A new, historically unprecedented defense pact has been signed by Scandinavian countries which is sure to evoke the anger of Moscow, at a moment NATO is on the cusp of admitting at least one of the countries (Finland) as a new member.

Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland have issued a joint declaration, stating their intent to combine their air defenses, to the point of their respective air forces joining into a single fighting unit.

What’s being called the countries’ Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI) was signed at Ramstein Air Force Base in the middle of this month, but was only revealed in recent days.

The commander of the Danish Air Force, Gen. Jan Dam, in announcing the initiative said that “Our combined fleet can be compared to a large European country.”

Given that in principle this means each of among the four countries will be involved in defending all in the event of an attack from a common enemy, DefenceNews.com likened the move to the establishment of a “mini NATO”.

While the JDI agreement didn’t mention Russia by name, the whole initiative is clearly part of the ongoing reaction to Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

#Nordic air chiefs sign the first Nordic Air Commanders’ Intent, which is the foundation for a unified Nordic air defence. The ultimate goal is to be able to operate together as one force. Read more (in Danish) ➡️ https://t.co/p7Qc0Uv5pX #dkforsvar #dkpol https://t.co/lO2dSMH6UO

— IPC Denmark (@IPC_DK) March 24, 2023

As for numbers of fighter aircraft which could be integrated into a broader Scandinavian force, Maj. Gen. Rolf Folland, the chief of the Norwegian Air Force (NAF), has floated a figure of nearly 250 advanced aircraft. He also suggested that a joint air operations center that could additionally feature United States and Canadian commanders providing their guidance and coordination.

“There is obvious interest in a regional initiative for a joint air command on NATO’s northern flank. We know the conditions in the High North well, and we have a lot to learn from each other. With a total of almost 250 modern combat aircraft, this will be a large combat force that must be coordinated,” Folland said.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Yousaf beat devout Christian Kate Forbes to become the next leader of the governing SNP party, despite being strongly disliked among the Scottish electorate…

Humza Yousaf has won the Scottish National Party leadership contest and will succeed the outgoing Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister of Scotland, despite being disliked by almost half of Scots, according to recent polling.

The Scottish health secretary will become the first Muslim to attain the role. He narrowly beat colleague and practicing Christian Kate Forbes by 52 to 48 percent once second preference votes were counted after outsider Ash Regan was eliminated in third place.

The 37-year-old is expected to be formally sworn in as Scotland’s sixth first minister at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Wednesday, subject to a procedural parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

The leadership contest among Scotland’s largest parliamentary party exposed deep divisions among both the membership and its parliamentary cohort, and often turned rather unsavory with candidates attacking one another on controversial issues.

Kate Forbes, for example, who is a devout member of the evangelical Free Church of Scotland, was heavily criticized by parliamentary colleagues who supported Yousaf’s leadership campaign for her socially conservative views on issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

During the campaign, Yousaf had claimed to be a supporter of gay marriage, keeping in line with the SNP’s liberal hierarchy who backed his bid, despite actually abstaining from the final vote on the matter in the Scottish parliament back in 2014.

Critics of the politician suggested his media response on the matter, after Forbes had revealed her religious views would have prevented her from supporting the bill, showed he was happy to sell his soul for the top job.

Yousaf has made several controversial remarks during his time in the Scottish cabinet, particularly around race, including an infamous rant in the Scottish parliament where he claimed the country has too many white people occupying key roles.

The flagship policy of the Scottish National Party has been, and will continue to be under Yousaf’s leadership, Scottish independence, and the incoming leader has vowed to use “any means necessary” to break Scotland away from the United Kingdom, insisting that nothing should be “off the table.”

“We will be the generation to win independence for Scotland,” Yousaf said after the results were declared at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Monday, as he called the electoral success “the greatest honor and privilege” of his life.

The wider implications of Yousaf’s leadership victory among the Scottish electorate remain to be seen.

Recent polling conducted last week showed the new SNP leader to be the most popular of the leadership candidates among 2021 SNP voters; however, he is the most disliked among all voters.

NEW @IpsosScotland poll 17-21 March

Neither Humza Yousaf nor Kate Forbes has managed to open up a clear lead among SNP voters – though of course it’s the members who decide

Forbes more popular with the public than Yousaf, though no candidate has a positive approval rating 1/ pic.twitter.com/UBfX9B9IXA

— Emily Gray (@EmilyIpsosScot) March 23, 2023

Just 22 percent of the Scottish electorate hold a favorable view of Yousaf, while 42 percent actively dislike him.

None of the contenders are as popular as the outgoing Nicola Sturgeon, who announced her resignation last month, standing down after more than eight years on the job.

On Monday Der Spiegel reported that 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks have been received by the Ukrainian government, after the tanks were successfully delivered at the Ukrainian border.

Previously Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had promised that the the battle tanks would be in Ukrainian hands by the close of March. The German media report also noted that about 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles were also delivered.

Reuters separately confirmed the deliveries, and additionally reported that “The German army trained the Ukrainian tank crews as well as the troops assigned to operate the Marder vehicles for several weeks on training grounds in Muenster and Bergen in northern Germany.”

“Beyond the German vehicles, three Leopard tanks donated by Portugal also reached Ukraine, according to the security source,” the report added.

European outlets have meanwhile commented on widespread social media assertions that Leopard tanks are prone to getting stuck in deep mud, such that exists in parts of Ukraine; however, the reports underscore there’s as yet no evidence for the claims.

Meanwhile, there could soon also be an influx of UK-supplied Challenger II tanks into Ukraine, after Ukrainian soldiers have concluded training: 

According to UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, the Ukrainian soldiers “return to their homeland better equipped, but to no less danger”.

“It is truly inspiring to witness the determination of Ukrainian soldiers having completed their training on British Challenger 2 tanks on British soil. We will continue to stand by them and do all we can to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Wallace said.

It’s unclear where the Western-supplied tanks will go first, but one likely possibility is to the front lines near the strategic city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region.

Ukrainian forces have for weeks been almost surrounded there, with the fighting still fierce and with prior Russian momentum reportedly stalled.

Via Remix News,

For the time being, Bulgaria will not send any military equipment to Ukraine…

After Austria and Hungary, Bulgaria has also joined the minority group of European Union countries that refuse to send weapons to Ukraine, news and opinion portal Mandiner reports.

Bulgaria has declared that it will not take part in the EU’s joint ammunition purchase program, nor will it supply fighter jets or tanks to Ukraine, Euronews reports. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev is under enormous pressure from opposition parties, but he has said he stands by his position.

“Bulgaria does not support and is not involved in the joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine. However, we will support efforts to restore peace. As long as the interim government is in power, Bulgaria will not make its fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile systems, tanks and other equipment available to Ukraine,” said Radev.

At the end of January, Hungarian Defense Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky and his Austrian counterpart, Klaudia Tanner, said in Budapest that neither country will offer any kind of military assistance to Ukraine in order to “prevent further escalation.”

Although many of its Western allies accuse Hungary of siding with Russia in the war based on its firm stance of not sending weapons to Ukraine, last December Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his government is simply on the side of the Hungarians.

“We are pro-Hungarian,” Orbán told daily Magyar Nemzet in an interview.

“We are on the side of the Hungarians in the Russian-Ukrainian war.”

Orbán argued that while it is important to his government that Russia poses no security threat, continued economic relations are essential for not only Hungary but also the entire European economy.

“The answer to the question of whether we are on the right or wrong side of history is that we are on the Hungarian side of history. We support and help Ukraine, it is in our interest to preserve a sovereign Ukraine, and it is in our interest that Russia does not pose a security threat to Europe, but it is not in our interest to give up all economic relations with Russia. We are looking at these issues through Hungarian glasses, not through anyone else’s,” Orbán said.

Authored by Franke Miele via RealClear Wire,

The Democrats say that Jan. 6 was the worst attack on American democracy since the Civil War. They call it an insurrection, but if it was indeed the worst since 1865, no one but a fool would dare claim it even remotely approached the scale of the bloody war between the states.

And if you weren’t a fool, you might conclude that Jan. 6 was nothing like an insurrection. It wasn’t violent in the sense of an armed rebellion. It wasn’t organized. And it didn’t seek to overthrow the government, but to protect the Constitution. In more ways than not, it was a defense of American democracy, not an attack on it.

In every particular, Jan. 6 was a pale shadow compared to the Civil War. To start with, it lasted less than six hours, whereas the Civil War lasted four long years. The war between the North and South cost the lives of 620,000 soldiers and another 50,000 civilians. The Jan. 6 incursion at the U.S. Capitol, on the other hand, claimed the lives of just two women protesters, Ashli Babbitt and Roseanne Boyland. Among the defenders of the Capitol, police officer Brian Sicknick died after suffering two strokes the next day, but without a direct known connection to the riot. Two other protesters died of natural causes during the siege, and four law officers died by suicide in the months following the attack. If you count all of those as legitimate casualties of Jan. 6, then the total comes to nine compared to a minimum of 670,000 in the Civil War.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the stark differences between Jan. 6 and the Civil War.

Yet somehow, the Democrats (yes, members of the same Democratic Party that instigated the Civil War) were able to use the Jan. 6 incursion of the Capitol as a means to terrorize their political enemies and to punish those who used their rights of free speech and free thought to question the legitimacy of the Biden presidency.

As of March 6, 2023, more than 1,000 people have been charged with crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. But the Biden administration is not done seeking its pound of flesh from Trump supporters. Last week, we learned that the Department of Justice (hereinafter the Department of Retaliation) had sent a letter to the chief judge of the D.C. federal court warning that between 700 and 1,200 more people will be charged with Jan. 6 crimes. More than two years after the fact! That brings the total of citizens likely to be charged to approximately 2,000, and according to the White House these are all domestic terrorists.

Now, to be clear, there was at least one instance of terrorism on Jan. 6, 2021, when pipe bombs were planted at the national headquarters of both the Republican and Democratic parties. But the perpetrator of that failed attack has never been identified, let alone charged. Instead, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the House Jan. 6 select committee and the White House have focused on making examples out of American citizens who believed that a corrupt election had been held in 2020.

By insisting that U.S. elections are always beyond reproach, the Democrats and their allies in the media have de facto criminalized the formerly protected speech of millions of Americans who have lost confidence in the electoral system. And the Justice Department, on behalf of President Biden, has decided to make an example of the Jan. 6 protesters in order to quell dissent among Republicans who might otherwise be tempted to carry a Trump flag to the Capitol.

If you don’t think that the prosecution, and accompanying lengthy jail sentences, of 2,000 protesters for entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 is excessive, consider this:

Following the real insurrection, the Civil War, hardly any of the 1 million men who fought on behalf of the Confederacy were charged with any crimes, let alone treason. That’s because President Abraham Lincoln, and President Andrew Johnson after him, recognized the importance of binding the nation together following the tumultuous war years. Instead of seeking retaliation, and humiliation of former enemies, they (and most Northerners) sought reconciliation and understanding. Forgiveness, not punishment, was the watchword.

In a Christmas Day proclamation in 1868, Johnson granted “a full pardon and amnesty to all persons engaged in the late rebellion.” He wrote, in part:

[A] universal amnesty and pardon for participation in said rebellion extended to all who have borne any part therein will tend to secure permanent peace, order, and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people, and their respect for and attachment to the National Government, designed by its patriotic founders for the general good.

Further, Johnson declared:

 …unconditionally, and without reservation, to all and to every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof.

Now compare that to the zealous and unyielding pursuit by Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice of the Jan. 6 protesters, the vast majority of whom neither waged war, nor committed treason, but only trespassed in an effort to assure that their grievances were heard. Unbelievably, many of those protesters remain in jail 26 months after the riot without ever having received the speedy trial they are promised by the Constitution, and others – once convicted – face lengthy prison terms in unfathomable conditions.

What does the DOJ say about its mission? Here’s an excerpt from the department’s March 6 update:

[T]he investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the attack continues to move forward at an unprecedented speed and scale. The Department of Justice’s resolve to hold accountable those who committed crimes on January 6, 2021, has not, and will not, wane.

As I said before, it’s the Department of Retaliation, and there’s no reason to think it will end there. The special counsel appointed to investigate Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents and his actions and words on Jan. 6 represents a new low in American politics. No matter how Merrick Garland or Joe Biden spin it, this is not about justice, but about eliminating the biggest threat to Biden’s reelection.

Where is James Comey when you need him? Remember when the former FBI director recited the not insubstantial case against Hillary Clinton for possession of classified information on an illegal server, and then declared “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case”? That is exactly how most nonpartisan people feel about the case against Trump, who, unlike Hillary, was president and actually had the power to declassify any documents in his possession.

Even more outrageous is claiming that Trump was guilty of treason or inciting a riot because he asked his supporters to walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan. 6 “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” That’s not incitement; it’s First Amendment-protected political speech. And when Trump said, “We fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he wasn’t talking about invading the Capitol; he was specifically talking about fighting against election fraud. Any other interpretation is disingenuous.

Yet the Department of Retaliation continues its relentless assault on Trump supporters like a bureaucratic version of Inspector Javert from “Les Miserables.” Instead of showing the magnanimity of President Johnson following the Civil War, the Democratic administration of Joe Biden insists on fracturing our society even more than it was at the end of the Trump administration.

Remember Andrew Johnson’s words? He said that a pardon “will tend to secure permanent peace, order, and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people.” Why can’t the Democrats and their sympathizers like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger see that their obdurate persecution of Trump voters will have the opposite effect? Instead of bringing their opponents to heel, they will just foment greater hatred and distrust among those who already feel abandoned and rejected by their government.

Or maybe the Democrats do know exactly what they are doing. Spanish-born and American-educated philosopher George Santayana said,  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” but maybe even more dangerous are those who distort the past. They condemn the rest of us to a legacy of permanent chaos, lies, and animosity, and of course they expect us to shut up and take it. There was no insurrection on Jan. 6, but that doesn’t mean the people will be patient forever.

A Kansas meat packing company has recalled approximately 3,436 lbs of boneless beef chuck product due to potential contamination with E. coli, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

A routine FSIS inspection of a sample of ground beef made from the boneless beef chuck tested positive for this strain of E. coli, also known as STEC O103, after which the the Harper, Kansas-based outfit issued the recall.

The affected beef products were packaged on Feb. 16, 2023. The recall applies to all corrugated boxes of various weights containing “Elkhorn Valley Pride Angus Beef 61226 BEEF CHUCK 2PC BNLS; Packed on 2/16/23.”

The FSIS has provided a list of serial numbers and box count numbers on their website, according to the Epoch Times, which notes that the affected products were shipped to distributors, federal establishments, retail locations and wholesale locations – including hotels, restaurants, and institutions, in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Consumers are advised not to use or distribute the affected products, and throw them out or return them to where they were purchased.

0103

As the Epoch Times notes;

STEC O103 infection can cause bloody diarrhea and vomiting, and some illnesses can last longer and be more severe.

Most people recover within a week, but some can develop a more severe infection, including hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which is a type of kidney failure. HUS can occur in people of any age but is most common in children under five years old, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems.

“It is marked by easy bruising, pallor, and decreased urine output. Persons who experience these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately,” FSIS said.

FSIS says that it routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to ensure that recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to ensure the product is no longer available to consumers.

To prevent foodborne illnesses, the FSIS recommends that all consumers prepare their raw meat products safely, including fresh and frozen, and only consume ground beef products that have been cooked to a temperature of 160° Fahrenheit.

According to the FSIS, using a food thermometer that measures internal temperature is the only way to confirm that ground beef has been cooked to a high enough temperature to kill harmful bacteria.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. government has released the licensing agreement it hammered out with vaccine manufacturer Moderna but has refused to confirm many payment details.

Moderna agreed to pay the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to license spike protein technology the company included in its COVID-19 vaccine, the contract confirms.

Moderna resisted for years acknowledging the work by government researchers on the spike protein but relented in late 2021 and announced the contract during an earnings call on Feb. 23.

Moderna said it provided a “catch-up payment” of $400 million to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, under the agreement.

The newly disclosed contract says that Moderna would pay the NIH a “noncreditable, nonrefundable royalty in the amount of Four Hundred Million dollars.”

Portions that would confirm Moderna’s statement that the company would pay “low single digit royalties” on future sales of its COVID-19 vaccines are redacted.

The contract, running 34 pages, has key sections redacted as to future royalties.

One section, for instance, says, “The licensee agrees to pay to the NIAID earned royalties on net sales … as follows.” But the rest of the section is redacted.

The Epoch Times obtained the contract through the Freedom of Information Act.

The NIH cited for the redactions an exemption to the act that enables agencies to withhold “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.”

“They redacted the royalties, even though there have been press releases about the royalties,” James Love, director of the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International, told The Epoch Times via email. “It’s common but [expletive] to redact royalties on a negotiated license on a government patent.”

Unredacted information in the contract confirmed that Moderna had agreed to pay the NIH royalties before the agreement took effect in late 2022: a “minimum annual royalty,” “earned royalties,” and “benchmark royalties.”

The contract was signed on Dec. 14, 2022, by Michael Mowatt, director of the Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Office at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Shannon Klinger, chief legal officer at Moderna.

The payments would include a royalty within 60 days after government officials provided a “reasonable detailed written statement and request” for an amount “equivalent to a pro rata share of the unreimbursed patent expenses previously paid by the NIAID.”

Moderna has made nearly $37 billion from its COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. It has forecast $5 billion in revenue from the vaccines in 2023. Moderna and Pfizer both received enormous government contracts for their vaccines, which helped in development and manufacturing.

Shares Ownership

The NIH shares ownership of the spike protein technology that Moderna utilized with researchers at Scripps Research Institute and Dartmouth University’s Geisel School of Medicine. Both are named as partners in the contract.

While it’s unclear from the contract what specific revenue the partners will receive from Moderna, Dartmouth said previously it would make money through the agreement.

Read more here…

“Lois Lerner ain’t got shit on me…”

Sometimes the hubris and self-delusion just goes too far…

It has been eleven years since Lois Lerner presided over (and then apologized for) the IRS targeting of conservatives during the 2012 election.

But her “inappropriate… error of judgment” may just have been turned up to ’11’ as during the day when independent journalist Matt Taibbi was in Washington DC delivering testimony to the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on March 9, an IRS agent visited his home in New Jersey, leaving a note demanding he contact the agency within four days.

That’s very odd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2023

“Odd” indeed, Mr. Musk.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft.

The journalist has provided House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.

He says the IRS initially rejected his 2021 return, which he later refiled, and it was rejected again – even though Mr. Taibbi says his accountants refiled it with an IRS-provided pin number.

Mr. Taibbi notes that in neither case was the issue “monetary,” and that the IRS owes him a “considerable” sum.

The bigger question on everyone’s minds (most of all Rep. Jordan) is simple –  since when did the IRS dispatch agents for surprise house calls? Is this the new $80 billion budget being well spent to ‘send a message’ to a reporter telling the truth?

The coincidental timing of this unannounced IRS agent visit prompted Rep. Jordan to write to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, demanding answers:

“In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress. We expect your full cooperation with our inquiry.”

Jordan added that “the circumstances… are incredible,” and “demand a careful examination by the Committee to determine whether the visit was a thinly-veiled attempt to influence or intimidate a witness before Congress.”

And the committee Chair demanded that the IRS and Treasury provide the following documents and information:

1. All documents and communications referring or relating to the IRS’s field visit to the residence of Matthew Taibbi on March 9, 2023;

2. All documents and communications between or among the IRS, Treasury Department, and any other Executive Branch entity referring or relating to Matthew Taibbi; and

3. All documents and communications sent or received by Revenue Officer [James Nelson] referring or relating to Matthew Taibbi.

Yellen and Werfel were given until April 10th to comply with the request.

Will this arrogant show of disdain for democracy – this clear and present danger exposed of government agency ‘weaponization’ at its very apex – be the Alonzo Harris’ undoing of ‘untouchable’ Democratic Party’s grip on power?

We will have to wait and see if Rep. Jordan’s demands for documents are met?

*  *  *

Read Rep. Jordan’s full letter to The IRS and Treasury below:

Authored by Jennifer Marguilis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In a funk? Do you: a) reach for a bag of potato chips, b) call a friend, c) pop an extra anti-depressant, or d) head for the gym to sweat out the sadness?

For years, studies have shown that exercise is one of the best ways to treat a range of mental health issues. A new analysis of that whole body of research makes this clearer than ever.

This new study, which was conducted by a team of 13 Australian scientists, was published in February in the British Medical Journal’s British Journal of Sports Medicine.

As the researchers explored, pharmaceuticals are usually the first response to mental health issues worldwide, with lifestyle adjustments like exercise, sleep hygiene, and a healthy diet considered merely as complementary choices, at best.

Even when lifestyle changes are recommended, they are seldom prescribed to patients in treatment by medical doctors.

A Vast Evidence Base

In order to synthesize the evidence on the positive and negative effects of physical activity on depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in adults, the Australian researchers performed an “umbrella overview,” a comprehensive analysis of all the work that has been done on the subject to date.

The idea behind an umbrella review of this type is to try to quantify the strength of the signal.

One scientific study provides some direct evidence that a treatment is useful; but when hundreds of studies confirm each other, taken together, these studies more strongly suggest that a treatment or intervention may be widely effective and applicable.

Since so much research has been done in the field of exercise and mental health, the Australian team sought to examine the totality of the evidence.

To that end, they looked at nearly a hundred reviews, comprising over a thousand studies done, on over 100,000 participants. In other words, they conducted a “systematic [review] of systematic reviews, synthesizing a vast evidence base.”

Exercise Best Treatment for Depression

Mental health is often pushed to the fringe of health care, but half of all people experience some mental health distress at some point in their lives, and more than 10 percent of people worldwide are currently struggling with mental health.

Anxiety is the most common problem—and seems to be becoming more pronounced among children and younger adults—while depression poses the greatest burden to normal life function.

The Australian researchers discovered that exercise provided the best results when used for treating depression. More specifically, exercise was 150 percent more effective than pharmaceuticals or Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

It was also better than psychological consultation or “talk therapy.” In fact, exercise was shown to reduce depressive symptoms by 42 to 60 percent, whereas talk therapy and pharmaceuticals only reduced symptoms between 22 percent and 37 percent.

Exercise was shown to be the best treatment for both anxiety and depression, even though pharmaceuticals are the most commonly recommended treatment for both.

Any Kind of Exercise Works

Every kind of exercise worked. The numerous studies looked at many types and schedules of exercise, and they all worked—doing any movement regularly (including dancing, walking, and yoga) was a big improvement over doing nothing.

Read more here…

As the legacy auto industry continues its government-mandated business model shift to EVs, the current generation of the Chevrolet Camaro appears to have become collateral damage.

The once popular American muscle car is going out of production, according to General Motors, who announced last week that the sports car as it exists today would be “bowing out” after the current model and a final “collector’s edition”. 

While the vehicle has done well on the racetrack, sales have slowed over recent years, the NY Post added. They reported that by the end of 2021, current generation Camaro sales had fallen almost 70%. 

Chevrolet sold 72,705 of the current generation when it was released in 2016 and that number fell to 21,893 by the end of 2021. 

“After nine strong model years in the market, with hundreds of thousands sold, the sixth generation Chevrolet Camaro will retire at the conclusion of model year 2024.The final sixth generation Camaros will come off the assembly line at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in Michigan in January 2024,” the release said.

Scott Bell, vice president, Global Chevrolet, commented: “As we prepare to say goodbye to the current generation Camaro, it is difficult to overstate our gratitude to every Camaro customer, Camaro assembly line employee and race fan. While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story.”

GM continued: 

Chevrolet will celebrate this storied nameplate with the addition of the Collector’s Edition package on the 2024 Camaro RS and SS, and on a limited number of ZL1 equipped vehicles available in North America. The Collector’s Edition pays homage to Camaro, resurfacing ties that date back to the development of the first generation Camaro in the 1960s, most notably the program’s initial code name: Panther.

Regarding the move’s effect on Camaro and Chevrolet’s presence around the race track, Jim Campbell, Chevrolet U.S. vice president, Performance and Motorsports, concluded: “Chevrolet’s products and our relationship with our customers benefit from motorsports. Our plan is to continue to compete and win at the highest levels of auto racing.”

“Chevrolet campaigns the sixth generation Camaro in a variety of series, including NASCAR, IMSA, SRO, NHRA and the Supercars Championship. Camaro will continue to compete on track, working with motorsports sanctioning bodies to ensure Chevrolet’s presence in racing moving forward,” GM concluded.