SPIKE IN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES BLAMED ON FAST FOOD:

Disorders of the immune system are on the rise everywhere thanks to the global popularity of the so-called Western diet. Autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis have spiked in recent decades, according to scientists James Lee and Carola Vineusa at London’s Francis Crick Institute. Lee and Vineusa have devoted their study to investigating the cause of such illness, which they believe can be blamed on the recent pervasiveness of fast foods, which “lack certain important ingredients.” “Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the West,” Lee told the Guardian’s Observer in a new interview. “However, we are now seeing some emerge in countries that never had such diseases before.”

Pope Francis Speaks Out Against ‘Cancel Culture’ and Anti-Vaxxers:

During his annual speech to Holy See ambassadors, Pope Francis denounced anti-vaccine misinformation and a “cancel culture” that he said prevents nations from being able to work together. Francis urged people to get vaccinated not just for themselves but for the greater good of society, calling healthcare “a moral obligation.” He added the debate over vaccines is a result of people letting themselves “be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts.” He also decried the influence of rich nations that practice “ideological colonization” through their advocacy for contraception, same-sex marriage, and progressive ideas around gender in other nations. He related this “colonization” to “cancel culture,” which he believes “under the guise of defending diversity…ends up cancelling all sense of identity.”

Newsom Includes Health Coverage for All Illegal Immigrants in New Budget Proposal:

California Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a budget proposal that would include expanding the state’s Medi-Cal health coverage to all low-income illegal immigrants in the state. The Golden State already began offering coverage to low-income illegal immigrants 26 and under in 2019 and added coverage for those 55 and older last year. Now, the Democratic governor has proposed covering the remainder beginning no sooner than January 1, 2024. Newsom did not say whether he would look to phase in the additional health coverage or how he planned to pay for it, the Associated Press reported. The move would make California the first state to provide universal health care access for all residents regardless of legal status and could cost some $2.4 billion per year, according to one legislative analysis. The expansion is included in Newsom’s $286 billion state budget proposal, which makes use of a projected $45.7 billion surplus.

Examiner – Lens:

Dan Bongino’s combative style has made him a star of talk radio, where he occupies the time slot in some stations once held by Rush Limbaugh.

Ocean Temps Were Hottest Ever on Record in 2021, Researchers Warn:

Ocean temperatures in 2021 were the hottest ever on record, researchers say, marking the sixth year in a row the record has been topped due to “human-induced climate change.” Last year’s temperatures shattered previous records, even despite a La Niña event that cooled down waters in the Pacific, a new study found. “The ocean heat content is relentlessly increasing, globally, and this is a primary indicator of human-induced climate change,” Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado who co-authored the research, said in comments carried by The Guardian. Ocean temps have been steadily rising since 1955, a trend that experts say is fueling hurricanes, monster storms, and extreme weather. “Until we reach net-zero emissions, that heating will continue, and we’ll continue to break ocean heat content records, as we did this year,” said researcher Michael Mann of Penn State University.

Chicago Teacher Battling Cancer Speaks Out Against Union for Canceling Classes:

A Chicago teacher battling cancer condemned a teachers union strike against in-person learning and described it as an attempt to undermine authority and gain political power in an interview. Joseph Ocol said he made a commitment to his students and believes his role as a teacher is to be with them in the classroom, even as he fights cancer, the math teacher and chess coach at Ella Flagg Young Elementary School in Chicago told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The award-winning teacher has been lauded by many as a hero for his decision to continue teaching with cancer amid the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strikes. But, Ocol said he believes the real heroes are the children. “They’re the ones suffering, and the parents who are trying to make ends meet,” he told the DCNF. “Parents suffer when their children are at home doing remote learning, when these parents are supposed to be working and earning a living for their families…But the real heroes are those kids,” he added. “They have suffered already so much. I’m not the hero, I’m just trying to do my job.”

The U.S. Needs More Workers:

The U.S. economy added 199,000 jobs last month, far below expectations of 422,000, marking the second straight month of lower-than-predicted job growth. But on the flip side, the unemployment rate declined more than expected, to 3.9% from 4.2% in November. Considering that unemployment hit 14.8% just 21 months ago, this recovery has been just as unprecedented as the times. The unemployment rate in December was lower than it was during every month in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. So how to square slower job growth with minuscule unemployment? In the current environment, virtually everyone who wants to get a job can get one. The problem is, a large share of the potential workforce isn’t applying to jobs. Many would-be job candidates have retired early, are concerned about contracting COVID at work, or may be caring for children or other family members at home.

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YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP
by George Vandeman:

** As far as deaths from Omicron are concerned, one wag has said that Omicron has killed as many Americans as…Alec Baldwin’s gun. Or Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile. What he was referring to of course was the statistic that, as of December 24, about a week ago, the first confirmed death in the United States from the Omicron variant was reported. This was a gentleman who was reinfected, having previously had COVID-19, and who faced a higher risk for severe complications because of underlying health conditions.

** Washington State Democrats want to pull back penalties for drive-by shootings. So, make sure that any shooting of people you do in the state of Washington is not stationary. Maybe walking fast while you shoot people will count as a drive-by.

** The Arlington, Virginia, school board has proposed to implement more “equitable” grading practices. The proposal would remove late penalties for homework assignments; no longer allow students to earn extra credit, would allow for unlimited redoes of assignments, and would eliminate grading on homework assignments. The reason that students should not be graded on homework assignments is because the fear of making mistakes will have a negative impact on the learning process. I guess grading on in-school work does not create that fear. The reason for no extra credit, of course, is students with “fewer resources” are penalized when other students are able to complete extra credit assignments.

** For all of you who participated in the “smash-and-grab” protests, or if you are a looter who exploited all of the riots this past year, please be advised that according to the IRS, “if you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it, unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.” I am confident that all of you looters and smash-and-grabbers failed to take advantage of the safe harbor of returning the goods.

Examiner – Memory Lane:

Even if Peter Bogdanovich, who died recently at the age of 82, had never exposed a frame of film as a director, he’d be one of the history-making heroes of the world of movies. Bogdanovich, born in 1939, grew up in Manhattan as a precocious adolescent cinephile. In 1961, at the absurdly young age of 21, he organized the first-ever American retrospective of Orson Welles’ films at the Museum of Modern Art, and wrote a monograph about the director’s work. He did the same, at the same museum, the following year with the films of Howard Hawks, and, in 1963, with Alfred Hitchcock. These screenings, along with the symbolism of the entry into the museum’s ranks of three of the greatest filmmakers who were also Hollywood directors – and who were still working at the time – were something of a slow-motion coming-out party for the notion of Hollywood as a hotbed of directorial artistry.

Examiner – Lens:

Actress Juliette Lewis stars in the Showtime series Yellowjackets, in which she plays a former high school soccer player still traumatized by the horrors after the team was stranded in the wilderness.

Examiner – (Notable) Remarks:

** We need also to be frank about Biden. He’s too old to be president, and most people sense this. He was elected because he was someone clearly not as toxic to the electorate as most of the other more radical Dems. But in office, this has been shown to be a chimera. There is nothing to distinguish him in policy from the far left. His administration has embraced race and sex discrimination in every part of the federal government; he has endorsed the subordination of biological sex to gender identity in the law; his goal in immigration policy is to enable mass migration, not stop it. His administration routinely deploys the hideous acronyms of woke language – “equity,” “Latinx,” “BIPOC,” “LGBTQIA+” – and any return to plain English and common sense violates their commitment to “social justice.” Just watch Biden repeat the nonsense word “Latinx” in public. It’s pitiable. —- Andrew Sullivan

** When Martin Luther King Jr. was training Black civil rights activists in nonviolent resistance, he and his colleagues designed workshops to prepare them for clashes on newly integrated buses. On a simulated bus, people had to endure actors spitting on them, pouring milk on their heads, mushing gum in their hair, squirting ketchup and mustard at them, and flicking cigarette ashes at them. It was a dress rehearsal for staying cool in the heat of the moment. People who manage emotions professionally do this all the time. In nursing and medical schools, students practice delivering difficult news to patients. When tightrope walkers train on low ropes, they sometimes ask people to try and push them off. Along with testing their physical balance, they’re honing their emotional balance. —- Adam Grant

** Live your life like you’re the hero in your movie. —- Joe Rogan

** As William F. Buckley once put it: “I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.” —- Kevin D. Williamson

** A fascinating detail in Mark Leibovich’s New York Times profile of President Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, caught my eye. Sullivan was one of the principals in charge of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, during which, Leibovich notes, “Mr. Sullivan operated on an average of two hours of sleep a night for the duration of the three-week crisis in Afghanistan in August.” Leibovich doesn’t connect the dots between what he calls the “unruly and tragic” withdrawal and our National Security Advisor’s extreme sleep deprivation, but he doesn’t have to. We’re being told, rightly, by the White House to “follow the science” on the coronavirus. But it’s remarkable to see senior people in the same White House so obviously ignoring the science on sleep. Leadership isn’t about the quantity of decisions, but the quality. Leading in urgent, chaotic times doesn’t mean matching the chaos of the moment, but precisely the opposite. Judgment is what we need from leaders in a crisis, not the ability to power through exhaustion. At least the Army has caught up with the science. In its latest training field manual, the section on “sleep readiness” notes that sleep is necessary for “judgment, decision making, and situational awareness.” Pretty handy things in a crisis. Leibovich writes that Biden has lauded Sullivan, a Rhodes Scholar, as a “once-in-a-generation intellect.” But the problem with the Afghanistan debacle, and so many of the crises we’re facing, isn’t lack of intellect but lack of judgment and wisdom – among the first qualities to be depleted when we’re running on empty. —- Arianna Huffington

** It’s time to learn to live with COVID by using some common-sense practices: If you’re sick, stay home. If you’re around someone vulnerable, be careful. If you’ve been exposed, wear a real, quality, N95 mask. For the young who have natural or vaccinated immunity, it’s a mild virus that will circulate for the rest of their lives. —- Dr. Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 2020, his bestselling book, “The Price We Pay,” won the Business Book of the Year Award.

Examiner – Trust Your Source:

Examiner – Investigates:

** In order to ship the Statue of Liberty from France to the United States, she was separated into 350 different pieces and rebuilt over four months after arriving in the states.

** Ten of the best data visualizations this year. READ

** Here’s a puppy dreaming. WATCH

** According to the CDC, the risk of a fully vaccinated adult ending up in the hospital for COVID was 1 in 26,000 for the week ending in November 27. Who was that one person? One analysis of breakthrough infections by age found that the average age of a vaccinated person being hospitalized is 72 years, and the average age of a vaccinated person dying of COVID is 80.

** Apple is worth $3 trillion – more than Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, Exxon Mobil, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, IBM and Ford combined.

** Watch a puppy grow into a 170-pound giant. WATCH

Examiner – Reader Survey Results:

How old is too old to be president?
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COVID Vaccines – Conflict of interest?
91% of Examiner readers in all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries find that former FDA and media execs now at drug companies a “conflict of interest” and disturbing.

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Amazon Recommends Business Book Classic “Broken Windows, Broken Business”

Amazon, the world’s largest bookseller, has recommended the revised edition of the business book classic “Broken Windows, Broken Business – The Revolutionary Broken Windows Theory: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards.” For more information click here – Broken Windows

Examiner – Our Readers Speak

** In our sick world infatuated with victimhood, has trauma emerged as a passport to status? —- Devin P., London, England

Examiner – A Different View:…

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