January 13 Safe Tech International News and Notes

Bruce Gagnon on Wars in Space, Salon on slanted news - exemplified by how Havana is being covered, LPG Frig, Dariusz Leszczynski re EHS

FEATURED:

THE POWER COUPLE SPACE AND WARARE: Satellites & EMF space-based warfare Our interview with Bruce Gagnon | The US Space Force | Musk | How to take back our sky 40 MINUTES AUDIO Satellites & EMF space-based warfare In today’s episode, we discuss:

• How Bruce Gagnon became involved in Space4Peace

• How Nazi scientists inspired today’s US Space Force

• How NASA will be testing nuclear rocket engines right over us

• Elon Musk, nuclear warfare on Mars, and The Mars Society

• How space law is being rewritten as we speak

• The achilles heel of The US Space Force

FEATURED

Keith Cutter from Keith’s Substack New Series: Radical Living for Low-EMF Survival Bottled LPG Refrigerator This series is not for everyone. It’s for those who, as a life priority, must achieve the lowest possible synthetic EMF exposures while still meeting their basic needs. Radical Living for Low-EMF Survival offers practical, unconventional solutions for essentials like lighting, refrigeration, heating, and other basic comforts. These strategies are tailored for those willing to embrace an alternative lifestyle—one where minimizing synthetic EMF exposure is not just a preference but an absolute necessity. [] Bottled LPG Refrigerators The first essay in the Radical Living for Low-EMF Survival series delves into the promises, nuances, and cautions of a remarkably liberating technology: bottled LPG Refrigerators. [] Bottled LPG refrigerators offer numerous advantages in stark contrast to AC-powered refrigerators—which are surrounded by AC electric fields, generate significant AC magnetic fields with a high-duty cycle, emit dirty electricity, and potentially produce RF radiation. They operate almost silently, require no electric power (aside from an internal light powered by replaceable or rechargeable batteries), and make no radio-frequency radiation, AC electric fields, AC magnetic fields, or dirty electricity.

NEWS AND NOTES:

AGRICULTURE FOOD SOLUTIONS: Gavin Mounsey from Gavin’s Newsletter Full R-Future 2025 Presentation (with transcript and captions available)

Designing Bio-cultural Refugia : Seeding Ancient Wisdom in the Fertile Soils of Modern Regenerative Knowledge Incase you guys missed it in the R-Future Conference, the video above is my full presentation. In the presentation I talk about the concept of refugia (both cultural and biological forms) and then discuss the immense potential we can unlock when we combine them in one space. I explore terms like ethnoecology and talk about pathways to intentionally create regenerative counter-cultures (aka “ethnogenesis”) and how we might each explore ancestral wisdom and apply ancient regenerative worldviews in our modern gardens and designs. I invite you to come on a journey to learn about how some ecologically literate and socially advanced ancient cultures preserved, propagated and applied place based wisdom without the existence of a centralized state authority. This will be a call to remember, rediscover, reconnect and gather the shards of our often shattered ancestral cultural past and merge those shards with the resilient substance of modern ecological knowledge and regenerative soil science. Talk a walk with me to gather ancient seeds and plant them in a garden of hope for future generations. The article I posted that offers links to all the books, musicians and articles/essays I mentioned in my presentation has now been updated with additional links to projects, individuals and businesses that are engaging in creating Biocultural Refugia in their own way. If you missed it, here it is : Designing Bio-cultural Refugia : seeding ancient wisdom in the fertile soils of modern Regenerative knowledge

AI: Marcus on AI The impeccable logic of Sam Altman GREAT READER COMMENT: “Amazing how simple your business model becomes when you eliminate duty of care.”

AI: Elon Musk says AI has already gobbled up all human-produced data to train itself and now relies on hallucination-prone synthetic data

AI: Garrison Lovely Is AI Hitting a Wall or Moving Faster Than Ever?

My latest in TIME plus assessing media coverage of o3 Smarter models can scheme better [] Meanwhile, there's a bunch of new research finding that smarter models are more capable of scheming, deception, sabotage, etc. In TIME, I spelled out my fear that this mostly invisible progress will leave us dangerously unprepared for what's coming. I worried that politicians and the public will ignore this AI progress, because they can't see the improvements first-hand. All the while, AI companies will continue to advance toward their goal of automating AI research, bootstrapping the automation of everything else. Right now, the industry is mostly self-regulating, and, at least in the US, that looks unlikely to change anytime soon — unless there's some kind of "warning shot" that motivates action. Of course, there may be no warning shots, or we may ignore them. Given that many of the leading figures in the field say "no one currently knows how to reliably align AI behavior with complex values," this is cause for serious concern. And the stakes are high, as I wrote in TIME: The worst-case scenario is that AI systems become scary powerful but no warning shots are fired (or heeded) before a system permanently escapes human control and acts decisively against us.

AI: AI goes nuclear

Big tech is turning to old reactors (and planning new ones) to power the energy-hungry data centers that artificial intelligence systems need. The downsides of nuclear power—including the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation—have been minimized or simply ignored. [] When Microsoft bought a 407-acre pumpkin farm in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, it wasn’t to grow Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Microsoft is growing data centers—networked computer servers that store, retrieve, and process information. And those data centers have a growing appetite for electricity. Microsoft paid a whopping $76 million for the pumpkin farm, which was assessed at a value of about $600,000. The company, which has since bought other nearby properties to expand its footprint to two square miles, says it will spend $3.3 billion to build its 2-million-square-foot Wisconsin data center and equip it with the specialized computer processors used for artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft and OpenAI, maker of the ChatGPT bot, have talked about building a linked network of five data centers—the Wisconsin facility plus four others in California, Texas, Virginia, and Brazil. Together they would constitute a massive supercomputer, dubbed Stargate, that could ultimately cost more than $100 billion and require five gigawatts of electricity, or the equivalent of the output of five average-size nuclear power plants. https://thebulletin.org/2024/12/ai-goes-nuclear/

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES: Autonomous trucking company sues gov't over safety rules The closer autonomous vehicles get to reality, the more obvious the outdated regulatory gaps that must be resolved to ensure everyone on the road remains safe. If there's no driver in a semi-truck, for example, existing protocols for handling roadside hazards — which require someone to place warning devices around the vehicle — don't really apply. Driving the news: Aurora Innovation, which plans to have driverless semi-trucks rolling in Texas by April, is suing the U.S. Department of Transportation, claiming it "arbitrarily" rejected the industry's idea for an alternative solution.

• The complaint was filed Friday in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

• Aurora argued that the agency's decision "stifles safety innovation and would impede the development of the autonomous trucking industry for no valid or lawful reason.

BIG TECH: For Whom Shall We Build? Marc Andreessen wants us to go faster. But what does that matter if nobody’s left in the car? THE NEW ATLANTIS Editors’ Note: This article is a reply to Marc Andreessen’s “It’s Time to Build” and “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”

This reasoning is an example of precisely the kind of blinding presentism that Andreessen claims he wants to reject: the idea that technological advance assures growth even in the absence of growing labor and consumer markets. This can work in the short term, but not over generations. Economically and otherwise, the case for building is at its foundation a case for thinking generationally. This is the essence of our problem: We have been losing the inclination to take the long view, because we have been losing our capacity to conceive of our moral situation through the lens of the human condition. []Ultimately, the kind of humility we lack most is the willingness to understand ourselves as working for those who will come after us. Such humility, indeed any humility, is very rare among today’s technologists, and so Andreessen’s call for it is a welcome sign of seriousness and of health. He seems to grasp that building the future means building for others. If Andreessen’s warning against despair and paralysis is going to resonate, we will need to orient ourselves toward those others, and to see that our labors here, under the sun, can really only matter if the prospect of those who will come after us inheriting our handiwork can fill us with joy, hope, and gratitude.

BIG TECH: Erik Hoel Stop speedrunning to a dystopia We need more warnings about amusing ourselves to death There’s been a string of recent news of big tech corporations doing—or at least testing—things that can be described as “pretty evil” without hyperbole. What’s weird is how open all the proposed evil is. Like bragging-about-it-in-press-releases levels of open. A few examples suffice, such as the news this month (reported in Harper's) that Spotify has been using a web of shadowy production companies to generate many of its own tracks; likely, it’s implied, with AI. Spotify’s rip-offs are made with profiles that look real but are boosted onto playlists to divert listeners away from the actual musicians that make up their platform. Meanwhile, child entertainment channels like CoComelon are fine-tuning their attention-stealing abilities on toddlers to absurdly villainous degrees.

BROADBAND POLITICS FUNDING AGRICULTURE: USDA to Open Applications for $26 Million Community Connect Program Recipients last year included NEK Community Broadband, Lewis County PUD, and Pulse Broadband.

BROADBAND POTS AND PANS: BEAD Spending in 2025 All bets are off on BEAD spending if the new administration pauses or majorly reworks BEAD. It’s easy to understand the renewed enthusiasm, because the BEAD process recently went into overdrive. The coming change of administration has loosened the paperwork at NTIA and there are a ton of states rushing to open grant portals. In most states, the timeline recently got shortened by at least a few months.There is still a lot of paperwork to get through before we see construction.

BROADBAND VIA WATER PIPES: Could water unlock the floodgates for faster fiber deployment?

It goes without saying fiber broadband is expensive to deploy – especially if you’re digging underground to get the biggest bang for your buck. But what if there’s another, less resource-intensive way to get fiber flowing (literally) to folks who need it? Aqualinq, fresh out of stealth mode, has come up with a technology that lets internet service providers deploy fiber optic cables via existing waterpipes. The company’s goal is to offer an alternative to aerial and buried fiber. And really, water is where the people are, said Ian Deacon, Aqualinq’s head of business development. Here’s how it works. Wherever there’s a water valve, Aqualinq would insert a draw cable into the pipe and then use a “parachute” (a piece of hardware that moves the cable) to pull it down the pipe length until the cable reaches the next valve. Aqualinq then pulls up the draw cable, attaches a conduit with fiber, puts it into the pipe and moves onto the next valve. Rinse and repeat. The fiber can be pre-installed into the conduit, or an ISP can “blow their own fiber through it” if that’s what it prefers.

CES: Why I’m disappointed with the TVs at CES 2025 Op-ed: TVs miss opportunity for real improvement by prioritizing corporate needs. If you asked someone what they wanted from TVs released in 2025, I doubt they'd say "more software and AI." Yet, if you look at what TV companies have planned for this year, which is being primarily promoted at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas this week, software and AI are where much of the focus is. The trend reveals the implications of TV brands increasingly viewing themselves as software rather than hardware companies, with their products being customer data rather than TV sets. This points to an alarming future for smart TVs, where even premium models sought after for top-end image quality and hardware capabilities are stuffed with unwanted gimmicks. AND CES MASHABLE CES 2025: Here's John Deere's new driverless fleet John Deere's autonomous 9RX tractor for large-scale agriculture uses "16 individual cameras arranged in pods to enable a 360-degree view of the field," according to the company. John Deere says that its autonomous tractor can help farmers "step away from the machine and focus their time on other important jobs." The autonomous vehicles can also help farmers with improving safety and can help manage labor shortages, according to the company.

CHILDREN: Katherine Martinko | The Analog Family How Much Is Too Much FaceTime? Parents worry about their kids' excessive video chatting with peers

CHILDREN: JOHN HAIDT The beginning of the reversal of the phone-based childhood (from Free the Anxious Generation- no sharable link)

A Note From Our Team: As we begin the new year, we are looking back at 2024 as the year the phone-based childhood began to reverse. In The Anxious Generation, we talk a lot about 2012 as the year when the youth mental health crisis began — roughly 12 years ago. What we’re seeing now is a cultural awakening about the dangers of a phone-based childhood and the importance of free play and childhood independence. Many of you — parents, teachers, school administrators, advocates, youth, and community members — are driving this vital shift. Thank you, and keep it up! This is just the beginning. If you’re here, it’s because you know something has to change. You’ve read the book and seen the headlines about rising anxiety, loneliness, and depression among our young people. You’ve felt the unease when you notice kids — maybe even your own — lost in endless scrolling instead of engaging with the world around them. This isn’t about guilt or blame, it’s about taking action, armed with new information, to build a better future. Here are just a few examples of impact we were grateful to contribute to, alongside so many of you, in 2024: A tidal wave of schools going phone-free: Australia enacted world-leading legislation to raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16; In the US, we’ve seen a bipartisan wave of support from elected officials; Shortly after the book’s debut, the Surgeon General called on Congress to put warning labels on social media, which now has support from a bipartisan group of 42 U.S. attorneys general. Culturally, we’re seeing a seachange in public dialogue and in the media about smartphones and social media, free play, and childhood independence — from parent groups committing to the four norms, to Oprah Winfrey, to Prince Harry. The conversation has gone mainstream. The book has remained near the top of the NYT bestseller list for over 40 weeks, []What You Can Do Phone Free Schools Action Kit “How can we make schools phone-free?” is one of the most common questions we receive, so last fall we put together resources to help. Our phone-free schools action kit is designed to help parents, teachers, and administrators come together to create healthier school environments. This kit will help educate you and your community about why it’s so important to keep phones out of school for the entire school day. Our hope is that by the 2025-26 school year, we will see a vast majority of schools going phone-free.

DATA CENTERS: Tycoon’s wild plan for US data centers ignores grid reality

President-elect Donald Trump’s breezy rollout this week of a Dubai real estate developer’s $20 billion pledge shows the chasm between tech’s bold aspirations and electricity supplies. If anyone needed more evidence that the Wild West days of data center expansion would continue apace under President-elect Donald Trump, it came just seconds into his press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week. At the start of the event Tuesday, Trump introduced Hussain Sajwani, a real estate developer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Trump business partner who he called “one of the most respected business leaders in the Middle East, indeed the world.” Sajwani then announced that his company, Damac Properties, would invest at least $20 billion to build data centers for artificial intelligence and cloud computing across eight states. Damac Properties said that money would support an initial 1,000 megawatts of data center capacity split between the Sunbelt and Midwest and then double that capacity over the next four years. []The press conference was pure Trump: a mix of policy dictate, populism and personal grievance. But such a high-profile announcement of foreign cash-at-the-ready to build more AI data centers in the U.S. raises fresh questions about the fast and furious tech industry expansion. Is it butting up against (and perhaps completely ignoring) the realities of U.S. electric grids straining to keep up with power demand and facing the real-world challenges of climate change? “Everyone wants to throw money at data centers. It’s no surprise that Trump is interested or that a foreign entity is willing to put money into it,” said Jim Kerrigan, managing partner of North American Data Centers, a Chicago-based firm that helps facilitate real estate deals for data center developers. “The question is whether you can actually deploy it.” []“Hyperscaler data center companies like Microsoft [and] Google, as well as other nontechnology companies that are backed by private equity, infrastructure funds and pension/sovereign wealth funds … have a lot of ‘dry powder’ — deployable capital and willingness to deploy into digital infrastructure like data centers,” said Kush Patel, a senior partner with the Energy & Environmental Economics analysts firm. “This could change in the next few years if AI related revenues don’t materialize,” he said. Meanwhile, electric utilities will be trying to find enough power to fuel the AI data centers. “The utilities will determine if they have the capacity to serve the added load during the due diligence process,” said Nicole Garcia, a spokesperson for the Arizona Corporation Commission. A recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory predicted that data center use could triple between 2023 and 2028, accounting for as much as 12 percent of the country’s electricity consumption by that time.

ECOLOGICAL OPTIONS NETWORK NEWS: This Solstice we’re grateful for being able to contribute to "raising awareness to drive meaningful change."

An Updated Update on SOS At Work in the World (San Onofre Syndrome FILM) Breaking the Nuclear Chains That Bind Us Every phase of the nuclear chain - from uranium mining, uranium milling, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, nuclear reactor fuel fissioning, irradiated fuel storage and reprocessing, and through all phases of weapons production, leaves its own intense contribution to a rapidly accumulating legacy of radioactive waste that will remain lethal to all living things for longer than human civilization has yet existed []The familiar internationally recognized distress signal ‘S.O.S. – based on the Morse code sequence of three dots and three dashes – seems vitally appropriate for what we have dubbed ‘the San Onofre Syndrome’, the tons of high-level radioactive waste being stored in unsafe short-term containers across the nation. That is the long-lived poisonous ‘legacy’ referred to in the title of our recently released EON documentary, SOS, The San Onofre Syndrome: Nuclear Power’s Legacy. The film portrays San Onofre as a microcosm of a global problem - the mismanagement of lethal radioactive waste. []Nuclear Situational Awareness There are 54 operating commercial nuclear power stations with 94 nuclear power reactors in 28 states. Including already decommissioned reactors expands the number of these de facto nuclear dump sites. In October 2024 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated it licensed and oversees 79 nuclear waste sites in 39 states. This number was in a slide presentation to woo Wyoming decision-makers into becoming a national “interim” nuclear waste site. Currently there is no national deep geological radioactive waste repository. The U.S. government was to have one built and had promised to remove the waste from nuclear utilities by 1998. Since there aren’t any permanent repositories anticipated to be built in the near future the tons of waste in the form of highly irradiated used nuclear fuel rods from nuclear power reactors is stranded on all those 79 sites indefinitely.

This Solstice we’re grateful for being able to contribute to "raising awareness to drive meaningful change."

ENVIRONMENT PHYSICS.ORG: The technosphere: A hidden long-term carbon sink in everyday items "We have accumulated more carbon in human-made stuff on the planet than there is carbon in the natural world, but we completely overlook it, and those stocks get bigger and bigger," says ecological economist and senior author Klaus Hubacek of the University of Groningen. "The message is to look at stocks rather than just flows." Little is known about the stocks of fossil carbon in the "technosphere"—the sum of all human-made artifacts, both in use and discarded. To estimate these stocks, and how they change from year to year, the researchers used publicly available data on the material inputs and outputs from different economic sectors globally for 2011 (the only year for which such material data exist at the global level). Then, they calculated the amount of carbon flowing in and out of different sectors by using the average carbon content of different products—for example, plastics are estimated to contain 74% fossil carbon on average. The analysis considered not only final products, such as durable plastics and bitumen, but also fossil carbon-based feedstocks that are used as intermediate products in different industries. They found that in 2011, 9% of extracted fossil carbon was accumulated in long-lasting products within the technosphere—if this same amount of carbon was emitted as CO₂, it would almost equal EU emissions that year (3.7 Gt vs. 3.8 Gt of emitted CO₂).

Construction of buildings and infrastructure accounted for the highest accumulation of fossil carbon (34%). In terms of the type of products, rubber and plastic products accounted for 30% of the accumulated fossil carbon, followed by bitumen (24%; a product used in roads and roofing), and machinery and equipment (16%). Next, the team extrapolated their 2011 findings to estimate how much fossil carbon flowed into the technosphere between 1995 and 2019 using monetary data from that time span. Overall, they estimated that 8.4 billion tons of fossil carbon were added to the technosphere between 1995 and 2019, equating to around 93% of global CO₂ emissions in 2019. The amount of carbon entering the technosphere increased yearly from 1995 to 2019. Increasing product lifetime and recycling rates are two ways to reduce the amount of fossil carbon entering waste streams, the researchers say. They also emphasize the importance of enacting policies to minimize the discharge of waste from landfills.

FIRES: Power equipment draws scrutiny in Eaton Fire - The Washington Post Did power lines help start the L.A. fires? What we know. Driven by powerful winds, the Eaton Fire quickly erupted and roared into the Altadena community.

FIRE: AXIOS The latest: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is ordering an investigation into water supply problems that left fire hydrants dry and hurt firefighting efforts. The 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was empty and closed for repairs as the wildfire tore through homes, the LA Times reports: "Whether having the reservoir online would have had a meaningful impact on fighting the blaze is unclear."

FIRES: UNCONFIRMED, I DO NOT HAVE A LINK "Smart meters have lithium ion batteries. When these batteries catch fire they have what's called "thermal runaway" where they will go from 140 degrees Fahrenheit to 6000 degrees Fahrenheit in just a few seconds. The smart meter is connected to the copper wiring of the home which is designed to travel electricity due to its conductivity. Along with being conductive, the copper wires are also great at heat transfer via convection. So when these supposed forest fires hit neighborhoods but burn more homes than trees, the culprit in the unusual fire forensics looks to be the lithium ion batteries. It's no wonder these homes are burned to dust while trees are standing within feet of the houses. These homes are burning from the inside out, literally. The copper wires in the homes are insulated and carrying extreme heat to every corner of the home.. Welcome to Agenda 2030."~ Matt Landman

5G: CHILDREN’S HEALTH DEFENSE STOP 5G Dear friend, We are thrilled to announce the launch of Stop5G – a one-stop resource that provides you and your community with all of the information and tools you need to effectively protect your children from the reckless expansion of cell towers and small cell installations in your neighborhood, and near your children’s schools. We’re thrilled to have formally introduced our Stop5G initiative this week, also announcing Stop5G's first X space, taking place on 1/21 @ 7 pm ET! Please mark your calendars and help us spread the word across all social media platforms: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

HAVANA SYNDROME: VARIED HEADLINES LINKS UNDERLINED

AP: US finds no ‘Havana syndrome’ link to foreign powers, but 2 spy agencies say it’s possible REUTERS: Most US spy agencies doubt Havana Syndrome caused by foreign foe, intelligence report says WASHINGTON POST: 2 U.S. spy agencies see possible foreign adversary in some 'Havana syndrome' attacks BLOOMBERG US Intelligence Now Split on Possible ‘Havana Syndrome’ Cause Two agencies don’t rule out a foreign adversary’s capabilities The health incidents reported since 2016 remain a mystery WALL STREET JOURNAL: U.S. Spy Agencies Now Disagree on Possibility Foreign Power Could Cause Havana Syndrome Two agencies conclude U.S. adversaries might have developed a device that could cause range of symptomsMIAMI HERALD Biden officials cast doubt on view that Havana Syndrome wasn’t work of foreign agents CNN:New intelligence suggests ‘Havana Syndrome’ possibly caused by foreign weapon; overall assessment remains ‘very unlikely’ NBC NEWS Split emerges among U.S. spy agencies over mysterious 'Havana syndrome' The White House said the new findings reflect “a shift in key judgements,” calling for more research into injuries to American diplomats and intelligence officers stationed overseas. NEW YORK TIMES Biden Officials Say the Truth About Havana Syndrome Is Still Unknown The White House contradicts a new intelligence assessment on the mysterious ailments that diplomats and spies have reported for years ATLANTIC: The Consensus on Havana Syndrome Is Cracking After long denying the possibility, some intelligence agencies are no longer willing to rule out a mystery weapon. []Two years ago, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded, in unusually emphatic language, that a mysterious and debilitating ailment known as “Havana syndrome” was not the handiwork of a foreign adversary wielding some kind of energy weapon. That long-awaited finding shattered an alternative theory embraced by American diplomats and intelligence officers, who said they had been victims of a deliberate, clandestine campaign by a U.S. adversary, probably Russia, that left them disabled, struggling with chronic pain, and drowning in medical bills. The intelligence report, written chiefly by the CIA, appeared to close the book on Havana syndrome. Turns out, it didn’t. New information has come to light causing some in the intelligence community to adjust their previous conclusions. And a new report reopens the possibility that a mystery weapon used by a foreign adversary caused Havana syndrome. At the White House, senior Biden-administration officials are more convinced than their colleagues in the intelligence agencies that Havana syndrome could have been the result of a deliberate attack by an American foe. The geopolitical consequences are profound, especially as a new president prepares to take office: If Russia, or any other country, were found culpable for violent attacks on U.S. government personnel, Washington would likely feel compelled to forcefully..BBC: 'Very unlikely' foreign actor linked to Havana Syndrome, US intelligence says Most of the US intelligence community believe it is "very unlikely" an international power is linked to mysterious symptoms experienced by US diplomats and their families.However, in a new report published on Friday, two of the seven US intelligence agencies and departments say foreign actors could have developed radiofrequency technology associated with "Havana Syndrome" symptoms experienced by US diplomats and their families. US officials said the two intelligence bodies "changed their judgement" based on new reporting on the progress of international energy research programmes. The mysterious illness has affected US personnel stationed around the globe in recent years. []One intelligence body (it is not specified which one) said new information makes it "likely" that a foreign actor could use radio frequency to cause "biological effects" consistent with some of the Havana Syndrome symptoms. In their latest assessment the US intelligence community continue to look into those symptoms, known as "anomalous health incidents" (AHIs). And five of the seven intelligence agencies and departments deemed it was "very unlikely" that a foreign actor used "a novel weapon or prototype device to harm even a subset" of US personnel and their families. The reasoning behind the change in stance by two of the US intelligence bodies is laid out in Friday's report. One intelligence body said there is a "roughly even chance" that a foreign power used "a novel weapon or prototype device to harm a small, undetermined subset" of US personnel and their families, who then "reported medical symptoms or sensory phenomena as AHIs", as quoted by the assessment. The second intelligence community agency or department to make a similar argument agreed that there is a "roughly even chance" that a foreign actor would have developed a novel weapon "that could have harmed a small, undetermined subset" of US personnel and their families. But the intelligence body stopped short of linking it to the reported Havana Syndrome phenomena, saying it is "unlikely a foreign actor has deployed such a weapon in any events reported as possible AHIs". Biden officials cast doubt on view that Havana Syndrome wasn’t work of foreign agents Contradicting what U.S. spy agencies have publicly said, senior National Security Council officials told a group of Havana Syndrome victims in a meeting at the White House that they have seen information that undercuts the intelligence community’s assessment that no foreign adversary was behind the incidents. In a meeting in the Situation Room on Nov. 18, NSC Senior Director for Intelligence Programs Mahar Bitar and other NSC members told the group that some of the conclusions in the March 2023 intelligence assessment — in particular that there was no evidence that a foreign adversary had the ability or involvement — “were no longer valid,” two people present in the room told the Miami Herald.

HEALTH EMR-S BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: OPINION: Wireless radiation and health: making the case for proteomics research of individual sensitivity My opinion article “Wireless radiation and health: making the case for proteomics research of individual sensitivity” is now available in open access. Here are a few quotes to encourage reading and commenting:

“According to the WHO definition of health, just a belief in having EHS and experiencing non-specific symptoms, physiological and/or psychological, is experiencing the health effects of wireless technology. Hence, it is correct to claim that wireless radiation causes health effects.“

“Puzzlingly, the frequent observation that the self-declared EHS person can’t feel the wireless radiation and can’t recognize when the wireless transmitter emits radiation and when it is not transmitting, is considered ultimate proof that the form of individual sensitivity to wireless radiation called EHS is not caused by wireless radiation exposures. This is questionable as no person, sensitive or not, could feel the ionizing radiation or other non-ionizing radiation like ultraviolet in their environment.”

“…logically and per analogiam with other environmental factors, individual sensitivity to wireless radiation, which includes EHS, exists as indicated below, and should be studied using biochemical methods.”

“Search for sensitive individuals, most commonly using provocation studies where experimentally controlled exposures are followed by inquiries about acutely occurring symptoms and feelings, has failed to detect any sensitivity to wireless radiation. The reason might be that provocation exposures combined with psychological inquiries might be not enough sensitive to detect individual sensitivity to a single agent present in a mix of other environmental agents…“

“There is a need for human volunteer studies where the already proposed, and other potentially useful biomarkers, would be examined in groups of sensitive and non-sensitive persons, ethically exposed to wireless radiation.”

“The way forward in EHS research is to discover biomarkers of EHS, molecules that are affected by wireless radiation exposure, by research using high-throughput screening techniques of proteomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics […]. For the start, proteomics might be the most promising of these methods.”

“The reasons why proteomics is not used to study the physiological effects of wireless radiation exposures in humans are difficult to understand and comprehend. Despite the advantages of research using proteomics methodology, over the last 20 years, only a few proteomics studies have examined proteome changes in response to wireless radiation exposures.”

“In conclusion, it is logical to conclude that the individual sensitivity to wireless radiation emitted by wireless communication devices and networks exists and impacts the health of sensitive persons. Clearly, the to-date unsuccessfully used methods of provocation studies were either too crude or too much affected by the perceptions and preexisting opinions of study volunteers.“

HEALTH: Your fitness watch could be exposing you to harmful ‘forever chemicals’ AND New research finds that your smartwatch band is laced with toxic forever chemicals Just over a year ago, a study published in the Advances in Infectious Diseases journal detailed that 95% of the wearable straps for smartwatches and fitness bands were infected with different kinds of harmful bacteria. Now, another research published in a reputed journal has revealed an even more sinister trend in straps sold for wrist-worn smart wearables. The paper, published in the ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters, highlights the presence of perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) in fluoroelastomer bands offered by various top brands. The bands tested as part of the chemical analysis include those offered by big names like Google, Samsung, Apple, Fitbit, and CASETiFY. Interestingly, Samsung and Apple both sell watch bands made out of fluoroelastomers, the core problematic chemical at the center of the research, and even mention its “benefits” on their websites. The research paper raises concern about “the very high concentration of PFHxA that can be readily extracted from the surfaces of watch bands made from fluoroelastomers.” The more worrisome part is that people wear these smart devices for more than daytime activities.

HEALTH: How the inflamed brain becomes disconnected after a stroke

Whether reeling from a sudden stroke or buckling under the sustained assault of Alzheimer's, the brain becomes inflamed, leading to cognitive problems and even death.Scientists have known for many years that severe inflammation can kill the brain's neurons. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered that even subtle inflammation damages the brain. Instead of killing neurons outright, however, relatively mild inflammation only destroys the arm-like projections, called neurites, that wire neurons together. These connections are vital for everything the brain does, including learning and memory. The findings, published last month in Cell Reports, describe in detail a new degenerative pathway that scientists can now try to disrupt. This could help stem the damage from common neurological diseases. "There are several exciting drugs now entering clinical use that interrupt these inflammatory processes, and now we know to look at their effects on neurites," said Raymond Swanson, MD, senior author on the paper and a professor of neurology with joint appointments at UCSF and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "Not too far off, this could have a big impact on helping our patients." []A new target for treating neurodegeneration Many neurological diseases involve inflammation, including multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Now that scientists understand it better, they can design therapies to interrupt this inflammatory pathway. Stroke patients, for example, could be treated early on with anti-inflammatory agents to shield neurites from damage and preserve cognition. More information: Gökhan Uruk et al, Cofilactin rod formation mediates inflammation-induced neurite degeneration, Cell Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.113914

HEALTH: Scientists identify 11 genes affected by PFAS, shedding light on neurotoxicity

this suggests that distinct molecular structures within each type of PFAS drive changes in gene expression."PFAS, despite sharing certain chemical characteristics, come in different shapes and sizes, leading to variability in their biological effects. Thus, knowledge on how our own biology reacts to the different types of PFAS is of major biomedical relevance," says the study's other co-corresponding author, Diana Aga, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor and Henry M. Woodburn Chair in the Department of Chemistry, and director of the UB RENEW Institute."Depending on their chain length or headgroup, PFAS can have very different effects on cells," Atilla-Gokcumen adds. "We should not be viewing them as one large class of compounds, but really as compounds that we need to investigate individually." []the team decided to focus on how PFAS affects the gene expression of neuronal-like cells, as well as how PFAS affects lipids, which are molecules that help make up the cell membrane, among other important functions. Exposure to different PFAS for 24 hours resulted in modest but distinct changes in lipids, and over 700 genes expressing differently.Of the six types of PFAS tested, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—once commonly used in nonstick pans and recently deemed hazardous by the EPA—was by far the most impactful. Despite its small uptake, PFOA altered the expression of almost 600 genes—no other compound altered more than 147. Specifically, PFOA decreased the expression of genes involved in synaptic growth and neural function.

HEALTH ATTITUDES OT: Public Opinion on Water Fluoridation Is Changing, Expert Says Kathy Thiessen, Ph.D., a leading fluoride expert, joined “The Defender In-Depth” this week to discuss the latest science on water fluoridation. Thiessen said it’s taken decades, but public attitudes are finally changing in favor of ending water fluoridation.

HEALTH INSPIRATION OT: The ‘1, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000’ Protocol to Protect Your Heart and Mind A Japanese medical expert breaks down his regimen for living a long and healthy life. “Read one piece of writing, laugh 10 times, breathe 100 times, write 1,000 words, and walk 10,000 steps.” The Japanese Medical Association recommends this regimen to help people stay healthy and remain active for longer.

HEALTH OT: How Arctic ice cores prove lead pollution may in Ancient Rome have caused empire-wide cognitive decline

HEALTH INSPIRATION: How Kind Resilience Ignites Key Brain Regions—and How to Build It How to activate the kind, resilient brain regions so you can better handle challenges.

HOUSING: OT: Build with Nature Website

INSPIRATION: The Internal Revolution Necessary for Change Biocentric with Max Wilbert cross-posted a post from Collapse Curriculum The Internal Revolution Necessary for Change Tekmil: The Art of Self-Transformation and Collective Liberation (on organizational structures used by the Kurdish freedom movement last year)

INSPIRATION: CATHERINE PRICE How We Can Heal as a Country and Feel Less Alone A "parting prescription" from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy—plus some concrete suggestions for how to follow it [] Dr. Murthy’s “Parting Prescription for America,” an essay he wrote about what he feels we, as individuals and a country, must do, to heal ourselves from our current divisions, reconnect with each other as human beings, and feel less alone. []it is a heartfelt encouragement for us to “question whether the constant hustle to chase fame, wealth, and power—the modern triad of success—is really what life is about.”

LIGHTING: Asleep at the Wheel in the Headlight Brightness Wars

The crusade against bright headlights has picked up speed in recent years, in large part due to a couple of Reddit nerds. Could they know what’s best for the auto industry better than the auto industry itself? [] Gatto is the founder of the subreddit r/FuckYourHeadlights, the internet’s central hub for those at their wits’ end with the current state of headlights. The posts consist of a mishmash of venting, meme-ing, and community organizing. A common entry is a photo taken from inside the car of someone being blasted with headlights as bright as an atomic bomb, and a caption along the lines of “How is this fucking legal?!” Or users will joke about going back in time and Skynet-style killing the Audi lighting engineer who first rolled out LED headlights. Or they’ll discuss ways to write to their congresspeople, like Mike Thompson, House Democrat of California, who recently expressed support for the cause. After I posted about the subreddit on X last year, Gatto emailed me, and it wasn’t long before we were on a video call and he was giving a PowerPoint presentation he’d made the night before. It was titled “The Internet-Focused History of FuckYourHeadlights, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Headlights and Start Worrying About Society Itself.” Gatto is the one focused on the bigger picture: digging up publicly available information, refining the messaging of their cause, optimizing the subreddit for search engines (he’s proud of how high up the subreddit appears if you google “bright headlights”). Morgan is the one who sees their ideas through with measurements and engineering: He’s created a device for your rear windshield that pops up a reflective surface when someone’s lights are glaring at you from behind ($70, homemade, questionably legal), and he’s gone to car dealerships to measure the brightness of different headlights. (According to Morgan’s numbers, Teslas and Hondas are among the brightest.)

MEDIA: SALON ON MSN Fake news is driving us apart amid disaster — but slanted news is slowly drowning our democracy The upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States — and the four years of his presidency to follow — will put American democracy to the test. His return to the Oval Office has already reignited debates over the legitimacy of elections, with partisan media framing his presidency as either a triumph or a travesty. This polarization underscores a growing danger: We no longer share a common reality. The erosion of trust in common facts and the fracturing of our nation's ability to engage in constructive dialogue means many of us can no longer accept a shared reality. In 2023, a CNN poll found that 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believed President Biden’s 2020 win was not legitimate. That’s not surprising given new reporting that popular conservative pundits are frequently sharing election falsehoods on YouTube, which stopped moderating election-related content 18 months ago. It can be tempting to point to fake news and misinformation as the culprit. For the past few years, my research has focused on revealing the hidden relationships between our digital lives and our psychology, and the facts we’re learning about fake news are alarming. Leading up to the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook users spent more time reading fake news than real news. Studies show that — more often than not — people believe the content they consume even when it is factually wrong. How is it possible to maintain a functioning democratic system that is based on the will of the people, if the people are falling for lies? [] decades of research on personalized persuasion highlight how appealing to a person’s psychological traits — e.g. their personality or moral values — can sway hearts and minds without the need for content that is factually inaccurate. []Making people’s lives as easy as possible is often the best way for shifting their behavior in a desired direction (research in behavioral economics offers plenty of compelling examples for this assertion). And, in principle, there’s nothing easier than seeing a “fake news” label on an article and, as a result, discounting its arguments or refraining from re-posting it. The problem is that we might also start using the convenient mental crutch in cases we shouldn’t — particularly in cases where a news item isn't labeled as “fake” (because it isn’t), but the content is still designed to lead us astray. As we outsource our critical thinking to the systems meant to support and protect us, we might become more vulnerable to believing content that hasn’t been flagged and therefore appears to be credible.

MINING: The Renewable Energy Transition Has Residents of a Small Arizona Town on Edge A plan to mine for vital minerals in the Patagonia Mountains will release millions of gallons of groundwater—and could impact the community’s consumable water.

POLITICS; BIG TECH; META: Behind the scenes: Zuckerberg had been considering some of the moves for years. Almost all had been in the works for months. But sources tell us Meta deliberately packaged them all up for detonation over nine days to maximize the pop for Trump. Here's the Meta formula: [] Go on Joe Rogan's podcast and blast President Biden for censorship. And light up social media with all the fireworks. Between the lines: Love it or hate it, the strategy seemed to work brilliantly. Trump praised Meta. Rogan hailed Zuck. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has aggressively investigated Big Tech, said he hopes other companies "follow the lead of X and Meta in upholding freedom of speech online." The big picture: Every company in America is watching. We can expect some to copy Zuckerberg — after Elon Musk showed the way. Shifts this fast are rare. And rarely isolated. [] Reality check: Zuckerberg, unlike his rival CEOs, has absolute voting control of his company. As he said in his three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan: "Because I control our company, I have the benefit of not having to convince the board not to fire me." None of the other members of tech's trillion-dollar club can move with the same speed or independence, even if they wanted to.

SECURITY 404 MEDIA: Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement. The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games like Candy Crush to dating apps like Tinder, to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. This story is part of our partnership with WIRED.

SPACE: ARS TECHNICA A taller, heavier, smarter version of SpaceX’s Starship is almost ready to fly Starship will test its payload deployment mechanism on its seventh test flight. An upsized version of SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket rolled to the launch pad early Thursday in preparation for liftoff on a test flight next week. The two-mile transfer moved the bullet-shaped spaceship one step closer to launch Monday from SpaceX's Starbase test site in South Texas. The launch window opens at 5 pm EST (4 pm CST; 2200 UTC). This will be the seventh full-scale test flight of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft and the first of 2025. [] The mission on Monday will repeat many of the maneuvers SpaceX demonstrated on the last two Starship test flights. The company will again attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site and attempt to catch it with two mechanical arms, or "chopsticks," on the launch tower approximately seven minutes after liftoff. SpaceX accomplished this feat on the fifth Starship test flight in October but aborted a catch attempt on a November flight because of damaged sensors on the tower chopsticks. The booster, which remained healthy, diverted to a controlled splashdown offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.

SPACE: NEW PARADIGM INSTITUTE Can Congress get a Backbone on UAP? If the American public is to receive the answers they deserve about UFOs and UAP, it is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must establish a Select Committee to investigate this issue further. One critical reason we need a UAP Select Committee is the power of subpoena. Without this essential authority, key individuals cannot be compelled to testify under oath. A Select Committee would wield subpoena power, providing Congress the ability to demand accountability and transparency from the federal officials and private aerospace defense contractors who have long kept the truth hidden. As the fight for disclosure intensifies, we encourage you to stay informed and engaged. To deepen your understanding of this complex issue, don’t miss the latest article from NPI Communications Manager Kevin Wright. []When it comes to uncovering what the Executive Branch knows about non-human intelligence and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Congress appears to have inadvertently sidelined itself. Despite widespread public interest, numerous testimonies, and growing evidence of deep secrecy within the federal government, Congress has failed to pass meaningful UAP transparency legislation. The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA) was left on the cutting room floor for the second consecutive year.

SPACE BBC: How a freak space junk crash baffled residents and sparked concern When the object was carted away later that day by the KSA, the buzz gave way to concerns about what the villagers had had in their midst. The KSA said its preliminary assessments indicated the object was "a separation ring" from a space launch rocket. "Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans," its statement said the next day. No-one was injured when it had fallen but some in Mukuku began to complain that the impact of the crash had caused damage to nearby houses. Christine Kionga, who lives about a kilometre from the crash site, showed us cracks in the concrete of some of the buildings in her home compound. She said they had appeared after the crash. Other neighbours alleged the structural integrity of their homes had also been affected - allegations that are yet to be substantiated. "The government needs to find the owners of this object, and get compensation for those affected by it," Mukuku resident Benson Mutuku told the BBC. There were reports in the local media that some residents had begun to complain of feeling unwell after exposure to the metallic ring though there was no confirmation from those we spoke to when we visited - nor from the authorities or the KSA. Nonetheless Mr Mutuku said there were concerns about the long-term effects of possible space radiation. "This is a space object and we have heard in other similar incidents that there have been effects of radiation affecting even future generations and there is that fear in this community." However tests run later by the Kenya Nuclear Regulatory Authority revealed that while the metal ring did have higher radiation levels than the area in which it was found, they were not at a level harmful to humans.

TOWERS AND ANTENNAS: Roanoke School Board Questions Another Tower Proposal - Inside Towers and York Halts Tower Proposal For More Compliance

ACTION ITEMS:

Tell the FCC to Quit Stalling and Address Environmental Impacts of Wireless Radiation

No More 704: Give Control of Cell Tower Placements Back to Local Authorities
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/support/no-more-704/ (Fundraising)

Statement of Support for RFK Nomination We support Kennedy - STAND FOR HEALTH FREEDOM

EVENTS:

C4ST Open Meeting - All Welcome Safe Tech in School Communities with Shelley Wright Tuesday, 14 January 2025 7:30 pm Eastern Time Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/97250411732?pwd=YU9kZlE5S291anpkOVI3VzVaQ2hGQT09 Meeting ID: 972 5041 1732 Passcode: C4STRR Meeting ID: 972 5041 1732 Passcode: 481062 Find your local phone number to connect: https://zoom.us/u/adqLEcepOBand next C4ST meeting: Tuesday, Feb 11, 2025. 7:30 pm ET More about - GoFundMe fundraising campaign for the documentary Evicted by Wireless. Seeking Solutions for Canadians.

SUMMIT EVENT

INSPIRATIONAL FREE: FEB 11-15, Heart Math Institute is offering a free 5-day Relationship Wisdom Summit. The Heart Math Institute has been working for decades to encourage people to connect to the intuitive wisdom of their heart, increase authentic connection with one another, and to shift the global instability to "compassionate care, cooperation, and peace". Relationship, communication, and deep listening are foundational to the civilizational shift we're living through now. - Kate K.

Relationship Wisdom Summit Register here for free! Over five transformative days, you’ll learn from 38 world-class relationship experts, including Dr. Dan Siegel, whose groundbreaking work in neuroplasticity has shown how the brain can change to create healthier, more connected relationships. In his session, Secrets of Neuroplasticity: A Path to Healing and Happiness, Dr. Siegel will teach you:

• How to rewire your brain for emotional resilience and relational health.

• The power of integration to cultivate balance, self-awareness, and connection.

• Simple practices, like the “Wheel of Awareness,” to strengthen your bonds with others and yourself.

ACTION:

DATA CENTERS US PIRG: An executive order in the final days of the Biden administration could fast-track the construction of brand-new data centers for AI computing -- and the polluting power plants that fuel them.¹ The problem? This action could allow data centers to exceed pollution limits, open federal lands to data center construction and give data centers priority access to available power supplies.² AI technology may hold a lot of promise. But we shouldn't risk spiking utility bills, worse health, and poor energy reliability for what many consider to be a tech industry bubble. Urge the Biden administration not to fast-track new AI data centers and polluting power plants on federal land. Committing to new data centers and power plants isn't something the administration should rush into. Our health, and the reliability of our power system, are at stake. The plan is reportedly focused on massive data centers that would each consume the same amount of energy as a city of 1 million people. Meeting the insatiable energy demand of these centers would require building a significant number of new fossil-fueled power plants.³ At best, this approach risks American families paying more for power and suffering the consequences of more pollution from power plants. At worst, it leaves American families in the dark, while AI siphons up all the energy on the grid. Take action to prevent the fast-tracking of new data centers and polluting power plants. The construction of new data centers and fossil fuel-fired power plants would have real impacts on our planet and on public health. Researchers estimate that air pollution attributable to AI data centers could result in as many as 1,300 premature deaths per year by 2030 in America alone. Their study projects that, in just five years, the public health impact of data centers will be close to that of all the cars, buses and trucks in California.⁴ AI will be a part of our future, but fossil fuels need to become a thing of the past. Our health depends on it. Add your name to urge the Biden administration to discard its plan for fossil fueled AI data centers today. Thank you, Faye Park President
1. Evan Halper, "Biden plan would encourage AI data centers on federal lands," The Washington Post, December 19, 2024.
2. "STATEMENT: Biden admin drafting a rushed, flawed plan to fast track data centers and power plants for AI," PIRG, December 19, 2024.
3. Evan Halper, "Biden plan would encourage AI data centers on federal lands," The Washington Post, December 19, 2024.
4. Adam Wierman, "Air Pollution and the Public Health Costs of AI," Caltech, December 10, 2024.