vendredi 31 décembre 2021

The Lure Of Christianity.

Many a time I have pondered this.

Of course the prime inducement of Christianity is the promise of life everlasting. The promise of life after death being "proven" by Christ's resurrection. This is the central message, that punches through in all the myriad of different versions of Christianity. From the staid services of traditional Catholicism, to the whooped up Pentecostals rolling about in the pews.

I wonder about the readiness of some groups to embrace Christianity. Particularly those who are taking on the faith of their oppressors. The American negroes comes to mind as an example, although they have reshaped the services in a dramatic manner, the premiss of life beyond death is a central theme.

I also wonder about groups who show reluctance to embrace Christianity, and I suspect the Australian aborigines may be among those in this category. Not all mind you, but my limited observations suggest a distinct variation, between them and the Islanders, not far from these shores. The Islanders seem to take Christianity on with enthusiasm.

Perhaps the aborigines of this country had some notion of life after death in their previous beliefs. Stories of the dreamtime and such comes to mind.

Perhaps others here know of other groups resisting the lure of Christianity. Perhaps they have something in common?


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jeudi 30 décembre 2021

Thieves Must Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes

According to the IRS (in the USA), thieves are required to pay income tax on the value of the stolen property:

Quote:

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17...link1000172143
(2nd entry when doing a search for "stolen")


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Were it not for sentient beings such as but not limited to humans would the Universe

If no humans existed and no other extra planetary intelligent species existed would the universe have a reason to exist? I realize it doesn't need a reason to be here but what purpose if any would it have if there were not sentient beings to contemplate said Universe?

IN a sense the Universe would not exist if there was nothing that could ponder its mysteries.


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mercredi 29 décembre 2021

Russia orders health and drug checks for foreigners

A new law has come into force in Russia requiring foreigners and long-term visitors to be fingerprinted and have regular mandatory medical check-ups.

Anyone staying for over 90 days will be checked for sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and drug use.

Under the law, signed during the summer by President Vladimir Putin, foreigners staying for over three months have to be fingerprinted with immediate notice. But from 1 March they must also be checked for HIV and Aids, tuberculosis, leprosy and syphilis, as well as the "presence or absence" of use of narcotic or psychotropic drugs and new potentially dangerous psychoactive substances.

Diplomats or members of international organisations and their families are exempt, as are children under six as well as Belarusian nationals.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59820777


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mardi 28 décembre 2021

Russian court orders oldest civil rights group Memorial to shut

Russia's Supreme Court has ordered the closure of International Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights group.

Memorial worked to recover the memory of the millions of innocent people executed, imprisoned or persecuted in the Soviet era.

Formally it has been "liquidated" for failing to mark a number of social media posts with its official status as a "foreign agent".

That designation was given in 2016 for receiving funding from abroad.

But in court, the prosecutor labelled Memorial a "public threat", accusing the group of being in the pay of the West to focus attention on Soviet crimes instead of highlighting a "glorious past".

Founded in 1989, Memorial became a symbol of a country opening up to the world - and to itself - as Russia began examining the darkest chapters of its past. Its closure is a stark symbol of how the country has turned back in on itself under President Vladimir Putin, rejecting criticism - even of history - as a hostile act.

The justice ministry argued that a group's social significance could be no excuse for breaking the law. But the prosecution's closing speech pointed to a deeper motivation for this case.

"International Memorial… is almost entirely focused on distorting historic memory, first and foremost about the Great Fatherland War [World War Two]," Alexei Zhafyarov told the court, accusing the group of creating a false image of the USSR as a "terrorist" state.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59808624


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lundi 27 décembre 2021

An unused Constitutional guarantee...

Writers contend that Article IV of the Constitution guarantees to every state a Republican form of government, prohibiting numerous voter suppression tactics, and Congress should start using it.
Quote:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/05/the...can-democracy/
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/27/wil...ublic_partner/
https://constitution.congress.gov/br...rantee'%5D


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Could another intelligent species be here on earth?

Watching UFO's videos I believe that if UFO's do exist they may be from earth and actually living here. Russians believe this. They believe the creatures live under the ocean and UFO's have been seen leaving the ocean. I used to think that was hogwash and in a way I still do but what do you guys think?


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Worried about Artificial Intelligence?

This article in The Guardian says it’s already here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-already-here

In the form of huge corporations. The fellow profiled maintains that big corporations (like Facebook) employ thousands of highly-qualified people, have vast resources, can influence governments and societies, and work for their own ends primarily.

They already have more resources than many countries.


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dimanche 26 décembre 2021

update..CDC vaccine compliance

This link was posted a half a year ago...May 2021

Testimony to an US congressman.. Senator Burr

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...0#post13603040


A update is warranted... Nov 2021

Testimony to an US congressman.. Senator Cassidy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QabAtYBnqro


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samedi 25 décembre 2021

No he's not!

I'm somewhat annoyed at the Beeb's headline: Israeli 'psychic' Uri Geller still baffling fans at 75

Ok, they put quotation marks around the psychic bit, but he's only baffling morons. It does go to show how nothing short of death stops these charlatans.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59609232


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vendredi 24 décembre 2021

Michael Goguen and Matthew Marshall

You just can't make this stuff up!

Lewd Texts & Secret Missions: Inside Billionaire Michael Goguen’s Wild Life

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside...tefish-montana

Quote:

Said one resident of Flathead County: “He’s either lying or the dumbest ************ Stanford ever graduated.”


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jeudi 23 décembre 2021

Imaginary Numbers Could be Needed to Describe Reality

Imaginary Numbers Could be Needed to Describe Reality, New Studies Find

https://www.livescience.com/imaginar...scribe-reality

Quote:

To test how important imaginary numbers were in describing reality, the researchers used an updated version of the Bell test, an experiment which relies on quantum entanglement.

Imaginary numbers are necessary to accurately describe reality, two new studies have suggested.
Will I have to change my sig? :o


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First "Quantum Entangled" Animal in History

Not sure where this might lead to. Can it be scaled up for a Star trek transporter?

Frozen tardigrade becomes first 'quantum entangled' animal in history, researchers claim

Quote:

researchers have exposed tardigrades to the coldest temperatures and highest pressures that moss piglets have ever survived — not just to test the critters' biological limits, but also to see whether a frozen tardigrade could be incorporated into two quantum entangled electric circuits, then later revived to its normal active state.

The results, reported in a new paper published to the preprint database arXiv, suggest that, yes — scientists may be able to add "temporary quantum entanglement" to the tardigrade's growing list of accomplishments. However, early responses to the paper have taken issue with this finding.

If the findings ultimately withstand peer review, then this experiment will represent the first time a living animal has been quantum entangled — a bizarre phenomenon typically confined to the smallest subatomic particles.
The paper @ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.07978.pdf


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imagination, theories, and ...reality

In order for humans to come up with a theory that approximates reality, they imagine something, and then if after they spend time and effort thinking about it, still they imagine the same something, then they have to test it in reality with experiments…but…

1) When one imagines something, something else is happening around one in reality, or if you really think otherwise…

When one imagines something something else isn’t happening around one in reality, but if you think this is really ok…

If in the end, when one imagines something, something else isn’t happening around one in reality, then it doesn’t seem to me where inside one really imagines something…does it seem to you?

2)Here’s another way to understand it: Something else than anything humans can imagine seems to be happening in reality, since the beginning of humans in reality,

Or before humans existed, what do you think was really happening?

Something that was really happening before humans existed, but that humans had to really imagine after they existed, in order for that to be possible to really happen?

3)And another way: One step before you really make everything, you haven’t really made everything yet and still something else than anything you can imagine seems to be happening…

…one step after you really make everything, the experience of one step before has to be included in whatever you made as it was before, or …you didn’t make everything.

4) and final way… Argument Physics as a science, progresses as follows:

1.There is a current theory, at any given time.

2.A candidate theory, which is more exact regarding what really is happening appears from research as a proposed new theory.

3.Experiments have to be conducted to verify the new theory.

4.When experiments are conducted, they can have the following results.

5.Nothing happens, the experiments fail to show any results, which has happened in the past, and this is what we said about it.

6.Something happens, the experiments had the expected results, which has happened in the past, this is what we said about it, and science keeps following its path

7.Something else happens…which was the case with some previous experiments…or else we wouldn’t be looking for a new theory, as then all experiments would point only to something, and nothing else…but up to now, this isn’t the case, and the future still hap pens next, and not before next happens.

8.What seems to be happening, is that before people actually make things in their lives that do something…they make things that don’t do something exactly…and they find that early at best, or late at worst…but the complete story they all know from the beginning, pretty consistently, it seems to me…as it could be the case with the argument I am making here and below.

And all the above in summary is

AXIOM: In any experiment conducted in reality, nothing can happen as a result, some thing can happen as a result, or…something else can happen as a result. This is an axiom that seems consistent and complete to me, and I dare say…logical. Isn’t it?

Someone asked me the following in the past. “can I learn about my imagination from the world out there?” The world outside your imagination is something else than anything you can imagine,

Your senses point you to that at any moment in your life, so that your body can be calm and be able to have fun in reality,

And you can imagine whatever you like, even though reality is still something else than anything you can imagine.

In order to experience that in the moment, meaning having fun in reality, you have to be able to focus on whatever it is that you are doing in the moment,

As at any moment in reality from the beginning of human history carrying on until now, the same laws of nature apply,

and the story of human history plays as it make sense, people in the medieval ages used candles as this is what made sense to them, now we use electricity, not the other way around, that wouldn’t make sense to them in their moment in time.

After you focus on whatever it is that you are doing in the moment, then you balance your imagination on what is good for you, what seems fun to you to imagine,

And allow your senses to do their work,

So that what you imagine can have some hope at least to balance on reality, as reality is something else than anything you can imagine.

Fear is natural, meaning as reality is something else than anything you can imagine, it is necessary for your senses to be able to generate fear to the conscious part of you, in varying degrees if that is really needed for your survival in the moment in reality , but…

…it is also quite possible that you may be generating fear on your own in the moment in reality that is not really necessary, so…

…fear is natural, means you have to be able to accept the unknown in reality and let fear come to you when it is really needed, from the unknown as needed, and not as you only want.

And then you have to listen to the song. What song?

In your life you slept yesterday you woke up today, and during your life you tell yourself fun stories, or you choose the other option consciously, to tell yourself not fun stories.

Every story has an end and from the end of every story one learns something. The unpredictability of life one learns best at the end of funny stories, or else it wouldn’t really be that funny for life to be that unpredictable, is what the story seems to me to be.

https://youtu.be/hNFYMORvM_o


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A Very TOBS Apology

Regarding my "Theory of Body Signals" that I spread around the Web a few years ago:

I do not speak for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and TOBS is not the teaching of that church. It is my speculation only. As such, it was irresponsible of me to teach it.

I didn't want people to get the idea that they should go around watching their bodies' itches and twitches like their bodies were some kind of cosmic radio. I myself am an immoral and a wicked man, so you can't trust what I say too much.

That being said, if I were you, I would stick to getting my religious instruction from the Bible and the Book of Mormon and from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my life I've felt the Savior's love and forgiveness when I've repented of my sins.

The Church is true. TOBS is easily misinterpreted and I wouldn't rely on it if I were you.

"Billy Baxter"


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mercredi 22 décembre 2021

Lincoln Project is producing good propaganda again

The Lincoln Project is a conservative anti trump political organization. They produce some of the best anti trump videos, posting them on YouTube.

They are particularly good at skewering trump and the rest of the republican party because they understand him better than liberals do. They attack the extremists from the center right, pointing out all of the conservative principles that the gop has abandoned.

Over the past week, they have released a whole season's worth of videos. The mark Meadows video is particularly good.

The Lincoln project has been noted in conflict and dysfunction of its own. The quality of its YouTube channel declined, but I still check in every once in a while. I was pleasantly surprised to find these videos.


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On Functional Stupidity

Feature article today on the website of Australia's national broadcaster, the ABC:

Are some of us destined to be dumb and is there anything we can do about it?

Quote:

Most of us are healthier, wealthier and better educated than ever before.

We have greater access to knowledge and expertise than any previous generation.

Yet, people keep doing stupid things — from rejecting the science of climate change to embracing the idea that vaccinations are part of a giant global conspiracy to take control of our minds using micro-implants and 5G.

Why? Well, the late, great British philosopher and polymath, Bertrand Russell, thought he knew at least part of the answer.

"The fundamental cause of the trouble," he wrote, "is that in the modern world, the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Add to that, the conspiratorial rabbit holes of the internet and the increasingly unsocial side of social media and you pretty much have life today.

But those who study human intelligence say it's not a lost cause but we need to rethink some of the assumptions we have around intelligence and ignorance.

And take a good, hard look at ourselves and the role we play in the race to inanity.

So, to help you play your part in the struggle against stupidity, here are some helpful tips.
The article goes on to highlight the difference between general intelligence and IQ, and why they don't always correlate, the difference between lies and ******** (since that's a technical term I once requested that it be taken out of the autocensor but my request was denied), and advocates for the importance of skepticism and critical thinking. Should be nothing more than a primer for those of us at this forum, but perhaps you know someone who might benefit from reading it?


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Thomas Kinsella has died.



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"America is now in fascism's legal phase" Guardian long form article

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sm-legal-phase

Long read but worth checking out I think, certainly should give pause for thought, and is more in depth than the socialists/Trumptards threads here can devolve in to sometimes.


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mardi 21 décembre 2021

A Video about N. American Accents

I'm calling it science.

For those of you interested in accents and language, this is one of the most interesting videos I've seen on accents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A


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Rome did not exist.

So yeah, there's apparently this TikTok'er who has gone viral stating that Rome did not actually exist - what we see is actually a bunch of Greek architecture, and everything we know bout Rome was made up and constructed by the Spanish Inquisition.

https://www.insider.com/history-anth...-viral-2021-12

As one might expect, there's a lot of backlash to this, and said TikToker is exceptionally patronizing and hostile in an effort to cover the contradictory bits of her theory. She often just openly insulting people who studied or majored in classics.

The jist of her theory involves:

1) There are no primary documents and the few there are are actually in 'Greek' by her declaration where she literally reverses another classic language to fit her idea. Apparently the Spanish Inquisition was able to bury faked Roman letters in Northern England later discovery, for example.

2) There isn't enough weathering of various statues to her liking --- usually pointing statues that were buried until the 20th century, or in one case using a 2007 carving of the Res Gestea Divi Augusti on a new musuem as an example of insufficient weathering (while claiming the picture she used was on another structure).

3) Claiming the Latin language (or as she constantly refers to it "Roman") was invented somewhere around 1500 AD... by the Spanish Inquisition.

4) Claiming architecture details are selectively Greek when it suits her needs such as claiming that since a certain Roman ruin used a certain type of column it must actually be Greek- even though there are plenty of examples of Roman sites using those kinds of columns.

5) Often just claiming stuff is the opposite of what is there and claiming those who cannot see it are blind, brainwashed idiots.

There have been several videos on both TikTok and Youtube debunking her. Most of the youtube ones make a major point of noting that they understand she probably shouldn't be getting any more attention but are concerned that this might run away from them if they ignore it too much - after all this is how present Flat-Earther's got rolling.

One of the better debunkings is the Lady of the Library

[yt]2UXvI5aopXA[/yt]

As one might expect, any holes in her argument are covered with more ignorance and arrogance.

ETA: Oh right, forgot that she also says there's no evidence Vesuvius erupted in 79CE.


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The thread for stupidity from GQP politicians who don't have their own thread

I think we need a catchall thread for the stupidity of all the GQP idiots who don't already have their own thread (Trump, Greene, Gaetz, Boebert, Nunes, etc.)

We'll start with Ryan Zinke, U.S. House candidate from Montana:

https://twitter.com/ryanzinke/status...58255509278729

And this reply:

https://twitter.com/PetekJeff/status...66035066519552

Attached Images
File Type: jpg wind.jpg (62.9 KB)


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lundi 20 décembre 2021

More than we were expecting from Hayabusa2

I tried to find a thread about the Hayabusa2 mission to retrieve material from the asteroid Ryugu, but I couldn't find one, either from the launch in 2014 or the successful material capture last year. But what came back is extremely interesting.

First look at Japanese Hayabusa2 asteroid sample indicates Ryugu is similar to Earth's rarest meteorites

Quote:

Just over a year ago, a space capsule carrying a very special cargo streaked across the sky and touched down in the South Australian outback.

Sealed in a canister were samples of dust and pebbles blasted off Ryugu, a lumpy asteroid, by the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission.

When the team from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) first opened the canister they were excited to find they'd snapped up a good sample.

And when they got the canister back to their lab in Japan they were even more surprised...


The first analysis of the physical properties and the composition of the material retrieved from the asteroid is revealed today in two papers in the journal Nature Astronomy.

It turns out Ryugu is a very rare type of asteroid with a mix of elements seen in less than a handful of meteorites that have been found on Earth.

"It's not just rare, it's a very precious sample," Professor Fujimoto said.

"It will tell us about the very early history of the Solar System, and the process that made Earth habitable."


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Third-Graders renact the Holocaust (Washingtion Post)

This appeared in the Washington Post.


Quote:

A Watkins Elementary School staff member told third-graders in library class to reenact scenes from the Holocaust, directing them to dig their classmates’ mass graves and simulate shooting the victims, according to an email from the school’s principal. The instructor was placed on leave Friday.


She allegedly assigned specific roles to students. She cast one student as Adolf Hitler, according to an email from Watkins Elementary School Principal MScott Berkowitz to the third-graders’ parents. He did not name the staff member. That student is Jewish, according to the parent of a student who was asked to participate. At the end of the exercise, the child was told to pretend to commit suicide, as Hitler did.





Originally, the students were in library class on Friday for a self-directed project they would present to their classmates before winter break. But the instructor had students participate in the reenactment during their allotted research time, Berkowitz wrote to parents.


...


The instructor allegedly made antisemitic comments during the reenactment. The parent said that when the children asked why the Germans did this, the staff member said it was “because the Jews ruined Christmas.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ins-school-dc/


Note, this is the least inflamatory version of this story.


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Is There Revolution In The Air?

For some years, there’s been reporting on the rather large number of “militias” operating around the country. These people usually identify as right-wing and often white-supremicist, and for the most part have been dismissed as folks doing a sort of semi-military LARPing, running around in the woods with camo gear and guns.

But more recently, in the wake of the January insurrection, major news sources (NPR, CNN, others) have been reporting on the large number (millions) of “Armed, angry, right-wing citizens”, mostly Trump supporters, who they see as increasingly organizing an attempt to overthrow the government and presumably install Trump as some sort of god-emperor.

We have an ongoing thread about “Trump’s coup”, but this appears to be above and beyond Trump’s machinations.

So I’ll admit that previously I’ve been inclined to dismiss these yahoos as I described above…. Game-playing wannabes who enjoy customizing their AR-15s and buying camouflage gear.
But the reporting seems to indicate a much more serious intent.

I can’t help but wonder what the ultimate goal of these people might be? Have any thought through the ramifications of what they’re thinking about? Certainly the military, starting with the various National Guard forces, would rather rapidly put the kibosh on any such action.

The FBI has a long history of successfully infiltrating and prosecuting these sorts of people.

Still, the prospect is rather worrying….. It’s nothing we haven’t seen historically.


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To those who criticize the building of the wall on Americas southern border

Ok some Americans etc think that there should be no barrier to illegal immigration. The situation right now is such that these people are coming into America with nothing to stop them. Many of these people are criminals. Drug sellers, murderers and theives. There is another element crossing out borders and its the worst of all. They are bringing under aged children into America to sell to pedophiles.

Liberals sitting on their hands seem to think this is a small problem. I bet the problem isn't small to the kids these thugs are bringing here.

I believe something should be done. I'm not saying mow them down with mass machine gun fire but we need to do something besides idly sitting on our hands.


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This involves an alledgedly Haunted House

I was drinking a beer with a Jewish friend here in Conyers GA. He is cool and we hang out sometimes.

One day I got to talking about ghosts. He "aw cmon man, You believe in that crap. "? I said not really but there was a house in town almost within walking distance and maybe we could explore said house.

OK this nearly three hundred year old three story house is gig. It has two flights of steps going up and a stepladder situation going into the attic.

The door to the house was open. It was on the verge of being redecorated and becoming a antique shop. It was at the moment unoccupied.

I said well here we are. You go in first. He hesitated a moment then walked in. I followed him. I showed him where the activity had manifested itself. We explored the whole old nice house and then left seeing no paranormal beings.

He asked well where are the ghosts. My reply was the ghosts were in peoples heads. I then offered my theory as to why people saw ghosts in this large house.

My theory is this. During mankinds developemental stages large enclosed areas such as caves were at a premium. These areas were always inhabited by someone or some dangerous animal. Humans had evolved a tendency to hesitate when it came to entering places like that.

The building is now a law office with offices on all three stories with office equipment in the attic and the small basement. No ghosts reported.


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dimanche 19 décembre 2021

North Koreans banned from laughing

https://www.theguardian.com/world/vi...droidApp_Other

You couldn't make this up.

It is the tenth anniversary of Kim Jong Ils death, so no signs of happiness at all. Or else.


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samedi 18 décembre 2021

[Continuation] Corona Virus Conspiracy Theories Part IV

I still can´t believe there are people here saying the pandemic is fake and the deaths by Covid are overblown by this or that reason, and most people who died from Covid died from something else.

I already posted graphs showing Excess Deaths curves closely match official COVID death statistics, but in the US and Brazil, the two countries with most official deaths in the world.


Mod InfoThread continued from here. You can quote or respond to any post from that or earlier parts.
Posted By:zooterkin


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Saturday Morning Shower Thoughts: Replacing the A-10

(I know, I know: Don't. But I'm bored and we're doing this.)

The Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II is essentially a bomber. It was designed with the idea of attacking ground targets in a relatively* permissive air defense environment. It's notable for the size and power of its gun, which could defeat the Soviet tank armor of the time, and the robustness of its airframe. The plane's ability to get hit and keep flying is legendary, almost mythical.

So what would that plane look like, if we set out to make one today? Here's what I think.

It is widely agreed that not getting shot at is far superior to surviving a hit. There are two main ways to go about not getting shot at: Stay out of range, and be hard to see (whether optically, with radar, or with infrared).

Staying out of range is largely achieved with precision long-range weapons. Such weapons are outside the scope of this post, but suffice to say they do exist. Beyond that, it becomes necessary to delete the gun. Getting rid of the gun is the first major design change.

Staying out of range has synergies with being hard to see. The harder the plane is to see, the closer it can get to its target without being close enough to show up clearly on enemy air defense sensors.

There are several aspects of a plane that can be designed to make it harder to see: Serrated edges on hatches and panels, radar-absorbent coatings, s-curved intake ducts, masked and cooled exhaust, and the overall shape of the plane.

Serrated panel edges and radar-absorbent coatings are a given, of course.

S-curved intake ducts serve to hide the jet engine fans from radar. The fan face is a major source of radar returns. S-ducts are made by offsetting the engine itself from the intake duct. This can be done horizontally, such as by placing the intakes outboard and the engines inboard, as on the F-22. It can also be done vertically, such as by placing the intakes ventrally and the engines dorsally, as on the Eurofighter Typhoon. (It can even be done diagonally, as on the Rafale.)

Since the A-10's engines are already above the centerline, let's drop the intake ducts to below the centerline, for a vertical s-curve that hides the engine fans from radar view.

Speaking of the A-10's engines, they already have a simple form of exhaust masking, inside the box of the twin tail assemblies. This design feature has been further refined on planes like the the F-22 and - more exotically - the B-2. So let's give the A-10 an integrated exhaust-tail assembly that maximizes the cooling and hiding effect on the hot gases coming from the engines.

Finally, let's look at the overall shape of the plane. We've already "stealthified" the tail assembly. The nose also needs to be flattened and widened to feed into the overall lozenge-shape of optimal radar diffraction. Last but not least, the right-angled "iron cross" wings need to be replaced with the same now-familiar lozenge.

Reader, I give you the Black Widow II. Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.


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Split from: [Continuation] The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV Move Po

Seen on twitter: buffalo saves a tortoise by flipping it over.

https://twitter.com/AmazingNature00/...998978563?s=20


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Did NRA training Cause the Rust Accident?

It's a simple Question, I was taught to handle single action firearms and hammer guns differently than other guns, automatics I was taught to feel the sear Notch engaging before releasing the hammer, and to never Crook Cock, or release the hammer until it is at rest in a Notch or in the fired position.
I had two sear failures but no misfires because of that.
Could special expert training have saved the Life of the Cinematographer?
Is NRA sponsored gun training partially at fault for this horrible event?


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vendredi 17 décembre 2021

Trivial penalties for stealing millions and ruining the lives of multiple people

Melbourne racing identity Bill Vlahos jailed for nine years for $17.5m punting Ponzi scheme
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-...ting/100708368

Why can someone commit a "white collar" crime and get a slap on the wrist for it? There is a real incentive there to make major crime worth the risk.


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Lauren Boebert has a challenger for "Craziest Politician In Colorado"

Polis ‘Is Not Even Gay’ & His Wedding Was ‘All a Sham,’ Baselessly Claims GOP Gov. Candidate

Quote:

At a campaign meet-and-greet event in Cañon City Monday night, Republican candidate for Colorado governor Danielle Neuschwanger launched into a monologue, filled with false accusations about Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, saying he “is not gay” and that his marriage to Marlon Reis “is a sham.”

An audio recording provided by an attendee documents Neuschwanger’s remarks on a wide range of topics, including the corrupt culture of campaigns, lawsuits against the state over mandates, “crazy” GOP constituents, a legislative candidate advocating to “ban the gays” and gay adoption, government secrets about the JFK assassination, and rival Republican gubernatorial candidates. She also delivered a derisive dismissal of the conservative training and candidate development program, Leadership Program of the Rockies.

Toward the end of her comments, Neuschwanger said, “You guys want to know something crazy about Polis? He’s not even gay.”


“I didn’t know any of this until, like, we got involved in politics,” she continued. “So, his real name is Jared Schutz, and he was married to a woman, who he used to abuse the heck out of.

“So he was starting to get involved in politics in the early 2000s, you know, running for Congress and the Department of Health and Education. … [Four Democratic strategists/donors, which include Polis] all got together, pooled their money, and said they could flip Colorado from red to blue. In order to do that, though, they had to reach out to specific groups, like the gays. Well, Tom [sic] Gill was already a well known gay activist, and so they figured out the way to get the gays in Colorado was to have someone run for governor who is gay. So, right before this happened, they told Jared Polis he had to get divorced.

“But then he sexually assaulted a female colleague, hence, the name change to Jared Polis.

“Well, everyone said, when he was running for governor, no one knew he was gay. But all of a sudden, right before he won, he came out as the first Jewish gay guy in Colorado. He’s not actually gay! So then, they bring in Marlon — and, you know, have you ever seen him and Marlon have public displays of affection, hold hands, kiss, hug? [parroting an a person in the audience] No one sees Marlon very often. So, his mailman is a gay. And his state trooper/head of security is not a fan of Jared Polis. So they sneak prostitutes in and out of his apartment in Boulder all the time, and they have swingers’ parties and all kinds of things. He’s not gay! When we heard this, I was like, ‘You’re kidding me!’

“He’s Gavin Newsom’s cousin. … And he became a native of Colorado. He is not a native, he was born in California. [Responding to, ‘Is he Pelosi-related?’ from the audience], Yes, yeah. [‘Is he Soros funded?’] Yeah, so Jena Griswold and Polis both — if you go on their TRACER account– have funds donated by [unintelligible]!

“But, it gets even better: his whole marriage to Marlon was supposed to be part of his reelection campaign in Colorado, but COVID shut it down, hence they only did that little private ceremony when Biden was out so that they could time Biden’s sensationalized media when he came to Colorado to be at Polis’ wedding. And they never even kissed at their wedding. It’s all a sham.”

When asked to comment by media, she of course doubled down:

Quote:

“I stand by this statement in its entirety. As I mentioned I have never been in politics and didn’t know any of this information, never even thought to ever ask these types of questions until I started campaigning. … The truth is that we have been told this numerous times across the state from people who are on both party fences and know Polis personally.

“Now as rumors go, we all know they stem from a kernel of the truth and the correlation to the Rocky Mountain Heist Documentary, relations to Newsom, and Soros can easily be proven. However, I am also not a politician and so if Gov Polis would like to make a public statement to set the record straight surrounding this mysterious personal rumor, and in fact any of these comments made by me are false; well I have no problem making a public correction and apology.
I predict they are false and that she will issue no apology.

:crazy::crazy::crazy:


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Worried about 5G?

‘Anti-5G’ necklaces are radioactive and dangerous, Dutch nuclear experts say

Quote:

People who wear “anti-5G” pendants to “protect” themselves from radio frequencies emitted by phone masts have been told by the Dutch nuclear authority that their necklaces are dangerously radioactive.

Owners of “quantum pendants” and other “negative ion” jewellery have been advised to store them away, as they have been found to continuously emit ionising radiation.

:boggled:


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Global cost of Pandemic?

The total global cost of this pandemic must be staggering. Measured in the tens of trillions of dollars. I read that lost tourism alone was $8 trillion USD. But tourism only scratches the surface.

Here's what I could find:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e-global-south
Quote:

Public-health experts predict that, as an indirect consequence of the Covid pandemic, twice as many people around the world could be at risk of dying from malaria. There could be 400,000 extra deaths from TB in the next few years, and half a million extra deaths from HIV. Across much of the world, in short, the response to the coronavirus has ushered in a shadow pandemic. The coronavirus’s real death toll, then, has to be calculated not just in deaths from Covid, but also in deaths that would otherwise have been prevented, from malaria, TB, HIV, diabetes and more.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/developm...come-countries
Quote:

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed about 120 million people into extreme poverty over the last year in mostly low- and middle-income countries, according to estimates by World Bank researchers.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2771764
(This estimate is over a year old now, but puts the figure at $16 trillion for the US alone.)

For the whole globe it must be at least 4 or 5 times that figure. So something in the neighborhood of $60-80 trillion USD?


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jeudi 16 décembre 2021

Three more Medal of Honor winners

Listening to the detailed, chilling descriptions of the superhuman bravery of three U.S. soldiers in combat, two of whom were killed, is humbling.
Quote:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday presented the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for valor in combat, to three soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two were recognized posthumously.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...aq-afghanistan


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model new gun law on Texas’ abortion ban

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics...256557866.html

"Over the weekend, Newsom said he wants the California Legislature to pass a law that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who makes or sells assault weapons or ghost guns after the Supreme Court allowed a Texas law applying the same tactic to abortions to remain in place."


:popcorn1


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Leaving a positive Yelp review for the hitman you hired.

Quote:

Weeks after Erik Maund had an affair with a woman in Nashville, he received a text message threatening to expose his adulterous acts, investigators say. The man on the other end was the woman’s boyfriend — he knew everything, and he wanted Maund to pay for his silence, according to a federal indictment.

But Maund decided to do something else instead: He paid to have the pair killed, prosecutors say.

The woman, Holly Williams, and her boyfriend, William Lanway, were shot dead on March 12, 2020, according to police.


...


'Speartip is very professional and on top of it,' a reviewer using the name Erik Maund wrote on the Google profile for Peled's security company 'They get the job done in an expedited time. Couldn't imagine using anyone else!!'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...lle-extortion/


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mercredi 15 décembre 2021

Facts about Education in the US.

The median income in the US, $56,300
Median income for Secondary and Primary school teachers, $67,340.
For secondary and primary school administrators, $103,000.
Guess who controls salaries and raises!

94% of primary and secondary school teachers surveyed say the spend on average, $500-600 per year on supplies for schools.

Edit to add
No one has bothered to ask anyone else how much they spend on supplies for work, I'm curious. Lots of skilled but working class folks too, carpenters and what not often own their own tools for instance. My employer pays for some supplies but not all.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/u...-supplies.html

Do teachers work really long hours? Not really.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown...0fewer%20hours.

Does the US underfund primary and secondary education? Only if you think the rest of the world does too.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/...nt/5e4ecc25-en

Has the US increased or decreased spending on primary and secondary education since you were a kid? Almost certainly not.
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/...g-teachers-pay

Why do I care, the widespread misconceptions about education in the US.
https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/...chael-Shaw.pdf

Our education system is mediocre but if we are wrong about what the current state of things is, well, we won't be able to come up with a fix that works.

Most Americans think we spend less than $4000 dollars per pupil per year. If that were true, then more spending would be in order but its not, we spend 3 times that and more than almost any other country per pupil. More money wont fix our problems. Our problem is more about spending priorities, attracting good teachers, and probably methods used for teaching.


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Ongoing Adventures of Kyle Rittenhouse

Mr. Rittenhouse is no longer on trial and moving on to his next phase in life. Here we can discuss the social issues that surround these current events.


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Study suggests access to daylight could dramatically increase productivity

Economic implications of access to daylight and views in office buildings from improved productivity
Quote:

Previous research has found significant impacts of daylight and views on the cognitive function of office workers. In this study, we use scores on decision-making performance to estimate the annual economic potential of optimizing daylighting and views in U.S. offices. Cognitive scores were compared against over 100,000 previous test scores to obtain the distributional shift in cognitive performance when working in an office with optimized daylighting and views as opposed to an office with traditional blinds. These changes in performance were then compared to compensation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Office workers shifted on average from the 52nd percentile to 65th percentile, equivalent to a $11,809 difference in salary per person per year. When conservatively accounting for the number of employees working within 15 ft of a window with blinds, optimizing daylight and views in U.S. offices has the potential to generate $352B ($240B–$464B), or 1.7% of the 2018 U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), in additional productivity. These findings suggest that building developers, architects and tenants should give additional attention to daylight design and façade technology as they consider new building construction, renovation and leasing options.


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mardi 14 décembre 2021

Log4j anyone?

https://arstechnica.com/information-...-is-it-really/

A Java logging framework allows you to run remote code. It's been there for years and people have only just woken up to how much of a hole or is in security.

If the application you are using writes the text you have entered to a log file using log4j, then you can inject code to be executed by log4j.

This could cause havoc because it's in widely used Apache software on all platforms.


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British ship rams Danish vessel - Two Detained

In developing news, a 30-year -old British man and a 56-year-old Croatian are currently in custody in Sweden after their vessel, a British-registered cargo ship, the Scot Carrier, appeared to have ‘run over’ a cargo vessel under the Danish flag, the Karin Høj. One person was found dead in the hull of the stricken vessel and another lost at sea after a long search, despite cries being heard from the water by rescuers.

This happened circa 3:30 in the early hours of Monday, as the two vessels traversed the 25-mile gap between Southern Sweden, near Ystad, and Bornholm Island. The Scot Carrier was behind the Karin Høj proceeding at 12kn, having loaded with timber in North Latvia, and the Karin Høj, with no load, at 6kn travelling towards Nykobing in South Denmark from Södertalje, near Stockholm.

The marine convention is that the ship overtaking has ‘right of way’ so to speak, with the other needing to give way. However, in this case, the tracking picked up by the Swedish Coast Guard seems to show the two boats running parallel before the Scot Carrier turns a sharp right, virtually directly abeam of Karin Høj, causing her to capsize and turn upside down, with one or two crew thrown into the icy Baltic waters (temperature circa 4°C). It then seemed to turn sharply again, before moving off.

A nearby vessel overheard the Swedish Coast Guard being informed by the Scot Carrier that they thought they might have hit something but weren’t sure, whereupon they were ordered to return to assist in the rescue, which the Scot Carrier proceeded to do. It is not clear how the Coast Guard was alerted of the incident. It appears Scot Carrier had proceeded forward for half an hour and almost an hour had passed by the time it returned.

The two men in custody were found to have an over-the-limit amount of alcohol in their blood stream. Both have been detained, suspected of breaking a drinking at sea law – applicable to crews on ships – gross negligence, and the 30-year-old British man alone, charged with causing death by involuntary manslaughter. This seems to suggest the British man was the person in charge on that watch. The ship is currently in the hands of the Swedish authorities, with none of those on board currently allowed to leave. A decision will be made ‘by noon’ as to whether the two aforementioned men will be formally charged. In addition, whether it is Swedish or Danish jurisdiction. As it seems to be outwith the 12-mile coastal waters limit of Sweden - more like 20 miles out and near the Danish Bornholm Island, it could be passed over to the Danes, as the victims are Danish nationals.

A couple of marine experts in Sweden and Finland have expressed the view that the Scot Carrier crew must have been drunk or asleep. More concerning is one report using the term that the Karin Høj looked like it had been ‘chased’, although that might be a foible of language usage in translation. The bow of the Scot Carrier shows a dent across the front, likely where it rammed into the Karin Høj at a near 90° angle and it then, curiously, zig-zagged back the other direction, before proceeding ahead without stopping. This indicates it knew it had hit something and raises the suspicion hinted at that it might even have been a deliberate act of folly, although the newspapers do not actually spell this out.

Quote:

A BRITISH cargo ship had sailed back and forth in the Baltic Sea on Monday night after colliding with a Danish cargo ship.

Swedish researchers and experts have come to such a preliminary understanding of what happened at night.

“Going sounds like a wild west,” Olle Rutgersson , a professor in the Department of Maritime and Marine Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, tells the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet .

ON MONDAY , however, it was still unclear why Scot Carrier would have run into Karin Høj at all. Nilsson told Swedish media on Monday that Scot Carrier was moving hard and continued straight ahead after the collision.

<snip>

Prosecutor Tomas Olvmyr tells Swedish television SVT that he believes the cargo ships were running side by side when the British suddenly turned to the Danish side.

The same can be seen from real-time Marine Traffic data. According to the location data, the cargo ships would have first traveled in parallel towards their destinations until they collided.

After the collision, the British ship would have turned sharply to the left, then to the right, and then continued its journey further away from the scene of the accident.

<snip>

“The operation doesn’t sound normal at all,” Professor Rutgersson tells Aftonbladet.

According to him, collisions are also rare in the narrowly described Baltic Sea. Cargo ships also have equipment to detect other ships to prevent collisions.

“Ships should see each other as small dots. Surveillance must have been miserable if the crews did not notice each other. This is not normal at all. Either the crew of the [British ship] was asleep or drunk, or both, ”says Rutgersson.
Hesari

The Karin Høj is half the size of the Scot Carrier and built in 1977, whereas the latter was built 2018. Thus, one would have thought the much larger, more modern, ship would have had the prerequisite GPS, radar, navigation tools and transponders. The fact it suddenly turned abeam of Karin Høj suggest either it was taking late action to avoid her and miscalculated or for some other unknown reason owing to losing control.

Graphics credit: Helsingin Sanomat

Attached Images
File Type: jpg hs graphic.jpg (34.6 KB)
File Type: jpg route of ships.jpg (28.2 KB)
File Type: jpg _122078875_baltic.jpg (75.8 KB)


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lundi 13 décembre 2021

Blaine police investigating after Instacart shopper allegedly drives over elderly cou

Posted without comment...


Quote:

Blaine police are investigating an elderly couple's claim that an Instacart shopper drove over their groceries last week, possibly in response to a pro-law enforcement sign in their front yard.


According to a news release, the couple had placed an order for delivery from Cub Foods the morning of Dec. 6, and once the driver arrived at their home, the couple went outside to meet the driver.




The driver yelled for them to check inside their Christmas wreath, where they found a receipt with a "derogatory message" written on it.



"It says Instacart doesn't pay employees, find another slave, ******* the police, racist, pigs," shared Brian Podany, Chief of Police for the Blaine Police Department.

https://kstp.com/minnesota-news/blai...eries/6331227/


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Teachers grubbing for classroom funding as entertainment.

Quote:

A competition pitting 10 teachers against each other to scramble for dollar bills to fund school supplies in a city in South Dakota has been described as “demeaning” and drawn comparisons with the Netflix hit series Squid Game.

The local newspaper the Argus Leader reported $5,000 (£3,770) in single dollar bills were laid out on the ice skating rink during the Sioux Falls Stampede hockey game on Saturday night, and the teachers from nearby schools competed to grab as many as possible in less than five minutes.

Footage of the competition that went viral on social media showed teachers stuffing the notes down their jumpers and into hats while the audience cheered.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-dash-for-cash


Ok Lord, I'm ready. Start the rapture.


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Time Magazine names...

... it doesn't matter because everyone is just going to go "Who is Times Magazine to tell say who the person of the year is have I mentioned yet that I don't read Time Magazine and don't care who their Person of the Year is" and not get that "Person of the Year" isn't an accolade.

It's Elon Musk for what its worth.


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dimanche 12 décembre 2021

Tornadoes Devastate Kentucky And 5 Other States

Seems thread-worthy.


https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/12/us/su...cky/index.html


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12...-midwest-south



Quote:

Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said that at least 70 had been killed, and the state’s death toll could increase to more than 100. The state was hit by four tornadoes, he said, including one that stayed on the ground for more than 200 miles.


There were four tornadoes that touched down in the state on Friday night, Mr. Beshear said, including one that stayed on the ground for 227 miles — 200 of them in Kentucky.


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Chris Wallace leaves Fox News

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/sta...47884615815179

I guess there's no longer even the slightest pretension of journalism now.

He's going to CNN.

Chris Wallace leaving Fox News after 18 years for new CNN streaming service

Quote:

Chris Wallace announced Sunday he is leaving Fox News after nearly two decades, and is now headed to work for CNN's new streaming platform.


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[Split Thread] Maori Creationism in Science lessons

Good luck, it's certainly worth trying. Not so sure about other things they are doing.


There's a claim doing the rounds that they want to teach (Maori) Creationism in science classes.

Mod InfoSplit from this thread.
Posted By:zooterkin


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samedi 11 décembre 2021

The Trump Presidency: Part 29

Trump attacks Benjamin Netanyahu for not supporting him after the election, after everything he did for him.


Quote:

Former President Donald Trump railed against his one-time close ally Benjamin Netanyahu in a new interview series, saying he felt betrayed by the then-prime minister of Israel's call to Joe Biden congratulating him on winning the presidency.
"It was early. OK? Let's put it this way -- he greeted him very early. Earlier than most world leaders. I've not spoken to him since. **** him," Trump told Israeli journalist Barak Ravid during an April interview which was published by Axios Friday.
Quote:

"There was no one who did more for Netanyahu than me. There was no one who did for Israel more than I did. And the first person to run to greet Joe Biden was Netanyahu. And not only did he congratulate him -- he did it in a video. If you look at the leaders of other countries -- like Brazil -- he waited months. Putin. Many other leaders. Mexico. All of them also felt that the election was over. But they, too, were waiting. No one did more than me for Bibi. Money too. We gave them a lot of money and gave them soldiers. We did everything."

"I paid him off. I should have gotten more loyalty for my investment. Nobody did more for Israel than me. Me. Me. Me!! Me!!!"


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vendredi 10 décembre 2021

Some stone tools attributed to prehistoric humans may in fact have been made by horse

"Some stone tools attributed to prehistoric humans may in fact have been made by horses, according to researchers in Spain.

Horses kick and stamp on rocks to keep their hooves in good shape, and archaeologists have now realised this can result in a collection of sharp stones that look like the work of an ancient human toolmaker"

https://www.newscientist.com/article...t-human-tools/


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Stopping robocalls

I’m visiting my parents who are still on a landline, and they are receiving lots of robocalls every day.
If you or your loved ones are using Johnson and Johnson baby powder…

That’s the most common call, but there are some others. It happens many times a day, causing my aging parents to have to answer many fake calls.

Has anyone had any success in stopping these?

I can think of three possible approaches, but am not too confident and wanted to get feedback. I’m also worried to make any major changes right before I leave my parent’s home for the next several months.

1) see if the calls are coming from the same number(s) and try to block them.
2) try and utilize some sort of do not call list or service
3) some of the calls say “press 2” to stop receiving further calls. I’m skeptical and think this may even make the problem worse.

Does anyone have any experience with this?


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jeudi 9 décembre 2021

New York gives noncitizens the right to vote in local elections

New thing for the outrage machine, especially is one ignores the actual facts of the issue:

New York City gives noncitizens right to vote in local elections

Quote:

Under the legislation, noncitizens who have lived in the city for at least 30 days and are legal permanent residents in the US -- including green card holders, individuals with workers permits and DACA holders -- will be allowed to vote in city elections, including mayor, public advocate, borough president and city council.
Let's look at that again, but highlighting the parts that people are already ignoring so they can be outraged:

Quote:

Under the legislation, noncitizens who have lived in the city for at least 30 days and are legal permanent residents in the US -- including green card holders, individuals with workers permits and DACA holders -- will be allowed to vote in city elections, including mayor, public advocate, borough president and city council.
So no, student visas don't cut it. Illegal immigrants still don't get to vote. Tourists don't get to vote. Temporary work visas don't get it (foreign sexy models in town for photo shoots don't get to vote until after having sex with orange men). Non-citizens still don't get to vote for state-level offices and certainly not national level.

I've got a feeling the right-wing disinformation machine is going to have a field day with this, mostly by ignoring all basic facts of the matter.


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Billy Chemirmir Trial

From Wikipeida (an apparently neutral source):


Quote:

Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir (born December 8, 1972) is a Kenyan man accused of the murders of at least 18 elderly women in Dallas, Texas and its surrounding suburbs. In total, Chemirmir has been indicted for 18 murders and more are suspected. Civil suits have also been filed accusing him of a further six similar murders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Chemirmir


The trial ended with a hung jury (11-1) and the judge declared a mistrial.



Quote:

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas judge declared a mistrial Friday in the first murder case against a man charged with killing 18 older women in the Dallas area over a two-year span, but prosecutors vowed to continue to pursue convictions.



Judge Raquel Jones issued the ruling when a jury deadlocked after deliberating since Thursday afternoon in the capital murder case charging Billy Chemirmir with killing 81-year-old Lu Thi Harris.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-dal...4ee31283217f1a


For what it's worth the motivation appears to be robbery, the AP article mentions that the victims jewelery was stolen.


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Birds aren't real!

https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history

Not sure if its real or satire,then again most conspiracies are like that lol


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Probably Premature, But Warp-Bubble, Anyone?

This is way over my head.

The actual report: Worldline numerics applied to custom Casimir geometry
generates unanticipated intersection with Alcubierre warp metric


https://link.springer.com/content/pd...52-021-09484-z

The summation: https://coffeeordie.com/alcubierre-w...21077666484224

Quote:

A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded research project at NASA’s Johnson Space Center may have accidentally discovered how to build a warp drive engine. The scientists published their findings in July.

Harold “Sonny” White, a NASA researcher at the Eagleworks Laboratory in Houston, Texas, published a research paper with his team in July about the “possible structure of the energy density present in a Casimir cavity.”

According to the report, the Eagleworks team came across “a micro/nano-scale structure … that predicts negative energy density distribution that closely matches requirements for the Alcubierre metric.”

In other words, White and his colleagues accidentally created a microscopic experiment while researching how energy distributes around wavelengths — a theory developed by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir. The experiment resulted in enough theoretical energy to achieve “warp speed,” a concept theorized by Mexican mathematician and physicist Miguel Alcubierre.

I am in no way qualified to understand this, but it has created a stir on science-social media.


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Science Fiction from a now defunct comix company

There used to be comic book publishers who tried to compete with the Marvel comics and Superman DC comix's. Heres one of their stranger stories.

These ugly albeit humanoid aliens were pointing a large cannon like ray gun at the planet earth. They were ugly sinister aliens bent upon the annilation of the human race.

Somehow some human heros tricked these aliens into pointing this weapon at their own planet. They fired and to the dleight of their human foes destroyed their own civilization instead of ours.

I was a small child but I thought why destroy an entire civilization just because of two bad aliens from that planet?


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RUST murder By accident?

If Alex Baldwin and witnesses are telling the truth that Alex never pulled the trigger, Alex is either,

(A) the Unluckyest man on earth.

(B) survivor of a Murder attempt on his life.

As evidence I give you this video.
The sticking Trigger malfunction can occur but it's about as likely as winning the powerball, It can be engineered into the revolver however.
Is this possible in this case or am I just being paranoid, because I know I could cause the gun to have that malfunction?



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Attempting a bombing while white

Quote:

A Pennsylvania man who admitted to leaving a bag of homemade bombs in downtown Pittsburgh during the 2020 protests against the death of George Floyd won’t spend a day behind bars. Matthew Michanowicz, 53, was sentenced to time served and three years of probation by a judge on Monday. The first six months of his sentence will be served under home detention.

Michanowicz, who was called an “agitator” intent on violence by a former federal prosecutor, pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device following a grand jury indictment in June 2020. A prosecutor at his trial argued Michanowicz should receive between 30 and 37 months in prison on the basis that his devices could have killed or seriously injured people.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/cr...s/202112060118

Meanwhile an 18 year old black man was sentenced to 8 years in prison for lighting a trash can on fire during the Ferguson protests

Quote:

Joshua Williams was 18 when he was arrested for stealing a bag of chips and lighting a QuikTrip trash can on fire in the aftermath of a protest sparked by the death of Antonio Martin near Ferguson, MO. It was December, 2014; Williams had already been in the streets for months already at that point, protesting the killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer. During that time, Williams became a well-known and well-liked activist in Ferguson. Williams eventually pleaded guilty to counts that included first-degree arson and second-degree burglary. Despite having no prior criminal record, he was given eight years, a sentence many have questioned, and his cause has since been taken up by many other community leaders in the area. He has now served five years. Later this month, he is up for parole.
https://www.gq.com/story/joshua-will...2020-interview


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Camel does 40mph on golf course

Who knew they could run that fast.

Or police could take so long to catch one.

Oh well, it's now back to doing 'camel things'.


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New Zealand to phase out smoking

I find these measures, aimed at stopping people from starting smoking, to be very interesting indeed.

Quote:

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59589775

Quote:

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.
Key to my not smoking for the last 6+ years has been a lack of opportunity since smoking has been banned in the UK in most public spaces. I'd support a similar law being brought in to stop people starting to smoke (though whether I'd feel the same about a similar law applied to alcohol is another matter entirely :o)


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mercredi 8 décembre 2021

Whoopsydaisey Not My Taser Trial Begins

The trial of the police officer who shot and killed a driver thinking she was using her taser gets underway. Prosecutor says she was negligent; defense lawyer blames driver.
Quote:

MINNEAPOLIS -- A suburban Minneapolis police officer who said she mistakenly drew her gun instead of her Taser when she fatally shot Black motorist Daunte Wright went on trial on manslaughter charges Wednesday, with a prosecutor saying Kim Potter had been trained how to avoid such deadly mix-ups but still got it wrong.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...ments-81617104

Also
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/...tements-begin/

I still don't fully understand how this happened. In my area police don't routinely carry tasers, but when they do they carry them on the opposite side from their gun hand in a thigh, not belt, holster. And they are yellow. If she carried her gun and taser next to each other, seems like catastrophe would practically be guaranteed.


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Ufo captured by pilot over pacific ocean?

Well, it's a U anyway because it's unidentified so far, but I'm not convinced it's an FO (flying object). My first reaction was that it might be a reflection of airport lights, but it's above the clouds, so maybe his own wing lights reflecting off the glass? Or lights from some sort of balloon? Anyway, maybe somebody here has a better explanation.

[yt]s47ufM3JDWU[/yt]


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War on Fox's Christmas...tree

The War on Christmas™ is real. According to Fox:

Quote:

The massive All-American Christmas Tree outside Fox News’ New York City headquarters was seriously damaged in a fire early Wednesday and police say they arrested the man accused of sparking the flames.

Fox News security spotted the suspect, later identified as Craig Tamanaha, climbing the 50-foot-tall tree at the center of Fox Square just after midnight. The Sixth Avenue and 48th Street location is in the heart of Midtown.
Fox didn't even bother getting a real 50 foot tall tree? Talk about lacking Christmas Spirit. They haven't released Craig's motivation yet, though I'm sure it'll be coming along any time. I'm going to avoid assigning political motivation at the time and assume that this guy just really ******* hates Christmas trees.


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mardi 7 décembre 2021

[Continuation] The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vixen (Post 13673279)
Hamburg carried out a very detailed analysis of the various hardware of the bow visor. That was their sole aim, and as stated in their abstract.

Would you berate a dentist for failing to note a bunion?

A detailed analysis that found no sign of explosion damage otherwise they wouldn't have signed off the report as they did.

Mod InfoThread continued from here.

You may quote or reply to any post from that or previous parts of this topic.
Posted By:zooterkin


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lundi 6 décembre 2021

Devin Nunes will leave House to work for Trump media company

GOP Congressman Devin Nunes will leave House to work for Trump media company

Quote:

California Representative Devin Nunes is leaving Congress to be the CEO of former President Donald Trump's media company, the company and Nunes said in a statement Monday.


Nunes, one of Trump's biggest allies in Congress, was first elected to the House in 2002 and had been the chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee in 2015 when Republicans held the majority. But he was forced to recuse himself from that committee's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election amid an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics into whether he had leaked classified information.
Probably because he's getting gerrymandered.

Quote:

California is in the process of redrawing their Congressional lines, and one draft map released in November suggested that Nunes' current district would switch from a district Trump won to one that Biden would've won.
He better get paid up front.


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Cube on the Moon

China's rover, Yutu 2, has discovered a 'cube shaped object' on the far side of the moon.

https://www.space.com/china-yutu-2-m...-object-photos

I think the Chinese rover is now going to go and have a closer look, so there's minimal time for wild speculation about aliens or 'The Sentinel' before it's confirmed to be merely, er, a rock.

I think it's where R. Daneel Olivaw lives.


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Comfort Sheep?

I didn't know comfort sheep were a thing (outside of the mattress stuff), and I feel kind of terrible for laughing at this a bit. A 73-year old woman was killed by a comfort sheep:

Quote:

“Taylor, a longtime volunteer at Cultivate Care Farms, was caring for livestock in a pen alone when a sheep charged at her and repeatedly rammed her,” said a statement from the Nashoba Valley Regional Emergency Communications Center.

...

Cultivate Care focuses on animal therapy. It described the sheep involved as a comfort animal.
That's like the worst comfort animal ever.


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dimanche 5 décembre 2021

Modern day slavery

Good on INS and Homeland Security for uncovering this and bringing these people to justice.

https://nordot.app/83965400915314278...22757532812385


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