Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

CELLULAR REJUVENATION THERAPY SAFELY REVERSES SIGNS OF AGING IN MICE

Age may be just a number, but it’s a number that often carries unwanted side effects, from brittle bones and weaker muscles to increased risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute, in collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche group, have shown that they can safely and effectively reverse the aging process in middle-aged and elderly mice by partially resetting their cells to more youthful states.

“We are elated that we can use this approach across the life span to slow down aging in normal animals. The technique is both safe and effective in mice,” says co-corresponding author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory and holder of the Roger Guillemin Chair. “In addition to tackling age-related diseases, this approach may provide the biomedical community with a new tool to restore tissue and organismal health by improving cell function and resilience in different disease situations, such as neurodegenerative diseases.”

As organisms age, it is not just their outward appearances and health that change; every cell in their bodies carries a molecular clock that records the passage of time. Cells isolated from older people or animals have different patterns of chemicals along their DNA—called epigenetic markers—compared to younger people or animals. Scientists know that adding a mixture of four reprogramming molecules—Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and cMyc, also known as “Yamanaka factors”—to cells can reset these epigenetic marks to their original patterns. This approach is how researchers can dial back adult cells, developmentally speaking, into stem cells.

In 2016, Izpisua Belmonte’s lab reported for the first time that they could use the Yamanaka factors to counter the signs of aging and increase life span in mice with a premature aging disease. More recently, the team found that, even in young mice, the Yamanaka factors can accelerate muscle regeneration. Following these initial observations, other scientists have used the same approach to improve the function of other tissues like the heart, brain and optic nerve, which is involved in vision.

In the new study, Izpisua Belmonte and his colleagues tested variations of the cellular rejuvenation approach in healthy animals as they aged. One group of mice received regular doses of the Yamanaka factors from the time they were 15 months old until 22 months, approximately equivalent to age 50 through 70 in humans. Another group was treated from 12 through 22 months, approximately age 35 to 70 in humans. And a third group was treated for just one month at age 25 months, similar to age 80 in humans.

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Experts warned NATO expansion would lead to War; but nobody listened

Specifically, experts have consistently warned that NATO’s eastward expansion would provoke conflict with Russia. So, this begs the question, how did we get here if so many people warned about it? Before getting into the answer, here are some examples of those warnings.

For starters, the top American Russia scholar George Kennan, the man who laid the foundation for US Cold War foreign-policy strategy, said NATO’s expansion into Central Europe in the 1990s was “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” He warned that expanding NATO would damage the US-Russia relationship so deeply that Russia would never become a partner and would remain an enemy.

The US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991 penned an essay nine days before the invasion, answering the question of whether the brewing crisis was, at that point, avoidable. “In short, yes,” he explained. On whether it was predictable, “Absolutely. NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War.”

Leading international relations scholar John Mearsheimer gave an interview after the Russian invasion, explaining that the situation “started in April 2008, at the summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of [NATO].”

According to him, “The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.” Mearsheimer discussed in the interview, as he has maintained for years on this issue, that the issue of Ukraine joining NATO is key to Russia’s core national security interests.

The famed Russian-studies scholar Stephen Cohen likewise warned in 2014, during that year’s conflict in Ukraine involving Russia, that “if we move NATO forces toward Russia’s borders … it’s obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off. This is existential.”

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one of the most widely regarded American strategic thinkers of all time, said in a 2014 op-ed that “Ukraine should not join NATO.” This is because it would make Ukraine a theater in an East-West confrontation. He said that “to treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West – especially Russia and Europe – into a cooperative international system.”

There are many others, including former US Secretary of Defense William Perry, Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner Jnr., economist Jeffrey Sachs, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, former CIA director Bill Burns, former US Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and others listed by Arnaud Bertrand in a great Twitter thread on this topic.

With all of this out there, widely known and heavily discussed, we arrive back to that question: why? Well, it most likely has to do with controlling Europe and making sure that NATO itself doesn’t fall apart. In that sense, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ensured this goal and then some.

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Flashback ’97: Sen. Biden Says NATO Expansion Would Spark War With Russia

In 1997, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) warned that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would result in “vigorous and hostile” action by Russia in Europe.

“I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term, for admission – having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the countries coming in – would be to admit the Baltic states now, in terms of NATO-Russian, US-Russian relations,” Biden said during an event held by the Atlantic Council, NATO’s de facto think tank.

“And if there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped, in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction, I don’t mean military, in Russia, it would be that,” he continued, adding that Russia would be pushed into an alliance with China and even Iran.

At the time of Biden’s remarks, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were actively seeking to join NATO.

They later did join NATO in 1999.

Notably, ex-Russia ambassador William Burns – now Joe Biden’s CIA director – admitted in a 2008 security cable leaked by WikiLeaks that NATO expansion to Ukraine would result in a war with Russia and a civil war in Ukraine.

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The Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson

On January 30, 1835, politicians gathered in the Capitol Building for the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren Davis. It was a dreary, misty day and onlookers observed that it was one of the rare occasions that could bring the fiercest of political rivals side by side on peaceable terms. But the peace wasn’t meant to last.

President Andrew Jackson was among their number that day. At 67, Jackson had survived more than his fair share of maladies and mishaps—some of them self-provoked, such as the bullet lodged in his chest from a duel 30 years earlier. “General Jackson is extremely tall and thin, with a slight stoop, betokening more weakness than naturally belongs to his years,” wrote Harriet Martineau, a British social theorist, in her contemporaneous travelogue Retrospect of Western Travel.  

Six years into his presidency, Jackson had used bluster and fiery speeches to garner support for his emergent Democratic coalition. He used his veto power far more often than previous presidents, obstructing Congressional action and making political enemies in the process. Jackson’s apparent infirmity at the funeral belied his famous spitfire personality, which would shortly become apparent.

As Jackson exited the East Portico at the end of the funeral, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed painter, accosted him. Lawrence pulled a Derringer pistol from his jacket, aimed at Jackson, and fired. Although the cap fired, the bullet failed to be discharged.

As Lawrence withdrew a second pistol, Jackson charged his would-be assassin. “Let me alone! Let me alone!” he shouted. “I know where this came from.” He then attempted to batter the attacker with his cane. Lawrence fired his second gun—but this one, too, misfired.

Within moments, Navy Lieutenant Thomas Gedney and Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett had subdued Lawrence and hurried the president off to a carriage so he could be transported to the White House. When Lawrence’s two pistols were later examined, both were found to be properly loaded and well functioning. They “fired afterwards without fail, carrying their bullets true and driving them through inch boards at thirty feet,” said U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton. An arms expert later calculated that the likelihood of both pistols misfiring was 125,000 to 1.

It was the first attempt to assassinate a sitting president, and in the aftermath, attention was focused less on how to keep the President safe and more on the flinging of wild accusations. Jackson himself was convinced the attack was politically motivated, and charged rival politician George Poindexter with hiring Lawrence. No evidence was ever found of this, and Poindexter was cleared of all wrongdoing.

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Juror No. 50 Pleads the Fifth, Is Granted Immunity in Maxwell Trial

Juror No. 50, who’s at the center of a possible mistrial in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking case, appeared in federal court on March 8 where he plead the Fifth Amendment—the Constitutional right to refuse to answer questions in order to avoid incriminating himself.

The Honorable Alison J. Nathan, the judge who presided over the case in December, granted him immunity from prosecution with the exception of perjury.

“You need to answer my questions today and you need to answer truthfully,” she instructed the juror, who chose not to disclose his actual name.

Soon after the jury’s Dec. 29 guilty verdict on five of six counts of sex trafficking of a minor, Juror No. 50 stated publicly he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and had made this known to his fellow jurors during deliberations.

At the center of the issue is the questionnaire potential jurors filled out prior to selection.

Juror No. 50 did not accurately answer questions relating to his childhood, sexual abuse at the hands of a stepbrother and his friend, prompting Maxwell’s defense to push for a new trial.

Nathan read the pertinent questions with his responses, which were written on Nov.4, 2021, the first day he reported for jury duty.

Juror No. 50 selected “no” to the first question that referred to sexual abuse, asking if he, a friend, or a family member had ever been a victim of it.

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California authorities RAID three preschools to enforce mask mandates, separating children from adults

A state agency in California allegedly conducted mask raids on a pre-school and interviewed children alone without parental consent. According to parents, the three locations of the Aspen Leaf preschool in San Diego were simultaneously “raided” in January. This after the school was forthright and clear with parents and regulators about their decision to not mask the young students in their care.

The Voice of San Diego reported that officials separated the preschoolers, aged one- to four-years-old, from each other and the adults at the locations to question the children about the school’s masking policies.

In their decision to not mask the pre-schoolers, Aspen Leaf’s owners believed that since the pre-schoolers would not be masked while eating or sleeping, there was no point masking them for the rest of the time, either. The owners also felt that the masks would hinder the children’s development.

The California Department of Social Services is responsible for overseeing compliance in preschools. Though regulators legally have the authority to isolate and interview, children’s parents at Aspen Leaf stated in a complaint that they believed that should only be done in extreme cases, such as alleged child abuse.

According to The Voice, Kevin Gaines, deputy director of child care licensing, wrote to one Aspen Leaf parent, who lodged a complaint, that regulators “…determined that the interviews were conducted in an appropriate manner and were a necessary component of the required complaint investigation.”

He added that “Staff are trained to conduct interviews with children in a manner that avoids causing undue stress,” and that Aspen Leaf adult staff were in the “line of sight” of each child during interviews.

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Here’s The Full List Of Every Lie Joe Biden Has Told As President: 140 And Counting

More than one year into President Joe Biden’s time in the White House and the end to his lies is nowhere in sight. Here is part three of The Federalist’s rigorous coverage keeping the Biden administration accountable with substantive fact-checking throughout the president’s tenure. 

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Mother, 32, who became face of Chicago Teachers Union’s push to keep schools closed after they claimed she died of COVID caught from student actually DRANK herself to death, medical examiner reveals

A Chicago mother who the teachers’ union claimed died when a COVID-positive student was sent home to quarantine as they rallied for more COVID protocols actually died of alcoholism, it emerged on Monday. 

Denisha Henry, the 32-year-old mother of an eighth-grade student at Jensen Elementary Scholastic Academy in the East Garfield Park district of Chicago, died on September 24.

The day before, Shenitha Curry, 44, had died of pneumonia from COVID, with diabetes and hypertension as contributing factors. She was not vaccinated.

Soon after, the Chicago Teachers’ Union claimed at a rally that both mothers caught COVID from a child at the school, where 11 out of 17 classrooms were in quarantine.

But according to a Cook County Medical Examiner’s report obtained by Chicago City Wire on Monday, Henry actually died of chronic ethanolism – a term coroners use to describe someone who died of alcoholism.

Now, parents in the Chicago Public School system say the teachers’ union should be ashamed for misrepresenting her death in an effort to deride the school system for its handling of the pandemic.

‘My God, the burden they placed on those young children who lost their mothers. Telling them basically you killed your mothers by going to school,’ one parent, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, said.

‘Shame on them. This proves they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.’ 

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A Surprising Explanation Of Russia’s Invasion From A Former Top-Level CIA Official

A surprising op-ed in MSNBC arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was likely “preventable” if the US and NATO had merely tried to take a path of muscular diplomacy and potential compromise appears to have slipped passed the mainstream media censors and gate-keepers. 

Since the start of the Thursday Feb.24 invasion, the prevailing narrative concerning Russia’s motives has been largely limited to an ultra-simplistic hollywoodwesque story that goes something like this: one day a big bully and monster named Putin decided he wanted to invade and kill people in a neighboring country, and that he further wants to “resurrect the old Soviet Union”. 

But in a refreshingly realist op-ed piece, MSNBC political columnist Zeeshan Aleem exposed the self-serving Washington narrative which was intended more for the consumption of masses as false. Aleem points to a much more complex and nuanced reality, reminding the public of what should be obvious to any student of history – that the top diplomats and US officials who oversaw post-Soviet negotiations with Russia over Europe’s security order in the 1990’s knew full well that if NATO ever got expanded up to Russia’s borders, it would be suicide. It was predicted decades ago that war would be triggered in such a scenario.

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