas—didn’t issue a press release announcing the action, a departure from past appliance regulations. The published rules say the regulations are expected to help the climate by curbing carbon dioxide emissions.

Overall, under the regulations, roughly 40 percent of the new tankless water heaters available in the United States today will be taken off the market by 2029. Experts and industry officials say that will force consumers to purchase either more expensive or less efficient water heater models. //

One industry analysis estimates that consumers will pay $450 more on average when purchasing new water heaters thanks to the regulations. And that will impact low-income and senior households, which are most reliant on the models targeted by the Department of Energy.

Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday.

Tolkien penned some of our civilization's greatest works, but you may not know why he did — or how.

His stories are so enduringly real because he actually lived them... (thread) 🧵

Most people do not realize how delayed portions of the Fukushima evacuation were. I certainly did not. By the end of March, the situation at the plant was under control. Power had been restored to the site. The team was getting water to all the stricken reactors. The temperatures were coming down. The release rate was one ten thousandth of what it had been earlier.\cite{tepco-2012a}[p 51]

The government fully expected to restart Japan's reactors quickly. The job was mainly clean up and rebuild from the tsunami. They were quite taken back when the public led by a normally tame press turned against nuclear power, threatening the ruling Democratic party.

The politicians responded. On April 22, 40 days after the start of the release, the government implemented two new evacuation zones, Figure 1. The area out to 20 kilometers from the plant had already been evacuated. //

Figure 2 shows the GKG dose rate profile for the high end Iitate population. GKG estimates the peak high end ambient dose rate for this town was 47 microGy/h, not that much lower than UCS's number for Okuma. According to LNT, making these people evacuate after 50 days increased their life expectancy by 24 days. For most of the citizens of Iitate, the numbers would be lower to much lower. According to SNT, forcing these to people to evacuate after 50 days, increased their life expectancy by 1.7 minutes. The stress of evacuation will be far, far more costly. //

Under LNT, the harm just keeps building up. In a nuclear power plant release, after the initial rapid decline, the dose rate falls off very slowly. The cumulative dose for the Iitate high end group after a 40 year exposure period is 613 mSv. For an LNTer, this is a scary number, since it only took a 150 mSv or so acute dose to produce significant increases in cancer in the bomb survivors. For an LNTer, the fact that the bomb survivors suffered most of their dose in seconds, while the Iitate citizens will receive their dose fairly evenly over 40 years is irrelevant. Given our rate dependent ability to repair radiation damage, this is biological nonsense. //

This is so stupidly tragic that I don't know where to begin. The peak dose rate in the EPA was around 0.06 mSv/d and lasted roughly 10 days. In the Karunagappally study, Figure 4, the people who got 0.06 mSv/d showed no increase in cancer and they averaged that dose rate for at least 19 years. By day 50, when most of these people were frightened into leaving, the dose rate was down to around 0.02 mSv/d. In the Karunagappally study, we have nearly a million person-years at this dose rate or higher with no increase in cancer. And most of these people experienced these dose rates their whole life. //

The people in the EPA had their lives uprooted, and in many cases ruined for no reason at all. Or rather by a model that is tragically misleading. Given its consequences, I have no problem calling LNT evil. What does that say about its promoters?

American Leftists have lied about President Trump and his supporters for so long that they are utterly bereft. How will they make it through the new year? Will they proceed through the steps of grief and finally accept that they were in error and outside the bounds of rationality or will they get stuck in anger—the second stage of grief?1

For some the stage of bargaining has begun already. They are insisting that we, Trump and the MAGA movement, we who insist on the precepts of the Constitution and rule of law, treat our Leftists better than they ever treated Trump or us.

Remember how they projected their anti-American rage on all conservatives? //

The anti-American Leftists want us to forget about their crimes and misdeeds, such as labeling the events of January 6, 2021, an insurrection, led by President Trump. Odd, isn’t it, that no one has been charged or convicted of insurrection in the Department of Justice’s largest manhunt in history.

Trump, whom the anti-American Left and its media gang continue to label an insurrectionist, was the one who had the National Guard standby to help keep the peace on January 6. But D.C. Mayor Bowser and Capitol Police and then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, specifically indicated that they did not want the National Guard at the Capitol or the Mall. Who called for peace? President Trump. Who was more concerned about the optics? The anti-American Leftists, of whom Pelosi is one. //

But for political equilibrium to be restored in America, those who have done wrong, who have violated the law (i.e., the Congressional J6 Committee that suborned perjury, doctored evidence, and suppressed exculpatory evidence), must be held accountable. That is the only way to restore the rule of law.

In order to have freedom, you must have the rule of law. The rule of law prevents bullies from overwhelming the weak. It preserves equal treatment before the law.

And, if the anti-American Left is grieving because of the electoral beating that they took in November, it might be possible that there is some residual desire for justice on the Right.

Accountability might just help the anti-American Left finally come to acceptance, the final stage of grief.

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
Follow
Kamala Harris not knowing all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance is her political career in a nutshell.

1:08 PM · Jan 3, 2025 //

Are you starting to see how Harris not knowing the Pledge of Allegiance is a small indicator of something bigger? She is the emptiest of empty suits, an inauthentic, lazy politician who was handed everything only to finally run into a brick wall when she had to face an entire nation of voters. Watching her stumble during her last days in office is not just poetic. It's a microcosm of her career. //

Manowar
20 minutes ago
Makes no diff how Kamala performs the pledge. She doesn't mean a word of it.

If the US government absorbed/forgave all private debt to China and then defaulted on its own debt to China, that might be a pretty big pile of dollars that Beijing could kiss goodbye should they attack Taiwan. And it might deter them from doing just that. As a natural consequence of this goes the presumption that we would no longer trade with China. We're their biggest customer, and losing the US market is also going to be a kick to their stomach. //

lifer1
4 hours ago
There is a flaw in your assertion that "money has no intrinsic value." While true, it is too simplistic. To be sure, that assertion is the basis for the ill-named, Modern Monetary Theory, that has caused so many Swamp creatures to spend like debt and deficit mean nothing until Election season.

Money represents goods and services. It is an intermediate currency whose soundness is key to translating one type of commodity or labor to another with relatively equal representation.

The problem with MMT and spendthrift politicians who reconcile their excess spending by printing more currency is that it doesn't so much devalue the currency as it devalues what the currency represents, which then increases the number of dollars needed to complete commercial transactions.

That is the meaning of inflation. When one defaults on a debt like ours to China, that has the identical effect of printing $1T in new currency to flood the markets as well as undermining the markets' trust and confidence in the brokers of that currency.

Do you want to see the dollar replaced as the global currency? Default on a debt.

Bad idea. Such a bad idea that its proponent likely failed Econ 101.

No, the way that's been handled, historically, is to win a war and assign a war reparations to the loser that has the effect of canceling the debt. It's not done overtly since doing so could be read as defaulting. No, the loser is assigned damages that effectively covers the debt. Then it becomes a ledger exercise, provided everyone believes it to be legitimate.

Here's the thing - there are two different photosynthetic pathways that food crops use, called C3 and C4 photosynthesis. There is a third - CAM photosynthesis - which doesn't play as big a role in agriculture. C3 photosynthesis is an older process, that developed at a time when atmospheric CO2 levels were decidedly higher than now. The C4 process arose later, mostly in corn, sorghum, and sugarcane. It's a more efficient process, as one might expect, since it developed at a time of lower CO2 levels. Both types employ the Calvin cycle to produce sugars, but the C4 process uses a more efficient four-carbon-atom intermediary - thus the name, C4.

However, a great deal of human food crops utilize the older C3 process. This means that an increase in atmospheric CO2 more closely approximates the condition in which C3 photosynthesis originated. This results in increased crop yield in C3 plants. As Vijay Jayaraj writes:

Higher ambient CO2 levels allow C3 plants to photosynthesize more efficiently while losing less water. The benefits of elevated CO2 aren’t merely theoretical, as proven in field studies that have confirmed laboratory findings.

These studies, conducted in real-world conditions, show consistent yield increases across various C3 crops. Wheat yields increase by 20-30% under elevated CO2 conditions, while rice shows increases of between 15-32%. Soybeans, another crucial C3 crop, exhibit yield increases of up to 46% in some studies.

Perhaps nowhere is the CO2 effect more evident than in greenhouse cultivation. Modern greenhouse operators routinely boost productivity by elevating CO2 levels to 800-1,000 parts per million (ppm), which are well above current atmospheric levels of around 420 ppm. The results are striking: tomato yields increase by 40-50%, cucumber production rises by 30-40%, and growth of lettuce and other vegetables accelerates significantly. //

A resolution worth adopting this New Year would be to reject the coordinated demonization of CO2 by climate scaremongers and to celebrate it for what it is: the gas of life.

To recap, you have a video showing a suspect who is 5' 7", wearing a unique pair of shoes, and was in Washington, D.C. on January 5th, 2021, during a very specific timeframe of 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.... and they haven't been able to narrow down the list to find this person?

Odd that they're releasing this data while there are two ongoing terrorist investigations, one involving an ISIS-inspired killer who had been radicalized and posted multiple videos of his ill intentions on social media, discussing plans to kill his family and having dreams that helped inspire him to join the terror group, that the FBI somehow missed.

Almost like they're trying to divert your attention. //

As you might imagine, X users were not impressed with the FBI releasing a new video of the January 6th pipe bomb suspect after years of essentially ignoring the pursuit in favor of jailing people who walked through the Capitol and took selfies.

"Your entire agency is a joke," Sean Davis of The Federalist writes.

"Really strange how y'all were able to identify 1500 people who even so much as walked on the Capital grounds on January 6th, but you can't find the person who planted the pipe bomb?" one disgusted person replied. "No one's buying it." //

Why did the FBI drop this "previously unreleased video"? A clip of the suspect dropping the actual pipe bomb outside the DNC seems like it might have been handy evidence if they genuinely wanted the public to identify this person.

The bureau announced that they will continue to offer a reward of up to $500,000 for information that leads to the suspect's arrest and conviction.

Have they tried cross-referencing the information on those shoes with all confidential sources shorter than 5' 8"? They might get somewhere by doing that. Just a thought.

Nic Cruz Patane
@niccruzpatane
Tesla vehicles are nearly 8 times less likely to experience a vehicle fire compared to the U.S. average.
11:09 PM · Jan 1, 2025

2022 data:

• ICE vehicles: 59.5 fires per billion miles driven
• Tesla vehicles: 7.3
  ///

How many fires were not caused by accidents?

And note how much more difficult lithium battery guess are to extinguish.

Despite its initial efforts, the FBI has yet to identify the suspect and has refused to provide the Subcommittees with additional information about these investigative leads.

Given the fervor with which the FBI has pursued individuals present at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, it's puzzling that their investigation into the placing of explosive devices nearby — which posed a threat to Secret Service protectees and others — has virtually stalled out. It's even more puzzling that the agency provided incorrect (false?) information regarding the data obtained from cellphone carriers. //

anon-tf71
3 hours ago
Just spitballing, but maybe USCP were lackadaisical about letting both the Speaker and pedestrians into the immediate area because they knew there was no immediate danger, or maybe even any danger. //

Poor Richard
3 hours ago
The FBI stopped looking for the pipe bomber because he was/is an FBI operative and/or agent. The whole January 6th "insurrection" nonsense was a Deep State and FBI setup. They admit they had what, 30 plus operatives at the location and you have Lynn Cheney and Pelosi literally destroying evidence from their congressional hearing. We are living under a rogue, neo-fascist government and just don't know it yet. We will be very fortunate if Trump and associates can get rid of much of this scum. //

Steprock
3 hours ago
Sorry, is this where we all play dumb? The FBI put the bombs there as a Plan B in case stirring up a riot didn't work out.

It's ugly, but not complicated. //

Random US Citizen
2 hours ago
What's behind all this? The FBI is unwilling to identify the "paid informant" who planted the bombs, because it might come out that he was on their payroll.

In other words, people who own homes with garages and driveways can plug their cars right in, meaning they are topped up every day before they leave the house. But someone living in an apartment, like that one of mine from long ago? You are either dependent on fee-charging public charging stations, or you have to procure a really, really long drop cord.

The more people adopt EVs, the more you'll start to see this in American cities - some of those cities and even states are trying to force you to adopt EV use whether you like it or not.

The last few years revealed stark differences in philosophy regarding the role of government in our society. When the level of fear was high, people were more inclined to submit to onerous mandates. They believed restricting freedom was necessary for the common good and saw the government as a benevolent savior. It was terrifying to watch.

Some people want the government to control as much as possible.

This led me to an existential question: What is the point of government? //

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”

Paine described the purpose of government as providing for freedom and security.

“Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security.”

With precious few exceptions, American schools are graduating more and more students who are illiterate, innumerate, illogical and ignorant. //

It’s the first case filed against Big Education for “deceptive and fraudulent marketing and sale of products and services” — products that allegedly caused developmental, emotional, and financial injuries.

This complaint goes straight to the heart of the matter: Big Education provides a glaringly defective product that causes undeniable harm and is demonstrably fraudulent — and its consumers, America’s families, are entitled to protection under existing consumer-protection laws. //

The Massachusetts lawsuit focuses on reading and literacy, charging that the plaintiffs have been materially harmed by these curricula — but a win could allow the families’ consumer-protection argument to be deployed more widely. //

The logic of the Massachusetts lawsuit could even be used against damaging social and disciplinary policies in our schools.

For years, Big Education has been pushing diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into every aspect of school life, promising it will bring racial harmony.

Yet systematic meta-analyses of data, capped by a widely cited study from Rutgers University, confirm that DEI has in fact the opposite effect, aggravating overall racial bias and hostility.

Big Education’s multibillion-dollar DEI fraud is ripe for consumer-protection accountability.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards.

Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken.

Nick Sortor @nicksortor
🚨 #BREAKING: Las Vegas Police release new video of the exploded Cybertruck outside of the Trump Hotel, showing explosive ordinances in the back

Police credited the lack of damage to the Trump Hotel to the strength of the Cybertruck, as it remained mostly intact.

“The explosion…
Embedded video
7:31 PM · Jan 1, 2025. //

(N)o.(B)ody.(C)ares
2 hours ago
Another reason ALL protections afforded the media, not listed “specifically” in the Constitution need to be removed, and allow for Slander and Libel suits to proceed with haste against the malicious Pravda Propagandists

Bree A Dail @breeadail
·
CONFIRMED posting by the mosque reportedly attended by the NOLA terrorist, instructing members to refer all inquiries by @FBI, law enforcement and media to legal representation of CAIR.
9:37 PM · Jan 1, 2025

Several things strike me about this. For one, when over a dozen people die in an Islamic terrorist attack, I'm not sure "the safety of our community" should be the most important thing in that equation. No one has attacked this mosque (or any mosque in the United States, for that matter), nor is there any reason to believe anyone will do so. The attacker who attended it did carry out an attack, though. So why the immediate inward focus?

The entire message reads like an order of protection for anyone who may have radicalized or assisted Jabbar in some way. The push to contact CAIR is a dead giveaway. For those unaware, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is an unindicted co-conspirator and supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a radical group that has long sought to protect Islamism at the cost of American lives. If CAIR is involved, you can bet there's probably something going on under the surface. //

Let's be honest. If this were a Christian church putting out such a statement after one of its members committed a mass casualty terrorist attack, every legacy media outlet in the country would be digging deeper. That won't happen here because the press takes a subservient approach to Islam due to its place on the intersectional hierarchy. Still, I hope there are some good reporters out there willing to poke around. //

2020vision
an hour ago
What the statement of the Mosque didn't say:

1. Condolences to the families of the individuals who were killed in the incident and we pray for the speedy and complete recovery of those who were injured.
2. We do not condone violence against innocent people and condemn such actions entirely.
3. We will assist authorities in finding how such evil consumed one of our flock.
   Unfortunately, what they didn't say speaks volumes. //

Model 12
an hour ago
As a former friend of mine once said to me, "I have a duty to lie to you, to steal from you, and to cheat you" Just part of the job of being Moslem.

looking at Judge Mazzant’s order, which stayed implementation of the statute in question provides some insight into what he found objectionable:

Legislative ingenuity, dispatched to meet today’s problems, is not measured by any other standard than our written Constitution. Modern problems may well warrant modern solutions, but modernity does not grant Congress a roving license to legislate outside the boundaries of our timeless, written Constitution. See, e.g., Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 1017, 1032 (5th Cir. 2022) (“The Constitution is not abrogated[, even] in a pandemic.”). The Constitution must stand firm. //

At its most rudimentary level, the CTA regulates companies that are registered to do business under a State’s laws and requires those companies to report their ownership, including detailed, personal information about their owners, to the Federal Government on pain of severe penalties. Though seemingly benign, this federal mandate marks a drastic two-fold departure from history. First, it represents a Federal attempt to monitor companies created under state law—a matter our federalist system has left almost exclusively to the several States. Second, the CTA ends a feature of corporate formation as designed by various States—anonymity. For good reason, Plaintiffs fear this flanking, quasi Orwellian statute and its implications on our dual system of government. As a result, Plaintiffs contend that the CTA violates the promises our constitution makes to the People and the States. Despite attempting to reconcile the CTA with the Constitution at every turn, the Government is unable to provide the Court with any tenable theory that the CTA falls within Congress’s power. And even in the face of the deference the Court must give Congress, the CTA appears likely unconstitutional. Accordingly, the CTA and its Implementing Regulations must be enjoined. //

the record before the Court contains sufficient facts to indicate the CTA and the Reporting Rule may violate the Constitution…Absent injunctive relief, come January 2, 2025, Plaintiffs would have disclosed the information they seek to keep private under the First and Fourth Amendments and surrendered to a law that they contend exceeds Congress’s powers. That damage “cannot be undone by monetary relief.” That harm is irreparable.

Frank Hamer
4 hours ago
This is a failure of epic proportions on the part of Homeland Security who have spent four years chasing down misdemeanor trespassers, Catholics, military people with the wrong tattoos, abortion prayer protesters and parents who are unhappy with porn pushing school boards