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San Diego County Sales Tax Push

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The San Diego County Administration Center and Waterfront Park on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) San Diego County Sales Tax Push: After Voters Approved Pension Reform, Courts Blocked It—Now Taxpayers Face the Bill TL;DR San Diego County unions are pushing a permanent half-cent sales tax increase to generate $360 million annually, primarily to cover pension costs and unfunded liabilities totaling $3.1 billion. This comes after courts struck down voter-approved Proposition B (2012), which sought to transition future employees to 401(k)-style plans. Meanwhile, American households carry record debt ($17.94 trillion nationally), private sector workers have lost pension security (only 15% have defined benefit pensions vs. 86% of government workers), and AI threatens to displace half of all jobs—yet it's these struggling private sector workers being asked to fund guaranteed lifetime pensions for government employees through regressive sales tax...
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How a Water Crisis Could Trigger the World's First Cyber War

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  As Turkey's Dams Hold back Tehran's Water When Geopolitical Leverage Meets Existential Desperation, the Desperate Actor Has One Final Card TL;DR Tehran faces evacuation within weeks as reservoir levels hit 11-13% capacity. Iran's water crisis—caused primarily by IRGC corruption and mismanagement, not climate change—could trigger unprecedented military escalation. Turkey controls 88-90% of Euphrates flow through its GAP cotton project (a deliberate Aral Sea-style disaster), while international law and organizations remain powerless due to sovereignty principles. Iran possesses both conventional missiles capable of destroying Turkish dams (potentially killing 50,000-500,000) and proven cyber capabilities to hack dam SCADA systems—a reversible, deniable alternative demonstrated when Iranian hackers penetrated a U.S. dam in 2013. Western media buries the story under "climate change" framing that obscures IRGC responsibility and prevents accountability. The inter...
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NAD+ Restoration Reverses Alzheimer's Pathology in Mice

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Path to Human Treatment Remains Long and Uncertain BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have demonstrated that restoring brain NAD+ levels with the compound P7C3-A20 reversed Alzheimer's pathology and cognitive deficits in two distinct mouse models. The findings, published in Cell Reports Medicine, show comprehensive disease modification including restored memory, reduced inflammation, and repaired blood-brain barrier function in mice with advanced disease. While parallel human tissue analyses confirm NAD+ disruption in Alzheimer's, the work remains preclinical, and substantial biological, regulatory, and clinical hurdles separate mouse recovery from human therapy. In a windowless laboratory at Case Western Reserve University, mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's disease demonstrated something remarkable: after 12 weeks of treatment with a small molecule drug, they navigated mazes with the precision of healthy animals...
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