Do you even hongi, bro?

For the non-Kiwi, (and Hawaiian) a hongi is the Maori ritual greeting, consisting of pressing noses and foreheads together. Here's an explainer and helpful picture of the Prime Ministers of NZ and Australia sharing one yesterday: https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/01-06...whats-a-hongi/

The whole point of the hongi is to share a breath. This means something to people who do it, apparently, while to 99% of the world's population enduring a pandemic, it's something that looks completely insane.

I'd have hoped that Covid taught people that sharing personal space is something to be avoided, and a brief nod is just as good as a handshake. I don't carry sword these days, so I don't believe holding out an empty hand has much point. I've shaken hands with criminals, drug dealers, doctors, lawyers, chief executives and labourers over many years, and apart from the odd and highly amusing Masonic handshakes, they haven't told me anything about a single person, and it's an anachronism I'd gladly leave behind.

The recent trend to hugging mystifies me as well, while I've always found the likes of Barack Obama kissing Angela Merkel while shaking hands with David Cameron, to be utterly bizarre. The tendency of some European people to kiss as a greeting is equally disgusting (would you allow Vladimir Putin to kiss your face?) to me as a hongi.

I'm not OCD, but I don't like people invading my space and arm's length is where I like them to be. Aside from my wife and kids, I do not hug anyone, ever, giving them the Seinfeld treatment if it looks like that's where they're going.

Quite funny that in a world where offence is so widely taken, over so many things that trigger warnings and consent are bywords of life, that it's just assumed that the receiver of these invasions doesn't mind, and as the Seinfeld piece showed, is even considered a bit strange when they decline the opportunity to have someone come and press him/herself against them.

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Pastor Rick Wiles, anti-vaxer, may now have Covid

After loudly condemning the Covid-19 vaccines and vowing not to be vaccinated because it is a global genocide plan being carried out by Satan’s minions on Earth, an outbreak of flu and Covid has struck his church hard enough to close down their offices until a TBA date and now prayers are being requested specifically for the wise pastor who had become feverish and fatigued.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pa...ide/ar-AAKxkdd


Such things are to be expected when one staggers down the road to Dumbasscus.

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Help deciphering these stats, thanks

I'm having trouble deciphering these statistics and I don't want to say someone is wrong then it turns out I'm the one not getting it:

So the cited source says:

Quote:

Results: From these data, the expected number of annual occupational hepatitis C virus seroconversions was estimated to be between 5.8 and 118.9 per 100,000 employee-years for EMT-paramedics, between 3.4 and 33.7 per 100,000 for firefighter-EMTs, and up to 3.6 per 100,000 for firefighters (non-EMT).

The source (NFPA Standards) that uses that cite says:

Quote:

Prehospital Emergency Care, the expected number of annual occupational hepatitis C seroconversions for firefighter/EMTs was estimated to be 3.4 to 33.7 per 100,000.

I'm sure that bottom number is wrong because I know the rate for seroconversion to hep C is much much lower than that. And 100,000 employee (person) years is not "annual seroconversion" rates.

But it's in the NFPA Standards and that's a big deal. I'm afraid I must be missing something. Before I bring this up to the EMS Coordinator at the fire department (a battalion chief position), I want to be sure I'm right because I'll look very foolish if I'm not.

Thanks in advance. :)

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Space Expansion and Big Bang

So I'm thinking (which is usually a bad sign)...

So first of all we have Hawking radiation. Pairs of virtual particles form right on the edge of a black hole's horizon, and normally they'd annihilate and disappear back again, but then one falls inside and one gets out. Simple enough to understand.

But then I'm thinking, what happens is you have space expanding faster than light, as happened in the early big bang. In fact, it still does, if the distance is far enough, hence why we have an observable universe that's smaller than the actual universe. But I'm thinking, what if you had space expanding so fast, that the distance to become causally separate is in the order of magnitude of how far those particles in a pair can travel from each other. Wouldn't that be the same condition essentially as on the horizon of a black hole. Essentially those particles can't annihilate with each other any more without violating causality.

It seems to me like a tremendous amount of matter/energy would be generated.

Could this be how the universe started?

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Online Board Games

Have any of you been playing board games online, during these days of distancing?

I’m looking for games that one can play directly on one’s browser, without having to download stuff.

Chess is one game that is easily available. Lots of great sites, lots. After trying some of them out, I’ve settled on www.chess.com. Their interface seemed the most user friendly.


-------


Other games also are available easily enough, provided you’re willing to download their apps on your phone. But, like I said, I’m not comfortable downloading apps unless absolutely necessary, and am looking for websites that, as with chess, let you just play directly on your desktop browser.

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Why did China commit 8000 PLA soldiers as UN Peacekeepers?

I don't post much on the conspiracy sub, but since I'm a conspiracy theorist, and the mods would have probably moved it anyway, here goes.

The United Nations is a globalist, New World Order foundation of unelected technocrats serving the wealthiest bankers in the world, ever since it's founding. A couple years later on October 20th, 1947 John D. Rockefeller Jr., the son of one of the wealthiest men in one of the wealthiest families in the world, cut a check for $8.5 million dollars to the first UN Secretary General, Trygve Lie for the UN HQ in New York.

Fast forward to about 2017 when Xi Jinping followed through with his 2015 commitment to provide 8000 Chinese PLA soldiers as UN "Peacekeepers", as well as a fund with $1B USD.

$1B USD is chump change for bankers who control the world's central banks, which can create unlimited fiat money in any currency they wish, but 8000 UN Peacekeepers is a substantial force which is apparently being used in Africa currently to police China's substantial economic interests on that continent.

Why would a presumably western dominated supra-national body like the United Nations allow the totalitarian Chinese regime run by Xi Jinping to command 8000 troops wearing UN blue helmets policing around the globe, while simultaneously lessening their own influence (as the article above documents) over the United Nations at the same time? Probably for the same reason that the WHO elected former Ethiopian communist of the "Tigray People's Liberation Front" president in 2017, and who was subsequently in charge of the "investigation" into China's level 4 bioweapons lab in Wuhan concerning the origin of Covid-19, I'm guessing.

Does the United Nations represent the west, or does it represent the same bankers who funded the Communist Bolshevik Revolution and the Communist Chinese color revolution?

The evidence is stacking up towards the latter, "skeptics".

Here is a youtuber commenting on an interesting video undoubtedly featuring some of these 8000 "Peacekeepers" at the 2019 "Wuhan Military Games" as well as some interesting symbolism:

[yt]QGd8ZBXLoho[/yt]

Take care to note the reference at the beginning of the video to the "Lucis Trust", an organization founded by H.P. Blavatsky which also happens to be a United Nation's NGO.

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The whole gay dudes and being mega camp thing

Just as a starter.

I know quite a few gay dudes, work with a couple of them, good mates with one from growing up, one in the family.

All cool people. Most just come across as normal dudes, as they just are.

But a few have got that uber camp thing going on.

I am thinking more and more it is just an act. Which is weird.

Like having to conform to some stereotype or something, or they havea need to be noticed as different, where the ones who are just normal dudes just don't care (as they shouldn't) and just be themselves.

Then again I could be completely wrong and the over the top camp ones may just be genuinely just naturally odd.

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“ Canada mourns as remains of 215 children found at indigenous school ”

Canada mourns as remains of 215 children found at indigenous school https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57291530

…. A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people. ….

…. Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the community in British Columbia's city of Kamloops, said the preliminary finding represented an unthinkable loss that was never documented by the school's administrators. ….

Ran by a Roman Catholic administration for most of its existence, but of course under the aegis of governments for 80 years.

I know this is nothing new but a further 215 undocumented deaths? How many more such graves are there?

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Pixies and Faeries Are Real!

I've only just come across a charming little channel about little mythical creatures. The CGI is very well done, and, as most commenters state, one is so at ease with this old gentleman and his odd ways that who cares about real or not. Wonderful escape from today's other kinds of madness. Subscribed!

See 03:54 for fun.

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Socialism is Communism.

In another thread, a poster suggested that there is a material difference between Communism and Socialism, and claiming that while Communism is a failed ideology (or at least implying that the Marxist/Leninist iterations were), Socialism is not. This could not be further from the truth. First, lets start with some definitions:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merriam Webster communism noun com·​mu·​nism | \ ˈkäm-yə-ˌni-zəm , -yü- \ Definition of communism 1a: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed b: a theory advocating elimination of private property 2capitalized a: a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R. b: a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production c: a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably d: communist systems collectively

and

Quote:

socialism noun so·​cial·​ism | \ ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm \ Definition of socialism 1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods 2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state 3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished

Clearly, the most important aspect of both politico-economic systems is the abolition of private property, and the state ownership of the means of production. In this sense, there is no meaningful difference between the two systems, instead, Socialism is just a "transitional theory" as per definition #3.

All socialists are in essence advocating for communism (the total abolition of private property), even though the state (and the elites who run the state) don't yet have complete control of all property.

Socialism is defined elsewhere as the "state ownership of the means of production", but where the classless system that Marx advocated has "not yet been realized".

Since advocating for the transition to a failed ideology is just as abhorrent as advocating for a failed ideology, the terms Socialism and Communism, as well as Socialists and Communists, can rightfully be used interchangeably.

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Walking with donuts while black.

Quote:

Ellis died after being restrained by officers as he walked home from a convenience store with a late-night snack of raspberry-filled doughnuts. The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide, with oxygen deprivation caused by physical restraint as the primary cause, and methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease as contributing factors.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...icle_inset_1.1

Police involved lied in official reports about the police killing of Ellis, claiming never to have placed him in any chokehold. Video and eyewitness testimony would expose this lie. The cops likewise claim that Ellis initiated the violent encounter, while the eyewitness claims the police were the aggressors.

Over a year later, 3 cops have finally been charged for the killing, 2 with murder and another with manslaughter.

The medical report finds that Ellis died from homicide resulting asphyxiation related to positional restraint. He was hogtied, handcuffed, and had a spit hood placed over his head. Ellis was recorded by police dispatch shouting "I can't breathe" during his fatal arrest.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/ta...ody/index.html

Dangerous restraint techniques, like those that killed Ellis, Floyd, and Garner, are commonly used by police regardless of the extreme risk it places people in. Perhaps a few more high profile murder convictions of cops will change their culture.

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The Rise of Hitler and The Age of Trump: A Comparison

Bob001 linked this article in another thread and I found it so interesting and relevant that I thought it deserved a thread of its own.

We are so reluctant to mention Hitler and the rise of Naziism when it comes to discussing Trump and the current direction of the GOP because of the inevitable protests and accusations of "drama" and "hyperbole" from the conservatives that we generally avoid doing so. However, the events of the past year, and especially the last 6-7 months, have shown a clear correlation between what happened in Germany starting in the early 1920's and what is happening here now. In the linked article, historian Benjamin Carter Hett, who has authored several books on the rise of Nazi Germany, discusses how the Nazis took over the German government, not by force, but from within and how our own democracy is in danger of the same authoritarian takeover from within.

Quote:

The past is not always a perfect prologue. But when the past echoes so loudly in the present one would be wise not to ignore it. History's bell is ringing loudly in the Age of Trump in America. In a recent essay for the Los Angeles Times, historian Benjamin Carter Hett explored the frightening resonances between Adolf Hitler's attempted coup in Germany in 1923 (what has come to be known as the "Beer Hall Putsch") and Trump and his followers' coup attempt this past January: Hitler learned his lesson: A sophisticated modern state could not be overturned by a violent coup led by outsiders, against the police and the army. He realized he would have to work within the system. Over the following decade, this is exactly what he did. The Nazis ran in elections until they were the largest party in Germany's parliament, gridlocking legislative business. Even more insidiously, the Nazis worked to infiltrate crucial institutions like the police and the army. In 1931, Berlin police responded incredibly sluggishly to a massive Nazi riot in the center of the city. It turned out senior police officials silently sympathized with the Nazis and had colluded in hobbling the police response. Hitler grew steadily more attractive to business and military leaders who saw him and his movement as their only salvation from the growing Communist Party. Early in 1933 they opened the doors of power to him. ... After the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, 139 Republican members of the House and eight members of the Senate, led by Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, came out of hiding to vote to object to the electoral college vote count. While a police officer lay dying, they supported Trump's lie of a stolen election and embraced the insurrectionists' cause. Hett then engages in a particularly disturbing what-if scenario, one that has troubled many people familiar with the patterns of history: Imagine the events of the past weeks and months if someone like Hawley had been the secretary of state in Georgia, or someone like retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn held a significant military command. Imagine what would have happened if the Republicans held majorities in both houses of Congress and could have overturned the electoral college results. Imagine if the courts had been more generously stocked with judges willing to entertain the Trump campaign's ludicrous arguments. Above all, imagine if the president had been a bit more competent, a bit more strategic, a bit more daring. Hitler, after all, was at least willing to be present at the violence his words inspired. He was also more persuasive in his dealings with important officials.

Hett answers several questions and makes equally disturbing observations in the rest of the article. Among those questions:

1) As a historian of modern Germany, what did you see when you watched the events of Jan. 6?

2) What parallels do you see between Trump and the larger right-wing movement's use of the Big Lie, as compared to the way Hitler and the Nazis used it?

Liz Cheney tried to warn her GOP colleagues that they are endangering the very democracy they say they are defending and she was punished for speaking truth to power. How can McConnell, McCarthy and so many other GOP Congress members NOT see just how dangerous their support of Trump's Big Lie is to our very democracy? How can they care so little for our country?

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Does anything exist?

I had a dream last night in which I was having a discussion with my ex philosophy teacher. She said nothing exists and gave the name of a philosopher as a reference to that viewpoint. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name.
Does anyone know of a philosopher who held that view?

I said in the dream, I exist because I think therefore I am, and my mind is not capable of creating all that I perceive. But I do believe that Gods mind is capable of sustaining creation and the laws of physics that support everything we observe. However everything is an illusion, and it is not what it appears to be to our senses.

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Racist white woman charged for driving car into BLM crowd

Quote:

A driver was arrested Monday night after a car hit a group of people during a protest march in Elizabeth City. Lisa Michelle O'Quinn, 41, of Elizabeth City, was charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and one count each of careless and reckless driving and unsafe movement. She was released on a $40,000 bond. ... Elizabeth City police said they are investigating whether to classify the incident as a hate crime. O'Quinn is white, and the women hit by the car are Black. O'Quinn has a long criminal history, including charges of communicating threats, ethnic intimidation and carrying concealed weapon in 2013 and assault by pointing a gun and communicating threats last year, as well as a history of making racist posts online. "She called us n-words. She called us a bunch of Black troublemakers," Lindsey said.

https://www.wral.com/woman-charged-w...-off/19694737/

There's a video included in the linked news story.

BLM protestors in Elizabeth City, which has seen sustained protest since the police killing of Andrew Brown Jr, were standing in an intersection. O'Quinn is caught on video driving, albeit fairly slowly, into the protest crowd, making contact with at least two protestors. One reports having their leg run over by the back tire. Both victims were treated at the hospital and released with non-serious injuries.

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The Berglas Effect

The article is titled: The Mystery of Magic’s Greatest Card Trick

"At 94, the magician David Berglas says his renowned effect can’t be taught. Is he telling the truth?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/s...ard-trick.html

I'll save my own remarks for later.

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Google censorship

Project Veritas uncovers how Google is abusing it's power and manipulating the minds of Americans. Using footage of people within Google and document leaks by former members, they now have very solid evidence. It shows how they are brainwashing all of us to their ultra-leftist agenda (to use the phrasing of the technical project manager).

https://i.postimg.cc/y6NJVyvP/expose-google.png
https://www.bitchute.com/video/re9Xp6cdkro/

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Tell me about cataract surgery.

It won't be any time soon, but I've been told to start thinking about cataract surgery. This is one of the safest and most routine of all surgeries, but there are options to choose, and sometimes things can go wrong. So:

1/ Who's done this? How did it go?

2/ Apparently in addition to standard lenses, there are multifocal lenses that provide near and far images, and the brain learns to choose the sharpest; and lenses that are attached to the eye muscles and adjust for near and far, like a (young) natural lens, but apparently they are more prone to complications. What lens did you choose, and do you like the results?

3/ Apparently an extra-cost option is to use a laser to make the initial incision and dissolve the original lens. Are the results worth the expense?

4/ How long did recovery take?

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Being a locksmith while black

Quote:

Filmed from the locksmith’s perspective, the first video shows him explaining to a group of police officers that he and his co-worker have a work order to change the locks on a house. The police seem doubtful, with one officer circling them while holding an assault rifle, telling the TikToker to stop filming their conversation. “We’re here for a complaint, that’s all,” says the officer holding the rifle. One of the other officers has also drawn his weapon, holding it as if he’s responding to a threat. The house itself appears to be unoccupied, with a realtor’s sign posted outside. Meanwhile the locksmiths are standing with their tools on the doorstep.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/tik...ofiling-video/

Multiple cops respond to complaint of black locksmiths working on a front door in broad daylight. Several cops respond with weapons drawn, one is seen with a rifle.

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Kansas woman convenes her own Grand Jury using old state law

This is a terrible, yet interesting story. According to Smith she was having consensual sex with a friend, and it turned into an assault. Per the article:

Quote:

Madison Smith, 22, collected the hundreds of signatures necessary to empanel the grand jury after the county prosecutor resolved the case by allowing Jared Stolzenburg to plead guilty to aggravated battery and receive two years’ probation.

I don't have much of a desire to discuss the rape aspect, because if she feels she was raped I'm certainly not the one to tell her different. I do find it interesting that she was able to use an extremely old law to begin a path for getting, what she feels, is justice. Something I didn't know:

Quote:

Kansas is one of six states that allow citizens to petition for grand juries.

I wonder if those other states will have some women seeing this and thinking to themselves, "maybe that's something I should try." It would be good to see more options for women that get assaulted. I truly believe the laws aren't as current as they could be.

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All live in apartments to save the environment?

If all human beings lived in a 5-story apartment building, with some green space for recreation between them, we could probably fit the Earth's population into a space the size of Texas. We could leave the rest of the land for farming and just natural space for recreation and reforestation, allowing animals to live in peace.

What say you?

I currently live in a house, but if this was planned & designed right and there was adequate space for everyone, I'd be willing to do this.

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Mother Mary works in mysterious ways

I assist an older friend of mine with his computer. He's a devout Roman Catholic and has signed up to several mailing lists of interest to him. While assisting him with a email problem, one message came up that caught my attention. The subject line "Mary Came Down and Jesus Went up to Heaven." It was a reference to the 104th anniversary of Fátima visitation, which started in May 1917.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the second most holy persona in the Roman Catholic church, the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God, sees a need to go down to Earth to deliver three prophecies. Who should she visit?

To start, there's the Vicar of Christ himself in Rome, His Holiness Pope Benedict XV, at the time 62 years of age. There are the members of the College of Cardinals. There are archbishops all over the world, and likewise a great many people who have devoted their lives to the service of the church.

Instead, Mary goes to a small village in Portugal, Fátima by name, and appears to three illiterate shepherd children, aged 10, 9, and 7.

This has always confused me. It's like the President or Prime Minister of a country sneaking away from his/her official residence, shaking off the security detail, and with no press, TV or radio crews in tow going to some small town in another country to give a major policy statement to three kids in grade four. What ... ?

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Citizen Wants to Send Private Security Teams to Your Neighborhood

In Nod to Dystopian Fiction, Citizen Wants to Send Private Security Teams to Your Neighborhood

Quote:

In what truly seems like a dystopian nightmare come to life, the public safety alert app Citizen apparently has plans to hire teams of security contractors to respond to app users’ incident response requests—a sort of Blackwater-ification of local public safety that can surely only lead to good things. When it started back in 2016, Citizen had a different name, Vigilante, and it was known for encouraging people to film and share videos of criminal activity in their community. Since then, the company rebranded, got a lot more funding, and transformed itself into a real-time public safety notification system that uses push alerts to tell users about local emergency information like fires, medical events and crime. Now, merely a day or so after the company mistakenly put a bounty on an L.A. homeless man and falsely accused him of starting wildfires, Motherboard reports that ex-employees and leaked internal documents show Citizen’s next cool thing: imminent plans to contract with major security firms to send private goon squads to your neighborhood, where they will ostensibly check on whether you’re OK or not.

Well, we all know what a great job Blackwater did in Iraq. I can't see how sending armed private security to do the job that police are supposed to be doing could possibly go wrong, can you? Of course, the police think this is a bad idea too.

Oh wait, they don't:

Quote:

The cops seem to think this is all a good idea, too. Emails viewed by Motherboard allege that the Los Angeles Police Department has been in touch with Citizen and called the solution a “game changer.” The emails intimate that the LAPD has been “overrun with property crime, and the agency has effectively thrown its hands up because they don’t have enough officers on the street to respond to these sorts of calls.” The police department, when reached for comment Friday, neither confirmed nor denied that it had made contact with the company: “We are working to verify if anyone at LAPD was contacted by Citizen app,” said Det. Meghan Aguilar, of the LAPD’s Media Relations Division, in an email to Gizmodo. “At this time, we are not able to confirm if what is included in online articles is accurate as it relates to LAPD.”

I just can't wait to be taken hostage in a bank robbery, and have these guys show up instead of the cops because one of the hostages has their app. They can come in with guns blazing and save their client while leaving me to be killed. Sounds like I better pony up for this service right away!

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Hijacking planes for democracy

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this yet, so:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57224452

Belarus shows it flagrant disregard for any and all international laws and customs by faking a bomb threat on board a private passenger plane, uses Mig's to force it down, then search it for the bomb and conveniently finding a critic of the regime on board, who is then arrested.

A nice new tactic for any dictatorship.

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Belarus diverts Ryanair flight to arrest journalist

A Ryanair plane from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Belarus for several hours on Sunday, with activists saying it was done to arrest a dissident journalist on board.

European nations reacted with outrage, accusing Belarus of "state terrorism".

The ex-editor of the Nexta group, Roman Protasevich, was detained before the plane was allowed to resume its flight.
Belarus media said a MiG-29 escorted the jet to Minsk because of a bomb scare but no explosives were found.

The plane finally landed in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, its original destination, at 21:25 local time (18:25 GMT), more than seven hours after its scheduled arrival.
Flight FR4978 was en route from Athens to Vilnius when it turned east to Minsk shortly before it reached the Lithuanian border. Greece and Lithuania put the number of passengers on board at 171.

In a statement, Ryanair said that the crew had been "notified by Belarus (Air Traffic Control) of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57219860

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OANN calls NewsMax "left leaning"...

Too many threads to choose where to post this... and I'm half orgasmic as It is. I'm sure there'll be plenty of links and punditry to come, just thought I'd give everyone a thought to smile over. [emoji1]

Out of curiosity... is this "eating their own" or "oops, I voted for the leopards eating my face party" ?
Or both? [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

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Amazon halts construction at Connecticut site after 7th ‘noose’ found

Amazon is halting construction at a facility in Windsor, Connecticut after workers discovered the seventh case of a “rope which could be interpreted as a noose” at the site.

The first six were discovered at the work site during the last week of April.

The latest was Wednesday, when officers on a private duty assignment “were made aware of the discovery of a rope which could be interpreted as a noose hanging within overhead beams on the site,” police said.

“We continue to be deeply disturbed by the incidents happening at the construction site in Windsor and have ordered its shut down until necessary security measures can be put in place,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said.

The ropes were hung in an area without surveillance cameras, police said, according to the Hartford Courant, and because the area has “hundreds of employees from various companies,” there’s been limited information on suspects.

https://nypost.com/2021/05/21/amazon...h-noose-found/

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Lord of the Rings vs Game of Thrones

Are they the same story, told in different ways?

Both have a Mary & Pip, Ranger-Hero, Needle/Sting-short sword, female heroes, Sam "the Wise", battle of the 5 armies, corruptive power, and a dozen others...

Both authors claim to be inspired by myth and our earliest historical works.

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Changes to the International Code of Medical Ethics

"Pro-lifers have voiced concern over a new draft of the International Code of Medical Ethics, warning that it threatens to undermine a doctors’ right to conscientious objection"

https://thecatholicuniverse.com/doct...w-ethics-code/

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Welby "apologises" for Bash camps

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...hristian-camps

Here we go again.

An "apology" years and years after the event, years after the organisation involved knew about it and did **** all, years after it had been reported to at least one major school involved in it, who did **** all, years after the perpetrator was shipped out to Africa where he was implicated in more of the same, up to a charge of murder.

And just now Welby manages an "apology", which means precisely **** all.

How many more times?

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Trump DoJ tried to unmask Devin Nunes' Cow

No, seriously. The Trump DoJ under William Barr, used a Federal Grand Jury to obtain a subpoena for Twitter's records in an attempt to force them to reveal the identity of a number of Twitter accounts that trolled US Rep. Devin Nunes.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/how-de...ump-s-n1267944

....a court filing revealed the DOJ had used a grand jury subpoena in late November to seek subscriber records for a Twitter account that mocks Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

When Twitter’s lawyers questioned the legal authority for the subpoena, the prosecutor said in an email that the investigation was based on potential violations of 18 U.S.C. Section 875(c), which is a federal statute that makes it a crime to communicate interstate threats to kidnap or harm the person of another.

The prosecutor declined to identify the threatening tweet. Twitter responded by filing a motion to quash the subpoena, noting its review of the account’s tweets revealed no threatening content but only posts relating to current events, government policies and Nunes himself.

Misuse of power anyone?

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The Somerton Man Mystery

The story is straight out of a crime fiction novel but it has never been solved.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-...tery/100148922

Police will try a DNA test to see if they can solve this.

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...

...

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Menard's new tall tale

Bobby has a new story. As always, this serial liar does not reveal where this supposed incident happened, what jurisdiction he's writing to, who his lady friend was, what motel he was walking to.. . or any other details one might use to check out his tall tale.

My suspicion is that the story is Bobby's sad attempt to gain relevancy so as to bolster a revival of his failed freeman career. And let me guess. . .in the end Bobby will claim his brilliance befuddled the authorities.

I content that Bobby is, after 20 years of outright lies, doing the only thing his MooseHead soaked arse knows to do . . . promote the sale of his "letters to the authorities" and his phony legal advice service by pretending he makes his woo work.

He is a liar and a fraud.

Quote:

NOTICE ISSUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 61 OF THE CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT Monday, May 17, 2021 Hello and good day. I am Robert Arthur Menard, a Freeman-on-the-Land. On Friday May 14, 2021 I was with a friend and we were exercising our common-law right to travel by walking down the side of a road on the sidewalk. A police car stopped beside us and the driver activated the emergency lights. There was no emergency at the time. The officer driving informed us that we were breaching a curfew. Two officers, whom I am assuming were a man and a woman, exited their vehicle and demanded we identify ourselves. As I am a Freeman-on-the-Land I do not have any identification issued by any lawful government, and so I provided him under duress with my name and what I believe is my date of birth. My companion provided identification information in the form of a passport. They went back to their car and returned several minutes later and imposed upon us without our consent two ‘tickets’ apparently for merely walking down the street. All we were doing was exercising our common law right to do so. I would like to point out that we were less than 50 meters from our temporary residence (a motel) and that those officers enjoy discretion and could have acted with restraint and compassion, however they chose to unlawfully issue a ticket instead. I say unlawfully because for one we have the right to peacefully walk down the street, but also because when I asked if the thing he was imposing on me was a security interest, he had no idea whether it was or not. If it is a security interest, and he did not know it was one, he is grossly negligent in creating them, and such gross negligence constitutes fraud. For the record and for the edification of the public and your officers, a security interest is any written instrument which creates an obligation to pay or perform. Once that was explained to him, he agreed that it was a security interest. He then explained that I could either pay it, or within 30 days register a desire to contest it in court. The instrument he imposed upon me under duress consisted of two parts, one being a remittance, which is a specie of money once completed. These were the only two options he explained. I believe that by failing to explain what remedies exist under the Consumer Protection Act, he committed further acts of fraud by omission. It does not matter that the omission was due to his ignorance, stupidity or arrogance. It gives rise to the ability to exercise rights as found under the Consumer Protection Act to negate the obligations to pay or perform created with that security interest. It is my understanding that the Consumer Protection Act is applicable to the Government and Government departments and agencies. See Section 4. It is my understanding that said Act is applicable to any contract entered into in the geographical area of Quebec. See Section 1. It is my understanding that the instrument imposed upon me without my consent is a security interest as it creates or purports to create an obligation to pay or perform. This is a function of law and is implied by the Act. It is my understanding that security interests can only be created by way of a lawful contract as a functional law. It is my understanding that contracts can be voided as a function of law due to fraud, misrepresentation, or gross negligence. It is my understanding that the officers who imposed those instruments were grossly negligent as they did not know they were generating a security interest, and they failed to inform us of our remedy under the Consumer Protection Act. It is my understanding that the Government of Quebec is an itinerant merchant, a corporate entity providing governmental type services. See Section 55. It is my understanding that as a consumer I may cancel any contract entered into with an itinerant merchant at my sole discretion within 10 days of being in possession of a duplicate of the instrument. See Section 59. It is my understanding that I can avail myself of the right of cancellation by a notice in writing for that purpose to the itinerant merchant or his representative. See Section 61. It is my understanding that within 15 days of the cancellation, the parties must restore what they have received from one another, and that the itinerant merchant shall assume the costs of the restitution. See Section 63. Therefore with this Notice I am availing myself of my right of cancellation, and returning the remittance which was imposed upon me. I am further demanding the sum of $250 as the cost of restitution incurred by myself. Furthermore I am taking this opportunity to inform you that I do not consent to any future transactions of any security interests and that any attempt to impose further security interests upon me will constitute willful fraud and justify civil actions. Furthermore if in the future any of your agents attempt to initiate violence or threaten to do so in order to create any security interests, that will constitute an unlawful assault. Finally I am claiming that the curfew being imposed by the Government is unlawful as it does not meet the standards required by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms required to impose limits on my common-law right to travel. Please take the appropriate steps to educate your agents concerning how tickets of this sort are security interests, and ensure they understand they have a duty to inform consumers of their rights and remedies found under the Consumer Protection Act. Also, I would strongly suggest that you never promote the officer I dealt with, as he demonstrated a glaring lack of compassion, and an inability to wisely exercise discretion. Personally I do not think anyone so grossly incompetent and negligent should be walking around with a gun let alone imposing themselves on people after dark. I would not trust him to issue parking tickets. Finally I am going to take lawful yet extraordinary steps to ensure that as many Quebecers as possible understand their rights under the Consumer Protection Act when dealing with tickets of this sort. You can thank the issuing officer for this, for if he had exercised his discretion and acted with even an ounce of compassion, instead of trying to impress his female partner, all of this would have been avoided. Sincerely and without malice aforethought, ill will, vexation or frivolity, AND WITH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Robert Arthur Menard Freeman-on-the-Land.

-------------------------
Dope Clock: It has been 84 days since Robert Menard promised the "launch" of his latest project.

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"Thug" and the evolution of word usage

Quote:

Originally Posted by cullennz (Post 13481612) You seem to have some amazing insight to the violent thug's life experiences.

:eye-poppi Who are you framing as a "violent thug"?

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Having long hair while black.

//I thought we had a thread on a similar case (involving a High School wrestling match if I recall), but I can't find it. If anyone remembers it better and can find it link to it and I'll ask for this one to be merged.//

Quote:

Pyles, a Black student who attends Hillside High School, said her team was in the lead during the second inning against a Jordan High School softball team on April 19 when an umpire told her he was unable to see her uniform number due to her hairstyle. She was wearing beaded braids during her team's final home game of the season, a hairstyle she says she has worn in several games prior.

GMA: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/c...-hair-77708466

Okay for full disclosure there a few details here. One the hair was not just long but beaded and I can, in some circumstances, imagine not wanting foreign objects in the hair in certain scenarios, I just don't get how it was an issue here. And the classic "The exact reason keeps changing" thing pops up. First it's because her hair is so long the umpire can't see her number, then it got it changed to the beads so I'm not 100% buying that was actually the issue.

And the fact that girl had played several games with the exact same hairstyle and nobody had a problem.

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2022 Senate Race

It looks like Val Demings is going to try her hand at beating out Rubio. I think this will be an extremely good matchup. Demings was an LEO, she's got a solid reputation in the House, and I think has a real chance at ousting Rubio.

Per Politico:

Quote:

Demings, 64, was first elected to the House in 2016 from Orlando and held the distinction of being the city’s first Black woman police chief. She rose to national prominence as the only non-lawyer on the first House impeachment committee to charge President Donald Trump with wrongdoing. As a Black woman and law enforcement officer, her background made her uniquely situated to be a national Democratic spokesperson for policing and race issues — it helped catapult her to President Joe Biden’s shortlist as a possible running mate in 2020.

I guess I didn't check to see if there was another Senate thread. I haven't looked into any of the other announcements really since it's still pretty early. Like...a year and a half away but that's US politics for ya! It's not 100% for sure since she's eyeing up the Governor seat as well. I hope she goes Senate myself and actually really liked her as the possible VP pick.

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North Carolina Judge Under Investigation After Nearly hitting BLM protestors with car

Quote:

A state appellate court judge in North Carolina is allegedly under investigation after two community activists said they had to jump out of the way of his SUV to avoid being run over during a Black Lives Matter demonstration, The Fayetteville Observer reported Thursday evening.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile...-with-his-suv/

Video shows the North Carolina Court of Appeals judge's SUV fully on the sidewalk after he veered the vehicle towards a small group of BLM protestors there. Protestors describe narrowly evading being struck by the truck.

Other video of the protest shows the judge driving down the shoulder of a roundabout where protestors were standing nearby. The judge made at least two laps of the area before driving his car over the curb onto the sidewalk and into the crowd, narrowly missing pedestrians. He made a false 911 call about people standing in the street then fled the scene.

Quote:

Witnesses also told the Observer that the SUV believed to have been driven by Tyson had made at least one complete loop around the Market Place roundabout and only veered towards protesters on the second lap around.

On patrol in your SUV trying to kill protestors, just normal judge stuff.

Quote:

Judge John M. Tyson of Cumberland County has been summoned to appear in a courtroom in his own county next month where he will need to answer to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the Fayetteville Observer reported.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...rotesters-hit/

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South Carolina, 2 ways to die, choose one!

Per Fox, but it's on a million sources:

Quote:

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has signed into law a bill that forces death row inmates for now to choose between the electric chair or a newly formed firing squad in hopes the state can restart executions after an involuntary 10-year pause. South Carolina had been one of the most prolific states of its size in putting inmates to death. But a lack of lethal injection drugs brought executions to a halt.

Long story short. The normal method is lethal injection, but they don't have the drugs at the moment. Which then causes it to roll over to the other method, the electric chair, but it's up to the convict. They have 3 prisoners ready to toast, but they all picked lethal injection, the new law, apparently changes that to force them to choose either the chair or a firing squad.

I also learned that 3 other states still have the firing squad:

Quote:

The other three states that allow a firing squad are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

I could never be the guy to pull any of the triggers. I can't imagine being on a firing squad and killing someone, while also claiming to be religious. That's some cold ****.

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How To Know If it's Aliens

With the upcoming US congressional hearing happening this June this is an appropriate video to watch beforehand. If you care to. From PBS Spacetime: How to Know When It Is Aliens




There’s one rule on Space Time: It’s never Aliens. But every rule has an exception and this rule is no exception because: It’s never aliens, until it is. So is it aliens yet? And on today’s Space Time we’re going to examine all the best case scenarios for life beyond Earth.

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Black Holes Episode 8: The Last Information

So, as usual, I don't fully get GR and black holes, but then what else is new? This time it's about black holes destroying information. And I'm probably understanding it awfully wrong, because it seems to me like black holes actually CREATE information.

I get the general narrative. Matter goes in, carrying information, random Hawking radiation comes out, which doesn't carry that information any more. Seems straighforward enough...

... until I start thinking, "well, in which chart/frame does that happen?" The aforementioned narrative almost invariably leaves that out. Well, I like things more rigorous than that.

So I'm thinking, ok,


- first, how it looks to a distant observer outside the black hole. (By looks to, I mean, I'll put my frame of reference there. Like, my frame is on Earth and I'm observing Sagittarius A* somehow.)

Well, in my chart, the old information is never actually gone. Whatever object I'm observing falling into the black hole, it never actually crosses the event horizon. Even the oldest information that ever collapsed into a black hole, like the big bang photons that went into a primordial black hole, technically it's still there, plastered on the surface of the black hole's horizon, just 1 planck unit outside it.

Sure, it gets infinitely far away, so to speak, and infinitely red-shifted, so I can't actually observe it in any meaningful way, but things don't disappear if you stop being able to observe them. The sun doesn't actually disappear during an eclipse, for example.

So the old information is still there. The Hawking radiation is extra information coming out of the black hole. It's not replacing the old information, it's adding to it.


- from the point of view of the thing that just fell into the black hole.

Well, as long as I didn't yet hit the singularity, my information is still there. However, as soon as I crossed the event horizon, I start seeing the other half of the Hawking radiation. Those particle-pairs still form near the event horizon, and one goes out, the other goes inwards with me. Some of it is BECAUSE of me, since the black hole just got a wee bit bigger because of my mass adding to it, so that's extra particle pairs caused by my being in the black hole. That's also additional information.


So, like, what am I understanding wrong there?

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Kids Allowed To Take Knives to School For Religious Reasons

Wow! How crazy is this:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-...unds/100143750

Says school Principal Sonja Anderson:

Quote:

"Schools in NSW are among the safest places in the community, and Glenwood High School is one of those schools," she said. The letter makes reference to the Summary Offences Act, in which a person is allowed to carry a knife in public, provided he or she has a "reasonable excuse". "The possession of a knife for genuine religious reasons is specified as a reasonable excuse under the act," Ms Anderson said.

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[Quiz] How much do you know about the Covid 19 Vaccine?

www.rocketquizmaker.com/1042/student/MTY1NDg=

I got 40% (It said I didnt pass -- Ah man!!)

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Our home internet is restored!

More than six weeks ago in a storm our www faltered.
Made the call and they made a report. They had ten days to send a tech and figure the problem.

Well, he did, a junction box suffered some damage and he couldn't fix it so he filed another report.

Two weeks later that was fixed at the box but they never called nor tested at our house. We still had no www.
We waited and called several more times and today the tech replaced the entire outside line a 2nd time and it's fixed!!!!!

Home schooling via internet on a phone isn't working for my son. Now he is back on a laptop. The entertainment aspect of it is good too but we really needed it for school.

Lessons learned are that ten working days and be as many as 20 calendar days and these guys must be related to the it techs working on the Frank's peach site.
This isn't the first time our lovely Telmex techs have left us cold without landline www service. Last time we just gave up on them, six months in that one and supposedly we had to pay every service call. We just started using internet on our phones.

So until the next big storm... Yay!

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Is “ Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” correct?

In another thread there is a discussion following the murder* of a customer at a restaurant who it is claimed was using racists insults at the employee. The employee apparently punched the customer who fell down and hit their head and died from that injury. (*using murder colloquially as any form of unlawful killing.)

Several people have used the argument that is summed up in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” and hold that the physical action of speech should be treated differently to other physical actions such as a punch, and they carry it on to a conclusion that you can only use a physical action such as punch in retaliation for being punched/hit and so on. That at no time can someone retaliate with a punch to someone’s speech.

For those that believe there is truth in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”:

Why do you think - as one example - some children try to kill themselves and some do manage to kill themselves after being subjected to “names will never hurt me” aka bullying?

Why should an action like speech be treated as a special kind of action?

Are there any circumstances where speech can be “retorted” (morally if not legally) with a punch?

Not interested in making this personal - so the “Oh you are fine if a Nazi is hit but not if you are hit for being a commie!” and other non-productive discussions about each other so please lets keep this to being an interesting discussion!

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QAnon is really a game

A games designer contends persuasively that the QAnon phenomenon functions exactly like a game, intended to direct and misdirect players through rabbit holes.

Quote:

I work in a very small niche: I create and research games intended to be played in reality — stories and games designed to come to life around the players, using the real world as the backdrop. When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. It was the gamification of propaganda. QAnon was a game that played people. Q has specifically followed the model of an alternate reality game (ARG) using many of the same techniques. The games I design entice players through clever rabbit holes found in the real world that start them searching for answers — maybe something written on a billboard, seen at a rally or printed on a flier. Players are led through labyrinth-like stories full of puzzles, clues and group challenges. ARGs can have millions of people involved in them. (The 2007 game promoting Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” had 11 million participants in 75 countries.) The similarities are so striking that QAnon has sometimes been referred to as a live-action role playing (LARP) or an ARG. But QAnon is the reflection of a game in a mirror: It looks like one, but inverted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...948_story.html

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"Black" is a proper noun, but "white" isn't

I've been amused for some time that the word "black", when applied to people, has become a default proper noun, and is therefore initially capitalised.

Here are a couple of examples from today's news:

The Hill: Allen Russel, a 38-year-old Black man, will still serve a life sentence

CBC: Vancouver police apologize for wrongly handcuffing and detaining retired Black judge

I've never seen "white" given proper noun status, as in this piece:

One umpire in the softball game was white and one was Black.

Merriam Webster is even funnier, offering both as capitalised in the entry, yet not using it in the description for white:

Black

of or relating to Black people

White

of or relating to white people

Fortunately I'm light brown.

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Universal Income.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57120354

"A universal basic income scheme is to be trialled in Wales, meaning adults, regardless of their means, will receive a regular sum of money.

The idea is that this would cover the basic cost of living.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said the pilot would "see whether the promises that basic income holds out are genuinely delivered" in people's lives."

I'm not quite sure I understand the intent. We already have things such wages top ups and for the unemployed, Universal Credit. If this is extra money on top, is Unemployment and other related benefits being cut?

It seems everyone, no matter what their income will get it. How will this be funded?

Surprisingly, the Tories are against it:

"But the Welsh Conservatives said: "The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is clear that UBI is not the answer to solving poverty, in fact they claim it can actually increase poverty.

"The first minister needs to get on with kickstarting the Welsh economy, creating long-term, well-paid jobs for people rather than using Wales as a petri dish for failed left-wing policies."

They also claim it will increase poverty.

Thoughts?

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Just Let Athletes Use Drugs

In this video, the Irish vegan weightlifer Clarence Kennedy explains why he is against anti-doping.

The YT;DW is anti-doping:

Creates an unlevel playing field (some countries have much more rigourous testing than others - who is testing North Koreans in the same way as Americans, for example?)

Facilitates corruption (Although as we are talking about the IOC, I doubt corruption can be seriously be considered)

Demonizes PEDs (I can't remember what he argued about this)

Forces athletes to use dangerous compounds (in this case, the ones that fly under the radar as opposed to the easily detectable ones):

[yt]HQLweuRSD9M[/yt]

I follow this guy's videos and I like his content. He has a brilliant video about his lifting achievements over the years...

[yt]DBLWbAeyELU[/yt]

However, I disagree with him.

Some arguments in favour of anti-anti-doping:

The perfect is not the enemy of the good.

Well, like, the USA wins loads of medals, and obviously they aren't doping (well, yes, they are or have done, but maybe not everyone....maybe...)

Given that kids are often trained from an early age in many countries do we put them on drugs from that age?

He himself would have won Olympic medals judging by the lifts he has managed, but he is on PEDs. Does this mean he is simply the best, or does it mean that only clean weightlifters as good or better than him get to compete?

Kennedy counters some of this in a later video. I suppose that one of his points regarding children is that if it was known and accepted that PEDs are a fact of life in most competitive sports instead of a dirty secret, there wouldn't be as many kids being fooled into thinking that pursuing their dream of Olympic gold was a wholesome endeavour.

I haven't made up my mind. Please have a lively and friendly debate.

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What has JREF done lately?

It's time to update my will.

For a few years, I have had a donation in my will, no strings attached, with JREF as the recipient. But checking the JREF website, it looks moribund since Randi died. Even before that, it wasn't looking too healthy or active.

I'm reluctant to throw money down a useless hole. Can anyone update me about present and future JREF activities? Is there any future to this noble cause?

You might want to take a look at the JREF Wikipedia entry as well, which is out of date in several ways. I could update it myself, but somebody may take issue with me, and I don't have much fight left for this sort of thing.

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Make a Transgender Category in Sports to Parallel Make and Female Categories

For those of you who know Coach Greg ("Buy my COOK BOOK!"), I don't need to explain that he is an IBBF pro bodybuilder, who also holds some powerlifting records in the bench press and deadlift.

He has a video here, explaining what he thinks should be the solution to the conundrum of transgender athletes in sports. Just make a new category.

Why not? The paralympics, after all, have different categories depending upon the specific disabilities that the athletes have. Nobody thinks any less of an achievement in the paralympics. In fact, female sports themselves exist because they couldn't hope to compete with men in sports. So, given that someone who could have benefited from a couple of decades of being a biological male would find it far easier to rack up feats of strength that almost no biological females could hope to achieve (for example, even elite female powerlifters struggle to lift 100 kgs on the bench press whereas your average Joe in his forties can do that, for reps), it really does seem unfair that a guy can just turn up and declare themselves female by being at the testosterone threshold (10 nm/l for 12 months) for women.

I wasn't sure if Coach Greg was accurately summarizing this, but it appears to be more or less true, with a further stipulation:

Quote:

The new guidelines require only that trans woman athletes declare their gender and not change that assertion for four years, as well as demonstrate a testosterone level of less than 10 nanomoles per liter for at least one year prior to competition and throughout the period of eligibility. Athletes who transitioned from female to male were allowed to compete without restriction. These guidelines were in effect for the 2016 Rio Olympics, although no openly transgender athletes competed.

Link

Anyway, here is Coach Greg's full video.

[yt]XU2AmZqyaKc[/yt]

Some people may be thinking, "Ah probably just another reactionary transphobe!" but I don't think so.

As an example, here is his video about Elliot Page:

[yt]9KQjPbM08sA[/yt]

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Lucid dreaming and my subconscience concept of an alien

I was knocked out by painkillers after a kidney stone lithatripsy. I was dreaming about being in a space station and was in the presence of an alien. The creature was a squirming eg shaped being with no visible arms or legs. While I wondered how it got around or sensed anything two red legs came out of its lower torso and two arms came out of its upper torso. Eyes on stalks appeared and it walked away from me.

Normally when I have lucid dreams I wake up but being drugged I was still out of it. Another Gumby like alien appeared in another dream. This creature was similar to Odo in Star Trek Deep Space Nine in that its efforts to look human failed. I was telling this space being not to worry about anything because when the government found out about him his existence would be a one of ease and comfort. It was actually a family of these creatures and while waiting for the government agents to arrive the offspring of one of them was in my lap on my Uncles front porch.

The drug Roxicet caused these dreams. Its a morphine based painkiller that used to be given after an operation.

These days your lucky to get Ibuprophan.

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No More Masks! YAY!

Take off your masks. Get close to people. Live your life like you did before COVID-19. Yippee yahoo!!

New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidelines

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Army Recruiting Ad Featuring Lesbian Family

This showed up on the Drudge Report today.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...esbian-wedding

Basically, for those who don't like to click, it's a story about a new Army ad, featuring a young woman raised by two women, who talked about marching in Pride parades as a young girl, and explaining why she joined the Army.

The ad is fascinating, and, in my opinion, fantastic. I love the line, "I feel like I've been fighting for freedom my whole life."

Apparently, the CIA has been using some gay-friendly recruiting ads, too.


And.....who doesn't like it? Well of course, Ted Cruz. Here's what he said,

"If you're a Chinese communist, or an Iranian Mullah, or Kim Jong Un ... would this scare you?" Cruz wrote on May 3. "We've come a long way from Jason Bourne."


Ted, I think the Mullahs in particular would be scared to death of these ads.


I don't have a real point of this. I just was fascinated, and very impressed by the advertisement. Really good stuff. Some people are certain that the USA is some sort of rabid Evangelical theocracy, but the US Army is recruiting women who were raised by lesbians. That isn't exactly a far right agenda.

The link above is to an article. The advertisement for the Army is a clickable within the article.

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UK - Train firm apologise for "ladies and gentlemen" announcement

Sometimes I wish I was some trendy other gender, rather than boring old "a dude".

They seem to have little to nothing actually important to get worried about.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/149473...-announcement/

Quote:

Train firm apologises to ‘non-binary’ passenger for conductor’s ‘ladies and gentlemen’ announcement A TRAIN company has apologised for not being inclusive after a conductor welcomed passengers on board with “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls”. The London North Eastern Railway issued a grovelling apology after passenger Laurence Coles complained. Coles tweeted: “‘Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…’ so as a non-binary person this announcement doesn’t actually apply to me so I won’t listen”. Laurence’s friend Charlotte Monroe, 28, also contacted the company, saying: “I was sat with Laurence when this tweet was sent. Both of us are non-binary, and we were both alarmed and uncomfortable by the lack of inclusion.” LNER responded saying: “I'm really sorry to see this, Laurence, our Train Managers should not be using language like this, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. “Please could you let me know which service you are on and I will ensure they remain as inclusive as we strive to be at LNER. “We've been working very hard with educating our people on why gender specific pronouns are not suitable in instances like these, and we're sorry to see this has not been applied here. “It is entirely valid for someone who does not identify with the terms used to feel excluded and as a business we do not accept that anyone should feel excluded.”....

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Refinancing a home while black

Quote:

INDIANAPOLIS — A housing discrimination complaint filed by a Black Indianapolis homeowner alleges that after she removed items from her home that identified her race and asked a white male friend to sit in on an appraisal, the value of her home jumped more than $100,000.

https://fox59.com/news/indianapolis-...isal-increase/

Quote:

Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals Companies that value homes for sale or refinancing are bound by law not to discriminate. Black homeowners say it happens anyway.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/r...imination.html

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A maths question for a physicst

Does the below argument make sense?

1. Why say that the following phrase is nonsense?
“If a logical system is consistent, it cannot be complete.”
Because:
The phrase “if a logical system is consistent, it cannot be complete”, is itself a logical system, it is consistent with what it says, and if that is so, something is missing from this phrase, according to what the phrase says. And so this bring us to the second phrase.

2. Why say that the following phrase is nonsense?
“The consistency of axioms cannot be proved within their own system.”
Because:
A system which has axioms for itself, in order for the system to call them axioms for itself, the system has to have a consistent behavior around those axioms and so when it behaves inconsistently with regard to those axioms, the inconsistency between those axioms and the system’s behavior the system can prove to itself.
If what is written above is false, then when a system behaves inconsistently with regard to some axioms it has for itself, that inconsistency it cannot prove to itself, and it keeps behaving inconsistently with regard to those axioms…but…
if the system keeps behaving inconsistently with regard to some axioms and cannot prove to itself that it does so with regard to those axioms, then it doesn’t seem to me it can consistently keep regarding them as axioms for the system, and then something else replaces them, and that something else is what the system calls axioms for itself.

Kind regards,

feel free to remove the post if it doesn't

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How do they they ******* know?

So I have 3 email accounts one that is spammed all the time, that's the address I give to most people. Then I have by business account which is starting to get a trickle of spam but nothing I worry about. And my Gmail account so far gets very little spam.

Just in the last week or so I've been checking Coinbase for the Ethereum price because my son tells me he's making a lot at the moment. He never uses my business account, he emails me using the catchall address.

And I have only searched for Coinbase using DuckDuckGo.

And yet today for the first time I got a fake email on my business account with the stupid line your Coinbase account has been frozen. I can't believe anyone still falls for that crap but I digress.

It is a very odd coincidence I should get that fake email.

Help me out, how did this happen?

Also anyone with their own how the **** stories, this is the thread for you.

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My Doctor Prescribed Accupuncture For My Tendinitis

I told him I didn't want it but he keeps persisiting. I finally agreed and had an appointment today, but I cancelled it.

This is a workers comp insurance claim. He has his own floor of the hospital (Occupational Therapy) with the physical therapists, and an accupuncturist as well.

I told him I do not want to be treated for pain, meaning if something isn't helping my condition then I don't want it. I am also highly skeptical of accupuncture. Actually I think it's bull pucky. Obviously, I posted this in the Paranormal forum.

I did some quick research and see some doctors say it can help. Doesn't mean squat to me. I've had some bad doctors in my life.

So what say you all? I think accupuncture is mostly considered woo, especially here at the forum. But has anything changed in recent years?

His therapists mention it too. I feel like I'm getting a sell job, like "Hey we need to get the witch doctor some appointments to validate his or her existence here". I don't want to contribute to that if it's 100% BS.

Edit to add:
I see someuse electric current in conjunction with the needles to "speed up recovery"

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Being a racist while having a soft skull

Quote:

Elderly Man Dies After Being Punched in Dunkin' Over Racial Slur Confrontation ... Pujols told police that the man was a regular customer. On this day, Pujols said the man was being "extremely rude" and called Pujols a racial slur. Pujols, who is Black, told police he asked the man to repeat what he said, and the man again said the same slur. The specific slur was not included in the police report. Pujols said he then punched the man once in the face, which knocked him out and caused him to hit his head on the floor. Authorities arrived to the scene to find the 77-year-old victim unconscious and bleeding from the head. He was taken to Tampa General Hospital and placed in intensive care. Two days later, he passed away.

https://www.newsweek.com/elderly-man...dunkin-1590650

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An overgrowth of black rot in COVID patients in India

BBC: Mucormycosis: The 'black fungus' maiming Covid patients in India

Quote:

[The ENT surgeon] had inserted a tube in her nose and was removing tissues infected with mucormycosis, a rare but dangerous fungal infection. This aggressive infection affects the nose, eye and sometimes the brain. After his colleague finished, Dr Nair would carry out a three hour procedure to remove the patient's eye. "I will be removing her eye to save her life. That's how this disease works," Dr Nair told me. Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.

Always the treatments have risk:

Quote:

Mucormycosis is a very rare infection. It is caused by exposure to mucor mould which is commonly found in soil, plants, manure, and decaying fruits and vegetables. "It is ubiquitous and found in soil and air and even in the nose and mucus of healthy people," says Dr Nair. ..Doctors believe mucormycosis, which has an overall mortality rate of 50%, may be being triggered by the use of steroids, a life-saving treatment for severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients. ...

If that doesn't scare those anti-vaxxers nothing will. :p

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The Ballymurphy Massacre - victims "entirely innocent"

Well it's only taken fifty years to cut through the mess of British lies, delays and obfuscations but today Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan, sitting as coroner, delivered her findings in relation to the deaths of the ten victims.
Those killed by the British Army, Joan Connolly, Joseph Corr, Edward Doherty, John Laverty, John McKerr, Fr Hugh Mullan, Joseph Murray, Noel Phillips, Frank Quinn and Daniel Teggart, were killed "without justification"

No one has ever been charged or convicted in connection with any of their deaths and given planned legislation during the current upsurge in English nationalism, no-one is ever likely to be punished.


More.
RTE.
Guardian.

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Youtube : "Click here"

Ok, I'm been going all over the interwebs trying every variation of wording I can think of to describe the issue, but completely different answers keep coming up. I don't know if it's a problem, or just bad youtube video design. I'm leaning towards the latter.

So, here it is: when you're watching a video on youtube, and they announce 'click here' : I click 'there' and the video just pauses. I'm not sent to another video, or location, or anything. The video just pauses. If I click again, it just plays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH9Lcs534EI
(this is not the normal link I use for this, but it's a simple link; the normal link I use is one that has all the episodes in order of release; that link has autoplay on, so at the end of the video, it auto-plays the next video in the list)

Go to 4:54. "You click here and check that special out."

Well, give it a try. Does anything happen besides pausing the video? There's an "i" in a circle in the upper right, but if you click that, it'll just give you the option to watch the entire series from the get-go. (Excellent series by the way)

(the ONLY thing I can think of, is that if auto-play is not on, and the video actually finishes, then you're given a series of youtube videos in little boxes inside the video that you can click on. When I ran this in Firefox, using the link above, I got 6 boxes, and the ability to go left or right for more. So I'm wondering: is that what's he pointing to for 'click here'? Doesn't mesh up.)

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Epic Apple Battle

So the court case between Epic and Apple started last week. Here's a brief summary of what it is about.

But I want a heated debate here about who is wrong and who is right?

WSJ: Epic Games vs. Apple Trial, Week One: Everything You Need to Know

Quote:

Epic has accused Apple of violating U.S. antitrust law and sued it in August after the tech giant yanked the developer’s hit videogame “Fortnite” from its App Store. Apple has defended itself by arguing that its app-marketplace policies are fair and that Epic breached a contract applicable to all developers distributing apps on its mobile devices. The trial, in which U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will decide the outcome, is slated to run at least three weeks in Oakland, Calif., and could help reshape the multibillion-dollar market for distributing apps on mobile devices. ... Lawyers for Epic called the first set of witnesses, starting with the company’s chief executive and founder, Tim Sweeney. The 50-year-old programmer said Apple’s 30% commission on digital app sales have created a “significant economic drag” and harmed his company’s ability to reinvest in its business. He also defended Epic’s decision last year to insert its own payment-processing system into “Fortnite,” a move that violated Apple’s requirement for developers to use its processor for in-app purchases of digital goods. How is Epic attempting to portray the App Store as a monopoly? Epic lawyer Katherine Forrest alleged that Apple overreaches in how it charges commissions, comparing its app marketplace to a car dealership. “Apple takes a cut of every stop at a gas station after the car has been purchased, with no payment alternatives,” she said. Apple’s lawyers countered Epic’s claims by citing the variety of devices where consumers can play “Fortnite” in addition to iPhones and iPads, such as on personal computers, Nvidia’s cloud-gaming service GeForce Now and Nintendo Co. ’s Switch. “Apple did not create a secure and integrated ecosystem to keep people out; it created a secure and integrated ecosystem so it could invite developers in, without sacrificing the privacy, reliability, security and quality that consumers wanted,” Ms. Dunn said.

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Who wants to Learn about Cryptocurrencies First Hand?

I know a lot of people have a passing interest in crypto these days. As skeptics it's completely normal to be wary and ask questions. I've noticed that some people are also a bit uneducated about cryptocurrency because of this though. They tend to not dive into something they don't understand and that's not a bad thing. Crypto can be rewarding but it can also lead to losses, even in failure everyone should learn something. There are some basic experiences everyone should understand about cryptocurrency and that's what this thread will attempt to do.

This thread is an opportunity to learn how crypto works first hand. For those that wish to participate you will learn how to:

1. Download and Install a wallet.
2. How to mine new coins with your wallet.
3. How to stake coins with your new wallet.
4. Receive a deposit of free coins to get you started.


The coin we will be using during this experiment is currently an uncertain project. It's called ROIcoin. The project was sound and start up was some time in 2018 I think. You can learn more about it by doing a Google search for: "ROIcoin Bitcointalk ANN" Evidently one of the devs went rogue in 2020 and created quite a set back for the project. (Unfortunately, one of the dangers of investing in a brand new project.)

The coin has a working wallet. It allows you to stake and mine both from the wallet. It's a cpu mined coin so there's no need for anything exotic other than the computer you normally use.

For those that wish to play with ROIcoin as a learning adventure, over the next week, I will deposit up to 100,000 coins to your address once you've downloaded the wallet and learn how to create a deposit address. (depending on the amount of takers of course I may have to scale back on the amount of free coins as I intend to keep a few million for myself in the event of further project developments) I mined this coin with a cpu farm for two years, and up until the dev went rogue I was in the top 10 rich list.

Now, I realize some naysayers may be thinking "Ha! I knew crypto was a scam!" and some projects are. But let me share a story with you about another coin. There was a coin called "Dark coin" I mined in 2014 and I mined a lot of it. Like this project, that one went south for a bit but was later rebranded as "DASH". In 2017/18 DASH reached $1200+. My "Dark coin" transferred easily into my new DASH wallet as DASH.

It is possible that I could be giving away millions of dollars during this exercise if ROIcoin gets a second wind like Dark coin did. I hope I do and I hope it does for everyone willing to learn.

I'm not going to provide any links. I provided the Google search terms above and that should be all you need to get started. Good luck.

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