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Noted left-wing organizations such as Arabella Advisors and the Soros network are bankrolling the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests across the United States, according to a new website documenting the organizations and their funders. The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has launched a new website, ColorRevolutions.us, that details the nonprofit organizations, academic and financial institutions, and foreign governments that have put financial resources behind the anti-Israel protests after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel last Oct. 7.  “The stakes not only for the American way of life, but for Western civilization itself, could not be higher,” Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Oversight Project, told The Daily Signal. (The Heritage Foundation founded The Daily Signal in 2014.) “Our country is being overthrown from the inside. They’re not afraid. They’re blatantly and publicly celebrating terrorist causes,” Howell added. “This United States needs to get its pride and resolve back, or else we’re going to lose it all.”  The website contends this funding resembles a “color revolution in the United States.” The website’s “about” section describes color revolutions as “uprisings supported by actors whose interests in protests are not primarily the protest topic.” It continues:  The actors are distinct in terms of demographics, economic class, nationality, etc. from the bulk of the protestors. They use their significant resources to leverage a divisive event into self-serving political change that is substantially broader than the original protest topic. … This site makes the case to Americans that behind the current outbreak of protests are well-resourced groups with a history of driving for radical social change that most Americans rightly identified as harmful and have come to reject. The New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operating under the umbrella of Arabella Advisors, has funded anti-Israel protests at Georgetown University and The George Washington University, both schools based in Washington, D.C.  Numerous other organizations funded by major institutional left-wing donors are engaged in organizing anti-Israel or pro-Hamas protests and activities.  For example, the website reports that billionaire funder of left-wing causes George Soros’ family’s Open Society Foundations have funded protest organizers Jewish Voice for Peace and U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.  The progressive political fundraising group Act Blue has funded organizing efforts by the groups MPower Change, an organization that purports to fight Islamaphobia and white supremacy, and Until Freedom Inc., a group that says it seeks “intersectional social justice.”  The traditional left-leaning philanthropy group Tides Foundation financially supports the Adalah Justice Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, Justice and Education Fund, and Students for Justice in Palestine. Beyond typical left-leaning organizations, the Chinese Communist Party is working with American millionaire entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham. Singham has a network that has funded protest organizers Justice and Education Fund and The People’s Forum.  It was The People’s Forum that organized the protests at Columbia University, according to the Washington Free Beacon.  The New York Times reported in May 2023 that Singham’s network pushed Chinese Communist Party talking points in its progressive advocacy. And the Jerusalem Post reported that Singham, a consultant for Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, was bankrolling the efforts. Singham has denied that he promotes Chinese propaganda. Other American Muslim organizations are backing the anti-Israel efforts. These include American Muslims for Palestine, founded in 2005. The Anti-Defamation League called American Muslims for Palestine “the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training.” The Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, for Americans for Justice in Palestine, is a fiscal sponsor of American Muslims for Palestine.  The Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund also donated to the Justice and Education Fund and The People’s Forum. The post Who’s the Big Money Bankrolling Pro-Hamas Protests in US? You Might Be Surprised appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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A group of experts working with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) have proposed a new definition for long COVID, in the hopes of bringing long-awaited clarity The previous lack of consensus when it comes to defining long COVID can be problematic in many ways, but particularly for those who experience the condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently estimated that 17.8 percent of adults in the US had experienced long COVID. Without a clear definition, those people can encounter skepticism and difficulty accessing the treatment they need.In the hopes of bringing the clarity required to resolve this problem, the committee authoring the report worked with over 1,300 participants with a variety of perspectives, including patients, caregivers, and advocacy groups, but also health care professionals, researchers, and those involved in health industry businesses.The definition they came up with is as follows: “Long COVID (LC) is an infection-associated chronic condition that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing and remitting, or progressive disease state that affects one or more organ systems.”It was also concluded that the three-month period proposed doesn’t have to be immediately following infection; the authors acknowledged that long COVID’s onset may well occur weeks or even months after someone appears to have recovered.Importantly, the definition doesn’t list any specific symptoms that are required for a diagnosis, nor does it list any that would definitively rule it out. As such, there’s no attempt to list all of the possible symptoms of long COVID, though it does mention that studies have estimated there to be over 200, affecting multiple different organs.Some of these include symptoms we might associate with an initial COVID infection, such as coughing, shortness of breath, and more recently with the appearance of new variants, digestive issues. Other examples given that are often reported by people with long COVID are persistent fatigue, memory changes, and problems with taste or smell.Under normal circumstances, NASEM’s conclusions on a topic aim to be final. However, because it’s such a new condition, what we know about long COVID is changing all the time. As a result, the authors actively encourage that the definition be reviewed.“Words have a way of evolving from their original meaning: nice originally meant silly or foolish, and silly originally referred to things worthy or blessed,” they write. “While Long COVID is unlikely to endure such an extreme lexical conversion, its meaning can and should evolve to match the state of knowledge.”Regardless, it’s hoped the definition in its current form will bring people with long COVID much-needed recognition and support.“The lack of a consistent definition for Long COVID has hampered research and delayed diagnosis and care for patients,” said Harvey Fineberg, chair of the report’s authoring committee, in a statement. “Our committee hopes this single definition, crafted with input from across research and patient communities, will help to educate the public about this widespread and highly consequential disease state.”The report can be accessed here.

At the heart of the galaxy OJ 287 is a supermassive black hole, like almost every other galaxy, but this one is unusual. Around it orbits a smaller black hole, but one still far bigger than the one in our own galaxy. Astronomers have suspected for decades the flares from this galaxy were a product of these two enormous objects’ interactions. Only now, with the help of two space telescopes, have they made a direct observation of the smaller black hole.The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies are surrounded by accretion disks made of material that is slowly spiraling down to them to be swallowed. Depending on the amount of material in the disk at any time, these can be exceptionally brilliant, and may flare up when the disk is disturbed.Usually, however, we don’t know when to expect such an outburst, but astronomers at the University of Turku have been studying OJ 287 for 40 years, and anticipated one in late 2021. Other astronomers had enough confidence in the prediction, that they diverted the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) from its primary role of finding planets around nearby stars and had it check up on OJ 287 frequently for 80 days.That decision was vindicated when TESS, along with the Swift X-ray telescope, observed the flare right on time. Along with observations made the following year, but published more quickly, these confirm the Turku model, revealing two enormous black holes in an epic dance. The previous flare occurred when the smaller SMBH passed through the larger one’s accretion disk, disrupting it in ways that produced a surge in brightness. However, in this case, the extra light came from the area around the smaller SMBH itself.OJ 287 lies 4 billion light years away, so it is astonishing how bright it is, visible in large amateur telescopes. It also has a history of odd behavior, attracting the attention of astronomers since the 19th Century, who at the time had no idea what they were looking at. Now, we know OJ 287 is a blazar, a type of quasar where the jets point straight at Earth, but there is more to it than that.OJ 287 has flared many times. For his PhD 40 years ago, Aimo Sillanpää constructed the theory that we were seeing two SMBHs, one much larger than the other. Naturally, the smaller one orbits its bigger neighbor, and the 12-year cycle of this orbit creates one of the periods Sillanpää tracked between flares. The smaller SMBH orbits at an angle to the plane of the accretion disk, so it passes through twice each orbit, the disruption leading to an outpouring of extra light.This would be a fascinating thing to see under any circumstances, but the scale of this system is staggering. The smaller black hole has a mass 150 million times that of the Sun, making it 40 times as massive as Sagittarius A*, the SMBH at the heart of our own galaxy. The bigger object is about 18 billion solar masses.Another representation of OJ 287, showing how the smaller SMBH's orbit is angled to the accretion disk, only passing through twice in 12 years.Image Credit: AAAS 2018Despite the size of the smaller black hole, there are usually obstacles to its direct detection. “The two black holes are so close to each other in the sky that one cannot see them separately, they merge to a single point in our telescopes,” said Professor Mauri Valtonen in a statement. “Only if we see clearly separate signals from each black hole can we say that we have actually 'seen' them both.”In addition to the flares Sillanpää tracked, there are other events triggered by the two SMBH’s interactions. While working on his own PhD in 2014, Dr Pauli Pihajoki developed the model further to predict the smaller SMBH would capture a richer pocket of gas in late 2021 and flare up, inspiring the observations by TESS and Swift.On November 12 at 2 am GMT, TESS observed OJ 287 brightening and tracked it for 12 hours before it faded again. Swift and ground-based instruments were also on the case, and those experiencing clear nights got to watch the flare as well.Professor Mauri Valtonen has led a project to analyze the data from all these instruments and compare it with Sillanpää and Pihajoki’s predictions.They found that for that 12-hour period the smaller SMBH outshone its bigger sibling, giving the system a yellow color rather than the usual red."Therefore, we can now say that we have 'seen' an orbiting black hole for the first time, in the same way that we can say that TESS has seen planets orbiting other stars,” Valtonen said in a different statement. “Just as with planets, it is extremely difficult to get a direct image of the smaller black hole. In fact, because of OJ 287's great distance … it will probably take a very long time before our observation methods have developed enough to catch a picture even of the larger black hole.”  The team looked back on the dates when such an event should have occurred previously, and found that telescopes powerful enough to detect the change had never been watching at the right time.Besides studying OJ 287 at all points on the electromagnetic spectrum, the University of Turku team think that two such enormous objects orbiting so close to each other should be producing gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz range. Those waves should be causing pulsars across the universe to alter their timing fractionally, and the team hope we will soon be able to measure some precisely enough to pick this up. The findings are open access in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

The outsider might not think conservation and survivalism have much common ground and that is true of pseudo-environmentalists and pseudo-survivalists. The post Where Conservation and Survivalism Overlap appeared first on Survivopedia.