An Axios reporter took a Kia EV6 on a 1,500-mile road trip. She said it showed the US is not quite ready for an electric-car revolution. She and her husband stopped to charge the car 12 times over the course of the trip from Michigan to Florida. Taking an electric car on a road trip can be a stressful experience — at least according to a couple who took their Kia EV6 on a cross-country trip from Michigan to Florida.
A couple took an electric car on a 1,500 mile road trip. They had to stop 12 times and forgo heat due to their range anxiety. Story by gkay@insider.com (Grace Kay) •
Axios reporter Joann Muller said her husband took the electric car on a 1,500 mile road trip — she joined him part-way through — to see if the US is truly ready for mass EV adoption. While electric cars are becoming more prevalent, charging infrastructure isn’t quite what it should be, Muller wrote. “We were constantly thinking about where to charge next,” Muller wrote of her experience during the trip. “It occupied our minds more than where to eat or spend the night.” They stopped 12 times to recharge the car, which has an estimated battery range of 274 miles, over the course of the 1,500 mile, four-day journey, and that charging times were between 20 to 55 minutes.
The reporter said that while they were never afraid of getting stranded, the trip took a lot more planning than it would have with a traditional combustion-engine vehicle. The couple had to juggle “route-planning apps, billing accounts with various charging companies, which can get confusing,” as well as dealing with “glitchy” chargers.
Yahoo and Disney are the latest to slash thousands of jobs amid a wave of layoffs. Here’s the full list of major US companies making cuts in 2023.
A wave of layoffs that hit dozens of US companies toward the end of 2022 shows no sign of slowing down into 2023.
On Thursday, Yahoo announced plans to cut 20% of its global workforce, or more than 1,600 people, as it restructures its advertising technology unit, Axios reported. The news came less than 24 hours after Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors that the media and entertainment giant is cutting 7,000 jobs in an effort to reorganize and operating reduce costs.
The downsizing followed significant reductions at companies including Twitter and Meta late last year. The layoffs have primarily affected the tech sector, which is now hemorrhaging employees at a faster rate than at any point during the pandemic, the Journal reported. According to data cited by the Journal from Layoffs.fyi, a site tracking layoffs since the start of the pandemic, tech companies slashed more than 150,000 in 2022 alone — compared to 80,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 2021.
The wave of mass layoffs has recently expanded beyond tech and into economic bellwethers as well: industrial company 3M, and material company Dow recently announced cuts. A wave of layoffs that hit dozens of US companies toward the end of 2022 shows no sign of slowing down into 2023.
On Thursday, Yahoo announced plans to cut 20% of its global workforce, or more than 1,600 people, as it restructures its advertising technology unit, Axios reported. The news came less than 24 hours after Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors that the media and entertainment giant is cutting 7,000 jobs in an effort to reorganize and operating reduce costs.
Yahoo and Disney are among several major corporations that have already made significant cuts in the new year: Tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, and finance behemoths, like Goldman Sachs, announced massive layoffs in the first weeks of 2023 amid a continued economic downturn and stagnating sales.
The downsizing followed significant reductions at companies including Twitter and Meta late last year. The layoffs have primarily affected the tech sector, which is now hemorrhaging employees at a faster rate than at any point during the pandemic, the Journal reported. According to data cited by the Journal from Layoffs. Yi, a site tracking layoff since the start of the pandemic, tech companies slashed more than 150,000 in 2022 alone — compared to 80,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 2021.
The wave of mass layoffs has recently expanded beyond tech and into economic bellwethers as well: industrial company 3M, and material company Dow recently announced cuts.
Muller said her husband drove the car alone from Detroit to Washington DC, where they met up to head to Florida. During his solo portion of the trip, he said he was so “anxious” about the drain cold temperatures would have on the battery that he didn’t use the cabin heat, choosing instead to rely on the heated steering wheel and seats.
While EV range continues to improve, charging infrastructure still poses a major hurdle for electric-vehicle adoption. Muller is far from the first EV driver to experience charging hassles or “range anxiety” on long road trips. Last week, tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, also known as MKBHD, said in a video that he believes the hassle of public charging is “ruining electric cars.” Earlier this year, the Biden Administration rolled out a $5 billion funding plan to improve EV charging infrastructure. And some companies have also stepped in to help fill the gap. Last week, Google announced it plans to launch an AI-powered version of Google Maps that would help electric-car owners find charging stations. A Huge Lithium Discovery Just Changed The Stakes In EV Production (msn.com)
Do you think the range of most electric vehicles is generally sufficient or insufficient for everyday use?
Sufficient 27%
Insufficient 62%
I’m not sure. 9%
Other / No opinion 2%
Based on 1,084 responses. Snapshot of real-time results.
Yahoo and Disney are the latest to slash thousands of jobs amid a wave of layoffs. Here’s the full list of major US companies making cuts in 2023.
Yahoo and Disney employees are the latest to be hit by a wave of layoffs. Over the past few weeks, layoffs have expanded outside of tech, media, and finance as Dow and 3M announced cuts.
See the full list of layoffs so far in 2023. A wave of layoffs that hit dozens of US companies toward the end of 2022 shows no sign of slowing down into 2023. On Thursday, Yahoo announced plans to cut 20% of its global workforce, or more than 1,600 people, as it restructures its advertising technology unit, Axios reported. The news came less than 24 hours after Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors that the media and entertainment giant is cutting 7,000 jobs in an effort to reorganize and operating reduce costs. Yahoo and Disney are among several major corporations that have already made significant cuts in the new year: Tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, and finance behemoths, like Goldman Sachs, announced massive layoffs in the first weeks of 2023 amid a continued economic downturn and stagnating sales. The downsizing followed significant reductions at companies including Twitter and Meta late last year. The layoffs have primarily affected the tech sector, which is now hemorrhaging employees at a faster rate than at any point during the pandemic, the Journal reported. According to data cited by the Journal from Layoffs.fyi, a site tracking layoffs since the start of the pandemic, tech companies slashed more than 150,000 in 2022 alone — compared to 80,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 2021. The wave of mass layoffs has recently expanded beyond tech and into economic bellwethers as well: industrial company 3M, and material company Dow recently announced cuts Joann Muller Transportation Correspondent at Axios Joann is the co-author of Axios’ What’s Next newsletter and covers the future of transportation. emailjoann.muller@axios.comtwitter@JoannMuller
We plotted some of the major investments in EV and battery plants in the U.S. to show how the EV manufacturing economy is shaping up. The newly passed Inflation Reduction Act will provide billions in tax credits and loans to accelerate the rise of the so-called Battery Belt.
Jeri Klobutcher, MD Author, Physician-Obstetrics and Gynecology, self-employed locums Is this good? You can make all the batteries and electronic components you want but where in the heck will the electricity be to charge all these batteries? Batteries and components can’t be used by everyone if there is an insufficient power grid to serve them. Someone please tell me how this energy will be produced and stored, specifics, not generalities, please!
H. Joe Nevills, MBA Production Supervisor at 3M This isn’t an organic, free market movement. This is a government coerced movement that includes some bogus incentives. It won’t end well.
Holly Scarlett Flood Control & Habitat Planning at City of Seattle Interestingly, I know someone that decided against purchasing an EV because the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits have strict requirements regarding the battery components and manufacture. I understand the desire to incentivize American goods and services, but we are also experiencing a global climate crisis and need to incentivize a move away from fossil fuel use.
Lee Kenneybrew Program & Project Management at North Highland That is ironic that the states that have the most sunshine tend not be proponents of solar technology. My friends who live in the southeast and southwest say that their states do not offer incentives to go toward solar. No net metering, tax incentives for purchasing a solar system or consideration for wind turbines. But the feds are tossing billions to that geography of the country vs the west and northeast. And yes, we receive sunshine north of the mason Dixon line and embrace solar more so than the sunbelt.
Dr. Donald Moine Donald Moine, Ph.D., Industrial and Organizational Psychologist specializing in Sales, Marketing, Financial Services and Business Funding. Executive Coach. International Consultant. Speaker. Author.
Joann Muller, great post. This is wonderful news for the buyers of EVs and for the communities where these electric battery plants are being built. However, they will need to be very careful about possible toxic pollution from the components used in these electric batteries. Some of these states have loose environmental regulations and the departments in charge of doing inspections are under-funded and under-staffed. We do not want any of the toxic components or toxic waste from these batteries creeping into the soil or water supply. Dr. Donald Moine Most electric car buyers don’t switch back to gas axios.com
Constantin Donea Passionate about advancing Sustainable Development, Additive Manufacturing and Electric Mobility We will never buy another ICEV or PHEV again, just like we would not sign up for dial-up internet service. Once consumers get used to the convenience of charging rather than fueling, to the instant acceleration, quiet ride and low maintenance of EVs, and with the increasing choice of product, it is only natural that they would keep buying EVs – this is progress, and like any new technology, it has its own adoption curve. Alan Varney Computer geek, engineer, tinkerer So … per OP, 1/3 of EV owners shop for non-EVs. Some buy pickup trucks (limited EV availability), some buy Harleys, some buy luxury vehicles, and some want an ICE “backup” vehicle. I don’t think 1/3 of EV owners are saying NO to owning EVs — purchase patterns don’t explain WHY a particular vehicle was selected, and minimally indicate the fraction of owners dissatisfaction with their old/current vehicle. John Hayes Retired The average car on the road is ~12 years old. Current EV share is <5%. The math here is pretty easy. Given the projected increase in adoption of EVs, it will be >40 years before they outnumber ICE cars. And that’s assuming the current raw material challenges can be overcome. Patrick W. Electromechanical Technician The electric grid can’t even fully support EVs right now. Plus EVs cost twice as much as their counterparts and when the battery goes bad that is ~30k for a new one. EVs are the future but quit trying to force it.
Marxist revisionism dividing the world for personal power brokers. Black isn’t a country so it’s not a national anthem, at best it is a song, a nice commie brainwashing song for all the white hating god hating blacks
I / WE, MUST BE OUT OF THE LOOP!!! Because I don’t know ANYONE who’s ever heard that before! The so-called “Black National Anthem.” But without a doubt, it’s definitely the perverted, corrupt, lying, disgusting, disgraceful, left doing its best to divide this country! And SADLY, it’s been very successful, with a lot of ignorant and foolish people who will listen, and believe, everything they are told! That being said, we actually do have our own anthem here in Hawaii. And anyone with any knowledge of the history of Hawaii knows why. And just for FUN, and strictly for comedy, when we used to be able to laugh at these things (actually I still do). . .(edited) A Patriot’s A to Z of America: Things Every Good American Should Know: Edward Moser: 9781596525498: Amazon.com: Books
Can we focus on things that actually matter? Child trafficking. Drugs. Sexualization and indoctrination of our youth. The NFL, if ignored will have to change. You just have to ignore it and stop spending money. These celebrities and all this entertainment is nothing without the citizens.
Future generations will be here with or without us and they need us to get through this. I would have stood up and turned my back on that garbage. Sorry to tell you, Black folks, bad news, there are many, many races different from you and you’re no better than any of them. You’re NOT special, get over yourselves. You didn’t build this country, and there were WAY more Irish slaves. There’s a lot more to this world other than You. Many races built this country, many of them suffered. YOU, however, already live in the greatest country on the planet, so enough with the ‘somebody owes me something’ nonsense and get on with your life. Stop dividing Americans.
America Do You People Not See What One Day It’s Coming Too???
Hell No We Have One National Anthem for All Americans and If Ye Racist Ass’s Can’t Stand It Git the Fuck Out of This Country and Go to Some Country You Can Be Happy at Cause Apparently Ye Not Happy in This One! That Black National Anthem Bullshit Is Way Past a Damn Disgrace to All Black and White and Native American People Who Fought and Died for Our Country So You Racist Sonofabitches Can Cram That Black National Anthem Bullshit up Ye Ass’s !
You’re Damn Right it’s Sewing Division. How The Hell Could You Think Anything Else! Damn a Bunch of This Race, That Race or The Other Race!
Leave it to the NFL to promote the FALSE NARRATIVE! I don’t believe in the 1619 project either. It’d be better to stick to the truth and the facts of our country, instead of dabbling in make believe. They promoted the Kneeling! They promoted the SHOT! NOW they think they did something else great by having this promated! This is why the NFL is going down and the viewers are falling off! Just like nascar! The Government paid them to switch from carburetor to fuel injection! Just wait till they put an electric car on the track! Imagine No NOISE, wonder how long they will take to Charge the Damn THINGS? LOL
Has anyone ever done ancestry or 23 and me? My wife and I did just to see what the big deal was. I was shocked. Wife was also. We were from ALL over the place. I am a native American and my wife is 13% Jewish. We’ve brought this up with our friends who had very similar results. My point is why are we trying so hard to divide a country that is already so diverse as a fruit smoothie. One of my friends’ skins is whiter than mine and is feckless.
She is 8% African and didn’t know it. Let’s face it we are a blend of a lot of cultures but the 1 thing we have in common is language and knowing we ARE AMERICANS. Yes I can speak Spanish and my wife can speak German. So what, WE ARE AMERICANS BOTH BORN AND RAISED IN FLORIDA. I stand for the National Anthem and kneel on Sunday. sarge999
Dear Blacks, NATIONAL anthems are patriotic musical compositions
Symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a NATION. Blacks are not a nation. Blacks are a race. Blacks are the race that lead in murder rates, assault rates, children born to single mother rates, single parent household rates, illiteracy rates, school dropout rates… every economic and social pathological index of failure. – Blacks kill, assault, and rape the other races at far higher rates than the reverse. – Jesse Jackson said, ““There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the “Black National Anthem,” during the #NFL ’s pre-Super Bowl festivities.
The National Anthem is for ALL American, U.S. Citizens! It has never represented Race nor skin color! Neither does our Flag!
…. it’s all about context. A historical song is a historical song but her post coupled with the performance, along with the political agenda that has followed the NFL just clearly suggests and encourages division. “It’s no coincidence that I’m singing this song” what does that even mean? The point is, it doesn’t matter. It was left open ended and vague. Left for people to translate as they see fit.
Britannica Dictionary definition of NATIONAL ANTHEM. [count] : a song that praises a particular country and that is officially accepted as the country’s song. Black National Anthem doesn’t exist in America American Freedoms exist because of the United States. Gee and I thought We were All Americans under One Flag and One Anthem. So is that the new Woke America, Have an Anthem for Every Culture while Canceling out certain other Cultures
What could possibly go wrong there? Democrats have segregated Americans once again and History is repeating. The ultimate in NFL pandering. The left is doing all they can to ensure black Americans do not assimilate into America and remain oppressed and dependent. Urban America is the new leftwing plantation where poor blacks are trapped and oppressed in hopelessness.
WHITE NATIONAL ANTHEM IS FLAT OUT WRONG TOO. WE THE PEOPLE HAVE AN NATIONAL ANTHEM FOR ALL RACES AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. We’re done with the NFL! Boycotts coming. There is one Anthem. The black millionaire players, and celebrities who never put on the uniform or put their lives on the line for our country’s freedom should be ashamed of themselves. They are tranced by their pimps or masters called white Liberals, the people who were KKK, the Party of Jim Crow Laws, the Party of George Wallace who stood at the door at Univ of Alabama in protest of blacks enrolling, the Party who had far less votes for blacks getting Civil Rights passed. When they knew they lost the vote, the Left created the welfare state, to change black culture to not get married, say goodbye to black fathers, control the population by abortion on demand, and continue to force them to go to bad city schools! Goodell is a fool! While Ralph saw the performance as bridging divides, others saw it as sowing division.
There is only 1 anthem, the National Anthem. #BLM is a racist POS organization that is STEALING money from black people & causing chaos for years now. #fblm#fjb There is only one National Anthem. The white guy who sang it at the Super Bowl was outstanding. it’s just totally sowing the seeds of race war hatred and division. deliberately. Black people are so unbelievable, they built this country and fought in WW I without guns.
Really. It could be Sonny and Whoopy Doo.
While they insult us every day on the fly. Double standards and lies. They sing Black Anthem at the Super Bowl…. On one hand they tell you to treat everybody the same. They want EQUALITY Which is BS, they only want to divide, division of the country …it breaks the country!!
We have one country, and we have one people. Allowing ethnic division in our society only creates disharmony among us. That is by design of the Communists, as they seek to destroy us. Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector, detailed the plan in the 1970’s. I think it is still up on Youtube. What is next? A trans national anthem? A feminist version? Are we going to give every interest group their own version in the future?
As an immigrant, I am appalled at the constant divisiveness that Democrats force on the American people. Are they going for a new form of segregation? There should never be a label on our anthem other than it being the US National Anthem, because it stands for EVERYONE. Far left intersectionality is the death to a functioning society. They dissect us into little shreds, which can be discarded easier! ~Anonymous
I have a national anthem. thank you anyway. You are welcome to be my American brethren and stand for our anthem, other than that, or for these fools that separate themselves by race. America is not a people held together by a common race, but instead a common belief in self-responsibility, independent thought and freedom.
The plan by the Globalist WEF Agenda & Cabal to divide and destroy society. – Bing video We need to get rid of the Globalist WEF infested government who are implementing it. Stay focused people, ignore distractions, they will come in many forms. This is probably one of them and the balloons and the UFO’s. The politicization of professional and college sports by our leftwing overlords who run the media and the sports industry is absolutely destroying America. We must boycott the NFL. It is the only way. If we don’t, our leftwing overlords will continue to politicize and destroy #nfl#nflboycott
No, there is ONLY ONE AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM. “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
There’s no race attached to it. They can call that abomination of a song something else. Total bullshit. White people need to boycott the NFL next season. Far past time to take action against the very woke and politically correct NFL and NBA. Possibly we need a White anthem, or an Irish anthem, or an Italian anthem, or a Polish anthem. And of course the sheep in society would be worried about being branded a racist, or a white supremacist because they take exception to a ‘Black’ national anthem. The progressive left are truly pernicious in their agenda.
Funny thing ….our first half white Muslim & Marxist President..Obama ….never mentioned the black national anthem or Juneteenth which tells me this was pulled out of someone’s ass . Asking if two anthems for a country are inclusive or divisive? Dumb! If it were inclusive it would be for ALL people. When you feel you must have one each for what you think is two separate groups that is the definition of divisive!
The vast majority of America knows and admitted the wrongness of slavery and the pain of the past and have tried to make sure it can never happen again. But there are those in a minority with the help of fools with money and power to reach millions of viewers who continue to try and drag ALL of America back to the past and keep ALL people separated into groups of color and keep the the brothers and sisters of the HUMAN RACE angry and hateful of one another.
Dear Black Americans, Hate to break it to you but, you’re not special. When I go into the cities and talk to many blacks, they tell me there is no racism, as long as you present yourself professionally and welcome others into your life. If you’re a punk ass bitch others will treat you like a punk ass bitch with your droopy pants on. If blacks want a national anthem then go live in the country where the slaves came from, that is what you all are acting like. Mind controlled privileged slaves. I have pride in my country. Black people are not special; they do not get their own Anethum that seeks to separate and segregate. It’s amazing how humbled, and willing blacks were willing to learn after 1870 and how they really took the steps to integrate and become part of America, part of the American dream. But the selfish, racist, bigoted Marxist blacks of today all use their ancestor slave hardships and pains as excuses and justification to act like ungrateful racist animals. Black this, black that, black whatever. Black history month, black-only colleges. The list goes on and on. The more they get, the more they want. They’re no better than I am, and I’m no better than they are!!! Let them re-segregate themselves. So tired of skin colors. Who really cares.
I’m Really so sick of this bullshit. We the People have a national anthem that includes all Americans no matter what skin color you may be. Insulting to the nation. Ignorance is bliss. It’s all to further divide America period. Enhanced and promoted by the politicians to create a smoke screen to hide what they are doing. Spent this Sunday away from all the wokeness of lies and enjoy the day with family away from Woke TV.
Political democrats are desperate to divide America because it promotes weaknesses and hatred in America. This current administration, the FBI/DOJ and every Biden governmental agency is destroying America’s greatest by selling out to communist China. Biden is the devil and must be booted to hell.
This nation has only one National Anthem. Lift Every Voice should have been played at half time and dump that perverted show.
These schools will churn out our next gaggle of black lawyers and Democrat politicians. Watch/Listen @ 9:12: Rutgers Professor Says “White People are Committed to Being Villains” – YouTube It is a Reversed KKK under a Cover of CRT. They have shown how racist they can be. How about Mexicans, Asians, latins, Arabs, all the other colors of our country. When do Americans get reparations for all the black crime, riots, welfare and blight? Only one anthem that includes all!!
@EpochTimes Custom aside, it’s no place for a National Anthem, save the Anthem for Olympic Sports, Government functions, or international venues where the Nation is being represented by its officially chosen song. Sounding like The Turner Diaries every day! Last time I checked this was America not black America, the country is turning into a ghetto because of the Democraps in office! Just more racialised narcissism designed to get a reaction from the rest of us so we can be accused of “waycism” and “white supwemacy”. It’s so tediously predictable.
LiquidMagma Replying to @EpochTimes Such stupid marketing. Nothing wise, uniting or remotely attractive about this. America is a nation of mixed culture. Using one culture to promote a political agenda as a twisted woke defeated nation. Reeks of disorders and defeat, someone needs to wake up the small but powerful mental patients running the show…
Marxist Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). You accuse the opposition of the very thing you yourself are guilty of. There is only ONE National Anthem for ALL AMERICANS in the United States! To claim that any song is a “Black National Anthem” is segregationist! The Communists want to divide us into racial groups forever arguing amongst ourselves and never uniting under a single banner! The banner is The Stars and Stripes of the American Flag with one song that unites us all as Americans !
It was derived from a poem by Francis Scott Key in the War of 1812 as a prisoner aboard a British Man-of-War during the siege of Fort McHenry outside Baltimore. Against all odds with the bombardment all night in the morning our “flag was still there” over the fort ! United! So when do we get a brown NA, a red NA, a yellow NA, an olive NA, an lesbian NA, a gay NA, a trans NA. You will always have discrimination and the most held discrimination in the country is toward single white male?
In the end false prophets will mislead, symbolism will mislead, false idols lifted up instead of God’s will serve Satan’s doubt to mislead the weak into darkness…!
What if Satan is fooling the masses by doing good deeds so people will follow after all what’s one state to fool the rest.
Even Satan will appear to fool people into thinking he’s God… ***
Quickie – 15 Minute Smart Cities And Who’s Behind It – City of London, Kissinger & Associates https://youtu.be/-D3knGfb77k
This view of a stellar nursery taken by the Very Large Telescope on May 23, 2013, also shows a group of thick clouds of dust known as the Thackeray globules silhouetted against the pale pink glowing gas of the nebula.
The Answer To Life, The Universe — And Everything? It’s 63 Often, as we go through the world, the key is to ask the right question. When it comes to figuring out the nature of physical reality, part of that process starts at the absolute edge of the observable universe — the cosmic horizon, a distant layer from which light has only just, in this very instant, managed to reach us after more than 13 billion years of racing through space.
This intangible boundary between the knowable and the unknowable is, at present, roughly a thousand, trillion, trillion meters across — should you possess the means to measure it.
At the other end, in the deepest innards of every single speck of cosmos, is a scale of a hundred billion, trillion, trillionths of a meter. It represents the last meaningful physical scale within our present understanding of physics, a place where space-time itself gets choppy, uncertain, and decidedly problematic.
These two extremes span a jaw-dropping 63 orders of magnitude. To be fair, though, this isn’t an immutable constant of nature. Turn the clock back more than 13 billion years and you’d be able to find a moment when this number was merely 1. Over time, the expansion of the cosmos and the passage of light has unlocked all of those other scales, each one a new opportunity for novelty and complexity.
It wasn’t until the cosmic horizon spanned a colossal 10-15 meters that the possibility of a coherent, causally connected atomic nucleus even existed, had the universe been cool enough. It was another nail-biting wait before the observable universe covered 10-10 meters so that a whole atom could, in principle, exist as we know it.
A self-respecting universe couldn’t have a hope of ever producing a bacterium if it hadn’t opened up to a scale of at least half a micrometer. And, in truth, for anything like a microorganism to exist, the causally connected universe had to become much, much larger. Sizeable enough for its innards to begin to feel their mutual gravitational attractions across a mammoth range of distances, from 109 meters to at least 1021 meters. Enough for it to have a chance of brewing the stars and elements — ingredients that would, in turn, feed their novelty back to a microscopic scale, unleashing a blizzard of chemistry and complexification that would eventually build something akin to a single-celled living thing.
In other words, the real question is: How big a universe is needed to allow you to be sitting here reading these words? Actually, 63 orders of magnitude might be a little more than is absolutely necessary. After all, the cosmos has been churning out stars and planets since well before our solar system came along, back to a time when we might drop a couple powers of ten in the scale of the cosmic horizon. But we don’t yet know whether anything quite like us has happened before, so the only thing we can say with certainty is that — in our very specific case — 63 is, and will always be, the magic number.
Our own horizon of ignorance has crept gradually outwards and inwards from a place surprisingly close to the logarithmic midway point of this cosmic range. That touchstone sits at about a tenth of a millimeter, like the very tip of your sharpened pencil, or the thickness of an eyelash. Barely a century ago, we hadn’t appreciated the real size of the universe that surrounds our sun and our galaxy. And while the nature of the tiny atomic and subatomic realm was rapidly becoming apparent, that inner gulf hadn’t revealed its true depths. It’s unarguable that, since then, we have made pretty spectacular progress.
But we don’t step back very often to take a look at the whole thing, our map of existence as it stands today, from end-to-end. I got to do this recently while writing, and wrestling with, a book — The Zoomable Universe. This project started out with a modest idea: revisiting the themes of several illustrated classics, from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia to Charles and Ray Eames’s famous Powers of Ten. It quickly evolved into a genre-bending, mind-twisting exploration of all we know and, more critically, an exposé of all that we don’t know.
Some of the most obvious gaps in our knowledge of the physical universe occur in what also appear to be the most boring pieces of existence: the spaces between luminous matter on a cosmic scale, and the more-than-million-trillion-fold span between the size of a proton and the Planck scale.
On the large scales, it’s the puzzle of unseen gravitating matter and unseen cosmic pressure, the dark stuff — matter and energy. On the small scales, it’s the decidedly bizarre nature of the subatomic, or at least the bizarre implications of our current physical models for the subatomic. Virtual quarks swarm around inside protons and neutrons, making these nuclear specks themselves composites of fields and their quanta, with perhaps little or no structure in the usual sense of the word. That peculiar condition seems to persist across some 20 orders of magnitude in scale.
These are great mysteries. Except I think that the mysteries with the biggest impact on how we perceive reality are those happening in plain sight, across that cluttered midway point in scale, and our realm of the senses. It’s on our biological scales that the universe does something very, very funky.
Billions of years of elemental and chemical brewing have produced structures capable of awareness, and capable of trying to decode the very thing out of which they’ve come. It’s the ultimate bootstrap, going from a near featureless primordial reality to something that reduces its own existence. We’re Getting Closer to Understanding Why Our Moment of Death Is So Peaceful : Science Alert
A Strange Form of Life Could Flourish Deep Inside of Stars, Physicists (NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team/AURA/STScI)
By MICHELLE STARR
When searching for signs of life in the Universe, we tend to look for very specific things, based on what we know: a planet like Earth, in orbit around a star, and at a distance that allows liquid surface water. But there could, conceivably, be other forms of life out there that look like nothing that we have ever imagined before.
Just as we have extremophiles here on Earth – organisms that live in the most extreme and seemingly inhospitable environments the planet has to offer – so too could there be extremophiles out there in the wider Universe.
For instance, species that can form, evolve, and thrive in the interiors of stars. According to new research by physicists Luis Anchordoqui and Eugene Chudnovsky of The City University of New York, such a thing is indeed – hypothetically, at least – possible.
It all depends on how you define life. If the key criteria are the ability to encode information, and the ability for those information carriers to self-replicate faster than they disintegrate, then hypothetical monopole particles threaded on cosmic strings – cosmic necklaces – could form the basis of life inside stars, much like DNA and RNA form the basis of life on Earth.
“Information stored in the RNA (or DNA) encodes the mechanism of self-replication,” Chudnovsky told ScienceAlert. “Its emergence must have been preceded by the massive formation of random RNA sequences until a sequence was formed capable of self-replication. We believe that a similar process would occur with necklaces in a star, leading to a stationary process of self-replication.”
Strings and monopoles are thought to have emerged in the early Universe, as it cooled down from the Big Bang, and the particle soup of quark-gluon plasma that filled it underwent a symmetry-breaking phase transition and condensed into matter – like vapors condensing into liquid.
Although we have yet to detect cosmic strings (one-dimensional linear objects) or monopoles (elementary particles with only one magnetic pole), a lot of thought has gone into how they might behave. In 1988, Chudnovsky and his colleague, theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University, predicted that cosmic strings could be captured by stars. There, the turbulence would stretch the string until it formed a network of strings.
According to the new study, cosmic necklaces could form in a sequence of symmetry-breaking phase transitions. In the first stage, monopoles emerge. In the second, strings. This can produce a stable configuration of one monopole bead and two strings, which in turn could connect to form one-, two-, and even three-dimensional structures – much like atoms joined by chemical bonds, the researchers say.
A one-dimensional necklace would be unlikely to carry information. But more complex structures potentially could – and they could survive long enough to replicate, feeding off the fusion energy generated by the star.
“Compared to the lifetime of a star, its lifetime is an instantaneous spark of light in the dark. What is important is that such a spark manages to produce more sparks before it fades away, thus providing a long lifespan of the species,” the researchers write.
“The complexity evolving through mutations and natural selection increases with the number of generations passed. Consequently, if lifetimes of self-replicating nuclear species are as short as lifetimes of many unstable composite nuclear objects, they can quickly evolve toward enormous complexity.” Hypothetically speaking, it’s perhaps possible that such a life-form could develop intelligence, and maybe even serious smarts, Chudnovsky says.
What such a species would look like is a feast for the imagination. But we don’t have to know what they look like to search for signs of their presence. Because such organisms would use some of the energy of their host star to survive and propagate, stars that seem to cool faster than stellar models can account for could be hosts for what the researchers call “nuclear life”.
Several such stars have been observed, and their slightly accelerated cooling is still a mystery. Stars that dim erratically without explanation could be a good place to look, too – like EPIC 249706694. The researchers are careful to note that to link these stars to nuclear life would be an extremely long bow to draw. But there are interesting anomalies out there. And interesting possibilities too.
“Since they would be evolving very fast, they could find a way to explore the cosmos beyond their star, as we have done,” Chudnovsky told ScienceAlert. “They could establish communication and travel between stars. Maybe we should look for their presence in space.”
It’s all extremely theoretical, but wild ideas can be a good way to make new discoveries. The researchers plan to continue their line of inquiry by developing simulations of cosmic necklaces in stars. It may not lead us to glittering star aliens – but even if it doesn’t, it could give us a better understanding of cosmic strings and monopoles.
And honestly? It’s just a really fun thing to think about.
“It is a fascinating thought that the Universe may be packed with intelligent life that is so different from ours that we failed to recognize its existence,” Chudnovsky said. The research has been published in Letters in High Energy Physics.
That’s what exploring 63 orders of magnitude leads us to. The nature of us. So, I’m hoping that somewhere among the pages of The Zoomable Universe, filled with galaxies, planets, moons, mountains, wildlife, molecules, and quanta, someone will find the inspiration they need to figure out the next big question — and maybe find the answer, too.
Caleb Scharf is director of astrobiology at Columbia University and author of Gravity’s Engines, The Copernicus Complex and The Zoomable Universe (Scientific American/ Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October 2017). Follow him on Twitter @caleb_scharf.
What Are Cosmic Connections and How to Recognize Them Post author: Kirstie Pursey
Everything is connected, so there is no such thing as a chance meeting. The people in your life are not there by chance but because of cosmic connections. The universe is as complex and interconnected as a spider’s web. Everything that happens affects everything else.
While this can be a scary prospect, it can also be inspiring. It means that everything in our lives is a result of cosmic connections. Your existence here on the material plane may not be your only experience of life.
Many traditions believe that we have many lives and that, between those lives, we are in a spiritual realm. You existed before you were born and will continue to do so after you die. While we are in that spiritual realm we get to make choices about our next life. Our souls choose what experiences we wish to have and what purpose we desire to achieve. We choose those things that help us to grow spiritually. And we choose the cosmic connections that will enable us to do so.
Cosmic connections are those people who come into our lives to help us develop and grow. These people are vital to our spiritual progression. They come into our lives for a moment or a lifetime. Either way, they can change the course of our lives forever. Our cosmic connections may not be beings full of love and light. Often we learn as much from the difficult people in our lives as we do from the ones who are a pleasure to be around. Those we are cosmically connected to come into our lives to help us look at things in a new way, heal our pain and change direction.
Cosmic relationships often disrupt our lives. These people force us to look at the way we are living and decide whether this is the way we wish to carry on. They may awaken us to injustice, remind us of our true values, encourage us to follow our dreams or simply remind us to appreciate the wonder of being alive on this planet.
They heal us
Our cosmic partners often provide deep healing to our souls. They believe in us and help us to overcome the pain of our past. These people remind us that all that we have been through is part of our spiritual journey. They can help us to move forward instead of remaining stuck in pain.
They inspire us
When a person comes into our lives who is living a life that we can only dream of, they inspire us to change. They can remind us that our dreams are possible and help us get out of our rut. Often, we can gain an immense sense of personal power from spending time with these people who believe that anything is possible.
They remind us of our life purpose
Sometimes, when we meet someone, there is an instant connection. It feels like we have known them for a lifetime. And something about them reminds us of who we really are. It’s as if a switch is flipped and we suddenly remember our connection with the divine and our sole purpose. Through the expectations of our parents, peers, and society as a whole, we can go off course in our lives. We learn to make decisions based on what others think, rather than what our souls are calling us to do. Our divine connections can help us to remember our true calling and spiritual purpose in this incarnation.
They cause us pain
Cosmic relationships don’t necessarily make life easier for us. When they come into our lives they challenge the status quo and force us to look deeply into ourselves. This is often painful. We would sometimes rather stay in our comfort zones and live mediocre lives. We don’t always have the courage to face the truth and become who we are meant to be.
Our cosmic friends can force us out of our comfort zones. They may do this gently, or they may be harsh about it. Sometimes kind words are not enough. Sometimes we need a bit of a kick to help us change our path. Difficult relationships in our lives can sometimes provide this impetus to change better than more gentle ones. This is not to say we should seek difficult or damaging relationships. It is simply to remind us that we can learn from the pain we have experienced.
They teach us to be open
When we recognize that people come into our lives for a reason it helps us to open our hearts. Instead of being fearful, we become peaceful because of our understanding of the higher purpose behind all our life experiences. By freeing us from fear and hate our cosmic partners can transform us, awakening us to the divine connections in the universe and our place in the cosmic sphere.
Closing thoughts
Every person we meet has the potential to help us grow, from the man on the bus who smiles at us to our grandmother who offers unconditional love to the difficult partner or colleague.
Understanding the cosmic significance of these people in our lives helps us to deal with them better and make the most of what they have to offer us on our journey.
Recognizing our cosmic connections can change our lives. When we look at each individual who crosses our path as a divine messenger our attitude towards them changes.
Cancer Alley Louisiana, known in the ’80s as “Chemical Corridor,” is an 85 mile-long stretch of petroleum chemical plants along the Mississippi River. The region, located in Southeastern Louisiana, stretches from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and has a population of about 45,000 residents. Cancer Alley Louisiana is the greatest hotspot for cancer cases in the United States and the residents need change. Lung cancer is common within industries that produce iron/steel, rubber, paint, aluminum, and other chemicals. Workers and residents breathe in the harmful chemicals emitted by the factories when they burn fuel, use chemicals, or simply release dust and microscopic debris into the air. Air pollution can cause lung cancer because, when inhaled, toxic dust or gas goes directly to the lungs. The Lung Cancer in Cancer Alley workers and residents is high. Industries pollute the air with an above-average amount of chemicals. Cancer Alley is located in Southeastern Louisiana and stretches from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. So, what Do I Do If I Live in Cancer Alley? It is easy to assume that help can only come from higher-up officials. However, legal action can be taken against these industries and plants which contribute to the harmful living conditions of Cancer Alley in Louisiana. Let a specialists give you a Cancer Alley case evaluation while funds are available.
Pollutants In Cancer Alley Air From 2009 to 2016 air pollution decreased by 25% in Cancer Alley. However, over the two years, air pollution increased by 5.5%. About 50 toxic chemicals pollute the air along the industrial stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Among these are benzene, formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, and the most concerning, chloroprene which are still used in several industries today.
Formaldehyde Exposure Effects Formaldehyde is a chemical with a strong smell. It is mainly present in industries that produce building materials and other household products like insulation, plywood, fiberglass, or fabrics. Cancer Alley residents may develop rare cancer cases of the sinuses due to inhalation.
Ethylene Oxide Dangers Ethylene Oxide is a colorless gas that emits a sweet odor. It is used to make household cleaners and detergents. Findings by the EPA show that Ethylene Oxide is a more dangerous carcinogen than they once believed. This chemical in Cancer Alley may most likely lead to lymphoma and leukemia. Chloroprene Cancer RiskChloroprene is a carcinogen used to produce neoprene, a synthetic rubber. Its use is popular in the area as in 2015, Denka Performance Elastomer bought a stretch of Cancer Alley. Findings by the EPA also show that an above-average amount of chloroprene polluted the Louisiana air in 2011. After these findings, emission of the chloroprene chemical reduced by 85%.
Symptoms Of Lung Cancer In Cancer Alley Louisiana In 2018, the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) released research in which they collected health data from residents within 2.5 kilometers of Cancer Alley Louisiana. The survey showed the following symptoms of lung cancer among residents. 1/3rd of participants reported that they regularly have a hard time breathing and experience wheezing. Over 40% of participants experience frequent coughing and tend to have a hoarse/sore throat. Nearly 30% of participants reported feeling fatigue.
Environmental Impact On Cancer Alley Not only is the air pollution from Cancer Alley a danger, but the location raises risks. Hurricanes along the Gulf Coast have already caused great damage when in contact with chemical plants around the area. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused nearly 11 million gallons of oil to spill into the water near New Orleans. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey lead to power outages which caused unrefrigerated chemicals in a local plant in Houston to decompose and eventually ignite into one big fireball. And in 2020, the effects of Hurricane Laura caused a fire at a plant that produced pool chemicals. Chlorine gas burned for three days in the fire. Hurricane Ida in 2021 raised a huge risk to the area of Cancer Alley Louisiana. The storm had a projected path through the industrial region. Due to the threat of the Hurricane’s destruction, Cancer Alley industries released unprocessed chemicals and gases into the air via “flaring.” This process is legal in emergencies and burns the chemicals directly into the air. After Hurricane Ida struck, residents were left with damaged homes and more pollution in the air and water than usual.
Cancer Alley and Legal Action Although Cancer Alley has a reputation for high percentages of pollution in the area, change is long overdue. This is why it is so important that the public remains aware of the associated risks in Louisiana and Cancer Alley. So, what actions can the public take to improve living conditions in this highly polluted area?
Past Actions Against Cancer Alley Pollutants Congress developed a simplified Clean Air Act (CAA) in 1977. By 1990, congress made revisions to reduce the emission of harmful pollutants. The revisions targeted areas like Cancer Alley and Louisiana with visible smog and cancer clusters. With these edits to the CAA, Congress ensured that industries now must monitor and regulate levels of chemical emission. Although the CAA requires the EPA and industries to monitor toxin levels in Cancer Alley, the public remains unaware of what exactly they are breathing in. Not only that, but when industries are forced to report their chemical levels to EPA, they may in fact be using flawed formulas that “estimate” rather than “calculate” an exact level.
Current Actions Against Cancer Alley Pollutants Michael Regan, an EPA administrator, has taken progressive actions regarding Cancer Alley pollution. Regan traveled for five days in a “Journey to Justice.” In this trek, Regan visited areas that have high pollution rates and lack quality air. He gained insight into the residents whose lives are affected by industry fumes in Cancer Alley Louisiana. Regan reassured the public that actions will be taken to improve the air quality in Cancer Alley and other heavily polluted areas. On January 26, 2022, EPA stated that they plan to conduct unannounced inspections of all plants in Cancer Alley. Allegedly, Regan also announced that any industry unwilling to comply will be held accountable by him personally. In addition, the EPA spent $600,000 on mobile air pollution monitoring equipment.
Originally dubbed “Plantation Country”, Cancer Alley, which is located in the southern state of Louisiana along the lower Mississippi River where enslaved Africans were forced to labour, serves as an industrial hub, with nearly 150 oil refineries, plastics plants and chemical facilities. The ever-widening corridor of petrochemical plants has not only polluted the surrounding water and air, but also subjected the mostly African American residents in St. James Parish to cancer, respiratory diseases and other health problems.
“This form of environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights”, the experts said.
Government failure According to the experts, federal environmental regulations have failed to protect people residing in “Cancer Alley”. In 2018, St. James Parish Council approved the industrialization of toxic chemical development through the “Sunshine Project” – a subsidiary company of Formosa Plastics Group that would create one of the world’s largest plastics facilities – and the building of two methanol complexes by other manufacturers. Formosa Plastics’ petrochemical complex alone will more than double the cancer risks in St. James Parish affecting disproportionately African American residents, flagged the experts.
A Grim Prospect According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Air Toxic Assessment map, the cancer risks in predominantly African American Districts in St. James Parish could be at 104 and 105 cases per million, while those threats in predominantly white districts range from 60 to 75 per million. The experts said that the new petrochemical complexes would exacerbate environmental pollution and disproportionately affect African American communities’ rights to life, health, and an adequate standard of living. The combined emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year in a single parish could exceed those of 113 countries, they said.
Cultural threat The UN experts also sounded the alarm over possible violations of cultural rights, as at least four ancestral burial grounds are at serious risk of being destroyed by the planned construction. “The African American descendants of the enslaved people who once worked the land are today the primary victims of deadly environmental pollution that these petrochemical plants in their neighborhoods have caused”, they said. “We call on the United States and St. James Parish to recognize and pay reparations for the centuries of harm to Afro-descendants rooted in slavery and colonialism.”
Rays of Hope The experts welcomed President Joe Biden’s Executive Order, signed in January, on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis and the pledge of the US Government to listen to science, strengthen clean air and water protections, and hold polluters accountable for their actions. While signing the Order, the President raised hopes by specifically citing Cancer Alley and commenting that “environmental justice will be at the centre of all we do when it comes to addressing the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of colour”.
Delivering justice The experts called on the government to deliver environmental justice in communities all across America, starting with St James Parish, while upholding that corporations also bear responsibility and should conduct environmental and human rights impact assessments as part of the due diligence process. Click here for the names of the experts. Independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country’s situation.
NOTE: They are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
Arsenic is a poisonous chemical element found in minerals and it is present in oil. High levels of arsenic in seawater can enable the toxin to enter the food chain. It can disrupt the photosynthesis process in marine plants and increase the chances of genetic alterations that can cause birth defects and behavioural changes in aquatic life. It can also kill animals such as birds that feed on sea creatures affected by arsenic. In the study, a team from Imperial College London has discovered that oil spills can partially block the ocean’s natural filtration system and prevent this from cleaning arsenic out of the seawater. The researchers say their study sheds light on a new toxic threat from the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. Arsenic occurs naturally in the ocean, But sediments on the seafloor filter it out of seawater, which keeps the levels of naturally occurring arsenic low. However, arsenic is also flushed into the ocean in wastewater from oil rigs and from accidental oil spills and leakages from underground oil reservoirs. In the study, the researchers discovered that oil spills and leakages clog up sediments on the ocean floor with oil, which prevents the sediments from bonding with arsenic and burying it safely underground with subsequent layers of sediment. The scientists say this shutdown of the natural filtration system causes arsenic levels in seawater to rise, which means that it can enter the marine ecosystem, where it becomes more concentrated and poisonous the further it moves up the food chain. The scientists say their work demonstrates how the chemistry of sediments in the Gulf of Mexico may be affected by the current oil leak.
Professor Mark Sephton, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says: “We can’t accurately measure how much arsenic is in the Gulf at the moment because the spill is ongoing. However, the real danger lies in arsenic’s ability to accumulate, which means that each subsequent spill raises the levels of this pollutant in seawater. Our study is a timely reminder that oil spills could create a toxic ticking time bomb, which could threaten the fabric of the marine ecosystem in the future.” Wimolporn Wainipee, postgraduate and lead author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, adds: “We carried out our study before the leak in the Gulf of Mexico occurred, but it gives us a big insight into a potential new environmental danger in the region. Thousands of gallons of oil are leaked into the world’s oceans every year from big spills, offshore drilling and routine maintenance of rigs, which means many places may be at risk from rising arsenic levels, which could in the long run affect aquatic life, plants and the people who rely on the oceans for their livelihoods.”
For their research, the team analysed a mineral called goethite, one of the most abundant ocean sediments in the world, which is an iron bearing oxide. The team carried out experiments in the laboratory that mimicked conditions in the ocean, to see how the goethite binds to arsenic under natural conditions. They discovered that seawater alters the chemistry of goethite, where low pH levels in the water create a positive change on the surface of goethite sediments, making them attractive to the negatively charged arsenic. However, the scientists discovered that when they added oil, this created a physical barrier, covering the goethite sediments, which prevented the arsenic in the oil from binding to them. The team also found that the oil changed the chemistry of the sediments, which weakened the attraction between the goethite and arsenic. In the future, the researchers plan to analyze other minerals such as clays and carbonates that are sediments on the ocean floor. Sediment content varies from ocean to ocean and the researchers will analyse how oil affects their ability to bind to arsenic after a spill. Vinyl chloride is a mutagen having clastogenic effects which affect lymphocyte chromosomal structure.
Vinyl chloride is a Group 1 human carcinogen posing elevated risks of rare angiosarcoma, brain and lung tumors, and malignant haematopoeitic lymphatic tumors. Chronic exposure leads to common forms of respiratory failure (emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis) and focused hepatotoxicity (hepatomegaly, hepatic fibrosis). Continuous exposure can cause CNS depression including euphoria and disorientation. Decreased male libido, miscarriage, and birth defects are known major reproductive defects associated with vinyl chloride. Vinyl chloride – Wikipedia
Description Films Media Group – A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains In the hills of Central Appalachia, up winding, mountain roads, is a place where families face unthinkable living conditions. Isolated pockets here have three times the national poverty rate, an epidemic of drug abuse, and the shortest life span in the nation. In this program, Diane Sawyer travels to the Appalachian Mountains to report on children who live in rural poverty, and in particular, four who are determined to find a better life. For nearly two years, ABC News cameras have followed the stories of Shawn, a high school athlete who sleeps in his truck to avoid his alcoholic family; Courtney, a 12-year-old who wants nothing more than her own bed and enough to eat; Jeremy, an 18-year-old coal miner whose dream of becoming an engineer was dashed when his girlfriend became pregnant; and Erica, an 11-year-old striving to save her addicted mother’s life. The program also includes Sawyer’s update on these four young people, and a discussion of possible solutions to poverty. (48 minutes) I must admit I watched Diane Sawyer’s “Hidden America: Children of the Mountains” with a great deal of trepidation. Let’s face it; we’ve been down this road before. I remember Muddy Gut Hollow and WYMT’s live town hall meeting to respond following the hour long assault on our region. I remember the excitement when the Harlan Boys Choir was selected to sing at President Bush’s Inauguration only to be followed by the anger and resentment as the national media once again depicted our region as a “hell” hole. So yes, I was concerned the same stereotypical images would once again grace our nation’s airwaves, reinforcing the misconceptions and half-truths associated with one of the most beautiful places on earth, the place I am proud to call home. Yet, I promised myself I would keep an open mind. I sat down Saturday morning and watched it in the privacy of my office. No distractions, no interruptions. Several hours later I watched it again to see if my initial thoughts remained the same. Each time I was overcome with emotion. My feelings have ranged from sadness and compassion, to embarrassment and anger. To be honest, “Hidden America: Children of the Mountains” made me mad as hell! But that anger is not directed so much at Diane Sawyer and ABC, but instead at me, my friends and my associates. What are we doing to help? I will agree the national media tends to have an agenda which perpetuates the stereotypical views of our region. They look for the images, the people and the stories which only serve to enhance those beliefs outside our region. Yes, I wish ABC would have balanced the segment and focused on some of our successes. I’d like the rest of America to enjoy the beauty of this region, the culture, the friendliness and the people. But if we are honest, we must admit the facts of the documentary are true and sometimes the truth hurts. It’s no secret; Eastern Kentucky has a drug epidemic. Our region’s rates for cancer, diabetes, obesity and dental problems are higher than the national averages: Are we really mad at Diane Sawyer for reporting on a serious problem, or are we upset that someone is reminding us of images we would rather ignore? Less than one week after Diane Sawyer’s “A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains” aired on 20/20 — shining a spotlight on Appalachian children living in poverty — there has been a significant outpouring of donations, and offers of help, by viewers of the program. The special, which brought 20/20 its biggest Friday night audience in more than four years, has prompted approximately $60,000 in donations so far to the nonprofit Christian Appalachian Project, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. ABC News also reports that since the show aired, one of the featured young people, Shawn Grim, has received college scholarship offers from four schools. In addition, Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, has spoken with Sawyer about helping with dental care for Appalachia’s children, after the show focused on the prevalence of tooth decay from “Mountain Dew mouth” in the area. This Friday’s 20/20 will provide an update on the families profiled in last week’s program, and will also explore the topic of combating poverty.
I Was Dying Than Given Hope – Search (bing.com) I remember what happened to me in 2015 as though it was yesterday: the rush of footsteps, the sheer panic on the faces of the doctors and ICU nurses. The image seared in my memory is of me coughing up blood onto the belly of my pregnant wife. What led up to this crisis started in 1980 when I was born with cystic fibrosis. My mom recounts that when I was diagnosed, we had no personal computers, no Google. There were no patient communities to rely on.
Naturally, my mom talked to my physicians, but she had to go to the public library to try to figure out what was going on. When I was finally diagnosed, they told her, “Just bring him home, hold him tight, because you don’t know how long he’s going to be here.” My mom sent me to school. Even though the doctors encouraged her not to waste her time, she did her best to see that I grew up like a normal kid and did all the normal things. But with cystic fibrosis, there were constants in my life no other kid I knew had: hospital stays and hemoptysis, which is coughing up blood. That started to happen when I was – 8 years old. Hemoptysis accompanied an infection or exacerbation that would require IV antibiotics.
Living with cystic fibrosis I went to the hospital for two weeks every three months throughout high school; in college and beyond, I stayed for a month at a time. That was just what you did as a cystic fibrosis patient. But as I got older, I got sicker, and so did all the friends who I met in the hospital. We were like a little club. By the time I was out of college, most of them were dead. I felt like the last one standing. In 2008, I met a girl, the first to convince me I had something else to live for. I made plans. I started to exercise. I got a bit healthier. I went into the hospital less often. But the blood remained. I had to change the way I slept; I couldn’t sleep flat. I had to be careful what exercises I did; the wrong ones would start the coughing and the blood would follow. Even so, I was living a good life. In 2015, lying on a bed in the ICU, my wife covered with my blood, I realized something had changed. It had never been this bad. I had multiple blood transfusions, but doctors didn’t know what to do; three physicians walked out of my room after telling my wife there was nothing more that could be done for me. “Start preparing people for Ronnie to no longer be here,” they told her. Discharged, I went home. Somehow, just barely, I held on for the next three years. In 2018, I was enrolled in a clinical trial. It saved my life.
The trial that saved my life I’ve been part of clinical trials my entire life, starting at age 8. My clinicians knew I was always “game,” and would tell me about new trials, but this one was considered a potential game-changer in the cystic fibrosis community. I felt almost like I had won the lottery.
The drug was a pill taken twice a day. It took maybe three days for me to know that I was definitely not on a placebo. There was an almost instant difference in what I could do, in my energy levels, my breathing. I was able to actually play with my children for the first time in years without fearing a massive hemoptysis sending me back to the hospital. I was taking in deeper breaths than I had in over a decade, and I felt more “normal” than I had in years. The fact that a pill could correct the basic defect of cystic fibrosis still blows my mind; I never thought I would see the day that it would be possible. My cells now worked like a “normal” person’s, something that was hard to grasp. I finally felt like I was living the life I was supposed to live. And then the pandemic happened.
While we all freaked out about coronavirus and being locked down, people with the pre-existing condition of cystic fibrosis were especially worried about the impact of the virus on their lungs.
But there was something I feared more than catching COVID-19. I didn’t know if my clinical trial would continue and if I would still have access to this literally life-saving drug. But the company who conducted my trial figured it out. They pivoted quickly, and, through remote technologies and protocol changes, the trial was never disrupted.
I ended up being on the trial drug until 2022. Throughout those four years, I heard from my trial coordinator every other week between site visits, virtual visits, and check-ins. I used to say that the one constant in my life were hospital stays and hemoptysis, but since I took part in that trial, I’ve haven’t coughed up blood, nor have I been in the hospital.
When people say that clinical trials save lives, I want you to think of me. In traditional clinical trials, we’re thought of as subjects, randomizations, enrollees. But I want you to think of a person, a husband, a father, somebody just trying to live and serve their fellow humans.
My counsel to drug developers and pharmaceutical executives, which I recently shared with industry leaders during a keynote address at the Decentralized Trials and Research Alliance meeting in November, is this: don’t be satisfied with the status quo. I believe advancements are only made when patients take an active role and drug companies listen to them. My trial, for instance, continued through the pandemic because those conducting it actually talked to the people they were trying to help.
I advocate that we have to be willing to sit down at a table, whether in real life or virtually and talk to families and patients. Stop guessing at what they need; ask them. Ultimately, it’s their lives that are at stake.
Ronnie Sharpe is the co-founder of Savvy Cooperative, a patient-owned co-operative that works directly with healthcare innovators to make sure healthcare products and services work for all patients.
Are Jews descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? They are not of the blood lineage of Abraham and the prophets, but of King Bulan and the pagan peoples of the Caucasus. The ancestors of today’s Jews are not Israelites but are Khazarians. The use of anti semitism as a weapon against the critics of Zionism is essential for its survival because it serves to deflect the attention away from their lying, cheating. stea;ing. murdering, war profiteering, balant law violation of international law and barbaric crimes against humanity
Khazaria’s people, in the 8th century, converted from paganism to Judaism. In the 10th century, these Khazarian “Jewish” converts emigrated to Eastern Europe, and especially Poland and Lithuania. In 1948, the Khazars, erroneously believing themselves to be “Jews,” arrived in the territory of Palestine and set up the state of Israel. The people of Israel today are virtually all Khazar (Turk/Mongol stock) extraction. The “Jews” have no genetic claims to the land of Israel and no family connection whatsoever to historical Israel. DNA science joins recent discoveries in history and archaeology to present the world with a correct and remarkable picture of the Jewish people. Now, everything changes!
“I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” — Revelation 2:9 Once again, God’s Word proves to be correct, and men everywhere are confused. Many Christians believed that the people who, today, claim to be Jews, descendants of Abraham, were exactly what they claimed. They told us they were “the Chosen,” “the Apple of God’s eye.” They insisted that their ancestors, their founding fathers, had been given title to the land of Israel in the Old Covenant made over 5,000 years ago, and many believed them.
They shouldn’t have. Christians should have read their Bibles and believed what God says. The Apostle Paul warned us there to beware of “the foolishness of genealogies.” He told us not to heed “Jewish fables.” He even made it clear that the Old Covenant had been replaced by the New Covenant, which was Jesus Himself. He stated that, “Here we have no continuing City,” that it was the heavenly Jerusalem to which the prophets and saints were looking toward. Yes, that was the Promise God made to Abraham and to us, His Children, the Saints. God Identifies Those Blasphemers Who Are the Synagogue of Satan As for those who claim to be “Jews,” who insist that they and their race alone are “God’s Chosen” and have the Promise, Jesus did not mince words. He said, twice in Revelation, that these were not His people.
They are liars, “blasphemers,” said our Lord and Saviour: “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” (Revelation 2:9) “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” (Revelation 3:9) Do you, dear Saints, believe what Jesus Christ said? Do you believe in the Word of God? Do you have the Promise given only to those of Faith? Are ye of Christ? Then, says the Scripture, regardless of your race, are ye “Abraham’s Seed and heirs according to the Promise” (Galatians 4:28-29). This is the indisputable Word of God, and now science—DNA Science—has confirmed its amazing truth. DNA Science, the mathematics of God, has confirmed that Jesus was absolutely telling us the truth: “…those who say they are Jews” are not Jews but are the Synagogue of Satan.
Texe Marrs releases his newest bombshell: DNA Science and the Jewish Bloodline, now available through Power of Prophecy. This fact—that modern DNA science proves the Word of God correct—is the subject of my startling new book, DNA Science and the Jewish Bloodline. This is a book you must have. It proves absolutely that the people who identify themselves today as “Jews” are not Jews—they are the Synagogue of Satan, just as the Bible says!
DNA Research Brings the Truth The undeniable evidence of this has become clear with the advent of DNA research. In 2001, Dr. Ariella Oppenheim and her team at Tel Aviv University released their study which found that the “Jews” were mainly Khazars, from Khazaria, a Caucasus country which is now called Kazakhstan, Georgia, and other names. The Khazarians converted from pagan religions to talmudic Judaism after the 8th century, but of course, racially they remain Khazars. The Khazars were and are a genome that is mainly Turkish and Mongolian blood. Thus today, when you see a “Jew,” what you are actually encountering is a Khazar who practices Judaism. The Khazar has no Israelite blood. His ancestors are not the Israelites of the Bible. They did not worship the God, Jehovah, but instead literally were a phallic cult. They worshipped Satan by means of the male penis idol. The Khazars were never in the land of Israel. They are not the seed of Abraham. They have no promise from God. Now we know this as absolute scientific fact.
Dr. Eran Elhaik
In late 2012, yet another Israeli-born scientist, Dr. Eran Elhaik, of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Science, Johns Hopkins Medical University, published his research in The Journal of Biology and Evolution. Considered by geneticists worldwide as the “definitive study” and peer-approved, this authoritative research confirmed Dr. Oppenheim’s earlier findings and went even further.
“There are no blood or family connections among the Jews,” reported Dr. Elhaik. “The various groups of Jews in the world today do not share a common genetic origin. Their genome is largely Khazar.”
“Whatever Israelite blood the Khazar Jews have,” added Dr. Elhaik, “is miniscule.” Like Dr. Oppenheim, Elhaik’s research connected today’s Jews to the Turkic clans of Khazaria, in the Russian Caucasus. The facts are: Israel and America are populated by people saying they are Jews who are not Jews! They are Khazarian. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims, “God gave this land to our Israelite forefathers,” he is not telling the truth. When today’s Khazar Jews say they possess the land of Israel as a divine right, they are sadly mistaken. Indeed, Elhaik and Oppenheim found that the Palestinian people may have more Israelite blood coursing through their veins than do the people who say they are Jews! A DNA test would no doubt confirm this eye-popping fact. Jesus Christ is the Authority The Christian evangelicals have been duped. If only they had read and believed Jesus Christ—He told them what to look for in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. He said that those who claim to be Jews are not Jews but are “blasphemers” and the “Synagogue of Satan.” The Khazars are not Jews, but they do practice Judaism. Like the Jews, their Babylonian Talmud and Kabbalah are satanic books which they insist are greater than the Torah and the Holy Bible. These heinous texts brand Jesus a magician, liar, and a bastard burning in hell today. These texts admonish Jews to “kill the best of the Christians” who, it is claimed, are idolaters.
Khazar Jews in 1876. DNA studies show that today’s Jews are descendants of the Khazars. Is this not “blasphemy?” Does this not prove the Bible is telling you and me the absolute Truth? The Khazars despise and persecute Christians. They are, indeed, the Synagogue of Satan.
In my new book, DNA Science and the Jewish Bloodline, I fully examine the Khazars, including the story of how they converted to Judaism, and I provide all the evidence on the DNA studies. In this first ever book, I quote not only Dr. Elhaik and Dr. Oppenheim, but also other famous genetics researchers. I also introduce the writings and research of top Israeli and Jewish (Khazar) historian, Arthur Koestler, whose book, The Thirteenth Tribe, is a classic, and Shlomo Sand, history professor at Tel Aviv University, whose recent scholarly book, The Invention of the Jewish People, was a New York Times bestseller. You will even read what Dr. Benjamin Freedman wrote about the Khazars and the Jews back in the 1950s, in his well-known treatise, Facts are Facts.
Modern-day Khazars in Israel falsely claim right to the land.
Best of all, DNA Science and the Jewish Bloodline, explores the utter truth of God’s Word. What did Jesus and the Apostles have to say about this vital issue? Paul, for instance, who told us to pay no attention whatsoever to “foolish genealogies.” but only to the cross of Jesus. Paul cautioned: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh” (Romans 2:29).
Through inspiration of God, Paul wrote an epistle telling us that all, Jew and Gentile, who have faith in Jesus are “Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the Promise” (Galatians 3:26-29).
That dear friends, is an indisputable fact that the world’s greatest mathematicians and scientists cannot deny. It is the answer to every Christian who, reading the pages of DNA Science and the Jewish Bloodline, asks, “If the Khazars are the Jews, are there really any Jews in the world today?” We now know the Bible means what it says. Now everything changes. The Bible says if you belong to Jesus, your race or ethnic origin is of no consequence whatsoever. You are born again. You are a new person in Christ. ~ JESUS IS KING ✝️🙏♥️
The only man that can save America is the eternal son of God who has ~ all power and authority if America would repent he would intervene…
Human Slavery by Demonic Power Royalty Infiltrated Octagon Nazi Organization From Khazaria to Europe Fraud and Deception Steal People’s Wealth Worldwide Slave Trade War Doubles their Money Disclosure
Global Khazarian Mafia The Luciferian revolution against God and Nature has put the rich and powerful, more precisely the banksters, in a strong position. They use their power to oppress the weak, destroy the economy and the climate. The curtain is now being drawn to fully expose their original plan, i.e., to infiltrate and tyrannize the entire World, and eradicate all Religions, to allow only their Babylonian Talmudism, also known as Luciferianism, Satanism or ancient Baal-worship.
This satanic possession of the cabal is the result of a highly organized long-term conspiracy to establish the New World Order, based on the Luciferian revolution against God and Nature. The financial institutions have gradually gained almost complete control over all circulating money, and with it the power to raise or lower the price of assets such as shares and real estate. Furthermore, they can impose taxes on the people in the form of premiums and interest, to an amount limited only by the amount of “fake” paper currency they can issue.
The Fall of the Cabal Sequel – Search (bing.com) The basis of this evil, which drives the Rothschild Khazarian mafia, is derived from the Babylonian Talmud, based on religious delusions of racial superiority.
The Rothschilds designed the private fiat banking system based on creating money out of thin air, on which they charge outrageous interest rates to governments and individuals, when it should have been the people’s own money, free of interest charges. The idea of counterfeit money came from the black art of Babylonian money magic, with insiders claiming that they had received this technology and secret money power from Baal, because of their frequent child sacrifices and rituals.
Once they infiltrated and hijacked the banking system, they interbred with the European Royals and infiltrated and completely hijacked all of England and most of its major institutions. Some experts believe that the Rothschilds genocide the original Royal Family members by staging secretly managed illicit and adulterous breeding with their own Khazarian men in order to replace the Royals with their own pretenders to the throne.
Many may think they are pretty well informed about all of the main players in the Deep State “conspiracy” playing field, with regard to the various elements of society that control our world from behind the scenes. However, the organizational structure consisting of eight layers is far more complicated than often is known.
These Ruling Pharaohs, originate from Lucifer’s occult mystery religions, that came out of Babylon and Egypt. They now are identified as the Global Elite or cabal, who see us as their slaves and property, to do with as they please. Octagon is the name of a highly secretive Nazi organisation, which by the end of WW2 acquired all of its fortune from looted Nazi Gold and goods deposited into Switzerland, in order to use it for future wars and illegal actions.
A well-known German scandal from the 90’s concerned black funds with which the political election campaign of Helmut Kohl and the CDU were financed by using Nazi Gold, laundered in Switzerland and organised by the Octagon secret Nazi organisation under the secret code. At the top of the pyramid hierarchy sit the Swiss OCTAGON Templars, followed by the 2nd layer consisting of Soros and the Nazis.
Actually, the Nazis are an integrated part of the Octagon, and somewhat belong to the top. According to the highly recommended Documentary “The Pharaoh Show” The Crusaders’ last stronghold of the Templars fell on May 18th 1291, and only 2 and a half months later Switzerland was founded on August 1st 1291. According to the documentary, the Templar’s treasure was hidden in Switzerland, on which the Swiss banks were founded.
“The Pharaohs are still here and are ruling the world through secret societies, after, the Pharaoh and his army disappeared into the sea”. In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh was the most powerful person. The pharaoh was the political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ and ‘High Priest of Every Temple’.(bing.com)
From Khazaria to Europe
About 1,200 AD, the Russians led a group of nations surrounding Khazaria and invaded it, in order to stop the Khazarian crimes against their people, which included kidnapping of their young children and infants for their blood sacrifice ceremonies to Baal. The Khazarian king and his inner court of criminals and murderers came to be known as the Khazarian Mafia by neighboring countries.
The Khazarian leaders had a well-developed spy network through which they obtained prior warning and escaped from Khazarian Mafia that invaded European nations to the west, taking their vast fortune with them in gold and silver. They laid low and regrouped, while assuming new identities. In secret, they continued their Satanic child blood and sacrifice rituals, and trusted Baal to give them the whole world and all its riches, as they claimed; he had promised them, as long as they kept bleeding out and sacrificing children and infants for him.
The Khazarian king and his Mafia-court plotted eternal revenge against the Russians and the surrounding nations that invaded Khazaria and drove them from power. After being expelled, hundreds of years later the Khazarian Mafia invaded England. To accomplish their invasion, they hired Oliver Cromwell to murder King Charles 1, to make England safe again for their banking fraud. This started the English Civil Wars that raged for nearly a decade, resulting in killing off the royal family and hundreds of the genuine English nobility. This is how the City of London was set up as the banking capital of Europe and that launched the beginning of the British Empire.
The Khazarian Mafia decides to infiltrate and hijack all World Banking, using Babylonian Black-Magic, also known as Babylonian Money-Magic or the secret art of making money from nothing by using their power to implement malicious usury to accumulate interest. This Babylonian money-magic involved the introduction of paper credit certificates for gold and silver deposits, which allowed travellers to travel with their money in a form that offered easy replacement should they lose the certificates or have them stolen.
Interestingly, how the very problem that was started by the Khazarians and also provided a solution for them. Eventually, the Khazarian king and his small surrounding court infiltrated Germany with a group that chose the name “the Bauers” of Germany to represent them and carry on their Baal-powered system of evil. The Bauer family lived in Frankfurt/M in the house with Red Shields, and changed their name to Rothschild.
They were members of their secret blood-based child sacrifice cult. The Rothschilds were the cover for the Khazarian mafia to infiltrate and hijack the British banking system, after which they hijacked the entire English nation. Bauer/Rothschild had five sons who infiltrated and took over European banking and the City of London, and also Central Banking System through various shrewd covert operations, including a false report that Napoleon in Waterloo was winning against the British, when actually he had lost. To convince investors to sell their assets against bottom prices, to be bought-up by the Rothschilds.
Fraud and Deception Steal People’s Wealth
God and his Syria & Turkey Earthquakes. The suffering and anguish in Turkey and Syria and everywhere else are a result of living in a world cut off from God. When God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in a beautiful garden and interacted directly with them (Genesis 2:8; Genesis 3:8). There were no earthquakes or other natural disasters in this garden.
This allowed the Rothschilds to use fraud and deception to steal the wealth of the English nobility and aristocracy, who had made business investments with the City of London Banking institutions. The Rothschilds set up a private fiat banking system that specialised in making counterfeit money out of nothing – and making the British people pay excessive usury on what should have been their own money.
Resulting; the Rothschilds covertly ran the British Empire and designed an evil plan to recover the vast amounts of gold and silver the British had been paying to China for its high-quality silk and spices that were unavailable anywhere else. Accordingly, the Rothschilds, through their international spy network, had heard of Turkish opium and its addictive characteristics.
They deployed a covert operation to buy Turkish opium and sell it into China, infecting millions with a bad opium habit that brought back the gold and silver into the Rothschild coffers, but not to the British People. The opium addictions created by Rothschild opium sales to China harmed China so much that China went to war on two occasions to stop it. These wars were known as the Boxer Rebellions or the Opium Wars.
The money the Rothschilds gained from the sale of opium was so vast they became even more addicted to the easy money than the opiate addicts to the opium. In addition, the Rothschilds became the funding source behind the establishment of the American Colonies, by incorporating the Hudson Bay Company and other trading companies to exploit the New World of the Americas.
It was the Rothschild’s who ordered the mass extermination and genocide of the indigenous people of North America to allow for the exploitation of the vast natural resources of the continent. They followed the same business template in the Caribbean and in the Asian subcontinent of India, resulting in the murder of millions of innocent people.
Worldwide Slave Trade
The Rothschild’s next big project was to start the worldwide slave trade, buying slaves from crooked tribal chiefs in Africa who worked with them to kidnap members of competing tribes to be sold as slaves. The Rothschild slave traders took these kidnapped slaves on their ships in cramped cells to America and the Caribbean where they were sold. Many died at sea due to bad conditions.
War Doubles their Money
The Rothschild bankers learned early on that war is a lucrative method of doubling their money in a short time. They did this by lending money to both warring parties. To ensure repayment, both sides had to pass tax laws, which could be used to secure repayment. When the Rothschilds lost the American Revolution, they blamed the Russian Czar and Russians for assisting the colonists by blockading British Ships. They swore eternal revenge on the American colonists, just as they had when the Russians and their allies crushed Khazaria in 1,000 AD.
The Rothschilds and their English oligarchy that surrounded them plotted ways to retake America, which became their main preoccupation. Their favored plan was to set up the American central bank, featuring Babylonian money magic and secret counterfeiting. They created a master plan to control all of Judaism, and mind-control the Jews. Once Judaism was hijacked, they modelled it off of Babylonian Talmudism (Luciferianism or Satanism), and gained general control over banking and Wall Street activities, Congress, major mass media outlets; along with most of the wealth and economic means for success.
Soon mainstream people will know how evil these people are, once it is shown how they employed Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud Party to attack America on 9-11-01, on behalf of the Rothschild Financial Mafia. Be helpful and share this article with your family, friends and acquaintances to make it go viral. It is time for every citizen to understand how and why they were enslaved and kept in slavery.
Now, after 500,000 years, it is our only chance to reclaim our freedom. To be very clear about this, by exposing their hidden history, their criminal secret is being exposed in the full light of day for all to see and understand how corrupt and evil our slaves really are! Watch this: Midnight Think Tank ~ Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia.
The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America!!! In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day.
Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.
Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.
Most Christians truly desire to understand God’s plan for their lives. Yet there are many questions: how do I discover God’s plan? How can, I be sure? Fortunately, the Bible provides many important principles regarding the will of God. God is not trying to hide His will for our lives; He wants His children to know His will and follow it.
First, the Bible is filled with clear statements regarding God’s plan that apply to all believers.
For example, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 teaches, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” These three activities—being joyful, praying, and giving thanks—are God’s will for all believers, regardless of other circumstances.
We can understand God’s will through His Word. God’s Word is perfect, and we can discover God’s plan for our lives through our study of it. Second Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Second, we can better understand God’s plan for our lives by closely following Him.
Romans 12:1-2 promises, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” When we dedicate our lives to God and turn away from the principles of this world, we prepare our hearts to hear from God (also see 1 Peter 4:2).
First Thessalonians 4:3-7 confirms the necessity of being a “living sacrifice” and gives more detail about God’s plan: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” Third, we can discover God’s plan through prayer. Colossians 4:12 notes that a believer named Epaphras was “always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” The Colossian believers needed to know and do the will of God, and so Epaphras prayed for them. We can grow in our understanding of God’s will through prayer. We can also pray for God to reveal His plan to others.
Fourth, God sometimes reveals or confirms. His plans for us through other means, including personal circumstances, relationships, or even dreams. However, these areas are often more subjective, and we must carefully evaluate such signs by what God has clearly said in Scripture.
We can rest assured of God’s promise: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). As we pray, study Scripture, and seek to live holily before the Lord, He will reveal His plan for us in His perfect time and in a way we can understand.
Does God exist? Is there a God? How do we know God is real? These questions have been asked for decades—even centuries. People want proof, evidence and arguments for the existence of God. The answer is available but it requires one thing: keep an open mind. Jesus made this promise to anyone seeking truth: “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. … For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds” (Matthew 7:7-8).
You have already asked yourself if God is real or not, but go one step further. What if God exists, loves you, and wants you to know Him? For this theory to be proven true, God would have to reveal Himself to you. Not only would it answer the question but it would eliminate all doubt. Let’s go through some evidence. God is not quiet. He announced Himself when He created the universe. The Bible says, “Since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God” (Romans 1:20).
If the universe was created by some random accident then there is no reason why it operates in an orderly manner and adheres to multiple laws. Yet, our world has structure—so much so the solar system was named accordingly. The reason why the universe obeys the laws of gravity, physics, energy and many others is because it was designed by a logical and orderly God. But God went even further to reveal Himself when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth. Christ was human but also divine. Jesus declared He is God and then backed up His claim in many ways. He shared Himself with thousands of people during His ministry, and again to hundreds more after His death and resurrection. In your search for truth, focus more of your effort on Jesus. You’ll discover He loves you. The clearest proof God is real is in Jesus’ prediction He would be killed and then come back to life a few days later. Not only did it prove He was God to everyone, but it clearly displayed His love for all of us. His death was the sacrifice that makes it possible for you to spend eternity with the living God who loves you and wants a relationship with you.
WHAT IS GOD’S PURPOSE FOR YOUR LIFE (AND HOW TO FIND IT).
Are you ready to know the real God? Waking up feeling purposeless is incredibly frustrating. You look around and see your friends and coworkers living passionate, engaged, meaningful lives. They have deep relationships, rewarding jobs and a sense of direction that compels them to hop out of bed each morning with a spring in their step. You know that God has something good in store for you. You don’t believe he intends you to live a life of painful drudgery in which each day is a total drag. After all, the Bible is chock full of passages about joy. While this certainly doesn’t mean that every single day is a parade and circus, it does mean that an overall sense of gladness should permeate your life. In Psalm 63:7, David said, “…for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.” How can you get to that place? Where, instead of wandering aimlessly through life, you’re actually singing for joy (or just making a joyful noise if you’re not the singing type)?
In this post, we’re going to first talk about some key signs that you may not be living in the fullness of God’s purpose for you. Then we’ll give some key suggestions for how to begin living a meaningful, enthusiastic, joyful life.
6 SIGNS THAT YOU MAY NOT BE LIVING IN GOD’S PURPOSE Before we dive into this point, we need to make at least one caveat. In one sense, you are always living in God’s purpose. God is God and He works all things, including your life, according to his purposes. Nothing can happen without God ordaining it. Psalm 57:2 says, “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” This is key in understanding God’s purpose for your life. God has numbered your days and will fulfill every purpose He has for you. However, our choices and actions also really matter. In some ways, this is a mystery we can’t fully understand, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. We can choose to do things that will bring us more joy and give us more of a sense of purpose. That’s where we’re headed in this post. We want to help you identify those choices you can make to bring more excitement and God-given purpose into your life.
But first, here are 6 signs that you don’t have much purpose in your life.
1. YOU’RE BLATANTLY LIVING IN SIN. Let’s start with the obvious here. If you’re blatantly disobeying the Bible, you’re not living in God’s purpose and you will certainly experience a sense of aimlessness in your life. This one is pretty straightforward so we don’t need to spend too much time here.
2. YOU LACK JOY AND EXCITEMENT. If you wake up every day filled with apathy or dread or total boredom, you’re probably not doing what you were meant to do. God has created you uniquely, has really good things planned for you and one of the fruits of the Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22). Sure, there will be difficult things you encounter that require patience and persistence, but overall you should have a sense of joy and excitement that fills your days, your work and your relationships. In his book “Desiring God,” John Piper says: The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith.
3. YOU DON’T FEEL MUCH FULFILLMENT IN LIFE. If you go about your days experiencing little fulfillment, you may be wandering from your God-given purpose. Fulfillment comes from doing rewarding, meaningful, purposeful things. From a job that taps into your skills and passions. From a relationship that involves giving and receiving. From hobbies that are invigorating instead of mind-numbing. Yes, you’ll have to do certain things that are boring and unfulfilling, but if your entire life is gray, you probably need a change.
4. YOU WORK SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK. You know the feeling of pointless work. You go to the office, clock in, do your job, then go home and collapse in front of the television. You work for the weekends and for retirement. All true joy you experience comes from things outside of work. From hobbies or friends or side jobs. Ecclesiastes 8:15 says, “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” Would you say that this kind of joy characterizes your life and work? If not, you may need to rethink where you’re headed.
5. YOU FEEL STUCK. If you desperately want a change but also feel totally stuck in your life, that’s almost certainly a sign that you’re not walking according to God’s purpose. Those who are stuck want to go in a particular direction but don’t know how to get there. So they spin their wheels, feeling endlessly frustrated but unsure of how to make the frustration end. Do you feel trapped?
5. YOU HAVE NO DIRECTION. If you don’t know God’s purpose for your life, you constantly feel a sense of aimlessness. You feel as though you’re wandering from thing to thing without any forward progress. Nothing excites you and you don’t have any specific goals you’re working toward. Unlike the Israelites, who wandered for 40 years yet still had a goal (the Promised Land), you don’t even have a goal in front of you.
6 WAYS TO REGAIN YOUR PURPOSE In his classic book “The Lord of the Rings,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a poem that included the line, “Not all who wander are lost.” The same applies to you. Even though you feel like you’re wandering without any true purpose, that doesn’t mean you’re lost. You can regain your sense of purpose and discover what God has for your life. Here are 6 ways to discover God’s purpose for your life.
1. GO TO GOD IN PRAYER. Again, let’s start with the obvious. If you feel purposeless, ask God to give you wisdom and direction. James 1:5 states, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” That’s incredibly good news. God wants to give you a purpose. He wants to bestow divine wisdom on you. It’s not like God is holding out on you to make you miserable. He desires you to have a joyful, ambitious, purposeful life. Ask God for purpose and expect Him to give it to you.
2. DIG INTO GOD’S WORD. The primary way God speaks to us is through the Bible. This means that one of the first things you should do in your search for God’s purpose is to start digging into scripture. Now, you won’t find any verses that tell you to become a dance instructor or painter, but you will begin to understand the heart of God. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s word brings light to paths that otherwise seem dark. In the Bible you learn how to live wisely in God’s world, which is the first step toward finding your purpose.
3. DETERMINE YOUR GIFTS AND STRENGTHS. God has given you very specific gifts and strengths. Maybe you’re a math whiz or a wise counselor. Maybe you have a mind for electronics or business. Maybe you’re great at organizing people and getting things done. God’s purpose for you probably involves the things you’re already good at. This is where education can be particularly valuable. Going to college or going back to college allows you to discover your gifts and then determine how you’re going to use them. It also connects you with people who want to help you find your purpose.
4. DETERMINE YOUR PASSIONS. What is one thing you’re particularly passionate about? Really, this can be anything. Business, art, economics, alleviating poverty, whatever. If money wasn’t an issue, what would you love to do? Determining your passions often helps you figure out what God has called you to do. It’s often said that God works at the intersection of our gifts and our passions. Where do your gifts meet your passions? That may be God’s purpose for you.
5. BRING OTHERS INTO YOUR LIFE. Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” In other words, one of the main ways God will help you find your purpose is through others. A caveat needs to be made here. Your counselors should be people you trust. Whether this is your professors, parents or friends, it needs to be people who have your back and want the best for you. You want wise counselors to help you find God’s purpose for you.
6. A SOLITUDE RETREAT. Sometimes it can be incredibly helpful to get away from it all and take some unhurried time to think, pray and journal. You don’t have to spend a week in the woods for this to be effective. Even just a day away from the hustle and grind can be hugely rewarding. During these retreats, allow yourself to simply be still. To ponder. To ask God for direction and listen for His voice. This doesn’t need to be complicated and doesn’t require any elaborate rituals. Hebrews 11:6 is a reminder that God always rewards those who seek him. He’s not hiding in the dark, trying to keep his will hidden from you. He wants to guide you.
IN THE END, TRUST GOD Trying to discover your life purpose can be a stressful, overwhelming thing. It can seem like such a big, confusing, frustrating subject. You want to move forward, but you’re not sure how. You want to find your purpose, but you feel like you’re aimlessly wandering. But you can trust God to lead you where he wants you to go. As Psalm 23:2-3 says, “He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” You may feel confused, but God doesn’t.
PURPOSE IN A CHRIST-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE Our programs at PGS focus on more than just the content learned in the classroom. We care about how you live out what you’ve learned in your everyday life. In whatever vocation you find yourself in, our foundation brings a Christ-centered perspective.
The American system economic plan was an economic plan that played an important role in American policy during the first half of the 19th century, also deeply rooted in “American School” ideas of Alexander Hamilton.[1] A plan to strengthen and unify the nation, the American System was advanced by the Whig Party and a number of leading politicians including Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. Clay was the first to refer to it as the “American System”. Motivated by a growing American economy bolstered with major exports such as cotton, tobacco, native sod, and tar they sought to create a structure for expanding trade.
This System included such policies as: Support for a high tariff to protect American industries and generate revenue for the federal government. Maintenance of high public land prices to generate federal revenue. Preservation of the Bank of the United States to stabilize the currency and rein in risky state and local banks. Development of a system of internal improvements (such as roads and canals) which would knit the nation together and be financed by the tariff and land sales. Clay protested that the West, which opposed the tariff, should support it since urban factory workers would be consumers of western foods. In Clay’s view, the South (which also opposed high tariffs) should support them because of the ready market for cotton in northern mills. This last argument was the weak link. The South never strongly supported the American System and had access to plenty of markets for its cotton exports. Source American System (economic plan) – Wikipedia
People need to stop glorifying billionaires and talking about them as if they were Gods. Their main goal in life is to accumulate money, it’s all about Greed that is why billionaires are billionaires…
I rather believe the press. .Liars ~Liars!
Than what a narcissist wants me to believe. . People like Elon Musk are anti humanity. They’re proud of themselves until the end of time. Never forget that he is always ALWAYS only thinking about himself. Elon probably favors the media in places like North Korea. Very little dissent against the wealthy and powerful. He would watch the world burn and spit on the ashes and tweet about what he can influence and not blink an eye. Elon is probably mad he only caught a little bit of the Apartheid era.
What is irresponsible and dangerous about holding the media accountable? Anyone not locked in a media bubble can clearly see we’re not fed objective stories, but instead, carefully curated narratives. You all have to be better so people will trust you again. CNN’s CEO conceded recently its own research showed people no longer trust the network. This is not unique to Elon, but instead also seems to be spreading amongst those who have seen the repeated errors and distortions being pushed as “truth” these days.
Reporters such as Lisa Ling do everything in their ability to get it right; their reputation is their profession. Trump has denigrated all reporters unfairly and people like him know he can buy the coverage he is after. So much press is opinion pieces vs just news now, or news with an opinion mashed into something. Polarizing to get views/ad traffic. What I”m referring to is the legacy media that have very clear agendas from the top and have been known to fabricate the truth to fit their narrative. And elitist billionaires like that (vs the ones doing good in the world) LOVE the sound of their own voice so much, they are willing to burn down democracy to hear it. #resist
The press ALL have an agenda. It’s like you have a gun control agenda you push so your stories are slanted in that fashion so it makes me less trusting of your otherwise good reporting overall. Plus, all of the crimes against Asians the people doing them are predominantly young black males from the videos we see online but no one wants to point that out for some reason so yes the press has an agenda and are losing trust because of the blatant agendas. Anytime the left feels like there is a difficult narrative they are facing they usually use that, but the sad thing is it’s been so overused that actual racists are called out because the left has so broadened the definition of racist to include anything they don’t agree with.
= Zionist Owned United States Media – Bing images Some suburbs and the surrounding ones are predominantly Asian, and the crimes/attacks against them are never even reported. What’s dangerous is the press purposely lying to fit their narrative. The Russian disinformation campaign has come full circle. Thanks to FOX, no one trusts any media source, except “social media” because these are real people they can trust telling them what they want to hear. Elon is a danger to society, He is proof that “rich” is definitely not necessarily equivalent to “smart.”
Musk has gone full MAGA. To categorize all of the “Press”, all the thousands of people who devote their lives to reporting the facts as untrustworthy is intellectually dishonest. I don’t know what happened to him, but Musk has completely lost the plot. Tesla, Starlink and Space X are groundbreaking and making great strides but something inside this man has broken…..or he is going down the Grifter pathway paved by Trump. It is a very, very odd world in which we currently live. Lisa, I had seriously thought when I first saw your first investigative reports that we were becoming aware of the world and moving in a positive locomotion forward.
Where and when those who have the opportunities and privileges of this life are able to help others to bring about change for good… All these years later I am more bamboozled than ever… Completely understand your actions with Twitter… I also did the same back in Jan of 2017… Let’s fix this : “Some of the SMARTEST people I know can actively detect billionaires with an extreme Asperger’s Disorder symptom — self-centered and engrossed” the smartest ones know when to actively get away. #mentalhealth
Zionism is a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann. Zionism and Judaism are two religions with many differences between them. One of the main differences between Zionism and Judaism is that Zionism explains the faith of some Jewish people while Judaism explains the philosophical and the metaphysical truths that caused the formation of the Jewish state. Judaism has a very fundamentalist outlook. On the other hand, Zionism does not have a fundamentalist outlook. One of the important observations, when it comes to the difference between Zionism and Judaism is that all the practitioners of Zionism are the practitioners of Judaism, as well. On the other hand, not all the practitioners of Judaism are the practitioners of Zionism. This is because all Jews do not agree with the extremist views of Zionism.
What is Judaism? The practitioners of Judaism are called Jews. The practitioners of Judaism live in several parts of the world particularly in Israel and America. It is not necessary that all of them should subscribe to the views of Zionism. When it comes to center focus, Judaism is centered on spirituality. On the other hand, Judaism is all about spiritual growth. It speaks a lot about piety. Judaism says that spirituality and piety are the goals set by the Almighty on the people or the followers of the religion. Another important observation, when it comes to the study of Judaism is that, this religion opposes military prowess as the supreme prowess. One need not show technological advancement as proof of the power. A Jew or the follower of Judaism is more concerned about the history of the Jews. Judaism teaches that human life should be led with simplicity and dignity, and this is the reason why we see the Jews lead simple and dignified lives. Judaism teaches that the Jews should involve themselves in the performance of rituals in a regular manner. A Jew is a strict believer in the existence of God and the Torah, which is the holy book of Jewish. Judaism says that the Jews should live or lead their lives according to the tenets or the dogmas of the holy book called the Torah.
What is Zionism?
Zionism is a religion followed by some of the Jewish population. This is an extreme view that is not peaceful. Moreover, the practitioners of Zionism are called Zionists. One of the important differences between Zionism and Judaism is that Zionism is more centered on racism. Zionism concentrates on expansionism as well, in addition to racism. It says that high technology is a driver of force. Moreover, Zionism believes in the power of technological advancement. Then, when it comes to a Zionist, a Zionist would not mind having a little factual information about the history of his people but would certainly have notions about the origin of his race. Zionism, especially, speaks about the rights of the Zionist on the Holy Land. It speaks about how the other people have conquered the lands that actually belonged to them.
What is the difference between Zionism and Judaism? • Definitions of Zionism and Judaism: • Judaism is a peaceful religion based on the Torah. • Zionism is a faith followed by some extremist Jews and is not peaceful. • Name of the Practitioner: • The practitioner or the follower of Judaism is known as Jew. • The practitioner or the follower of Zionism is known as Zionist. • Objective: • The objective of Jews is to follow God’s word and live accordingly. • The objective of Zionists is taking back the Holy Land of Jews using military force. • Center Focus: • Judaism is centered on spirituality. • Zionism is more centered on racism. • Military Power and Technology: • Judaism does not believe that military power and technology should be considered as ways of showing one’s power. • Zionism believes very much about military power and technological advancements. This is another key difference between Zionism and Judaism. • Torah and the God: • Judaism respects and accepts the Torah and the God. • Zionism does not respect or accept the Torah and the God. • Connection between Zionism and Judaism: • All Zionists are Jews. • However, not all Jews are Zionists.
These are the fundamental differences between Zionism and Judaism. The Khazars of the Middle Ages have been the subject of many theories linking them in some way to the Jews and to biblical prophecy. Many of the theories involving the origin of Khazar Jews and their hypothetical diaspora are conspiratorial and promoted by radical groups to advance racist ideas.
What we know about the Khazars is this: the Khazars were of Turkish and Mongol descent and in medieval times lived in the western part of the Turkish Empire. In the late sixth century AD, the various tribes of the Khazars united and gained independence from the Turks. The Khazar Khanate (the area ruled by the Khazars) remained sovereign for about the next three hundred years. What makes the Khazars unique in European history is the conversion of their King Bulan to a form of Judaism, along with the Khazar ruling class, about AD 740. A Khazar Jew could be either an ethnic Khazar (of Turkish or Mongol blood) who became a proselyte to Judaism or an ethnic Jew who lived in Khazaria.
By the second half of the 8th century, the Khazar Empire had reached the peak of its power. The borders of Khazaria extended from the northern shore of the Black Sea (including Crimea) and the Dnieper River in the west, to the Aral Sea in the east. The Khazars were hemmed in by the Caucasus Mts. to the south and by the Rus and Bulgars to the north. The realm of the Khazars covered parts of modern-day Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The capital of Khazaria was Itil, located near the mouth of the Volga River. The Khazar Empire was important in world history for keeping Arab invaders south of the Caucasus and thus preventing Islam from spreading further north into Europe. As Charles Martel kept the Muslims at bay in Western Europe, the Khazars repelled them from Eastern Europe.
The origin of the Khazars is shrouded in mystery, and some people have come up with their own ideas to account for the existence of Khazaria. One theory is that the Khazars are actually Jews—the ten “lost tribes ” of Israel somehow found their way to Eastern Europe, and that explains their later “conversion” to Rabbinic Judaism.
Another theory says just the opposite: the Khazars are Turks with no Jewish blood at all. After Khazaria fell, the Khazar converts to Judaism supposedly emigrated to Poland, Germany, and other parts of Europe where they maintained a nominal Jewish identity and became known as Jews. According to the theory, the Ashkenazi Jews have been wrongly identified as Semitic, when they are in reality Turkish. This theory is often propounded by those who themselves claim to be “true Jews,” such as those in the British Israelism camp, resulting in demands for Jews in Israel to give up their land (as Turks, they have no right to the land) and excusing anti-Semitism (which cannot truly exist, since the Khazar Jews are false Jews).
Neither of these theories has any basis in reality. No credible historical or genetic evidence exists to substantiate the theory that the Khazars were biological Hebrews or that modern Jews did not descend from Abraham. Another theory—that the influx of “Khazar Jews” into Israel in 1948 fulfilled the biblical prophecy of Gog and Magog (see Ezekiel 38–39)—sees the Israeli fight for independence as the Khazar seizure of the land of Israel from the Muslims. That theory is equally baseless.
The whole history of the Khazar Jews might never be known. But here is a likely scenario: some ethnic Jews lived in Khazaria (and many other places) during the Middle Ages. In or near 740, a Khazarian king converted to Judaism, for personal, practical, or political reasons, and he brought some of his subjects with him. When the power of Khazaria diminished and the empire fell, many Jews—both ethnic and proselytes—left that area and, settling in Jewish communities elsewhere, merged with the local population. Such intermarriage between ethnic Jews and Gentile proselytes does not mean that Jews of Khazaric background are any less Jewish than other Ashkenazi. The Bible records several instances of Gentiles being brought into Jewish culture: Rahab and Ruth being clear examples (see Matthew 1:5).
The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East and Kievan Rus’. For some three centuries the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.
Not much is known about the early origins of the Khazars, a semi-nomadic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established an empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea and Kazakhstan. The kingdom of Khazaria long served as a buffer between the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. Sometime around the year 740 CE, the king and the ruling class, followed by members of the general population, decided to convert to Judaism.
Hasdai Learned of the Khazars. References to the Khazars adopting Judaism as their religion is found in Arabic, Christian and Jewish sources. However, the most famous account is found in the letters known as the Khazar Correspondence, exchanged between Rabbi Hasdai ibn Shaprut (c. 915–975), and Joseph, king of the Khazars. Hasdai (or Chasdai) ibn Shaprut was a fascinating individual in his own right.
Born in Jaen, Spain, Hasdai was a Jewish scholar and physician proficient in multiple languages. Originally appointed as physician to Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III (912–961), he eventually became the caliph’s faithful counselor. Although he didn’t bear the official title of vizier, he was effectively the minister of foreign affairs and arranged alliances with various foreign powers. He worked tirelessly for the betterment of his fellow Jews, and it is largely due to his efforts and support of Jewish learning that Spain became the new center of Torah learning after the Geonic period in Babylonia. At first, Hasdai only heard scant rumors of the existence of a Jewish state. However, the existence of the Khazar state was eventually confirmed by two Jewish merchants, Mar Saul and Mar Joseph. Hasdai then decided to make contact with the Khazars.
The Khazars Accept Judaism. The initial attempt by Hasdai failed, since the Byzantines, who feared a direct alliance between Spain and the Khazars, held up Hasdai’s emissary on the pretext that the roads were not safe. But Hasdai persevered; he sent a new emissary and was eventually able to make contact. In his return letter,King Joseph replied to Hasdai’s questions regarding the history of the Khazars and which tribe they were from. King Joseph explained that his ancestor King Bulan decided to give up his pagan beliefs in order to accept one of the three leading faiths: Judaism, Christianity or Islam. King Bulan then arranged for representatives of each of the three faiths to participate in a debate in his presence: On the third day he called all the sages together and said to them, “Speak and argue with one another and clarify which is the best religion.” They began to dispute with one another without arriving at any results, until the king said to the Christian priest, “What do you think? Of the religion of the Jews and the Muslims, which is to be preferred?” The priest answered: “The religion of the Israelites is better than that of the Muslims.” The king then asked the imam: “What do you say? Is the religion of the Israelites or that of the Christians preferable?” The imam answered: “The religion of the Israelites is preferable.”
Upon this, the king said: “If this is so, you both have admitted with your own mouths that the religion of the Israelites is better. Therefore trusting in the mercies of G‑d and the power of the Al-mighty, I choose the religion of Israel, that is, the religion of Abraham . . .” King Joseph then described how, after King Bulan accepted Judaism, a descendant of his, King Obadiah, “reorganized the kingdom and established the Jewish religion properly and correctly. He built synagogues and yeshivot, brought in Jewish scholars, and rewarded them with gold and silver. [The Jewish scholars could have come from Baghdad and Constantinople.] They explained to him the Bible, Mishnah, Talmud and the order of divine services . . .” Although the Khazar king, noblemen, and part of the population did indeed convert, it seems as though much of the population never embraced Judaism.
The Decline of the Khazars. Just a few years after Hasdai’s correspondence with the Khazars, the Russian and Byzantine rulers combined forces to destroy the kingdom of the Khazars. They devastated their land, including their capital of Atil (c. 968–9). Although the Khazars continued to play an important role in that part of the world for another century, their fortunes eventually waned and they faded into oblivion. Einstein’s ‘Doomsday Clock’ shows the world closer to catastrophe than ever.
2020-2023 – Thomas Road On Demand (trbc.org) UN Secretary-General António Guterres says the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” that scientists use to measure how close the world is to total catastrophe is at its most dire level ever. “This is the closest the clock has ever stood to humanity’s darkest hour — closer than even during the height of the Cold War,” Guterres said — specifically citing the Ukraine-Russia war — as he laid out his priorities for 2023 to the General Assembly in New York on Monday.
“That symbolic clock was created 76 years ago by atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein. “Year after year, experts have measured humanity’s proximity to midnight — in other words, to self-destruction.” “In 2023, they surveyed the state of the world — with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the runaway climate catastrophe, rising nuclear threats that are undermining global norms and institutions,” Guterres said. “And they came to a clear conclusion.”
“The Doomsday Clock is now 90 seconds to midnight, which means 90 seconds to total global catastrophe. “In truth, the Doomsday Clock is a global alarm clock. We need to wake up — and get to work.” At the top of Guterres’ list of concerns was Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is rapidly approaching its first anniversary. The Portuguese United Nations leader said his fear is the conflict could lead to a “wider war.”
Officials said last month that Russia’s war in Ukraine helped push the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight. “The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The chances for further escalation and bloodshed keep growing,” Guterres warned. “I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.” Guterres painted a gloomy image of the problems plaguing the world, noting there is a “confluence of challenges unlike any other in our lifetimes.
We need a course correction. “The good news is that we know how to turn things around — on climate, on finance, on conflict resolution, on and on. And we know that the costs of inaction far exceed the costs of action,” Guterres said. The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade (Azov Unit) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired 152 mm howitzer 2A65 Msta-B, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near Bahamut, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, February 6, 2023.
The prospects for peace amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, now nearing its first anniversary, are diminishing, Guterres said Monday. While Russia’s war in Ukraine was at the top of his concerns, Guterres referenced other threats to global peace, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repression in Myanmar, gang violence in Haiti and the continued eradication of women’s rights in Afghanistan. Guterres said the world needs to recommit to the UN’s charter to ensure global peace.
“If every country fulfilled its obligations under the Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed. When countries break those pledges, they create a world of insecurity for everyone,” he said. Guterres said the world needs to recommit to the UN’s charter to ensure global peace. Stressing the need for the UN to fulfill its promise to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” Guterres urged leaders to move forward with “bold and innovative approaches.”
“Something is fundamentally wrong with our economic and financial system,” he said, saying it is to blame for the growing gap between the rich and poor, the increase in poverty and the debt burden on developing countries. he added: “Without fundamental reforms, the richest countries and individuals will continue to pile up wealth, leaving crumbs for the communities and countries of the global south.”
The Five Countries Most Likely To Survive A Nuclear Winter – Search (bing.com) If 2023 is the year the world starts to collapse, scientists think they know where you should head to survive. The Doomsday Clock has moved the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been – largely because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and also the climate crisis. Now, researchers say Australia and New Zealand are among five island nations most likely to survive an apocalyptic nuclear winter. The study looked at the impact of “a severe sun-reducing catastrophe” on global agricultural systems. Severe sun-reducing catastrophes included nuclear war, super volcano or asteroid strike. Researchers found Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu most capable of producing food despite the reduced sunlight and fall in temperature. The researchers assessed 13 factors which would potentially determine the success of their survival. These included comparing nations’ food production, energy self-sufficiency, manufacturing, trade relations, social cohesion and defenses.
‘High Noon’ Documentary Roils Some BY PETER KIEFER, NICOLE SPERLING | LAST UPDATED: MARCH 25, 2013 Bitterness over the anti-communist Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s has surged anew, and this time the politics is very personal. Join Backstage to access jobs you can apply to right now! At issue is a PBS documentary about a blacklisted screenwriter and the production of the Academy Award-winning “High Noon,” starring Gary Cooper as a staunch lawman in a town paralyzed by fear. The documentary relies on correspondence and interviews with Foreman’s friends and colleagues for a pointed history: It comes down hard on distinguished producer-director Stanley Kramer, who died last year. That has provoked angry criticism from Kramer’s widow, Karen Sharpe Kramer, who dismisses the film as a “fraud” distorted by politics.
Lionel Chetwynd, the documentary maker and an Emmy-nominated writer-director, denies an intent to vilify Kramer. In turn, Chetwynd decries what he calls personal attacks by Mrs. Kramer on him and his conservatism. Both, in turn, lambast PBS. Mrs. Kramer says PBS is disregarding her position; Chetwynd resents an advisory attached to the film and a hastily produced afterward (11 p.m. EDT) which he says undercuts his work. The advisory notes that the documentary is “one point of view in the making” of “High Noon.” The follow-up show, which was unavailable for preview, includes a look at Kramer’s career. “We found ‘Darkness at High Noon’ to be an intriguing film,” said PBS spokesman Harry Forbes. “PBS seeks balance in its schedule over time on controversial issues, and our handling of this matter with a pre-program advisory and a follow-up discussion is entirely with this goal. “We believe more information than less is good and provides a service to viewers.” The clash comes three years after another blacklist dispute involving a special Oscar given director Elia Kazan. The 1999 award angered some in Hollywood because he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee. Chetwynd was taken about by the reaction to his show, though he acknowledges how vivid and painful those decades-old events remain. “Like everyone else who works in Hollywood, we’re obsessed by the ghosts in that period,” he said.
He undertook the film despite those sensitivities, he says, because of his respect for Foreman, whom he considered a mentor. “This is not about politics,” Chetwynd said. “This is about one man whom I knew who was a communist – a political point of view for which I have no sympathy – but who was a great man and a great filmmaker.” Foreman’s career and life were damaged by “a nasty series of events in which a number of people and a number of institutions participated,” Chetwynd said. The film’s goal is to look beyond the “traditional” idea that the blacklist was the fault of “evil studio chiefs and venal politicians” alone, Chetwynd said; it took a village for the blacklist to succeed. “How does it happen that a community of people who live and work together, create art together … how was it we turned tail and ran?” said Chetwynd, whose TV films include “Kissinger and Nixon” and “The Man Who Captured Eichmann.”
For Foreman, it was his refusal to “name names” before a government committee investigating communist influence in the entertainment industry that helped drive him out of Hollywood and to refuge in England. Drawing heavily on a 1952 letter from Foreman to The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, the program alleges that Kramer failed to support Foreman and deprived the imperiled writer of full credit for “High Noon.” Foreman was not only the screenwriter but should have received the executive producer credit that went to Kramer, the documentary contends. Nonsense, says Mrs. Kramer, who disputes point after point in Chetwynd’s film. Her husband was intimately involved with “High Noon,” she says, as he was with every film he made. Kramer was known for socially conscious work including “Inherit the Wind” and “Judgment at Nuremberg,” and received 80 Oscar nominations and 16 awards. It was Kramer who was betrayed by Foreman, not the other way around, because Foreman hid his past communist affiliation from Kramer, she contends.
Foreman wasn’t fired from Kramer’s production company affiliated with Columbia, she alleges. He left voluntarily and with a generous $250,000 settlement, according to Mrs. Kramer, a producer and former actress who married Kramer in 1965. Her husband “didn’t do anything wrong. If he had been an independent he would have loved to have fought back. … He was an employee of Columbia Pictures. He had to follow their orders,” she said. “Stanley would have protected Carl if he could have,” Mrs. Kramer said. Although she questions the authenticity of the letter to Crowther, Mrs. Kramer said Foreman complained about her husband on other occasions. The writer blamed Kramer “for his plight in life,” she said, deeming that unfair. Foreman, whose credits included “The Men” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” returned from England and resumed his Hollywood career in the 1970s as a writer and producer. He died in 1984. Since seeing a rough cut of the PBS documentary in December, Mrs. Kramer has worked to collect documents and notarized interviews she says refute Chetwynd’s claims. He, in turn, stands by his own research and film – and says he hopes to do another blacklist documentary, examining communist influence in Hollywood.
Alessandra Mussolini is an Italian politician, the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, and a former actress and model who served as a Member of the European Parliament for Forza Italia. In 2004, she became the first woman to lead a political party in Italy. She was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013 and the Italian Senate from 2013 to 2014, she was elected under The People of Freedom which is now part of Forza Italia. She was elected to the European Parliament in 2014.
Alessandra Mussolini, then serving as an Italian senator, delivers a speech during a debate in Italy’s Parliament in this Nov. 27, 2013 file photo taken in Rome. GETTY
The granddaughter of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini has engaged in a very modern war with supporters of actor-turned-political cartoonist Jim Carrey. The “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” star tweeted a photo of his latest work on Saturday, depicting the real-life scene of the slain Mussolini and his mistress hanging from a steel girder in 1945. It was a message on modern politics from the artist, referencing what he feels are rising fascist tendencies, but the dictator’s offspring took personal umbrage.
“You are a bastard,” Alessandra Mussolini said in reply to the tweet. She is a far-right politician serving as a Member of the European Parliament for Italy in her own right, but she has also spent decades defending the actions of her grandfather, who allied himself with Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War II after brutally quashing domestic opponents to refashion Italy as a totalitarian state following the first world war. If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta. pic.twitter.com/uc2wZl0YBu
— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 30, 2019 Alessandra Mussolini entered politics after a career as an actress and model. She posed for European editions of Playboy in the 1980s. Her politics have always appeared relatively akin to those of her fascist grandfather, though she rejects the label herself. Carrey has become a prolific political cartoonist in recent years, with his art often taking aim at President Trump and his allies. The new picture depicts Mussolini hanging from a steel beam at a gas station in Milan after his state execution at the end of World War II, and was sent by Carrey in a tweet saying: “If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta.”
Carrey himself had yet to respond to the personal insult from Mussolini’s granddaughter on Monday. He often leaves critics to bounce around in the online echo chamber without him. But Mussolini (the granddaughter, not the late dictator) found plenty of web warriors happy to engage. “I think you’re confusing Jim Carrey with your murderous grandfather,” wrote one Twitter user in defense of the Canadian-born actor, who has U.S. citizenship. The two went back and forth trading insults over the course of Sunday morning. Carrey had already drawn fire from the right wing in the U.S. for his repeated bashing of President Trump, which ramped-up last year with an unflattering painting that appeared to depict White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — or, as Carrey labelled it, “a portrait of a so-called Christian whose only purpose in life is to lie for the wicked.” Carrey had more than 18 million followers on Twitter before he was deleted. He has previously used the platform to voice his opposition to vaccine programs in the U.S. and repeat thoroughly debunked claims about autism.
They said I couldn’t do it so I went and did it anyway! People will also always have an opinion and doubt you. But if you can believe in what you want to achieve, you are halfway there.
So, if you want to stay young implementing some vertical jumps into your workout routine is quite useful! You’ll see many benefits for your central nervous system,
muscles as well as joints & ligaments!
WORK! Investing in a lot of small changes in training/life can have a big result. Never underestimate the power of a simple change. . What are you trying to improve right now ?
Hurdling in sync with a running partner requires discipline !
210cm technical strideCheck the marks on the ground
This exercise helps me to work on my stride length. This is actually a very important and fun workout. Recently we have been increasing my strength training to build muscle. So, I can convert it into power on the track. The transfer is unfortunately not as easy as it sounds but I am getting there, and I can already feel a small difference. It’s actually the first time I am able to run through the space of 210cm. .Running on water MARSHA | TRACK RUN HURDLES (@marsha_du_) • Instagram photos and videos
Many milestones to reach this year! Let’s get it started!
Step by Step, Hurdle after Hurdle The Year 2022 is finished. I am grateful for what I’ve learned and the challenges that came with it. . The year was full with ups and downs but I am happy to be where I am. I made some great improvements in training and soon will be done with my bachelor’s degree. I still have to write down my goals for 2023 …. but I already know what I want to achieve.
. With the @oysho training app you don’t even have to think about what exercises to do, just open the app and just follow one of many stretching classes. The app is 100% free and they not only provide stretching sessions they also offer free yoga, HIT classes, injury prevention exercises and much more. |ad . To Be honest, how often do you stretch in a Week?
Do you like running on vacation or holiday?
…One thing I‘ve always liked to do when I’m going on vacation is to look for good running scenery and go for a little jog. That way you get to run around all the little streets and are able to see so much more. . Uphill altitude 2300m+ run, Took the opportunity to run around Volcano Teide in Tenerife in the Canary Islands . MARSHA | TRACK RUN HURDLES (@marsha_du_) • Instagram photos and videos Impressive views, clean air and I got to see the most beautiful sunset.
Volcano Black Sand BeachHave you ever been to a black beach ? . For me it was the first time. The sand was incredibly soft and thin. I love experiencing new parts of nature. Black sand beaches are super rare because the conditions for it are quite specific.
I train about 288 days a year: 48 weeks, 6 days/week How many days in a year do you train?
Beautiful
OYSHO TRAINING – Bing video . Improve your workouts and become a better runner. Join me on some additional exercises which will help you to improve your running technique, strengthen your muscles and prime your body before your running session. You can find the @oysho app in the App Store or click the link in my story. All videos are completely for free, no cost. You can decide between running workouts, yoga and fitness. . Have you ever done online workouts ? . Day 1 | 10min Mobility before running (dynamic) – Hip circles – Spine release – Side stretch – Worm (Walk into plank & back) – Leg swings
Day 2 | 5min Advanced Running technique – Kick & Walk – Skippings – Walk straight leg touch – Scissors
Day 3 | 8min Hip Joint mobility 2 – Lunge + hurdle rotation – Lunge with spine rotation – Hamstring curl activation – Fire hydrant (hip rotation) – Glute bridge + Hip opening
Day 4 | 16min Strength on a Step – single leg step down – Push ups – Stair supported pistol squats – Step ups – bounce
My kind of party Do you ever do stairs workout? .MARSHA | TRACK RUN HURDLES (@marsha_du_) • Instagram photos and videos It’s a perfect workout if you don’t have equipment. Integrating some stairs has many benefits. . You can do it anywhere Gives you more power for your run Increase your Running stride Full-Body workout Improves bone density Strengthens legs muscles
Since I focused more on strengthening my hamstrings, I finally can see that paying off on the track. Instead of running dominantly over my quads, I generate more power through my hamstring which makes my running feel more efficient. I’m always impressed by how you view your body as a machine and learn to get more performance. Your so interesting. I hope you’re well and you continue to improve and reach your goals. Be well and Be you…
What determination in your eyes
Definitely to become professional you’ll have to act as one you have to care about all the details, you also train a lot. Most people see a cute girl uploading posts, but they don’t see the daily effort and sacrifice of highly competitive athletes.
Most of the athletes are semi-professionals.
Many seek a university scholarship, travel and win a medal, obtain a record even if it is national. Also positioned herself as a pretty and sexy girl on the networks. Having many followers who flatter her, admire her, make loving and sensual comments. Very few thank the followers for the comments. They seek only idolatry… I recognize that effort,
I have many athlete friends. . So impressive…ridiculously athletic…beautiful to watch run! There will never be an excuse justifying your performance. You’ll get back what you put into the sport. Working on my faults and making myself a better athlete is my daily motivation. Everything I do on the track teaches me so much more and brings me fulfilment and happiness. Does motivation lead to discipline and work on track or being disciplined at work brings motivation? I am so happy that you’re motivated all the time, because that’s what it takes to become a successful person and a champion.
What’s your running motivation? Mine definitely is the speed! When you realize how bouncy and fast you can be on such a short distance. My favourite way to blow off steam is to Sprint!
I Do love my 400m a little more still
What’s yours?
Coming closer to competition season means less repetition with 100% execution. The mindset has to be strong because the last two runs will hurt but that’s when you have to push it. I always tell myself that this is the only run that matters to make me fast. This is also my favourite session in the week
Dreaming is very good, but living your dream is even better? More until our dream comes… We dream wide awake waiting for them to arrive
Obstacles become opportunities when you see them as hurdles and not walls. Don’t you agree ?
Don’t you agree ? . Adding a variation of exercises to your training will help you to improve faster. If you train for enjoyment or for performance. To get the most out of your training try to introduce new exercises and change the training program around. Your body will adapt faster to the new stimulus, and you’ll see and feel results much faster
Becoming agile and talented, that’s our hero MARSHAHA…. I bow before you. Perfect athlete, Perfect physique. Perfect nutrition. God bless you with health, wealth and happiness. You are a brave heart. Good job Nice athletes.
jamestrizz Started running again and I’m having some real issues with shin splints. I’m wondering if you have ever had anything like that and what kind of exercises or stretches, I can do to remedy it.
marsha_du_@jamestrizz not luckily, I never had shin splints. I’ll try to find the problem with a physio or osteo and try to fix it with massage/acupuncture. Also make sure you have a good fitting pair of shoes
Why should you take supplements, anyway? . CLEAR ISO WHEY: To cover the protein need in the body & provide the muscles with the building blocks L-carnitine is important for energy production & helps with transport and detoxification. L-carnitine also serves as a transport vehicle for free fatty acids from the cytoplasm into the mitochondria, and increases oxygen uptake capacity, helping to prevent muscle damage caused by free radicals released during exercise. Creatine can lead to faster muscle growth and an increase in maximum strength, which is of great importance for sprinters. EAA: are 9 essential amino acids & are not manufactured by the body itself. They serve as protein building blocks and take on vital functions in the body, among other things, they are indispensable for protein metabolism. Snacks like protein bars are a great option to gain enough calories and always have enough energy.
spartacus__thracian YOU need more knee lift, hip flexors need to be stronger to drive those knees higher, the higher the knee lifts are the more distance she will cover in less time, thus running a faster time for that specific distance you are running.
marsha_du_@spartacus__thracian thanks very much. still much work to do. But I used to lift my knee higher. I changed my technique because I used too much of my hip flexor and now I am pushing which I didn’t do before. I do agree with you and think my knee can go a little higher but if you actually compare with other fast 400m runners they run similar to my technique.
spartacus__thracian @marsha_du_ I under as I know technique changes over the years as runners keep getting faster. Keep up the hard work and never stop pushing forward like you have always done, I’m rooting for you!
What is our world coming to?
How am I doing?
WORK! Investing in a lot of small changes in training/life can have a big result. 
! 
Check the marks on the ground 
Tag someone who also needs to be stretching more 
Uphill altitude 2300m+ run, Took the opportunity to run 
Volcano Black Sand Beach
Have you ever been to a black beach ?
but an easy run…. 
The track is my happy place!
Do you ever do stairs workout?
You can do it anywhere
Gives you more power for your run
Increase your Running stride
Full-Body workout
Improves bone density
Strengthens legs muscles
My code is until the 28th. February is valid !!
very much. still much work to do. But I used to lift my knee higher. I changed my technique because I used too much of my hip flexor and now I am pushing which I didn’t do before. I do agree with you and think my knee can go a little higher but if you actually compare with other fast 400m runners they run similar to my technique.