Human trafficking

 

A person who follows these issues closely recently informed me that we are at "annual peak human trafficking".

She said that the Super Bowl represents the largest "event" for the human trafficking industry. And industry it is. Orders are made. Delivery time-tables are specified. "Products" are delivered. 

For a kidnapped child to show up in Southern California (where the 2026 Super Bowl will be held), they must be scooped up this week. Fortunately for the kidnappers, the frenzy of Christmas shopping makes it easy to have a scout cruise parking lots and calling in "teams" to nab kids left in cars to play with their "device" while mom or dad is making last-minute purchases.

One reason this isn't covered in the news outlets and captured in the FBI UCR system is that there is a break-down in reporting as files-are-cleared at the end of the year. Law enforcement agencies have a limited number of days to report-out end-of-year data before the results are compiled... Overburdened agencies face a lot of "moral hazard" to disappear reporting incidents that happen in the last half of December.

Another factor at play is many "missing children" are assumed to be muddled custody issues as they are passed back-and-forth between separated parents. The Christmas-New Years period is probably peak-chaos for custody conflicts and it is easy to assume that "Brad" is being an asshole. Little does the custodial parent know that their child is in a basement in Detroit getting addicted to drugs to make them compliant in time for The Big Party in Southern California.

My source informed me that the largest demographic for "orders" are for children between the ages of 5-and-11 (gender not specified!). Then next biggest demographic this time of year is for white women between the ages of 35-and-70 for the purpose of "Harem Masters". And yes, they are also addicted to drugs.

The third biggest demographic is for minority men between the ages of 20-and-30 as "Pimps" to keep the "Harem Masters" in line. 

These people are all expendable. In fact, they become a liability as the party "fizzles out" and they become potential witnesses/evidence. All of those little kiddies seen in the Epstein photos? Yeah, they are dead.

I know it sounds like a horrible Liam Neeson movie but as I get older it becomes harder and harder to find any act that is so depraved that there are not people actively engaged in and profiting from it. 

Bottom Line

Take your children with you into the store when you shop or leave them at home with a responsible adult. Don't leave them in the vehicle. Don't let them bring their "device".

Keep track of them while you are in the store. Pro-tip, buy them helium balloons and tie them to your child's wrist. Leave the ribbon long enough that the balloon can be seen above the racks.

Order stuff on-line and have it delivered. It probably won't arrive in time for Christmas Day but you can point out that there are 12 DAYS of Christmas. Jesus himself didn't get his Christmas gifts until the Magi arrived and that was NOT on the day of his birth. 

Stay away from crowds! 

Frequency of DIAGNOSED Mental Illnesses in the US

Jonathan commented on the previous post:

"...in some circles it (a mental illness diagnosis) is celebrated so people look for and encourage diagnoses that may not be medically accurate."

My perception is that many "sophisticated" players are gaming the system to take advantage of the "...reasonable accommodations..." for people with "disabilities" in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If a sophomore in high school can get a "label", then those accommodations often include extra time to complete tests. That includes the SAT and ACT which are college entrance exams. Sometimes those accommodations are so burdensome to the faculty that they allow the student to take the test home to complete.

Those labels follow the student to college where they offer the same advantages. Some "disabilities" impact the ability to read and so the "reasonable accommodation" involves supplying a person to read the questions out-loud. Some "disabilities" involve attention deficits and so the university is legally required to offer the student a private room (perhaps without a proctor to watch for cheating) to take the test.

By the numbers:

Recent annual rates of various mental/emotional health disorders in the United States (Link):

• Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: 1.2%
• Borderline Personality, Cluster B Disorder:  1.5%
• Bipolar Disorders: 2.8%
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorders: 4.1%
• Substance Abuse + Mental Health Diagnosis: 8.1%
• Major Depressive Disorder: 15.5%
• Anxiety Disorder: 19.1% 

(Anxiety and Depression are two sides of the same coin. Anxiety happens when a young person struggles to keep up with his herd/tribe. Depression happens when the young adult realizes that he will NEVER be able to keep up with his tribe) 

Diagnosed mental/emotional health disorder rates by selected demographic silos (Link):

• Male: 20%
• Female: 26.7%
• LGB: 53:2%

Stats from another website (Link):

 

Serious mental illness (SMI) is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities. 

Bottom line

1 in every 9 Gen Z in the work-force has been diagnosed with "Serious Mental Illness. 

1 in every 13 Millennial has been diagnosed with "Serious Mental Illness". 

If you are in a group of 20 random people, there is a good chance that there is at least one person in that group who is unhinged.

Plan accordingly. 

 

Are there more crazy people now?

 

Let's look specifically at Schizophrenia because it is among the most studied mental health disorders and many mental health issues share comorbidities. That is, if you are diagnosed with one "disorder" then there is a pretty good chance that at some point you will also be diagnosed with another disorder as symptoms evolve and manifest. So it is reasonable to assume that the "triggers" or environmental risk factors for Schizophrenia are likely to be risk factors for other mental illnesses.

Schizophrenia is also of interest because Nick Reiner was (reportedly) diagnosed with it. Schizophrenia is one of the "lifetime" diagnosis unlike Anxiety Disorder or Depression which can come-and-go.

It is currently believed that Schizophrenia is highly heritable and that the external "risk factors" that trigger it represent between 15%-and-40% of the aggregate risk. Some of those external risk factors* include (Link):

• In-Utero Trauma (bleeding, diabetes, rhesus incompatibility, preeclampsia, low birth-weight, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition, drug-use, other) Link
• Infections 
• Migration 
• Urban environments
• Childhood Trauma
• Cannabis use 

Let's look at them one-at-a-time

In-Utero Trauma: I would rate this as slightly elevated compared to 20 and 40 years ago. From anecdotal evidence, recent immigrants are less likely to seek prenatal care and might not even be paying attention to their pg/non-pg status...risk factor slightly increased.

Infections: Specifically Toxoplasma gondii and Chlamydia. T. gondii is spread via untreated fecal material, primarily from cats. Chlamydia rates increased by 50% between 2000 and 2015...so this risk-factor increased.

Migration: Migration to the United States showed a very large increase in the 2021-to-2024 (inclusive) time-frame. Literature specifies 1st and 2nd generations being at increased risk....so this risk-factor increased.

Urban environments: My perceptions is that there is a small, net outward migration from highly urban environments. I will call this....risk factor slightly decreased.

Childhood Trauma: It has been observed that the most dangerous person in a young child's life is his mother's new boyfriend. Traditional families continue to shred....risk factor increased. 

Cannabis Use: It has been decriminalized at the state level and legalized in many "Blue" states. Furthermore the level of THC in samples obtained "on the street" have increased by a factor of three between 2000 and 2019....risk factor increased. 

Tallying up the count, five of the six environmental risk factors increased with three of them increasing substantially. One of the six risk factors shows a weak improvement.

Conclusion: Perceived increases in rates of severe mental illness is factual and not a figment of reporting or in increasingly aggressive diagnosis or more expansive definition of diagnostic criteria.

 

Note to readers: I will be busy today and expect to be back-in-the-saddle tomorrow. Responses to comments will be slow. 

Bonus video

 Hat-tip to Lucas Machias.

 

* Poor sleep-hygiene was mentioned as a risk-factor for Bipolar Disorder (aka, Manic-Depressive or Jekkyl-and-Hyde Disorder) but not in the paper referenced. Forty years ago broadcast TV shut-down after midnight and people didn't stay awake round-the-clock "gaming". Except for some convenience stores, nearly all businesses shut-down for maintenance or cleaning every night. That has been a major change during my lifetime.

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish!

What kinds of work can old people do?

Pension funds, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid going broke is a foregone conclusion. So is inflation withering of purchasing power of the assets you might have saved. Furthermore, taxes will rise as governments become desperate to feed the ravening beast.

It seems inevitable that I will have to work to put bread on the table at some point in the next 15 years. In 15 years I will be 81 years-old. 

What kinds of work can a 65 year-old do? What about 70 year-olds? 80 year-olds?

Work vs Job

Notice I used the word "Work".

"Job" implies some degree of permanence. It is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution and the transition of the economy to consumer debt. Nobody was going to loan you enough money to buy a car if you didn't have a "job", that is, a guarantee of future income.

In the United States, the majority of the economy transitioned from "work based" to "job based" sometime in the 1920s and 1930s. Before that, the only people with "jobs" worked for the railroad or in steel mills or the new automobile plants.

Limitations of being older

• Vision is often an issue.
• Reaction times get slower
• Physical strength and stamina are limited
• Hearing is often less acute

Most of us will not be capable of doing 40-hours-a-week of concrete work in our seventies. Long-haul, OTR, transcontinental trucking is also not in the cards nor is delivering 50 pound bags of dog-food to apartment blocks.

Going door-to-door selling garden produce is a possibility. Mrs ERJ does that now when she gives away her surplus of cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers.

My dad was canning tomatoes into his mid-80s and mowing grass with a garden tractor until he was 90.

Watching young kids...say up to 5th grade, is an option.

Repairing clothing is an option if you have bright light, magnifying glasses and (perhaps) easy to thread needles.

Being a waiter, bus-boy or bartender for a few hours (lunch rush) is a possibility although wet floors are not our friend. 

If you had to go back to work as a 75, 80 or 85 year-old, what would you do? 

Hand Grenades, Canaries and Christmas Carols

Today I introduced Quicksilver to the joys of The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

Growing up and watching these cartoons, I somehow came to the conclusion that hand-grenades were a regular item of commerce and were a commodity that would be easy to obtain as an adult. Alas, if only it were so.

Most of the segments we watched were from the 1960-to-1964 time-frame.

In 1960 there were still cats and dogs alive that had been born while WWII was raging. Everybody who was over the age of six and not in a coma knew what a "Stuka" was, for instance.

1960 was seven years after the Korean Conflict went from HOT to SIMMER.

In retrospect, there were probably a lot of "off-books" devices floating around in 1960. If you were a trustworthy sort of fellow and were known to be able to keep your mouth shut, you could probably shoot grease-guns and toss pineapples and potato-mashers and play with det-cord, perf-caps and Serious Putty.

Canaries in Coal Mines

I know that I have at least one reader who is a young lad of less then fifty so please humor me if I tell you things that you already know.

Coal miners were known to take canaries into coal mines because the small birds were exquisitely sensitive to toxic and explosive gasses. A miner might attribute a headache to the home-brew he drank the night before, but if the canary went Tango-Uniform, they all hauled anatomy out of the mine and did not go back into it until after it was thoroughly ventilated.

In real-life (whatever that is) there is a dramatic tension between wanting systems that perform without providing irritating or distracting feedback .AND. the need to know when a system approaching massive failure.

Idiot lights are one solution to the problem. In biological systems like streams, orchards and fields we use indicator species.

In a stream there is a hierarchy of species that will tell you much about water quality. Grayling are the most demanding of oxygen and water quality. When they die off you know that the system is slipping.

In an approximate and descending order you might have Brook Trout, Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Walleye, Smallmouth Bass, Northern Pike, Channel Catfish, Suckers, Common Carp, Gar, Bowfin, African Walking Catfish.

In the orchard, apple trees are very sensitive to the toxins produced by Black Walnuts. Apple trees are expensive at $20-to-$60 a tree. A rational person would find a less expensive, highly-sensitive plant (i.e. Canary in the Coal Mine) if he were to trench around the orchard and wanted some assurance that all of the roots had been cut or if he wanted to visualize the leaching and decay of the toxic compounds.

Stated another way, why would I risk killing a $20 tree when I can test the soil with a tomato or marigold plant that cost me a nickel and a delay of a year?

Christmas Carols

 I am 60% certain this is in Spanish

Handsome Hombre picked up Quicksilver this afternoon.

Quicksilver is of an age where language is absorbed with lightning speed. It does not seem like that because she hasn't figured out how to make all of the consonant sounds. You need a keen ear to decode when she asks "Please close the door" for instance. But all of the signs are there that it is all going into memory.

I asked HH what some of his favorite Christmas Carols are. HH grew up in a very religious family in a country where everybody speaks Spanish. Of COURSE they sang Christmas Carols.

I shared that this is an outstanding time to teach those songs to his daughter. Looking at his face, it was clear that the idea had never crossed his mind.

"Gimme a list. We can listen to Christmas Carols sung in Spanish just as easily as we can watch Roadrunner cartoons." Melody, meter and rhyme are all mechanisms that help our brains retain information. Song and verse are how information was passed down before the written word. It is hardwired into our brains. Not exploiting what God put there is to be a wastrel of the basest sort.

Resilience vs. Efficiency: Grains

 

 20 minute run-time

This video is interesting because it explores the tension between "Resilience" and "Efficiency".

Before you get super-excited...the narration (perhaps AI generated) takes liberties with technical concepts like "hybrids" and "clones". So take everything else in this video with a grain of salt.

Humans are in a race with fungi, bacteria, virus and chaos. For a while the winds and tides were with us and we have thrived. Pendulums swing. Things change. Even if the earth was filled with oil there is a finite amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. At some point we will have spent our way back into a pay-as-we-go thermodynamic relationship.

Life is "interesting" in the corners

One "hack" in optimization software is to examine the values in the vertices (corners) of the allowable universe. Interesting genes are found on sky-islands in Arizona, cracks in sidewalks, Peru, Spitzbergen Island, Mount Tahat, Orkney Islands, Hillsdale College and Fort Dapp. 

Genetic trajectories are not anchored by regression-to-the-mean when they evolve in isolation.

While novel and useful genetic packages can be found in random individuals in the great, thundering herds of conformity, it is not economical to search for them in such places. It seems unlikely that one would find a land-race that can deal with toxic soils in the fertile fields of Indiana where it is not an issue.

Let's raise a toast to those of us who refuse to bow to the cast-pewter gods of conformity! 

Source of heirloom grain seeds 

Random thought

I look at all of the water-containment run-off swales that the EPA requires of newly paved areas. I understand the concept. Unbuffered rain run-off and snow-melt can be "acid" or thermally hot. Channeling the runoff into a containment area and then having it percolate through the ground buffers the pH and stabilizes the temperature.

A random set of containment ponds in an un-named suburb in a midwestern state.

How hard would it be to toss a couple of handfuls of viable Wild-Rice seeds into every detention pond in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and North and South Dakota during the month of October?

Native range of the genus Zizania at the granularity of "county". Source

If the Wild Rice is happy it will establish and become repatriated and ducks (and humans) will rejoice. If not, nothing ventured-nothing gained.

Hat-tip to the tireless Lucas Machias

 

Planning notes for fertilizing the orchard(s)

Pruning trees is a good time to look them over and think through management plans for the coming growing season.

I did not fertilize most of the trees that I pruned last winter. Removing 1/2-to-2/3 of their canopies nearly always causes rampant new growth the following year. Adding fertilizer exacerbates the problem. Lush, rampant growth makes the trees susceptible to fire blight and makes the next year's pruning (which is this year's) more work.

Commercial orchards send leaf-stems (petioles in botany-speak) to laboratories for chemical analysis. They use the results to fine-tune their fertilizer applications, sometimes on a month-by-month basis.

I use more primitive methods because those lab tests are not cheap and I don't need to squeeze out every last 40 pound box of apples to make payroll.

I tweak my fertilizer plan to produce a target amount of shoot growth each growing season. I aim for a minimum of 24" of growth on dominant side-shoots while I am growing the tree to fill its allotted space and 12" of growth after they have fill their "place".

Most of the heavily pruned trees gave me 18" or so of shoot growth and will produce substantially less next year unless I add fertilizer. Those trees are now carrying a lot more vegetative and fruiting buds. More shoots means fewer nutrients per shoot. More fruit means more carbs being pumped into the fruit.

Always be suspicious of round-numbers

One rule-of-thumb for fertilizing apple orchards is to broadcast 100 pounds of Nitrogen-per-acre at the beginning of the growing season. It is hard to think of a number that is "rounder" than 100lb/acre.

One detail that gets glossed over is "Do you also fertilize the grassy aisle-ways?" 

My inclination is to NOT fertilize them. More aggressive grass growth means more competition for moisture and if you cannot irrigate it means fewer pounds of apples. 

The trees in the Upper Orchard are planted 15' between trees in the row and 25' between rows. That is low-density by modern standards but I am not running a modern orchard.

Beneath the trees, the area sprayed with herbicide varies between 6' and 10' in width. If I split the difference (i.e. 8' wide by 15' per tree) and go with the 100lb/acre that means I need to apply about 0.6 pounds of urea per tree. Key point, the fertilizer must be scattered evenly over the 120 square-feet per tree.

The more vigorous trees like the Empire on MM-106 I might use a bit less than a half-pound. 

The less vigorous trees like GoldRush will get the full 0.6 pounds because they are struggling to fill their allotted space. 

Trees that were planted last year will get a half-pound of urea over the a circle with a 10' diameter centered around them and will get extra weed control.

Newly planted trees will get hand-watered with 300PPM Nitrogen water.

Very early May is a good time to broadcast fertilizer in Michigan. In many years we go into a period of low rainfall starting in late-May through most of  June and I want the fertilizer dissolved and carried down to where the roots are BEFORE that happens. 

Weed control

Weeds compete with your trees for nutrients and moisture.

A fertilizer-plan is only half of the game just like the offensive game is only half of the football game. Weed control will be a composite of herbicides (primarily glyphosate but it may include a pre-emergent like Simizine) and mowing. Most grass that is mowed short has much shorter roots than grass that is not mowed. That is why a lawn that is "scalped" is the first lawn on the block to brown-out in the summer.

Orchard floors do not need to be groomed to city-park standards but I do have to stay on top of mowing if I intend to reap the benefits of the fertilizer I apply.