Sputnik International

Roscosmos is “moving at a rapid pace” toward fielding an alternative to Elon Musk’s satellite internet empire. Veteran military expert Yuri Knutov breaks things down.

What’s Russia Building?

Bureau 1440 is working on a low-Earth orbit sat net for broadband data delivery:

• multiple test vehicles are already in orbit
• communications tested at ranges of 30-1,000 km
• first stage of series deployment slated to start in December (300 satellites); 900 in stage two
• ~500 base stations planned
• homegrown terminal coming “soon,” per Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov
• trial roll-out planned for 2027

What Makes Russia’s Version Better?

Musk’s system works like this: ground-based Starlink Gateways communicate with orbiting satellites using electromagnetic radiation, with signals then communicated back down to Earth-based terminals.

Russia’s system uses laser beams, which “are more modern digital technologies providing faster & higher quality data transmission, as well as improved resistance to interference,” Knutov explains.

Longer Range

An effective range of up to 5,000 km “means far fewer satellites are needed than Elon Musk’s system (hundreds vs thousands),” Knutov explains.

That makes the Russian system not only less costly, but less harmful to the already heavily overcrowded LEO environment.

Doppler Effect: Solved

“We’ve been able to completely compensate” for the Doppler signal frequency issue, occurring from the high speeds (27,000 km/h) at which satellites orbit Earth, “allowing the signal to be maintained virtually free of interference & distortion.”

Global Implications

The system will provide secure, high-speed communications to:

• Russian resource sector companies working in remote areas
• ships situated anywhere on Earth
• the military, for command, control & real-time battlefield reports, ensuring informed decision-making

Alternative to US tech

“Nations of the Global South understand that dependence on the US makes them vulnerable. Internet access via Starlink can be restricted at any time. Availability of a Russian system providing equally good or even better services is crucial,” Knutov says, emphasizing that the new system cannot be deployed too soon.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20250917/russias-hi-tech-starlink-analog-can-free-global-south-from-us-tech-dominance-heres-how-1122802372.html

He added: “Forgive the cliche, but it is rather Orwellian for a piece of journalism, which raises questions about our guest’s relationship with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker to lead to arrests.”

They added: “We’re constantly told, you know, we need to see peaceful protests. Well, here’s a peaceful protest … We projected a piece of journalism on to a wall and now people have been arrested for malicious communications. I think that, frankly, says a lot more about the policing of Trump’s visit than it does about what we did.”

The group said it was waiting for news about the four men who had been arrested. The spokesperson said they had carried out an “Emperor’s New Clothes” protest.

“Trump is being welcomed to our country, being given the unique honour of a second state visit, and it’s being housed at our expense at Windsor Castle,” they said. “This is like The Emperor’s New Clothes – you’ve got to point at it and say, ‘Hang on. You know, this guy has incredibly close links to America’s most notorious child sex trafficker. We probably need to talk about that.’ And so we decided to build a film that would tell that story.”

Trump has come under increasing pressure over his links with Epstein after the publication of a letter, the existence of which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July, by Congress’s House oversight committee earlier this month. The letter contains text of a purported dialogue between Trump and Epstein in which Trump calls him a “pal” and says: “May every day be another wonderful secret.”

The text sits within a crude sketch of a silhouette of a naked woman. Trump had previously denied writing the letter and the White House has denied its authenticity.

[…]

Via https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/four-arrested-after-image-of-trump-and-epstein-projected-onto-windsor-castle-ahead-of-presidents-visit

Echoes of Water: Morocco

Directed by Adnane Baraka (2025)

Film Review

Farmers in southeastern Morocco have been struggling with a 20 year drought. This film focuses on their efforts to preserve ancient khetteras their ancestors dug to create artificial oases. Khetteras are 10-25 foot wells dug into aquifers in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. They rely on gravity and natural contours to channel the water to the surface in nearby valleys.

The filmmakers interview a farming family who continue ancestral practices to keep their oasis alive. They gives up grass (for animals) and legume production in the really dry years to preserve their shrinking date palm orchard. They’re meticulous about pruning dead branches to protect his trees from fire.

Morocco’s kheterras have been added to the UN heritage list to protect them from industrial development.

The government also plays an important role in increasing the country’s water supply b constructing new dams, teaching farmers drip irrigation and transferring water from well-supplied basins to those with a deficit.

They’ve also installed large plastic nets over sand dunes adjacent to oases to keep sand from plugging them up and are planning major desalinization plants along the coast.

By Joseph Varon

Walk into any American airport today and pause. Look around at the travelers waiting at the gate, the families queuing for fast food, the crowds rushing past. You are looking at a country that our grandparents would not recognize. In less than three generations, the very shape of the American body has shifted so dramatically that what would once have been regarded as rare or concerning is now routine. Airplane seats have been widened, retail clothing racks have been extended, mannequins have been reshaped, and soda cups have been enlarged. Entire industries have recalibrated to accommodate a physiology that is neither healthy nor sustainable.

Yet our cultural narrative increasingly insists that this shift is normal—sometimes even desirable. We are told that larger mannequins are a sign of “representation,” that rebranded fashion shows signify “inclusivity,” and that bigger chairs and bigger uniforms are gestures of compassion. But none of this changes biology. A mannequin does not get diabetes. A marketing campaign cannot erase hypertension. And no amount of “body positivity” cancels the cruel arithmetic of metabolic disease.

Obesity is not normal physiology. It is common, costly, and deadly. Pretending otherwise is not kindness—it is cultural anesthesia.

A Nation Grows Heavier

The data tell the story with unflinching clarity. In 1960, the average American man weighed 166 pounds, while the average woman weighed 140 pounds. By 2002, men averaged 191 pounds and women 164 pounds, representing gains of more than 20 pounds per person in a single generation [1-2]. Height increased by about an inch during the same period, which is nowhere near enough to explain the mass increase.

Obesity prevalence, once a marginal condition, ballooned in parallel. In the early 1960s, about 13 percent of adults met criteria for obesity. By 2010, the figure had reached 36 percent. Today, more than 40 percent of American adults live with obesity[3-5]. This is not a slight cultural drift. It is a wholesale population-level transformation, visible everywhere and confirmed by every credible dataset.

The costs are staggering. Annual medical expenditures attributable to obesity are estimated at $173 billion in the United States. Adults with obesity generate, on average, nearly $1,900 more in health costs per year than their normal-weight peers[6-7]. These figures capture only direct medical spending. They do not reflect lost productivity, shortened lifespans, military unfitness, or the millions of families silently managing the downstream complications: diabetes, heart disease, liver failure, sleep apnea, infertility, and cancer.

The Environment That Made Us Sick

What changed so radically between the early 1960s and the present? Not our genes. The human genome has not undergone significant mutation in half a century. What changed was our environment: the way we eat, the way we work, the way we live.

Per capita daily caloric availability in the United States increased by more than 20 percent between 1970 and 2010, a surge driven by the consumption of processed, shelf-stable, calorie-dense foods. [8] Portion sizes, which began to expand in the 1970s and continued to grow in the 1980s, exceeded what earlier generations would have considered a regular meal. Studies consistently demonstrate that larger portions lead to greater intake at a single sitting and cumulatively across days [9-10].

At the same time, the energy we burn at work fell sharply. As manufacturing and agriculture gave way to service industries and screen-bound labor, occupational energy expenditure dropped by more than 100 calories per day since 1960[11-12]. For an individual, that number might sound trivial. For a population of 330 million people, compounded across decades, it is catastrophic.

The composition of our food supply also changed. Today, more than half of all calories consumed by American adults come from ultra-processed foods: engineered products designed for bliss-point palatability and low cost. Among youth, the proportion is closer to two-thirds[13-14]. These foods are calorie-dense but nutritionally hollow, engineered to override satiety mechanisms and promote overconsumption. A growing body of cohort studies links ultra-processed food intake with obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, confirming what common sense already suspected.

The epidemic is not mysterious. We eat more, we move less, and the food itself is industrially reengineered to push appetite into overdrive.

Cultural Rebranding of Disease

Even as the physiology deteriorated, the culture adapted—by redefining what counts as “normal.” This is where mannequins and marketing come into play.

In 2019, Nike unveiled plus-size mannequins in a flagship London store and hailed the move as a gesture of inclusivity and representation. [15] Victoria’s Secret, once the cathedral of a single body type, abandoned its iconic runway show and rebranded with mannequins of different sizes and a new language about empowerment[16-17]. Other retailers quickly followed suit.

No one disputes that people deserve dignity and clothing that fits them well. But retail is not an altruistic enterprise. The introduction of larger mannequins was not a campaign for justice; it was a marketing strategy. Representation has its place. The problem is when representation blurs into normalization—when physiology that carries increased risk of disease is recast as simply another aesthetic option.

This is cultural anesthesia. It reassures without healing. It consoles while condemning. It teaches people to accept a physiology that will shorten their lives and bankrupt their health. That is not compassion. That is capitulation.

The Limits of “Health at Every Size”

It is both possible and necessary to treat every individual with respect while telling the truth about obesity. But slogans like “health at every size” cross a line from kindness into denial. Biology is not a social construct. Excess adipose tissue is not a role model.

Obesity is associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, infertility, and several cancers[6-7]. It shortens lives and drains public resources. To insist that these risks are merely inventions of stigma is to lie to patients under the guise of affirmation.

The clinical reality is not pleasant, but it is unavoidable. Physicians must treat disease with honesty, even when the culture demands euphemism. Compassion means helping patients reverse risk, not reassuring them that risk does not exist.

The 1950s Baseline

Invoking the 1950s risks nostalgia. That era had its own injustices and inequities. But metabolically, it provides a valuable baseline. Families ate smaller portions, prepared more meals at home, moved more in the course of daily life, and consumed fewer ultra-processed foods. Sugary sodas existed, but they were modestly sized and not consumed by default with every meal. “Large” meant a single cup, not a liter.

The lesson is not that the 1950s were a golden age. The lesson is that, within the same borders and with the same genetic pool, Americans were metabolically healthier before their environment was re-engineered. That proves the point: environment, not destiny, is the driver.

Incentives for Obesity

The obesity epidemic is not an accident. It is the product of incentives. Food companies profit when people eat more often and in larger quantities. “Value” is measured in calories per dollar, not nutrients per life. Pharmaceutical companies profit when chronic diseases linger; lifelong pharmacotherapy for obesity and its complications is now a growth market. Retailers profit when larger sizes are normalized and more units are sold. Politicians profit when difficult policy reforms—such as agricultural subsidies, zoning changes, and school meal standards—are replaced with slogans about inclusivity.

There is no conspiracy here. There is scaffolding. And people, especially children, grow into whatever scaffolding we build. These children will grow up with a variety of chronic diseases, and their lifespan will be limited.

A Different Kind of Compassion

The way forward requires disentangling people from pathology. Individuals must be respected and never humiliated. But the epidemic must be denormalized, not celebrated. That means telling the truth plainly: obesity is not neutral. It is a disease state.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/the-comfortable-collapse-how-america-learned-to-pretend-obesity-is-normal/

By Max Blumenthal

The Grayzone

A month before Charlie Kirk’s killing, billionaire pro-Israel moneyman Bill Ackman arranged an intervention in the Hamptons during which sources say he and others “hammered” Kirk for the conservative leader’s growing criticism of Israeli influence in Washington. Kirk came away fretting about Israeli “blackmail,” sources say, as he contemplated a Catholic conversion.

On September 11, one day after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, billionaire pro-Israel moneyman Bill Ackman took to Twitter/X to trumpet his relationship with the late conservative operative. “I feel incredibly privileged to have spent a day and shared a meal with @charliekirk11 this summer. He was a giant of a man.”

The Grayzone has spoken to five people with intimate knowledge of Kirk’s meeting with Ackman, which was held in early August under the guise of a summertime Hamptons lunch. According to one source, Kirk was left upset after the gathering turned into an “intervention” where he was “hammered” for his increasingly skeptical views on the US special relationship with Israel, and for platforming prominent conservative critics of Israel at his TPUSA events.

When his hosts presented him with a detailed list of every offense he supposedly committed against Israel, Kirk was “horrified,” said one person. At one point, according to another source, Ackman angrily chastised Kirk for his disobedience. The Zionist billionaire also allegedly demanded Kirk rescind his invitation for Tucker Carlson to speak at his upcoming America Fest 2025 in December.

The Grayzone reported on September 12, citing an associate of Kirk, that Netanyahu had offered to organize a massive infusion of pro-Israel money into TPUSA, and that Kirk refused. Another longtime friend of Kirk has told The Grayzone that the conservative activist also rejected an offer Netanyahu delivered two weeks before his death to meet with him in Jerusalem.

Kirk, according to one person with inside knowledge of the meeting with Ackman, said he left feeling as though he’d been subjected to “blackmail.”

In a series of text messages with The Grayzone, Ackman described these account of his meeting with Kirk as “totally false.” He pledged to release a public statement providing his own account of the event, but refused The Grayzone’s request for clarification or further details. He would not accept phone calls from this reporter.

“I think I can easily put this to bed,” Ackman promised, “I have receipts as they say.” He did not abide when asked to provide the so-called “receipts.”

In an apparent bid to reinforce the pro-Israel tone at the Hamptons meeting, Ackman hosted a coterie of pro-Israel operatives and conservative influencers at the off-the-record engagement. One was Instagram influencer Xaviaer DuRousseau of Prager U.

Reached by phone by The Grayzone, DuRousseau sounded flustered when asked about his presence at the meeting. He repeatedly demanded to know how this reporter obtained his number, and eventually hung up, refusing to answer questions about the event.

Two weeks after the meeting, DeRousseau was reportedly junketed on an all-expenses-paid trip by the Israeli government to visit a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “aid” hub guarded by the IDF on the Gaza frontier. There, he recorded an Instagram video denying that the population of the besieged Gaza Strip was experiencing a famine.

The Grayzone received a similarly agitated response from Wilson, known online as Emily Saves America. Following a phone call and exchange of text messages in which this reporter asked her numerous times about her attendance of the meeting in the Hamptons, Wilson refused to comment. Instagram photos place her in the Hamptons at the same time as DuRousseau.

[…]

The strong-arm tactics of the pro-Israel billionaires who helped fuel the growth of TPUSA were said to have contributed to Kirk’s alienation with evangelical Christianity, which emphasizes uncritical support for Israel as a bedrock principle. Several sources with access to Kirk said he had begun attending Catholic mass with his wife, Erika, and was considering a conversion before his death.

Bree Solsdadt, a Catholic Twitter/X influencer, has publicly corroborated this account of Kirk’s religious realignment. Kirk’s friend, the podcaster and former TPUSA personality Candace Owens, also alluded to the shift when she reflected that he was undergoing a “spiritual transformation” before his death.

Israel-centric influencer summit in the Hamptons

The Grayzone has obtained a partial list of attendees alleged to have been in attendance at the Bridgehampton meeting convened by Ackman this August. They include:

[…]

Via https://thegrayzone.substack.com/p/billionaire-bill-ackman-convened