Is mainstream news actually somewhat fake?

I recently got a subscription to the Washington Post after getting sick of free news. All of it is about Trump with a few articles that seem to suggest that President Biden is getting senile and not too much else other that polling data. My feeling on it after having read all these articles is that I feel that there is nothing wrong with President Biden's competency. In fact I think that he is singularly able to run this country. I do not have any problem with vice president Kama's ability to run the country if she would need to either. One type of article I am getting really sick of is extremely rich people trying to tell ordinary people what they are doing wrong.


Got a subscription to the New Yorker too as well as the LA times too. Problem with them is LA Times is too local and for the New Yorker, I just don't have the attention span to read it. Neither of them I would describe as fake news.

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Question on political assassinations using drones

A question on another forum makes me want to ask the smart folks here this:

With the demonstration of the usefulness of kamikaze/attack drones in Ukraine how come they aren't being used to attack people in the West, i.e. used as a tool in assassination?

What technology exists to protect President Biden from such an attack?

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New 9/11 Nut Job.

I will let this insanity speak for itself.
https://youtu.be/CQCBJ_JV4Y0?si=6xpab3W0qgLb2BYp

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Finnish Presidential Election/s

Voting has started today. Current Finnish President, Sauli Niinistö's second presidential term is coming to an end.

Favourite by a small margin is Alexander Stubb of the National Coalition Party (roughly equivalent to the Conservative/Liberal party), closely followed by hugely popular Pekka Haavisto, Green Party but standing as an independent. Close on his heels in third place - according to the polls - is Jussi Halla-Aho, Basic Finns. Olli Rehn of the Centre Party is next with about 13% followed by Li Andersson of the Left (not to be confused with SDP) slightly behind him.

You can see the full list of candidates here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_F...ntial_election

If the person coming first in today's election polling has more than half the votes, he or she will automatically be elected as President of Finland (not to be confused with the Prime Minister who currently is Petteri Orpo, National Coalition) and acts as Head of State in a Statesman type role rather than actually governing.

I have performed my civic duty and voted for Haavisto as I think he has been a great foreign ambassador for Finland (for example, in getting women with children returned home from the Syrian refugee camps). Stubb was Prime Minister once for a short period of about a year. In true conservative-style, like Orpo, he immediately implemented all kinds of cuts. Stubb spent a lot of time in the USA in higher education so perhaps he sees himself as the natural defender of NATO and says he only came back into politics because of the Russian border situation and the Ukraine war issue. He is very ambitious and the press seem to be pushing him forward as their choice. I would have voted for Li Andersson, of the Left, very popular in these parts, where she comes from, but as she doesn't have a realistic chance of winning the election, I decided to vote tactically for my second choice. Not that I don't like Stubb but I think Haavisto has a more statesmanlike presence and diplomatic calming personna. The last thing we need is a warmonger and US puppet.

Voting ends at 20:00 tonight and then the advance voting result will be revealed. Rehn of the Centre Party is likely to show as a strong candidate as the centre party voters tend to vote heavily in advance, plus he has spent a LOT of money on electioneering. Educated at Oxford. I usually vote Centre Party due to my rural roots; it is traditionally, as in Norway and Sweden, the party that represents farmers and is quite left wing except their constitution is strongly anti-communist. Given mass urbanisation these days with people moving to metropolitan areas, it is not such a big party as it once was. The last Centre Party president was Urho Kekkonen, who was incumbent from 1956 - 1982, an astonishing long period of time. As for Halla-Aho he is considered very learned but comes across as a bit crazy, so it is doubtful he will sneak through, but you never know, as the Basic Finns, a relatively new populist right wing party, has made tremendous gains politically, and is currently in coalition with the National Coalition Party in government, having been pipped at the post by a very small margin. (Think UKIP.)

If, as is expected, the leading candidate gets less than half of the electoral votes, then there will be a second round of elections 11 February. Haavisto came second last time around to Niinistö.

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If you die of hunger in Uganda, you are an idiot!

So says Uganda's Foreign Minister, Henry Oryem Okello:

Henry Okello Oryem: Uganda minister says people dying of hunger are 'idiots'

Quote:

A Ugandan government minister is facing criticism after calling those who have died of hunger in his country "idiots". Many have deemed Henry Okello Oryem's comments tone-deaf. In 2022, more than 2,200 people died of starvation and related illnesses in north-east Uganda, a report by an official human rights body said. But Mr Oryem argued that given Uganda's favourable climate and fertile land, people should be able to grow food for themselves. "It's only an idiot, a real idiot, that can die of hunger in Uganda," the state minister for foreign affairs told the NTV Uganda television channel. "If you work hard, there is land in Uganda. The climate is right in spite [of] climate change. If you make a double effort to make sure that you go out in the morning, you till your land, you plant the seeds, you maintain your plantation, surely, how do you fail then to get food?"

He sure doesn't look like he's going hungry.

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vince mcmahon pooped on a woman

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...uit-rcna135695

https://deadline.com/2024/01/vince-m...it-1235804877/

https://twitter.com/WrestleOps/statu...81338384593255

it was the woman he briefly resigned his place in the company over during the hush money scandal. of course, he died his hair jet black and grew a weird moustache and he muscled his way back in via wme/endeavor, who you may recognize as a giant hollywood talent agency and the company that purchased the ufc and wwe after vince stepped down and merged them into tko, and was involved in a lot of celebrity crypto scams.

anyway, this was all under nda, which he violated by not paying her hush money. now it's all public, including the suprisingly creepy and teenage texts. and it's pretty disgusting.

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Queston what would be the effect if...

Trump drops dead or becomes incapacitated and he is the nominee?

Biden drops dead or becomes incapacitated and he is the nominee?

If either is assassinated?

What happens if the man selected as the nominee cannot be President? What is the methodology at this point?

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January 6th files deleted.

The Republicans in Congress want Bennie Thompson to turn over the passwords for the deleted January 6th Files.
I don't think he will ever do that, because the January 6th committee promised the Information would be kelpt completely Confidential and not turned over to Insurrectionists in Congress.
They are just playing it into a Conspiracy theory which will fail.

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How's Your Spam Recently?

I keep reasonably tight control of my Internet activities and really only get a little volume of spam (who knows what is filtered out upstream?).

I always read my email first as text and go to the HTML version when I think I know the sender. For the curious ones I'll read the message source for added edification and amusement.

The mist recent read:

Quote:

Good afternoon! I've enclosed the invoice for my journey costs during the business trip. Kindly take care of this for compensation following our travel guidelines. Januar-tt-MUNGE524727MUNGE8219-24 Thanks.

It was sent from Stephen Buckley <jessie>@an apparently valid innocent domain. I note that poor Stephen has to use jessie's email.

There was no attachment but there was a link in the HTML to doubleclick.net with another domain embedded in the query parameters. That domain seems to be that of another innocent party. I guess if I had clicked through I would have gotten to a page asking me to submit a payment somehow.

The whole sad sorry state of things is documented here (worth a full read): Spam Statistics (2024): New Data on Junk Email, AI Scams & Phishing

Quote:

162 billion spam emails are sent every day, with 49% of the 333 billion daily emails sent, considered spam (numbers recorded for 2022).

Is the Internet broken? Will spam ever be stopped/prevented?

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[Split Thread] Presidential election 2024

Pretty clear now that Trump will beat Biden, the only way to stop Trump is to ban him from the ballot.

Split from:https://www.internationalskeptics.co...d.php?t=367763

Posted By:Darat

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Welcome Back - Diphtheria Edition (and measles)

We nearly managed to eradicate this awful disease, but a few pockets in developing countries kept it alive and now it's making a comeback, with thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths. Even first world countries like UK are experiencing outbreaks not seen in 70 years. 1 2

The problem is the rise of vaccine hesitancy, spurred on by vaccine deniers, which is resulting in an explosion of measles cases in many countries as herd immunity is negated by the growing percentage of children who aren't fully vaccinated.

I've been saying for years that the antidote will be kids in iron lungs when polio strikes again, as it surely must.

I also think vaccine fatigue is a real thing and with covid vaccines every six months, people are giving up and we're going to see nasty outbreaks of all sorts of diseases that have been largely since the 1970s.

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[Continuation] Electric Vehicles II

Continued from here.

Posted By:Agatha

Quote:

Originally Posted by novaphile (Post 14244046) I don't think you'll be happy with the maths. My car typically takes 10 kWh to charge. I have 8 188W solar panels, which generate, on average, about 5 kWh per day. Hence, it would take at least two full days to charge my car. Note that a 10kWh battery is tiny compared to modern all electric vehicles. Two full days of solar panel output gives me 45 km of range. The current Nissan Leaf has a 40 kWh battery, hence eight days to charge from my current eight panels. I think you can currently buy 300 W solar panels but you'd still need a lot more than one to charge an EV. Ideally, you'd put something up like a hay shed (or carport) with a sloping roof to maximise your solar collection. I was lucky, my roof slope is within a degree of ideal for this latitude.

I recently purchased for a friend 24ea 430w panels at $175ea at SanTan Solar. They have great deals there all the time. They sell new and used panels. Right now you can buy a pallet of 25 435w Sun Power panels for $3,000.

Having a shed can be convenient, but you can also build a rack. that's what my friend did. Actually he built three all out of lumber from trees he cut down from his property. We even build a tilting mechanism so he could change the tilt angle a few times a year.

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Clues of God - his works

God wants to remain hidden with no absolute proof. This allows for a certain amount of free will.

But he does subtly intervene in small ways and sometimes world-impacting ways.

I will start this off with my own miracle in answer to my prayers.

Since December 2010 I have had a systemic disseminated bat fungus (histoplasmosis). It caused cancer in my late wife and by June 2011 she was dead. In August 2011 I was ready to intensive care but through a series of serendipitous events found out what I had. Started Itraconazole and it was amazing at first.

But in November 2023 the fungus became resistant. I was ready for hospital except I knew there was no cure. No conventional medicine cure that is.

In desperation I drank colloidal silver (CS) solution. 150 ml morning, noon and night. The next day I was fine. But I felt I needed to kill the fungus once and for all so I did not need so much CS. I had previously tried with CS but only got a small improvement.

Since fungus likes sugar I went to a Hydro for a fast. Did six full days on water alone. Suffered the whole time although it is not supposed to be like that. Blood sugar stayed at about 4.2 to 4.4. On day 5 and 6 I drank a lot of CS. One days 7-10 I broke my fast with all the right foods.

Day 9 and 10 I felt great. I had forgotten to bring enough Itraconazole. A few days at home and I was in great shape. Not hunched over from pain. Not on 5 pain tablets a day. Only 6-8 hours of sleep instead of 12-14hrs. No brain fog.

A few days later I decided to take the Itraconazole with a meal. I suffered the next 24 hours and nothing could relieve it. I concluded the Itraconazole was causing it.

So now I am fine with 150ml a day of CS. Energy and feeling good. No tablets. Avoiding vitamin supplements like the plague. Had no idea they were so bad.

God put events in my life for me to learn about CS. And at the Hydro I met a lady who gave me information on making my own. R400 (about $20) for 2 liters is a bit much when the ingredients are distilled water and pure silver.

I learned of 2 other "miracles" while there.

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WW2 fighter, part of, found on beach

During december 2023, several storms hit the Danish West Coast. This always digs up stuff from the bottom and sends it onto the beaches of Jutland and the Islands along the coast. For instance, between Xmas and New Year, those people that braved the cold, wind, and rain on the beach of the island where I live, found a good deal of amber. Among them were many of the German tourists that literally flock to the island most of the year.

One such German tourist also spotted something else: A large piece of what seemed to be an aircraft. By help of the internet, he tentatively identified it as part of an FW190 fighter from WW2.

He contacted the local WW2 history association, of which I am currently chairman. Our normal work area is the 400+ bunkers left strewn over most of the 50 odd Km² island, but of course this was also interesting.

Unfortunately, before I could locate it, our local beach-cleaning team had picked it up and dumped it in the scrap metal container at the recycling station. :(

However, I found it there and recovered it, so it is currently in my backyard.

So, after studying photos and drawings, I can in fact confirm the identification: Focke Wulff 190. It is on surprisingly good condition after 80+ years in the sea. Presumably it have been buried in the sand bottom for most of the time, this also explains why it is largely free of anything growing on it.

It is the bottom and port side of the rear fuselage, between the cockpit area and the tail assembly, all flattened out. I enclose a picture of it as it was found on the beach (the finder's photo). It is about 2 meters long, and in the foreground in the picture you see the bottom with the ventral hatch (for some equipment access), and above the square side hatch, also for various service access. The oval shape of the ventral hatch hints at it being an FW190A-6, as that hatch was round on most other models.

The goal now is to stabilize and conserve it. We will then endeavour to prop it in some scaffolding so we can bend it back in roughly original shape. It will then be put on display in our museum bunker. As the association has it's 25 year anniversary this year, it is a nice present from the sea.

Hans

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What is an annointing and can science test it.

I grew up as a Christian when I was a kid, but now I see Christianity as organized crime for conmen and sex predators. A fake personal development industry with a collection plate that puts ideas in people's heads to make them vulnerable to predators and exploitation.

The main leverage the pastors seem to have is the anointing that can be felt in church during the singing, and their claims to be leaders and experts in the field of anointings. In churches where the anointing is stronger, singing in the chord of C seems to influence the strength and changing the songs to an Ab seems to turn the tap off again.

I understand there will be sceptics that scoff at the idea of some kind of spiritual atmosphere being real in a church, but it will be science and scrutiny that proves it exists or does not. That doesn't mean the jokes about it shouldn't exist.

The pastors use anointing, to recruit people to joining their religion and submitting to their leadership and collection plate. It's effective and it sucks a lot of people into believing that God is real, and He is with them. Even if people are smart enough to see the pastors are frauds, they still go to church just to feel the anointing every Sunday. It's because of the chicken soup for the soul.

The scam includes the church being the only place people can feel the anointing. If they come to church every Sunday, you can put ideas in their heads and the only way to make money out of the anointing is the collection plate. Unless science and scrutiny can look into the anointing and see if it is just a natural part of personal development and social bonding the fraud will continue for as long as the pastors protect their power, control, and leverage.

The million-dollar challenge has been withdrawn now and it's a pity because it would have been a great way of putting an anointing to scrutiny and making a million dollars. Does anyone know of anything similar that will be willing to risk the wrath and intimidation of the church to put an anointing to scrutiny and test it. I don't see the pastors as having a legitimate claim to anointings being their spiritual property, I see what the pastors are doing as prohibition and exploitation.

So, if I wanted to get an anointing tested and understood, where would I start? Academia will probably cave in under pressure from the church and a peer reviewed study is unlikely. You will not get burned at the stake anymore but there would be consequences.

Do the pastors pass their expertise and leadership in the field that includes anointings as part of academia? They make a lot of claims associated with intelligence, education and academia but there are no peer reviewed studies on anointings. It's like they are above peer reviews, or they are hiding something. Or they refuse to acknowledge their accountability to their peers.

For the record, I am not an educated academic, I am a comedian.

So, other than a million-dollar challenge, how do you provoke academia into doing a study on anointings?

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Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

This thread was sparked by this article:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2...-death-penalty

The article is about an upcoming execution in which they are going to use nitrogen suffocation to kill the prisoner. It's a method never used before, and it does seem - like the article says - entirely experimental.

If you read the article, you'll see that there are a variety of methods proposed or being used yet I see nowhere is using hanging. It's been used for centuries, carried out properly it is instantaneous, we know how it works, there are even hangmen in some countries that could give hands-on advice.

So, my question is why all these weird and experimental execution methods when there is a perfectly good method they could adopt? What is the reluctance to use hanging?

(Thread isn't meant to be about the punishment of the death penalty itself, not interested in a debate about whether it is right or wrong in this thread.)

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The greater Middle Eastern conflict

Iran seems to be intent on enraging all it's neighbours.

this time it's Pakistan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67999465

Any ideas how this can help Iran with it's anti Western/Sunni/Jewish conflict?

Starting this thread in politics to allow wider discussion than that allowed in the specific Isreal/Gaza threads.

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Help with a scene from Russian history

This is a video of the current Russian national anthem, with various scenes of Russian geography, culture, and history. The visuals and the music are outstanding; for those so inclined, I would recommend watching it in hi-def with a decent sound system.

[yt]VJcnuZB4Xt4[/yt]
My question is, what's going on in the scene that starts about the 1:00 mark (right before the scene of Napoleon retreating from Moscow), and who are the two guys whose names are written in Russian cursive? Also, anyone who wants to identify any of the other scenes or locations, feel free. (I'll post about a few I've identified later.)

As a side note, I was tempted to write in the comments that "It's sad that a country with such a rich culture and history has been, and continues to be, responsible for so much evil in the world," but I figured it would just get deleted, and possibly draw attention from Russian trolls. :rolleyes:

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Second rape defamation trial starts

Today, they seated the jury that will decide how much more money Trump will have to pay E Jean Carroll. Trump has already been determined to be liable.

Trump was ordered to pay E Jean Carroll five million dollars in the previous defamation and sexual abuse trial. But odds are he will be ordered to pay her much more this time.

It seems as if he has ripped a page from Rudy Giuliani's trial strategy book since like Rudy, he doesn't have a clue when to stop. Trump continued to defame her even as this trial began. He posted 22 more defamatory statements on his social media site today.

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The need to demonize and Sanctify

A thread doomed to failure but...

Maybe this was always the case but I've noticed it lately. We seem to not be able to except that groups nominally on our side are not always great and groups nominally in the opposition aren't just wrong but evil.

Nominally on the right, Ukraine.

The anti-Ukraine side can't just say, it may not be in our best interest to spend a money on ukraine, its necessary for Ukraine to also be somehow in the wrong. Zelensky must also be a conman or what not.

Nominally on the left.

Its not sufficient for Israel to be executing the war in an excessively extreme manner they must also be committing genocide and Hammas must also be innocent of rape, murder ect.

Both version have folks buying into conspiracy theories.

Why? I don't get it. I can accept that while the West is guilty of unnecessary provocation by expanding NATO and flirting with admitting Ukraine, Putin is totally responsible for invading Ukraine and Zelensky is only guilty of being the president of Ukraine when that happened.

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