Interesting – As you will recall many of us attended PCSD SB meetings and spoke out against the current Reproductive Health Curriculum which is supposed to be under review by a committee this summer.
If Superintendent Heid and his Staff do like they did in choosing a left leaning committee to review the 16 pornographic/age inappropriate books it would not portend well to remove the age inappropriate and/or Florida statute violating material we objected to from this curriculum or perhaps they will take the opt-in/opt-out approach which really still violates the law in my view.
MIAMI – The school board of Florida’s largest school district reversed its decision to adopt a new sex education book, with some in the majority saying the material is not age appropriate for students in middle and high school.
The 5-4 vote followed an emotionally charged Miami-Dade School Board meeting Wednesday, with some members of the public being escorted from the room, the Miami Herald reported.
It’s not clear how the nation’s fourth-largest public school system, with 334,000 students, will comply with state law requiring students to receive sexual education. Choosing, ordering and distributing a new textbook could take months.
‘Comprehensive Health Skills,’ published by Goodheart-Willcox in Illinois, comes in different versions for middle and high schools, with topics including nutrition, physical activity and sexually transmitted diseases, as required under the district’s units of study for Human Reproduction and Disease Education.
Neither the publisher nor the school district immediately responded to inquiries from The Associated Press regarding content deemed objectionable by the board’s majority.
The board adopted the textbook in April on a 5-3 vote, but then its material was challenged by some parents who cited the parental rights law Gov. Ron DeSantis in March.
Critics call it the ‘don’t say gay’ law because it prohibits instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in grades K through 3, ‘or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.’
In adopting the book in April, the board voted to ask the publisher to remove a chapter called ‘Understanding Sexuality,’ which covers gender and sexual orientation among other topics.
Still, critics filed 278 objections. Opponents of vaccines challenged the book’s references to how vaccinations can prevent viral infections. Others objected to content about contraception and abortion.
Miami-Dade Superintendent José Dotres asked a third-party reviewer to conduct a public hearing to review their concerns. That hearing officer ultimately recommended adopting the book, leading to Wednesday’s meeting.
Board member Luisa Santos, who voted in favor of the book, noted that the district enables parents to opt out of material they don’t want their children to learn about sexual health and pregnancy and disease prevention.
‘We will be opting out everyone in the following school year. Including all the people who have come here and told us that they want this,’ Santos said, according to WLRN-TV.
Thirty-eight of the 40 speakers Wednesday asked to keep the textbook, Vice Chair Steve Gallon III said.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Royal A. Brown IIIhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRoyal A. Brown III2022-07-26 05:15:142022-07-26 05:44:27Under Pressure Florida School Board Rejects Sex-Ed Textbook
“The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thy soul prospereth” — 3 John:1-2 KJV
A very short English 101 lesson here: the word “as” in this passage does not appear in the original Greek text, rather the word in the Greek is kathos (Strong’s 2531, pronounced cath-oce’) and the most commonly accepted meanings are, ‘according to’, ‘in the same manner as’, ‘in the same way as’. The writer is both separating the physical part of man from the soulish part, but is also tying them together so that the prospering of both parts must be accomplished by, and coming from, the same source. That source is faith and no one receives anything from God aside from faith, whether spiritual salvation, physical prosperity or soul prosperity.
Man is a triune being, meaning he IS a spirit, he HAS a soul and he lives IN a body. The soul of a man is made up of his mind, his will and his emotions. When God created man, He made Him in his Own image, after His Own likeness (Genesis 1:26 KJV), but what does this mean? We see many humans who are of varying shapes, sizes and colors, with varying hair and eye colors, so does this mean that God has multicolored skin, eyes and hair? Of course not. It means that we are created in the form of God, Who, if we could see Him, he would remind us of….us. It would not be like seeing a being with an ‘other than human’ shape. He is not some monstrous alien-like being who instills fear and dread. Those who believe such nonsense are ignorant of Who and What God is and need serious study time in God’s word to exchange their ignorance for knowledge.
If you believe that the Bible is God’s word, inspired by the Holy Spirit and given by that inspiration to the many authors who were chosen to record His word, then you must consider just what John was telling Gaius and then determine what that knowledge means to you.
John’s words distinctly separate the prosperity of the body of Gaius from the prosperity of his soul, so the primary words that should be considered in the above passage should be “as thy soul prospereth”, because until we understand just what that means we have no idea how the rest of the verse, the “…..I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health…” can affect us and our wellbeing. Accordingly, we must try to understand what ‘soul prosperity’ really is and how we go about attaining it.
Man = Spirit, Soul, Body
As I stated earlier, man is a triune entity, being a spirit, having a soul and living in a body of flesh and blood. In the passage, John is stating the will of God for man’s physical body: health and prosperity, and saying that He wants the physical part of a man to be as healthy and prosperous as his soul. Unfortunately way too many Christians, and nearly all non-believers, focus only on the needs of the physical and therefore only seek after the health/prosperity of the body. In reference to the passage in Matthew 6:33, Jesus said that we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” and all these things (man’s physical needs) will be added to us.
The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, at least for now, and it cannot be found by looking only at the physical things we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Paul stated, “For the kingdom of God is not meat (food) and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17 KJV).
Properly seeking His kingdom is a function of the part of the soul that we call ‘the mind’. But in order for that function to produce good results, we must follow the steps outlined in God’s word.
The Apostle Paul said, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1-2 KJV). Now we’re getting somewhere.
Submitting our bodies must first occur before we can renew our minds, enabling us to ‘discern’ (prove) what God’s perfect will is for our lives. Now we know from 3 John 1 that God’s will is for the health and prosperity of our entire being, spirit, soul and body, and John specifically separated the body component from the soul (mind, will and emotions), showing that the prosperity of one is dependent on the prosperity of the other.
The Prosperity Gospel
Unfortunately, the ‘prosperity gospel’, as many have called it, which is the biblically questionable movement being promoted by many large ministries, has caused many in the Church to become disillusioned with, if not completely ignorant of, the entire gospel, or the REAL gospel.
That prosperity message leads most proponents to see it as a means of ensuring that all their physical needs are met, in perpetuity. There is nothing wrong with having those needs met, in fact God even stated such through the Apostle Paul: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 KJV), and that is a wonderful promise from a loving Father.
However, in Matthew 6:33, Jesus said: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”. Notice that before “all things shall be added unto you”, we are told to SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
True Prosperity vs Phony Prosperity
Many people have fallen for the ‘name it and claim it’ belief that will supposedly bring any of your heart’s desires to you from a loving, and very ‘convenient’ God. For a Christian to believe that God has changed His mind regarding the words He spoke to Adam and Eve as they were fumbling around and trying to explain their disobedience to God is a serious error. The curse on this earth is still in effect and His pronouncement of the curse has not been lifted on ANY human being:
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:17-19 KJV)
We all live ON a cursed earth, IN and AMONG a cursed world, and should NOT attempt to bypass God’s word on what that curse means for us. As the legitimate offspring of Adam and Eve, we still have the original responsibilities given to them: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed”. (Genesis 2:8 KJV). “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Genesis 2:15 KJV).
Here we see the wonderful goodness and grace of God in that He had planned the perfect environment for His man and they only needed to make sure it was properly tended. Had they done so, they would never have lacked anything and they would have truly lived eternally in a perfect utopia. That is the quintessential prosperity. But they failed to follow God’s word and now we are all in the same leaky, failing boat, trying to ‘become prosperous’.
I have read John’s words many times in his third epistle, trying to understand whether John was presenting some cryptic meaning in those simple words. But it appears that the meaning, as simple as it sounds, is truly… as simple as it sounds. John obviously loved Gaius and had wonderful words of praise for him because his life showed that he walked in love always. Could it be that one of the ‘hidden means’ to receiving the words of John lie in the way in which we receive all things from God? We are told many times that we must receive from God by faith, and that faith works by love. Love is first and foremost a spiritual action, and NOT necessarily an emotion. For example, the God-type of love, agape, is a love that says: “I love you not because of what you are, or even who you are, but because of Who and What I am”. That kind of love says, I love you because you are valuable and precious to me.
Obviously, Gaius was a person who lived by this kind of love and was praised by John for his charity. What else did John say in this passage that might be closely related to the prosperity of the soul? In verse three of that letter, John says to Gaius, “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; which have borne witness of thy charity before the church:”. So we see that Gaius faithfully carries out the commandments of God by walking in love and being ‘charitable’.
Conclusion
John understood Gaius so well, knowing that he was a man who had fully accepted the truth of God’s word and determined to live faithfully by that word. As a result, he had reached a place in his life where he had found ‘soul prosperity’. If so, he had submitted himself to God and was constantly renewing his mind (primary part of the soul) and refusing to allow himself to be transformed to any worldly image. If he walked in the kind of constant love for which he received praise from John, then his will (secondary part of the soul) was in line with God’s will. Since he practiced the God-kind of love, agapao, toward all others, his emotions (tertiary part of the soul) were not only under control, but were prosperous and would obviously serve Gaius well. In short, the way he conducted his life made him worthy of receiving John’s praise.
Soul prosperity is a state of living whereby the mind, will and emotions are so transformed to God’s will that the body, fully submitted to God, functions as a servant to the spirit and soul, refusing to conform to the world. It is a trait of a life so submitted to God that the unnecessary and burdensome demands of the world cannot cause a person to deviate from His will.
Such a state is NOT an easy one to attain, especially in today’s evil and demanding world. Can it be attained? I believe so, but it is not a ‘once and done’ act, but rather an all-consuming lifestyle. Remember, the first step is submission to God, from that point, He will direct the believer into all the steps needed to have true soul prosperity.
I am reliably informed by some dedicated people I work with daily that this is a superb document on the events of January 6th. I myself have not watched past the first few minutes yet. But I do plan to over the next day or so. Recording events and editing them, takes up a lot of time. But this is supposed to be really good. After watching, some commentary may be added from the particular viewpoint of this site and its authors. But then again, it may not be needed.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2022-07-25 11:11:392022-07-26 05:09:20Documentary: The Real Story of January 6th
In it, he provided an assertive defence of fuels which enable so many aspects of modern life, but which many suggest threaten our survival in the long-term.
In the decade since Epstein’s emergence on the fringes of the climate debate, concerns about rising temperatures have grown with the effect that governments have committed themselves to ever-more radical decarbonisation policies, in particular the increased use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Epstein accepts the scientific evidence that the increases in greenhouse gas emissions in recent centuries due to human activity have increased the Earth’s temperatures. At the same time, he rejects the central premise of the modern environmental movement by maintaining that this does not threaten the survival of our species.
Instead, he convincingly argues that the widespread availability of fossil fuels has been crucial in leading to an unprecedented improvement in living standards in the developed world.
Counterintuitive
Not only do fossil fuels allow us to do more things and enjoy a more comfortable existence, Epstein also writes that they help humanity to guard against natural disasters and the negative impact of a gradually changing climate. For this reason, we need more fossil fuel use, not less. He writes:
“[M]ore fossil fuel use will actually make the world a far better place, a place where billions more people will have the opportunity to flourish, including: to pull themselves out of poverty, to have a chance to pursue their dreams, and — this will likely seem craziest of all — to experience higher environmental quality and less danger from climate.”
Epstein maintains that it is especially vital that the billions of people in what he calls the “unempowered world”, who currently use almost no energy, can enjoy the benefits which so many of us take for granted.
One example of the suffering which energy poverty imposes is the fact that almost 800 million people have no access to electricity, while around 2.4 billion people still rely on wood and animal dung to cook and heat their homes.
Without easy access to oil, gas and coal, people living in these environments will never escape an existence which involves so much daily hardship.
Energy use is clearly correlated with various measurements of human progress (such as increased life expectancy), and the author cites the examples of China and India whose economic rise has largely been fuelled by coal and other fossil fuels.
Their rise forms part of an often unheralded advance in living standards which has occurred in recent decades, in which the extreme poverty rate worldwide has decreased from 35% in 1990 to less than 10% today.
Epstein insists that this transformation could not have happened without fossil fuels, and he maintains that they enjoy a range of advantages including greater affordability, reliability, versatility and scalability.
Valid arguments
When it comes to the statistics he cites, again it is difficult to argue with Epstein’s stance.
Fossil fuels provide 80% of the world’s energy, whereas solar and wind power provide just 3%. Crucially, unlike wind and solar, fossil fuels are not an intermittent source of energy. They can be more easily stored and transported, and far more energy is concentrated within them.
Contrary to the claims of some commentators, they are also not running out: proven oil and gas reserves have increased in recent decades, thanks in part due to new technologies being used to extract them like fracking, which the green movement continues to fight against tenaciously.
In the area of mobile energy, oil is especially important, and is responsible for meeting virtually all humanity’s needs in the areas of shipping, aviation and heavy-duty trucking, without which the global economy would come to a shuddering halt.
Throughout the book, Epstein describes the multitude of other ways in which fossil fuels make life possible, including the powering of agricultural and industrial equipment and the use of fossil fuel materials in a wide variety of synthetic materials.
Perception
There is something more at the core of Epstein’s argument other than the evidence attesting to the importance of high-quality energy sources.
He is a philosopher by training, and he believes that the refusal of many to acknowledge the aforementioned facts stems from the popularity of an anti-impact worldview. Those who hold this viewpoint tend to seek to minimise if not eliminate the impact which humans have on a world they consider naturally safe and untainted. This also helps to explain why green activists have long opposed the use of nuclear or even hydroelectric power, neither of which contribute to emissions significantly.
Rejecting this view outright, Epstein proposes an alternative framework based around “human flourishing”, one which considers the negative impacts of carbon dioxide emissions in the context of the “climate mastery” benefits which come from having abundant supplies of energy available and being more prosperous.
This ability to cope with the vagaries of the world around us has resulted in climate-related deaths falling by 98% over the last century, even while carbon dioxide levels increased. In a similar way, technological improvements in the area of flood protection — many of which are made possible by the availability of fossil fuels — means that over 100 million now live below the level of high tide in their home area.
Epstein does not deny that the increased use of fossil fuels which he seeks will likely accelerate the pace of global warming. Instead, he simply maintains that the benefits of expanding access to energy greatly outweigh the drawbacks, while also elaborating upon the reasons why he believes many people exaggerate the risks which climate change poses.
There are many things to admire about Epstein’s central argument — in particular the insistence on recognising the importance of affordable energy to continued human prosperity and progress.
At a time when increasingly alarmist rhetoric is accelerating unwise policies, his calm and reasoned take (along with that of others like the author of False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg) is more needed now than ever.
Quibbles
That being said, Fossil Future does not represent a major advance on Epstein’s earlier book. It covers much of the same ground and at times his analysis is too simplistic.
There are significant differences between different fossil fuels, for example, with natural gas producing only half the emissions produced by coal. Indeed, the shift from coal to gas in electricity generation in the United States has been the cause of major emissions reductions there.
Yet though he compares different energy sources, Epstein does not devote enough attention to the question of whether some fossil fuels should be favoured over others.
Even those inclined to agree with his arguments may also be perturbed by the lack of concern which Epstein has about the risks posed by climate change, compared to the attitude of Lomborg — who likens the process to having “a long-term chronic condition like diabetes — a problem that needs attention and focus, but one that we can live with.”
Epstein’s lack of scientific qualifications is another drawback, and even though he presents a cogent explanation for why the media may be overestimating the problem of climate change, many people will not take this argument seriously until it is made more firmly by specialists in the area of climate science.
In spite of this, Epstein has once again succeeded in focusing attention on facts which cannot be avoided.
“The fossil fuel elimination movement is powerful only because it has a moral monopoly, meaning that it is widely considered the only moral position,” he tells us. This is true, and by presenting readers with an alternative moral and philosophical framework with which we can examine these issues, Alex Epstein has again made a valuable contribution.
James Bradshaw works for an international consulting firm based in Dublin, and has a background in journalism and public policy. Outside of work, he writes for a number of publications, on topics including… More by James Bradshaw
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2022-07-25 10:56:272022-07-25 11:17:48Fossil Fuels: Essential to Human Flourishing
Statistics from 2021 found the highest share of Americans who are “not too happy” ever measured.
The last two years have been hard on everyone, with numerous disruptions to life of many kinds leading many of us to feel, as the General Social Survey (GSS) might put it, “not too happy.” Pandemic disease, lockdowns, protests, riots, crime, divisive politics, shootings, deaths of despair, an epidemic of loneliness—the list of reasons for being “not-too-happy” seem to be legion.
Since 1972, the GSS has been asking Americans how happy they are, with three options: very happy, somewhat happy, and not too happy. That lowest option captures all those Americans who just don’t feel good about the world and their own place in it. Perhaps it is no surprise that the 2021 GSS round found the highest share of Americans who are “not too happy” ever measured.
From 1972 to 2018, no more than 18% of Americans ages 35 and over had ever claimed to be “not too happy,” and no more than 16% of Americans under 35 had done so. In every year ever measured, people over and under age 35 had similar levels of unhappiness.
But in 2021, unhappiness rocketed upwards for both groups, to 22% for those 35 and over, and a whopping 30% for those under age 35. These are both historic highs for each age demographic, but the unusually sharp increase for those under 35 points to a unique burden of unhappiness among young adults over the last few years. American young adults have begun to take an extraordinarily dim view of the world and their own lives. The path to understanding why unhappiness has risen so much more among young Americans begins by understanding the groups among whom it has risen the most.
Unhappiness by groups
Among young adults, different groups had different levels of unhappiness even before COVID. Thus, for example, only about 6% of married people said they were “not too happy,” versus 16% of unmarried young adults. However, the better question is how has happiness changed within various groups: did married people and unmarried people see the same spike in unhappiness in 2021? What about men and women, or liberals and conservatives? The GSS contains a wide variety of control variables, making it possible to compare the typical prevalence of unhappiness for a given group of young adults before COVID (in this case, 2012-2018) and after it (2021). Figure 2 below shows the share of each group who were “not too happy” before and after COVID, after controlling for each of the other variables listed.
Several things immediately stand out. First, unhappiness rose for almost every group: the red bars are higher than the light blue bars in almost every case. Thus, group-level traits mostly did not shield individuals from the unhappiness spike around COVID. Having kids or a college degree didn’t spare people from the difficulties of the last few years.
Secondly, the exact amount that unhappiness increased in 2021 varied. Social class didn’t protect people very much: unhappiness rose about 16% for people with highly prestigious jobs, and 15% for other people. People who attended college saw their unhappiness prevalence rise by about 16 percentage points, versus about 15 points for those who did not attend college. Being educated and having a prestigious career simply didn’t provide any buffer to peoples’ sense of well-being in the face of a huge social disruption.
Some demographic traits did matter more: men saw their unhappiness rise 18%, versus just 12% for women. Unhappiness rose about 17% for non-Hispanic whites, versus about 12% for racial and ethnic minorities. But these differences are not statistically significant; they could have arisen just from random noise.
For most people, family forms the core of their social support system. And this leads to one of the most important findings of this analysis: unhappiness rose just 8 percentage points for married young adults, versus 18 percentage points for the unmarried. In fact, given the sample sizes involved, the confidence intervals for married people before and after the pandemic actually overlap: it’s not certain that unhappiness actually rose for married people at all, after controlling for their other traits.
Marriage, then, served as a valuable buffer against unhappiness. Children, on the other hand, did not: childless young adults and parents saw similar increases in unhappiness (16 and 14 percentage points, respectively).
Finally, happiness changes varied in important ways across religiosity and politics. Among people who attended religious services at least two times per month, unhappiness rose only 4 percentage points, the smallest increase of any group. Among those who attended less often, unhappiness rose 15 percentage points. This difference was highly statistically significant, suggesting that participation in religious community may serve as a useful buffer against adverse events in life.
Relatedly, liberal Americans saw the largest increase in unhappiness of any group, at 19 percentage points. For moderates, it was just 15 percentage points, and for conservatives, 13 points. However, given the sample sizes involved, these differences are not statistically significant.
Conclusion
The COVID pandemic has made virtually everyone less happy. This effect is especially pronounced among younger Americans under 35. For young adults, the rise in unhappiness has been sharply felt, with pronounced rises across all socioeconomic and demographic groups, and throughout the ideological spectrum. The only factors that appear meaningfully protective against the post-COVID unhappiness spike are marriage and religious attendance. Married church-attenders are markedly happier than other young adults. Some of this may be selection bias, but some of it may also be causal effects of deeper social ties providing material and psychological resources for dealing with life’s challenges.
Unfortunately for the happiness of young Americans, whereas in 1972 about 24% of people under 35 were married churchgoers, in 2021 just 7% were, leaving more and more young adults exposed to life’s troubles with little help, as shown in Figure 3.
Meanwhile, more and more young Americans inhabit the unhappiest subgroup for their age: unmarried and not religious. Today, 60% of people under 35 fit this category. One possible result of this change, as we have seen these last few years, is that more young people lack the vital support of a spouse and a religious community, and thus new forms of adversity can rapidly lead to astonishingly severe levels of unhappiness.
Lyman Stone is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, Chief Information Officer of the population research firm Demographic Intelligence, and an Adjunct Fellow at the American Enterprise… More by Lyman Stone
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexitieshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - Navigating Modern Complexities2022-07-25 10:47:432022-07-25 10:47:43After Covid: Unhappiness is Worse Among Single and Non-Religious Americans
Sound economic thinking is vital for a prosperous future.
Economics is the study of human action—the choices people make in a world of scarcity. Scarcity means that people have unlimited wants but we live in a world of limited resources. Because of this fact people have to make choices, and choices imply trade-offs. The choices people make are influenced by the incentives they face and those incentives are shaped by the institutions—rules of the game—under which people live and interact with others.
In this essay, I will explain eight ideas and give examples of the economic way of thinking.
1. TANSTAAFL: Know the Difference Between Price and Cost
We often hear how wonderful certain countries are because they provide “free healthcare” or “free education.” Many will also say “I got it for free” because they didn’t pay with money.
The error lies in not understanding the difference between price and cost. For example, people usually say, “The Starbucks latte cost me five dollars” or, “The movie ticket cost me fifteen dollars.” Cost in economics means what you give up or sacrifice. In these examples, the prices were $5 and $15. But the cost of the latte was perhaps the sandwich one could have purchased instead with that same $5, and the cost of the movie was perhaps the three lattes one could have purchased instead with that same $15.
Labeling healthcare and education “free” is not just wrong—”there’s no such thing as a free lunch”—it’s also misleading. As my former professor Walter E. Williams would say, “Unless you believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, the money has to come from somewhere.” You might not get a medical bill in those countries but you have more taken out of your paycheck (i.e., taxes) and you might have to wait much longer to get that test or have that “minor” (from the bureaucrats’ perspective) surgery. You pay with either money or time, but either way, you pay! Taxes are also used to pay for public schools, which is yet another example of how people call something “free” when it is not.
There’s a difference between zero price and zero cost. There could be a zero price ($0), but there’s never a zero cost. Therefore, don’t swear anymore by using the “F” word!
2. Actions Matter More Than Statements
“Actions speak louder than words,” is a well-known idiom. Humans act, and the act of choice tells us something. Consider this example: A person walks into an Apple store and sees the price of the latest iPhone and angrily mumbles, “What a rip off” but still proceeds to purchase that phone.
When one does something voluntarily, it demonstrates their true preference at the time. Assuming that individuals are self-interested and will ex ante (looking forward in time) subjectively weigh the cost and benefit of an action, and, also assuming it’s not a right to have the private property of another (i.e., Apple’s iPhone), then when a person walks into an Apple store and buys the new iPhone, the individual obviously expects to be better off in some way at that moment. To say that Apple “took advantage” of the willing customer would be nonsense since Apple, or any private business, cannot force people to buy their product. It’s one thing to say something, but the proof is in the act of choice.
3. Sunk Cost Fallacy: Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk
“Don’t cry over spilt milk” means what’s done is done. The only costs that should come into our decision-making are future opportunity costs. Past costs are “sunk.” The typical example to explain the sunk cost fallacy is the movie example. You spend $15 to see a movie and an hour into this three-hour movie you realize that it’s horrible and will only get worse. However, your feeling is that you should stay and get your money’s worth. That is bad economic thinking. The $15 is gone so don’t lose the next two hours of your valuable time—get up and leave.
Most of us know people who were (are) in a horrible relationship or dating the wrong type of person (perhaps this applies to you). But the feeling of “I’ve already spent two years of my life with this person” can lead to a bad decision. Many end up marrying the person in order to justify the investment of time.
No offense to Beyoncé, but if you like yourself, then perhaps don’t let that person “put a ring on it”! Don’t lose the next two years of precious time. It’s better to be single than in a bad relationship (but that’s for another essay).
4. Tradeoffs: Learn to Think at the Margin
The optimal or efficient level of pollution is not zero. The optimal number of traffic deaths or sports injuries also is probably not zero. The optimal number of people getting a virus is not zero. The optimal level of safety is not perfect safety. Does this sound strange or harsh? Well, if you want to do a cross country road trip and not walk or ride a bike, or if you want to enjoy playing or watching sports, and if you want to physically interact with others, then it is clear that the optimal level of pollution, deaths, injuries, and people getting a virus is actually greater than zero. The optimal level of safety is less than perfect safety. Nothing is free including more safety—trade-offs are always involved because there is always an opportunity cost when we do something, even things like travel, play sports, or interact with others.
Incremental decision-making is what economists call thinking at the margin. Marginal means the one additional or extra unit. Every time we make a decision it’s as if we are calculating the marginal benefit (the benefit of one more unit) and the marginal cost (what would be given up to acquire one more unit) of the action. The economic way of thinking says something should be done until the marginal benefit (MB) equals the marginal cost (MC). There’s also a concept known as the law of diminishing marginal utility—each additional unit gives less and less utility or benefit.
We want clean air so that our eyes aren’t irritated when we go outside and our lungs don’t burn when we take a breath. However, if the desire is perfectly clean air this would mean no more cars, no planes, no boats or ships, and no trains (some would actually desire this situation, at least theoretically). This would impose tremendous costs on society.
Let’s look at it another way. If I snapped my fingers and made the Pacific Ocean perfectly clean but then put one drop of oil somewhere in the ocean unbeknownst to everyone else, would it be worth it to spend money, time and other resources to hunt down that one drop of oil? The marginal benefit of finding and removing one drop of oil in the quintillions of gallons of water would be less than the marginal cost. In plain English, it’s not worth it. Again, the optimal level of pollution is some, not zero.
When it comes to studying, practicing a sport or musical instrument, or dating someone before marrying them, you might think, “The more time, the better.” I am a literal person so if I told my students, “The more you study the better,” this would mean they would never eat, drink, sleep, or spend time with family and friends. But common sense says that after studying for a certain amount of time most students will say, “I get it” or simply “time to move on.” Why waste more time studying?
Also, if you are in a place in your life where you are considering marriage, then the point of dating is to acquire information about the other person so that you can make a good decision. Ultimately, you come to a point where you have enough information to propose, accept a proposal, or break up with this person. When I proposed to my wife, I did not have perfect information about her, but my information was good enough. Sure, one more month of dating would have given me some marginal benefit in terms of additional information about her, but I came to a point where I had enough information—where MB=MC.
“Good enough is good enough” is what economists mean by doing something until the marginal benefit equals the marginal cost. The MB=MC rule implies that the “more is better” thinking is not optimal. One aspirin from the bottle can help your headache but it’s dangerous to think, “Well, if one is good, the whole bottle is better.” Yes, your headache will be gone but so will you.
5. Comparative Advantage: Ability to Do Something Does Not Mean One Should
In a standard economics class, students are taught absolute advantage and comparative advantage. The former means being able to produce more than another with the same amount of resources or using fewer resources to produce an output. The latter means being able to do something at a lower opportunity cost than another.
Because there’s always an opportunity cost when doing something, sometimes it is advantageous to pay someone else to do something even if we have the knowledge and skills to do it ourselves. This also has applications to trade policy. Just because the United States (actually individuals in the United States) can produce certain products does not mean we should. It’s ok if not everything we buy says “Made in USA” because if the government tries to “protect American jobs” and begins imposing tariffs and quotas, we are not actually saving American jobs. It’s more correct to say we are saving particular jobs at the expense of other American jobs. Of course, good politics and good economics often go in different directions.
6. Supply and Demand: Understand How Prices Work
The complaint that businesses can charge “whatever they want” is nonsense. For example, why is it that movie theaters only charge $8 for popcorn and not $8,000 or $8,000,000 if they can supposedly charge whatever they want? There are two sides to a market transaction, and it’s this interaction of sellers and buyers that determines the price. What’s interesting is that many times the same people complaining are the ones making noise eating that popcorn during the movie.
7. Fixed Pie Fallacy: Voluntary Exchange Is Win-Win That Creates a Bigger Pie
Entrepreneurs become wealthy if they create a product or service that provides value for a large number of people. Unless the entrepreneurs received special privileges from the government, they didn’t forcibly take money from their customers.
The anger directed at “the rich” is based on the fallacy of thinking the economy is a fixed-size pie. In other words, those who criticize the “filthy rich” believe that they took a piece that was too big, leaving less pie for the rest of us regular folks. The reality is that these entrepreneurs baked a bigger pie. They benefited, but so did we!
In a business transaction, exchanges are voluntary, and voluntary trade is a win-win situation. The entrepreneur wins (as well as the employees he or she hires) and the customers win.
8. Good Intentions Fallacy: Don’t Forget about Unseen Costs
Intentions and results are not always the same thing. The economic way of thinking teaches us to consider possible unintended consequences of our own actions or the actions of politicians. Just because something sounds good or feels right does not mean a certain goal will be achieved. In fact, the very problem that is being addressed can become worse.
Sound economic thinking also removes one’s blinders. The effects of a policy on all groups are considered, not just one group. This helps individuals to see through politicians’ claims that a policy will save American jobs when in reality only some special-interest group will benefit at the expense of other Americans. When politicians confiscate money (i.e., taxes) to build sports stadiums using the “it will create jobs” argument, the mistake is to focus on the jobs seen and neglecting the unseen—the opportunity cost of those tax dollars.
Conclusion
There is so much more to say about this subject called economics and there are many more examples of the economic way of thinking that I could have included. Some characterize economics as applied common sense; yet, economics also gives us counterintuitive insights.
Ninos P. Malek is an Economics professor at De Anza College in Cupertino, California and a Lecturer at San Jose State University in San Jose, California. He teaches principles of macroeconomics, principles of microeconomics, economics of social issues, and intermediate microeconomics. His previous experience also includes teaching introductory economics at George Mason University.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-07-25 10:31:442022-07-25 10:31:448 Ideas That Will Teach You to Think Like an Economist
The founder of Planned Parenthood envisioned a world with no “tradition” or “moral taboos.”
Everyone from Biden to the media seized on the story of a 10-year-old girl’s abortion to defend the practice. They didn’t want to talk about the ugly details. And with good reason.
The girl, actually only 9, had been raped by an illegal alien. And, on camera, her mother defended the rapist. Rather than a story about abortion, it was another familiar case of children being abused by the men who pass through the lives of their mothers. And a commentary on the social dysfunction created by illegal migration and broken multicultural communities.
Despite the eagerness to make the faceless child into the face of the abortion movement, less than 4% of abortions involve underage girls. Most however involve broken families.
“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right,” Biden had said in 2006. “I think it’s always a tragedy. I think it should be rare and safe.”
Biden was echoing Bill Clinton’s statement that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare”. It was a position that most Democrats of a certain age had adopted to bridge the gap between the party’s pro-life and pro-abortion wings. Biden has since adopted the position that abortion is a feminist sacrament in a party that has jettisoned both women and its pro-life wing.
Bill Clinton, Biden and establishment Democrats of another era understood that abortion was a symptom of broken families and poverty. They still know that, they just won’t say it. It’s why Elizabeth Warren and other Senate Democrats are trying to ban the pregnancy centers that offer assistance to poor mothers. Those same pregnancy centers have faced a campaign of domestic terrorism from pro-abortion extremists which Biden’s DOJ continues to ignore.
Why burn pregnancy centers? Because Planned Parenthood’s clients aren’t feminists, just poor. Warren and her domestic terrorist allies are trying to take away any option other than abortion.
Women who seek out abortions are disproportionately poor and members of minority groups. 75% are low income and half are below the poverty line. 85% are unmarried, among those 61% had been shacking up with the baby’s father, and 61% already had one child. Those making over $100,000 a year have the highest rates of support for abortions and the lowest among those who make only $30,000. From Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, on down abortion is how the Elizabeth Warrens manage the social problems of the underclass.
Eugenicists were divided between the more extreme view, that poverty was a symptom of an inheritable genetic defect, and the more liberal view, represented by Sanger, that the poor were a mixture of genetic defects, who needed to be forcibly sterilized, and irresponsible ‘breeders’, especially minorities such as Italians, Jews, and blacks, who were poor because they had too many children. It was this liberal eugenics that is the pragmatic function of Planned Parenthood even as its ideology trumpets abortion as feminist empowerment for upper class women.
There’s little evidence that abortion has fixed social or economic problems. The multigenerational clients of Planned Parenthood continue to be poor minorities.
Sanger’s contempt for religion had misled her about the role of values in social stability. Children were not the cause of poverty. The poverty rate in 1974, a year after Roe v. Wade became law, was 11%. 5 years later, it was up to 15%. In 2020 it was back to 11%. In 1974, there were 24 million poor people in America. In 2020, there are 37 million.
The poverty rate for married couples is under 5%. It’s at 23% for female householders.
Rather than solving any of the social problems that Planned Parenthood claimed to be tackling, the annual mass sacrifice of babies only serves as a disposal chute for its victims. And so when a child is raped by her mother’s boyfriend, the answer is a speedy trip to an abortion clinic followed by assertions that this system is a vital civil right rather than a moral nightmare.
Democrats, including even Joe Biden, once understood that abortion was the fallout of a failed social system and its broken families, but now abortion can only be discussed as if it were a thing in and of itself, detached from any causes or consequences except perhaps the academic jargon about “pregnant bodies” and the “heteronormative patriarchy” that now infuses the Left.
Media outlets claim, with a mostly straight face, that abortion bans hit LGBT people the hardest.
Meanwhile, on the ground level, leftist activists are firebombing the pregnancy centers that offer an alternative to the mostly poor minority women who are the ones who actually have abortions.
“To effect the salvation of the generations of the future—nay, of the generations of to-day—our greatest need… is to cooperate in the formation of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and psychological understanding of human nature,” Margaret Sanger wrote in 1922.
A code of “sexual ethics” based on a raw materialistic understanding of human nature has long since developed by the likes of Alfred Kinsey. The code has brought on an unrivaled hostility between the sexes, hookup culture, the #MeToo movement, STDs, pornography, single parent families, date rape, the sexualization of children and widespread misery and loneliness.
Not to mention abortion.
One wonders what Sanger, who died in 1966, would have made of the wonderful generations of the future she had only begun to witness at the height of Haight-Ashbury. The essence of Sanger’s argument was that nothing more could be expected of people than to live out their drives and society had to protect its own future by eliminating children from the equation.
Women, Sanger had claimed, would be empowered by this exciting new code of sexual ethics.
What that empowerment really adds up to is college students waking up after a drunken encounter wondering if it was rape and single mothers desperately holding on to a man even if he abuses their children, and the problem being “solved” at an abortion clinic.
Abortion has so often been reduced to a debate between the right to life and the autonomy of the mother that we ignore the fact that what we are really seeing is a side-effect of a social breakdown. The larger question is not whether murder is sometimes justified or not, but why do we even live? What is the purpose of our existence and do we even have one?
Sanger began her book with a quote from Walt Whitman that women “are the gates of the body” and the “gates of the soul”, before proceeding to reduce women to the body, the “great fundamental instinct of sex”, as she put it, “expressing itself in the ever-growing broods” of the working poor. “Prohibition” and “restraint” were futile, she warned, and would only lead to “insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions”.
“Remove the moral taboos that now bind the human body and spirit, free the individual from the slavery of tradition,” she urged, and “most of the larger evils of society will perish.”
How is society doing without those taboos?
“I was thirty-nine and scared by the idea that I would not be reproducing the kind of heteronormative nuclear family I had grown up in,” Emily Witt wrote. So the New Yorker writer joined a dating app “for ‘open-minded singles and couples who want to explore their sexuality.’”
“Below the photos is a caption that might read, “31, transmasculine, gynesexual, 3 km away.”
After that, Witt turned in a plaintive article about “the only abortion clinic in North Dakota”.
This is Sanger’s world without the moral taboos or any prohibition and restraint. It’s also a world in which Witt admits that, “The older I’ve got, the more I’ve understood how often sexual freedom imposes itself on people who don’t seek it out.” The torrent of “insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions” has only increased in this world with its alphabet soup of genders and sexualities with sky-high suicide and sexual assault rates.
Whitman failed to understand that the “gates of the soul” come before the “gates of the body”, but Sanger could not conceive of the soul as anything except psychological “chemistry”. And there’s Witt, their spiritual descendant, who browses a world of sexual fetishes and exploitation, along with her “unmarried and childless female friends”, “none of us very young” who “had been ‘hooking up’ with people for large swaths of our adult lives.”
Apart from the moral judgements, Sanger’s world is a lonely one filled with broken people, men who fear to be fathers and women who no longer believe they are women living in a digital ‘Nighthawks’. Abortion is in decline, not because of laws and regulations, but because people are less likely to connect to each other on even on the most casual level that would make a pregnancy possible.
Abortions, childbirths, pregnancies, relationships and marriages are all in a state of decline.
And that is the best of it in the upper tiers. At the bottom is the end of families, homes that aren’t broken, but never even existed, whose children either end up in abortion clinics or prisons.
Breaches of morality are also breaches of our humanity.
Changing all of that requires looking beyond the body and to the soul. According to Sanger, the soul was “nothing but a vague unreality except insofar as it is able to manifest itself in the beauty of the concrete.” She envisioned a humanity whose bodies were as perfect as those of “superb ships, motor cars or great buildings”. And yet our truths lie in what to Sanger was a mere “vague unreality” but whose absence has made all of the achievements a hollow tragedy.
Our ships and cars are better than ever. And our society is more broken than ever.
Abortion doesn’t only represent the death of a child, but of a family and a future. It isn’t only babies who die in abortion clinics, but the potential of two people and the soul of a nation.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-07-25 05:57:032022-08-09 06:48:20Abortion and the Soul of a Nation
On Monday, Dutch reforestation company Land Life started what has become a 35,000 acre forest fire in Spain.
These things happen. And happen.
This is the second forest fire started by Land Life in a month.
I’m starting to think that environmentalists and the rest of us have very different definitions of saving the planet.
Here’s what Land Life claims that it does.
Land Life is a tech-driven reforestation company planting trees at scale. We use a holistic approach and all of the wonderful minds of our employees, partners, and customers to create projects that remove CO2 from the atmosphere, rebuild ecosystems and work in collaboration with local communities.
Here’s what it does
“The fire started while one of our contractors was using a retro-spider excavator to prepare the soil to plant trees later this winter,” Land Life said in a statement on Thursday. “The operators alerted the emergency services. The emergency teams are working non-stop to control the fire and have fortunately established the fire perimeter. Nonetheless, we are devastated by the latest estimate that the damage will be around 14,000 hectares,” or roughly 35,000 acres.”
How many acres of trees did Land Life even plant?
It’s not clear how many acres Land Life has actually planted trees in—one blog post suggested the company aimed to plant around 20,000 acres between 2020-2021.
This is like the time that Bernie Sanders got kicked out of the Kibbutz.
The fire has forced authorities to order the evacuation of five neighboring towns, as well as a nursing home. In total, around 2,000 people had to be evacuated. Javier Lambán, the president of Aragon, said the incident is “serious and concerning,” according to local media.
Sometimes you have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet. Or burn a lot of trees to make a forest. Or crash a lot of computers to make an OS.
As of January 1, 2021 Ernst-Jan Stigter, general manager of Microsoft in the Netherlands, will join Land Life Company as the new CEO.
This explains too much.
I’m in favor of planting trees. Personally. We just probably shouldn’t let environmentalists do it. Or much of anything else. Like at the end of Rainbow Six, take everything, leave them in the jungle knowing that while they might all get eaten by anacondas and fire ants, at least that will remove their carbon emissions from the planet.
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-07-25 05:48:082022-07-25 05:48:08Environmentalists Promising to Save Planet by Planting Trees Keep Starting Forest Fires
How the COVID Vaccines May Act as a Depopulation Weapon.
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
The first COVID shots rolled out in December 2020, and it didn’t take long before doctors and scientists started warning of possible reproductive effects, as the jab may cross-react with syncytin and reproductive genes in sperm, ova and placenta in ways that might impair reproduction
According to one recent investigation, 42% of women with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination; 39% of those on gender-affirming hormone treatments reported breakthrough bleeding, as did 71% of women on long-acting contraceptives and 66% of postmenopausal women
Other recent research has found the Pfizer COVID jab impairs semen concentration and motile count in men for about three months
Miscarriages, fetal deaths and stillbirths have also risen after the rollout of the COVID shots. In November 2021, Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), delivered 13 stillborn babies in a 24-hour period, and all of the mothers had received the COVID jab
Many countries are now reporting sudden declines in live birth rates, including Germany, the U.K., Taiwan, Hungary and Sweden. In the five countries with the highest COVID jab uptake, fertility has dropped by an average of 15.2%, whereas the five countries with the lowest COVID jab uptake have seen an average decline of just 4.66%
The first COVID shots rolled out in December 2020, and it didn’t take long before doctors and scientists started warning of possible reproductive effects.
Among them were Janci Chunn Lindsay, Ph.D., director of toxicology and molecular biology for Toxicology Support Services LLC, who in April 2021 submitted a public comment1 to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), highlighting the high potential for adverse effects on fertility.
I previously interviewed Lindsay in 2021. That article is not updated with the new information, but the interview (above) is a good primer for the information she shares below. In many ways, she predicted what we are now observing.
She stressed there’s credible evidence that the COVID shots may cross-react with syncytin and reproductive genes in sperm, ova and placenta in ways that might impair reproductive outcomes. “We could potentially be sterilizing an entire generation,” she warned.
Lindsay also pointed out that reports of significant menstrual irregularities and vaginal hemorrhaging in women who received the injections by then already numbered in the thousands, and that this too was a safety signal that should not be ignored.
4 in 10 COVID-Jabbed Women Report Menstrual Irregularities
As it turns out, early reports of menstrual irregularities were not a fluke. More recent investigations have confirmed that, indeed, many women experience menstrual irregularities after the shots. As reported by NBC News in mid-July 2022:2
“An analysis3 published Friday in the journal Science Advances found that 42% of people with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination. Meanwhile, 44% reported no change and around 14% reported a lighter period.
Among nonmenstruating people — those post-menopause or who use certain long-term contraceptives, for example — the study suggests many experienced breakthrough or unexpected bleeding after their COVID shots.”
Other categories of people reporting abnormal breakthrough bleeding included 39% of those on gender-affirming hormone treatments, 71% of women on long-acting contraceptives and 66% of postmenopausal women.4
Older women, those who used hormonal contraception, had been pregnant previously, or had diagnoses of endometriosis, fibroids or polycystic ovarian syndrome were more likely to experience heavier bleeding than normal after their shots.
Are Menstrual Irregularities Inconsequential?
It’s worth noting that the COVID trials did not ask female participants about their menses, and didn’t collect any data on reproductive impacts. Yet, despite this clear lack of data collection, the official narrative is that everything is fine — the shots are safe and won’t impact fertility.
Just how do they know? They don’t, and that’s what makes such claims so egregious. Making matters worse, media reporting these findings continue to insist that post-jab menstrual irregularities are “normal” and not a sign that reproductive capacity is being impacted. For example, Science writes:5
“Clarifying the issue is vital. ‘It’s important to know about,’ says Victoria Male, a reproductive immunologist at Imperial College London. ‘Let’s say you got the vaccine and the next day you felt really dreadful the way some people do.’
If you hadn’t been informed of the chance of fever, muscle aches, and other effects that quickly dissipate, ‘you would be really worried,’ she said. Illuminating the chance of menstrual irregularities and confirming they aren’t a health risk also helps combat widespread misinformation that COVID-19 vaccines impair fertility, Male and others say.”
Again, no one knows whether the shots affect fertility or not for the simple fact that it hasn’t been studied. No study means no data, which means no knowledge. It’s that simple. Any claims to the contrary are based on pure guesswork, and guessing is not science.
And, while a woman’s menstrual cycle can fluctuate, abrupt changes have historically not been brushed off as inconsequential. On the contrary, suddenly abnormal menses has been listed as a potential sign of things like:6,7,8
Uterine and/or cervical cancer
Bleeding disorders
Thyroid dysfunction and/or pituitary disorders affecting your hormonal balance
Infection and/or disease
Perimenopause
Menstrual Cycle Length Is Also Affected
Research9 published April 1, 2022, in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, also found an association between the COVID jab and changes in menstrual cycle length. The change was small — about one day shorter than pre-injection after the second dose — and was not deemed to be of any great concern. Still, in my mind, the change indicates that something is happening. The question is what?
Infection Can Suppress Ovarian Function
Some investigators have suggested the menstrual irregularities seen in female COVID patients and the COVID-jabbed alike may be attributed to an immune response to the spike protein.
Back in January 2021, a Chinese study10 published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online found that 28% of unvaccinated women of reproductive age diagnosed with COVID-19 had a change in the length of their cycle, 19% had prolonged cycles and 25% had a change in menstrual blood volume.
The researchers hypothesized that “the menstruation changes of these patients might be the consequence of transient sex hormone changes” caused by a temporary suppression of ovarian function during infection.
Dr. Natalie Crawford, a fertility specialist, has suggested that the menstrual irregularities seen in female COVID-19 patients may be linked to a cellular immunity response, and since the COVID shot instructs your body to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which your immune system then responds to, the effects of the jab may be similar to the natural infection.11 In a 2021 BMJ editorial, Male, quoted by Science above, presented a similar view:12
“Menstrual changes have been reported after both mRNA and adenovirus vectored COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting that, if there is a connection, it is likely to be a result of the immune response to vaccination rather than a specific vaccine component. Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) has also been associated with menstrual changes.
… Biologically plausible mechanisms linking immune stimulation with menstrual changes include immunological influences on the hormones driving the menstrual cycle or effects mediated by immune cells in the lining of the uterus, which are involved in the cyclical build-up and breakdown of this tissue. Research exploring a possible association between COVID-19 vaccines and menstrual changes may also help understand the mechanism.”
That doesn’t mean menstrual irregularities are of no consequence, though. After all, it appears we’re dealing with a manmade virus, and the mRNA in the shot that programs for spike protein production is genetically engineered on top of that.
Perhaps this is why a greater percentage of women report menstrual irregularities following the COVID jab, compared to the percentage of women who experience irregularities following natural infection?
It may also be worth looking into the parallels between the blood clotting disorders reported — both in some COVID-19 cases and post-COVID-19 jab — and Von Willebrand disease,13 a chronic condition that prevents normal blood clotting, thus resulting in excessively heavy periods.
Miscarriages, Fetal Deaths and Stillbirths Have Skyrocketed
Menstrual irregularities aren’t the only safety signal. Miscarriages, fetal deaths and stillbirths have also risen after the rollout of the COVID shots. In November 2021, Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), delivered an astonishing 13 stillborn babies in a 24-hour period, and all of the mothers had received the COVID jab.14
In a typical month, there may be one stillborn baby at the hospital, making 13 stillbirths in 24 hours highly unusual. Scotland has also experienced an unusual rise in infant death rates. During September 2021, at least 21 babies under 4 weeks old died — a rate of 4.9 per 1,000 births. Historically, the average death rate among newborns in Scotland is about 2 per 1,000 births.15
Yet, despite stillbirths going up after the introduction of the COVID jabs — as opposed to rising beforehand — studies linking stillbirths to SARS-CoV-2 infection have been used to encourage pregnant women to get the shot.16
So, basically, it’s been discovered that the infection itself can cause stillbirth (and we know the spike protein of the virus is the part that causes most of the problems), yet they want you to believe that the spike protein produced by the shot will somehow have a protective impact on pregnancy.
This line of reasoning falls apart even further when you consider that scientists are now saying post-jab menstrual irregularities are likely due to immune responses that arise in response to both the virus and the jab. If that’s true, then why would the COVID shot not also be able to cause stillbirths to the same or greater degree than the virus?
There Are No Data to Support COVID Jab for Pregnant Women
Health officials are adamant that pregnant women get a COVID-19 injection, but the data don’t support its safety. The CDC-sponsored study17 published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that was widely used to support the U.S. recommendation for pregnant women to get injected was corrected in October 2021, with the correction stating:18
“In the table footnotes, the following content should have been appended to the double dagger footnote:
‘No denominator was available to calculate a risk estimate for spontaneous abortions, because at the time of this report, follow-up through 20 weeks was not yet available for 905 of the 1224 participants vaccinated within 30 days before the first day of the last menstrual period or in the first trimester. Furthermore, any risk estimate would need to account for gestational week-specific risk of spontaneous abortion.'”
COVID Jab Affects Male Fertility Too
Other recent research19,20 has found the Pfizer COVID jab also “temporarily impairs semen concentration and motile count” in men. As noted by the authors:21
“The development of COVID-19 vaccinations represents a notable scientific achievement. Nevertheless, concerns have been raised regarding their possible detrimental impact on male fertility …
Thirty-seven SD [semen donors] from three sperm banks that provided 216 samples were included in that retrospective longitudinal multicenter cohort study. BNT162b2 vaccination included two doses, and vaccination completion was scheduled 7 days after the second dose.
The study included four phases: T0 — pre-vaccination baseline control, which encompassed 1–2 initial samples per SD; T1, T2 and T3 — short, intermediate, and long terms evaluations, respectively. Each included 1-3 semen samples per donor provided 15-45, 75-125 and over 145 days after vaccination completion, respectively …
Repetitive measurements revealed −15.4% sperm concentration decrease on T2 (CI −25.5%-3.9%, p = 0.01) leading to total motile count 22.1% reduction (CI −35% – −6.6%, p = 0.007) compared to T0.
Similarly, analysis of first semen sample only and samples’ mean per donor resulted in concentration and total motile count (TMC) reductions on T2 compared to T0 — median decline of 12 million/ml and 31.2 million motile spermatozoa, respectively … on first sample evaluation and median decline of 9.5 × 106 and 27.3 million motile spermatozoa … on samples’ mean examination. T3 evaluation demonstrated overall recovery without …
This longitudinal study focused on SD demonstrates selective temporary sperm concentration and TMC deterioration 3 months after vaccination followed by later recovery verified by diverse statistical analyses.”
As with women’s menstrual problems, the authors blame these adverse effects in men on a “systemic immune response” to the COVID shot. However, while they claim men’s’ reproductive capacity will recover in about three months, this could still be a tremendous problem.
Remember, the mRNA shots are recommended at three-month intervals for the original series, and boosters are now being recommended at varying intervals thereafter. If you destroy a man’s sperm for three months every time he gets a COVID shot, you’re significantly reducing the probability of him fathering a child for a good part of any given year.
Massive Depopulation Underway
Whether accidental or intentional, the fact of the matter is that we’re now seeing an abrupt drop in live births along with an equally sudden rise in excess deaths among adults. The end result will be a reduction in the global population.
Other countries are also seeing unexpected birth rate reductions, nine months after the start of the mass vaccination campaign against COVID. Between January and April 2022, Switzerland’s birth rate was 15% lower than expected, the U.K.’s was down by 10% and Taiwan’s was down 23%.25,26,27
In a July 5, 2022, Counter Signal article, Mike Campbell reported concerns expressed by Hungarian MP Dúró Dóra during a Parliamentary speech:28
“In January this year, something happened that has not happened for decades. The birth rate fell by 20% compared to the same period last year. And what is even more worrying is that the fertility has also fallen — something not seen since 2011 …
[A] researcher at the KRTK Institute of Economics points out that this drastic decline came just nine months after the COVID mass vaccinations began in Hungary.”
After looking into further, Campbell discovered that in the five countries with the highest COVID jab uptake, fertility has dropped by an average of 15.2%, whereas the five countries with the lowest COVID jab uptake have seen an average reduction of just 4.66%.
The U.S. is also showing signs of a drop in live births. Provisional data from North Dakota shows a 10% decline in February 2022, 13% reduction in March and an 11% reduction in April, compared to the corresponding months in 2021.29 Below is a chart from Birth Gauge30 on Twitter comparing live birth data for 2021 and 2022 in a large number of countries.
Take Responsibility for Your Health
At this time, women are not being warned about the risks for miscarriage, menstrual irregularities and the potential for fertility problems and stillbirths, even though all of these safety signals are glaringly obvious. As obstetrician-gynecologist specialist, Dr. James Thorp, told The Epoch Times in April 2022:31
“I’ve seen many, many, many complications in pregnant women, in moms and in fetuses, in children, offspring, fetal death, miscarriage, death of the fetus inside the mom… What I’ve seen in the last two years is unprecedented.”
Tragically, doctors are under a worldwide gag order. They steer patients away from the COVID shot at the risk of losing their medical license. This puts patients in an incredibly risky situation, as most rely on their doctors to tell them the truth. Few expect doctors to lie or hide life saving information from them simply to protect their own career. So, we’re in unprecedented times in more ways than one.
What this means is that you have no choice, really, but to do your own research and gauge the risks as best you can. There are tons of data out there — data that the mainstream media won’t touch, and if they do, they still insist adverse events aren’t a sign of danger. In such situations, you simply have to put on your thinking cap and think it through for yourself.
As of July 15, 2022, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) had logged 1,350,947 adverse event reports following the COVID jab, including 29,635 deaths,32 and there’s evidence that reports are being deleted from the system by the thousands. You can learn more about that in “Thousands of Deaths and Adverse Reactions Deleted From VAERS.”
The safety signals coming from the COVID jabs exceed anything else in medical history. No drug or vaccine has ever been associated with as many injuries and deaths, including harm to the unborn.
At this point, it appears we’re looking at a certain depopulation event. The question then is, are you willing to accept the risks? Are you willing to risk your fertility, even if only temporarily? Are you willing to risk the life of your baby? Are you willing to risk your own? If not, the answer is simple. Don’t take the jab, and if you’ve already taken one or two (or three), never take another.
EDITORS NOTE: This MERCOLA column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MERCOLA Take Control of Your Healthhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMERCOLA Take Control of Your Health2022-07-25 05:32:512022-07-26 13:09:59COVID Jabs Impact Both Male and Female Fertility
Many stores are having Christmas in July events. This is also true of some churches who are celebrating the greatest gift ever given to mankind in July. One such service was held on Sunday, June 24th at the First Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida.
Pastor John Cross began his sermon saying that the Bible tells us that the first Christmas tree may have been the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. This is the first time we have heard this and decided to look at what the Holy Bible says because it is the Word of God.
We decided to look at Bible passages that contain the word “tree.” Here are five passages with tree in them:
Acts 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.”
Acts 10:39: “And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:”
Acts 13:29: “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.”
Galatians 3:13: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:”
1 Peter 2:24: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
A tree is made of wood, so too was the cross upon which Jesus was crucified and then died upon.
As we celebrate Christmas in July, let is never forget who gave us the gift of Christmas and who shed His blood to wipe away all of our sins.
And let us not forget that so long as we believe in Him we shall have life everlasting with God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-07-24 14:31:392022-07-24 14:46:15Was the first Christmas Tree the Cross upon which Jesus was Crucified?
Former President Donald Trump held a rally Friday night at the Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where he voiced his support for Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters. In his speech, Trump criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. economy and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Trump called “the greatest humiliation our country has ever seen.”
Former President Donald Trump, during his "Save America" rally Friday night in Arizona, slammed President Joe Biden over his handling of Afghanistan, the economy, the war in Ukraine, and more.https://t.co/P6nzIDBARW
Trump then addressed January 6th last night in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Trump said of the recent investigation: “Where does it stop? Where does it end? Never forget: Everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people, for whatever reason. They want to damage me in any form so I can no longer represent you,” according to MSN.
In response to being accused of grabbing the steering wheel from a secret service agent on January 6th and throwing food in the White House, Trump stated during Friday’s rally, “And they know that wasn’t true too. But they don’t call back the secret service. You know the secret service wants to testify and say it wasn’t true, but they won’t let them testify because they don’t want to hear the answer. It’s just a horrible thing that’s going on in our country. It’s sick, and the fake news media is totally complicit. These are very dishonest people, many of them.”
“We will never give in, we will never yield, we will never, ever, ever back down,” Trump said during his speech, according to FOX News. “As long as we are unified, the tyrants we are against do not stand a chance because we are Americans who kneel to God and no one else.”
“Rather than targeting Christians, conservatives, and Republicans, the Biden admin should go after street gangs,” Trump stated. “Instead of taking guns away from law-abiding Americans, they should take them away from career criminals and felons,” he continued.
Trump pointed out that we are just four months away from midterms, calling this “the most important election in America’s history.” He said, “If we do not get this done then it is going to be tragic.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-07-24 08:28:142022-07-25 06:41:00‘Kneel To God And No One Else’: Trump Slams Biden, J6 Trial At Arizona Rally
With the Biden Administration’s economic policies devastating the purchasing power of American consumers, home ownership has become out of reach for millions of Americans. What a tragedy.
Surging inflation and interest rates are hammering American consumers and weighing on the housing market.
Mortgage demand fell last week, hitting the lowest point since 2000, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Buyers have lost considerable purchasing power as rates have almost doubled since earlier this year.
The pain in the mortgage market is only getting worse as higher interest rates and inflation hammer American consumers.
Mortgage demand fell more than 6% last week compared with the previous week, hitting the lowest level since 2000, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.
Of course. The people don’t matter. The party of misery spreads misery and suffering. ‘Let them eat electric cars.’ If you hate America, you support the Democrats. If you love America, you’re a Republican. How is co-existence sustainable?
The new New York Times poll is bad news for Biden and bad for America.
It’s not just the 33% approval rating that’s truly worrying. Biden has hit a new polling low, but he hits new polling lows every week. 70% of Democrats still claim to approve of Biden, much as they would a diseased cat, the propped up corpse of Osama bin Laden, or small piece of dried spaghetti as long as it was a Democrat. But only a quarter of the party wants Biden to run again.
Biden’s few remaining brain cells aren’t worried about the 2024 election. They’re worried about the Democrat primaries that he barely survived last time around. And isn’t likely to this time.
64% of Democrats want someone, anyone, other than Biden to run in 2024.
As Biden’s poll numbers have slid down the slopes faster than a falling skier, he hasn’t moved to the center, but to the fringes. Like most of his party, the primary threat comes from the Left. And the more unpopular Biden becomes, the harder he pivots leftward to protect his primary options.
Even if they’re mostly imaginary.
That’s why the poor poll numbers are nothing to celebrate. Biden pretended to run from the center, but never governed from the center. And his growing unpopularity has only made his administration more extreme. Biden doesn’t need America and doesn’t have it anyway.
He needs the Left.
Leftists and Americans wanted opposite things from the Biden administration. Americans wanted stability, sensible policies and an end to the chaos. Leftists wanted endless spending on their agendas, identity politics and a perpetual state of crisis. Biden took office in a locked down city with a heavily military presence, appointed an attorney general bitter at having a Supreme Court seat taken from him and tasked with pursuing partisan grievances. Gargantuan spending bills aggravated the already unstable economy and pushed the country to the brink.
Everything else followed from that.
Biden locked his administration into a leftist worldview that alienated most of the country. The more the rest of the country shuns him, the harder he clings to the “one that brought” him.
Barack Obama.
Biden isn’t popular, but he never was. He first got to the White House riding leftist coattails. He certainly wasn’t elected based on his own popularity, but because the Left waged a scorched earth campaign. The only reason someone so corrupt and inept ever ended up in the White House was as a beneficiary of the outpouring of rabid leftist hatred against conservatives.
The 2020 strategy of lying low and letting the Left rage got him in the White House. And Biden knows that his only shot of getting back in is once again letting the Left do its worst.
Biden’s national poll numbers don’t matter because he didn’t win a popularity contest.
It doesn’t matter if he’s at 41% or 33% or 6%. Biden’s gambit will be once again lying low and letting the Left shape the battlefield. Faced with the likelihood of being a one-termer, his staffers are leftists who aren’t in it for the money or the career development, but are true believers in the “cause”. And he needs leftist donors who aren’t invested in personalities, but in ideology.
Much like Xi, Biden understands that the ‘party’ matters and the public doesn’t. And ‘party’ doesn’t mean the official one with a donkey on the box, but the ideological leftist movement that cares about the things he’s vigorously promoting from critical race theory to gender identity to modern monetary theory and all the theories that in their sum add up to Marxist theory.
Joe Biden likely doesn’t believe any of it, but just as Hunter didn’t have to read Mao’s Little Red Book to cut business deals in China, Biden doesn’t have to understand what he’s promoting.
Biden came into office after outsourcing much of his administration’s policy apparatus to the Bernie and Warren people. The “Big Guy” doesn’t care much about policy. Biden has been anti and pro-abortion, pro and anti-terrorism, and pro and anti-racism depending on the moment.
What Biden cares about is having the big job and whatever benefits flow from it. An egomaniac who kept on lying about his college grades while running for president, he accidentally landed in a position commensurate with his inflated self-image. And one that offers plenty of rewards.
Much as Hillary, another compulsive liar, wrecked her own party and then the country while trying to cling to power no one thought she should have, Biden, even in his diminished state, is not going to let go. In that, Biden is no different than the rest of a gerontocratic oligarchy, men and women like Speaker Pelosi and Senator Bernie Sanders, claiming to speak for the youth.
After generations in power, none of them are eager to let go and accept the inevitable. Especially since the inevitable is no longer as inevitable as it once used to be.
It’s inevitable to most that Biden won’t run and won’t win if he does. And in the normal state of things, that would be true. But we are in a post-polling world in which public opinion is no longer just a reaction to events, but can be directly shaped by manufacturing a series of crises.
And if Biden works hard enough for the Left, perhaps the Left will work to keep him in office.
Some race riots, lockdowns, and crises yet to be unleashed can do wonders for changing people’s perspective. It likely won’t work and may not even be tried, but Biden doesn’t have any other cards to play. And he never did. Biden can’t win elections on his own. So he won’t try.
The more unpopular he becomes, the less likely he is to even bother going through the motions.
Biden may sit in the White House (when he’s not vacationing in Delaware), but he doesn’t work for the American people. He works for the Left. And he may not remember much of anything else, but that is the one thing he has never forgotten. It’s the only reason why he’s here.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-07-24 06:29:402022-07-24 06:29:40The More Biden Tanks In The Polls, The More Insane and Radical He Becomes
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called ‘deep state’ beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024
As many as 50,000 government workers could be on the chopping block
He would clean house of mid-level staffers at the Pentagon, Justice Department, State Department and beyond and bring in ‘America First’ candidates
The order would reclassify tens of thousands of civil servants who were deemed to have some influence over policy as ‘Schedule F’ employees
This would strip them of their employment protections and make them political appointees
By Morgan Phillips, Politics Reporter For Dailymail.Com, 22 July 2022
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called ‘deep state’ beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024 and as many as 50,000 government workers could find themselves on the chopping block.
The former president, if elected again, would move in with a plan being drawn up now to ‘drain the swamp’ and cut tens of thousands of civil servants from what are typically apolitical roles, according to an Axios report.
He would clean house of mid-level staffers at the Pentagon, Justice Department, State Department and beyond and bring in thoroughly vetted candidates who were found to be more closely aligned with his ‘America First’ agenda.
After interviews with over a dozen Trump-world insiders the outlet’s investigation found that Trump is planning to use an executive order called ‘Schedule F,’ which he issued in October 2020 and Biden later rescinded.
The order would reclassify tens of thousands of civil servants who were deemed to have some influence over policy as ‘Schedule F’ employees, which would strip them of their employment protections.
New presidents typically replace about 4,000 political appointees to align agencies with their new agenda, but below them are a mass of federal workers who have strong employment protections and typically continue in their role from one administration to the next.
The Trump official who came up with the Schedule F order said it could apply to as many as 50,000 of the some-two million federal workers. Other Trump allies say the figure will not be nearly that high because firing a smaller segment of anti-Trump ‘bad apples’ would be enough to trigger ‘behavior change.’
Doing so could strip mid-level government staffers of any sense of job stability and set a new precedent forcing future new presidents to seek out and install their own loyalists throughout the bureaucracy.
Russ Vought, the former head of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, is reportedly working on plans to make the security clearance process less onerous so that more government workers could be made political appointees.
‘We are consciously bringing on the toughest and most courageous fighters with the know-how and credibility to crush the deep state,’ Vought told Axios.
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called ‘deep state’ beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024 and as many as 50,000 government workers could find themselves on the chopping block
Donald Trump has plans to purge the so-called ‘deep state’ beyond what any president has done before if he runs for and wins the presidency in 2024 and as many as 50,000 government workers could find themselves on the chopping block
While Trump and many of his former top aides and allies are no longer on speaking terms, the former president is relying on a close cadre of still-trusted former advisors who are working with conservative organizations to line up talent. It’s also thought that for top jobs, Trump will bring in only those who most actively supported his 2020 election fraud claims.
Jeffrey Clark, a controversial lawyer who advocated for a plan to contest the election results and now finds himself in the crosshairs of the Jan. 6 committee and the FBI, is thought to be in line for attorney general.
Sources close to the former president said that Ric Grenell has a decent shot at a secretary of State nomination. As acting director of national intelligence, Grenell was one of Trump’s favorite officials toward the end, as he worked to declassify material from the Trump-Russia investigation. Grenell, who now works on Newsmax, said on the network earlier this year: ‘I’m not going to stop until we prosecute [Trump’s former FBI director] Jim Comey.’
Kash Patel, the chief of staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller at the time of the attack on the Capitol, would likely be in line for a top national security job at the White House. If he could make it through a Senate confirmation, he could even be appointed CIA or FBI director, according to Trump allies.
Patel was a key author behind former Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo accusing the Department of Justice and FBI of abusing surveillance laws in a politically motivated effort to take down Trump.
The former president, if elected again, would move in with a plan being drawn up now to ‘drain the swamp’ and cut tens of thousands of civil servants from what are typically apolitical roles
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-07-24 06:19:122022-07-25 06:39:11Trump Would GUT the Federal Government if He Runs and Wins in 2024
The Democrats work furiously to be even more themselves disgusting and debased then you thought possible. These primitives are destroying civilization.
The city of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has decriminalized littering, public defecation, and urination, despite various business owners decrying the policy.
On Monday, the Kalamazoo City Commission voted to water down some misdemeanor crimes so that they are merely civil infractions in the code of ordinances. Part of their reasoning was that people convicted of these crimes could have their lives negatively affected.
“One thing a lot of people don’t realize is a misdemeanor is for life as much as a felony. So many things come with a permanent record on somebody’s record,” explained Commissioner Chris Praedel.
The commission voted unanimously to accept the changes.
Praedel defended the decision to WXMI-TV.
“We’re not rolling out the welcome mat for crime in the city of Kalamazoo,” said Praedel. “We’re not rolling out the red carpet. We still want there to be accountability and guardrails, and it is still against the law for many of those things on there, to do those actions.”
