Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 607
February 3, 2022
US Private Sector Cuts 301,000 Jobs Amid Omicron Surge
Service sector saw 274,000 jobs lost in January, while goods-producing sector cut 27,000 jobs, according to ADP Research Institute.
On Wednesday, payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) reported that private companies in the United States slashed 301,000 jobs in January, indicating a disrupted recovery in the labor market amid Omicron surge.
“The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the Omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
“The majority of industry sectors experienced job loss, marking the most recent decline since December 2020,” she said.
Richardson noted that leisure and hospitality saw the “largest setback” after substantial gains in fourth quarter 2021, with job losses of 154,000.
Service sector saw 274,000 jobs lost in January, while goods-producing sector cut 27,000 jobs, according to the report produced by the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics.
Large firms slashed 98,000 workers, medium-sized businesses let go of 59,000, while small companies cut 144,000 employees, the report showed, indicating an unbalanced recovery across different company sizes.
Occupy Ottawa Day 5: Canadian Government Feeling the Pressure as Trucker Convoy Gains Momentum
Erin O’Toole
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
UPDATE 1: Negotiations at the border in Alberta continue, but the groupâs attorney reports that a tank with fuel has been allowed to come in and refuel the trucks.
Day 5 Update from Rebel News in Ottawa:
BREAKING: Rural MLAs are meeting at 2pm to discuss lifting ALL mandates, in rural Alberta.
That's if the truckers open a lane to the border.
The truckers will be opening one lane, on standby to make sure the MLAs keep their word, they will shut it back down if not. pic.twitter.com/kXKaril4iD
— K2 (@kiansimone44) February 2, 2022
The Trucker Freedom Convoy in Canada entered its 5th day today, as there appeared to be pressure mounting on politicians to take action as Truckers remained steadfast in their demands.
The big news in Ottawa was that Erin OâToole, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, resigned after 73 of 118 MPs voted to replace him.
Erin OâToole has resigned as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada but will stay on to serve as the Durham, Ont. member of Parliament.
The majority of caucus voted to remove OâToole in a secret ballot on Wednesday. In a decisive revolt, 118 votes were cast at the virtual morning meeting, 73 MPs voted in favour of replacing OâToole, while 45 MPs voted to endorse his leadership.
Chair of the 119-member caucus, Scott Reid, said he did not vote.
Following this vote, OâToole submitted his formal resignation to the party, effective immediately.
âOur party founded this great nation, I believe it can and should lead Canada out of these troubling times for our country,â he said in a video statement.
âI want to thank the people of Durham who I will continue to serve as Member of Parliament, I never lose sight of what an honour it is for me to serve my hometown in Parliament and there is not a bad seat in the House of Commons.â
He also thanked his wife, Rebecca and his children, Mollie and Jack. (Source.)
In Alberta, where the border between the US and Canada has been blocked for the past few days, MLAs announced that they were going to meet with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to end the mandates, in return for the Truckers opening up the border.
The Truckers reportedly did open the border in good faith, but at time of publication there was no news that Kenney had ended the mandates yet, and some MLAs were calling for his resignation as well.
Now that Erin OâToole is officially out as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, some Alberta MLAs say the development should send a message to Premier Jason Kenney and the UCP caucus.
Drew Barnes, the independent MLA for Cypress Hills-Medicine Hat, and Todd Loewen, the representative for Central Peace-Notley, sent out a joint statement in response to the the departure of OâToole as leader of the federal Conservatives.
In it, they said the result was the effect that elected officials can have âwhen they stand up for their constituents.â
They also accused OâToole of lying, ignoring advice and breaking promises to members.
âHe chose to put the advice of lobbyists and armchair strategists ahead of his own partyâs membership, and in the ensuing election, he managed to lose seats,â Loewen wrote in a release.
Both MLAs say the same thing is happening in Alberta with Kenney and it should have the same result.
âPremier Kenney has completely tuned out the conservative grassroots, especially when it comes to vaccine passports, vaccine mandates, government spending, and run-away corporate welfare,â Barnes said.
Loewen says Kenney has also lost the moral authority to lead the UCP and when that happens, a leader must step down.
âUCP caucus members need to recognize that Kenneyâs time is up,â said Barnes. (Source.)
As they have been doing throughout the standoff at the border in Coutts, Alberta, Rebel News reporters embedded with the Truckers updated the situation there throughout the day.
[…]Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2022/occupy-ottawa-day-5-canadian-government-feeling-the-pressure-as-trucker-convey-gains-momentum/
The Corporate Big Tech Censors Are Failing
By Alex Berenson
Facebook: Daily Active Users Fall for First Time in 18-Year History
Facebook shares are getting crushed today, down almost 25%. The companyâs value has fallen today by more than Boeing and General Motors are WORTH.
Why? For the first time ever, the number of Facebook users is shrinking. (The ridiculous rebranding to âMeta Platformsâ probably doesnât help.)
Apparently deplatforming every person and group who has a non-woke thought isnât working out as well as Mark Zuckerberg had hoped.
Meanwhile, things are going great at Twitter too:
Twitter banned me on August 28. Since then, shares of the little bird have fallen almost 50 percent.
Censorship isnât just un-American and contrary to the First Amendment and California and federal law.
Itâs terrible for business.
Especially when this (from a blog post in February 2021) is your stated corporate reason for being:
Twitter exists to empower voices to be heard, and we continue to make improvements to our service so that everyone â no matter their views or perspective â feels safe participating in the public conversation.
Everyone, huh?
Like those old movie theater ads for THX said, The audience is listening.
And they donât like what theyâre hearing.
[…]
Via https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-corporate-big-tech-censors-are/comments
February 2, 2022
We Need to Radically Reimagine Our Food System. Hereâs How.
By Philip Loring A global food system that is both truly sustainable and sufficiently productive will consist, not of a few massively scaled practices, but rather a vast patchwork quilt of smaller scale solutions that vary dramatically from place to place, over space and over time, in an interplay with local climate, ecology and culture.
Radically reimagining our food systems is a task that is critical to solving the worldâs biggest social and ecological problems. Itâs also one that garners substantial and often heated debate.
But are we asking the right questions when it comes to evaluating what works, and what doesnât, for achieving more climate-friendly and food-secure futures?
Scholars and analysts are carefully exploring the potential of a wide range of solutions, from cellular agriculture to regenerative grazing, and asking whether they will scale â that is, whether they can be implemented widely around the globe.
We see this question in all manner of debates over food practices â for example, in claims that agroecology and organic agriculture cannot feed a growing population or that cattle are universally problematic.
In many cases, however, this is entirely the wrong question to ask, and the answers it generates lead us to downplay essential and potentially transformative solutions.
Industrial thinking
It seems sensible enough: If our current food production practices use too much water or emit too much greenhouse gas, we ought to replace them with practices that use less or generate less.
Better yet, we can replace them with practices that also reverse ecological harm and improve soil and water health while meeting current and future food needs.
However, evaluating radical new solutions based on whether they scale can be directly at odds with the very nature of these solutions.
Approaches like agroecology and regenerative grazing do not entail a set of standard practices meant to be implemented everywhere. Theyâre meant to be highly tailored and responsive to the specifics of a place.
It is effectively meaningless to evaluate one set of agroecological practices in say, Thailand, based on how those practices would perform if cloned and applied by different people of different cultures in different places around the world.
Scalability as a value derives from an industrial way of thinking: that the best solutions are those that can be replicated and implemented widely, and that uniformity breeds efficiency and productivity.
This may work in a factory, but ecosystems are not factories. Ecosystem productivity derives not from uniformity but from diversity, flexibility and change.
Accordingly, these, not scalability, are the traits that are key to success for the most exciting food systems innovations.
A patchwork of solutions
What this means is that a global food system that is both truly sustainable and sufficiently productive will consist, not of a few massively scaled practices, but rather a vast patchwork quilt of smaller scale solutions that vary dramatically from place to place, over space and over time, in an interplay with local climate, ecology and culture.
Consider the debate over animal-based proteins. It is not uncommon to see this presented as a sort of global average that implies inherent impacts, regardless of where and how those proteins are being produced.
Yet, there is tremendous place-based variability to how different kinds of livestock are raised. In western Ireland, cattle are used at a small scale to great effect for ecological restoration.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/reimagine-our-global-food-system/
We Need to Radically Reimagine Our Food System. Here’s How.
By Philip Loring A global food system that is both truly sustainable and sufficiently productive will consist, not of a few massively scaled practices, but rather a vast patchwork quilt of smaller scale solutions that vary dramatically from place to place, over space and over time, in an interplay with local climate, ecology and culture.
Radically reimagining our food systems is a task that is critical to solving the world’s biggest social and ecological problems. It’s also one that garners substantial and often heated debate.
But are we asking the right questions when it comes to evaluating what works, and what doesn’t, for achieving more climate-friendly and food-secure futures?
Scholars and analysts are carefully exploring the potential of a wide range of solutions, from cellular agriculture to regenerative grazing, and asking whether they will scale — that is, whether they can be implemented widely around the globe.
We see this question in all manner of debates over food practices — for example, in claims that agroecology and organic agriculture cannot feed a growing population or that cattle are universally problematic.
In many cases, however, this is entirely the wrong question to ask, and the answers it generates lead us to downplay essential and potentially transformative solutions.
Industrial thinking
It seems sensible enough: If our current food production practices use too much water or emit too much greenhouse gas, we ought to replace them with practices that use less or generate less.
Better yet, we can replace them with practices that also reverse ecological harm and improve soil and water health while meeting current and future food needs.
However, evaluating radical new solutions based on whether they scale can be directly at odds with the very nature of these solutions.
Approaches like agroecology and regenerative grazing do not entail a set of standard practices meant to be implemented everywhere. They’re meant to be highly tailored and responsive to the specifics of a place.
It is effectively meaningless to evaluate one set of agroecological practices in say, Thailand, based on how those practices would perform if cloned and applied by different people of different cultures in different places around the world.
Scalability as a value derives from an industrial way of thinking: that the best solutions are those that can be replicated and implemented widely, and that uniformity breeds efficiency and productivity.
This may work in a factory, but ecosystems are not factories. Ecosystem productivity derives not from uniformity but from diversity, flexibility and change.
Accordingly, these, not scalability, are the traits that are key to success for the most exciting food systems innovations.
A patchwork of solutions
What this means is that a global food system that is both truly sustainable and sufficiently productive will consist, not of a few massively scaled practices, but rather a vast patchwork quilt of smaller scale solutions that vary dramatically from place to place, over space and over time, in an interplay with local climate, ecology and culture.
Consider the debate over animal-based proteins. It is not uncommon to see this presented as a sort of global average that implies inherent impacts, regardless of where and how those proteins are being produced.
Yet, there is tremendous place-based variability to how different kinds of livestock are raised. In western Ireland, cattle are used at a small scale to great effect for ecological restoration.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/reimagine-our-global-food-system/
Plastics: Killing ourselves for convenience
Eats Shoots and Leaves
Plastics, developed only in the last century and widely used only after the end of the Second World War, have become ubiquitous in our everyday lives.
Indeed, it’s getting hard to find things that don’t contain plastic, and if they do, odds are they’re packaged in containers may with plastic.
Indeed, as I write, I do so on a plastic keyboard looking at a plastic-encased monitor, sipping coffee from a plastic-topped cup while wearing a robe made of plastic microfibers.
Do what’s wrong with this picture?
We begin with a public service announcement from the Plastic Pollution Coalition:
First, some background, via the National Academy of Science:
The plastics industry began in the early 1900s when the first synthetic plastic was created in the U.S. Since the industry began, annual global plastic production has exploded from some 1.5 million metric tons in 1950 to 359 million metric tons in 2018. The cumulative production of plastic surpassed eight billion metric tons worldwide, and it is expected to further increase in the coming decades. Plastics cause pollution at almost every stage of their lifecycle, starting with the use of fossil fuels for their production.
And while they add convenience to our fast-paced lives, plastics may also be killing us.
From Norwegian SciTech News:
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of chemicals from plastics can leach into water under natural conditions. This water may contain substances that we know are toxic under laboratory conditions, says Martin Wagner, an associate professor at NTNU’s Department of Biology.
Wagner is part of a research group that has investigated how ordinary plastic products leach chemicals into the water under natural conditions.
The plastic we surround ourselves with contains up to 20 000 different chemical compounds. Many of these chemicals are toxic under laboratory conditions, but so far we have known precious little about how harmful this plastic is for us.
These chemicals wouldn’t pose a danger to us if they stayed bound to the plastic and weren’t released into the environment. But we may not be so fortunate.
All plastics leach chemicals
“We examined 24 common plastic products over ten days to see if they leached chemical substances into water under natural conditions. We then examined the water for chemicals and toxicity,” says Wagner.
All of the products leached chemicals into the water. Several of the substances have potentially toxic effects.
Oxidative stress was associated with 22 of the 24 plastic products that leached substances into the water. This can damage cells and cause inflammation and chronic disease.
Thirteen of the products leached antiandrogens, which can affect men’s fertility.
One of the plastic products leached oestrogens that can affect fertility in women and men.
Plastics leach very differently
A single plastic product could leach up to 8700 different substances into the water. However, the amount of chemicals leached into the water varied greatly for different types of plastics. One product could release anywhere from 1 to 88 per cent of the assorted chemicals it contains.
The research group was able to identify with certainty only a small proportion – about 8 per cent – of the substances that leached into the various water samples. This means we still know very little about the effects of the rest of the chemicals.
Much more leaching than suspected
“Our research shows that plastic products leach many more chemicals than we previously knew about,” says Wagner.
Humans and other animals are far more exposed to various substances from plastic than we’ve previously known.
We know that some of these chemicals are toxic under laboratory conditions. Plastics used for wrapping food and for drinks are perhaps of particular concern.
“This study shows us that humans and other animals are far more exposed to various substances from plastic than we’ve previously known or than is reflected in Norway’s current health guidelines and health policy,” says Wagner.
All but one of the products that were screened came from Germany, but there is no indication that these plastics are any different in Norway.
Zdenka Bartosova, a staff engineer in NTNU’s Department of Biology, was also part of the research group. NTNU researchers collaborated with the Goethe-Universität and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research, both in Frankfurt am Main.
New studies reveal that one class of so-called forever chemicals linked to a wide range of physical ailments, are ubiquitous in our environment.
They’re called forever chemicals because they don’t degrade, remaining dangerous for decades and even centuries.
[…]
Via https://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2022/02/02/plastics-killing-ourselves-for-convenience/
Occupy Ottawa Day 4: All Eyes on Alberta as Truckers Stand Firm Against Threats and Police Stand Down!
UPDATE: Day 5 of the protest in Coutts where hundreds of truckers are blocking the border in protest of the mandates.
They want to speak to Kenney.
RCMP showed early this morning, hear from a trucker about it yourself below.
Help their legal defence at https://t.co/HejJhb4xFA pic.twitter.com/GyLE6uwyeY
— K2 (@kiansimone44) February 2, 2022
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Today’s update on the Trucker Freedom Convoy switches to where the most intense action has been for the past couple of days in Coutts, Alberta, where Truckers are finishing up their 4th day of protesting at the border between Alberta and Montana.
The Truckers were actually blocked in by the police, so there seems to be some confusion as to who is actually closing the border. The Truckers were willing to open a lane, but the police originally did not want to negotiate.
Yesterday, Canadian police sent two officers to negotiate with the Truckers, who had agreed to open a lane to pass through the border, and the police apparently promised the truckers that while they would not allow more vehicles to join their group, they would allow food to be brought into them.
However, it was soon discovered that they did not make good on their promise, and Truckers had to brave blizzard like conditions to walk several miles to get food.
When the officers returned, the Truckers repeated their demands, which are to end the vaccine mandates, and dismissed the police, who promptly left.
Today, an attorney arrived to represent the Truckers in their negotiations, and the Canadian police sent two new officers, apparently tactical officers, who read their demands to the Truckers to surrender themselves immediately or face the consequences.
The Truckers stood their ground, and the police had no choice but to retreat. They apparently made a tactical error by sending a multitude of SWAT teams and other forces which left the check points unattended, which allowed many of the hundreds of other truckers waiting to join them to come through and join the protest, including farmers driving tractors and other equipment.
Rebel News has had people embedded with the Truckers the whole time giving multiple video reports and interviews throughout the four days, and they are also helping to support the Truckers with legal fees.
I have compiled all of their video reports from the past four days into one video. These videos were posted on their Twitter account, and collected here.
[…]
Hidden History: Slave Rebellions and Forced Native American Evacuation
Episode 9: Rebellion and Removal: Tightening of Slavery
A New History of the American South
Dr Edward Ayers (2018)
Film Review
This lecture covers the major slave rebellions occurring in South Carolina and Virginia between 1830-1850, as well as the forced removal of Native Americans from the southeastern US.
Ayers begins by describing the slave rebellion freeman Denmark Vesey organized with a slave called Gulla Jack in Charleston South Carolina in June 1832. The plan was to free as many slaves as possible and escape with them to Haiti.* They called the rebellion off after another slave betrayed the plot. The city militia arrested and hung sixteen of the leaders.
Ayers talks at length about the background of Nat Turner, who organized the slave rebellion in Southhampton County Virginia in 1831. An enslaved African American preacher, Turner saw visions and heard the voice of God telling him to gather arms and free local slaves from their masters. Turner eventually recruited 28 men, who moved from farm to farm killing white families. They attacked 15 homesteads before other white families learned of the revolt spread and abandoned their plantations. Turner and his followers were eventually arrested and executed.
Increasingly paranoid, white residents of North and South Carolina and Virginia (being greatly outnumbered by their slaves) began to see slave rebellions everywhere. This led to heated debates in the Virginia legislature about the “debilitating” effects of slavery on economic development. Western Virginia, which had the fewest slaves, petitioned the legislature to take steps towards ending slavery. One proposal put forward was for the state to purchase all slaves born after 1840 and either colonize them in Africa or sell them to plantations further south. Instead legislators passed harsher laws to limit the ability of free Blacks to move or gather.
Ayers spends the last half of the lecture on the Indian Removal Act, overseen by President Andrew Jackson despite being overturned twice by the Supreme Court twice. At the time of the forced removals (to “Indian Territory,” ie Oklahoma). By 1830, many Native Americans in the Southeast had converted to Christianity and owned property and slaves.
The Choctaw of northern Georgia were the first to be forcibly moved (after speculators discovered gold on their land) after selling, at a loss, their land and all goods they couldn’t carry with them. Nearly one third died of starvation, exposure or disease during the 500-mile journey.
The Cherokee removal occurred between 1836-39. The US forcibly removed 16,000 members of the Cherokee Nation and 1,000-2,000 from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. Roughly one quarter died.
The Creeks of Alabama were forcibly removed between 1830-36, with roughly 38% dying.
The Seminole of Florida were never evacuated. Jackson launched the second Seminole War started in 1836. Costing more than $20 million, it dragged on for six years. More than 5,000 (out of 36,000) US troops were killed with many more experiencing debilitating injuries.
The film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
*Where slavery ended with the 1791 Haitian Revolution.
https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/rebellion-renewal-tightening-slavery
February 1, 2022
South Africa says people who test positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms no longer need to isolate
A woman is tested for COVID-19 in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 28, 2021. Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images
Marianne Guenot
Business InsiderAsymptomatic people with COVID-19 no longer have to self-isolate, South Africa said Monday.COVID-19 cases have been dropping there after a huge surge of the Omicron variant in December.Officials noted that many South Africans are already immune, despite low vaccination rates.People who test positive for COVID-19 in South Africa but have no symptoms will no longer have to self-isolate, the government announced Monday.
The change came after daily COVID-19 cases dropped in the country, one of the first to see a surge in cases driven by the Omicron variant late last year.
Isolation periods were also cut for people who do have symptoms after testing positives, from 10 days to seven, per the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The new rules also end compulsory isolation for contacts of those who test positive.
Based on the trajectory of the pandemic and the levels of vaccination in the country, Cabinet has decided to make the following changes to Adjusted Alert Level 1 with immediate effect:
— Presidency | South Africa
(@PresidencyZA) January 31, 2022
Many governments have shortened isolation periods for COVID-19 in light of higher vaccination rates and the predominance of the milder Omicron variant.
But South Africa is an outlier in allowing people to not isolate at all even while carrying the virus.
Officials in South Africa cited higher levels. The president’s office said 60% to 80% of people had anti-coronavirus antibodies when tested, a level it said had “risen substantially.”
The immunity appears mainly driven by people getting sick. Only 27% of the population received two doses of a vaccine, compared to 63% in the US and 73% in the UK, per Our World in Data.
Fewer than 1% of the population have received a booster dose.
[…]
Freedom Convoy’ Vows to Stay in Ottawa Until COVID Vaccine Mandates Lifted
By Megan Redshaw Hundreds of truckers and thousands of citizens protesting Canada’s vaccine mandates for truckers remain in Ottawa, vowing to stay until the mandates are lifted.
Thousands of truckers and others protesting Canada’s COVID vaccine mandates remained in Ottawa today, vowing to stay put until the mandates for truckers are lifted.
Ottawa’s police chief, Peter Sloly, said Monday, “all options are on the table, from negotiation through enforcement” to bring the protest, now entering its fifth day in the nation’s capital, to an end.
The “Convoy for Freedom” set out from British Columbia on Jan. 23 and arrived in Ottawa on Jan. 29.
Go truckers! The 11,000-truck, 93-mile long convoy is traveling from British Columbia to Ottawa, where they will hold a demonstration tomorrow. The truckers said they will not leave until the mandates are lifted. #freedomconvoyhttps://t.co/1UkcodB3SZ
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) January 28, 2022
According to RT News, the organizers of the protest initially estimated 1,600 trucks, a number that grew to 36,000 trucks, and later closer to 50,000. However, national media outlets and law enforcement reported anywhere from “hundreds” of trucks to figures in the low thousands over the past week.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said he would not meet with the protesters because he does not believe in their goals.
He said:
“I have also chosen not to go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence toward fellow citizens, and a disrespect not just for science but the frontline health workers and 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to keep Canadians safe and put food on our table.”
Trudeau on Monday also announced he tested positive for COVID, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted, and remains in an undisclosed location due to security concerns.
[…]
The Most Revolutionary Act
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