Monthly Archives: February 2021

Being declared legally dead doesnt mean you have to take a dirt nap, futurist and philosopher Max Moore told RT, explaining how, at least in theory, cryonics offers people a second shot at life.

Moore, president emeritus of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a leading organization in cryonics, told SophieCo host Sophie Shevardnadze that the definition of dead has changed as scientific and medical advancements progress. As an example, he noted that there are numerous ways to resuscitate people suffering from heart failure that didnt exist 70 years ago. Moore said that Alcor exists to preserve bodies in hope that future technology can revive those who may otherwise be deemed gone forever.

[W]hat we say is turn them over to us, we're going to protect the cells against cold, we're going to remove the blood, replace it with essentially a medical-grade antifreeze, he said. The organization then stores the bodies at about minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit, minus 196 degrees Celsius, preserving them for decades.

Alcor, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been freezing bodies for nearly 50 years, boasting 181 patients in total.

According to Moore, major scientific breakthroughs are needed before any of Alcors clients can be revived. For example, he said that it would take a long time to solve issues surrounding ageing, and that there would be no point in bringing someone back as a 90-year-old just to have your body give out again. He acknowledged, however, that there may never be a way to reverse such natural phenomena.

We are not guaranteeing this will definitely work, which is better than the alternative, we think.

He recognized that some may find the idea of being revived in the distant future unsettling and perhaps even worse than death, since they wouldnt know anyone and everything could potentially be foreign to them.

[It] does take a sense of adventure, no doubt about it. A lot of people are not going to want to do this, even if they're sure itll work because they just don't have that much of a sense of adventure, he told Shevardnadze.

Moore said Alcor was researching how it could help revived individuals readjust to their new lives, saying rehabilitation would be a core mission for the organization going forward.

He argued that, unlike many religions, cryonics does not promise life after death, but does open the door to the possibility that one day you could wake up, albeit in a very different world.

Speaking personally, Moore said that he was hoping that scientific advancements would allow him to indefinitely extend his life, but that progress on this frontier has been slow, which likely meant that he would need to undergo the procedure himself when the time comes.

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Time of death? Whenever you decide! Futurist pitches cryopreservation to RT mostly for people with a sense of adventure - RT

The Trudeau government is seeking a fourth extension to the court-imposed deadline for expanding access to medical assistance in dying.

Justice Minister David Lametti is asking the court to give the government one more month until March 26 to pass Bill C-7.

The bill is intended to bring the law into compliance with a 2019 Quebec Superior Court ruling that struck down a provision allowing assisted dying only for people nearing the natural ends of their lives.

The bid for yet another extension reflects doubt that the government can get the bill passed by the current deadline next Friday.

On Tuesday, the House of Commons is scheduled to begin debating whether to accept or reject major amendments passed by the Senate.

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That debate could drag on for days and whatever the Commons ultimately decides on the amendments, the bill must still go back to the upper house, where senators will have to decide whether to defer to the elected chamber or dig in their heels.

Theoretically, the bill could bounce back and forth between the two parliamentary chambers indefinitely.

The Senate was to resume sitting on Tuesday but that has now been delayed until next Friday, in seeming recognition that C-7 is unlikely to be back in senators laps before then.

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Sen. Marc Gold, the governments representative in the Senate, said the Senate can be recalled earlier if need be. In a statement, Gold said he remains fully committed to the legislation receiving royal assent expeditiously and in time to meet the court deadline of Feb. 26.

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In a joint statement, Lametti and Health Minister Patty Hajdu said they too continue to hope that the bill can receive royal assent by Feb. 26. But they said the government is seeking the one-month extension as a prudent step in case Parliament cant meet the deadline.

Amending Canadas MAID (medical assistance in dying) law has been a lengthy and complex process. After months of review in both the House of Commons and the Senate, we are now at a critical stage, the ministers said.

The bill would expand access to assisted dying to intolerably suffering individuals who are not approaching the natural ends of their lives.

The Senate has passed the bill with five amendments, two of which would expand access well beyond what the government proposed.

One would allow people who fear losing mental capacity to make advance requests for assisted dying. The other would impose an 18-month time limit on the bills proposed ban on assisted dying for people suffering solely from mental illnesses.

The Conservatives, who were largely opposed to the original bill and dragged out debate on it, have called for extended sitting hours for the Commons, even into the weekend, to allow for thorough debate on the Senate amendments.

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Canadas Conservatives believe any bill that is life-or-death like MAID requires a significant amount of scrutiny, the partys justice critic, Rob Moore, said in a statement.

The constant scrambling from the Liberals to try and ram this bill through should be alarming to all Canadians.

As the Liberals hold only a minority of seats in the Commons, the government would need the support of at least one opposition party to cut debate short.

It will also need at least one party to support its decision to accept, reject or modify each of the amendments.

2021 The Canadian Press

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Feds ask court to grant 4th extension to allow passage of assisted dying bill - Global News

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'We need to trust our medical professionals' - McDonald

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An extension to the lockdown for the North BayandParry Sound regions is disappointing news, but North Bay Mayor Al McDonald says he is more disappointed we dont have a vaccine available to allow us to get back to a life closer to normal.

McDonald said Friday afternoon, after it was announced the lockdown for the area would be extended, its his understanding the reason is the appearance of a variant to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The province announced Friday afternoon the shutdown, stay-at-home order and all existing public health and workplace safety measures will remain in effect until March 8 for this region, as well as the Toronto and Peel public health regions.

All three were previously scheduled to come out of the shutdown by Feb. 22.

I think (the local and provincial health authorities) made the best decision in the best interests of keeping people safe, McDonald said. I trust they are making the right decisions for all of us.

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Do we like the fact they are extending it? We are all disappointed it had to be extended. But we need to keep our focus on keeping people safe.

McDonald said he knows its tough on businesses, which, with some exceptions, will have to remain closed for another two weeks.

But he urges business owners to hang in as best you can.

We are doing what we can and we are encouraging our citizens to shop local, support local business . . . and if you do shop online, shop locally. Do whatever you can to support local businesses.

And while residents of the region are suffering lockdown fatigue after 11 months of the pandemic, McDonald noted that until the variant identified as the B.1.351 or South African variant was identified in the area, we had the second lowest or lowest infection rate in the province.

We need to trust our medical professionals, McDonald said. We have to trust their advice and act accordingly.

But the extension puts a strain on our business community, a North Bay restaurateur says.

John Lechlitner said the two-week extension is disappointing, after the North Bay-Parry Sound area was one of three in the province still under the lockdown.

Its not good, but it is what it is, Lechlitner said.

We have got to do our best to get the (COVID-19) numbers down.

What I was hoping for was some sign of hope for the region, he said. If that takes another week or two weeks . . . Its a difficult pill to swallow.

Lechlitner said he accepts that it is a science-based decision, but its still disappointing.

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All I can say is stay positive, Michelle Trudeau, chair of Downtown North Bay, said.

The decision to extend the lockdown is not surprising, but it is very disappointing. Its affecting us all.

One of her businesses, Michelles Framemaker and Gallery, is closed through the lockdown, while her other business, the Opera Bakery Cafe, still has its doors open.

We cant do much business, if any, because of the shutdown at the Framemaker, she says.

It hurts. It hurts everything across the board. Our customers, our community, our businesses, our employees.

Im lucky because (the Opera Bakery) is a food business, and we all need to eat. But until things open up again and we get back to work, a little business like this, it depends on shoppers downtown.

Many restaurants have seen business almost collapse over the past year, with sales down as much as 70 per cent, according to one downtown restaurateur.

Were going to survive, Trudeau says. Were hardy. One of the things that amazes me is how creative our customers have been to support us.

Well get through this. I have every confidence.

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Lockdown extension disappointing - The North Bay Nugget

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The US wants Russia and China to rein in their respective strategic nuclear arsenals while it modernizes its own nuclear defenses at the same time. When it comes to strategic nukes, the US cant have its cake and eat it too.

The US Senate recently passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), allocating some $1.5 billion for research and development of a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

The funding of the GBSD occurred despite pressure to divert some or all of the current allocation to support emergency Covid-19 contingencies. One of the major factors behind the decision was a concerted effort on the part of the US Air Force and the commander of US Strategic Command to convince Congress that a failure to fund the GBSD would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament, given that the current US ICBM force, comprised of Minuteman III missiles, will begin aging out as the missiles reach their operational expiration dates.

The proponents of the GBSD, however, have a major policy hurdle before them namely the desire on the part of President Joe Biden to undertake a review of the current US nuclear posture with the view of breathing new life into strategic arms control negotiations that could potentially reduce the size of the US nuclear arsenal.

Many arms control advocates believe that the logical choice for any significant reduction in the US strategic nuclear arsenal would be to do away with ICBMs altogether, eliminating the need for the GBSD. The supporters of the GBSD believe such a move would put the US in danger by increasing the risk of a nuclear attack by limiting the number of targets any potential nuclear foe would need to strike in an effort to preemptively neutralize the US nuclear deterrent.

There is an urgency in this debate driven by two hard-wired calendar dates. The first is the expiration of the recently extended New START treaty.

While the US and Russia agreed to extend this treaty by five years, the fact is this treaty will expire for good come February 2026, leaving the two nations a scant five years to negotiate a follow-on agreement. The other hard date is in 2030, when the Minuteman III ICBM force will begin aging out.

The current GBSD funding authorization envisions the deployment of a fully operational replacement missile by 2029, but this is contingent upon continued funding at ever-increasing levels in the years to come. If a commitment is made to continue fully funding the GBSD with an eye on operational deployment by 2029, it will handicap US arms control negotiators who will have zero flexibility when it comes to devising a negotiating strategy capable of convincing their Russian, and possibly Chinese, counterparts to agree to meaningful cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals.

Land-based ICBMs have been a critical part of the nuclear Triad that has underpinned the US nuclear deterrence posture since the 1960s (the other two components being manned bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, SLBMs.)

Today the US maintains a force of 450 hardened missile silos containing 400 Minuteman III ICBMs scattered across Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. This force has been designed to respond on short notice to any nuclear attack. But its most important characteristic today is its role as a warhead sponge. Any potential nuclear-armed foe would need to allocate at least two nuclear warheads to each silo to have any chance of destroying the Minuteman III force. The only nation capable of carrying out such an attack today is Russia, which would have to allocate 900 of its 1,600 deployed warheads to have any chance of taking out the US ICBM leg of the nuclear Triad.

Supporters of the current nuclear Triad contend that without the land-based ICBM sponge, any potential foe would only need to focus on attacking five targets in the USthree strategic bomber bases, and two submarine bases. These same experts note that the pressure on the most survivable and lethal component of the Triad the SLBM will increase as force restructuring limits the number of submarines that are on patrol at any given time, and as new possible technologies emerge that can detect submarines more easily, increasing the chances that some or all of the deployed SLBM-carrying submarines could be preemptively targeted. Only by retaining the land-based ICBM, these experts argue, can the US guarantee a high degree of certainty that any nuclear attack against the US or its allies would result in a massive retaliation that no aggressor could hope to survive.

The Minuteman III missile has been in service for more than 50 years, despite being designed to last ten. It has achieved this level of longevity through a series of service life extension programs (SLEP) which, in their aggregate, have resulted in a missile very different from the one originally deployed, possessing upgraded booster rockets, new avionics and guidance systems, and more modern nuclear warheads. But the current fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs will begin to expire beginning in 2029, when many of the upgraded rocket boosters expire, followed by the guidance systems, which will begin to expire in 2031. If nothing is done to extend the life of the Minuteman III missiles, the arsenal of operational missiles will be reduced to 350 by 2033, and less than 100 by 2037.

Proponents of the GBSD argue that the fifty-year lifecycle costs associated with fielding a new ICBM, estimated at $159.2 billion, are actually cheaper than the fifty-year lifecycle cost of a new Minuteman III SLEP, with a baseline cost of $160.3 billion. They also point out that the GBSD costs go beyond simply putting a new missile in the ground, but also incorporate silo refurbishment and other ground infrastructure improvements, including a new nuclear command and control system designed to survive in a modern environment where cyber attacks are a real possibility. The new GBSD also incorporates a modular design that allows for rapid-retargeting, and flexibility when it comes to the payload carried, allowing for the introduction of new, improved delivery systems.

The scenario painted by the supporters of the GBSD is based upon an all-or-nothing approacheither spend the money of a new ICBM or lose the ground-based leg of the nuclear Triad forever. This logic mitigates both against the loss of ICBMs, and for a newer, more capable missile (the GBSD.) But it also ties the hands of arms control negotiators trying to come up with a formula that would result in the reduction of Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. By keeping the US nuclear Triad intact, and by deploying a new, more capable ICBM in the form of the GBSD, the US would eliminate any incentive on the part of either Russia or China to reduce the size and capability of their respective nuclear arsenals. Indeed, the exact opposite would happenRussia would continue its current nuclear modernization programs, and China would have every reason to invest in enlarging their own ICBM force.

Moreover, there is virtually no chance that the US would unilaterally disarm its ICBM force by allowing the Minuteman III ICBM to age out without a replacement. The solution to this quandary is how to best manage the US ICBM force in a manner that retains the potential for viable force retention while keeping the door open for the possibility of elimination through new arms control agreements. In this light, the GBSD is the least favorable option, as its funding cycle calls for the production of some 650 new missiles sustained over the course of fifty years. Once this production level is funded and underway, it will be virtually impossible to stop it from reaching completion.

However, the US could seek to extend the life of the existing Minuteman III ICBM force, and then use arms control negotiations as a way to leverage their continued existence as a means of getting the Russians to agree to meaningful reductions in their own arsenalthe heavy Sarmat ICBM comes to mind.

Similar trade-offs could be negotiated with the Chinese, with a reduction/elimination of the US ICBM arsenal offered up in exchange for China agreeing not to field any new generation ICBMs. These negotiations, if they are to have any chance of success, must be concluded in the next five yearsa very short time frame when it comes to arms control negotiations. The flexibility afforded by a Minuteman III SLEP would enable and enhance these negotiations, while an irreversible commitment to fund and deploy the GBSD would guarantee their failure. Seen in this light, there really isnt much of a debate. The key question is who will prevail in the future internal US debate over nuclear force posturethe advocates for a continuation of the nightmare of nuclear deterrence predicated on mutually assured destruction (a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one), or the proponents of meaningful nuclear disarmament through viable and verifiable arms control agreements.

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US needs to choose between new ICBMs & nightmare of nuclear deterrence OR meaningful disarmament through arms control - RT