The city of Houston has launched a new citywide solar cooperative that aims to make it more affordable for residents and business owners to install solar panels, officials announced Wednesday.
The initiative, led by the nonprofit group Solar United Neighbors (SUN), uses a co-op model that works by bringing together a group of people in a similar geographic area that all want to go solar at the same time.
By grouping together, they can leverage those numbers to bring down costs, according to SUN’s Texas program director Hanna Mitchell.
The co-op is open to businesses and homeowners in and around Houston. SUN will request proposals from solar companies on behalf of the co-op, which will then choose one company to complete all the installations. Those interested have until July 31 to sign up.
Texas-Mexico Border closed??
NATIONAL
Oklahoma governor signs bill protecting drivers who strike protesters while fleeing (msn.com)
The Oklahoma Legislature put forth this bill aimed at cracking down on protests, was inspired by a May incident, when a truck pulling a horse trailer became surrounded by Black Lives Matter protesters on Interstate 244 in Tulsa. In a bid to escape, the driver forced his vehicle through the crowds of people, sending two to the hospital.
Some have questioned how exactly the incident triggered the law, especially because no charges were filed against the driver.
New legislation was passed on Wednesday that will prevent Oklahomans from willfully disrupting government business during local public meetings. It will also ban people from publishing personal information about law enforcement officers or public officials with the intent to “threaten, intimidate or harass,” a practice known as doxxing.
House Passes Bill To Make DC The 51st State | The Daily Caller
The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday which would give statehood to Washington, D.C., making it the 51st state in the U.S. H.R. 51 passed the House 216-208. The bill would designate “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” as the 51st state while still having a separate federal district.
NY Robot Dog
New NYPD ‘Digidog’ Robot Raising Questions Among New Yorkers
The Creator of NYPD’s Horrifying Robot Police Dog Linked to Saudi Crown Prince MBS
Phillip Zelikow to be head of COVID19 commision, former coverup artist for 9/11 commission
Conveniently left out of Zelikow’s story about the “81 staffers” keeping their eye on his decisions is that they were staffers who were hired by him and under his complete control. In fact, Zelikow took over the hiring of the commission staff and even stopped staffers from communicating directly with the commissioners themselves. In the first few months, the 9/11 commissioners themselves rarely even visited the commission because Zelikow denied them their own offices or the ability to hire their own staffers.
After the victims’ family members discovered Zelikow’s links to the Bush administration, he was forced to recuse himself from the proceedings of the commission (which he himself was directing) that had to do with the Bush White House transition or the National Security Council.
Hearing of Zelikow’s appointment, former counter terrorism czar Richard Clarke (who Zelikow helped to demote during the Bush transition), remarked that “The fix is in,” wondering aloud: “Could anyone have a more obvious conflict of interest than Zelikow?”
Key staffers and even one of the commissioners threatened to quit the commission altogether when learning of Zelikow’s history.
In an article entitled “Catastrophic Terrorism: Tackling the New Danger,” written for the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs in November 1998, Zelikow and co-authors Ashton Carter and John Deutsche ask readers to imagine a catastrophic act of terrorism like the destruction of the World Trade Center. “Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.”
Zelikow’s amazing prediction becomes somewhat less remarkable when we learn his own self-described expertise in the creation and management of “public myth.” In a separate 1998 article on public myths, Zelikow identifies “generational” myths that are “formed by those pivotal events that become etched in the minds of those who have lived through them,” before noting that the current set of public myths, formed during the New Deal in 1933, are currently fading.
Convenient for Zelikow, then, that the “Pearl Harbor” event that would define the next “generational” myth, known as the “War on Terror,” would arrive just three years later, and that he would be in charge of the commission tasked with creating and managing the public perception of that myth.
Vaccine Hesitancy Across the US
LA County Takes On Vaccine Hesitancy, as Officials Say 80% Vaccination Required for Herd Immunity
Roughly 80% of Los Angeles County residents will have to get a COVID-19 vaccine before the area reaches a point of so-called “herd immunity,” the county’s public health director said Wednesday as she laid out a series of statistics hoping to ease the fears of people who may remain hesitant to get vaccinated.
As of Sunday, a total of 6,488,391 doses of COVID vaccine have been administered in the county. That number includes people who live or work in the county. Of that total, more than 2.3 million were second doses, meaning those people are fully vaccinated. Reaching herd immunity will require 80% of eligible residents to get vaccinated, or roughly 8 million people, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.
the issue of vaccine hesitancy will become a larger issue. Ferrer offered a series of statistics to show the effectiveness of the vaccines. She noted that prior to vaccines, roughly one in every 10 county residents were being infected with COVID, while the post-vaccine rate nationally is now roughly one in 13,275. The risk of dying from COVID has gone from about one in 500 to about one in 1 million, she said.
Wyoming
Wyoming has emerged as the most vaccine-hesitant state in the country — an estimated 33% of adults said they were are reluctant to get a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with an estimated 16% of nationwide.
The top three reasons cited for vaccine hesitancy in Wyoming were “Concerned about side effects,” “I don’t believe I need it” and “Don’t trust COVID-19 vaccines,” according to the survey data.
Rural areas
Vaccine hesitant or a denier altogether — the state is doing what it can to encourage these people to get the COVID-19 shot. Therefore, several rural hospitals in our area are doing what they can to convince people to roll up their sleeves. “I will use every source possible to encourage people to get vaccinations. It’s that important,” said President and CEO of Mon Valley Hospital Louis Panza Jr.
“We’re out as you noted with electronic billboards and partnered with Washington Health System and the chamber of commerce, we have our own ads, op-eds and of course social media,” said Panza. The hospital is even distributing fliers to local doctors’ offices with step-by-step instructions on how to schedule an appointment. They are encouraging people to sign up since clinics like the one at the Carroll Township Social Hall in Monongahela are still going unfilled.
Biden Admin to Use Celebrities to Promote Vaccines
The Biden administration on Thursday is launching a massive campaign to persuade more Americans to take the Covid-19 vaccines, administration officials told NBC News. The campaign, called “We Can Do This: Live,” will target young people through social media and will include virtual events where celebrities and athletes answer Americans’ lingering questions about the vaccines, according to NBC News.
Famous people slated to participate in the campaign include actress Eva Longoria, Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire investor Mark Cuban, Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, the co-hosts of “Live with Kelly and Ryan” as well as people from NASCAR, the NBA and WNBA, according to NBC News.
The goal, according to a detailed release of the campaign obtained by NBC News, is to reach Americans, particularly young people, “directly in the places where they already consume content online, including social media, podcasts, YouTube, and more.”
Start with Churches to convince people
If public health leaders want to reach people who are hesitant about covid-19, they should start in churches. That’s the takeaway from a new survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in concert with Interfaith Youth Core. The poll, which probed more than 5,000 Americans, finds, “Among those who attend religious services at least a few times per year, 44% of those who are hesitant and 14% of those who are resistant say faith-based approaches would make them more likely to get vaccinated.”
The percentage of those who have either received the vaccine or plan to soon varies greatly by religious denomination. That includes 85 percent of Jewish Americans, 68 percent of White Catholics, 63 percent of White mainline Protestants and 63 percent of other non-Christian religious Americans. On the other end of the spectrum: “Less than half of Black Protestants (49%), other Protestants of color (45%), white evangelical Protestants (45%), and Hispanic Protestants (43%) say they have gotten or will get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
While religion is a significant factor when it comes to vaccine aversion, so is race. Sixty percent of Whites accept vaccines compared with 25 percent who are hesitant and 15 percent who are firmly against. Hispanics and Blacks are less accepting of vaccines, with 37 and 34 percent expressing hesitancy, respectively, and 11 and 19 percent opposed to them.
Here’s how they will convince you to take the vaccines..
International
Mexican town celebrates ten years since their uprising against cartels, cops, and politicians
Ramadan Brings No Relief for Yemen as Saudis Block Chairties and Turks Unleash Foreign Mercanaries (mintpressnews.com)
The Kingdom has ramped up efforts during Ramadan to stem the tide of charitable giving under the pretext of unifying relief efforts under the umbrella of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center. Of course, any aid that does arrive does not reach the most populated areas of Yemen, which are under Houthi control, leaving most of the country cut off from aid. To make matters worse, the Saudi government has banned thousands of Yemeni expatriates from returning to Yemen to reunite with their families during Ramadan and bringing with them the money they’ve earned at low-wage construction and other hard-labor jobs for the Kingdom’s wealthy. Even the Geneva-based human rights organization SAM, which is often quite light-handed in its criticism of Saudi Arabia, spoke out about the situation. The organization claimed that Saudi authorities have been blackmailing families detained at al-Wadiah, forcing them to sell their SUVs for pennies on the dollar before they can reunite with their families in Yemen.
The Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria, a group that tracks and reports human rights violations, released a report stating Turkish intelligence services assigned Syrian jihadist leader Kamal Taha Al-Faihan, nicknamed Abu Faisal Al-Mujahid, to recruit fighters to send to Yemen. According to the report, fighters were offered $2,500 monthly; $100 of this amount would be deducted for document expenses, fighters would receive $400 in cash initially, and the remaining $2,000 would be paid to their families after the move to Yemen.
Local reports and leaked audio indicate that Turkey is pursuing the same recruitment strategy in Marib. The Syrian news outlet Shaam Times reported that 300 Syrian fighters have already joined the ranks of the al-Islah militia; and Yemen’s North Press Agency, citing a source inside the Syrian armed extremist group Sultan Suleiman Shah, reported that the Syrian National Army, another armed militant group backed by Turkey, “has been working for weeks to prepare militants to send to Yemen.”
Meanwhile, neither Ramadan nor hopes that U.S. President Joe Biden will reverse course have offered a reprieve from the onslaught of Saudi Coalition warplanes. Multiple civilians, including two children, were killed last Wednesday in a Saudi bombing in Saada just one day after Biden announced he would proceed with over $23 billion in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, a key player in the war on Yemen. Human Rights Watch described the move as the U.S. “backing out of President Joe’s pledge.” Harkening back to February 4 when In a major foreign policy address at the State Department, President Joe Biden announced an end to U.S. support for the war in Yemen , marking what activists hope is a significant turning point in the years-long effort to halt the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.
