‘A perfect storm for the whole food system right now’: One of the world’s largest fertilizer companies warns that every country—even those in Europe—is facing a food crisis

The Ukraine war upended the global economy in many ways. Energy markets have been among the most affected, with declining Russian oil and natural gas exports to the West sparking a domino effect of fuel crises worldwide. But the war has also warped another critical facet of the global economy: food.
Prior to the war, Russia and Ukraine were global breadbaskets as top producers and exporters of wheat, sunflower seeds, and barley. The fighting ended up aggravating hunger and food crises in low-income countries that are dependent on imports. But both Russia and Ukraine are also key cogs in the global fertilizer industry, and the war has triggered a shortage of the critical commodity that few people consider but is nevertheless essential to global food security.
Much as Russian President Vladimir Putin leveraged the world’s reliance on his country’s fossil fuels to weaponize energy supplies during the war, he is doing something very similar with fertilizer and food, Svein Tore Holsether, CEO of Norwegian chemical company Yara International, among the world’s largest fertilizer producers and suppliers, told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday.
Putin’s energy gambit, which sent fossil fuel prices soaring and left Europe on the brink of recession last year, has so far not gone as expected, with a warm winter working against him and Europe able to buy natural gas from elsewhere. But Holsether warned the world’s reliance on Russia for fertilizer threatens more disruption of food supply, adding to existing challenges of logistics bottlenecks and climate change.
“If you look at the role that we have allowed Russia to have in global food supply, we depend on them. How did that happen? What kind of weapon is that? And Putin is weaponizing food,” Holsether said.
“It is sort of a perfect storm for the whole food system right now: very challenging in Europe, of course, with higher prices; even worse in other parts of the world where a human being dies every four seconds as a result of hunger,” he added.

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ISIS-Inspired Terrorist Convicted on All Accounts for 2017 NYC Attack

A federal jury on Thursday convicted ISIS-inspired terrorist Sayfullo Saipov on 28 counts stemming from a deadly incident in 2017 during which he drove a rented truck through numerous civilians.

Prosecutors relayed that Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, had indicated his motivation for the attack came from his interpretation of Islam, which had been inspired by ISIS propaganda.

“‘The Islamic State shall endure.’ These were his words to tell the world why, why he attacked this city, why he targeted innocent civilians, why he turned a bike path into his battlefield, why he ran them over without mercy,” said Assistant US Attorney Jason Richman during the court proceedings, the New York Post reported.

Saipov’s lawyer contended that though he was inspired by ISIS propaganda, Saipov did not carry out his attack in order to join the group outright. Defense attorney David Patton did not deny his client’s guilt for the attack, but merely disputed that he was seeking to join the terror group in so doing.

Twenty-six of the charges Saipov faced were for federal racketeering and stemmed from the allegation that he sought to join the terror group.

Nine of the counts for which the jury convicted him make Saipov eligible to receive the death penalty, according to the Post. The trial will soon proceed to an argument about the application of that penalty.

 

January 27

1302 – Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence.

1606 – The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament begins

1776 – The “noble train of artillery” of heavy guns captured from Fort Ticonderoga New York, Henry Knox in command, arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1785 – The first public university in the U.S., the University of Georgia at Athens, is founded.

1825 – Congress approves the formation of the Indian Territory within what is now the state of Oklahoma.

1880 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp

1939 – First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

1943 – The first American bombing attack on Germany during World War II  takes places when the 8th Air Force sorties 91 B-17 and B-24 bombers to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven.

1945 –  The Soviet Army’s 322nd Rifle Division liberates the surviving inmates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau deathcamp in Poland.

1951 – Above ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger, with B-50 bombers dropping 5 bombs over Frenchman Flat in Nye county Nevada.

1967 – During a launch rehearsal test on Pad 34 of the Kennedy Space Center at 06:31 hrs EST, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire inside their Apollo 1 Command Module

1973 – The signing of the Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War.

1980 – Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, 6 American diplomats secretly make their escape from Iran.

1991 – Over Iraq, USAF pilots, flying F-15s, engage Iraqi jets. Captain Jay Denney shoots down 2 Iraqi MiG-23s, and Captain Ben Powell shoots down an Iraqi MiG-23 and Mirage F-1

1996 – Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

2010 – Apple announces the introduction of the iPad.

2011 – The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sana’a, the capitol city

2013 – During a university student party at the Kiss nightclub in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, 242 people are killed when a fire breaks out from a band igniting pyrotechnics on stage.

Another problem with Gun Violence Archive’s numbers

Supporters of gun control love to use Gun Violence Archive as an authoritative source on the number of shootings we have in this country. The number of mass shootings as compiled by the site–a number that doesn’t reflect what most people think of as a mass shooting, it should be remembered–is presented uncritically by the media.

It happens all the time, and in the wake of two shootings in California, it’s happening yet again. While we know plenty about those two shootings and will likely learn more as we go forward, proponents of gun control site Gun Violence Archive’s total number of mass shootings to show it’s more than those two incidents.

Take this editorial as just one example.

History is full of horrific events in which we shake our heads and ask, “How did that happen? What were they thinking?”

The Holocaust and slavery are two prime examples.

It begs the question of what is transpiring today that will be regarded by future generations as deplorable. That historians will record with the hope that they will never be repeated.

Climate change, yes. And then there is gun violence.

California has had three mass shootings in the last four days. Seven people were killed and one injured in Half Moon Bay on Monday. One person was killed and six injured at an East Oakland gas station later that evening. Eleven people were killed and nine injured in Monterey Park on Saturday.

We are not even at the end of the first month of 2023. Yet the Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay shootings bring the number of mass shootings (in which four or more people were killed or injured) to 39 this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That follows the 647 mass shootings recorded in 2022 and 690 mass shootings in 2021.

Of course, what follows is the true-to-form call for gun control we typically see from many editorial boards.

Now, in the wake of two deadly mass shootings, I sort of get it. However, they’re not just holding those two incidents up as why we somehow need gun control. They’re holding Gun Violence Archive’s numbers up as well.

And yet, what do we know about any of those shootings?

Well, we know three or more people were injured at those shootings–the low standard the site uses to categorize something as a mass shooting in the first place, which includes gang warfare, drivebys, and so on–but little else.

If we’re going to have a conversation about how we need gun control, about how certain guns shouldn’t be allowed in private hands, or how certain people should be legally barred from buying guns, shouldn’t we also need to know about any of those hundreds upon hundreds of so-called mass shootings?

I ask because I know statistically where most of those weapons came from, and it’s not from lawful gun sales.

How can you say that the gun laws are insufficient when so few of these hundreds of “mass shootings” were carried out with a lawfully-obtained firearm in the first place?

See, Gun Violence Archive is a favorite among the media and anti-gun set (but I repeat myself), yet it only shows part of the picture. To cite their numbers without important context on where those guns were obtained amounts to little more than trying to view a masterpiece by only looking at one single bit with a microscope.

It’s not a full picture by any stretch.

And it matters because while actual mass shootings make headlines, the real violence problem in our country happens in our inner cities. They get counted by Gun Violence Archive to try and push gun control when all the gun laws in the world aren’t going to help.

Lawyers who helped win US Supreme Court case train sights on Illinois assault weapon ban

CHICAGO — Two Second Amendment lawyers who helped win a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a New York concealed carry gun law are now challenging the constitutionality of Illinois’ assault weapons ban – with help from the National Rifle Association.

Paul Clement, who successfully argued the New York case, is one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the latest federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Illinois’ two-week old ban.

Clement is a former partner in Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington, D.C., office who served as solicitor general of the United States, representing the government in cases before the nation’s top court from 2004 to 2008, during the George W. Bush Administration.

Clement and attorney Erin Murphy began their own firm after Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis decided it would no longer handle Second Amendment-related litigation. Murphy, who was part of the New York case, is also working on the challenge to Illinois’ assault weapons ban, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of Illinois.

Plaintiffs in the new federal lawsuit are Sparta resident Caleb Barnett, Marion resident Brian Norman, Benton-based Hood’s Guns & More, Benton-based Pro Gun and Indoor Range and the National Sports Shooting Foundation, Inc.

Although the NRA is not listed as a plaintiff, a spokesperson for the organization told the Sun-Times it joined the National Sports Shooting Foundation to bring forth the suit, similar to what it did in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which was ultimately taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Demand for ‘Commonsense Gun Laws’ is the Road to Citizen Disarmament

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Polls show that a majority of Americans want Congress to pass commonsense gun laws,” Dave Saldana asserts for Reader’s Digest in an opinionated hit piece on the right to keep and bear arms posted (under “news,” naturally) on MSN. “These laws would not ban gun ownership or repeal the Second Amendment.”

Reader’s Digest…how disappointing. I guess with all the other woke “capitalist rope-sellers,” seeing them turn was to be expected.

What the “majority of Americans want” depends not only on where the polls lead them with calculated questions but also on what they actually know about the “laws” they are being queried on, which in this case, is mostly what the media tells them. That, and rights aren’t contingent on majority rule—otherwise, two of us could do whatever we wanted to one of you.

Funny how when you test them on it, protecting minorities isn’t really what the left wants to do at all. Unless by “minority,” you mean the global elites…

As for the assurance that 2A and guns are safe if you give the grabbers what they want, the rest of Saldana’s regurgitation of tired talking points and goals they’ve let slip for decades show that to be a lie. And since the right it recognizes was not created by the government, something that has been recognized in the Cruikshank and Heller cases by the Supreme Court, repealing the Second Amendment would not eliminate what it was worded to protect, the ravings of retired dotard “justices” notwithstanding.

In any case, saying they won’t take all guns when they have no legitimate authority to take any is more than a bit like saying “We don’t want to rape you, just molest you a bit.”

The only rational response to that is “No. Your move.” Besides, they really do want to rape you.

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January 26

1564 – The Council of Trent establishes an official distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

1699 – Under terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz, signed in Sremski Karlovci Serbia, the Great Turkish War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated at the Battle of Zenta by the Holy League, officially ends. The Ottomans ceding control of Central Europe, and establishing the Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in the region.

1837 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.

1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States.

1855 – Under terms of the The Point No Point Treaty signed at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. the  S’Klallam, Chimakum, and the Skokomish tribes cede the northern Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Peninsula to the U.S.

1861 – The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.

1863 – Massachusetts Governor, John Albion Andrew receives permission from the Secretary of War to raise a militia regiment of men of African descent, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

1870 – Virginia rejoins the Union under Reconstruction

1885 – Troops loyal to the purported Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, conquer Khartoum, killing the Governor-General Charles George Gordon.

1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan, weighing 3,106.75 carats (that’s 1 pound 5 ounces) , is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.

1911 – Glenn Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane.

1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

1920 – Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company.

1945 – While in command of B Company 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, near Holtzwihr, France, 2nd Lieutenant Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming, at the time, the largest aperture optical telescope.

1980 – Under terms of the Camp David Accords, diplomatic and business relations between Egypt and Israel are formally established.

1991 – Flying F-15s over Iraq, USAF Cpts, Rhory Draeger, Tony Schiavi and Cesar Rodriguez each engage and shootdown Iraqi Mig-23 fighters.

1992 – Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia will stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

1998 – On live T.V., President Clinton openly lies when he denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2009 – Nadya Suleman, the “Octomom” gives birth to the world’s first surviving octuplets at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Offices in Bellflower, California/

2020 – A Sikorsky S-76B helicopter flying from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport, crashes in Calabasas, 30 miles west of Los Angeles, killing all 9 aboard, including Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna.

 

The nomenklatura is real. It sprang to life with the first law Congress passed that restricted the people and exempted goobermint.

American Nomenklatura.

A few weeks after Elon Musk formally acquired Twitter in October 2022, a senior official at the company who quit in the wake of Musk’s arrival took to the New York Times to pour cold water on Musk’s vision for the social-media platform. Yoel Roth, whose title had been Head of Trust and Safety, sought to assure his fellow progressives. Roth wrote that even if Musk wanted to remove the web of content-moderation rules and procedures Roth had helped create and enforce, the tech billionaire would be unable to achieve his aim. “The moderating influences of advertisers, regulators and, most critically of all, app stores may be welcome for those of us hoping to avoid an escalation in the volume of dangerous speech online,” he wrote.

What Roth meant was this: No Internet platform is an island, and Musk simply didn’t have the power to do what he wanted despite his 100 percent ownership of the social-media platform. It wasn’t merely that Musk would have to contend with Twitter’s progressive workforce, which believes that some political speech is so awful that it should be throttled or banned. He would also come into conflict with European regulators, the Federal Trade Commission, and Congress, all of whom also seek to limit what can be said online. And what about the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a trade organization of some of the world’s biggest consumer brands that advocates for “online safety”—a euphemism for protecting social-media users from accounts that may offend, harass, or trigger them?

He would also be dogged by advocacy groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which have found a new and lucrative mission monitoring social-media platforms for hate speech. They work hand in hand with elite journalists and think tankers, who have taken to tracking the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. In Washington, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have personnel whose job it is to alert social-media companies to foreign propaganda and terrorism. In Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control seeks to quarantine dangerous information that might lead Americans to forgo masks or vaccine boosters. And perhaps most important, there are other Silicon Valley giants—Apple and Google—that provide the digital storefronts or app stores that Twitter needs to update their software and continue to run its service.

Call it the “content-moderation industrial complex.” In just a few short years, this nomenklatura has come to constitute an implicit ruling class on the Internet, one that collectively determines what information and news sources the rest of us should see on major platforms. Talk about “free speech” and “the First Amendment” may actually be beside the point here. The Twitter that Musk bought was part of a larger machine—one that attempts to shape conversations online by amplifying, muzzling, and occasionally banning participants who run afoul of its dogma.

The existence of this nomenklatura has been known for a few years. But thanks to Musk and his decision to make Twitter’s internal communications and policies available to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and others, more detail is now known on why and how this elite endeavors to protect us from all manner of wrongthink.

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Sen. Hawley’s Insider Trading Bill Returns To Congress Under New Title ‘PELOSI Act.’

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) reintroduced his 2022 insider trading bill Tuesday that would ban lawmakers and their spouses from holding and trading individual stocks and force political figures to return profits to American citizens under a new title dubbed the “PELOSI Act.”

The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act comes just over a year after Hawley introduced the original bill, in which he accuses politicians of somehow outperforming the stock market every year they hold office.

This time around, the senator’s updated version takes a jab at California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who many Republican lawmakers had slammed after her husband, Paul Pelosi, sold up to $5 million worth of shares in Nvidia, a California company that produces semiconductors, just before the House voted on a bill surrounding the domestic chip manufacturing industry.

“For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people,” Hawley said in a news release.

In addition to prohibiting members of Congress from taking advantage of the market and wielding their power and privilege over American citizens, The PELOSI Act would also ban said politicians from holding diversified mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or exempt U.S. Treasury bonds.

Six months upon assuming office, the bill would require new congressional members to divest or place prohibited holdings in a blind trust — to remain there while they are serving the American people.

Spouses of American politicians in Congress would also have to forfeit any investment profits back to the American people through the U.S. Treasury.

Violation of the Act could result in losing the ability to deduct the losses of those investments on their income taxes and other additional fines.

Earlier this month, Business Insider reported at least 78 congressional members, Democrats and Republicans alike, had violated a 2012 law known as the STOCK Act — Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — which lawmakers designed to combat insider trading among lawmakers and force public servants to disclose their personal financial dealings, including any stock trade made by themselves, a spouse, or a dependent child.

Still, according to the report, lawmakers allegedly broke the law, citing ignorance, clerical issues, and accounting mistakes.

“As members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives are tasked with providing oversight of the same companies they invest in, yet they continually buy and sell stocks, outperforming the market time and again,” Hawley said. “While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hardworking Americans pay the price.”

Every two years like clockwork, her staff dusts off the same old bill, changes the title to match the year, and resubmits it. It will never go anywhere, and everyone knows that, but it’s her pet bill ever since the old ’94-’04 ban didn’t have the votes to get re-enacted. This will go on until she either finally decides to retire, or one day doesn’t wake up.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein Introduces Bill to Ban 205 ‘Assault Weapons’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation Monday to ban “205 military-style assault weapons by name” and prohibit transfer of “high capacity” magazines.

Feinstein cited the January 21, 2023, Monterey Park shooting as the impetus for the reintroduction of the “assault weapons” ban.

She said, “We were tragically reminded this weekend of the deadly nature of assault weapons when a shooter used one to kill 11 people and injure 9 more at a Lunar New Year celebration in California.”

In addition to banning the “sale, manufacture, transfer and importation” of 205 specific firearms, Feinstein’s bill requires “a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.” (This would apply to guns grandfathered in, if the bill were to become law.)

Her bill also contains an addendum to “[prohibit] the sale of assault weapons to individuals under 21.”

The alleged Monterey Park attacker was 72 years old and Monday’s alleged Half Moon Bay attacker was 67 years old.

Police say shooting at Roswell business was self-defense

ROSWELL, N.M. (KRQE) – Roswell Police are saying the shooting death of a man will be ruled self-defense. Police say Brian Jaramillo was shot multiple times Monday morning by his wife inside a business the two owned.

Investigators determined Brian Jaramillo was beating his wife and threatened to kill her when the shooting occurred. Police say they do not plan to file charges against the woman.

I wouldn’t say she purposefully lying. She just likes that paycheck too much to actually do any research on her own for the facts of the matter.
She reads from out of a notebook that has all the approved answers for probable questions already provided for her. And if it doesn’t have an answer for her to parrot, she always uses one of two or three standard ‘boilerplate’ deferrals she’s memorized.

FACT CHECK: WH Press Sec. Falsely Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Reduced Mass Shootings

CLAIM: White house press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed the result of the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban was that “mass shootings went down.”

VERDICT: False.

Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s press conference by talking about the mass shootings that have been occurring in California, the state that has more gun control than any other state in the Union.

Ironically, one of California’s gun controls is an “assault weapons” ban.

Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre pushed for an “assault weapons” ban at the federal level, saying, “The last time we had an ‘assault weapons’ ban on the books, thanks to the President and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) leadership, mass shootings actually went down.”

Jean-Pierre’s claim is 180 degrees out of sync with the information discovered and published by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

Breitbart News reported the NIJ’s findings, which were originally published just as the “assault weapons” ban was coming to an end. The NIJ made clear that the ban could not be credited with any reduction in crime.

The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” It put matters into perspective by pointing out that “assault weapons” were “rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”

Breitbart News noted on January 18, 2013, that “’assault weapons’ were tied to less than .012 per cent of overall deaths in America in recent years (2011)”. This point is poignant, in light of the NIJ report showing “assault weapons” were “rarely used” in crime to begin with. The guns are bulky and difficult to conceal, making them a bad choice for criminals seeking to avoid detection.

Also, the January 21 Monterey Park attacker used a pistol, and NBC Bay Area’s Christine Ni noted that the January 23 Half Moon Bay attacker appears to have used a handgun as well.

Jean-Pierre’s claim that the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban reduced mass shootings does not square with the Department of Justice’s NIJ report.

Nah…SanFranNan would never do something like that, would she?

Just a coinkidink I’m sure………

January 25

1554 – São Paulo, (Saint Paul) Brazil, is founded.

1585 – Walter Raleigh is knighted, shortly after renaming a region of North America “Virginia”, in honor of Queen Elizabeth I.

1787 – In the largest action of Shays’s Rebellion, Shaysites march on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry with 4 killed and 20 wounded.

1819 – The University of Virginia is chartered, with Thomas Jefferson one of its founders.

1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Bell Telephone Company of New York and the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company, Ltd with licenses to sell telephones in Greece, Turkey, South Africa, India, Japan, China, ‘and other Asian countries’.

1915 – Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.

1945 – The ‘Battle of the Bulge’ ends with the final collapse of the German  offensive in the Ardennes

1947 – Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”, which simulates firing an artillery shell, the first ever electronic game.

1961 – In Washington, D.C., President Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.

1971 – Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.

1990 – Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707, en route from from Bogotá, Colombia, to New York City crashes in Cove Neck, New York, while attempting to land, killing 73 of the 158 passengers and crew on board.

1993 – Outside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Mir Aimal Kansi shoots and kills 2 CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight, wounding 3 others.

1996 – In Delaware, Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be executed by hanging in the U.S.

1999 – A 6.2 magnitude earthquake centered about 25 miles west south west of Ibagué, Colombia kills at least 1,000.

2019 – A Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine tailing dam collapses in Brumadinho, Brazil, killing at least 7 people and leaving 200 missing.

 

Earth’s inner core may be reversing its rotation

Our planet may have had a recent change of heart.

Earth’s inner core may have temporarily stopped rotating relative to the mantle and surface, researchers report in the January 23 Nature Geoscience. Now, the direction of the inner core’s rotation may be reversing — part of what could be a roughly 70-year-long cycle that may influence the length of Earth’s days and its magnetic field — though some researchers are skeptical.

“We see strong evidence that the inner core has been rotating faster than the surface, [but] by around 2009 it nearly stopped,” says geophysicist Xiaodong Song of Peking University in Beijing. “Now it is gradually mov[ing] in the opposite direction.”

Such a profound turnaround might sound bizarre, but Earth is volatile (SN: 1/13/21). Bore through the ever-shifting crust and you’ll enter the titanic mantle, where behemoth masses of rock flow viscously over spans of millions of years, sometimes upwelling to excoriate the overlying crust (SN: 1/11/17, SN: 3/2/17, SN: 2/4/21). Delve deeper and you’ll reach Earth’s liquid outer core. Here, circulating currents of molten metals conjure our planet’s magnetic field (SN: 9/4/15). And at the heart of that melt, you’ll find a revolving, solid metal ball about 70 percent as wide as the moon.

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Near everything on the gun grabber’s list of laws and not a one of them actually do anything to stop those bent on mayhem and murder.

Newsom: Second Amendment turning into “suicide pact”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is lashing out at gun owners, the firearms industry, and even the Founding Fathers as he tries to spin another failure of the state’s gun control laws into an attack on the Second Amendment.

Speaking to CBS News on Monday evening, Newsom claimed that while he has no “ideological opposition” to “responsible” gun owners, at least in theory, the shootings in Monterey Park demand a further crackdown on the right to keep and bear arms.

“Nothing about this is surprising. Everything about this is infuriating,” he told “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell on Monday. “The Second Amendment is becoming a suicide pact.”

Newsom clarified that he has “no ideological opposition” against people who “responsibly” own guns and get background checks and training on how to use them.

But he told O’Donnell that current regulations are falling short.

Maybe because the gun control laws Newsom favors are aimed at legal gun owners instead of violent criminals?

Newsom mentioned the role of mental health in mass shootings, but he singled out gun access as a factor exacerbating the problem.

“I’m really proud of the work we’ve done in this space, but we’ve had decades of neglect,” he said. “But respectfully, I will submit that regardless of the challenges it relates to behavioral health, there’s not a country in the world that doesn’t experience behavioral health issues.”

And there’s not a state in the U.S. that regulates and restricts gun ownership to the extent that California does, and yet according to the FBI it was California that had the most most active shooter incidents in 2021. Part of that may simply be an artifact of California’s large population, but it’s also evidence that restricting a constitutional right to self-defense in the name of public safety doesn’t stop committed killers nearly as effectively as it prevents peaceable gun owners from exercising their 2A rights.

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California all over the major news media, but Chicago’s usual weekends?

Chicago shootings: 30 shot, 7 fatally in weekend gun violence across city, police say

CHICAGO — At least 30 people have been shot, seven fatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said.

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