Youtube comments of Stephen Villano (@spvillano).

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  93. Nonsense! Woke up dreaming of eating a cat from a Penthouse Pet. Thankfully, it was just a nightmare involving a needy model, don't want to relive that waking nightmare again! Had feline in my mouth before, damned cat actually stepped in my loudly snoring mouth. Why and how mystified us both, both of us equally grossed out. Me, got litterbox du foot, cat got a mouth full of saliva, so we were tied on that debacle. Well, except that the foot couldn't digest my mouth, the same couldn't be said of the poor cat's foot, who was utterly unwilling to lick that foot clean for good reason. Yeah, had an interesting life. Did I ever mention that I really hate interesting and prefer boring? Oh, shall I discuss that this blood libel is over a century old and barely retread over anti-Chinese immigration from the railroad construction era? I've not heard a new idea come out of the GOP in decades, everything is a century old or older. Literally, just changed a few stickers, apply the same libel to a new group. "They're stealing our jobs!" Yet, oddly not a single one of them wants to sign up for minimum wage and muck out the industrial henhouse the size of a large warehouse full of chicken shit. Not. A. One. Did it with my own small henhouse. Which is why I don't have chickens now. Next up, Nativist Riots requiring artillery to suppress them.* *Two incidents, Philadelphia Nativist Riots resulted in a number of dead, including responding militia and involved rioters stealing artillery to destroy Roman Catholic churches (Irish Catholic immigration wave at the time). The other, Big Army shelled the Bowery to suppress rioting.
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  255. I left the GOP when those who dote on stupidity and tea could see Russia from their home's window. Had to leave, as idiocy was embraced, rather than commonsense and actual campaigns and platforms, turning campaigns into early versions of the current three ring circus that this is. Still, I didn't vote straight tickets, but followed platforms and positions, voting according to views that more closely aligned with my views on which way our nation should go. This election went straight party line, as a message had to be sent and well, all campaigns reflected one value, vote for a god-emperor wannabe, one man being more important than the nation I spent over 28 years of my life and two wars in military defense of. Had no choice, as I've met Trump back around y2k at a tri-state Chamber of Commerce function. Where he lied like the proverbial rug, was flush with his successes of five years before in bankrupting casinos multiple times, causing so many eyerolls in a room full of business owners that I wondered that the planet kept on its axis! A boor of the party so severe, the following year experienced a 95% attrition rate for that same function and the Chambers had to spend that following year apologizing continuously in order to regain attendance. And devout loyalty to a single man, nation be damned, party be damned, to a petty tyrant wannabe, whose main campaign plank is to discard the very Constitution and laws I swore for so many decades to give my life in defense of, while he denigrated the sacrifices of those who fell defending those very things. Someone noted in the election of 2016 having kept a book of Hitler's speeches on his nightstand, who proved beyond a reasonable doubt his unsuitability to even be within the District of Columbia, let alone the Oval Office, who considered "his numbers" of superior worth to the lives of the population of this nation. To a man, so flawed as to kowtow to communist strong man leaders and the thug running Russia into the ground deeper. Nope, it is my intent to hand over to my grandchildren a thriving nation, not a fascist police state with death camps. Because, my family does enjoy one fine tradition, grinding fascists and fascism to dust and an utter intolerance that extends back to the Revolution of utter intolerance for having a king.
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  275. Actually, to my ear, his accent was always a bit flat. Never entirely dead on for one region being part, but inflection slightly off on occasion to have had me wondering since the first episode and it was between second and third episode that I did learn he was British. Largely, because I honestly don't go running to see where some actor or actress came from as a matter of course. Once I learned, I had to admit that he did an exceptionally fine job of it and well, one does have to work with what speech impediments one is stuck with.* *The fun part of that statement, it being pronounced with a southwest Philly accent. Excuse me while I take my breakfast of pills, lemme grab my worder boddle, gonna haveta fill this at the zink laedder on... Suffice it to say, I've quite a number of friends from the UK, most being from London and my accent actually is rather variable, as I tend to pick up idioms and accents rapidly during conversations. The result being sounding at times like I'm northern midlands in part fairly frequently, although missing the mark on idioms often enough due to lack of practice. That said, I sincerely doubt that I'll ever come close to speaking whatever language it is that spoken in Liverpool. ;) The US and UK, two people separated by a common language. It's their own fault though, they never bothered documenting the language until after that little tiff we had in 1776 and they ended up losing the war. We further diverged after much exposure after we rescued them from two world wars, the wars going quite terribly for the war... Actually, the original UK accent in received English was closer to the US mid-Atlantic accent, which oddly has decreased to near-extinction in the US since the 1950's. Makes sense, as the mid-Atlantic had the last great wave of immigration from the UK before that bit of unpleasantness in the late 1700's and that general trade disagreement in 1812. You should hear me go on about US tourism of Canada during said conflicts and their rather humorous conclusion of an honor guard escort to our borders, when their arms were finally returned... A spoiler, Benedict Arnold was seriously wounded during that brief vacation abroad, resulting in disability and inability to work his farm, resulting in his contracting to earn a living in the UK... As a result, we created the precursor to the VA. Yeah, history actually is pretty cool. Right until one survives having actually made some of it, then it's damned tedious and unpleasant.
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  333. One thing in common with influenza and COVID is, both utilized the same general method of infection, via different receptors. Both invaded phagocytes, essentially infecting the very alert and first response system of the immune system. Both resulted in eventual cytokine storms that were triggered essentially by the body "noticing" that the infection wasn't being properly addressed and switching to a cytokine storm based "scorched earth" attack on the infected cells, which by then were fairly ubiquitous and beyond just phagocytes. Initially missed, in part due to some faulty reporting, cytokine storms were initially denied and hence, went unaddressed, causing the worst and most lethal of the infection's symptoms. Once realized, the storms were blunted with steroids and that became the first route of intervention. In the 1918 influenza pandemic, the mere existence of the virus was theorized and considered a wild theory that had absolutely no evidence in support of it. Cytokines were utterly unknown. We'd barely managed to develop vaccines against h. influenzae, a bacterial infection and those were actually developed in some physicians own personal laboratories! One researcher that was well respected had authored a paper proclaiming h. influenzae was the cause of the 1918 pandemic, which lead many researchers down the merry path to nowhere, but it wouldn't have helped had they been aware of the actual cause, as viral research didn't exist, there was no way to visualize the virus, no means of comprehending viral replication, it wasn't until 1931 that the electron microscope was invented, It wasn't until 1933 that influenza A was finally isolated from swine! So close, yet so far! Interestingly, in 1910, Dr Wu Lien-teh had been dispatched to manage and treat an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Manchuria and Mongolia, which ultimately claimed 60000 lives. He'd performed, unusual at the time and location, an autopsy and ascertained that it was indeed airborne and developed a filter mask, the first in use to prevent infection of its kind, which was highly successful. A French physician was dispatched to replace him and refused to use the mask, compounding that with some ethnic slurs and died within days of pneumonic plague. The doctor then insisted upon cremation of the bodies to halt the plague's spread, which was adopted and the plague swiftly ended. It took quite a lot of additional time to eventually trace the animal vector of the infection. Reports of his filter mask were widely distributed and by the 1918 influenza pandemic, were well known and most of the arguments against surrounding COVID and masking, well heard and disproved at that time, with liberty and freedom arguments, etc long exhausted and well, a hell of a lot of folks just went with masking and kept doing that not dying thing. Yet, we still managed to turn an argument over well established medical science on filtering droplets out with a simple mask into a political argument, to the detriment of all. But, it's been said, the two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
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  407. It is a shame that airlines and even other employers have no way in which to track the age of their employees and potentially predict the utterly unpredictable, completely random age in which employees may retire. Maybe we should ask governments to suggest a retirement age, which could make predicting such things possible. Oh wait, that would require management to jump off of the just in time bandwagon and anticipate predictable things, prepare in advance for them and retain a certain level of excess personnel to act as a buffer should there be a sudden loss and that is definitely not lean six sigma! Decades of promoting just in time ordering and lean philosophy has gone as we predicted, disruptions in supply chains and traffic flow have disrupted everything up and downstream and retirements are adding to the hot mess. Again, as predicted when we took that training that is only ever effective in an undisturbed steady state environment. But, people that were in the field for 20 - 30+ years didn't know what they were talking about and needed to have a positive attitude. I was quite positive it'd blow up in their faces. So, we're short flight crews, infant formula due to one plant going offline out of a dozen and a tampon shortage, that due to hand wave cotton and plastic shortages... And the ones that need to be shown the door for such business harming shortsightedness will retain their platinum parachutes, while everyone else gets lead parachutes. </0.01% spleen venting completed, detonation averted>
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  436. Deuterium doesn't have a half life, it's stable. Tritium half life is 12.3 years and usually is in a pressurized tank inside the warhead that can be swapped out, with only a small amount used, as both nations use lithium deuteride for the fusion stage, which neutrons from the boosted fission primary fission the lithium into tritium. Lithium is a weird element... There are a number of common failure modes for nuclear weapons. The high explosives degrade over time, especially in the presence of ionizing radiation. The same is true of the electronics. Tritium does need replacement fairly often to maintain purity. Helium and hydrogen embrittlement is a problem in both the fission stage and the storage container for the tritium. Corrosion, yeah, but that's why the plutonium and uranium are plated with gold (typically). When the Soviet Union fell, only one military portion received adequate funding, the Strategic Rocket Forces and their boomers (sort of, on a highly limited basis for fully operational boats). The stockpile dedicated for anything beyond limited tactical strikes likely did atrophy though, both due to corruption and lack of funding, as maintaining nuclear anything is damnably expensive. And was a high priority for the US to maintain, as proved by the saga of fogbank. Code name for a polystyrene foam that the DoD literally forgot how to make and needed to replace, as it was crumbing over time. It was to be replaced with a more modern aerogel component, but that component wasn't functioning at all, so a crash project ensued to figure out how to make the old component, see what made it work and replicate it in the modernized version. That mushroomed into a 200 million dollar program and eventually, the issue was traced to a contaminant that made the x-ray laser actually work, as that was critical to the ablation system (this is all open source information). The laser is hugely inefficient, bad enough that Teller hung his hat on it being made efficient for his SDI contribution and destroying his and LLNL's reputation at the time, but was sufficient for inside of a confined, excited warhead and was eventually replicated in the new aerogel and now being actively incorporated in updated warheads. Very important, utterly critical, entirely forgotten, it was so critical for us, Russia suffering economically fared worse, I'm certain. So yeah, it's an open question on how many lower priority warheads would actually function, rather than splatter a few pounds of plutonium at the impact site and maybe a half ton of depleted uranium as well, the enriched stuff not weighing in all that much and still fairly long half life anyway (seriously, if you enjoy mineral water, it comes from wells that frequently have uranium leeching into them from the granite bedrock, folks, welcome to earth, didn't like that fact, maybe your ancestors should've stayed inside of the battlestar). So, where we stand now is China vs Russia some years ago, where Russia laughed at "China's Final Warning", thousands of which being issued without action, we're getting dozens now of "Russia's Final Warning", while observing their paper tiger burst into flames in action. Paper tiger also being a term Russia used about China's military. And Putin is an egomaniac, but not stupid, he's not about to launch and accept his family and nation glowing in the dark. Like me, he has a gun and knows not to grab the end the hot glue comes out of.
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  554. The funny thing is, everyone gets their panties in a twist over radiation from a thermonuclear warhead and that isn't the greatest threat. Most of the radiation is in the fireball and well, if you're inside of the fireball, you've got a whole hell of a lot else to worry about - like being incinerated. Fallout from a modern warhead is typically fairly low as well, as most are set for air burst to maximize destruction by heat and overpressure, figure around a half ton, most of which will decay in around 12 days, most a lot sooner. But, that overpressure and heat, that is the destructive parts, think concrete wall moving at the speed of sound, with negative pressure between pulses, plus the fireball that well, is hotter than the surface of the sun. That's one hell of a pee-pee smack! Broken gas pipes, which the pulverized buildings help by adding fuel, the word being firestorm. Firestorms aren't any fun, we're talking about getting pulled into the fire from more than two blocks away. Most deaths will occur from carbon monoxide poisoning from the firestorm, well, those who weren't ground into dogfood when their building collapsed on them or had their window glass shred their body. Suffice it to say, I have intimate knowledge of how a nuclear warhead works, as I worked on nuclear missiles as my first MOS. I call them what they are, products of the insanity factory. The problem is, if one country has them, well, we'd damned well better have them too, lest oh, nuclear blackmail occur, which is precisely what's being attempted. Trust me, trying to blackmail me is a really shitty idea, not known for enhancing one's chances of survival. And realistically, I'm old, banged up, not in the best of health, so life in prison or the death penalty aren't exactly a deterrent. So, what does it take to launch any part of our nuclear arsenal? One telephone call from POTUS, his identity confirmed by someone in the line of succession and in possession of "the biscuit", the magical boom-boom code phrase of the day that POTUS and others in the line of succession possess (typically, it'd be SecDef). Target selection via the SIOP. No magic buttons, no red phones, a secure telephone is all that's needed. The "Football" being only used while traveling. If traveling, the Football comes along for between times, like while they're setting up the portable SCIF (yeah, they have one that converts a room into a full grown SCIF in kit form, pretty cool, looks like a royal gonad crusher to set up. Apparently, Dick Nixon was drunk a lot toward the end of his Presidency and had actually ordered North Korea nuked. His Chief of Staff sat the orders on his desk and said, "We'll see if he still wants to do it in the morning, after he sobers up". Yeah. Oh, for the record, I actually hate nuclear weapons with a passion. But, we don't live in an ideal world, so we're not going to have ideal solutions to our problems.
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  556. I took my wife to a clothing optional beach, of course having her agree first. First day, she insisted on wearing her shorts, a bit of hesitation in removing her top, but seeing her own minority and well, the whole "nothing to see here" thing, that went away. The next day, we arrived, she looked right, then left, didn't bother looking behind and everything came off and we had a good day, like the day before. Some time later, we were again on leave and enjoying the beach and I was annoyed at crabs trying to nibble my toes, so I treaded water farther out. I can tread water for hours, purely out of entertainment and just enjoying the freedom of movement and quiet. I noticed some boats not too far away, but figured they got daring, googling at the clothing optional beach, as is the local perv custom (along with guys in shorts with binoculars). Then, I felt sandpaper slide between my legs - a sand shark. Hmm, might want to move before he confuses worms... Turned around to look at the beach, it was a quarter mile away and moving laterally. I had consulted shipping charts at the Coast Guard station earlier, largely out of curiosity and noted my speed matched the offshore current at that distance. I'm sans attire and literally, per the current chart, headed in a few hours (no sweat, but concerning for other reasons) toward Battery Park. Oh, the federal Life Guard was having conniptions to try to get my attention. I waved to acknowledge, yeah, I know I'm in the middle of shit creek, lemme paddle... He calmed as I cut across the current toward shore. Fight the current, die. Water's more powerful than you, Hulk, you'll drown and you ain't green. Got out of the current and into wading depth, waded along, as I was in the "textile beach", aka clothed beach right next to the undivided clothing optional beach, back to our beach, then waded ashore and apologized to the lifeguard. "Lost situational awareness, my bad and apologies, won't happen again". We've all had our intracranial flatulence outbursts, apologizing and not allowing that to occur is a biggie in a successful life. No life is survivable, but that doesn't mean we need to make it unsustainable until the ticketbook of chances runs out. Although, even then, I was dearth in taking chance tickets. ;) Got another 20 years with her before she died, still one of both of our fondest memories. And I miss her a year and change on like I'd miss air. Lost her to another US metric of disgrace, a dental infection. 41 years, now gone. 6 hours after feeling poorly and right after helping me move $450 in groceries into home, she laid down and died. Civilized nations have universal health care and dental care. Only third world nations don't, well, them and their peer, the US.
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  565. I'm reminded of well, a press debacle and actually, a high quality paper on superluminal neutrinos. The press billing it at times as faster than light particles being discovered, largely because reading wasn't the correspondent's forte. The actual paper basically said, to paraphrase, "We know that the results are nonsensical and erroneous, but we cannot find what is wrong with our experimental setup and configuration. HELP!" A butt ton of researchers examined the setup, some figured out what was defective and suggested checking and the problem was resolved and everyone pretty much forgot about it. Pity, because that was one of the great successes of science. Not some epic new discovery, collaboration to overcome a problem that one team couldn't resolve and collectively, science resolved. Then, we get the cold fusion dweebs... Yep, as Sabine mentioned, lukewarm fusion in the form of neutron generators abound, hell, they're reasonably affordable for fairly small physics labs. I can build a more expensive type without the titanium by ginning up a fusor and generate tremendous amounts of electricity bills. Both will produce a fair amount of neutrons though. Alas, electricity bills are not energy generation. If they were, my computers would be making me tons of money. Instead, I get to twirl my electric meter and watch Debbie Does Donuts in the parking lot on TV. And there is a non-zero chance I could wrangle plain actual cold fusion, just on plain probability alone, one or two atoms over a long amount of time, just based on random chance. Still ain't generating power, only bills. Just once, I'd love to see one of these announcements and papers be released with a "Folks, this isn't making a damned lick of sense to me, but here is my apparatus, these are the conditions and observations, please pop by and see what I fouled up". Added kudos if they'd throw in lunch. That makes science look credible, rather than some other fly by night idiot blathering about how they discovered Harry bleeding Potter's magical screw stick.
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  680.  @Slizzo82  most of the problems, other than wear and tear that should be caught at the armorer level and sent to depot for rebuild, was PMCS. I had the distinction of giving the class in my battalion when we switched over from light infantry to mechanized (and later, Stryker) on the M2. Distinction, as I was a medic. Wasn't always a medic, knew the gun inside and out, so being one of a few who knew the gun well, got to lead the instruction team. We're on the range after class, I'm BSing with some of the other NCO's and I hear a gun's firing rate becoming erratic and varying in volume. Before I could get the word Fire from CEASE FIRE out, the barrel was launched 25 meters downrange. We went to check fire, I approached the position and asked, "OK, you remember class, so who didn't perform their PMCS?". Assorted excuses and bewildered looks, "Remember I mentioned checking your detent spring? How the barrel could unscrew when firing? That could've send the feed dawgs and tray into your faces, which is why it's so high on the list, the correct answer to my question is, "we all failed to perform our PMCS, as PMCS done partially is PMCS conducted not at all. Now, get this weapon off of my firing line and checked by the armorer and fixed and I'll see you in retraining". Recycled them to retraining, never had to mention it in class, but they did follow the standard the best of all classes afterward. Irritating was, I had actually harped on that issue in the first class, as it's a fairly common problem. Used to blow their minds by placing the gun from the M113 deck into the pintle alone. They'd work as a group of two or three to get the gun into position. I'd lift it handles down, lever the barrel up to cantilever it to the roof and lower the base onto the pintle. Basic body mechanics. Work smart, not hard. They also went nuts trying to learn to outshoot me, that never worked out, but at least we got plenty of experts in their weapons in the attempts! Never got to fire the mk-19 or Barrett, the latter by refusal, as my spine wouldn't forgive me for that much of a shove. Did get to be AI in the TOW missile school, given I was present at Redstone when it was introduced.
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  731.  @DerSteppenwolfe  careful, your hyperbole is showing. There has never been a WMD inside of our schools. Guns, yes, but as a hint, name one school that had every single student killed. No nerve agents, blister agents, choking agents or nuclear weapons have been used. In the early 20th century, there was the Bath schoolhouse disaster, a former school board treasurer blew up a school full of children, but that' still not a WMD. The next worse was in Texas, where a natural gas that'd normally e flared off was used to heat a school and due to that source, had no stench of mercaptans that we add to natural gas to detect a leak. A pipe began to leak badly, a spark set off the gas/air mixture and pretty much picked up the occupied school and gravity took over. Walter Cronkite was a cub reporter that went to the scene and when asked to, he put down his notepad and started helping dig through the rubble. You also missed the mark on Nazism, they're simply vanilla flavored fascists. Some neo-nazis are supporting him, just as the Nazi party supported Mussolini's fascist regime. Trump being a weakling and imbecile, well, that's spot on target. Trump has only one real skill, he's a different form of WMD, weapon of mass distraction. Whenever something especially vile gets released/leaked, take a look at the Senate to see what he's distracting you from noticing. Still, I've had Trumpettes go on and on about how I shouldn't be allowed to do that. I simply remind them of the golden rule. My gold, my rules and try to interfere, well, I've firearms as well and our chief difference is, I served for nearly 28 years in the army. I know how to use mine effectively. Shut the idiot down. It isn't what you will do that counts, it's what the other idiot believes that you might do that counts and if I use the damned thing, then I have to clean it and frankly, they're not worth that much trouble. We have one critical advantage against Trumpettes, they're only around 28 - 31% of the population, so they're a minority. Go out and vote for somebody!
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  749. "He went to see the pope", the heart of the nativist movement, which merged into the "Native American Party", aka the Know Nothing Party, which brought religious warfare to Philadelphia city streets - complete with artillery fired at churches and insurrection against the militia that the governor summoned. And eventually, bringing us a civil war when some new Republican Party candidate won the presidency, some Lincoln guy. I'm also trying to figure out how Biden is a dictator, when he's allegedly being dictated to. And what the crapping himself is all about, given it was Trump walking up the stairs to board Air Force One that had toilet paper stuck to his shoe. And needed help walking up a ramp by an aging General... And how Biden took up arms against his nation or gave aid and comfort to an enemy of our nation (which implies a formal declaration of war or de facto state of war exists), while being incapable of doing so in their very statements... Or how my vote is stealing a vote, yet their vote is OK. Oh, I know, veterans aren't allowed to vote, maybe? And the pandemic was released to stop the vote that already happened, I guess via the primary attack vector of the Obama time machine. And biological weapons being a WMD attack, why didn't we nuke back, given tough boy Trump having the nuke controls? The mountains of evidence of stolen votes made entirely out of the same stuff Wonder Woman's invisible airplane is made of. And the penalty for treason is life in prison, we did away with the death penalty for treason for civilians over 60 years ago. Trump isn't facing the death penalty for anything, life in prison and tons of fines, yes and given the charges are in both state and federal courts, being filed by two sovereign entities - state and federal. Nope, I think she overbaked her brain, along with her skin. And that, coming from a guy who tans decidedly darker, due to genetics.
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  784.  @danielleriley2796  it'd have to fly a hell of a lot higher while hypersonic. Even at the notionally high 30000 feet, the air is pretty damned dense for such travel, even our space capsules have slowed to subsonic by that altitude due to the density of the lower atmosphere. Think 100k feet, you'd be more on target and avoid essentially impossible stresses on the airframe and obscene temperatures generated by the denser lower atmosphere. Also, the story is bullshit as to radiation, it didn't spew reactor fuel, it did release a lot of gamma, x-ray and neutrons though, along with some daughter isotopes from the fission. Stay away from its exhaust, it'd be fairly safe, given its cruise altitude. It'd only come down for its terminal maneuver into its final target. Oh, NERVA did actually fly - without fuel, only ballast, just to see if the aircraft would be stable. Thankfully, they never lit off either for actual full power flight testing, not too sure if any might have or not have flown at low power, although I think that any benefit would be dubious at best. Low power doesn't equal producing usable thrust and the damned things were so radioactively hot, survival of a flight crew was questionable at best. Still, regardless of who would actually release such a product from the insanity factory, they'd most likely be suborbital single stage to suborbital altitude, then skip for range, then penetrate the upper atmosphere for the remainder of Mr Toad's Wild Ride. All, while ICBM's and SLBM's passed one another in their own suborbital pathways into oblivion. Still survivable, in a way. The Bikini Atoll is now habitable - as long as one doesn't eat the food or drink the water, lest one get a hell of a dose of cesium-137 and strontium-90 (mostly). Safe to stay there to visit and even spend a week there, if you bring your own food and drink. So, we'd be safe enough, just bring a century or so worth of food and water. I'll wait. ;) And yeah, I worked on them long ago. A stupider weapon I have yet to discover. Nukes are like having a handful of thermite grenades, while standing on top of a refinery tank full of gasoline. There won't be any winners in that game of chicken. So, go toward the light, my children! Go toward the light!
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  817. OK, I've been shopping for food pretty much since food was invented. At least, it feels that way in the morning. $300? Let's see, prepared foods, pre-baked rolls and breads, those expensive small package pre-prepared containers of what looked like yogurt and a ridiculous number of salad dressings. I push a folding cart with twice that mass in quality foods home monthly, albeit I do bake my own bread and mix my own dressings. I get my veggies frozen to save some $$$, just as nutritious as fresh and my nutrient levels have been tested to determine if I needed supplementation when my Crohn's was diagnosed. Only nutrients I was low on was magnesium and salt. Despite having significant erosion of the colon where many nutrients are absorbed. And as a hint, my folding cart has ball bearing wheels that I've now replaced after a year, so my loads aren't light with $292 in food expenses via food stamps. So, I suggest a home economics class for the poor dear, she's got zero clue. Interestingly, the breads flour, the broccoli and other cold loving greens are imported from Canada. Leafy greens, fruits (including tomatoes) tend to be imported from Mexico, most of our foods grown in the US are export only. The breads themselves, a major cost right there, not a one being under $3.00 for the quantity shown - for each bread bag/package. I have rye flour, make my own, lasts longer than the crap at the stupidmarket too. Swap some of the water for oil, it stabilizes the bread and lowers the moisture content, while mouth feeling moist, but the lower moisture inhibits mold growth. Raw milk, so wasting money to travel to get raw milk and risk getting everyone sick, brilliant! Here's a hint, we've been pasteurizing milk for a century and a half, we're not extinct, we also have a lot more kids surviving to adulthood than before that came to pass. Still, might have some raw milk - if the cow that produced that milk is witnessing me try it. After an hour, I'd toss it. Before that, I'd pasteurize it. Waking up dead really wreaks havoc on my weekend plans and I've got plans to go bull tipping this weekend. As for crunchy mom, thanks, but no thanks. Medically, I'm highly conservative by nature, the minimum intervention for the maximum benefit being my mantra. That said, without modern medicine, I'd have my weekend plans wrecked forever. Got an abdominal aorta bigger than your fist, a blow mitral valve from COVID, osteoarthritis from over 28 years in the Army, Crohn's disease because my immune system's a traitor, autoimmune damage to my thyroid and all of the crunchy bullshit in the universe would make all of those fatally worse. The aorta part due to the thyroid raising my blood pressure to unsurvivable levels and requiring two BP meds and a thyroid blocker to keep my BP and pulse at a survivable level. The mitral damage is low, as without it, well our youngest had long COVID from the first wave, took her two years and change to recover reasonably. So, screw RFK Jr and his brain rotting worms. Ha! Am watching the video as I comment and called that one in advance. Yeah, I know the type. Then, thrilled about Trump, yet griping about inflation that he caused. I was an SF medic, I've no sympathy for anyone who shoots their own goddamned foot. Here's a hint, should the griper actually read this: I've met the man personally, he's profoundly ignorant, the boor of every party, obnoxious, full of himself to the point where all conversations must praise him and clueless about everything - as evidenced by his tremendous business losses and incessant bankruptcies. He'd not know a bag of groceries from a gross of sandstone. I mean, the fucking guy thinks that apples are sold in the stupidmarket in the refrigerated section, for crying out loud! He's a con man, he lied, you got conned, get over it and get with the program. While you're trying to figure that out, if you want tips on healthy and sustainable feeding of your family, ask away. While I might be inclined to let you hang, I never could stand the thought of kids going hungry and going without. On $292 in food stamps, I eat like a veritable king and am generous with needy neighbors, who I allow to "shop" on my pantry shelves and tightly packed freezer. I do buy about a gallon per week of 1% milk, that percentage, as the higher fat gives me indigestion, eggs typically last a month for a dozen. Well, unless I'm baking, then all bets are off. I get canola oil in 2.5 gallon jugs and refill the smaller containers, it's cheaper that way, olive oil is in the large tin and smaller containers refilled from that. Evangelicals, well they swiftly learn that I know the bible better than most of their ministers. I also am quite conversant with several other faiths religious texts. I'm the maniac that will happily converse with knocking Jehovah Witnesses and they end up converting to something mainstream and far less overcontrolling and wrong per the scriptures.
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  822. It's good for qualitative measurements, that radiation is present and an approximate level, but when looking for health physics level measurements, well the counters are orders of magnitude higher and require annual calibration and recertification. The last military base I worked at had a health physics professional. He had detection gear I've never seen or heard of before and I began my military career working on boosted nuclear weapons. Most of which had price tags that well, one could drive around town in style on that kind of bread laid out on a new car. And the reality of it is, if there is an actually imminently hazardous level of radiation present, the Radiacode detectors would be saturated and essentially worthless. Basically, they're good for radiation spectrometry to determine what is emitting what, even a general idea as to level, but for occupational or residential hazards, one needs the really expensive equipment to ascertain the actual risk. Note that they had to put the detector onto the sample, because by the time one moves an inch, the beta radiation is being intercepted by air, reach two inches it's undetectable, the gamma is blocked by the glazing due to its low energy level from uranium and alpha particles are blocked by one's epidermis or even a plain sheet of paper. Real risks in that environment are for the cleanup and demolition crews, as it's crushed tiles and cumulative exposure to the dust that has traces of the uranium oxide in it, creating an ingestion and inhalation hazard. For residents, it'd be a trace and likely not easily measured, given the granite that originated the soil remaining present and the natural presence of uranium/uranium decay chain and potassium-40 in the granite. Oh, for entertainment value, get a Radiacode unit, go up to a friend's granite countertop in their kitchen and put the detector down on it. It'll prove the existence of that trace amount of uranium and uranium decay chain, as well as potassium-40 in the granite. Both also being present in most ceramics in trace amounts.
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  831. Biden was stuck with the withdrawal plans negotiated by Trump's maladministration. So, it's on his hands for the entire debacle. Some equipment was left, routers, switches, some crypto devices, all configurations erased, crypto zapped, rendering that equipment useless to the Taliban. Would've cost more to pull it and send it to the US than it was worth by a factor of three. Actual military equipment was thermited. So, if it's proof against molten steel boiling its way through, I've yet to find that kind of equipment - despite over 28 years of military service. But then, serial business failure Trump, who turned $20 billion into $300 million and serial bankrupted more businesses than Carter has little liver pills knows better. Spend $10 million to take up $3 million in old network equipment and slagged vehicles and worn out, melted weapons. As for the GOP, always claiming our military is weak, pitiful, useless, cut the VA budget from 1982 to the second year of the war, only stopping when the public became outraged that men and women were redeploying home to receive no VA care because they tanked the VA budget. Yeah, they only care for the photos, then they screw the veterans and never, ever offered a reach around. And their maniac faction threatens to take up arms and expects that repeatedly beaten down military to join them? No, deliver white phosphorus to them, merrily smoking and burning, the only way we'd join them is if we bayonet charged their remnants once they did take up arms. But, what would I know? Only served for over 28 years and contracted with them daily, they know more than I do, based upon their vast experience acquired on their Twinkie encrusted sofas.
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  861. No, bonkers was, he retained his clearance to access any hazardous radiological devices. I'm intimately familiar many instances of men and women of well documented off duty intemperate habits that worked with special radiological devices. Still, safe enough on duty, as not sober got ejected, reported and access curtailed. Of course, the devices were innocuous enough, they were only boosted fission nuclear warheads. Trivial to arm without authorization - as trivial as performing a root canal on a patient safely and effectively via the rectum. But, they did and still do contain some of our most powerful high explosives. For the fission challenged, a boosted fission device is basically a baby version of a hydrogen bomb, too small to be called that, whose neutron radiation fissions the rest of the plutonium core and in some cases, the depleted uranium tamper that's frequently mislabeled a "jacket" (a tamper isn't a jacket, it has a purpose of confinement, ablation and focusing of energy). Oh, iridium isn't anything special, it's the specific isotope with a 78 day half-life that's special. The shorter half-life, the nastier it is. I intentionally exposed myself to a dose of a radioisotope that had only an 8 day half-life. It was one of two very similar ways to achieve a successful completion of a thyroid scan. Turned out to be Grave's disease, one form of hyperthyroidism. My immune system attacked my thyroid, it retaliated and damned near killed me. That was a good thing, as it confirmed a diagnosis, a thyroid hormone formation medication blocked most of my thyroid output and I was able to be tapered back from a literal LD50 dosage of hypertension medication to something more age appropriate. LD50 being half taking that dosage does from toxicity of the drug.
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  1035. +John Driver in the states I operated in, none permitted an emergency vehicle to exceed the speed limit. Getting there slow beats not being able to get there due to wrecking an ambulance. That said, it was a five state sparse sample around this nation. I was military at the time. Common courtesy does not extend to addressing criminal necessity. If I'm in the left lane, it's for a reason, I'm passing or avoiding an onramp/intersection. I also move back into the speed limit traffic and let the maniacs wreck their vehicles and halt my progress and really hate their selfishness that has halted my travel. And that has happened in my lifetime on more than a few occasions. The times I actually checked, the maniac survived, others did not. I stopped checking, lest I lose faith in humanity altogether. As for common courtesy, after I redeployed home in military retirement, I noticed that a lot. Both in daily activities and civil discourse. It had also entered into political discourse in a similar manner before my return to this nation. To be honest, I'm sorry to return to such a failed nation, it pains me each and every day to see such a societal failure and worse, a societal embracing of criminal behavior (well, criminal before I deployed away to defend the nation). Today, we have security theater to comedic proportions accepted as the norm, permitting the terrorists to win by changing our society. We also have people suggesting all manner of mayhem upon those law abiding. The land of the free and home of the brave turned into the land of the restrained and the home of the craven. Before I redeployed home, craven was only used in regard to individuals, now it's used in regard to a social acceptance. But then, common courtesy is extinct here. People do what they want to do. If I did what I wanted to do, this nation would have a lot less people living in it. I refrain from that because I'm civilized. I use the left lane to pass, then move into traffic. I don't yield to speeding maniacs that won't let me pass or speed insanely and swiftly and unsafely change lanes to flip the bird at me to prove insanity, only to lose control in their uncivilized excess of insanity to lose control after. Fuck him and fuck any other asshole that thinks that is acceptable, with a 40mm bore brush. Twice. I saw similar behavior at home before, the driver ended up causing six fatal wrecks avoiding such reckless driving. That's colored my viewpoint in this matter. Fortunately, in some ways, the driver was eventually arrested and convicted. Now, his family goes without his income and suffers. Fuck all if I can figure out how to equalize that problem. But, in road rage, I have an ROE, force against force, in level. Punch, I'll punch back, dearly. Draw a weapon, all bets are off, I go lethal. Super-escalation works toward survival. I'm nice enough of a guy who has repeatedly brought up religion and politics on three continents, in general discussion and in good favor. I've also explained to Wheaton where his law of "Don't be a dick" has limits that he has since learned the limits of.
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  1037. Well, an upside is, for the dining ware, if the glaze remains intact, it's still safe to eat off of. As for military sources, there was a changeover to tritium for self-illuminated devices. It shares the failure of phosphor with the old radium types though, the phosphor will fail before the tritium has decayed away. Had to replace one compass that I served with for my entire career for that reason. In theory, I could've had it serviced, but given some internal improvements in the current model and minimal cost difference, I just replaced it. Had a laugh and gave a lesson in a different forum, where people were freaking out over Florida authorizing phosphogypsum usage in highway construction. It was used in construction and roofing tiles for decades, but "it's radioactive" freak-outs got it restricted. It's around as radioactive as an average granite kitchen counter - for much the same reason. So apparently, phosphogypsum is evil, but granite is cool or something. Complete with a promise of driving down a Florida highway and contracting acute radiation syndrome, talk about overreaction and failed risk analysis. I guess they should've stayed on the battlestar, as earth's way too hostile for them. Actually examining the risk would be to look for dust liberated for potential exposure for sensitive individuals, form the isotope is in chemically, as in bioavailability or ability to become lodged in tissues such as lungs, etc. Nope, anything radioactive is evil, so excuse me while I go turn off the sun and all of the stars and put all the black holes into shoeboxes.
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  1052. A bit of trivia, when I was growing up, a cheaper method was used on our community roads. Rather than asphalt roads that we know today, the township extensively used "tar and chip" roads, which was asphalt poured onto the old surface, small gravel then dumped unto that and a top coat of asphalt poured over the stones. Made for an unholy mess when I came into the house, eventually moving to taking off my shoes before coming in the door and using lighter fluid to dissolve the asphalt stuck to my soles, rather than coating our linoleum floor. Yeah, gave away my age there... Didn't last anywhere as long as asphalt roads and the stones would kick up and scratch the paint on cars, making the political leadership ever so popular with the public. Leading to the slightly more expensive at the time asphalt roads that remain today. Longer lasting and as a side effect, easier to plow. The road ain't worth much if one plows up the aggregate along with the ice and snow. I also learned during my global travels in the military that there are different mixtures, depending upon the environmental conditions. Hot vs cold being predominant, so Germany would utilize a different mixture of asphalt than a tropical nation. Use the wrong mixture for the application environment, it won't last very long, maybe a season. And I've yet to find a surface that can survive the desert for long, well, save for my skin. ;) One benefit of pure Sicilian genetics, having enough variety due to historic, erm, interactions to tolerate the African and Arabian deserts and the frigid wastes of a northern winter. Although personally, I prefer my climate like I prefer my women - hot, which is why I always tell them how much I enjoy the meatloaf. I'll just get my coat...
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  1148.  John Grit  one thing I learned over again, all wars are political, it's a design, not a defect. I volunteered, as I joined in early 1982, retired in 2010 (some complexities over end term of service and retirement nonsense). Warfare is decided by the leadership, which is guided harshly by the populace. Dad joined the USMC under forged documents, my grandmother managed to get the paperwork to stop him on the embarkation dock and get him discharged. He attempted to, after reaching agreement, to join the US Army, get selected to join the 82nd Airborne, train and VE and VJ arrived and he was assigned to fight the battle of Fort Dix. Trust me, returned home and simply said, "You didn't miss anything wonderful". That all said, I have zero interest in real estate, I do have interest in having a home that we can retire and eventually die in. It isn't a damned McMansion estate, it's a chunk of land for a large garden, what we don't reap, whoever needs it is welcome to, just leave us alone. Due to joint issues, we prefer single story, so if a split is offered, we want an escalator. Our property is also sanctuary, I am an ordained minister and I'm extremely old fashioned that way. We've always been, protect those without defense, the widow, the orphan, the indigent, who cannot arise out of their situation, due to malfeasance. Side against that, meet wrath that one will swear is the wrath of the almighty. You seem to abandon them, an incorrect path for the survival, long term, of the society.
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  1179. In those earlier days, key splitting wasn't a thing yet. Remember, RSA encryption was the biggie and remained unbroken, still shiny and new. Now, we use AES, as RSA was easily enough broken. Meanwhile, under ITAR, encryption beyond 40 bits was considered a munition, right up there next to artillery rounds. At that time, opening the source math was considered the ultimate evil and RSA's being broken opened that up, as the more eyes looking at the math and source, the tighter and less easily broken things became and even better, those eyes are free. I do disagree with one thing, that the key, once revealed would've been exploited in three days. Nope, it'd have been exploited same day. Then or now. The biggest part of NSAKEY was it's also part of the NSAHOOKS system, where one can insert strong crypto DLL's at will. That was done at the behest of the NSA and other strong crypto users, so that their high end crypto could be loaded in without herculean labor. There was one other Microsoft carve out for one government agency, service pack 7 was paid for by NASA, as upgrading and ensuring that all of their custom software wasn't exactly workable at the time, so they commissioned the last service pack and paid for it. Never did manage to get a copy of it, but I can't gripe about not getting that which I didn't purchase. Oh, China bought the source code for NT4. At one point, I did have the source code, but those systems were lost in a move. :/ NT4 was a hell of a lot better than the initial release of W2k, which issued a busted to hell and gone LDAP system initially. Of course, Microsoft just claimed that's a new standard, just as they tried with Java with the msjava, which lost in court to the owner of Java, Sun... LDAP won in the end, as it's standard and eventually, Microsoft conformed to the damned standard. Who knows? They may yet get quality control dialed in in a reliable fashion. ;) On second thought, hopefully not. Job security and all!
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  1216. No self-hatred needed. Major depressive disorder or severe bipolar disorder can and has lead to some pretty horrendous deaths by suicide. I worked military EMS. The very first lesson in dealing with suicidal patients is, don't let anything whatsoever ever, ever get between you and the door. If they've decided, have the means and perceive you an obstacle to their goal, they very well and in the past, have taken EMS personnel and police with them. A great rule to abide by, given some of us are trained to be able to end someone's existence before that person even realizes they're in danger. A corollary is, if the dog is out upon arrival at a scene, close the fucking door unless you really enjoy getting bitten by Cujo. Not a lick of self-hatred, only assured death of a suicidal person, who seems to have taken great care not to involve others in their path to self-destruction. Self-hatred, in my experience, was the realm of terrorists, who enjoy taking others down with themselves. Common themes being "I'm a sinner and can do no better or worse" and similar nonsense. Yeah, I dealt with terrorists and conversed with them. A fine experience only rivaled by the joys of masturbating with a cheese grater. Note for full disclosure, I have no idea, nor inclination of finding just where I put my cheese grater, nor since retiring, dealing with terrorists. But, I've come to understand all too well depression since my wife of 40+ years died in March. It's a pernicious thing I'm working on shaking and have no intention of self-harm beyond enjoying that can of chili I bought today. That last requiring my sending an NBC-1 report first, so that a NUKEWARN flash can be sent. ;) Even more seriously, that notion of self-loathing is a condition of its very own that does require a mental health professional intervening, but attributing that to a suicide or suicide attempt is harmful to those in desperate need of protection. Kindly stop it and learn about such conditions before harming others with such bullshit. I never, ever claimed to be a diplomat, but I'm infamous for my candor.
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  1331.  @MA2-o2l  it seems as if you're thinking that their primary weapons would be neutron bomb class weapons, but one doesn't require gaseous tritium to boost the primary, cryogenic tritium also would more than suffice. Especially true given the use of neutron generators to time a neutron pulse to accelerate fission initially. For neutron bomb class, one simply substitutes the tamper casing, changing over from depleted uranium to aluminum, lead or even plain iron to provide tamper ablation and pressure, while being less neutron absorbing to an extent. The fireball itself and the explosives would absorb a fair amount of the primary neutrons anyway, hence why an EMP infrequently (especially in "super EMP" class) as the fireball essentially eats the neutrons. The weapon core is a bit like Las Vegas, what happens in the core stays in the core, at least radiation wise. The weapon's primary purpose is basically a supreme air heater, so the heat and shockwave do all of the dirty work, save with EMP devices that utilize the gamma pulse and neutron bombs, which bombard the local area with fast neutrons to neutron activate and penetrate armor. As gamma doesn't travel well through the air, oxygen especially ionizing easily and blocking it, that leaves neutrons which have limited range and activated metals tend to be short lived isotopes, which finally leaves the old fashioned nuclear and thermonuclear effects of shockwave and thermal pulse. Since the primary is of a limited low yield device, boosting provides much of the energy to help complete fission of the primary core and it again, is of limited yield, basically enough to compress the secondary that has the higher yield, up to half of the yield of the weapon, the tamper being the final stage and providing the final half yield, at a cost of making the bomb dirtier. Regardless, as I recall, the typical size maximum I've seen in tritium dewars and flasks was only in the 100 - 500 ml size. As for Russian functional devices, I'd anticipate moderate degradation of their functional stocks. Their strategic, high priority warheads being the highest in reliability, their countervalue designated, moderately degraded in reliability. Adding in attrition of malfunctions that are normal in missiles, I'd estimate around a 50% failure rate at most, minimum of 35 - 40%. After all, everyone wants their dacha in the woods...
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  1350. No, I didn't survive. I couldn't possibly survive. I'm an American, I thrived by fighting, not laying on my back like DonOLD and his fine family tradition of fleeing the draft or whoring opposition. We've been a land of second opportunities, giving a chance to whoever arrives to thrive if they've got the guts to try. Trump's family arrived fleeing a common draft to military service. We said, "Fine, but show us what you've got". Yeah, met the seventh fleet in fine familial virtue. We don't guarantee success, we only offer the opportunity to try. And DonOLD has repeatedly shown moral and financial bankruptcy. A hurricane pummeled an important US possession, he threw paper towels into the ring. A pandemic scarred and wounded us, he stayed on the field - a golf course, playing with his balls. Another term of this uncommon prostitute? I'd rather screw a wood chipper. Because, I didn't dodge a draft. I served for over 28 years and I'm in my 60's and still slugging on after I retired. I'm far too busy to be playing with my balls or hiring the disgrace to the US Marine Corps. Oh, for the record, I met him in person at a tri-state Chamber of Commerce function around the year 2000. He was the guest of honor. Said function experienced a 95% attrition rate, stated by the attendees, when invited the following year and refusing to attend, their refusal to attend was exclusively due to his fine attention. He was the boor of the party, ruining an otherwise pleasant networking experience for all and their spouses. He trumpeted his wondrous successes, speaking expansively about the great bankruptcies as successes to a room full of business owners. I'm astonished that the planet stayed on its axis, given the phenomenal number of ubiquitous eyerolls. His "success" method is easy, call every failure a success. No, DonOLD, a failure is an opportunity to try again, not give up and call it a success. We're Americans, we fight on, even when we initially fail, we keep going until we succeed.
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  1421. The overpressure isn't a fixed magical figure, it depends upon context of what one is protecting against. A 3 PSI overpressure from a shockwave is enough to collapse many residential structures that aren't reinforced concrete, at 5 PSI, everything but reinforced concrete, 10 PSI most concrete buildings are destroyed or demolished and at 20 PSI, utter destruction - from the outside, upon the entire structure. Inside, it becomes a different matter, as one is essentially talking about one flat or in this case, one room in one flat. That said, failure of the flat itself shouldn't have allowed the entire structure to experience a progressive collapse of that segment. One flaw is a lack of design to protect against progressive collapse. No building codes existed to mitigate against it at the time, no effort was made to design protection in, frankly, it was a rubbish practice and protection needed to be codified. But, corner cutting of such a degree, with bloody newspapers used in place of concrete, that stinks to high heaven of corruption somewhere, as inspectors should've spotted that a mile off during construction! It's not as if only one man pours concrete to join segments! In this case, I'd have looked for a design with nonstructural panels designed to blow out without compromising the structural integrity of the entire building or segment of the building. I'd also want the fucking thing put together properly. And in this case, I'm forced to question the quality of all construction in the borough at the time, as obviously inspection was either absent or badly lacking, allowing heaven knows what to get built at grave risk to the populace.
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  1498. Yeah, that's on my to-do list, keeps getting knocked off of the schedule by life events. But, something's gotta give. I've become a bit anemic, d-dimer is up enough to suggest bleeding somewhere, magnesium is low suggesting clotting cascade is elevated, so it's either the abdominal aortic aneurysm or something else occult leaking. First patient I ever lost, a 28 year old female soldier with a dissected AAA. She was dead before she hit the ground, my only hint in the field, CPR being performed, while verifying compressions efficacy, the pulse fell off with each compression rapidly. She had pheochromocytoma, adrenaline producing tumor on the adrenal gland, shot her BP up way past tilt. Got to see two such cases, the other was successfully treated and was only mentioned in the patient history. Oh well, one upside from doctor's visit today, A1C lower, courtesy of my dropping 20 pounds, lowering insulin resistance, as that's a familial trait. I get to retain the family title of eldest by far to not be diabetic throughout my father's side of the family. Pisses my cousins off massively, as they all are and keep going with their failing mantra "It's in the genes, why fight it?". Simple, they'll be on dialysis in a decade at most, I won't. I'll still be kicking strong, walking with my cane, going deaf as a post, but still sharp as a tack. Well, back to designing a refrigeration unit that uses butane to cool a Wilson cloud chamber for my Amerecium source I rescued from a deceased smoke detector, then improve on a design from CERN for a radiation spectrometer that uses photodiodes retasked for the purpose...
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  1508. Bucks County, PA, around 30 years ago or so, a farm and some homes were eminent domained by the county for a shopping mall. Litigation ensued, the land was taken, the homeowners and farmer SOL. So, not exactly a novel practice. This simply made it to the SCOTUS, who found that a man's castle belongs to whoever the municipality, county or state damned well fells like giving it to to turn a buck. One remaining farm was under threat and matters went slightly different, as residents of multiple counties finally became outraged. It seems, that the general public consensus was that the courts were worthless, but a few remarked how inexpensive lead was and the farm remains there to this day. It would seem that the officers who made the decision to apply eminent domain to benefit private real estate developers decided to not potentially share Louis XVI's fate. Or maybe it was the ghost of Christmas Future... Never underestimate the folks around Philly. To my knowledge, we're the only US city to have artillery used by the populace against other members of the populace and also got away with killing members of the militia sent in to restore order during the Philadelphia Nativist Riots. Although, the Bronx has the distinction of having US Army artillery used against it during Bowery rioting over the Civil War conscription (wealthy bought their way out of conscription, which triggered the rioting). Although, I do wonder about how much of a part whisky played in starting the whiskey rebellion, which took no less than George Washington riding out of the capitol to meet the responding militia from other states to suppress. History is a rather interesting thing! It can be entertaining or downright horrifying.
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  1533. Born in 1961. It wasn't unusual for either mom or dad to shower with me as a small child. Today, that's eeeeeebbbbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll! As for the kids telling you that "your generation's shower habits were gay", I'd have calmly and quietly asked, in lower tones, "Are you trying to tell this US Army decorated war veteran that the entire US Army war veteran community is gay? Do you realize how inadvisable that is to tell someone who is perfectly capable of killing you in an instant that they're what they largely are not is?". Never was a diplomat. Otherwise, we'd likely have far fewer wars. What this is is an extension and recycling of the tepid bathwater of the lost satanic cult wars, when schools had buried children under them and were excavated to find precisely nothing, no missing kids on rolls, no missing children on birth records, no witnesses of missing children and certainly no parents missing children, but entire schools got excavated anyway, the amoral panic dispersed and recycled. Hell, most of their gays in the military, then transsexuals arguments are anti-segregation arguments being badly recycled. It's a conservative control mechanism, controlled by the unimaginative, as they think nobody can figure out the magical man behind the curtain bit. It's also PsyOps 101. And only used educationally. Then, the next course illustrates its many, many, many failure modes. Still, never interrupt an adversary when he's making a mistake. ~Attributed to Sun Tzu, historically, it's highly likely he wished he had that accumulated wisdom, a fair bit now outdated.
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  1565. Nope. First, treason is narrowly and precisely and indeed, is the only crime defined within the US Constitution. Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. So, the individual must have taken up arms against officers of the US government to make war. The portion regarding enemies is irrelevant, as Congress has declared no war, hence the US has no enemies and adversaries are not mentioned, so also irrelevant. Such a charge would be invalid and indeed, attempting to prosecute such knowingly is a crime. Still, for giggles, the penalties: Article III, Section 3, Clause 2: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. 18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES From Title 18—CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ... §2381. Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §§1, 2 (Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §§1, 2, 35 Stat. 1088). Section consolidates sections 1 and 2 of title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed. The language referring to collection of the fine was omitted as obsolete and repugnant to the more humane policy of modern law which does not impose criminal consequences on the innocent. The words "every person so convicted of treason" were omitted as redundant. Minor change was made in phraseology. Editorial Notes Amendments 1994—Pub. L. 103–322 inserted "under this title but" before "not less than $10,000". §2382. Misprision of treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §3 (Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §3, 35 Stat. 1088). Mandatory punishment provision was rephrased in the alternative. Editorial Notes Amendments 1994—Pub. L. 103–322 substituted "fined under this title" for "fined not more than $1,000". There's more for insurrection, sedition, etc. There's a bunch more, but these sections covered Trump and his all girl band. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim Our laws aren't hard to find, the US Constitution trivial to find and everything is in plain English.
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  1759. Much of the cultural bit behind alcohol forgets US history. Completely forgetting, the US was settled by religious extremists, extreme fundamentalists, who essentially rejected anything pleasurable as distracting from their religious practices. That's retained in some current sects, such as Seventh Day Adventists, who still prefer unspiced foods and no ethanol. For those wanting to dispute, do look them up and the origin of corn flakes. I only put up with them because of Desmond Doss (I strongly encourage you to look him up!) and that is, of course, a joke. The problem with prohibition is, it's been repeatedly proved utterly ineffective. Prohibition of sex out of marriage, yeah, totally doesn't happy, they're all virginal pregnancies and ignore the ancient US joke about shotgun marriages. Prohibition of alcohol, helped spawn organized crime. Prohibition of many drugs, see what happened with alcohol. Prohibition of fully automatic weapons, see the North Hollywood shootout - they obeyed the law on buying machine guns, they made their own by converting legal rifles. I'll not even go into ban evading that goes on just in firearms and designer drugs. As a child, when my parents had wine or a drink, curiosity was satisfied and I participated in a bit of wine with the meal (usually, undiluted in small quantities in an cordial glass) or was offered a sip only of a mixed drink and I do mean sip, Mom or Dad held the glass. Later, well, I can consume legendary amounts of ethanol, think Marvel superhero levels, something weird in my physiology and exceptionally high liver enzyme performance. I also don't go howling at the winds and moon, for garnering attention gets entirely undesirable attention, so I limit consumption and intoxication by a lot. I can also walk through a raging fire - I've done that as well, doesn't mean that's my first or even second desired course of travel. I can drink that 1.75 liters of vodka and be fine the next morning, I hydrate, so I don't get hangovers, again, not my first or second desired course of travel. And let's face it, nobody likes someone getting drunk and acting like a smacked ass. All because I was taught balance and moderation, not total and unrealistic abstinence. You know, education. In matters of sex, my parents gave the basics in appropriate educational detail, the schools actually gave quality instruction back in the late 70's and early 80's, until the amoral majority hijacked things and turned the classes into their political pawns and teen pregnancies and STD's skyrocketed - then they fell from grace, courtesy of all of their own sexual scandals.
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  1844. Save for the slurring, which increases as time went on during the event. That isn't sundowning, it's CNS depressant related, possibly ethanol, which there is a family history of the abuse of ethanol. So, either that or potentially coming off of a stimulant, from which he also has a known habituation. The Robert E. Lee bit, not in favor anymore. Yeah, one could say that, having Congress issue a writ of attainder for his plantation and seizing it, not paying for it until after his death, per the Constitution, yeah, kinda out of favor. You'd know his plantation, it's now Arlington National Cemetery. Who would ever expect him to suddenly fall out favor over a minor infraction like treason and three quarters of a million soldiers dead? That's definitely not all cylinders firing at top dead center, to put things mildly. The rapid progression, obesity and odd skin colorant usage suggests paler, delicate skin and possible poorly controlled diabetes, rapid progression suggesting vascular dementia, which unlike Alzheimer's, has a stair step progression. So, could flip either way with that or coming down from a stimulant dose. Given the incessant lost thought trains and word salad servings, I'm leaning toward dementia, possibly vascular. Cared for my father through that mess, wasn't pleasant for anyone. Of course, this remains in part the same Trump that wanted terrorists that were captured summarily executed, along with their families and children. Give him time, I'm sure he'll suggest special "work camps" with big ovens, as his impulse control flags further. Upside, even if he somehow won the election, our nukes are safe from his hands, as he'd never successfully authenticate, let alone be capable of selecting target packages from the SIOP menu book.
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  1858. I always loved the "The Military-Industrial Complex" and the knee jerk, "There's no such thing". No, there is. They're called defense contractors, they specialize in contracting for the DoD. They don't specialize in fast food, they don't specialize in making luxury cars, they don't specialize in a field of medicine, they specialize in areas specific to the DoD. They're also not some evil villain living under an erupting volcanic lair. Their business specializes in DoD, just as a plumber specializes in plumbing and not hair dressing. As for MICE vs RICE, I prefer RICE. Reward isn't always money, it can be possessions, favors, power, hundreds of things that are no or minimal financial cost, but not available to the prospect. Snowden was ego, I base that upon actually meeting him during a DoD wide response to a compromise throughout the SWA AOR. Wouldn't have remembered him, save for the ego, while possessing only mediocre talent, but was excessively proud of his degree. Stuck in my mind and when his face flashed on the news, yeah, came right back to me. Agree though, his FSB handler should've been given a medal and promotion. For the "guests" that appear, well, they gain stature in their niche and hence, Reward rather than money. Many conflate money with power and influence and they're different things. One can influence with a few casual words. Money can buy some power, but remember the lesson of OJ. OJ went on trial for his life, expending tons of money and ending up the poorer for it in the end. Oliver North lied before Congress, got caught perjuring himself, got his own shows for his trouble. North didn't have much money, but he had power in knowing people and events. He never needed a trial.
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  1934.  @Chuck59ish  Boston and Halifax, tied and true forever. Boston sent help to Halifax after the port explosion in WWI pretty much leveled their waterfront and have exchanged gifts fairly often since. Frequently, it's where Boston's official Christmas Tree comes from. I served US Army from 1982 - 2019 (end of year). Dealt with a few red book incidents, not a lot of fun, but came with the job. Trained with one East German officer on an exchange program that slipped through the cracks, as he was former Spetsnaz. Recognized by both insignia worn and well, the last time I saw him, he was aiming a Makarov at me. We were patrolling a rifle range firing line, saw each other at 25 meters and mutually froze. I reached for my old low rider holster, he reached for his, neither of us wearing one of those models at the time, due to our mutual duties and uniforms. I said, "Look, we were both doing our duties, it's over now". He responded, "Da". Do my immediate left was one firer, who literally dropped his rifle, rolled over from his prone position and looked at me questioningly. He was our Slavic language interpreter. "Sorry, but you don't have a need to know". He shrugged, returned back to his firing position. Out of all enlisted, he went out with my group for drinks. True story. Shit gets weird at times, but we're all doing our jobs and if improbably recalled to duty after retirement, I'd still kill him if I had to. And no, people. It's still classified. I'll probably get shit saying this much. But now, I'm old and ill, so life in prison doesn't have that much of a threat to me any longer. But, experiencing and getting to survive to talk and write about history, as it is written, well, it... sucks.
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  1939. I occasionally have fun with the chemtrail crowd. I'll start off and agree that there were chemtrails, then move forward to qualify that with U-2 additives to stabilize the literal charcoal lighter fluid fuel to keep it from boiling at altitude and move into the more serious additive in the SR-71 fuel, other than a similar additive for the same reason as the U-2's fuel, in a fuel you could put a road flare out in, it also had a cesium additive - to obscure the exhaust plume of a fairly stealthy aircraft, rather than having a gigantic proctologist's finger from hell pointing up the aircraft's ass end. All quite true. It also royally pisses them off, as it's true, no nefarious nonsense is involved and I provide citations. The climate denier crowd, I have fun with. After all, greenhouse gases are natural, CO2 is part of a plant's daytime respiration and well, CO2 made Venus the paradise it is today, assuming that molten lead temperatures is your idea of paradise. Loads of electricity and magnetism in the sun, well, its upper layers and corona, anyway. Deeper in, way too hot for such silly things to work, too busy fusing or convecting. Neutron stars, especially young ones are magnetic madhouses, accretion discs a magnetic madhouse of their own, fortunately for the neighbors, the inverse square law rides in to save their day and night and especially weekends. But, those strong, but range limited magnetic fields are handy for detection, they polarize electromagnetic energy going past them, providing a measurement tool for their strength. For the magnetic gravity crowd, I offer a quality insulated sole set of boots and invite them to step off of a tall building and demonstrate flotation. No takers yet. The most entertaining was an antivaxer who doxed me, then threatened graphically to invade my home, rape and kill my wife, then kill everyone else in the home, saving my death for last. When I was done laughing, I patiently explained that invading my home was both foolhardy and suicidal, as it'd be unlikely that I'd be very conciliatory as to end matters swiftly with a firearm against an armed intruder, he'd instead learn precisely what I did in the Army, what vivisection was, after being immobilized by bludgeon, his demise would likely take 16 hours and before we began, would he kindly advise me as to how he wished his sparse remains disposed of, or should I simply dump them into a pig feeding trough? Radio silence was observed ever since from that enterprising individual. I guess it was mission accomplished and I was utterly cowed or something. Or saw the error of his ways. Don't know, don't care, but he at least did save me the trouble of having to resharpen my fighting knife. Well, at least until the next time I was out gardening and it needed resharpening again. Unused tools are clutter, used tools require and deserve maintenance.
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  2107. Trump basically had offered his defense, the defense of Charles I, "the King can do no wrong". Charles I was convicted of treason against the UK and beheaded. It was not good to be the king that day, but it effectively did end the English Civil War. The Founders of this nation remembered those events, as a result the chief executive had defined powers and limitations, checks and balances on each of the three branches of government imposed, a bill of rights that included the right to confront witnesses against oneself and at the time, a precisely and narrowly defined definition within the Constitution, of the only crime listed within the Constitution, of what treason was and how it my be prosecuted. In many ways, Trump seeks to upend both the results of the English Civil War and our own Constitution entirely. But, as worrisome is how many people wish to upend our own Constitution in their zeal to prosecute Trump at all costs, even at the cost of our own Constitution by redefining treason to mere sedition. Treason being defined in the US as the levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to an enemy. We have no enemies, as Congress has not declared war since WWII and nobody has yet organized and made war against their own nation in the US, with only individuals joining a foreign enemy against us during the GWOT, when we remained without an enemy due to a lack of a declaration of war. Such people forgetting the first rule of parenting, one does not discard the baby with the bathwater.
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  2113. I've got something that just outright kills people. It's called space and I don't even need to make it, it already is and isn't there. ;) Second place in killing astronauts goes to their own space suits. One astronaut nearly drowned, courtesy of his own space suit during an EVA. The source of the leak never identified and likely, given the stony silence on the matter, likely operator error. Once, I donned an M17 series protective mask for a military training exercise. Operator PM for that, upon receipt and regularly after being a series of checks, such as running a finger along the outlet valve and inlet valves. I skipped the outlet valve, due to intracranial flatulence. That valve got stuck closed. So, in the dark middle of the night during a training exercise, I get called for an emergency. I came running, fogged over lenses obscuring vision (a big hint of air flow obstruction) and I started to gray out, tunnel vision began and I realized I was being asphyxiated. Just shy of blackout, I realized in a flash what was going on and literally tore that buytl rubber mask in half - literally. The NBC NCO never saw one torn in half before, adrenaline is a strange thing. He kept apologizing for not checking the mask first, I wave him off, as it's an operator duty that I missed. I paid closer attention to operator checks after that debacle, as I damned near killed my dumb ass. Likely, a mis-seated connector caused the same for that astronaut. And he didn't have an option to tear off that helmet that was drowning him. Remove the helmet, get about 10 seconds of useful consciousness and a total of about 90 seconds before fatal v-fib that can't be resuscitated from. No experimental animal survived beyond 90 seconds of hard vacuum exposure. The few decompression events experienced by humans revealed only 10 seconds of consciousness. And in one case, cost a pressure chamber its window, as the supervisor broke out the window to rescue a technician whose faceplate failed under hard vacuum.
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  2145. Or worse, execute one's desired goals non-interactively, not forming the outbound connection at all until one's goal, say data exfiltration, is achieved. Now, one's only potential warning is the outbound - oh crap, data's already gone. Often enough, many are caught and halted by catching the bidirectional connection, regardless of which end initiated said connection. I've actually done it, captured the entire session in full packet captures, including the malicious software of the week, which was immediately submitted for inclusion in the IPS and antivirus and novel aspects of the attack fully documented and submitted to FBI intelligence, as it was a foreign nation-state actor and known APT. One such attack involved lateral spread that I'd gotten a sniff of, began packet capturing and captured an RDP session in progress, attacker opened notepad, did a buffer dump of binary data into notepad, saved it and used it to assemble their tools on the target system. Got not only their binary tool signature, but the latest PXE padding for their known tool. Outlined the remainder of their attack, then their session experienced a mysterious termination before the data that remained safe on the victim system could be exfiltrated... The system was then immediately isolated pending full file pulls and forensics. Two more attacks and we found their point of entry into the corporate, global network. One forgotten test server on one DMZ, prompting a full review on every DMZ in the corporate network. Yeah, as well received as the plague, but necessary after two golden ticket attacks, one of which was successful and boy, you don't want that kind of aggravation!
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  2163. Alex Friday , well, it's true. Amazingly, I've been married for 33+ years. Amazing, as the marriage has outlasted a 27 year, 8 month military career. In that career, well, my knees hurt when moving, my back hurts to the point where I only write to it to communicate with it and it's taken to letting my right leg collapse without warning. My ribs on my right side hurt, about a hand width below the nipple, then take half of that down, due to an RPG sending something into my side ESAPI plate and it twisted. That's a good thing, I ended up with a few broken ribs, but not a flail chest, which does really bad things to you, had the ESAPI plate not twisted. Things like sliced up lung, dead, trying to breathe through a lung full of blood that is now filling the operational lung thing, well, it gets unpleasant. Hurting can be fixed when injured, dead, not so much. Arthritis in the left shoulder as well, courtesy of a bad landing. It's been 20 years since I could take a blood pressure, while holding the stethoscope with my fingers, without hearing "Earthquake in Sensoround", so I've had to palm it. That is the short list. Here's the funny part. My wife doesn't have a problem with my purchasing a firearm to compete with or a couple for general recreational shooting. She's never objected to my phenomenal number of field knives, combat knives, etc I've acquired over the decades. Let's suffice it to say, many peers who served under SOCOM rather liked my collection, some surprised over choices of edged weapons until I demonstrated them. So, yeah. She'd leave me if I brought one of those home. But then, I'd leave me too, leaving that big, heavy rifle lonely. So, might as well leave it lonely at the gun shop and pick up something I might want to use. Currently, that is an M1911, GI specification. Mine is actually worn down on the frame. Time for a new one to dress up slightly.
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  2197. Came onto the property, destroyed private property without a warrant apparently, then told him "We're not here for you". "OK, then get the fuck off of my property, as I now consider you armed men unlawfully trespassing upon my property." Conversation over, I reenter my domicile. Unlawful entry will then be greeted with double tap zero reflex shots and my training exceeds SWAT training, courtesy of the US taxpayer. "Oh, so you're here with a warrant for someone else?" No warrant, again, "Well, I don't give a flying fuck if you're here for Jesus, no warrant, no service, but you sure accumulated a bill for destroyed private property and be advised, we're a castle doctrine state". You can and you can't, because god-cops. "Officer, what is the effective range of your MP5?" "200 meters. Know the maximum effective range of an excuse is? The same as for bullshit, zero meters". I'd not let them inside of my home. Currently, it's heating greater Erie at his expense, while his camera is happily living in the snow, as apparently, wall mounted devices are illegal under decree of god-cops, who legislate by MP5 fiat. I'd also not be conversing with local yokels or state police, but with the US Marshal. At least with them in charge, things should go by the numbers. Obey the law and Constitution, we'll have a fine time discussing technical points of breach to entry, cordon and search, ballistics and an invitation to the range the next time I'm going. Only one cop ever outshot me and he was my unit's sniper. Guy always took me by one point, which is fine. He loved my competition pistol and rifle. One point that our host got wrong. The curtilage isn't protected, per the SCOTUS, save if a secure fence is around the entire property line, preventing access to the curtilage. UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. Ronald Dale DUNN. It literally temps me to get a Silent Warrior sensor system.
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  2320. I'm reminded of a US Army reactor with a similar positive void coefficient design error, the SL-1. One could walk on top of that a well, didn't end out well for the operator who manually lifted the primary control rod a couple of feet too far, leaving him pinned to the containment ceiling by a control rod plug. Then, there was Windscale, where ill understood Wigner energy release during annealing the moderator and insufficient instrumentation lead to an initially unrecognized fire and a veritable comedy of errors in putting the fire out. Oh well, no sense in crying over spilled into the North Sea milk... (Ungh that was bad) One acquires a certain type of humor, when one began one's military career in nuclear intermediate range ballistic missiles and currently lives in an area I used to orient myself by viewing TMI's remaining unit's coolant tower plume (shuttered in 2019 and I was in high school for the TMI meltdown around 90 minutes of driving away). Oh, the footage shown from the helicopter was an initial airborne survey of the accident. The fire was long out when drops into the reactor building began. Nobody worries about further collapse of the sarcophagus, as it's contained by the New Safe Confinement structure. I imagine that'll eventually get a newer, safer confinement structure... The "elephant's foot" corium is now decayed down enough that one could safely, if briefly, sit on it. I'd not recommend it, as decontamination would be a true Russian bear. Small trivia, got a full body count a few times over the decades, both due to an incident and later, for medical purposes for my background rate for imaging. I'm a touch more "hot" than your students, but I was born a week after Tsar Bomba was detonated and things were decidedly warm (some silly little fallout thingie) globally due to stupidity.
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  2348. Well, the viewed video starts off with anti-immigrant tropes that were dispelled nonsense nearly a decade ago, we know which political groups are pushing it. Especially when the second and third claims are also uber-right tropes that were similarly proved bullshit claims. the "unauthorized use of another person's body " being a very distinctive fingerprint, attacking "PC" and youtube policies "abrogating free speech" (meaning they really want to push the triggers, but aren't allowed to). I'm going to bet that somewhere gunz will come in, since they already blew the rape dogwhistle and refugee dogwhistle (evil dark hordes nonsense). "You can't track people down", wow, just wow, that's anti-German and anti-American and basically Russian in origin, where you need to track the movement of every member of the population, needing essentially passports to move within your own frigging country! Maybe we'll get luck and Roma will also get mentioned... Another tell is, combine a valid number with one that has been rectally procured and claim it to be a fact. I'm sure tell a lie, make it big and repeat it often enough will come into play, given how on a wrong roll he is. Graffiti, the scourge of the Soviet empire! Obviously, slave labor should be employed to clean it up! Next come gulags... A hint for the wise, no major addressing of a claimed problem means there isn't a problem and the rare events being never shown examples of are, you guessed it, rare. Expression must be strictly regulated in far right views, just ask Joe Stalin! And again, communal punishment, the hallmark of commies and fascists, since rule and justice by law is bad for them. Oh, the evil of pay toilets! I remember having those in the 1970's, oddly that was never given to avoid the US! Oh, Russia, the lost opportunity... Water Closet, a term formerly used in the US, from back when indoor plumbing was a novel thing. Unknown in Russia for the most part, due to Soviet era prefab projects, erm, I mean homes that came with that new fangled indoor plumbing. Retrofitting plumbing into old homes is a bit of a bitch... A gripe about compound words in German, one of the root languages of English. Everything I've written, literally in every sentence are compound words when you look up the history of those words. So, complex languages that adapt by compounding words to form the concept are bad, simple languages that do without describing something are good, that's why Neanderthals are still running about at the top of society, right? No, the speaker is simply admitting to being an idiot. OK, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, English medical word for silicosis. The idiot had to use an acronym as a word, because we in the US have a word for ACLU, NAACP, FBI, ASPCA, etc. Totally words to idiots. Parents, don't let people poke baby in the fontanelle (yeah, that big word will defeat the far right flung idiot), it can lead to idiocy from the brain damage. Seriously FUBAR (oh! another acronym and not a frigging word)! Taxes, another far right trope, they hate "entitlements". Want to know what American entitlements actually are? Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Literally and legally. But, far right hates any laws that aren't exclusively used to oppress, rather than support. I was raised Roman Catholic, my wife was raised Protestant. The Roman Catholic church required her to convert to a faith I don't follow if we were to get married in their church. We went to a justice of the peace instead, lasted 40+ years until she died at the end of this past March. Church taxes, yeah, a real thing dating back to mandatory tithing that even was practiced in the US for well unto our Constitutional era. Side note, when deployed to Germany in the US Army, if all of one's required documentation of a NATO deployment wasn't completed, one would end up paying US and German taxes. That'd eventually get sorted, but getting the paperwork taken care of up front was far easier, given unfucking something involving two central governments is always going to be a royal PIA. Interestingly, in the US, the farther right leaning a state is, the more it suckles from the taxpayer's teat, while bitching about paying taxes to support their demanded programs. Cultural difference in paying for daily things, EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See? I can do a far right abuse of punctuation. I also love to mangle my own language for entertainment purposes... ;) German weather, bitching about weather in a place never warmed by the Gulf Stream, uh huh. Given the Russian tilt in the diatribe video, that's rather fascinating! I mean really, snow = Russia in the winter, fall and spring, which converts instantly to mud once the nearly summer thaw hits. Sailors love their rum? Most sailors I've ever known in a near half-century of DoD work loved their beer more. Maybe the griper was really yearning for his wodka, da? Springfield, Delaware County, PA has a golden mile of businesses, most were closed until the last decade on Sunday by law. Obviously, evil religious whatever, whatever, blather... Oh, be loud when I'm trying to sleep, ever watch a Marvel Comics movie? Big green guy wanting peace and quiet? He's gentle. Given my looks, obviously I need my beauty sleep! Quoting Nazi era books, link it to a 30 year old living at home without a job to suddenly have support removed from, yeah, classic far right blaming others for their own failures. Here's a secret that the far right hate and actually do try to suppress in the land of free speech, the Republican party actively tried to import fascism into the US to "unify us", that failed when we entered into a World War against fascist nations, but they bring back tons of shit from the '40's, including anti-desegregation arguments being dusted off and used against women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, BLM, name it and they trot out the same shit with the thinnest retread job ever witnessed. It's almost as if it is originating from MINITRU, which was literally a warning against Soviet communism written by more devout communist George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. A book that was required reading back during the Ice Age, when I was in school. Now, it's being used by far right as an instruction manual on governance. Violent right wing extremists are a problem in Germany, but them attacking the US capitol is OK, gotya, Tovarich! I do miss when Nazi anything was purely illegal in Germany, but the nation chose to not oppress their own people, while keeping hate speech unlawful. Oddly, hate speech was verboten in the US, but the far right keeps trying to promote, see MINITRU again? Oh, circling back to the unaddressed Oktoberfest, come for the bier, realize to your horror, the harvest festival food filled you up too much to enjoy excess of the brew. Especially in Bavaria, where a lot of farmer's foods remains a big thing, dumplings, beets and spuds, baby! Germany retains something we're quickly losing, the local butcher. We went with McMeat, cheap high production chop cuts of meat, requiring little skill to remove from a carcass, Germans love their local, trusted butcher. Idiots will then point at German raw meat sausages, I point to Italian raw meat cured sausages and to the inadvisability of insulting Italians so near Little Italy... ;) Note my family name, 100% Sicilian-American, so I can get away with mafia jokes. ;) Well, off to figure out breakfast. Might go with ham and pickled beets, since I have an excess of both, might just go with ham and some chicken broth boiled barley... Dinner's still in a pre-preplanning stage, either way a center being spinach sauteed with garlic, onion and chili pepper in olive oil, the main being mac&cheese with the aforementioned ham or linguini and olive oil based clam sauce. Yeah, I cook in multiple languages, including bastard American near-cuisine. :P
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  2364. If you're close enough to feel it, you're safe. Otherwise, you'd not even realize that you've got a problem. Before the signal from your eyes can hit the brain, the blast wave would've obliterated your organs. You'd have to be nearly inside of the fireball for a 9 kiloton nuclear blast, thermonuclear blast, you'd have to be inside of the fireball for the radiation to impact you and well, inside of the fireball, suffocation isn't your problem. Being hotter than the surface of the sun might be a bit more concerning. This is just another OpEd that was funded by Russia to encourage our surrender and allow their conquest of whoever they want to invade. The laugh, I live a couple of miles from Three Mile Island, which is also ringed with DoD depots, so I'm literally living on ground zero. And I used to work on nuclear weapons in the military at the beginning of my military career. Retired from the war zone, managing to duck at the right times often enough. Nobody's going to use these phenomenally expensive to maintain and deploy money wasters, they'll just keep maintaining them, not aiming them at anyone because it looks good and well, aiming them takes a minute or so at most. Takes about 15 - 20 minutes to launch them, half hour to fly to target as the other side's party favors pass in return and just enough to basically level each other's society and government fatally, while leaving the population to scrape things together to get back to third world living standards. So yeah, nobody's about to essentially do that to themselves. But, it sure is a sign that Russia is losing badly. Otherwise, they'd not be nuclear saber rattling and going to the trouble of such massive PR propaganda campaigns, which are also expensive and they're already insanely beyond over budget in their war efforts. The term for any Russian victory now is Pyrrhic victory, one more like it would destroy them. Pyrrhus won the battle, but lost his army in doing so, ending the war. Pyrrhus was later wounded in battle, then struck in the head by a tile thrown by an angry woman, which killed him at the age of 46. Life expectancy for his cohort typically being around 30 years beyond...
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  2370. Don't forget, HAARP belongs to the University of Alaska, so they're also saying that the state of Alaska is allegedly controlling tropical weather systems using their Harry Potter magical marital aid stick... Well, maybe that's true and Alaska really is the master of the world, after all, they've got enough volcanoes that they could have a lair inside of one. And putting a lair inside of something that has more explosive power than all of the 2000+ nukes ever detonated is always both rewarded with survival and a smart idea, as proved by Saturday morning cartoons from the '70's. Lead, of course, by Professor Bumbler, obeying the Heisenberg Inanity Principle, being simultaneously incompetent and supremely omnipotent. And all while remaining souper seekrit, with tens of thousands of workers, all sworn to seekricy and magic-magic screw stick enforced by Harry Potter's wooden dildo. And further guided with radar from sites so well documented as to render the notion of being a secret beyond absurd. Pick a lane, I'd be happy if these dweebs could pick a frigging highway! And ever so much, lead by information supposedly from some kiddie porn purveyor out of the Philippines, who somehow still holds a Q clearance, meaning he'd have knowledge of parts of how to build parts of a nuclear weapon, which gives all knowledge of all special operations operations worldwide, because the two are so intricately linked as to both be in continuous simultaneous usage. Yet oddly, nothing manages to glow in the dark. There is no power like the power of Sven. At least, not according to the mighty Arctic penguins. With secure communications provided by the mercurochrome metronome, gently stirred using Harry Potter's magical fuck stick. Sigh, I really don't drink enough, but alas, the local galactic group can't make enough ethanol to supply enough to drink... Obviously also a part of the Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens. But, here's another souper seekrit, the seerit air shield code is 1-2-3-4-5. Now, excuse me while I change the code on my luggage.
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  2375. One critical advance in first aid being the reintroduction of the tourniquet. Initially, service members were trained that the use of a tourniquet doomed the limb it was utilized on, thus its use should be avoided in favor of pressure dressings. One new lieutenant, a physician just out of residency, mentioned how orthopedic surgeons use tourniquets for the better part of a day during surgeries and obviously don't lose the limb, so WTH were we training people in? Needless to say, that swiftly changed policies and procedures. Then, we moved into the 20th century and put coolers with blood on the MEDEVAC flights. Another odd hint needed to be made, blood replaces blood better than salt water replaces blood, what with all of that necessary red stuff inside of the blood, clotting factors, proteins, etc. Next thing you knew, we got nearly into the 21st century! For a chuckle, for some specific injuries, we still use leeches for the only effective treatment and maggot debridement of really stubborn wounds has been reintroduced. Sometimes, old is the new new. And sometimes, new treatments are ignored, like when we flew a specialist team from Germany to train treatment staff in treating injuries from RPG's striking the FM-200 fire extinguishing system on the mine resistant vehicles, causing hydrogen fluoride inhalation injuries and death. The treatment was highly successful, with a powdered inhalation agent administered on scene before evacuation to limit injury. Said entire protocol was rejected by the medical command in Afghanistan. With predictable results in deceased service members. I'm sure that Colonel got promoted...
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  2390. I've been watching ever since he descended that gold plated escalator in NYC. With growing trepidation, watched him infest the office, converting it into an Offal Office. Then, out of touch at the time, as I was shopping and my wife was feeling under the weather, I got through the checkout line at the stupidmarket and finally looked at the headline news and was forced to sit down and choke back tears of both rage and angst on 1/6. Angst both over an attack upon our very government and over my thoughts of a response, full air burst shake and bake over the bastards. Yeah, US Army veteran too and all combat units after I got out of nukes. The only election I missed a vote on was between FOBs, when the mail had trouble keeping up with us during the GWOT. Once and felt guilty over that. On 4 Oct, my mail in ballot was dropped into the mailbox, as making it to the polling place is now problematic for me due to osteoarthritis and some other medical issues. 6 Oct, it was received by the county and accepted. It'll be counted on my birthday. Hoping the nation gives me a good birthday present, no more Trump, rather than its usual fuck you for your service behind my back, while thanking me to my face. Not much faith though, as I watched our VA budget get slashed each and every year of my service to the nation - including the first year of our GWOT, when good service members were being sent home missing pieces. Retired from that now, 28+ years, packed it in when it just started to hurt too much to put on all of that equipment that kept me and my teams alive. And don't miss lubing the Stryker. Even at my rank, I still maintained and operated my own vehicle, taking turns with driver as TC/driver. Didn't ask anyone to do anything I wasn't gonna do right alongside them. Including ducking, besides, I was the second best shot in the unit, best being our senior sniper.
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  2480. Honestly, it'd be a shorter list to count the BSL-2 labs not working with monkeypox. It's a slightly elevated concern virus that's an incessant annoyance. It spikes somewhat randomly, then falls to a low noise level, but thankfully, it's BSL-2 for a reason, it doesn't spread easily to humans and it's even worse at spreading between humans that aren't closely cohabitating. More exciting is the newer vaccines, which have lowered vaccine related illnesses from the 1% of vaccinia to something more along the lines of modern vaccines, which is so low as to have most physicians never see any significant events. Given that I suffered from a thankfully aborted progressive vaccinia as an infant, I take great relief in the new vaccines! One upside is, orthopox viruses tend to tightly conserve their genome, they are lousy at jumping species due to the nature of its tight conservation of its genome. That the lab doesn't have the virus available isn't surprising, as they may well not be a BSL-2 lab for that research and hence, the virus wouldn't be available to them any more than their remaining samples of variola would be available. Fragments that are assembled and installed into yeast, that's not anything that one needs be concerned with from a biosafety perspective. But, if they're configured at most for BSL-1 and monkeypox is BSL-2, yeah, not gonna happen. A fragment does not a virus make, reassortment or recombination be damned, given it's in yeast or are unpackaged DNA and hence, non-viable. But, if virologists working with viruses is bad, we should close all virology labs throughout the world, destroy their work and call it a good thing when the next pandemic kills in wholesale numbers. Of course, one can carry that illogic throughout technology until we're back in the stone age. BTW, what virology lab had the last outbreak of smallpox, after it was rendered extinct in the wild again? Janet Parker was the last fatality and because of that mess, proper oversight and planning for all BSL-4 facilities in the world followed. The University of Birmingham Medical School does win prizes for the rapid response, isolation and ascertaining root causes and leading the discussion on how to properly create such facilities!
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  2494. Dilaudid is legal in every state, as it's medically necessary for treatment of severe pain, such as post-operative pain. Narcotics are like guns, legal in every state and just as potentially dangerous and just as useful on occasion. The biggest difference being, a firearm can get me meat for dinner, a narcotic can't get me a damned thing to eat, but can keep me from having a stroke or heart attack from pain (or even limit damage from pain from a heart attack (yes, pain can actually kill you)). I don't know if it's fortunate or not, but I've a legendary tolerance for ethanol. Despite drinking enough to rival a Marvel comic book god, no liver dings or pancreatitis. No hangovers either. Fortunately for me, drinking so tends to bore me and I'll just toss the bottle into a closet to be forgotten for months on end. But, I do know quite a few substance abusers and can emphasize the pain. Best wishes on your recovery, which is its own agony, day by day. But, I did learn one thing in the military above all other things, pain is nature's way of telling you that you ain't dead yet, keep on living and thriving. Fight for life and if you feel the need too badly, contact me immediately. For the record, I love narcotics. Can't tolerate them, but love them for their utility medically. I tend to flood with histamine when dosed, so literally go into shock from vasodilation (blood vessels open up wide, due to histamine, dropping blood pressure into the basement). And I'm chronic GERD, so booze isn't quite so fun either. And blew a disc in my lumbar region, courtesy of not observing something I literally trained thousands against - never catch a patient, help lowering them to the floor and summon help. Wife collapsed hours post-op from gallbladder removal, I caught her and 440 went down both cheeks to the balls of my feet. Hence, my near-addiction for NSAIDs. ;) My thoughts when the disc failed? You. Dumb. Mother. Fucker. Couldn't even manage to express an exclamation point at the time. Too busy not dropping her, out of concern for mutual damage. Hilariously, she regained consciousness once I did get her to the floor, so she was able to help me to the bed in the next room. Lost her a year and a half ago, after 41 years. Excuse me while I crawl into my bowl of spinach. Really. Made a really nice batch last night, got some leftover and well, I do need to eat. Shit happens, you learn how to deal with it by remaining conscious. My trick, learning how to cook well, but then one other qualification I've got is, I'm a reformed chef. Reformed, as really, the pay vs labor ratio totally sucks. Now, excuse me, I really want to enjoy that spinach. Garlic, onion sauteed, a dab of chicken bouillon, dump in some spinach, cook and enjoy. Like many recipes, simplicity itself, my recipes even more so, as quantities of spices are entirely to taste - yours, not mine, dammit.
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  2498. My first question is, WTF are you doing patrolling in front of the police department? Waiting for shift change, rather than performing your duty? I think we'll approach dealing with this abuse of taxpayer dollars via the budgetary process... Especially, given forfeiture came into abuse. I quite like my local PD. Instead of escalating and "ensuring control" via any means, they resolve problems, at times with some significant effort on their part for all parties in non-violent events. Their response time, despite that, is phenomenally fast. When my wife of over 40 years died, after my first cycle of CPR, I called 911 and resumed CPR. I got to my fourth and had to stop to let the officer in, who checked and at a dead run, ran to his cruiser for an AED. EMS was a touch less responsive, since they're volunteer and have to come from home to collect equipment and respond, but she was down too long. I know AED's, I've received provider level ACLS training in the military, if an AED doesn't suggest a shock in a couple of cycles of CPR, it's very much not good. When the EMT-P finally arrived, around 20 minutes after the ambulance arrived, the scope told the story. I managed to not get sick until most had departed and only the officers remained. But, I've watched them help the homeless, even to the point of bringing food and water to them. And I'm damned sure they'd be calling parents, rather than confiscating cars for something like this. Which is tax money very well invested, rather than simply spent. The Chief is simply justifying his revenue generation. I'm known to rev my engine to warm the car up a touch faster, so I can melt ice coating my glass. Cite me, enjoy me turning the thing into a federal case level defense and litigation that'll tie up legal for decades, just on spite. I did do donuts on snow as a kid. I also did donuts on a street once, the damned accelerator dropped to the floor and stayed there, donuting the way and literally burning out the brakes, while shutting off the engine ended that mess. It was a company vehicle and the mechanic and I had quite an exchange that took the shop steward to break up before I bent a tire iron around his empty head... I went over the vehicle with a fine tooth comb every time that idiot touched the vehicle after that! @Steve, I defy you to make a Yugo tires smoke. :P:p:P:p:P:p Even at 18, if you want my tires to smoke, you'd have to set fire to them. Tires never have been cheap! Wanna interest me, show me power and acceleration. I'm more into power, tow the Grand Coulee Dam and I'll be impressed. ;)
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  2555. Our youngest, finally recovered from long COVID from his first turn at navigating aground, now has it again. But, it's now illegal, per god-king decree, to track or report on the virus spread and severity. But, he's happily promoting pogroms, golfing, cutting off food to the US, raising prices for everything insanely, but ammunition prices seem to remain stable. No, I just track prices normally, actually. The government does as well, don't know if they correlate ammunition to food prices though, I do know that they track firearms and ammunition sales figures though. Pre-Trump, the GOP would reel things back in when the ammo and firearms sales spiked. Now, they seem to lean in. Maybe scare the hell out of the Powers That Be, buy a gun (doesn't have to work), buy a shit ton of ammunition (if you're not big on target shooting, get whatever doesn't fit, but is cheap), see if they start to scramble throttling and distracting him. I'm trying to figure out what works for Elvis and the Beatles and Trump, given Elvis and most of the Beatles are really long dead and he's only long brain dead. Oh wait, Nvidia, great branding, good security, China blew their stock out of the water with their AI, but the US company Nvidia has their chips made in Taiwan, so he just fucked a major US company harder. Maybe he'll nuke our own cities next, to Make America Groan Again. And with the food tariffs, Make America Gaunt Again. Now, excuse me while I buy a gun - a mini-grease gun. Need to repack some bearings I'd just replace, but this jackass just fucked that market and supply up as well. And some grease, lithium is generally recommended, going with moly instead though, a little better longevity.
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  2671.  @MrJDFallon  there is no entire world. START treaties limited how many deployable nukes the US and Russia have. The current numbers could at maximum destroy a maximum of 1/3 US cities and towns, if they ignored our military and utility infrastructure, which isn't likely and not ignoring those lessens how many cities get struck, as it takes a minimum of six warheads to destroy a military base. Meanwhile, a full countervalue, same conditions, would utterly depopulate Russia of cities and towns, as well as degrade their military capabilities significantly. Nuclear winter was a myth dispelled in the 1990's by Gulf War I and subsequent improved modeling, with some mild summers causing some degradation of crop yields, but nothing extinction level at all. End of the day, Russia would become literally extinct, the US heavily degraded and the winner would basically be China - ish, our fleets would still be afloat, just short a lot of national infrastructure to support them, but plenty abroad to still do so, national leadership on aircraft or in bunkers for a couple of weeks necessary for what fallout there is to decay. I started my military career in nukes, I know the field and doctrines well, as well as the actual results of nuclear weapons. Putin's desperate, but he's not stupid, nor is he suicidal. Nor is the Russian military, political and economic leadership types. Were he to even come close to considering using nuclear weapons, he'd suddenly "retire for health reasons" to his dacha in the woods, not to be heard from again.
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  2781. Wow, you already screwed up in your opening statement! "Trump's going to screw up in 1000 ways", no, more like 100000 ways. ;) I am confused as to why you're covering last week's news though. I've been calling this either "Biden in the Basement" or "The Biden Under the Bed", as apparently, there's a Biden haunting the god-king's White House and sabotaging him at night and his almighty cannot locate him, despite his infinite impotence, I mean omniscience and omnipotence, no I was right the first time. Amazingly, you could see inflation coming, I could see inflation coming, Helen Keller could see inflation coming. And egg prices are predicted to continue to rise, likely by at least 20%, per the USDA, as bird flu continues to ravage "farms". Using quotes, as we're talking mega warehouses full of battery cages with around 6 million laying hens, one gets sick, they all get sick and bird flu is 90 - 100% fatal in them currently. Canada doesn't get these problems, as their "farms" only hold around 28k birds per farm and are more geographically scattered, so are a bit more infection impact resistant. Yeah, education is shocking, of all people to be shortsighted on the matter, educators. Pasteurized eggs are just rinsed with a high temperature water bath briefly, so that the egg doesn't cook. Downside is, the membrane that protects the egg is degraded, upside is less chance of salmonella that farmers reject vaccinating their hens against. Dunno, I get the cheapest store brand or whatever's on special eggs at the store and a dozen lasts me around a month or so unless I go on a baking binge. But, one thing I can't blame on Trump is both the egg laying factory "farms" or avian influenza. Not reporting on it now, not reporting on COVID spread, trying to hide a measles epidemic I can blame on him. Oh, bird flu was also detected in milk from cows in Nevada and Arizona. Less of an impact with them, it's not highly lethal in bovines yet and pasteurization destroys the virus and yeah, you can't give me raw milk unless the cow's right next to the glass and it just came from Betsy and good luck then - I don't tolerate anything above 2% and prefer 1% fat milk, higher gives me indigestion. And parasites and pathogens, I've enough fun with Crohn's, no need to try to make me shit myself more often, thank you. Matter of fact, get my final induction dose of biologic treatment for the Crohn's this week, unless I get DOGEfucked. I'm mystified as to why the State Department always rejects my job applications... ;) OK, total number of applications for State = 0. But, to be serious, Trump has, ahem, reliably informed us that the steel and aluminum tariffs will help farmers. The rationale behind that was apparently accordion hands. That man's a super gen- no, can't finish that one with a straight face. He's about as brilliant as a 10 foot tall stack of anvils.
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  2884. I'm wondering if his goal is to get multiple states to finally move to secession. Not a brilliant move, given a USMC logistics center and a US Navy submarine base being in Georgia. I'm sure that "nobody's ever seen anything like that" either. Cut steel, cut fiber, hell, I'll let them keep control of the highways. The first two already devolved operations to chaos. Worse, he's pissed off 16.2 million veterans, who know how things work and can seriously gum up the works. A little solvent here, concrete there, sand elsewhere, water in the wrong places, missing steel... There's a popular misconception about warfare. Warfare isn't about destroying property or killing people, it's about destroying the will to continue fighting by causing sufficient injury to the other side sufficient that continuing the fight will so degrade their society as to make any benefit of conflict nonexistent. In short, make it as expensive for the other side socioeconomically as humanly possible and any victories that they do manage to achieve will be by nature Pyrrhic. And the best battle one can have is the one one never has to fight. And if your phones and e-mail don't work, your supplies can't get through, you've already more than half lost. And military logistical centers are distributed, their distribution methods are quite channelized. The same is true with communications, if one knows where the nodes are and pretty much everyone in signal knows those. No need to attack anyone, when some solvent down a manhole would do. No need to damage a rail, when every signal can simply turn red. That, in the first hour or two. And oddly, he seems to be specifically pissing off states where those weak points are. I have some suspicions as to why.
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  2886. The shame of it is, had she worn an N95 filter mask, she'd have likely avoided infection. It's one of over a dozen hemorrhagic fevers that afflict humanity, with other forms of infection having a much lower morbidity and mortality rate than HPS. The thyroid medication, difficult to say if it contributed. I take methimazole for Graves disease, a form of hyperthyroidism that itself nearly killed me thrice. Soon, I'll be tapered off, as my immune system, being bored with just attacking receptors has decided to attack the entire gland and Hashimoto's eventually destroys the entire thyroid gland - so, I'll eventually be taking thyroid hormones instead. As much as I loathe taking pills, I more intensely waking up dead, it being ruinous to my weekend plans. Methimazole is beyond difficult to overdose on, similar with thyroid hormone tablets. So, self-harm isn't likely and I've spilled my pills a few times just this year. HPS patients are known to suffer sudden collapse, typically having the lungs infected and systemic hemorrhagic fever, literally damaging the epithelial cell lining of their blood vessels, causing them to leak. Headline capturing hemorrhagic fevers being Marburg or Ebola, with an actually similar fatality rate, they're far from as spectacular as Hollywood makes them out to be and far more common and endemic within the SE US being dengue fever. Marburg and Ebola being zoonotic, aka spread by animals like hantavirus, in their case, largely via infected bats, dengue being spread by mosquitos and four strains infect humans. With dengue, if one's infected by one strain, then infected after recovery by the other, the effects are dire, as immune response fails to be effective against the second strain. That said, such dire infections are a rarity, recovery is typically within days and fairly uneventful, well, save for its nickname requiring significant pain relief - break bone fever, because it feels like one's bones are being broken. So, masks and mosquito repellent, people! The biggest killer of man isn't man, it isn't rats or mice, it's the humble mosquito.
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  2961. Many years ago, I was working on the testing line for a broadcast quality reel to reel video tape recorder, with all manner of bells and whistles, including bleeding edge digital processing. I was assigned to test power supplies as they came off of the assembly line. Hipot testing, visual inspect, etc, then live and load testing on our custom jig made for that purpose. It was an early SMPS, no biggie. Everything checked, just like the drawing, plus out testing sailed through, connected, powered it up, BANG and a mushroom cloud erupted from the Teflon insulated wiring, breaker tripped for my section of the floor. Visual inspection revealed nothing different from the drawings. Set it aside, checked another, exact same problem, as did a third to be sure we had a production problem. Time to earn my money and justify the cost of electronics school! Ended up tracing the schematic, comparing it to the drawings, line by line, from AC input through... the output of the fullwave bridge rectifier, which the drawing had the positive and negative connected to the same filter capacitor terminal, creating a short circuit in a high current circuit. They followed the drawing, alas, the drawing was wrong. Over 100 power supplies ended up going back through the assembly line, once change manglement was done mangling the process sufficiently. And no, I actually like change management. Not having change management leads to pure frigging chaos. They ended up fixing a little over 200 power supplies, as power supply assembly wasn't halted, so by the time change management gave approval, yeah, the number of wrongly wired units had more than doubled.
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  2962. During the blizzard of 96, my wife, I and our daughters were stranded. A nice officer picked us up at the hospital ED and drove us to my parents home, well, a block short, as it was outside of his jurisdiction. Profusely thankful we were, a block wasn't a big deal considering the alternative. Same department a few years later, rookie fidgeting with his weapon... Even his backup and he was backup backed away from him, wanting nothing of what might come. Thankfully, nothing came of the non-event, just some dread memories, got my citation from the original officer, called it a day once I got the car out of impound. Lugged around a sidearm and primary arm for decades, never had some odd urge to wield the damned thing. Had to in extremis, but never wanted to haul the damned thing out and launch lead. That said, if we kissed bumpers, I'd be "what in the actual fuck, over?!". It'd get settled quickly at the roadside peacefully, whoopsie is good enough. We all have brain farts. Never pulled that one, but had enough others over 62 years to cover that ground. No need for the Keystone Cops. Most cops experiences have been positive, including when cops got called on me for assault - by someone that actually committed battery upon my person and well, rightfully so, given what I called her mother. Cops actually laughed at that, already viewed the Walmart video and were as unwilling as I was to prosecute. Got that home health aide fired instead, as I was accompanying someone to the store and haven't done so since. Laughable, she called the police on me after engaging in aggravated battery (aggravated due to local statute in exceeding charges), while all I did was literally raise my cane. And due to military training, I could've taken her head clean off, but was simply blocking further blows. Got two brain cells competing for third, don't need one killed.
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  3082. Unlimited, unrestricted, uncorrected free speech is the favorite tool of Joseph Goebbels. Unopposed, well, history speaks for itself and since we've not learned from WWII, we'll get to experience WWIII and even bigger and better camps. We'll all give a wonderful, glowing review of the results, a totally Cerenkov glow. Your choice, folks. I grew up hearing about that war and its destruction and costs from those directly involved in the fighting, although one uncle that liberated one of the camps never would speak about the experience. I heard about it from a few neighbors and later, other elders that had the camp tattoos. Suffice it to say, I'll fight fascists to the last drop of their blood, as I am also a wartime combat veteran. My earliest memory, other than being pricked with a diaper pin, was of JFK being assassinated and watched the civil rights movement gain traction and now, appearing to be reversing. My Twaddle account is long closed, my FB account is now disabled and if he wants to retain a fact free site, in June my charter membership will be deleted. I only kept my account to keep touch with my kids and later, grandkids while deployed. I've long ceased calling these sites social media, they're antisocial media and frankly, they need my eyes and input for the advertisers to spew advertisements at, I really don't need them. Always remember, old truckers never die, they just get a new Peterbilt. Hey, I was only 5 tons and below, as well as armored vehicles of a wee bit more tonnage than that, semis, those I never learned how to operate, although had the opportunity for training been offered, of course I'd have accepted it. I've never declined any form of training. I'll still not decline training, even in my 60's. I've done everything from shoveling, swinging a 10 pound sledgehammer, finishing concrete, electrical work, plumbing work, sawn more wood than I care to think about, refinished furniture, am a certified electronics technician to component level repair service, worked on nuclear weapons, was an SF medic, worked with explosive demolitions and later, evacuation and medical NCO, operations NCO and beyond, IT engineer and IT security. I've taught electronics theory and practical, complete with tutoring flagging students in algebra and trigonometry, land navigation, basic and advanced marksmanship, advanced medical and intravenous and drug therapies in a field environment, field sanitation and hygiene (with special attention to water purification and waste management) and even some nuclear weapons physics. Entertainingly, I was highly proficient in every one of those occupations and activities. My favorites, teaching and running clinics. Next place, cooking.
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  3085. First, stop politicizing a monitoring warning, lest we lose the entire warning chain. Trump's still got a hard-on for them over COVID making him look bad. The chance of infection magically appearing in milk cows that somehow incubate H5N1 into a human form is around the same as being hit by lightning while being hit by a meteorite. Literally. The probability of mutation is fairly remote to begin with within a year, which is millions of generations of virus. The probability of mutation to human form in a bovine, beyond remote, due to a difference in the proteins and the inability of the damned virus to infect a cow if it can infect a human (loads of technical there, but it's remote, a pig would be more probable). Their cause du jour is "Oh, the Amish that they're oppressing" over some Amish farmers in PA that were raided for unlawfully selling raw milk. Then, how they carried the state on the Amish vote, which is nonsense, due to their tiny population (which is a fairly high number compared to most states) and how few vote for religious reasons. The actual risk being raw milk being infected with Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, or Salmonella and unpaid hospital bills and unnecessary deaths in children and elders. The unpaid hospital bills passing on the expense to patients and/or being defrayed via medicaid funds to prevent the bankruptcy of the hospital. It'd be more fun and trivial for someone to maneuver RFK into championing the return and deregulation of Radithor - triple distilled water with radium added for health bonuses. That way, he's championing everyone being allowed to drink literal cancer water.
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  3180. Nerve disruption kills an electocution victim? Good thing, that means we can toss the defibrillators into the trashcan! Given that the heart's conduction system is not based at all on nerves. By the standards stated here, that 100KV shock you get in winter from walking across the carpet is 100% lethal, every time! And yes, it is the current that kills. The current overwhelms signalling in both muscles and myocytes in the heart, leaving both contracted for the duration of the current flow. Disrupt the cardiac conduction enough, fibrillation occurs and the person does that dead thing. I've gotten hit by 45 KV, still around, as the current was low, so it was only painful. A taser delivers 50 KV, only a couple of hundred deaths are accounted for by taser. An electric chair delivered 2KV - 2.5KV at 7 - 12 amperes of current, both cooking the prisoner and fibrillating the heart, resulting in death. A short duration jolt may or may not cause fibrillation, as then it becomes a matter of timing, with around a 50 ms window within the QRS complex to trigger ventricular fibrillation. I drew around 3 amperes, as verified by the circuit designer, when insulation failed and I drew a 1.5 KV AC arc that had 130 V DC riding under it, the 130 V being the high current carrier. Blew the regulator, I survived after an escape beat restored normal heartbeat. Couldn't use my hands for much for a day, was sore for a week, still here. A longer, worse timed jolt, we'd not be communicating without a seance and since I don't believe in those, I'd not bother showing up. Draw around a half ampere of current and your muscles contract strong enough that you cannot release any grasped conductor. But, what would this old Army medic and certified electronics technician know about electrocution? Shall we discuss sodium vs calcium channels? The sodium-potassium pump?
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  3220. Ah, but is that burger still in your mind? Poor soul, have some of my brunch, spinach, sauteed with garlic, a bit of chili pepper and chicken bullion. Leftovers from last night's junk food dinner of mac and cheese with some ham added, comfort food. Tonight will be clams and linguini in white sauce. Preparation time, maybe a half hour, consumption time, mere minutes. ;) Recipe is simple, olive oil, garlic to taste (there's no such thing as too much garlic for me), onion, a bit of basil, saute till onions and garlic are cooked, add clam juice and clams, cook the pasta, drain pasta (yeah, some need to be reminded), add sauce, enjoy. And there's also no such thing as too much onion. ;P Red sauce is similar, garlic, onion in copious quantities, want it sweeter, add more onion, tomatoes (canned crushed or feel free to blanch and peel fresh tomatoes, some whole tomatoes to preference, loads more basil (I tend to use fresh frozen, sectioned off in a quart container and wax paper separating leaf layers, but dried works too), chili pepper to taste, add meat with fat and hopefully bones to thicken and flavor, cook until the meat falls off of the bones and the oil and fat puddles, foam being now gone, sauce is done. I make the red sauce in two gallon batches for home, all stored in quart containers, frozen or canned in my pressure cooker. Preparation time, well, pretty much all day. The stove does most of the work, I just have to stir occasionally. ;) Most good recipes are fairly simple, preparation and cooking tend to be the greater pain in the ass. But, like any relationship, well worth the effort. Sponsors be doubly damned.
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  3235. Erm, first off, the Pentagon is the headquarters of the DoD, the NSA is part of the DoD. Second, all communications, digital, video or telephonic are subject to monitoring and all devices are placarded with that notice. https://www.dami.army.pentagon.mil/site/sso/docs/infosec/dd%20form%202056.pdf Finally, direct, rather than the usual automated monitoring can be ordered by the commander of the unit in question, be it an individual unit or the entire office complex communications of the Pentagon, that in military circles constitutes a warrant. Hell, when preparing an information security report and gathering numbers and reports to annotate information in my report, I blundered into a directory of text files, one of which contained an automated transcript of my morale call home to my wife. Reported the access allocation error on that directory and it was promptly rectified, as I shouldn't have had access to that directory and files - not part of my job and what I did have access to normally was. Here's a notice for an information system: https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/appj/dps/consent Now, the question is, did Hegseth forget when he got his drunk on that he signed the authorization or didn't he check into his predecessor's authorizations? Because, the Pentagon is DoD, not a civilian office and handles our most guarded of secrets, so we kind of like to know if those secrets are being spoken about on the wrong security domain communication channels, like oh, Signal. So, the only questionable thing is that the SecDef was unaware of what his assets were authorized to do. And NSA monitored all of our communications channels when I was working on various US and overseas bases, they also would schedule a red and blue team to evaluate our network's security, blue team to document our configurations and deficits, red team to breach in. Had fun with the red team, both sides learned new tricks. And DISA records all network traffic, that's how Manning got caught siphoning classified information off to removable media, the logs also stored. Although, with Manning, while Manning was rightfully imprisoned, that service member shouldn't have been alone, as the S1, S2, section officer all should've been as well for dereliction of duty. Once flagged for deleterious personnel action, access is to be immediately terminated. Had to do that once to a coworker I was friends with, all due to a suspended security clearance due to not paying overdue child support. So, I'm confused that someone who served in the USMC didn't notice all of those stickers. Too busy chewing crayons to notice? Not criticizing, my Army ass ate all the green ones out of the box before the Marines could get to them. :P
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  3241.  @JamieSommerfeldt  and can make for some interesting and dense conversations with other faiths, such as with a rabbi. Where some interpret that avatar for the evils of human nature, as Judaism doesn't do Original Sin and inherited guilt. That innovation was a European thing, which was practiced until quite recently by governments via corruption of blood and writ of attainder. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, learned all kinds of interesting things. Alas, one thing I never learned was how to properly knot challah. Maybe I should make friends at the synagogue nextdoor to my apartment building and see if anyone wants to teach this old guy how to make some, make regular bread all the time... Last week, there was some ceremony going on and I was shocked to see that they felt the need to have an armed guard on premises. No house of worship on this continent should ever have to feel that need! But, some zanies think only they deserve rights and will deny everyone else their rights, by main force if they're ineffective in any other way. History has proved that true, with actual artillery being used by Protestants against Roman Catholics in Philadelphia in the 1850's, took the militia to quell that, after losing some men, the militia brought their own artillery and surrounded the idiots with the port's stolen cannon and made them put it back and patrolled city streets with fixed bayonets. Which was about what it took to keep the same idiocy from happening in areas I was deployed to in the wars... No need for a devil, when people can be assholes all on their own. Then, one reminds them that the Almighty isn't on call that week, but you are and have plenty of white phosphorus.
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  3281. bringitonTV , is it not what the food tastes like that really matters? I've suffered through beautiful meals that were bland and tasted like pureed cardboard, but looked like a work of art. I've personally prepared "puke stew", designed to be revolting in appearance (hence, its name), but was an absolute delight to the palate. The presentation isn't nearly as important to a discerning consumer of the food as the taste, it's secondary. For, sushi that looked like it was rolled in dirty sock would be rejected, but the best presented and bland sushi would be rejected upon the first bite. The former may be forgiven if the presentation improved or the taste was beyond exceptional, the latter is an unforgivable offense and few would repeat that experience. Still, from this, I learned a couple of things. I'll still place the ginger on the sushi, but it's the last part in my mouth anyway. I rather enjoy it that way, rather than having a ginger chaser. But, I'll agree. Shaking it is for the bathroom, not for over one's table or sauce. Would that I could spend three months with the good chef to learn a few things and pass along some of my knowledge and experience. For, I'd learn a lot about Japanese culture, culinary matters and especially making sushi. He'd learn quite a bit of various dishes, from all over the world, personally acquired, as well as some personal recipes that are qualitative, rather than quantitative in nature (the recipe varies based upon the desired usage, such as more onion over garlic for a sweeter flavor with certain meats (such as crab) and more garlic over onion for various stronger flavored meats (such as goat or mutton). While he's likely intimately aware of that set of facts, the difference is one of regional cuisine and welcome to many people who enjoy food. He'd also love my lentil-lamb stew, I'm sure. And meet with a fine dish of his own.
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  3330. Harriscandoit , first, your linked article provided nothing more than the fact hat US arms controls works. All were ar DEA agent paused whitest passing. Now, I"ll provide one entry that has sensitive sources. A drug dealer that had DoD owned M2 .50 BMG machine gun aimed at the door. Each and every DEA agent paused, whilst passing the stolen military weapon. Frankly, as one who has handle and used this particular class of weapon, it's not happening. Foremost is, that of protected politicians, a range greater than a mile. The precise range isn't even available to me, but, it's in excess of two miles. Lacking is the experience in firing over long distances. The reality of it is, firing over such an insane amount of landscape to exterminate a political leader is absurd. I couldn't manage that, none of my team snipers could dot that. The target is, in the few scopes that work without being shaken apart leave that target a dot. Literally. But, remove every threat, the US would starve to death, for US humanity couldn't even be allowed to cut a slice of meat. For, humanity has turned everything into a weapon. So, the "proper" course would be to ban humanity. Or prohibit metallurgy and plastics. The "Founding fathers" had a notion that thew populace could remove a soffllaw government. Their intent was a populace equally armed to the scope of the3 military. That desire is satisfied via the militia act of 1903 and our draft system.. I could go on at great length and great volume; I'll; not, due to a dire NDA.
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  3335. *****, first of all, are we a people of law or are we a people of rule by force? When I deployed, we didn't have lawless enforcement officers kicking and choking minor children. Law enforcement officers were firm and calm. Force was based upon an escalation chain. Not choke, then kick a minor child. I've returned home to a land of summary execution, be it "justice" or life. Now, about me. I served for nearly 30 years in the US Army. The picture is one snuck by my wife, during a skype call to her when in theater. We also lived in SW Philadelphia, which is most certainly not the garden spot of the world, but Philadelphia has greater horrors as well. I spent time home, during the early and middle period being a one man townwatch. In a police disciplinary district. Other districts got real cops, we got F-Troop, the ones on the way out for misconduct. A man I personally knew, who suffered from dementia, was bounced on his head down cement steps, resulting in the loss of his life. Of course, the F-Troop officers ended up fired. Gotta protect against liability. The method I used to remove crime from my non-bulletproof house will not be discussed, which should give you a hint. I will admit to ambushing an ambush against my patrols of my neighborhood, via taking my Dutch shepherd for a walk. That dog, a rescue from drug dealers, hated the smell of smokeless powder. He was also fond of "eating" hands. I'll not go on further on that event that marked the retreat of the hardened drug dealers. Personal friends: Many law enforcement officers, one a turnkey in my district. Many, many service members. A significant number of civilians. Today, I've redeployed home in retirement from the Army and wondering whatinhell happened to this nation. It's very, very fascist in nature. That was absent when I departed to defend this nation. So, what in the hell did you people do to my country? If I knew it was going to go this far south, I'd have stayed home and let airplane after airplane or whatever the demented minds threw at office towers with personal friends and family in them!
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  3384.  @lloydmckay3241  that's blasphemy! One needs to have a priest read such holy documents to you and explain how white is black and down is really up! Or something. Then, we'll learn that the Declaration of Independence is part of the Constitution (it isn't) and well, anything else others decide is right, not what's truly written there. OK, seriously though, that's the very first thing that I advise. For crying out loud, it's in plain English for all to comprehend! It's not as if it's in Latin! It doesn't start with e plebnista, it starts with We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Not that we started with a perfect Union, but to establish and grow a more perfect Union, a process that should continue forever, for perfection can never be truly obtained, only approached more and more closely. The heart of the founders intent is right there in the preamble. Yet people incessantly get even the preamble wrong, then advance on to include all other documents that fits their distorted views into the Constitution, hammering away fruitlessly their square peg into a round hole. Nope, if we need to improve that Constitution, we don't redefine words or insert notions not present, we amend it and it is and should be an onerous process. And it's been good enough that since 1789, we only fouled up once, with prohibition. And promptly, when we realized that made things far less perfect, repealed it with a new amendment.
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  3401. The VA finally, after a literal decade and spare change of begging, finally got permission for experimental research in psychedelics in conjunction and alone in their patients, especially PTSD patients. Mild to moderate efficacy in psychedelics alone, highly effective but not a panacea when psychedelics and therapy were combined in a session, individual or group. Which makes sense, as one's basically discussing the triggers and guiding rebuilding the memory circuit in a less harmful configuration. Memory being a bit weird, it essentially gets erased during recall, then stored again, so altering the perspective alerts how that specific network configures itself, with proper guidance, less stressors reinforcing the trauma already recorded. Of course, the prohibitionists, who want to prohibit pretty much anything that ameliorates misery hate it and want it banned again. But, some of their more extreme end also want all anesthetics banned. Something I didn't believe until I heard some openly discussing just that, apparently agony builds character. Took all of my self control to not build their character into godhood of agony... They're also at the heart of the "veterans get too much" crowd, wanting to curtail pretty much all VA benefits, even for quadriplegics. But, they oddly demur from having their character improved via their own preaching for some odd reason. Just a bit of a sore subject and a bit fresher in memory, as I just got done with a meeting with my VA social worker. And reminded me of one of my men, who suffered from a mental breakdown, resulting in discharge and homelessness. Caught him sneaking into the unit to sleep, the leadership wanted law enforcement to remove him. I guided him out and took him to the VA hospital for treatment, with the stern NCO's admonition, "Don't release him until he's stabilized fully and functional or I'll be back to discuss the matter in detail", while in my duty uniform. Last I'd heard, he's been years without incident, holding down a decent enough job and has his own place to lay his head at night. That was before the GWOT, where the VA budget got slashed again, for the 30th time I counted, after the first year of the war and men were coming back missing pieces. Another fine reminder, "Veterans are #1", but when one looks, the third digit is usually the one raised. Circling back from the tangent, psychedelics alone are at best moderately useful alone, with therapy, are proven by multiple peer reviewed studies to be much more effective than other more conventional treatments - but, like anything that's actually effective, they take time to implement and become fully effective, there's no quick fix for anything. And the naysayers in the video, who questioned psychedelics usage, "Why would these be effective in so many...", Bupropion (aka Wellbutrin), an atypical antidepressant, obviously used to treat clinical depression, also used in smoking cessation. I can name a half dozen other drugs that similarly are used in similar multi-purpose roles, some entirely off label due to FDA resistance that's largely political. Altering signal processing in the brain causes alternative circuits and networks to form, which can be, if effectively guided, effect permanent beneficial effects. And I've got no dog in this fight, as I was not involved in any of the studies, nor have I required treatment. My only area of concern is of helping others, which is far more than some that proclaim to adhere to Christian values, but effectively ignore their own savior's messages about healing the sick, housing the homeless and helping the helpless. And two things I dearly loathe being, anything that messes with my perceptions of reality and hypocrites. So, for mushrooms, I'll personally stick with my portobello mushrooms, typically with some lentils in a few dishes that I've ginned up and quite enjoy. Still perfecting a lentil/portobello meatloaf substitute for when I want a change of pace from a meat dish. Working out some texture issues, taste is dialed in nicely.
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  3405. The plants are expensive, concrete is expensive for a reason. Look up what it takes to make concrete, tons of baking rock... Then, it takes around 60 days for concrete to cure. Concrete doesn't dry, it hydrates and forms carbonate rods to form its matrix, that takes time to do. And I actually do like nuclear power. A lot. But, construction takes a long time, due to complexity and well, curing of concrete. Although, I am a bigger fan of thorium power. Alas, the leader of the world, the US isn't leading, as usual, India is leading that push. We'll continue leading by defaulting, as usual, we trailed Europe in germ theory, physics and well, everything social. Now, we've eroded our industrial base, so we'll continue to lead in the only way we've ever done, leading in mediocrity. Off of the political front, it'll take around 5 years to build a nuclear power plant. With significant effort and minimal time to cure concrete and put the massive erector set from hell together. Think royal pain in the gonads to build properly, yeah, that's it. Doesn't make it worthless, just a pain in the gonads to build. Look at how long it takes to build a sizable dam, pretty much the same thing, with a bit less complexity. Oh, we've established gainful fusion at the National Ignition Facility. When I was done laughing and giving a mental pat on the back, yeah, not useful, just gainful. I live only a couple of miles from the now shuttered TMI power plant, of infamy claim for their massively non-destructive meltdown. Watched it live at 5 in high school, with some significant interest, as at the time, well, two hours drive time to TMI, yeah, kind of important to us. Everything worked as designed, save for a human factors engineering error, which made things get really, really, really expensive and well, zero casualties. Miss the cooling tower plume though, the plant was shuttered because burning natural gas makes the world more like Venus, erm, is cheaper. Some think we'll get sex goddesses from Venus, we'll just get a baked penis. But, it's cheaper to die and all. Here's a fossil fuel slogan that's a winner, "BAKED BABIES IS THE WAY TO GO!". And Two and a quarter mile island is still there. A pet joke from the region among engineers. Chernobyl's decontamination, Fukushima's as well, bioremediation and vitrification. Oh wait, plants are expensive, totally impossible to grow. For those with blown sarcasometers, I've got a pallet full of them. Oh, there is a leading injury common in nuclear power. The most significant number of injuries in nuclear power plant injuries, a paper cut. Go paperless! I'll just get my coat... Oh, Fukushima had two volunteers to open valves, who are casualties. Selection criteria was over 50. I'd have volunteered too, both on age, exposure and it was the right damned thing to do. Much the same happened at Chernobyl. Both plants built out of specification, Chernobyl, entirely with a flammable roof, Fukushima, updates not applied that'd have prevented the hydrogen explosion. And I'm worse on my own failures than the scathing review of others failures.
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  3409. Well, it wasn't that Bragg was a Civil War general, after all, were that only the case, renaming it Fort Grant should be acceptable. It was that Bragg was a Confederate general, who had betrayed his oath to the US Army to join the Confederate forces and made war against the United States and that is the only crime described in the US Constitution - treason. That's kind of considered a big deal. Might as well, along with Fort Lee and some others, had named them all Fort Treason. Indeed, why don't we have a Fort Benedict Arnold? Now, it's at least face saving renamed to someone that actually did serve with honor. Hegseth's take on the Russian fleet, well I still have trouble recognizing him without his usual lampshade on his head. He recently had conducted a European interview and was seen drinking from multiple tumblers of what certainly looked to be whiskey. Guess his word to Jesus before Congress had a short expiration date. Still, Russian equipment isn't fully depleted, I'm sure that they still have some lend-lease equipment knocking about, to keep their jackasses company on the ground. Oh wait, if their fleet had rusting problems after the Soviet collapse, their WWII vessels are probably just rust held together loosely by paint. Obviously, our guns and missiles are no match for rust! More interesting, the peace talks, the US, Russia and oh, Ukraine isn't invited to discuss divvying up the carcass of Ukraine. Trump wants those rare earths and even money, some farmland for corporate US farming firms. Russia wants the same for Russian usage, don't see those talks going far and I suspect Ukraine still has quite a bit to say.
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  3419. It's uglier than that. One state's forces invading another state is already unconstitutional, as a lawful government's state rights are being abrogated by imperial fiat by a lawless emperor, who was only elected to be president. It'd be a violation of the Posse Comitatus act for any troops to be used in any manner of law enforcement while the courts are still capable of holding session and actions by the executive branch to cause the courts to close would be utterly lawless and without lawful basis. Worse, the invaded state's governor would be within his rights to then deploy his own national and state guard forces against the invading national guard, perfecting a civil war initiated by an imperious leader, who is acting from far outside of the laws and Constitution. Meanwhile, the invading national guard would become criminals under our laws and Constitution for obeying a clearly unlawful series of orders and committing treason against the United States and the invaded state. And that's without civilians getting involved, it's a shaken bag of cats at that point and now adding civilians in, an even more immense shaken bag of angry cats. That all said, Trump's said a hell of a lot of shit, back when he was in office and now, before he's actually entered office again, rarely has he tried to do even 1/3 of the insane bullshit that he's said, as such actions were clearly unlawful and the impacted agencies, including the military flat out said that any such orders were unlawful and would be ignored. More interestingly, something few have considered. How would the nuclear armed nations react to a civil war within a nuclear armed nation, once the control of the nuclear weapons came under threat? I know, based upon over 28 years of military service what my decision would be, neutralize those weapons with our own and our allies arsenals, lest heaven know who get control of them and do heaven knows what with them. Which would trigger a retaliatory strike by what remains of our forces, a thermonuclear war amidst a civil war. I really need to take up drinking!
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  3445.  @EricSalazar-re9qt  yep, USAID was heavily into influence operations against apartheid and Elon's made enough comments that strongly suggest support of both apartheid returning and some Nazi sympathies. I'm sure that the end of apartheid impacted the emerald mine he inherited. Yeah, that's how he got started, earned his money the old fashioned way - he inherited it. You let him become a citizen while I was busily defending this failed nation, way to keep the homefront safe! Next time, learn how to pray five times a day. Assuming the god-king doesn't turn things into a death cult, where when he pops off, everyone gets executed. My opinion of Trump being so low due to the horrific experience of actually meeting him around 2000 at a tri-state Chamber of Commerce Do. He was the invited guest speaker of honor and it took the Chambers an entire year to overcome a 95% (literally, he was the boor of the party) attrition rate for the next year's event. They literally spent an entire year apologizing to the entire membership for that massive foul-up. Everything had to be about Him and his perfection, crowing at his massive previous successes in bankrupting his casinos six times and honestly, I'm astonished that the planet didn't tilt off of its axis from all of the eyerolls of major business owners. Other invited guests didn't even get to speak and refused to attend again. I will give Musk due credit though, while in business showmanship, he's gifted as Liberace was (medium to good pianist and I am a pianist as well, although only middling), he does excel in hiring exceptionally proficient business and project managers. That really isn't easy, one has to be capable of seeing through fluff and outright bullshit. Trust me, I've had that odious task myself, was reasonably OK at it, but I've had my moments... Then again, there are his exceptional micromanaged successes, like the Boring company, which accomplished a major goal of boring a railway tunnel under one Vegas parking lot and Neuralink, which has successfully achieved the technological mastery achieved in the 1970's. We'll not even go into Twaddle. SpaceX, well, I can land a booster as well, rocketry being one of my hobbies. How deep do you want it landed? On the ground or stand? Out of the question, I've only the ability to make my mark on the world - deeply. And even money, the project manager I'd choose would be the individual behind Deep Impact... :/ Worse, can't even hire Musk to hire my manager, he's too busy being the Doge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title) I'm certain that name was his brainchild, he is about as literate as I am and I'm infamous for my literacy and wide, eclectic range. And a rarely exercised collegiate vocabulary, to be better underestimated. "I'm smarter than the average bear! Hey, hey, hey, hey!" "Good, enjoy the claymore mine inside of my picnic basket."
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  3446.  @neuralmute  OK, we'll dig him up and charge him with suicide. Laws against suicide need to be properly targeted. Now, given what was presented here, beyond ethanol intoxication into duty hours, just which suicide attempt was one to curtail his access? I do have an answer - his first exposure. I also noted, he was a loner, which is a potential exposure to risk source. Nowhere a clincher, but one needing to be examined and alas, was ignored instead. That's a major oversight failure, the company wants to keep a worker on duty to make money, which is the company's purpose and its officers duty. Oversight ensures that insulation gets removed and action taken. Missed, after deleterious personnel actions began, access remained and worse, if access got denied, he'd be abandoned while in need. Some years ago, we were assigned a medic that had discharged after a tour in South Korea. SSDD, we were assigned a hell of a lot of reassuring numbers of personnel, diluting some deleterious personnel issues that plagued our organization since the inception of this nation. Long story abridged, the man exhibited outward charm, interacted well with the team. But, when alone, he would argue with someone not present and even strike his own face during a violent altercation. He also made gestures, during a motor movement that I replaced one of my privates in as driver (not suspicion at all, the private was ill and lacking other licensed drivers beyond one new driver, I've never asked that which I wouldn't do, so I drove. Passing a well placarded elementary school, he made gestures, after calling my attention to him, of shooting at the school. He passed one psych eval, he failed a second one after other, thankfully innocuous incidents. After he was discharged under compassionate grounds, he was found sleeping in our armory. The XO of the battalion wanted him arrested for trespass. I managed to divert that and personally drove him to a VA hospital and stayed there, he was refused treatment due to budget, now he's got God and an NCO behind him. NCO prevailed, News at Six or take care of someone we owe, decide now, well and properly. A few months later, I ran into him in town. Working, for a change, sane enough to survive in the presence of insanity of the populace, eating well. He did better than I've done after losing my wife of over 40 years. Took me a week just to be able to eat once a day. Nearly a month before I could tolerate two meals a day. I've only recently been tempted for three meals a day, the "requirement" also being nonsense. Last I heard before moving halfway across the country, he's finally fully functional. Given our knowledge and ability, that's the best outcome. Me vs the loss of my wife, the jury's still deliberating. :/ Add in BS wage lowering, not suicidal, I'd call it homicidal, save for the cidal bit, destroying a dishonorable business that bitches over turnover that's their fault, yeah. It'll even out, learned that from hard won experience.
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  3451. In the US, we're fortunate, as we fortify milk with vitamin A and D. I'd be quite guarded with megadosing vitamin D, fat soluble vitamins can get into all manner of trouble when one overdoses, compared to water soluble vitamins, which essentially get urinated out. I get that impression from doctor here as well. Blind dosing isn't a good idea, as doctor well knows. The US fortifies milk, most yogurts, breakfast candy, erm, cereals and margarine. Fairly commonly consumed, eggs (not a great source, but it adds up), various meats, Virtually extinct in the US diet, cod liver oil. Some orange juices are also fortified, but not all and orange juice is the number 1 consumed breakfast juice. Doctor, is there any definitive test(s) to diagnose a cytokine storm? Or is it a constellation of results that lead to the educated opinion that that is the only bloody thing going on? This was in my e-mail this evening from the county where I grew up and most of my family lives in. This week Delaware County reported a high number of positive COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths. On Monday, April 13- 117 new cases and 1 death was reported. On Tuesday, April 14- 101 new cases and 5 deaths were reported. On Wednesday, April 15- 84 new cases and 15 deaths were reported. On Thursday, April 16- 120 new cases and 11 deaths were reported. On Friday, April 17- 226 new cases and 3 deaths were reported. This brings the total number of cases in Delaware County to 2281 and the total number of deaths to 74. When I hear deniers, I get angry that their parents would've poked them so hard and so often in their fontanelle.
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  3456. Why? A misapprehension on when xenon would be detected in the core, then deflection of blame to the lowest guy on the totem pole, big plus if he's dead and unable to defend himself? Hell, the video itself contradicts the central assertion that xenon wasn't poisoning the core, as it's a primary fission product. It's a noble gas, so not exceptionally reactive and takes time to diffuse through the dense uranium fuel pellet, then diffuse out of the rod, into the water coolant and be detected. Obviously, one isn't cutting fuel pellets inside of an operating reactor to check xenon levels! Add in the graphite tips on the control does, which act as a moderator and were a bit part of some western prompt criticality accidents. Add in what's readily apparent to be misunderstanding of test conditions and reasons, such as one needs a certain excess of power to actually try to spin steam turbines enough to operate the circulation and cooling systems. And oddly unremarked upon, the rationale for removing control rods that are never removed - ever in the history of that reactor, plus withdrawing rods beyond their normal levels, allowing the xenon to burn off rapidly in the rapidly increasing neutron flux, depoisoning the core and allowing it to swiftly, beyond human ability to react, go prompt critical. Once the pile was at prompt critical, nothing could prevent the disaster, as control rods aren't bullets, they take time to insert and well, you're talking a millisecond or so of instantaneous hundreds of megawatts of anger. I've not reviewed his other videos, but conditionally agree and disagree on the "no hydrogen explosion" bit. There was a hydrogen explosion, an utterly unconfined one, as water hammer dismantled the reactor core and the overheating rods did allow disassociation of hydrogen from the water, which duly did explosively combust in the now open reactor building. As in, a bit less of an explosion than the resultant Hindenburg fire, after the dirigible initially exploded. A bit whoosh and it was over.
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  3461.  @brontewcat sold who the gun? The accusation was made that the federal firearms dealer sold a firearm, specifically a pistol, which is federally illegal, to a minor child. Which, per all facts revealed in the case is entirely false. The FFL holder lawfully sold the village idiot a firearm, who then violated the law and the common sense that the Almighty gave to a common house brick by letting her troubled teen son have free and easy access to it - again, in violation of federal law. That's as bad as wanting to sue a firearms manufacturer for the proper function of their firearm when it's unlawfully utilized. Yet, for some odd reason, we don't see Ford motor vehicle company getting sued when pedestrians are intentionally ran down by terroristic idiots. Especially, given that despite the hyperbole, I've yet to see a firearms advertisement bragging about how many people that firearm can kill and maim. Although, I do have some heartburn over the advertisements from a marksman perspective. Want to sell me that expensive chunk of steel, one would have much better luck discussing its much greater accuracy and environmental tolerance than the tacti-cool crap currently advertised. I'm far more inclined to consider a product that's, say an AR-15 with 1 minute of angle accuracy than one advertised with a search light, radar set, photon torpedo launcher and a Volkswagon attached to its stock. The same being true for handguns. And for the next gun nut that blathers about an AR-15 in 5.56x45mm being a great hunting rifle, that individual is at great risk of having a magazine shoved up their butt sideways and secured with a sand encrusted eggplant. It was a varmint round, it still is a varmint round and it'll always be a varmint round. Oh, just to be pedantic, swords are also lawfully considered arms. So are spears, archery weapons, well, weapons in general. More worriesome is, the school was well aware that the teen was troubled and was powerless to get the minor child help in the face of a criminally negligent parent. That's something easily addressed, as every other form of abuse currently can be legally addressed. But first, we have to get off of our fat, lazy collective asses and make mental health care of greater importance than dentistry, which itself is treated as inferior to cosmetic surgery! Seriously, it's easier to get a boob job than braces, which are both infinitely easier than to find covered mental health care. I've no need of a boob job, the state capital is rife with plenty of fresh boobs and right down the street from me. No need of braces at my age. I could use a mind, mine has been blown over the last two decades...
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  3463.  @brontewcat I actually own a pair of switchblades. Military related, now retired, but bought them, they're mine unless the government wants to name an acceptable price to acquire them and well, if I can locate the things. Useful tools, switchblades are banned by many for being dangerous, which they are - to the bearer. Today, I lug around a small pocket knife that has a spring assist, as frequently, I run flat out of hands to open a knife and otherwise, I'd be forced to lug around a fixed blade of greater length. See the balance there? Same balance when I mentioned a National Firearms Act item - a suppressor. In a number of European nations, a suppressor is desired to not disturb residents during hunting season, not banned in the US, they are NFA weapons. Now, I've had my share of Rambo style idiot knives, got seriously tired of getting jabbed in the hip or losing mobility when mounted near my chest, went with a saner US Air Force aviation survival knife for the majority of my military career. Civilian life, I have my assisted opening 2 1/2 inch knife that's around 6 and 1/3 centimeters. Does its jobs, enough said. Now, is that a weapon? A hammer is a weapon, when used as such, as is a common screwdriver. People have been hitting one another over the head with the latest rock replacement since people were mistakenly invented. Now, let's go back to firearms control, which is lacking in the US and needlessly so. First, take the idiot's brigade out of the picture. All semiautomatic firearms derived from military service rifles go under a new chapter of the NFA. Shy of machine guns, lower than suppressors (yeah, there's a legal threshold in the US practical law, as states have input beyond the NFA). Handguns, I'm shit out of luck figuring out, due to Heller vs D.C.. Here's the fun of it, occasionally, I do hunt, using typically either a 30-30 lever action or a 45-70 lever action. I also compete with an AR-15, frequently enough against active military and also compete in M1911 tournaments. And thoroughly hate gun nuts, who prefer "victory via superior volume of fire" idiocy and go beyond hatred of those who think that they can lawfully overthrow their government with their toy vs MLRS, artillery, bombers, tanks and royally pissed off infantry. But, we've also have a rather confounding legal landscape. That whole second amendment being key to governmental function in a national emergency and citizens rights. Idiots fixate upon militia, never following laws, critical being the various militia acts, upon which the conscription system is rooted upon. Military aged men (now, women are admitted, due to legislation), who are fit mind and body, can be conscripted into military service nationwide and are classified as unorganized militia. That's every able bodied male, typically between the ages of 17 - 45, now adding women (formerly, only women in the National Guard, aka Organized Militia). I'm big on law, I've lived under lawless conditions during deployment, ain't fun at all. I'm also big on commonsense, which alas, is an endangered species, courtesy of my national fixation on quick fixes, rather than permanent fixes. I do however, personally advocate for the concealed carry of 105 - 155 mm howitzers. With one exception, Atomic Annie is also allowed, despite being of a higher caliber. Look up the weights and sizes to get the humor. Had a concealed carry permit, long ago, still have the card for it. One night, as I was cleaning, yet again, my M1911 pistol (yeah, I have a decided preference there), I considered how sporting an armed criminal would have to be, to allow me to equalize the odds by lugging my own out. Stopped lugging around that pig iron the next day. Guns, like hammers and saws are tools, to be used for good or ill. How often do you lug around a hammer or saw? And I live in an "open carry state", where very few bother, see the hammer and saw argument... Here, we've got an obvious parental neglect case, initially viewing things opposite, well, suggest it to say, I'd happily beat both parents to death with their own livers. We've got a massive, glaring hole in our mental health non-care system. As a result, we've got a massive number of mentally injured children, teachers, staff and some dead. All because Ronnie Raygun defunded mental health care and funded vaporware of Star Wars. If there's a hell, I hope to be allowed the privilege of shoveling coal onto Ronnie. I've other reasons, but they're classified... So, I'm not against your views, just tempering them based upon prevailing law and that beyond diamond hard Constitution.
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  3471. What I never figured out with Chernobyl, how in hell does an operator miss going into an iodine pit situation?! Went from full production power to low power, nearly shut down, then tried to ramp it back up and reactions didn't increase is a Jolly Green Giant thumbprint. TMI did impact human factors engineering, especially hiding important indicators on the opposite side of a console. For once, a safety change that wasn't written in blood! Oh, from the original book, there was another winner, discussing how these type of reactors melt down, but "breeder reactors blow up", something beyond laughable and nearly made me toss the book without finishing it. It was so factually concise, I've forgotten most of the book, save the BS about breeders blowing up... The saddest sight I ever saw was from TMI and later, Fukushima's cores, from a wonder of precision engineering, they became a Greek tragedy. Especially Fukushima, as concrete is alkaline and the chemistry did horrific things to the metallic components! Shot while running away was an actual thing in the '60's and early '70's. Especially black males, survivors being asked why they ran, "I was afraid of getting shot!", so shot while trying to escape - despite not being armed, dangerous, just "cops too lazy to run" turning into the political mess. There was a big to-do about it, eventually it went from glorifying a sheriff with a .44 magnum built into his dashboard and through the engine compartment to kill "escaping criminals" to something closer to what we have today. But, if dealing with a terrorist, the converse remains, as the absolute last option is to allow the SOB to push any buttons.
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  3472. He's totally right! That's why Patton lost WWII. Lacking air superiority, the Germans overcame the Allies during the Battle of the Bulge, slaughtering all of the allies and shortly after, nuked New York city. Oh wait, despite no air superiority, tanks did cover the day with infantry cover. Survivability onion, I'm reminded of an M1 Abrams that was killed by a newer model RPG that made one big sensation in Iraq. One shot, right between the idlers, penetrated the hull, entered the crew compartment, the jet grazing the loader, killing the tank by the jet hitting the "brain box". They junked the tank, not due to critical damage, the CPU box could've been replaced, but to dismantle the hull to analyze the failure and damage done by the new model warhead. A good movie illustrating tanks penetrated and remaining in use was the film T-34. When asking anyone about combat and warfare in general, pretty much the absolute last person in the universe that I'd ask is Elon Musk. He's got zero military training, zero military experience, but somehow is an expert in warfare? He's invented nothing whatsoever, codeveloped one website, "earned" his fortune by inheriting an emerald mine, bought everything else and hired experts in those fields to develop things, but did precisely what Liberace did - be mediocre in everything, save being a showman. Might as well also ask for treatment advice for my Crohn's disease, which is also something he's got no training or experience with - or maybe DIY brain surgery. I can kill a tank in a number of ways, such as a mobility kill - damage the drive enough that the tank can't move. Now, it's a bunker that's well, not as strong as a bunker. I can firepower kill a tank - damage optics, gun, loading system or ammunition storage enough to prevent utilization of the weapon(s), it's a huge metal box now, can use it to ferry supplies on top and inside, the weapons are useless. I can k kill, a wee bit harder on anything not Russian, as Russia insists on putting the blammo inside of the hull with the crews - any major hit that puts thunder, fire and brimstone inside with the blammo and blam! The hatches turn into flaming jets, might lift the turret off, the crew is decently cremated instantly, the tank is now junk. Anything less and one can kill the entire crew and scoop out the cremains and shreds, minor repairs and the tank is back in business.
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  3496.  @jeffreyt991  if I lived there, their department would have survivability problems until the survivors learned how to be loyal to one another and the populace. What in the screaming fuck that any officer goes missing unnoticed?! And yeah, interacting with the policed populace is unlikely to be correct in any way imaginable. Jesus Christ, it's enough to make me consider taking up day drinking. To the department, you went home while one of your own was absent and unnoticed, I can never forgive that at all. Or trust you in any way whatsoever again. And I was a neighbor, take care of your own and your populace for a fucking change. The wreckage, it just made me want to puke, a wreckage field would've been preferred, that shows controlled flight into terrain due to shit training. Everyone and everything needs to have an instrument rating. And available goofy goggles but not whatever, the fucking things were in the closet. I trained my guys, despite command resistance in using the damned things. The commander, as much as I loathe it, should've lost retirement for due cause. Not due to the crash alone, but not knowing whereinhell his people weren't. And not requiring instrument rating in spades. That bird's planting just broke my heart. God job, Mover on getting that additional information, you honored those lost souls big time. You moved up big time in this old top shirt's books. And as you said, land and live, dammit. For some naysayers on the department, you tolerate them, you earned them, otherwise you'd enforce a superior replacement, do shut the fuck up. I never did consider employment with the state department. Bossier Parish was my digs for a while, did other areas as well, came back to PA due to familial obligations. BTW, I also produce ethanol on fasting, it's called Auto-brewery syndrome. Goes with my Crohn's. And enough gas to play the 1812 Overture, complete with artillery. BRPD, what in the actual fuck, over? Balls on a pike should've been demanded.
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  3551. Let's see, no food stamps, that consigns 12.6% of the US population to starvation. That'll prove popular with the heaviest armed populace on the planet. Once the MAGAts see their children start to starve, they'll prove a bit intractable and quite vicious. I wonder if Musk could make it to the airfield safely? Meanwhile, migrant workers would be gone, food rotting in farm fields, borders closed spitefully, shutting that source of food down as well. That sets off the cities. Now, nuclear armed nations view the US in flames, questions begin to arise as to who will end up controlling our nuclear forces and one or more will preemptively strike to neutralize the danger to themselves. The missiles pass one another in suborbital trajectories and civilization as we understand it ends in a series of brilliant flashes of light. Won't matter much if Trump made it to the mobile command post aircraft (Air Force One isn't used in a nuclear scenario, there's a special aircraft just for usage in a nuclear war), as he'd literally have nowhere to land. Life would survive, humanity would survive at much lower numbers, technology largely obliterated, a few years of nuclear winter and survivors claw their way through to survive, the superpowers no longer existing. I'll not care much, as I'm effectively at ground zero in an area ringed with military depots, so I'll just be a bad odor in the air. Think that's far fetched? It's not. We're talking about at least 1/3 of the US suddenly becoming homeless, 12.6% watching their children starve and we are the most heavily armed population on the planet. Once the nukes are thought to be up for grabs, nuclear powers will universally feel at risk and a preemptive strike will become inevitable, our reply inevitable and nearly automatic, missile retargetting occurring literally in mere minutes. Those plans are quite comprehensive and it's a hell of a lot more than "nuke Russia" or "nuke China", as in a literal book of various options for every nuclear armed nation as a target, because that's one thing that the military does - plan for being attacked and attacking/counterattacking. Survivors will essentially be back in the stone age, fortunate ones in the bronze age, as steel working is too modernized now to fall back technologically to any degree of iron age for quite some time. Family sizes will snowball, figure 5 - 10 children so that two can survive to adulthood, just as it was only two centuries and less ago. Disease and accidents claiming most in childhood. Starlink won't be worth much, the EMP's claiming those satellites early on via the artificial radiation belts created by the devices.
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  3553. Actually, airmen is used to refer to all USAF military service members, not only pilots. No sexual determinism there, but man/men referring essentially in mankind and when speaking of the species, one typically won't refer to womankind. Save when one's dealing with a medical issue that involves hormones or reproductive organs or mutual off duty private activities, that matter really shouldn't come up in civilized company. But then, I'm just an aging US Boomer, trailing edge Boomer. Just as "race" or ethnicity usually isn't something I consider, save for some cultural subjects or medical, such as if I'm preparing fava beans, specific groups would not usually be blindly given them, as in certain ethnic groups, there's a genetic predisposition for favism. Now, what was a fine meal dissolves their red blood cells and they're hospitalized in dire condition. Entertainingly, I'm of an ethnic group where favism may occur, but I don't have that enzyme deficiency and quite happily enjoy fava beans. Note how vanishingly rare such needs are? I use quotes on race, as there are only two races in my humble view on this planet. The human race and the rat race, not too fond of the latter due to their destructiveness to human foods, homes and a few diseases they may carry. Not too fond of the human race at times either, due to boorish, violent behavior. Usually the only time humans behave is during and after a disaster, but it seems that issue is being worked on in a deleterious manner of late... Can't we all just get along? Or are you all going to make me pull my finger?! ;)
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  3570. There's only one problem with all of that gear. If you're needing all of that protection from carrying around fallout, you're walking through an intense radiation environment unprotected. Yeah, you're not contaminating your clothing or eating or breathing particulates or iodine gas, but you have no protection against hard beta, x-ray and gamma, not to mention neutrons. The crew from the Castle Bravo shot cab became trapped, due to a shift in the winds and the yield of the device unexpectedly being doubled. The ended up sheltered in place beneath around a meter of earth for around 8 hours, improvised sheets to keep the dust off of their clothing and ran to the evacuation helicopter. Around two weeks later, it was safe to walk around the atoll without protection. But, during the peak after detonation and fallout, those first 8 hours had lethal levels even within the less buried areas of the shot cab bunker. One can now safely remain on the islands exposed, but the food and water remain unsafe due to cesium-137 contamination. As for protection for me. I live around a mile from TMI, in an area ringed with military depots, within a state capitol. I'd be right in the middle of the fireball. Oh, a note of caution with potassium iodide, the Wolff-Chaikoff effect occurs when one receives a massive dose of iodine - it literally shuts off the thyroid gland, inducing instant hypothyroidism. That's great if one is in a thyroid storm, not very good if one likes remaining mobile and conscious. Dose with care and as directed. Doctor was considering using the Wolff-Chaikoff effect with me during a severe thyroid storm that nearly killed me. Fortunately, the thyroid blockers took effect quickly enough that it wasn't needed.
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  3603.  @davidreed3357  yeah, insurance companies really profit big by paying for immense claims. In Trump math. The insurance companies will do what insurance companies do - do their level best to avoid the loss of paying out a claim, tying things up in court for a generation - literally. The big bucks will go where they always go, the lawyers involved. My wife asked me after jury duty once, "So, who won the case you were on?". I replied, "The lawyers". They made their fees, properly so, either way. In one trial, we decided for the plaintiff in a symbolic action where the widow received a token amount for her husband's loss (heavy smoker that had advanced emphysema and asbestos related complications on top of that, the case revolving around an asbestos claim), which was calculated to be around 10% of the attorney fees involved in the defense. After the case was closed, the judge asked for volunteers to remain to discuss our decision in an unofficial, information panel discussion. We explained the reasoning for the award amount, preventing a deadlocked jury and one defense attorney laughed aloud and exclaimed, "You got that right!" in regards to the percentage and fees. The lawyers won, as they inevitably do. Insurance is a form of gambling. You're betting the insured event will occur, the insurance company is betting that it won't. When faced with a claim, the company will do what is required by statute and try to limit or eliminate a payout due to responsibilities that are codified in law requiring they look out for stockholder interests. That's the law and how it works out. It ain't pretty, but then making sausage ain't pretty, but many of us enjoy eating it.
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  3645. Oddly, Russia has maintained their low earth orbital observation constellation, which has to be replaced fairly often. China, Russia, the US and possibly Israel have the capability to shoot satellites down. The Space Force is really just a command in the US Air Force, as Congress declined wasting money in creating an entirely separate combatant command service, rather than just making a combatant command within the Air Force. Most of US orbital assets are communications, observation and navigation (GPS is actually a military constellation, civilian which is a bit less accurate than the encrypted military precision GPS). Additionally, there are nuclear device detonation detectors, largely looking for gamma ray flashes, some of that data only recently being released to science on gamma ray bursts and terrestrial gamma ray bursts from high energy lightning. There are a few odd birds out there as well, but I can't comment on that which everyone knows is up there, but not what it actually is. As for governmental expenses, well, around 1/3 of my paycheck goes into payroll taxes, most being federal income tax. Suffice it to say, I earn enough to be quite comfortable, with quite a few computers for each primary room for home theater and web browsing, a pair of data center servers, an electronics lab and quite a few appliances, including home cleaning robots and a fair assortment of various types of firearms, some precision shooting grade competition weapons. Some find it odd that I drive an older car, but I refuse to purchase something that loses $10k or more of its value just driving out of the car dealership. But then, I'm a cleared defense contractor. After all, if one cannot be part of the solution, there is plenty of money to be made in perpetuating the problem. ;) The rods from God concept was insanely expensive, as they would've had to heft that insanely heavy rod to orbit and simply dropping them wouldn't do a thing - it's in orbit, something had to initially accelerate it down and out of orbit, upon impact, the entire rod compressed itself, heated and turned into vapor. A telephone pole, made of heavy metal turned instantly into gas, in short, an explosion. There was also consideration of an x-ray laser, pumped as part of a nuclear weapon, focused and aimed at MIRV buses and individual suborbital warheads, ablating them enough that the fuel for the guidance unit exploded and threw it off course (and the charged particles generated by the high energy x-rays striking dense components destroying the electronics. And there still is a notion, currently prohibited by ratified treaty, of placing a high energy laser into orbit and accomplishing the same thing, for far less.
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  3647. Actually, doctor is slightly incorrect. We didn't always have veterans disability or even any form of coverage during recovery for an injury that was slow in healing. Benedict Arnold was wounded in the failed Canadian campaign and was incapable of working his family farm after the war was over, so he sold out to support himself and his family. After that, we developed various and slowly improving wounded veteran pension systems. I disagree on neuroplasticity, but it's on extremely technical grounds. It's not only present in children, it remains present within a healthy brain throughout life, albeit at reduced levels as one ages. It's greatest in children, but it remains present in those without significant brain dysfunction and actually slows a number of dementias progression measurably. Again, based upon rather technical grounds. I was fortunate, although I joke and say that I was just better at ducking. Avoided significant TBI, basically via dumb luck, others didn't fare as well. But, even neurologists argue the finer points on that subject, as it remains a highly active field of research. I'll also suggest that Trump is essentially the worst possible thing that could happen to the GOP, literally placing it into the precise position of its predecessor, the Whig Party, which necessitated the sane membership to form the Republican Party to preserve conservatism in a sane and rational manner. He's a one man foot shooting firing squad. And worse, has no discipline, so when pressured, he'll act out worse and worse, essentially switching from foot shooting with his sidearm to foot shooting with a machine gun, increasing his own pressure in the process and dragging the party down even farther into insanity and eventual insolvency of support. His impulsiveness will result in the death of the party if a major readjustment from within the party is not widely conducted. And as much as I may disagree with many conservative viewpoints, we do require a balance of views to advance forward toward a more perfect union in a balanced manner.
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  3671.  @qsquared8833  I get a fair number of system crashes here, every time there's a geomagnetic storm. To hazard a guess, there's a good current path under the river that's literally right outside that induces spikes that puts all of my systems into a tizzy. The only reason I'm aware of the most probable cause is that I'm on the space weather mailing list and have been for years, as I used to track space weather for military operational reasons. Now, it's just basically a warning that I'll likely need to reboot several computers... Arthur Clarke was quite the aficionado of space elevators, yet never quite cottoned to several issues that were show stoppers. He realized quickly that, well, it's a hell of a long trip and in his writing took that into account when writing of trips on a space elevator and some authors also took notes, rather than ignore the fact that geostationary orbit is a wee few steps away. He entirely missed, as most authors do, my magical space elevator speeding along, well, those wheels would be spinning a helling. We're talking about rotational speeds that'd be hypersonic! Think of the rotational speeds involved for the drive wheels and idlers of rollers on a cable system, where the elevator car is moving at a nice leisurely Mach 1. And we thought the cable had to be strong! I'm surprised that Clarke missed that, he was otherwise a fine engineer. Maybe we should pen a few physics jokes about relativistic wheel bearings and oh, a mythical paper on frame dragging in relativistic wheel bearings and the effects upon rotational systems... And do a Star Trek transwarp wheel bearing system. Or how the friction generates so much heat energy it collapses into a Kugelblitz... Headline in the fictional news, "Planet disrupted by Kugelblitz generated by overheating space elevator bearing, foggy film at 11!".
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  3687. It'd essentially start at peak heating, since it's originating at the densest part of the atmosphere. I'll assume tumbling adding inefficiencies to movement, sideface being unlikely due to the fluid dynamic, which I agree, are far from static. There'd also be ionized components to further confound trying to calculate matters and he also treated it as a uniform object that would fully melt, then boil as a unit, rather than melt from outside inward as has been observed for other hypersonic objects passing through the atmosphere. The core of a meteor doesn't instantly boil while the surface is being superheated and bolides tend to fail structurally due to the aerodynamic deceleration forces overcoming their binding energy more than anything purely heating related. More probably, the cap would be partially melting, losing strength as it's heated and aerodynamic forces driving pieces off as it traveled until sufficient mass was lost that only fragments were traveling and decelerating much as bolides would be traveling in pieces after a fireball explodes. I suspect a lot of the modeling has already been done that would help in calculating this, but much would be related to railgun work that remains classified. As it was a decidedly non-aerodynamic body to begin with, the stresses would be beyond immense, that the object is a disc and not a blunt body, conic, biconic, etc body just increases compressive strength failure as a mode of fragmentation of the body's chances tremendously. Then, to further muddy the waters, there's a major assumption that the initial estimation of velocity could be wildly off, as even the shape of the cover once it departed from where it was welded is unknown. Did the weld fail and it's just largely cover? Did it bring any parts of whatever structure it was welded to with it? The heating isn't immersive either, it's heated by the inferno just in front of the shockwave and modeling that is devilishly complex with known shaped objects, such as blunt body, aerodynamic body, cone body, etc. Most likely, it'd have come apart fairly early on, much as Columbia came apart, for much the same reasons.
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  3691.  @sparkzbarca  airports are physical locations, websites are routed, by definition by IP address and don't have a physical location in that one can move a website by moving its files to a geographically distant server and update the DNS record. So, I can have a website that's physically in the US today and by COB, have it seamlessly in Taiwan. When referring to the domain name, that is merely a DNS reference and the DNS server, beyond the top level domain be anywhere in the world. Literally, for a US ISP to restrict my domain name, they either have purchase a server that redirects traffic by domain name, violating the heart of the agreements that are backed by ratified treaty and potentially interfering with valid traffic. Name any law that states that a company or individual must purchase a specific device, costing anywhere from $5k to $100k to satisfy a court case that they're not a participant in? That's literally like saying that Pennsylvania must not allow motor vehicle or air traffic to Miami, Florida and only Miami, Florida originate in the state and has to build a specific highway to accomplish that task. The only way to fully comply is to deny all traffic and shut down. So, a company that owns guide.tv is denied traffic because of two IP address resolutions to that same top level domain? OK, how about we do the same with .com? By court order, the internet is hereby illegal is the essential effect. Your example perfects a digital attack upon a sovereign nation because of two individuals within that nation. Following that logic, we should have invaded Argentina when Nazis fled there after WWII and at a minimum, walled off the entire nation if we couldn't enter it legally. That's like banning red traffic lights by banning electricity nationwide. Or in my example, destroying I-95 to prevent traffic from Pennsylvania from getting to Miami, Florida and once realized there are other roads, destroying any road that can possibly get to Miami, Florida. The order is essentially unenforcable on its face, it requires excessive expenses, essentially punishing providers for no reason by forcing a major expense and literally, per your example, declares digital war upon a sovereign nation for objectively the most trivial of reasons.
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  3712. Dr Fauci referred to it as modified quarantine. Odd term, to be sure, but he did explain it a bit as he'll largely be at home, with some office presence. I was unaware that hydroxychloroquine caused ionophores to be created that would admit zinc, but I vaguely recall other drugs that are known to do that for zinc. Still, I do (again, vaguely) recall zip1 transporting zinc from the interstitial space through the plasma membrane. Still, I'm aware of two high quality studies that show no effect for HCQ in patient outcomes and one that showed higher morbidity and mortality, the latter seemed to hint that cardiac conduction anomalies might have been exasperated. Yesterday, we learned that our youngest, who was working in hospital housekeeping on COVID floors took ill. She briefly placed us on hold, where her physician had called with her SARS-CoV-2 test results. Positive. She sounded horrible last evening, severe coughing, which seems to have abated today, sounds like she's moving air well, held longer sentences than last night, but retained a fever and now has purple toes. Fortunately, she's now staying with her sister, who is an RN. I've been hearing chatter that initial viral exposure levels may possibly play a role in initial disease severity. We'll have to see if any studies are being conducted and of course, await peer review. If there's one thing I've learned personally about peer review is, peers love little better than to savage shoddy work. That induced me to rapidly produce high quality work!
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  3737.  @theeater1756 I see, your ignorance of history is indeed boundless! First, let's review civil unrest and lawlessness, where the militia was called in to restore order. Nauvoo, Illinois, Mormon war against civilian authority, the press and whatever suited their interests at the time in 1843, militia called up, restored order. Guess Illinois is still in the throes of civil violence by Mormons today, by your lousy candle. 1857, Mormon war in Utah, militia quelled a theocratic attempt at takeover of the territory. Guess Utah is a barren desert, devoid of human life in your Bizarro world. 1844 Philadelphia Nativist Riots, Protestants vs Roman Catholics, Protestants using stolen artillery against Catholic churches, guess they're still blowing up the city, depopulating it daily or something, huh? 1857, Bowery Dead Rabbits Riots, gang warfare in the streets, militia restored order or maybe NYC is dead, barren of life, due to the incessant warfare between the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys. Pity, would've been a nice city had it not been destroyed by continuous violence once the militia left - oh wait, it's still there. Let's move into modern times. Let's see now, Seattle George Floyd Protests, federal forces called in, because an idiot POTUS proclaimed literally that the city was burning to the ground daily, really impressive builders up there! Order remains or maybe the city is still burning to the ground nightly, rebuilt during the day to bonfire nightly - oh, no it isn't. Or maybe the North American continent is a barren wasteland, order never being restored and we're all dead. Folks, do admire our lead paint abatement programs, children no longer grow up with severe brain damage like our friend here.
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  3742. The laugh is, the immigrant crime shit goes back to the 1840's and the Nativist movement, which joined with other zanies to first coin most of the codswallop still parroted today against other immigrant and minority groups. Their efforts literally triggered religious warfare between attacking Protestants against (mostly) Irish Roman Catholics in Philadelphia, where the Protestant Nativists stole a cannon from the port defenses and opened fire on Catholic churches, a school and a convent/hospital. Militia was called in to restore order and the Nativists murdered some of the militiamen. The militia general then ringed the area with artillery and strongly suggested they return the stolen artillery piece and go home or go away in small pieces. The crowd finally dispersed and soldiers patrolled Philadelphia city streets with fixed bayonets. Later, these same wonderful specimens from the bottom drawer of humanity hijacked the conservative party, much as they have today, destroying the Whig party, which literally came with the nation (the Democratic Party essentially remaining today, modestly changing names as every surviving party has to meet the times) from within. The sane departed the Whig party en masse, forming a new Republican Party - their first candidate for president, some Abraham Lincoln guy. The Whig party basically imploded as the Civil War raged, ceasing to exist and fading into obscurity. But, their stupid ideas rage on today. The same arguments against any progress, given a cheap retread, but otherwise parroted verbatim the arguments from the 1840's, be it against immigration, freedom of religion for anyone not Protestant, white supremacy, desegregation, LGBTQ+, hell, even Mickey frigging Mouse. Women as property, oh they got that malady in spades. Hell, yesterday, had one brain trust from that group of zanies tell me he just loaded his AR15. I replied that I know where the ATACMS is, how to use the system and where precisely in the ASP the ordinance for it is stored. One battery will take away all life for one square kilometer, which is over 1/3 of a square mile for the measurement challenged, for anything larger than a virus. That threat terminated swiftly, don't threaten a combat veteran, the only thing stupider is to actually try to follow through on that threat and that's just another Darwin Award. Threaten a war, no problem, I'm very, very good at war, I terrorized terrorists for a living and they're not around, I'm still here and I'm far from alone. And we network - a lot. And the military is on our side, as we're on our nation and Constitution's side. While I'm here, "Entitlements are evil and commie!" is bullshit, entitlements are rights guaranteed within the Articles of the Constitution itself, not even amendments, which some try to claim are subordinate to the Constitution and are not. So, when complaining against entitlements, they're complaining that they hate fundamental Constitutional rights. In my own opinion, campaign against rights, you lose claim to your own rights in further arguments.
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  3761.  @palomathereptilian  I'd say oddly, save that I know precisely why I have an aversion to any medication. Speaking as a primary, on site EMS practitioner, well, I'm both extremely conservative and adventurous, depending upon very specific conditions. Typically, the least intervention delivers the least side effects and problems, but in some patients, more intervention is required to simply get them evacuated to a definitive care facility. The worse, under that context, took 12 hours of intensive interventions, over a simple severe allergy event, which consumed the entirety of a Battalion medical supply. One bee sting resulted in depletion of the treatment for many conditions, for over 1200 men. And was the most exhausting day of my life. As for the remarked upon case, she'd have been equally served by not bothering to eat. I do that, on occasion. Not out of disorder, but out of lack of activity. Not busy at all, idle beyond couch potato? Not hungry level, go for base mineral nutrients, hydrate as needed, call it a day. I'm not underweight, not overweight, "just right" to end up the eldest male in my paternal line of the family to not be type II diabetic. By decades. While taking a beta blocker, calcium channel blocker and a thyroid blocker, due to severe hypertension and Grave's disease hyperthyroidism. Another pill? Doc, do make a very serious case for it. Did opioids for a significant issue, the histamine response sucks, badly! Got a better ploy? Annoyingly, no.* *Opioids and opiates tend to share a common effect, activating mast cells, resulting in a massive release of histamine. Inject a patient with morphine, get vomit on your boots, decrease in blood pressure and respiration.
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  3774. What they fouled horribly was the actual heart of his defense. The distinction between a lawful order and an unlawful order and the erosive effect a criminally complicit command environment can have on that distinction. It's literally at the heart of what happened at My Lai, but Hollywood always loves to get it wrong or worse, not even wrong. Love the graphic on Rule #1! First time I've saw it, but certainly not the first time I heard it. If memory serves, the first time I heard it, saber toothed cats were still an annoyance... I disagree on who was pushing the code reds, as sergeants and corporals aren't ordering a lieutenant to give that order. But, it did start interestingly with perjury... Marine officers are not gods? Seriously? ;) May I introduce you to second lieutenant god... Wow, I could be charged with reckless endangerment of all personnel hearing that one, due to the extreme risk of dying of laughter. I've gotten unlawful orders in the Army, largely due to poor wording and not listening to an objection to the order not being lawful, what prompted an instant reevaluation is, "Very well, Sir, however I'll require that order documented and digitally signed". Never got such a document, the order was instead made lawful and properly considered. "Going after the Colonel", you know, insubordination for performing your sworn duties. Yeah, totally Hollywood. Although, had the Colonel in a real world court bellowed his career ending tirade, I'd have closed with my own bellow, starting quietly with "Sir, I am a veteran and a honorably retired former service member and military retiree, hence now a civilian and a representative here today of the US citizenry and taxpayers and would like to state, for the record, NOT IN MY NAME!!!", giving my sternest NCO glare. Yeah, wouldn't be allowed, but it would out Hollywood Hollywood and any attempt, rightfully having me ejected from the courtroom, likely alongside the wayward Colonel. Mr Navyman? Just whose department is on the head of a paper paycheck from the USMC? Oh yeah, Department of the Navy, sailor. ;P:p:P:p It's a favorite rub at the VFW, reminding them I was US Army Medical Corps, they are US Navy Marine Corps, the other gentlemen largely being US Marine Corps Judge Advocate General Corps and at some points, I had affiliation with US Army Chemical Corps, as well as US Army Communication Corps. Yeah, long career... High ranking Marine officer? He'd be properly referred to as a Senior Marine Commissioned Officer, which actually means something anywhere but a court of law, where that only comes into play under very special conditions - such as the Colonel's upcoming general courts-martial proceedings. I don't even think senior officers can receive a summary court martial at that point, it'd be special or general, both due to rank and nature of the charges. While on a jury, we once did have a situation where shouts were needed - by the jurist to order a recess until the nearby noise could be abated and examination and cross could be conducted at levels below a bellow. After an slightly extended lunch, the noise had ceased, although I don't believe it was by direction of the court, just that the conditions requiring the noise be made had ended (aircraft overhead, which was unusual for that location and probably was due to some emergent or contingency conditions that had ended). Memorable only because, as a juror, we were fairly well bored out of our minds and seeing a judge shout to be heard yielded entertainment to the spectacle. Military justice is... Complex, due to the unique nature of the Armed Forces (not my words, but the words of the SCOTUS). A number of offenses that are lesser felonies for civilians are capital offenses in the military. Some of the biggies, espionage, mutiny, sedition and treason, typically get civilians a lengthy prison sentence at most, a service member could actually be executed for. That reflects the position of public trust granted to our military, both to represent our nation and her values, as well as being entrusted with our most lethal of weapons. Hence, the need for a level of discipline unheard of in the civilian world.
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  3788. Centuries ago, when I worked the ramp, I was beyond paranoid around running engines. Too easy to lose situational awareness and end up in the ingestion zone or get caught by the exhaust and fly precisely unlike Superman - straight into stationary ground equipment. At PHL, between terminal C and D was the commuter aircraft, right along the concourse. Eastern had powered back (power back was their thing, as otherwise, their mechanic's union required a mechanic to push back and cost saving...), then as they waited on the taxiway entry to cross the closest runway, while tail still facing between the terminals, the pilot in control left the engines at at least 30%. Commuter aircraft were blown free of their chocks and into ground equipment, their baggage carts were blowing around, some striking the building and other commuter aircraft, I sheltered next to a 727's gear with the FO, who was doing his walkaround. The 727 was blown over its chocks and one cabin service crew member, who had just opened the rear door for servicing, lost her balance and fell to the ramp face first. I was on a baggage run, thought it was a loose bag, which I'd get on my next trip, as the passengers were waiting on their baggage. Late bags means missed connecting flights. Thankfully, a fueler was present, saw her and rendered aid while radioing for help. That was quite an expensive event for Eastern, who folded not long afterward. Good thing I decided to park along terminal D when the blow started, I'd have not cleared that ramp before my carts would've taken me for a ride. Those engines are powerful enough to push an aircraft that weights anywhere from 130000 pounds to 1.25 million pounds to 170 mph or more to take off. That's a lot of force, folks! And if it's blowing with that much force, that much air is coming into the front as well, where the giant fan awaits meeting whatever it can bring in at 2500 - 3000 rpm. That's a lot of mutual shredding, as the fan won't withstand a human body's being shredded, placing the aircraft and passengers at risk as well. Anyone going into the engine pretty much has nothing to worry about - ever again.
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  3810. They can threaten civil war to their heart's content. It's if they act that it becomes a problem for them. Once weapons are taken up against their nation, it is treason and a full writ of attainder and corruption of blood can then be levied against them and their extended families for the duration of their lives. That means, taking every penny, every inch of property, even their very clothing and ejecting them onto the streets as literal outlaws. Any who help them gets charged with the felony of undermining the sentence and sharing the sentence. That's an awfully pretty family to be flat broke, propertyless, naked and under a bridge without any protection of law. It's also inherited common law that's never been legislated away and mentioned in the Constitution as only allowed in case of treason. The writ of attainder last applied in full against Robert E. Lee's plantation, which is now Arlington National Cemetery, not by his or his family's wishes. Ben's "Fight, fight, fight" nonsense literally put me in mind of Rick Moranis for some reason. What next? Gonna compare Schwartz sizes? Want to see things get really hilarious? Have Harris debate Trump and when going on stage, just have her speedwalk around the stage three times. That's more energy than Trump's expended in a year and would unnerve him, since the best he ever managed was to lurk behind Hillary in their debate, looking like some shambling Sasquatch reject. I'd have tripped him with my cane when he wandered behind me that way. One other area of concern. In the closing of the RNC, his speech was badly slurring in the closing speech he gave at the convensssssion. Interestingly, zoos nationwide have also began to complain of a dearth of elephant tranquilizers. Sure it's a coincidence though. I do have one upside against him. He can't accuse me of cognitive decline. One cannot have a decline in that which does not exist.
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  3851. Cute Uh-60 in the background of the interview, I liked that bird better with a fully stocked ESSS. And an AH-64 and AC130 series friend to properly introduce myself. Well, if a nicer introduction failed, which was rare. Oddly, I was once investigated, actually had to authorize said investigation, due to some peculiarities of the infrastructure that have since been corrected. Authorized it, learned of my own errors, corrected them, everyone moved on and SIPRnet infrastructure was improved. What I didn't do was eliminate the supervisory infrastructure or obstruct the investigation, I fully cooperated and even contributed to it. And I literally could've gotten 20 large in prison. Due to a procedural error that was caused by previous in war theater lapses that were cumulative and once arrested, strengthened overall security. Defense attorneys would literally shit themselves, but my strategies always work until they don't. Same with theirs. Everyone being honest helps in that specific scenario of a massive goat screw of my own origination. Got caught out, fixed it and sent the fix downstream, case closed. Not kill the messenger. Hell, if memory serves, the kid that reported me got promoted and rightfully so! And oh, "He was federally investigated", yeah, big shit, anyone with an SF85 or SF86 is investigated. Here's your big kids pants, child. Stop pissing yourself. That's my job in my dotage and injury status. Dammit... There is one thing worse than growing older, not living to get older. Nobody I know reported back on how great dead is, only living people have suggested I investigate that option and I suspect that they don't have my best interests at heart. I'll just get my coat... Where my spare quantum torpedo is stored. ;)
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  3877. Lightning isn't much of an EMP, which is a regional phenomena. Geomagnetic storms are also regular occurrences from solar outbursts, thankfully nothing like the Carrington event, but still plenty spunky and causes some hair loss in the load protection and management centers. Radiation, yeah, a few days and everything's fine for a fair bit of time outside. Give it two weeks, you're pretty close to background radiation levels again. New Orleans, kind of a poor example, when Houston would be more damaging to fuel infrastructure, as was illustrated a few years back after a hurricane hit there. AWS, Google and Microsoft cloud management centers, although a cyber attack would be just as effective and a lot cheaper. Another misconception is one bomb per target. For large targets, both CEP comes into play, as does the nature of a target. An air field needs multiple devices, with a military air field likely needing up to a half dozen devices to entirely destroy. Degradation vs destruction are also facets to consider. MAD becoming a component, what we'd get is what we'd send. Upside is, deployable warheads are quite limited compared to the height of the Cold War. Still, it's moderately likely my area would get some licks, as we've Chambersburg not far away and the area is dotted with DLA and NSA (Naval Support Activities, not the Puzzle Palace) depots, if things went toward countervalue. Slightly more likely, which remains extremely unlikely, a strike on a NATO member with a tactical device, which would earn a reprisal strike of a like nature. An analogy for that is, two prize fighters in a heavyweight boxing match, both having anvils in their gloves. Nobody's going to want to swing first, as they know a swing is going to then be coming their way. Circling back to EMP, due to the geology of the area I'm living in, whenever we get any halfhearted geomagnetic storm, my computers crash due to power spikes riding past my filters. For what I've got, not worth getting a saturable reactor to try to block those odd spikes. A data center, yeah, worth the expense of protecting, even a main office, a home office, yeah, not worth spending more than all of the computers are worth to protect them.
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  3888. The entire lecture was bogus, likely entirely out of ignorance. First, the entire train of objections is akin to complaining that Linux isn't a hammer, when a screwdriver is required. It's neither, it's a general purpose OS, for the most part. Aerospace requires a realtime OS, with the smallest of jitter in task processing possible. Jitter being the variable time between an input and answer from the software and delayed answers are considered hard bad answers. A good example was Apollo 11, with the approach radar on while landing, the computer overloaded and incessantly rebooted. Thankfully, Armstrong had taken full manual control early on, not trusting the relatively new computer. Had he not, the reboot would've cut power to the engines and history would've recorded a fatal crash on the lunar surface. The cause, radar data simply overloaded the computer with data, buffers overflowed and the primitive computer simply kept rebooting and alarming. Which on errors, it was supposed to do. Now, there are realtime Linux distros available, one is actually in use by the US Air Force, which puts to lie everything in their presentation. It already exists, it's in use and it's certified. It's also novel enough to fly under their radar, which is unsurprising, as novel things aren't exactly welcome in aerospace. New can mean buggy, buggy can mean failed projects, as nearly happened with the F-35. Remember when they had trouble booting up the entire airplane? AFIK, there are around a half dozen realtime OS vendors out there, two are Linux based and relatively new. Not a one will ever even remotely become popular, as they're not designed for regular server usage or workstation usage, they're for specialized custom applications like running equipment like airplanes and their subsystems. They'd suck at, say, running sendmail, but excel at their purpose of monitoring a thousand sensors and balancing an aircraft's flight. And the Wind River VxWorks OS, also open source, has gone to Jupiter and Mars. The RTLinux line was acquired and revamped, but originated in 2007, languished a bit around 2011, acquired and reshuffled a bit, but has managed to have annual releases since its origination. Their RTLinux product is used by Schneider Electric and Toshiba, their VxWorks used by the USAF, NASA and more. Linux is a general purpose OS, it's great as a server or desktop, even for fairly non-critical non-realtime tasks. Inside of a datacenter, it's a major workhorse, happily sitting alongside *BSD servers and more. But, in aerospace, one needs an entirely different animal, we're into round cow land, compared. Comparing the two entirely different technologies is like comparing a round cow to a bowling ball. Both are round, but that's about it. Well, off to fix my MythTV box. Looks like a kernel update borked the boot. Not ideal for an aerospace system, where borking a boot system in orbit around Jupiter would kind of be a big deal. But then, space probes tend to make really lousy home entertainment centers. Because, a hammer is not a screwdriver. A general purpose OS is not a realtime OS. And while I could take over Johnny's paper route with a large dump truck, it'd hardly be practical. Hell, Johnny got made redundant long ago anyway. I'm sure that before long, my morning paper will be getting delivered by a realtime OS operated drone to my neighbor's front door... ;) But my space probe will happily orbit Jupiter, studying away in a radiation environment that's absolutely obscene.
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  3912. The "This is my first day at" one was a joke, saw it when it was fresh. People dutifully followed on with other ways to impress the boss... Mine being, "Don't forget to pour around the gasoline on the way out the door". True though on never push updates out on Fridays. You push them out as mandatory immediate at COB on a holiday weekend Friday, then pour the can of gasoline out on the way out the door. One thing that really didn't sit well was, those companies that had test groups and deployment staging configured in Falcon's updater found to their horror that Crowdstrike had overrode the client organization settings and pushed the update as mandatory and immediate. That went from one lead balloon to a Blitz barrage balloon squadron full of leaden balloons. I've used their software, got our organization out of a jam with a very longstanding APT attack that was ongoing for long enough that we joked that the APT was eligible for a retirement pension due to the amount of time spent within our network. Went from loggers with delays of 19 - 26 hours to instantaneous alerts and accessible logs, literally capturing one attack in realtime, buffering it in its entirety and leveraging packet captures, submitted their latest PE software to the FBI and DHS for submission to the vendors, halting a major attack on our network and apparently, a half dozen other organizations. Attack being via RDP and novel(ish) an ancient method being revived - buffering into notepad the binary, something I'd not saw since the Windows 3.11 days. I know about that one in detail, as I ran that one down and wrote the report on it. Downside, all it needed was a repadding and recompile and they'd be at it again, but that was long enough to get the behavioral software to recognize it and jam it up in IPS. A bit later, we found the entry point - a long forgotten, unpatched DMZ test machine on a multinational network. Once it went offline, the attack was over. All, a side effect of having a network that happened, rather than one that was planned. If I'm at BSOD, yeah, lemme click on that one. Gimme a minute to grab the disconnected keyboard and start typing in commands. JLOTS, reminded me of the Mulberry harbours at Omaha. And precisely like with the Omaha one, a storm came in and knocked the snot out of it, forcing it to be abandoned. Maybe next week, we'll try the charge of the Light Brigade... Circling back though, I'd not include the A-10 being eliminated in favor of fast movers with lighter capacity overall. For CAS, it'd be inferior due to lower loitering time, less rounds for the cannon and generally just ill suited in that role. It'd be like trying to revive the museum ship battleships to assume the role of a cruiser. They could sort of do it, just not very well in that role. Sure, you can try the new guy, but I'll stick with Frank Moses. ;) And don't tell me "it's old", the BUFF is even older, both run on coal, so what, they still work and work well in their roles.
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  3928.  @jonathanvachondechevigny1020  first, you really should introduce yourself with the capslock key, it is your ally. Second, there are no such words as treator or beging. I can only assume, grammatically, that you're attempting to use the words traitor and begin. Traitor implies treason, which is precisely and narrowly defined in the US Constitution as taking up arms against one's nation or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. As there is no implication of taking up arms against their nation, that only leaves giving aid and comfort to an enemy in peacetime, which is a decidedly odd notion. Howinhell do you have an enemy when at peace? One can have an adversary, but that isn't by definition an enemy. When playing chess, my adversary is not my enemy to kill, just an adversary to defeat in that contest. One can have adversarial relations in many ways and still not legally be enemies, as there has been no declaration of war by Congress, as is required by our Constitution. Although, we'll really get into the weeds on one of my pet peeves on war and the dearth of declaration of such, while still engaging in massive hostilities. The last time we declared war was WWII and frankly, we've played quite free and loose with the Constitution ever since, skirting a duty of Congress while lives are lost... But, we're far beyond the scope of this discussion there. One may betray a sworn oath, such as in these cases, sworn public servants betraying their position of trust by presenting fraudulent documents designed to usurp the very basis of our government, but that's not being a traitor, it's simply a betrayal of public trust and proof that such a person should never, ever be trusted again and that criminal charges for fraud, perjury, forgery and conspiracy should be filed, with additional charges applied under the discretion of the prosecuting attorney.
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  3967. One thing about Greenland is, the US had multiple bases there, now we've just got Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule AFB. The other bases, well, the Ice won, as usual. We even had, much to Denmark's ire, an attempted ICBM base buried in the glacier. Didn't work out well, differential flow in the glacier caused many corridors to suddenly not stay continuous, becoming blocked when flow moved the corridor edges away from each other laterally. The nuclear reactor had many hot loop leaks, resulting in many barrels full of radioactive waste and eventually, the entire mess was abandoned. Denmark made the US go back and clean up the radioactive waste that was abandoned there, with some rather blistering comments. We've other posts there, scientific ones that have absolutely no military usage. One recently observed the fastest movement of a glacier ever recorded, the glacier accelerating to visible movement speeds to even a casual observer. Now, if I was Denmark defending my territory, first declare Article 5 for NATO against the US. Then, have trawlers drag anchors across the SOSUS sensor lines between Greenland and Iceland, rinse and repeat between Iceland and the UK. That'd tie up US fleet support. Then, mine the piss out of the region, cutting off SLOC for the North Atlantic. Now, the US is spending billions to mere millions in being an annoyance. Toss in some anti-aircraft batteries, now it's a no-fly zone and fucking up the airlines. More billions lost. Might end up with a US victory, but it'd be trivially turned Pyrrhic. Panama, easy as well, mines and blow the locks. All you win is a trench and yellow fever, bon appetit on the turdburger. With one's forces surrounded on two sides of a really big stagnant trench. Then, Trump can move on Airstrip One and he can order mandatory telescreens installed in the proles homes. Damned shame that kid in Pittsburgh couldn't make a shot that any first week of marksmanship basic trainee could make.
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  3969. Many words from German are part of English originally, given the, erm, amount of "cultural interchange" between the UK and Europe over the ages. American English further incorporated words from "Hessians", some from Hess, others from other regions, Swiss, etc and still more from Yiddish, from mostly Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated in several waves as has historically happened (most of our immigration has arrived in waves over the years, typically generating a wave of xenophobic resistance to that which is the primary nature of our population growth throughout US history, from colonial times to the present). Many Hollywood films reflect that the immigration wave phenomena with specific jobs as a stereotype, with various occupations increasing around the time of arrival of a wave, such as the Irish cop, Italian bricklayers, Chinese laundries, etc. A niche occupation had its inception around the time of a wave, the new immigrants took those poor paying jobs as a matter of course and mutual assimilation occurred. As you can tell, the Blarney stone obviously kissed me! ;) We incorporated rather common foods in the same way, such as my breakfast favorite, scrapple, aka Pannhaas in PA Dutch, derived from panhas or the Dutch versoin, balkenbrij and even sauerkraut, which the use of the latter originating in the US before the civil war. Suffice it to say, loanwords and culinary history run apace in the US, although English in general is the child of many fathers. As for the "beer stein", that seems to have been an imported concept and a version becoming the beer mug in the US shortly after WWII, likely imported by returning soldiers from the war, occupation and later, from our mutually agreed upon bases in Germany. I can still remember my first Oktoberfest, where to my horror, I found myself with little room for bier, due to the culinary delights the harvest festival produced! OK, maybe not horror. ;) I'm still hard pressed to find a preference for regional specialties, although I do lean toward northern Austrian and Bavarian in preferences, most of which tend to be derived from farmer's derived dishes, hence would incorporate offal and heavier on the carbs (even if, when my wife was still alive, I was the only one in the house to enjoy beets - more for me!).
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  3970. First, the photoelectric aren't a panacea. Period. Fog, such as from my neighbor's meat locker set air conditioner and her cigarette smoke would set one off incessantly. Dust will set them off incessantly. Mist and steam will set them off. Now, the magic sauce has been available for as long as both types of detector, ionization and photoelectric and it ain't Harry Potter's magical fuck stick, it's a combination photoelectric and ionization detector, which is commonly used in commercial grade detectors in businesses. Downside being, the cost a fair amount more. My ionization detector failed silently, which is plain evil of it, silent failures are bad. Maintenance tried just popping a battery in and running, I poked it with my cane, it stayed silent, maintenance was annoyed in having to go back up the ladder and pop a replacement in. In irritation, he handed it to me. Good, I'm an electronics guy, component level, I stripped that board down. In mid-build for a radiation detector and cloud chamber for the radioactive source, the rest are loose components. The ionization circuit unchanged in well over 30 years (and basically the same detector for photoelectric or ionization, it's a comparitor and well, it compares the level read, say a quarter second before and now). The Americium source shrank by over half, which is fine. Oh, my sense of smell has been out on a powder for decades, awake or asleep. So yeah, I need that detector and well, if some food is dodgy, someone to sniff it... No cheap detectors for that yet. But, 90% of what he said on ionization, hyperbole, likely for pay. The rest, overstated, but loosely accurate. Get the dual model, minimal falses, it'll detect great. Oh, figured out the silent failure by spilling some instant au gratin potatoes in the oven unnoticed, then was reading e-mail. Looked up to see a pall of smoke and had an "Oh, shit!" moment, as I really didn't want to set off the entire apartment building alarm system over a cooking mishap. So, popped the windows, ran the fans and ignited some fumes with profanity. OK, maybe not that last part, but profanity was involved. Aired the place out, no annoyed neighbors and fire department, a wee bit less of a red face. Detector was replaced by maintenance, mischief managed. And thanks to maintenance, a new science project was born that'll make a great conversation item at parties, as the radiation detector I'm building is of a CERN design for a particle spectrometer, so it can identify the element based upon its radioactive fingerprint (specifically, energy level). Not too shabby for $50 in parts. The cloud chamber is just a couple of shitty busted lid Amazon food storage containers that are getting repurposed, a chunk of heat sink, some blue freezer packs and that super secret ingredient, hot water. Shhhhh... See PhysicsHigh for details on the cloud chamber. CERN's education outreach website for the experiments. Me for a 62 year old guy with a cane on a stripper pole, I need the money putting it back on again... OK, not the last, really, I've no desire to end up in traction for the next six months. Yeah, dad humor meets EMS humor, deal with it.
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  3974. Actually, yes. VP and cabinet inform Congress that POTUS is unfit medically for office. I recall one such advice given when POTUS went in for a colonoscopy procedure (think it included polyp removal), only lasted a couple of hours, but it's actually the procedure. The 25th amendment, section 4. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB11131 Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
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  3985. Yeah, the simple accident of dropping a ham sandwich turned into a major conspiracy theory. Or something. You know, sneaking off to spy in an antique reactor, climbing through a few feet of stainless steel, control assemblies and fuel, to gnaw on a sammich, when the flying saucers and worse, flying cups upset a wife due to a fractured tea service. Between the dropped sandwich and the profanity of the enraged wife, the reactor overheated, melted, then had a massive explosion. Or one could go with what actually happened, a comedy of errors resulted in an inevitable tragedy. Oh wait, that couldn't happen, because governments are all perfect and never make mistakes. The radar crap makes jack shit of sense either, as the US and Soviet Union had those since WWII and both operate a fence type radar to this very day to track all of the junk we've tossed carelessly into orbit. A US version shutting down in 2013 in Texas, as it was replaced by a global version with more stations over a wider area to better track the junk in orbit. Feel free to look up "Space Fence" and the Russian counterpart, who share information between them to ensure orbital safety of modest projects like the ISS. Then, there's one not touched here. Chernobyl is a total dead zone, nothing can live there. Ignore the tourists visiting pretty much daily. Or those, ahem, Russian tourists in the tree looking clothing and armored vehicles that dug all over the place, they all obviously dissolved or something. Reality is stranger than fiction far too frequently, so some seek to make fiction even stranger. I'd pop these idiots in the head with my cane, but it's far too much fun tripping them incessantly with it instead... OK, I can wish. Trip them or just tie their shoelaces together, which would likely occupy them constructively for a decade untying them again.
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  3986. Yep, a fine firearms instructor, providing the bad example of what not to follow. Odd how I've given hundreds of firearms classes in the military and somehow retained the use of all ten thumbs and both eyes, leaving the classroom entirely unperforated. I did send one of my classes back to the classroom after they hit the range though. Was monitoring the M2 .50 BMG range after giving a class in the weapon, use, firing and preventative maintenance, including headspace and timing adjustment. Heard the gun begin to fire erratically and just as I'd shouted CEASE - BOOM! The barrel blew off and flew 25 meters downrange. I'd harped on checking the detent spring, as it's a common failure item, which prevents properly setting the headspace for the barrel/gun and holds the barrel in from unscrewing when firing. Obviously, nobody checked, as the gun was also out of time by two notches. So, I asked who didn't perform their pre-operation PMCS and headspace and timing checks, nobody raised their hand. Had they done so, it'd have been a lesson learned. None admitted to not doing so, so they obviously hadn't learned and they went through my class again and the next time, under my highly irritated glare, properly checked their gun for safety. It could as well have fired partially out of battery, blown the feed tray cover off and injured the operator or assistant gunner. I've also witnessed what that half inch wide, two inch long bullet can do to a human body with its 13000+ foot pounds of energy at 3000+ feet per second energy. Think Superman putting his fist through someone. And I am one of the original "Safety Nazis", do something unsafe with a weapon, you'll think the Almighty just started thundering at you and you'll be off my range before you realized that your feet left the ground.
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  4019.  @mitchellspanheimer1803  metal shielding is even worse, especially with beta. Remember, Cs-137 is a 0.5 Mev beta source and a 0.6 Mev gamma source. Bremsstrahlung radiation will be emitted by metal when a particle impacts the metal atoms, which can then ionize a path through the chip itself. Some plastics would be far more effective in protecting the circuitry than metal. In space, one faces mostly protons and beta, along with x-ray and a touch of gamma, all save the EM generating bremsstrahlung radiation from the spacecraft hull. Thankfully, one doesn't have neutrons or protons to really foul the camera in the case of Cs-137, but damage from gamma should be minimal to absent at that energy level. As a hint, thunderstorms can generate gamma in the 100 Mev range, we don't see cameras failing from that. Pair production is quite unlikely at that flux and energy level. Oh, another tidbit, I-131 is used in nuclear imaging, had such testing done for my thyroid. It puts out around 0.364 Mev, which goes clean through the body to be easily detected. The Cs-137 is harder by a little, but magically was blocked by a hand that should've only barely attenuated some of the beta and not a lick of the gamma. Were such an offer real and I ran into it and could verify it as a source of some type, I'd buy it and call a friend who's a nuclear health physicist to verify by a proper survey. Then, if it was something like Cs-137, call the NRC and the military installation he works at to see who wanted to take custody of the damned thing. Better to get it off the street and market and into proper custody than pray it doesn't turn up used in some terrorist attack or irradiating a neighborhood. I'd also get the tag number of the seller and if possible, the VIN from the dashboard. The NRC would certainly want to have a conversation as to where such a hazardous source originated.
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  4057.  @FixNewsPlease  and I'd lead the charge for mistrial and impeachment of the judge. There has been no treason. Sedition, yes, treason no. Our Constitution clearly and plainly states that treason shall consist solely of taking up arms against the country or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. As we're not at war, we're fresh out of enemies and both are too pusillanimous to ever pick up a gun against their government. Hence, he'd have convicted them without the two required eyewitnesses testifying in open court (another Constitutional requirement), for a crime that they never committed. That's both mistrial and denial of rights under color of law. And treason doesn't have a mandatory death sentence, the punishment is set by Congress by law, per the Constitution and is the only crime for which writ of attainder and corruption of blood may be ordered. The latter last exercised against Robert E. Lee against his plantation, which remains US property today and was only paid for by Congress after seizure after his death. You might have heard of the place, Arlington National Cemetery. Oh, for the trivia hounds, the actual penalty is under 18 U.S.C § 2381, states that a person guilty of treason against the United States “shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” Seditious conspiracy is 18 U.S.C §2385. Advocating overthrow of Government. Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction. And we've multiple seditious conspiracy convictions, with sentences being served and more cases pending just for Jan 6 currently, just add a couple of more onto the pile-on. The mental image of both in solitary inside of a supermax is quite appealing. They don't allow cameras to be present on visiting day.
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  4085. Now, now. That wasn't an invasion, that was Russian troops going on vacation and their commanders generously allowing them to take their vehicles and equipment home with them on vacation. Remember that nonsense being press released from the Kremlin? Yeah, I agree about the Crimea part, started there as a test, we failed and well, one failed President that also ignored a pandemic encouraged escalation by Putin. You missed one other use of nuclear weapons, typically neutron bombs - area denial. Then, one channelizes adversary movement into a desired direction and area. Also, we've not used Cheyenne Mountain Complex for a C3 center for ages, the C3 center is now a standard office building and the old bunker is just communications switching for the most part. I've also ungently reminded some Russian stooges that only one nation in the world has ever used nuclear weapons in war. And that that country tested cobalt-60 releasing warheads first. And that countervalue strikes would be preferred to wasteful counterforce strikes, as Russia would run out of population centers down to village level before we'd run out of warheads, leaving the population depleted below survival levels. They attempted then to shift goalposts, counting large cities in the US only, upon which I reminded them again of village level raising the number from 1300 to 19000+ vs our number of cities exceeding the numbers of cities, towns and villages in Russia. They did the smart thing and went for a nice hot cup of STFU. I grew up in the Cold War, I trained and operated in the Cold War, much of my career specifically targeted at Soviet, essentially Russian forces. Diplomacy isn't saying nice doggy until you find a rock, it's saying nice doggy until you can pull out the gun and fire. And blathering veiled threats of nukes, ancient news and flat out boring, Putin ran off at the mouth at his supermissile we're not hearing about since it blew up its scientists and irradiated its water based launchpad, but he had during his brag sessions threatened to salt the warheads for port attacks, which would really foul US ports and coastlines - plus our largest population centers. I countered then with, the only reply is a full level countervalue response and between his missile blowing fissiles all over the place and such responses, he STFU. And as I've happily informed all readers that I live at ground zero anyway, I really don't give a fuck kind of set the tone, as I was born a week after Tsar Bomba. I'll definitely outlive Putana. Oh, one did suggest I'd discover Novichok, I reminded them that we have long had samples and a standardized detector, so the most likely outcome from such a thing would be a redelivery in a Russian styled gift package to a very inconvenient location, at a sensitive time, resulting in Russia having a really bad day from an inconvenient and usually troublesome part-ally. Because, we trained to fight dirty and think much farther ahead than they're used to dealing with. They really hate reply in kind with high explosive babushkas. Just to remind them that I remembered the bombs in children's toys in Afghanistan that they used.
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  4116. Interesting blurb came across Fox. Oddly, factual reporting that DOGE wants full access to the public's IRS database records. Beyond actually factual reporting that was utterly neutral, what was interesting were the sheer volume of Russian bots going nuts for it. Not a lick about the Privacy Act of 1974. I dunno, does Trump want his very own, personal Wellington? Or just a Brutus? Telling, watch CNN's coverage of the "peace process", they go on and on about Russia-US-Ukraine meetings for peace talks. Factual reporting, Ukraine hasn't been invited to these "peace talks", so it's about divvying up the corpse, not a real peace process. Not that such talks are going anywhere, Putin's pushing hard now militarily to gain leverage, but won't want to lose mineral wealth or cropland. Trump won't want to lose mineral wealth or crop land to sell to corporate farming. A great process of going nowhere. And he's still going on about the Biden Under the Bed? I thought by now, he'd have progressed to the Biden In the Closet. You're in the office, inflation is yours, not the guy who's been gone for a month. Although, to give due credit, he's done nothing to egg prices, nor could he, even he can't lay that many eggs. No president can change the rate of infection of chickens with bird flu. Which reminds me, gotta run to the store anyway, gotta schedule an armored car for the delivery of a dozen eggs... Although, a wise president might want to have the USDA examine current production practices with an eye to limiting infection spread in battery cage egg laying "farms" (they're immense warehouses full of crates that chickens literally spend their entire lives in to lay eggs, with around 6 million chickens inside of one building, so one gets infected, the entire building is infected). Canada only has around 28k per such a "farm" and they're geographically distributed due to the nature of the population distribution in Canada, the same with Mexico. Don't have all of your chickens in one basket, to mangle a metaphor. There are a few ways to address a problem. Acknowledge a problem and try to find a solution. Deny the problem, then try to blame someone else and watch it blow up in your face. Pretend there is no problem and blame someone else and watch it turn into a nuke blowing up in your face and we know Trump loves this method, it's the Biden Under the Bed. Not an immense warehouse full of infected chickens. BTW, USDA predicts prices of eggs to go up another 20% by year's end at a minimum, as bird flu isn't slowing down much, if at all and it take 8 - 9 months for a chick to mature to laying hen. Which will also be the fault of the Biden Under the Bed. Doesn't care about everyone in the world rejecting US produce, "I gots mine" being the attitude. Wonder what his attitude will be when farmers start driving up-armored farm equipment into D.C.? That's happened before, usually in one or two numbers, when farmers look at unpurchased crops, they're literally seeing foreclosure on their farms in the near future and that means homeless families... Oh wait, I know what his reaction would be, hide in the bunker while forces gun them down without mercy, as happened every other time a pissed off farmer showed up inside of the city with farm equipment. Dealt with several forms of dementia during my clinical rotation, dealt with vascular dementia in my father's final years. Suffice it to say, I'm fairly sure he's diabetic, right diet, age, body mass index for type 2 and poorly controlled, vascular dementia is a significant to severe risk. Vascular dementia is a dire diagnosis, as it's rapidly progressing as a dementia, with stair step progression as the blood vessels inside of the brain break down due to the accumulation of glycation end products in the blood vessels epithelial layer, rendering the vessel walls delicate. Basically, constant micro-strokes. Add that with his malignant narcissism, he's beyond dangerous. Case in point, got his eye on owning Gaza and he's got an army. Trump's birthday, but nothing for Saint Reagan day? "We reversed the firing", nothing about if they actually contacted anyone or got them to agree to return, meaning they turned on payroll, not that anyone's back to guarding that enduring stockpile of nukes literally sitting on shelves. Somewhere, there's likely someone's cat rolling around a plutonium core on the apartment floor... Which for those that don't get the image and joke, that core would weigh in around the weight of a heavy bowling ball, while being around the size of a grapefruit.
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  4131.  @roeko10  welcome to the wide world of irregulars. Not every "military" force can afford uniforms after buying weapons. And their training and professionalism also betrays that weakness. Hamas, by definition is civilian. Similar was Taliban and AQ in Afghanistan, hence why we classified them as unlawful combatants, but still afforded them Geneva Convention protections as a matter of course. But then, we dealt with non-Convention forces in the past with Japan, who wasn't signatory and ratifier of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, but had agreed to abide by them (and largely didn't). Easier to stay playing the good guy than pretend to be the good guy and rely upon everyone recognizing the white hat. With a few gaffes along the way. WWII Marines wearing Japanese ears on a string as a necklace a few times, a few in Vietnam, one arrested for making such in Afghanistan. But, we also had press along to keep us honest. IDF, not so much. Minimal to no press, total obscurity, obstruction and zero visibility, save what they want released and this, being an exception they couldn't hide on a bet. Yeah, not a fan of how they're fighting this war. And I'm the farthest thing in the universe from gentle in war. But, it's good to have oversight and to have civilian control of our military, rather than "sic 'em" and walk away. And flooding tunnels hostages are known to be inside of, yeah, no. As much as I'd dread it, I'd personally be going into those tunnels to ferret out the hostages. Once they're out, fuel-air the damned complex comprehensively, after obscuring exists with WP smoke. While trumpeting a slogan far and wide, "khalas, Hamas!". Arabic for, "Enough, Hamas" and well, not in the passive. Yallah, Wallah, I do know a bit of Arabic. English equivalent transliteration, "listen, swear to God..." Although, I'm a bit more fluent in Arabic profanity. ;)
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  4139. It's a lot worse than emotionally scarring, it's destabilizing of what few governments remain stable in the famine afflicted regions. That spreads outward, both due to refugee flight and genuine anger over their needs not being met, their loved ones dying and they'll strike out at whoever appears or is doing better than they are. With plenty of online fingers pointing exclusively to the west, ignoring Russia stealing most, if not all of Ukraine's grain stocks as we speak. As far as I'm concerned, send those pirate vessels to the bottom, switch them with US excess grain, paint over the vessel names and fly no flag. If something needs to be on the hull, put a banner up saying MV Grain Fairy. Pull it from what I'll use, I'll not be alone volunteering it and I can stand losing another 20 pounds. One fee for the grain - recipes. We've had enough food to not only feed the entire planet, we've had enough food for my entire 60+ years of life to literally make the entire planet morbidly obese. Oddly, those against feeding those who hunger claim ever so loudly to be fine, upstanding Christians, who as Gandhi said, are ever so unlike Christ. Now, a bit of homework for most. Look up "Scarcity economics", which is the actual economic system we live under. Add in lean practices, such as just in time delivery keeping stocks low, it's no wonder that the US has an infant formula shortage due to 30% supply halting for contamination issues at the main plant. Not stocking warehouses means, any interruption in the supply chain leads to shortages and in scarcity economics, increased profits at everyone's expense. And there will always be interruptions in the supply chains, an earthquake here, typhoon there, volcano blowing its top diverting traffic over there, pirates in the underwear...
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  4186. The largest solar array in the US is 7.28 square miles, if it's a full square, it'd be 2.69 miles x 2.69 miles, which is 10 miles in Trump measurement magic miles. Meanwhile, coal plants got shut down because coal cost more than any other energy source. I'll not even go into bodies of water that had total fish and bird kills when coal ash spilled into those water sources. And he'll change energy prices, supermarket prices and the price of unicorn rides, because the POTUS fixes all prices in the nation using Harry Potter's wooden magical marital aid stick. But hey, he's helping Americans get well paying jobs by halting federal employment that's only open to US citizens, but really loves H1B workers coming in to take well paying high tech jobs. Thus far, he's fully gone over to opposite land, total Bizarro World, where everything is opposite what he says. Down means up in his lexicon, win means lose, enough said. But, at least he banished Musk from the White House, much to the irritation of President Musk, who is now consigned to the executive office building off campus. And he got Hegseth, who will be easily found if he needs his SecDef, such as if we're under nuclear attack, as he know which lampshade his town drunk wears when it's Miller time, which is all the time. And the Army is getting rid of, as of his taking office, their sealift capabilities. If we need to move an armored division somewhere, they'll have to drive their tanks across the Atlantic or Pacific. And the commandant of the Coast Guard, well she got fired for not stopping the previous commandant from misbehaving while he was in command after she took command, I guess she should've used Obama's time machine. The man is dumber than a 50 foot tall stack of anvils. I really need to take up drinking. Alas, can't afford to and I'm sure that Hegseth won't share.
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  4208. Difficult to analyze anything without all of the pertinent facts available yet. Known, a warning was sent to the accident flight to warn of a potential bird strike threat. A literal minute later, the aircraft radioed a mayday call for a bird strike. Insufficient time during a stabilized approach to escape that kind of risk, engines take time to spool up thrust enough to begin significant maneuvers. Aircraft attempted a landing, landing gear failed to deploy, TOGA was engaged (hopefully, as they did go around for a missed approach due to landing gear deployment failure), reciprocal approach was approved for the mayday flight (otherwise, they'd have had to circle the airport and begin a whole new approach on the original course). Belly landing was attempted, flight was without flaps or landing gear, thrust reversers did engage, but were ineffective. Video exists of a compressor stall in the #2 engine (starboard side). The reversers indicate at least partial hydraulic pressure was present, as they're hydraulically actuated, no out of balance thrust observed on landing when the reversers were engaged, indicating failure of the remaining #1 engine. One odd report was stating something about a bird lodged in the wing, but I've not observed any further reporting on that, so that may just be noise. It is beyond unusual though for a bird to penetrate a wing, damage a wing, damage control surfaces, destroy an engine, but I'm unaware of any flights that have had a bird actually penetrate a wing and damage the hydraulic lines and/or actuators and aircraft are tested and certified to survive bird strikes to the wings. So, open questions that the flight recorders will reveal, did #2 entirely fail, which appears likely? Did #1 fail and if so, when? Did the crew engage the APU and get it up to speed in sufficient time to retain full hydraulic function, which does take a fair amount of time during an emergency? Why did the crew fail to pull the landing gear manual deployment controls, which would have allowed the gear to drop and lock under both gravity and air flow assistance? With the gear down, they'd have lost airspeed rapidly and may have then avoided an overspeed landing that was extremely long - especially with no wheels with which to brake with. Also missing, the speed brakes, which automatically deploy along with landing spoilers when the gear is down and otherwise would have to be manually activated. Panic isn't really a first consideration, pilots operate and survive by following checklists and checklists take time, hence reliance in time critical emergencies on memory items. In either case, quite a few disasters have been traced to not following a checklist or missing a memory item. Basically, the accident occurred in absolutely the worst possible time, at the end of final approach and at a cleared to land time frame and that is where most fatal accidents do occur. Losing engine power on one engine is recoverable, it's literally part of the design of the aircraft and is necessary for certification. But, bird strikes can and have damaged both engines and damaged engines can manage to operate for some time after initial damage, we'll need the flight recorder data on the EPR and maybe EGT to be certain if the turbines were catastrophically failing or failed, but #2 is likely due to the observed compressor stall and consistent with fatal damage due to ingestion of a sizable object, specifically, a large bird. We're not talking sparrows or pigeons, we're talking geese or even larger, so twice the weight of a chicken or more, depending upon what species is being struck at a couple of hundred miles per hour and turbines spinning at 10000 - 25000 RPM, the fan spinning at 1000 - 4500 RPM. And in a high workload, information overload environment, where CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) is critical to offset the massive workload between crew members. Landing is already a high workload situation, pop a sudden emergency and multiple problems into the mixture during one's final leg of landing, it's a hot mess of tons of information, only some being critical, flooding the displays and computer and without teamwork, has often resulted in disaster. It certainly didn't help having the antenna array for the approach system resting on top of a tall double reinforced concrete wall, which is unconscionable to every pilot I've spoken to. Normally, they're on low concrete pads and on steel towers, which at least will shear off, even if they do damage the aircraft badly. Concrete, one may as well rammed into a mountain and frankly, it's a bit of a miracle that even two survived that crash. But, panic would them imply rash and hasty actions and there's no sign of significant control inputs that would indicate panic. There was little time and as was noted with the Hudson River forced landing, both engines can be fatally damaged by a flock of large birds and there are a plethora of examples one can find where one engine immediately failed, the other failing later and again, on landing, that's doubleplus ungood. Still, I'll await the report on the recorder's logs, which will fully tell the sad tale. That the pilots accepted coming in hotter than a two dollar pistol suggests a loss of thrust though, but that's an educated guess from someone that hasn't flown in quite a few years. But, I do remember there not being a hell of a lot of time available to even panic when things go sideways and one being quite busy analyzing indicators and messages, while going through checklists and worst case, memory items. There is a very real possibility that things went so disastrously wrong, in a worst case scenario way, that the checklist and memory items just couldn't be completed until a half minute or longer after the crash and if thrust is absent, a missed approach then won't get you a go around, you're not going to miss the ground. Because, gravity always wins.
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  4232. It does speak to desperation on the part of Putin, not so much the motorcycles, which have been used effectively in the past, being difficult to target in the past. The desperation part being first launching IRBM's with MIRV warheads, which are indistinguishable from nuclear versions by any means until the warhead reaches its target, posing a risk of misinterpretation of strategic nuclear weapons being launched and a response by every NATO associated nuclear deterrent force. Now, attacking when a NATO head of state is visiting, with full knowledge in advance of said visit, risking letters of last resort authorizing the launch of SLBM's from effectively point blank range onto Russia. The letters directing countervalue or counterforce options and currently unknown to even allied NATO powers. As for armor, the current delay is likely due to getting their old WWII stock running and operational again. Yeah, they still have those in stock. They've largely depleted all of their modern stock and most of their Cold War stock. Maybe horse regiments after that, in conjunction with nukes? And if a nuke goes long and into a NATO nation, Article 5 and NATO replies in kind are inevitable. And even money, given YT policies as observed, this will get deleted and I'll be in YT jail again. Because, anything anti-Russia gets poked by YT with a sharp stick. Well, let's see next Monday, Vice President Trump did promise to stop the Russia-Ukrainian war on day one. Assuming that President Musk will allow that. Someone will have to tell me if it happens, as I'm scheduled to walk my unicorns, then go for a long flight on my pigasus, then resolve a fairy strike.
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  4236.  @Atticusnme  firearms are just one more tool to be used and respected. Exercise proper safety measures, they're as safe as your household hammer. Always respect the firearm and the end the thunder, brimstone and owie comes out of is hazardous and don't point it at anything you don't want obliterated. Keep safely handling it until it becomes like an instinct and practice, practice, practice. Be comfortable enough firing that you're certain that you'll never miss your target, then keep on practicing until you won't. For me, it's an exercise in muscle memory and applied mathematics and I'm proficient to a kilometer - even with an M-16, better with a high power rifle and pistol I'm good to 50 meters from an old M1911 (my preferred sidearm). Shotgun, well, I can hit door hinges and locks... ;) And take up honing knives. Not for military usage, conservation. A good knife should last a lifetime with proper honing. And a dull kitchen knife can really mess you up. Dull knives injured me badly enough in the past, my razor sharp kitchen knives left me alone with only minor nicks. And a good heavy weight cleaver, great to tap around a bone to cut it and bake it into submission for boiling into stock. Hey, even if the poop hits the fan, which I really hope it doesn't, ya gotta eat! And I eat like a king for under $350 a month. Balls! Just realized, forgot to grab coffee at the store earlier and a winter storm's blowing in. Oh well, pantry reserves it is! Yeah, got four shelves of food and a stuffed freezer. Not a prepper, just well, lazy. Shop once a month for basics, get fast turnover weekly for milk and whatnot (used to include eggs in that list, but can't afford the armed guards). OK, got a dozen, don't tell anyone. ;) Knowledge is power. Acquire as much knowledge as you can, from food preparation from scratch to which end of the firearm the thunder, brimstone and owie issue from and how to safely handle it.
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  4240. I've always saw IR illuminators well. Not as in using them as a flashlight, but the source I can see well at a distance. I suspect it's just part of the range of normal red wavelengths that many can see, as they're not exceptionally far from our usual wavelengths discussed in usual conversation. But, UV, long wave UV is quite bright to my eyes, a deeper shade of violet, fluorescent marking, such as counterfeit detection on US currency is also blindingly bright under a long wave illuminator. UVB, I see in a pinkish-purplish tone. Neither being well focused at all, one actually appearing quite foggy, suggesting something a biologist I discussed it with suspected, fluorescence of proteins downconverting the UV into ranges that I can detect. No clue what UV-C looks like, you explore it, I'll stay at home. That's damned near x-ray wavelength and quite unhealthy for humans. Oh, seeing in x-ray and gamma would be even more interesting during powerful thunderstorms. Regular strength thunderstorms are fair x-ray sources, strong storms are good enough gamma sources as to be detectable easily from orbit. I did get to see my femur in gamma, when I had a thyroid scan using I-131. Before dosing, they needed to determine my natural background level. I'm slightly hotter than those junior to me by decades, but given I was born a week after Tsar Bomba and the idiotic amount of atmospheric bursts, plus underground bursts that leaked fallout to the surface in the US, not surprising. Oddly, I don't turn green or get larger when angry. But, there were a few Privates that were certain that if angered, I'd likely beat them with the 20 ton APC they had to clean after using it... ;) Naw, they'd just have found themselves with all kinds of things to do that they'd loathe while everyone else was chilling with ice cold beers.
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  4258. The GOP follows only one religion, a very dark one indeed, for it is simply money and power. In a Christian view, they'd be the Sadducees of today, ruling class and wealthy. Sadducees believed that there was no resurrection of the dead, no afterlife, no spirit realm, no angels. Most Sadducees were priests of the Temple. Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead and the afterlife. They believed like all Jews that God created the world, chose Israel as his chosen people, and rewarded and punished them according to his law. They also felt that the Law of Moses contained ambiguities which they strove to fix by developing rules and regulations for every possible human action in order to adhere to the will of God as outlined in the Torah. Yet oddly, Jesus had Pharisees as followers, who he recognized as following a righteous path. Given the political environment at that time, Pharisees tended to be more for the people than Saducees, who were for the wealthy establishment and there was tremendous amounts of unrest due to their political differences. The Romans wisely stayed out of things, save when tax money was interfered with by unrest. The problem is, playing politics with one's faith is to prostitute that faith, gradually at first, increasingly over time. There are quite a few stories within Judaeo-Christian scriptures where politics overruled lessons considered law and the results were always disastrous. Stories where the lessons were followed, the results were wonderful. Whether they were literal events or tales of wisdom is up to the reader to consider as an intellectual exercise, the lessons remain the same of attempting to impart some modest wisdom upon the learner that desires that wisdom. The foolish simple consider it verbatim law, no reason required for that law, it just is, as surely as an altar gets its gilding.
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  4269. When the half of you that are tired and depressed feel like rejoining life and when the other half, who want to shred the Constitution and use Trump's tactics, techniques and practices feel like rejoining reality, where it's more conducive to life, then come back and read my warning. Health warning: Leopard heads are tasty and one can easily engorge oneself on them when they attempt to dine on one's facial features, their forgetting that's where our mouths are. One must pace oneself when dining, lest one suffer constipation like I currently am, due to a slight logjam of still digesting leopard skulls. Never fear, you won't run out quickly and leopard heads make an excellent egg substitute that's entirely free and incessantly volunteering to become a meal. So, we had our asses handed to us in the election. Dust yourself off, get up and get ready to fight to preserve what remains of our nation. George Washington lost most of the battles against the United Kingdom, but kept on slugging, preparing, slugging some more and eventually won important battles and guess what? We're not singing God Save the King, we sing our National Anthem. We lost many battles in the beginning of every damned war that we fought - literally, tragically in many cases, laughably in others, stupidly in many cases, we dusted ourselves off, trained up, prepared and slugged away and won the important wars, walked away from the unimportant, stupidly chosen ones, stalemated one that had an impossibly large army backing the adversary that remains a stalemate to this very day. We defeated Spain and her empire, Germany and hers twice and the aggression is largely gone from Europe, save with Russia who's desperate to actually mean something and make more acquisitions to recapture their Soviet empire glory and that played heavily into our election debacle. We never were a nation of quitters, there's no damned reason that we should suddenly start and become a satellite of the Russian Federation. So, as I've done when my ass got handed to me, snap the damned thing back on, get up and get back to slugging. I would recommend stocking up on shelf stable foods for the early months of the upcoming disaster - during this administration, because things are going to get stupidly crazy once he swears in and your sudden non-purchasing at war pricing is gonna really kick him and his cronies in the wallet hard if you're already stocked up. I always keep a couple of months of basics in the pantry and freezer. Not some doomsday prepper type, I'm just lazy and when the weather's shitty out, why go out shopping when I can pull some UHT milk from the shelf, bake my own bread or whatever else I need gets pulled out of my pantry? Don't have some chest freezer or anything, just a regular full sized fridge/freezer, around four pounds of beans, four pounds of lentils, couple of bags of flour, veggies I can for myself because where $.99 for a can of veggies, half might go to waste for myself alone and the half cans are $2.00, screw that, canned my own in 8 oz jars for a couple of cases worth. Pasta sauce is in 4 gallon batches and pressure canned with the meat in a case of quart jars, mostly because I loathe that store bought crap marinara swill. And hungry leopard heads are tasty as well, since I can't find some powdered eggs for backup for when the weather's iced up... ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozCoq4osSwk Bad days pass, want the good days back, it's on you to make them come back, being an adult is accepting a setback and moving forward, adapting to failures and moving forward. Because, going backward only results in being backed into the ocean and getting soggy.
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  4300. I'm reminded of the Fukushima meltdowns. CNN had Bill Nye on to discuss when they were injecting boric acid into the reactors to prevent criticality. Bill, being a good engineer and generalist totally flubbed things, confusing cesium-137, a fission product for boron, a neutron poison. Now, on day one, that'd be a no biggie, not enough time to line up any consultants that knew a control rod from a fuel rod. After that, not exceptionally excusable, as people who worked on nuclear reactors were lined up around the block to talk about what was going on and were studiously ignored. Instead, they had "whistleblowers" that were crackpots or well, a mechanical engineer who once worked for Boeing on hydraulics discussing the physics of a nuclear reactor. With the efficacy of asking a barber about constitutional law technicalities. Better off asking wait staff, oh wait, I'm sure they would, rather than ask an attorney. Being right has a low return on investment to the MBA crowd, being first is what counts and well, we see what MBA attitudes did for Boeing's profit margin with the 737 MAX debacles. And the booze bottles in the under construction Air Force One candidate... Pity, as MBA types are invaluable within their fields of expertise, but lousy outside of their lanes, as are every other specialist around. You don't ask a network architect to fix your car, you don't ask your barber for legal advice and you certainly don't ask your attorney to remove your gallbladder, you go to the appropriate expert in those fields. Or do your own research and remove your own brain tumor. Sure that'll work out well. Although, one's next career would be as a second lieutenant/ensign. ;) I'll just get my coat...
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  4359. There are commercial traps like what was described. It's designed to fire a 12 gauge shotgun blank toward the ground, originally intended to discourage animals, but also used to discourage trespassers. Harmless, save if it kicked up some dirt into the low crawling trespasser's eyes, put a live round in it and it'd likely explode - they're plastic or sheet metal and could then be considered a mine. I've also used old fashioned magic cubes and a thin pin to trip the snapper inside that actuates the bulb. Taped carefully to a fencepost, trip lines six inches inside and down, on two adjacent posts, whoever's coming over the fence will likely be looking into the bulb when it flashes. Their night vision would also be shot to hell and gone. Hear the idiot coming over the fence, hear the distinctive pop of the bulbs, going back over and trip and fall into the concrete outside of the fence, snicker like Muttley. Worked great for one doper, who for some odd reason, would come down the alley and shoot up in my yard, leaving his works behind and at the time, we had small kids. He left a blood trail from his shins meeting the retaining wall outside the fence that lead straight to his house. He didn't return. We also used the same thing in the Army to discourage infiltrators trying to scout our site. For the remote controlled device, that'd be referred to as command detonator and as far as I'm aware, remains untested in the legal system and usually is used with actual mines, like Claymore and other antipersonnel mines. Dunno if I'd want to test a prosecutor and court's Wheaties...
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  4370. The Gulf War was and remains in the Persian Gulf region, Afghanistan isn't very close to the Persian Gulf, something called Iran being between Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf and our bases there. Historically, well, ever since a certain invasion by some Mongols, was easier to invade after, the populace realizing that being conquered wasn't as bad as what happened in a total war, was a lot more easily won. Even with what now is Iran. CIA, because they have a covert operations division that we can have plausible deniability and save diplomatic face sufficiently enough that everyone knows we got caught with a hand in a cookie jar, everyone knows it was one of our hands, we cut it out enough to deny knowing that hand. Soviets did the same thing, as do many other nations. Diplomatic dancing dirty. Afghanistan even gave Alexander the Great a hard time "retaining it", which basically was a bloodletting exercise and eventually, abandoned. The Mongols suffering a similar experience. The British Empire suffering a similar experience. They cannot be ruled, because they are unruly! Thanos invades, suffers a similar experience and loses most Infinity Stones. At least I got to keep my stones, even if I did long ago lose my marbles... ;) Oddly, both sides have an open invitation for me to come back and visit. One side, I suspect, doesn't have my best wishes in mind for such a visit. The other side, not at all noisy, but I'll likely have to lose weight after and not from any form of metals or minerals. It all comes down to who got on my bad side and who got on my good side. Life can get really weird at times, given what tag some placed on some of each. My attitude is, if you want to misbehave, do so quietly and cause minimal destruction, make a noisy wreck in a way one cannot pretend to ignore, now, we've all got a problem. I don't give a damn which started the fight, now I have to stop it immediately and still have to deal with pissed off Mom. I'll be hearing about for ages! And sorry, kids, but my parents were indeed married. ;) Having been in both theaters, I am quite firmly convinced, somewhere that we've not located, there are vast fields, where RPGs are gently swaying in the breeze, awaiting harvest by a certain Slavic nation for delivery "south"... Tomahawk missiles are precision missiles, which can deliver several forms of havoc, the nuclear variety, retired, cluster bomb, HE, a few other sorts of bomb delivered, with GPS precision, some having additional option kits added to further inform accuracy from indicated guidance that's shared with a JDAM bomb. They were most recently and famously, used against aircraft shelters in Syria and did a hell of a job against hangar queens that were left behind after we deconflicted things with Russian Federation forces. GPS can inform guidance, terrain mapping radar as well, plus of course, the usual autopilot style guidance. Precision guided junk removal service! Anaconda, "We knew you were coming, so we baked you a cake!", total goat rope, but we most certainly left an impression on or with them. Well over 3000, in well prepared positions, with overlapping fields of fire, mine fields and prepared choke points. It was prepared by the same SOB's that trained me. But, as usual, US training and equipment comes in two models, export models and our own models.
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  4377. It is ironic, one will need to produce identification superior to the requirements of purchasing a firearm and ammunition. So, one cannot cast a ballot, but can fire a bullet easily. Not a problem, on election day, I'll bring a firearm and if denied my ballot, a bullet will go through the ballot box lock, invalidating all of the ballots. Only hearing will be injured, mine more egregiously, given my service related hearing loss that the VA likes to ignore. Although the governor might be disturbed, my polling place and home are only a few blocks from his mansion and there is an acute disinterest in that dwelling of firearms, which I rather share outside of competition with said instruments of noise. But, useful instruments, as they do earn me a turkey and ham at tournaments. Used to hunt with one of them that I've since no longer possess, alas, the deer were far smarter than I and they evaded me so successfully that I started to not even bother loading the rifle. And now, unarmed, the fuckers actually walk up to me, go figure. Oh well, we don't have a rock season and I'm in no condition to be dragging a stoned deer from the woods and the butcher doesn't require oiling. Yeah, I do literally live three blocks from the governor's mansion and I'm fairly certain that his security and my firearms should remain disinterested in one another and given the firearms are inanimate, I suspect their happily being ensconced in the safe will remain appropriate. And general laziness means, if the safe is opened, they get cleaned and well, the safe only gets opened when I compete for that turkey and ham. And now, if necessary, ballot day. Although, a small shaped charge would be lighter to carry and just as effective... Were the Founding Fathers alive today, they'd be shouting "God Save The King!".
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  4385. So, the use of force is acceptable to ensure that a summary offense, frequently addressed by mail, is acceptable. If the cop's out of pepper spray and doesn't have a taser, I guess he can use his M4 instead and shoot the suspect to death to serve that summary offense notice. And nukes should be allowed for citizens suing. Yeah, as in, what in the actual fuck, over?! God-cops need to be replaced, as god-cops seem to believe that courts of law do not need to exist, so it becomes a use of force game. And honestly, were I to witness that, those cops would be obstructed - permanently, as they escalate. Upside is, the economy would be slightly stimulated, as there'd be vacancies in the local god-cop force. And the undertaker would be fairly busy as well. Capital punishment and life in prison aren't much of a deterrent for those who are aged, militarily experienced and just out of fucks to give any longer. We just want peace and quiet and obedience to the laws and Constitution. Back in the formerly real world, refuse the summons, get served by mail again, ignore that and meet the constable who will forcibly escort one to court, by court order. No god-cops needed to Roy Bean shit and invite Range Wars. Excuse me while I check my nuke stockpile... Cool! Got a few left, all prominently marked and properly marked Chili with beans. I'll never lose in that contest, I'm US Army, REF. Retired, Extremely Flatulent. Seriously, we've a major problem when cops decide to be god and become punishers of pseudo-offenses. For then, the courts lose authority, law enforcement as well and we've just gone feudal. Literally. Now, excuse me while I go vomit.
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  4410.  @athlonen irrelevant, as what he was convicted of, via his pleading guilty was not giving aid and comfort to an enemy, which if you ever read official documents, the Taliban and Al Qaeda were never described as (the word adversary was always used). I know that one intimately, as I authored such documents during the war in my filed reports on our operations and enemy was a disallowed term in official reports. What he was convicted of is what operationally counts. Hell, Trump's affirmative defense against the 14th enforcement would be that he was never charged or convicted of insurrection or rebellion and BTW, giving aid and comfort to the enemy is also not insurrection or rebellion and the 14th makes no mention of anything other than insurrection or rebellion. Like I said, going for jaywalking next? And the SCOTUS did shoot the foot of civil rights enforcement by states, as without specifics including say, law enforcement, state and local law enforcement no longer need concern themselves in abiding by the entirety of the Bill of Rights that doesn't have a codified law to enforce the meaningless Constitution. I do wonder if Congress wrote any law establishing the SCOTUS? If not, by their case lawlessness, aren't they illegal and hence, have no authority? For that matter, interpreting the Constitution was never codified, it was original thinking of the very first SCOTUS, who considered the Constitution self-executing. But then, the SCOTUS has long called enumerated rights privileges. A key difference between a right and a privilege is, a right requires law and the action of a court to abridge, a privilege may be administratively revoked. An example of a privilege being operating a motor vehicle, that privilege can be administratively revoked, for one example, if a licensed physician finds the operator unfit to safely operate a motor vehicle. But, one has a right to speech, until a court issues a gag order.
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  4431. Uranium was used as a pigment in the paint under the glazing of both tiles and dinnerware from around 1900 - 1942, when the Manhattan Project diverted all uranium (formerly a waste product that took 3 metric tons of uranium ore to produce 1 gram of radium, the rest was considered waste and plentiful. That, on top of being used as a pigment for literally centuries. So, either humanity is extinct due to the ubiquity of uranium glazed tiles or homes have never burned until the LA fires. Or traces of uranium oxide aren't exceptionally harmful, given we evolved alongside them in the environment in granite, for one example, making it into granite bound aquifers and hence into our drinking water, into the soil when the granite erodes, into plants that we eat from that soil and more ubiquitous, potassium-40, which trees love to take up and bananas and Brazil nuts are high in. Indeed, a great amount of the heat of the earth's core is from radioisotope decay, largely potassium-40 and uranium/thorium decay. The reality of it is, there's anything from 0.25% to 25% uranium pigmenting the paint under the glaze and if the glazing is intact, the only thing one could have as a risk is if one's laying on the tile 24/7/365 and receiving beta radiation, as the gamma is too low level and rare to even escape the glazing and alpha particles certainly won't escape the glazing. Radon is a modest hazard, if there were tons and tons of the thinly painted tiles around - say, in a warehouse and such warehouses are long emptied of such tiles.
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  4444. The original plan was for a third wave, targeting ammunition stores and more importantly, the fuel farm. Without that fuel, our carriers would've been worthless and recovery would've taken far, far longer. The dud rate in that era isn't really all that unusual, impact destroys the fuse before it can detonate the bomb. Additionally, the bombs and torpedoes were customized for the mission, the torpedoes had to be shallow within the port, the bombs designed to penetrate the armored deck of the warships. The worst part of the attack was, due to the security measures enacted pre-attack, the ambassador had to manually decrypt the declaration of war, resulting in an official declaration of war to be delivered long after the attack, resulting in a sneak attack before war was officially recognized as being declared, enraging a pacifist population. Interestingly, US intelligence already knew the contents, as the diplomatic codes were cracked and the declaration known to the military. Chain of command delays essentially ensuring Pearl Harbor had no inkling of an upcoming attack. The US, having significant losses, additionally added pocket battleships, destroyer escorts and escort carriers, all with minimal to no armor. In the battle of Leyte Gulf, those destroyer escorts, despite being unarmored, turned back destroyer, cruiser and the pride of the Japanese fleet, a dreadnought class battleship. The Japanese mistook destroyer escorts for full destroyers, selecting armor piercing rounds, which literally punched through the ships, to land on the sea bottom. Aggressive action on the part of the unarmored destroyer escorts reinforced the mistaken impression of the Japanese commanders, resulting in their failing to punch through and destroy the escort carriers and their aircraft, essentially sealing the fate of the war for Japan. Proving the adage true, "Never interrupt the enemy when they're making a mistake". The Arizona remains a war grave to this day, slowly leaking fuel oil, but her guns were salvaged and used by the Navy.
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  4495.  @agme8045  not quite correct. Obesity usually isn't a disease, it's a symptom of underlying disease or dietary/activity imbalance. Metabolic syndrome is fairly common, can be due to sedentary lifestyle and carb heavy diet over the period of years, can be from Cushing Syndrome or PCOS as well. Addressing the root cause frequently will address the symptoms, including excess body fat and glycemic imbalance - well, until everything starts to break down due to overload. But, UrbanShamanDK points out one major addiction that the US also faces, an addiction to the quick fix. Not an actual repair or adjustment, just a quick fix. Stick a bandaid on a bullet hole. Yeah, covers that unsightly hole, doesn't stop that leaking red stuff until you run out of it and do that dying thing. My ship has a hole in the side, I stuff a mattress into the hole staunching the worst of the leak, it ain't fixed, it still needs to be fixed, it's just controlled for now. We've been wandering off calling the mattress in the hole fixed, ignoring the increasing leaks until we're flooded. No, you then weld in a patch over the hole, remove the mattress remains, repaint and check frequently to see that the actual fix is permanent. Or learn to doggy paddle across an ocean, which usually doesn't end up well. Lose weight by first seeing doctor, if doctor's first move is to go with this drug or one related, find a competent doctor that hasn't given up on you and actually follow doctor's advice. Lose the weight gradually, not quickly, as quick fix fast loss is short term loss and regained with a vengeance. Get back in shape, yeah, round is a shape, just not an optimal one, just don't go to the other extreme and go to skin and bones, for moderation is the key to a healthier life. Get imbalances like PCOS addressed, it's long term, frustrating, takes a lot of effort, but is controllable. It's not gonna be simple, it's a complex problem and complex problems don't get effective simple quick fixes, they get complex solutions to each sub-problem that's part of the big problem and gradually controlled.
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  4558. First, the plane hadn't just landed, otherwise a baggage tug would've been on the runway. He was on the ramp, where he should've been and clipped the wing, flipping the tug and getting pinned underneath the mess. Unless you're going to now blame Trump for shitty driving on the ramp, you're barking up the wrong tree. That'd be putting POTUS in charge of a ramp operation at a small airport - along with every other airport in the land. And oddly, you're not bitching about a week before the god-king wannabe took office and started fucking up the world, a 66 year old American Airlines employee died after being hit by an airport ramp vehicle at North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Guess that's Trump's fault too? Putting the blame on him for everything is just taking a page from his dicked up book, making you no better than he is. Both of these cases were tragic accidents that I know from firsthand experience, are not uncommon on airport ramps. They're congested, high speed operations to get passengers off and on their flights with their baggage and the aircraft turned around ASAP, as they make money in the air, not on the ground. And if you've not guessed it, I have worked the ramp, back when Piedmont was its original independent Piedmont, during the ice age. ATC doesn't control the ramp, airline operations controls the ramp. The closest that ATC gets involved is when the aircraft is requesting to taxi away from the gate, initially usually being pushed back by a specialized push-back tug. The NE Philly crash, ain't ATC, so unless you're wanting the god-king wannabe to wave Harry Potter's wooden marital aid to whammy everything perfect, it's likely either mechanical or a ghastly pilot error, I'm leaning toward mechanical or a forgotten locking pin that got missed on walk around in shit weather and oddly, that's also not magically the fault of the POTUS. Who's got a smorgasbord of shit that are abominations he's responsible for, from establishing his own personal concentration camp at GTMO to bidding on sending US troops into Gaza for a Palestinian pogrom, ala Stalin. He's also threatened if anything happened to him or anyone close to him that he'd obliterate the entirety of Iran, which I can only presume would be via thermonuclear means, given the place is fairly large.
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  4570. When did the FBI become responsible for the network security of telephone companies? Do you think they're also responsible for the security of your door locks too? Now, how the real world works. They may notice traffic at landing points for overseas to US fiber, trace it as it's going and get a warrant for a tap, which just mirrors that traffic to and from the US destination of interest. You know, that cell phone company. They'll more likely want to mirror all traffic from the foreign IP or even VPN. They typically being the NSA, whose actual job such things are and actually do work closely with the FBI when traffic goes domestic, since the NSA is part of the DoD and hence is prohibited from police functions within the US by the Posse Comitatus Act. The analysis will eventually show information about the internals of the telecom's network, specifically what's being compromised and how by that foreign traffic. The business is then notified by the FBI and their security people (the business, not the government, since it's not the government's network) investigate and respond. How do I know that? I am an information security professional and have been on the receiving end of those visits, with a full briefing and report, then had to dig away, trace and analyze the attacks and spread, literally recording network packets and analyzing them in real time, extracting their malware used and submitting copies to corporate for inclusion into antivirus, the FBI as evidence and report to the management and executives in both the company and FBI. In one attack that lasted a full seven years for a low number Fortune company, I traced traffic coming from a network blind spot to financial servers, where I captured an entire RDP (remote desktop protocol) session to a server, captured their latest and greatest version of software for submission, alerted the administrators of the server and their management. We installed sensors to monitor that blind spot and captured the entry point - a literally forgotten test server that'd been left on and connected to the DMZ for nearly a decade. Once that went offline, they lost their beach head and the attack was finally ended. Royal PIA from start to finish, as it's not a magical window where I visibly see the session, I see the raw packets and analyzed them. Tens of thousands of them. The attack actually lasting only minutes at most. Only after would notification of end users be considered. You don't rebuild the house while it's still on fire, you put the damned fire out first. You also don't shut down a Fortune listed company network that's performing critical services for governments and corporations over a modest network breach, that's how you shut down entire nations. The organizational flaw, accepting modest attacks until a couple of Sarbanes-Oxley audits, as financial servers were being breached and copied by a foreign advanced persistent threat. The entities involved remains classified. The attack was actually publicly reported long ago. The fun part? This is happening every day, all day, all night. And I'm not changing my SMS habits, as I don't transmit my PII in unencrypted form - ever. It goes by encrypted e-mail or encrypted e-mail attachment. Otherwise, well SMS is pretty much like skywriting, it can be received unencrypted over the air with a standard microwave antenna and receiver. Biggest players, China, Russia, Romanian gangs that contract to foreign powers and just rip people off, Iran, Cuba, generic annoying people that have a vague clue, bored kids, of course every major Western power as well and some numbnuts in an internet cafe in Gabon or something. The gangs and larger nations being a wee bit better, by both skills and number of players working.
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  4573. First, "I am not aware of", one would have to prove before a court mens rea and what someone knows and that would either require public statements referencing the specific quote/event or telepathy. Additionally, there's the nearly insurmountable hurdle of proving that a blonde is even self-aware or aware of their surroundings. Second, I heard the testimony with the Georgia Secretary of State telephone conversation and she stated "I have not heard the entirety of that recording", not that she was unaware of that specific quote. That was an evasion, true, but likely factual and well, admittedly, I've not heard the entirety of the conversation myself. Only the damning sound byte that well, knowing Trump from actually meeting him, is consistent with the charges alleged, but lacking in the full conversation that'd likely be even more damning. Well, it would've been, before the SCOTUS elevated him to monarch. After all, Nothing the King does can be illegal. For the hostages nonsense, granted, weak tea blonde awareness joke aside, weak tea answer, where I'd stipulate that he is entitled to his opinion and his opinions aren't relevant to the matter before the committee, since he's not being reviewed for consent of Senate. Patel's book, well, I've not read it either and what would remain relevant for her is, would she supervise him and not allow abuses of office and authority, her views on a book you'd then have to prove she had read aren't exceptionally relevant, save if one were to be instead asking if she embraced that enemies list and include said list in one's question and eating up one's questioning time on the floor. Meanwhile, the Senate doesn't have to give a cause for rejection of a candidate for the cabinet level appointment or certain officers, they can literally vote against someone based upon their eye color or what kind of shoes they wear. As for the 1001 bit and "I don't know", yeah, dumb answer, the proper answer as coached by every attorney I've known is, "I do not remember" or "I do not recall", one's conversations with others being easily investigated, memos and e-mails also trivial to print out and submit. One cannot prove what is remembered without telepathy. The hypothetical question, got asked one myself that was rather broad in scope and essentially impossible to refine as asked, so I loathe hypothetical questions. "That order, was it with the space aliens overhead in their flying saucers menacing us or Genghis Khan's hordes risen from the grave? If I'm given an plainly unlawful order, I'll question the order and explain my questioning based upon law, if persisted, I'll refuse the unlawful order and if confirmed, would be forced to report said unlawful order to the House, however I sincerely doubt such a situation would ever occur so clearly and plainly". But then, I've never been accused of being a yes man and I have indeed questioned unlawful orders, in many cases insisting on a digitally signed e-mail from the offending officer, who oddly demurred from issuing said order in writing. Digitally signed e-mails effectively being a signed written order, the signature being a DoD and court accepted nonrepudiation token and admissible in court. And yes, I've some familiarity firsthand with both federal civil and criminal cases, thankfully from the periphery. Now, if I were a spenditmore, would I vote to approve her for the proposed office? Not a chance in hell. From testimony I've heard from the proposed SecDef and now her, I'd trust neither as far as I can throw the entire District of Columbia. I'd at this point have serious qualms as to his other proposed candidates for the various offices he's requesting consent of Senate for. And that first bit I refer to as a fraudian slip, a false Freudian slip, as I've little respect for any politician, earned richly by far too many. Reminds me way too much of both "My Fellow Americans" and worse, "Liar, Liar".
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  4574. Well, could be worse, could have to deal with the cube root of infinity. Although, the first measurement being met with disinterest sounds a lot off, given the phenomenal effort to figure out superluminal neutrinos that was reported in a way that basically said, "guys, I know these readings are wrong, but I can't find the cause, so what's going sideways here?" and got a swift answer that repaired the problem. Especially when the math is claiming infinity, which means all of the particle accelerators are wrong, because of the godwhammy force holding protons and neutrons together under all conditions and hence, zero evidence of quarks, which is obviously wrong. Eh, maybe a one off due to illness, don't do my best work when feeling ill and that typically only happens on days that end in 'y' in English... Yeah, I'd call it a godwhammy, or a Harry Potter wand whammy, anything whimsical that makes it obvious that it ain't magic and irritate enough for someone to correct the math to match observations. Maybe even name something unexplained, oh, planty. Largely because, WTF effect being a rather ill received term... And the explanation does need more clarity as well, as otherwise, if I go to rip a baryon apart, I'm getting something from nothing, which is nonsense, but the energy matches the input, it's an of course. I'm not going to get the excess in mass-energy within a confined region of spacetime with any reaction that isn't already there, but the laws of conservation remain alive and well. It's force and energy interacting via carriers that trigger particle generation, otherwise electrons are magic and they're merely mildly annoying at times. The laws of conservation are only violated within the constraints of my finances. Well, there and within the constraints of single Planck units, where there still be dragons. At least, until better math is discovered.
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  4576. Legally speaking, yes, they're the same gravity in breach of law. Also considered, scope. As a thought experiment, I kill family members of your family at the numbers of documents that were astray. For Biden, we're talking immediate family and some cousins, for Trump, a VFW hall sized venue. We're talking a mass murder vs Joe Mengle level atrocity. Going into improperly classified data, well, that's an atrocity well known in government and essentially intractable, to the point where I've read documents that were proudly marked SECRET/FOUO. Secret is special, in it could harm our government's interests, FOUO is For Official Use Only and hence, not subject to summary declassification and release under law. An IP address could be FOUO, the base chow hall roster and those consuming meals roster certainly would be. An entire network's IP scope and base roster is secret for plainly obvious reasons. The massive difference is, if I took any of those documents home, I'd be in a maximum security prison, likely close to Manning's old cell. Executive branch, like seniormost military leadership both realize the overclassification and deal with rivers of such documents, so behavior is decidedly more casual. Welcome to the real world, where some things are a major pain in the gonads for rank and file, not so much upstairs. And if I see another anything not UNCLASSIFIED/FOUO, but otherwise marked something higher/FOUO, there very well may be a death or severe bodily harm involved... And yeah, I Goobered security stuff down a lot, not that it's a classified thing, the guiding documents are unclassified and publicly available, bur boring as hell. But, lawyers who specialize in such things, well, they're rare and about as expensive as live Dodo birds.
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  4601. I do rotate my foods literally daily, as I honestly can't comprehend eating the same thing every day. I also hadn't salted my foods in decades, as there's plenty of salt in things like canned vegetables and that's worked well for me for decades. I did however, despite ample sources, chronically run low in magnesium. Mystifying, but a supplement helped when it dropped extremely low - once doctor actually followed his treatment plan. Then, four months of continuous or nearly continuous diarrhea arrived for an extended visit. Bristol 6 -7. Doctor was a bit distracted with some other issues that could do that killing me thing, so overlooked the overloo complaint for a couple of months until I reinforced the complaint a bit more strenuously and blood work came back with a severe sodium and chloride ion deficiency, as in I should've had severe cramping and possibly some entertaining cardiac conduction issues. GI consult it is! After a number of entertaining misadventures resulting in missed colonoscopy appointments, largely involving a rather comedic number of transportation issues of the most improbable, crap for luck sorts, this appointment stuck. Crohn's and of course, erosion right were salts are scavenged. On a biologic now, last induction dose is just shy of two weeks from now. We'll see if that's effective, as there was some annoyances with what the GI specialist wanted to utilize and what the insurance company has a warm and fuzzy with and for once, due to efficacy rates, I rather agreed with the insurance company. They did check for some micronutrients and folate and B-12, both star spangled happy mid scale. I've identified one flare trigger, <grumble> <grumble> <grumble> chili peppers. Love them, but the neighborhood around my ileocecal valve really wants to run that stuff out of town. And for entertainment's sake, my endocrinologist informed me (well, the blood tests did as well before my appointment) that my body got bored with Graves' disease and instead is visiting Dr Hashimoto. And if one couldn't take a guess from the maladies, yeah, I'm a desiccated smoker. OK, my hydration is fine. But, given those issues and their linkage and some lumbar issues that'll likely require surgery or my switching to permanently seated and needing a diaper, yeah, think it's time to toss one bad habituation. So, the sex swing goes! OK, the smokes gotta go. Never got that other thing, as neither my wife or I had a yen for being in traction. One needs to retain one's sense of humor and my ancient EMS humor remains alive, imbalanced and unwell. ;) And at least my herbal teas are well tolerated - drank not for some medicinal value, but because they just taste so damned good. Favorites being artichoke tea, ginger-tumeric and hibiscus. Might try some rose hips, if I can clip some when the Rabbi next door isn't looking... ;) And note to self, discuss with doctor some forearm novel behavior, sudden 5 - 6 cm inflammation and intense itching, with sub-centimeter hives that hemorrhage and resolve in about a week, a bit longer than my usual healing time and I clot quickly, as observed in bleeding time measurements and when using the glucometer due to the steroid I'm briefly saddled with. Was just finally clocking at pre-diabetic at age 63, in a family where diabetes is usually diagnosed in the age 30 - 40 range and dialysis is needed by age 50 - 55 ("It's in the genes, why fight it" being their mantra and mine being, over 28 years in the Army, fighting's what I'm best at and loathe). Shit. Forgot to pick up coffee when I was at the store, gotta dip into my pantry reserves, as a winter storm is coming. Probably revenge from Canada for those tariffs... ;) That's OK, I pre-pre-retaliated by buying 2.5 gallons of Canadian canola oil. But, the good news is, eggs in the US should be coming down in price, given one certain POTUS incessantly laying eggs... I'll just get my coat on the way out...
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  4606. The KN-23 is supposed to have a 200 meter CEP, so this would qualify as a gross violation of the prohibition on attacking noncombatants, as there were no military assets anywhere near that home. That sacrifices the Geneva Convention rights of captured Russian forces, as Ukraine is now permitted to engage in reprisal summary executions under the Geneva and Hague Conventions, to which Russia is a signatory of. More telling is, Russia is using technologically inferior missiles from North Korea and Iran, proving even further how much of a paper tiger Russia actually now is. Meanwhile, we now have evidence that the PRC is violating sanctions against North Korea and smuggling US technology into North Korea, opening them up for sanctions. Boy, all of the bullies are screwing themselves this week, is this an early holiday gift to the West? "Russia retains surprises", yeah, it'd be like the US firing missiles supplied by Somalia. If Russia attacked a NATO nation, it triggers Article 5 and a full NATO strike with all options goes on the table. Russia nukes with tactical nukes, as they threatened in reprisal to conventional weapons, any fallout on a NATO member triggers Article 5 and NATO nukes back. Putana's painting himself into a corner, pants down and bent over. It'd be far more prudent to withdraw his forces. But, he won't and he'll escalate oddly, at least until the threat of a NATO reprisal grows sufficiently that he's forced to retire "for health reasons" to a dacha in the woods, to not be heard from again - assuming he doesn't fall out of a window in a windowless building.
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  4623. While there are risks within even a high therapeutic dosage level with diphenhydramine, it remains my antihistamine of choice, due to its slightly higher efficacy level and being common in our military drug chests. When it's not quite effective, one can rapidly follow with dexamethasone or other steroid and of course, to close those leaky, dilated vessels, good old epi, followed with a rapid MEDEVAC. Once, I lost the advantage of rapid evacuation and got saddled with severe anaphylaxis, secondary to longstanding beesting allergy and several stings. Yeah, that man kept me busier than a one armed paper hanger! Used up a fair number of drugs in a kit designed to supply stabilizing care for 1200 men. Our surgeon was supervising and only offered a sparse few suggestions of odd one off uses of some drugs, after he noticed that I was calling out using Promethazine for its antihistaminic properties, synergising it with an analgesic to ensure that the patient not injure himself. It also meant that I was beginning to scrape bottom in the drug kit and my knowledge base and doctor suggested a few drugs, even adding atropine to counter the recalcitrant bradycardia. Learned a few things from that, mostly, on how to more politely indicate outrage over unnecessary delays in MEDEVAC requests, some of which made it up to division level as the most polite alternative usage of terms that otherwise would be translated far more profanely. Worst twelve hours of my life! But, he finally stabilized, was hospitalized anyway, as I wasn't having a warm and fuzzy over the encyclopedia of drugs utilized to stabilize him. Suffice it to say, the surgeon gave due credit, which I honestly didn't give a damn about and had some interesting words to say to command over unnecessary delay of evacuation of a critical patient during a training exercise. He also had a touch of ethanol, for medicinal purposes that he prescribed a strong dose of for both of us. Largely, as we both wanted to hit a specific individual over the head with a flung M1 Abrams tank.
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  4633.  @peetsnort  actually, there are several comparisons to be made. Both had circulatory damage, both have cytokine storms wreaking havoc. This bugger just happens to trigger a touch more widely distributed of a cytokine storm, complete with cardiac and kidney damage, making it a fair bit higher in the fatality department. Now that we've got a handle on some effective treatments, the CFR should drop down by a lot. A couple of months back, I was hospitalized with respiratory distress with SPO2 bouncing around 83 - 85. CXR revealed atelectasis with infiltrates. So, while working up the differential, TX was initiated for presumptive COVID-19 pending further testing and DX. First up, dexamethasone, followed with heparin. Sputum and nasal membrane swabs were taken. Speaking with doctor, I simply asked, "Presumptive pending differential and testing proving otherwise, huh". Doctor, shocked simply confirmed my suspicion. What had made me ill, thankfully was not infectious, but a full blown thyroid storm with hypertension and decompensation resulting in the pulmonary issues. Never before had I ever thought that the words, "Thank God it's only a type of heart failure!" would leave my lips. Oversimplified, that's what happened with me, loosely resembling part of the symptom set of COVID-19 and I entirely agreed. Were I still treating military patients, that'd have been my approach while ordering testing and getting doctor on the radio, as well as scheduling MEDEVAC in a New York minute, then decontaminating my treatment and waiting area of my BAS.
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  4634.  @peetsnort  one calculates not on total global population, but per capita so that apples to apples are compared. Currently, for hospitalized patients, the CFR for COVID-19 is higher than for 1918 influenza. That said, there are confounders present for both, as both have cases that never are hospitalized and that skews the numbers. One upside is, we've yet to have people expiring on city streets, whereas with the 1918 influenza pandemic, that was a regular occurrence. We also now have dexamethasone to tamp down cytokine storms and heparin to prevent clotting issues, where in 1918, we only had hopes and prayers. Downside, thus far, per capita, Coronavirus has a higher per capita CFR than the 1918 influenza pandemic. Upside, as I said, we now have treatments, although I really would have a much warmer and fuzzier feeling in regards to one antiviral with additional studies on the efficacy, as the studies I've reviewed are rather weak tea. That all said, at the beginning of any pandemic, all studies are weak tea or non-existent, we learn as we go along, as life isn't a Doctor Who episode where one has a time machine to violate physics with. ;) A couple of months ago, we were embracing dexamethasone and heparin for preventing cytokine storm and clotting cascade failure, resulting in DIC, which has proved quite effective in preventing worse sequelae advancing and some studies suggest cardiac, CNS, peripheral circulatory and nephritic damage is far more limited when such treatments and possibly one antiviral treatment is initiated. At the time, I was hospitalized with dyspnea, SPO2 on room air 83 - 85, swiftly improving to 95 - 99 SPO2 on 5 LPM nasal cannula. Admitted for that and a hypertensive crisis, atelectasis with infiltrates. Immediate TX, dexamethasone and heparin, doctor was surprised that I asked if that was presumptive to possible COVID-19, pending labs and differential and shocked, he concurred. That's been the gold standard initial treatment. I was dubious that it was COVID-19, due to any possible exposure was over 30 days previous, due to one burst of intracranial flatulence on my part and since, I've been my usual cautious self in regards to contamination. Additionally, I have a HX of Grave's disease and hypertensive crisis and had fallen complacent on monitoring my BP and pulse, as well as remaining afebrile, retrograde or common fever at all and no precursor symptoms of a respiratory infection. A few allergy attacks, but those aren't unusual with me upon return to the US after five years. Well, the usual battery of tests, including nasal membrane swab drilling for oil in my sinus, a sputum test and my FT3 and FT4 being ridiculously high, it was confirmed to be a decompensation after initiation of a thyroid storm. Honestly, I never before thought I'd ever utter, "Oh, than God it's only a form of CHF!". But, the protocol matched and the dexamethasone also would be effective for limiting damage from the circulatory inefficiencies present due to the hypertensive crisis that turned things into an acute decompensated state. It's also right at the edges of my understanding and capabilities from when I was treating military patients in the field and I'd be getting doctor on the radio, after scheduling a New York minute MEDEVAC (basically, I'd brook no delay, urgent means what I *@&!%!!! said), TX to stabilize and advance doctor's efforts before arrival. And I've actually performed cut downs to gain circulatory access in some cases. So, I'm rather adept at knowing my limits, I'm also quite adept at anticipating what doctor will call for at a SF military level. I've also responded to more than a few outbreaks of infectious diseases and raced to get in front of them. Where I excel is, I know when to call in an SME and that's always before I'm well and truly in trouble - it's far less damned work! Even today, now that I'm retired from the military, I have my network of SME's available by telephone, personal visit or e-mail, counting PhD epidemiologists, some personal friends who my wife and I have enjoyed many fine meals with. Still, there are comparisons. Cytokine storms, DIC seems to have been present with both due to probable peripheral circulatory system damage, high unmitigated R0 and the only real difference is COVID-19's unmitigated hospitalized CFR being twice the CFR for hospitalized 1918 influenza pandemic patient rates, adjusted for per capita, rather than total number of ill. For, comparing outside of a per capita rate adjustment isn't even an apple to apple comparison, it's apple to bowling ball.
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  4635.  @peetsnort  there was no concern at that time about overdose, the patent was confiscated from a German company, something about enemies and a World War, you might've heard a little something about that. Aspirin does not cause a cytokine storm, try looking up the germ cytokine storm, then look up what cytokines are. That's medical knowledge, not hypochondria, which is a psychiatric condition involving a pathological fear of being ill. We don't hospitalize people for hypochondria, we do hospitalize them for major illnesses. Nobody had antibodies for smallpox until they contract the disease, the same for influenza, which is most commonly carried by birds, which the Native Americans were most certainly familiar with. Measles, mumps, varicella and smallpox were unknown to them. Peanut butter allergy has already been figured out, underexposure when young resulted in allergy when exposed when older, it was repeatedly written up in every pediatrics journal in the world. Not microdosing, but microexposures to promote tolerance to the allergen, which is a standard desensitization method that's been in use for decades. No, COVID-19 isn't some emotional overreaction, we don't put people on ECMO or ventilators for emotional illnesses, we put them on such invasive technologies when their respiratory system is so badly damaged that they'd die otherwise. Even then, a fair number still die, which most assuredly is not an emotional overreaction! It's been globally, even within Sweden, to be acknowledged that the Swedish approach was a dismal, abject failure that resulted in excessive deaths. Only one political leader in Sweden supports that failed view, well, that leader and Russia, who's always contrary to those not their friends. Again, we don't hospitalize people for a mental condition as minor as hypochondria, we do hospitalize people for life threatening illnesses. So, why do you go on at such length about things that you repeatedly prove with your own words, of which you know nothing whatsoever about? Are you proud of such alarming and excessive ignorance?
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  4642. Honestly, I do believe that a civil war may be looming. :( Things would get mighty interesting though if it did and who is control of our nukes comes into question. :/ And alas, I'm for once being serious. Had to take a break, due to a Crohn's flare and got irony nibbling at my heels. Was preparing to hone my ulu, as it's in need of a touch-up and realized my honing oil was empty. While examining the bottle from an Arkansas company, I noticed that the label was tri-lingual, English, Spanish and French. And billed as non-petroleum, while its MSDS says 98% mineral oil, which is decidedly petroleum. Mostly from Canadian crude. Fortunately, I've a larger bottle of plain food grade mineral oil on hand that I use to make wood butter for my cutting boards and wooden spoons. Gotta still get the board/bowl for it, neighbor set out the blade and I rehoned the much abused treasure. I'd make my own board, but I'm feeling a bit lazy. Got many a fine kitchen knife that way and the losing neighbor never realized, I'd happily hone them for free for them. Oh well, waste not, want not. And a fine kitchen work cart that has an excellent cutting board top that a neighbor never installed all of the hardware for and worse, covered the butcher block with contact paper. Stripped the crap off, installed the missing hardware for a few bucks investment, refinished the cutting board top and coated it with that abovementioned wood butter. Bleach it clean, re-butter it. Circling back to the subject at hand, I suspect you folks might want to spool up JTF 2. Served in an overlap region with them, did some mutual assistance jobs in both directions when a bite was a bit more to chew than was called for due to some faulty intelligence, they can set quite the party table! And that's meant in a most unpleasant for the other folks way. Canadians are polite as the day is long, right until they're riled up, then they're as nasty as the rest of us until the unpleasant business is concluded. And just as happy when the other guys just go home. I'm a pacifist by nature, but was a warrior by trade. Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent, it's a final recourse when one didn't do one's job properly. Because, nobody in their right mind wants a war. Now, to important stuff. Wood butter is easy, about 1/3 beeswax to the rest mineral oil, more or less oil to desired consistency. Melt over low heat in a pot that's expendable (I keep one small pot just for that purpose), jar it up and it'll keep indefinitely. Just as a good steel blade will, keep them sharp or get injured, they should last multiple lifetimes if properly cared for. Guide for a quality blade, if it's shiny as a mirror, you're looking at the wrong thing, if it's the hue of a US nickle, you're on the right path - it's high carbon and will take an edge, the other crap needs a whole intensive care unit to hone. Ceramic blades are good, but really a bastard to re-hone. Note a preference for the useful over the worthless?
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  4660. Now, let's have a stroll down history lane. In the years 1937 - 1939, the first Social Security pension payments were sent out - a one time payment to those of pension age or older. That was it for them, but according to god-king, they're still getting paid, probably by Harry Potter's magical wooden dildo. And all contracts you can underpay, because contracts mean paying whatever you want to pay if you're a god-king. Your electric bill and rent, both contracted, try to pay half or whatever you want to, let us all know how well that works out for you. Mortgages are also contracted, pay half and keep paying half, keep on saying you'll only pay half and never, ever the contracted amount and hell, do it in writing. Let us all know how nice it is to live under that bridge. Breach of contract is a really big deal, save for god-king, who has his lawyers keep continuances abusing the system until anyone suing either dies of old age or goes bankrupt and can no longer afford to collect. That's why the roofer at the Taj Mahal started to remove those onion domes when Trump attempted to refuse to pay by "Oh, we can't pay the agreed amount today, it has to come from the corporate office only and they didn't cut the check that's due today" card was flipped. Cranes and workers came up, workers scaled the roofs and began to dismantle the roofer's roofs and wonder of wonders, suddenly that location acquired the ability to print and possession of company checks and one was immediately cut. The roofers stopped, reattached what was disconnected and left to a happy payday. And DOGEshitters have yet to provide any evidence of fraud, waste or abuse, only waved around some pages that finally were admitted to have DEI baked into the contract BY THE GOVERNMENT. If we can find 1.5 trillion, yeah, he said the same thing about votes, but one AG couldn't be assed enough to push the case forward, so we're living the life of Wile E. Coyote at the Acme plant. Want to have fun interviewing him, have him provide some numbers, wait five minutes, have him repeat those numbers, they'll be different and his dementia won't allow him to remember what he invented. Then, "Oh, Hamas, Gaza, Mozambique, Israel, nice town"... Yeah, BRICS wall to the face. He was truthful about his approval rating, he's not heard those numbers before he pulled them out of his ass, won't hear those numbers again if nobody plays the video for him either. I did notice one odd trend in retail. NICS background checks for firearms sales is a fair bit higher this month than last and this month isn't over, despite it being a short month. Ammunition sales are also up. No idea what that means though. Maybe that's connected with the approval rating or something. Feel free to Google it, the FBI reports on how many NICS checks are done and the firearms industry does track ammunition sales and report on that more often than on firearms sales, as ammunition is consumable and companies like to know if they need to make more to stay in front of demand. BTW, the Hanford nuclear site is now short staffed, the workers fired by DOGEfuck, those maintaining the NW power grid, especially the hydroelectric power stations at the dams, also shitcanned, so it's a matter of time before the west coast goes dark. I'm sure that Silicon Valley and Vegas won't mind being in the dark for a month or two until they can reassemble the power grid. And has anyone confirmed if he got back the bird flu tracking team that they'd just fired? How about the NNSA security teams for our nuclear warhead security? Just saying they're unfired does not mean that they've even actually gotten contact with those fired workers, they could've as easily and quickly reactivated their e-mail and cell phone accounts and a box of cell phones in the abandoned IT office at their site now have full inboxes and nobody guarding our nuclear weapons stockpile. Don't take his word if he waves a receipt, that receipt for recalled workers is more likely a McDonald's receipt. Or the tape from a young lady's maxipad... Yes, having met him in person, I trust him that little.
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  4662.  @absalomdraconis  the additive in question was called Olestra. Not especially relevant, given it was dairy products, specifically milk, butter, cream and many cheeses that all contained lactose. Additionally, lousy example, as the only people who did suffer that seepage were those who consumed ridiculous amounts of potato chips with Olestra as their fat. Every investigatory study found that one, not a one had such problems with average consumption, only with those who ate absurd amounts. I actually tried the products, including Pringles potato chips with Olestra, didn't have a problem with them. Still, a moot point, as Olestra was never a milk or other dairy product adulterant. But, there was one further thing against Olestra, it suspended fat soluble nutrients, such as vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, and vitamin A, along with carotenoids. Those then had to be added to the product as supplements to offset what otherwise was excreted. Olestra remains in use today - as an industrial lubricant and paint base, as well as a deck stain base, as it is environmentally friendly. Laughably, lobbyists against Olestra used chemophobia to fight the product, long before excessive consumers complained. One attack, calling it what it is, a polyester. So is cooking oil, of course, but one does have to shake one's head over proclaiming general health and championing knowledge by capitalizing upon ignorance and the promotion of said ignorance. And a tidbit of later follow-up studies, those excessive consumers had the same seepage with regular fat chips, as there are limits to how much fat the body can digest, process or absorb. Rather like those who consumed low calorie sodas to lose weight, but turned around and drank hundreds of gallons of the swill, then complained that their weight remained the same or higher. They offset the caloric loss by overconsuming and obliterating that otherwise health gain.
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  4663.  nothanks9503  have yet to see a palatable algae product, counting gelatin products containing agar. I do enjoy edible seaweeds though! Lacking access to affordable edible seaweed, I'd happily fight seven strong men for a basket of broccoli rabe or curly escarole for soup. Alas, can't find even a leaf fragment in my neighborhood, our stores largely are geared toward Caribbean cuisine. Which has its own delights. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with collard greens and a few other greens (big grin).* With either, I'd be unlikely to ever be zinc deficient or magnesium deficient though. I tend to run deficient on magnesium, occasionally on zinc as well, but a dish of mussels fixes the latter. Haven't figured out why I run deficient on magnesium (yes, proton pump inhibitors and all, but even months after being off of them, I was still deficient), so I boost foods with both in them. *Lost my wife of 42 years a couple of years back this March. Still, for Thanksgiving, I cooked a full thanksgiving dinner (albeit with a smaller turkey), complete with collard greens. One of my neighbors, while discussing our dinner preparations scoffed at this white boy making collards and asked, "What do you know about making collards?!". Gave her my recipe, ended up having to share some of the greens with her, much to her delight. Learned how from my mother-in-law, who came from rural Kentucky. :D And this Philly boy loves his greens! Meats get a small serving for me, around the size of the palm of my hand or so.
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  4694. The question is, for that last positron and electron, is the attractive force a real force or a convenient analogy for the increase in probability of interaction once one's proximity to the other is within twice the Bohr radius? At a certain range, the probability of interaction is essentially 1, but never quite 1, as otherwise we'd be discussing infinity again and one really is only stuck with that when working with Planck units, where our math remains a bit fuzzy. So, is it a real force that measurably increases or an artifact of extremely high probabilities reaching the top of the curve? So, we inject more energy to narrow it down and measure the two photons... In this instance, it's essentially the inverse of the problem and it's easy to make the defective analogy that with increasing distance, the force increases, but that would lead to one quark being here on Earth, the partner being orbiting Sag A* and infinite force now is accelerating the partners together, which of course falls apart due to scale and the path, it's at close ranges such things seem correct and distance confounds things as it gets macroscopic. Which is precisely what was observed with that plateau. The only reason it doesn't yet be observed to fall off as distance increases isn't that it won't, it's that we've only hit the limits of what we currently can observe. The math never needs to meet some intuitive expectation, it just has to match up with observations, if it doesn't, we have to change the math to match the observations, for if we change the observations to meet the expected math, it's no longer science, but fiction. So, if one gets results that don't meet one's expectations, replicate it, have others replicate it, that is a good thing, as we're closing in on a superior answer. ~There is no such thing as a force of gravity. Gravity is merely mass-energy's way of telling space-time to go get bent. Me
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  4700. Another difference is Japan supplies 100 volts three-wire single-phase, the US 120 volts three-wire single-phase. One potential issue with the Japanese system is a neutral fault, as both require the neutral center tap be grounded at the transformer, the US also at the home and neutral and ground bonded. That lessens issues, but fails to completely eliminate them in the US system if a neutral fault occurs, from your description, the Japanese system would exasperate the problem by a fair amount due to load imbalances in that same scenario. Given the technical descriptions I've read thus far on the Japanese electrical distribution system for residential power, it looks pretty much the same until the breaker panel, although the neutral - ground bonding is likely done at the service entry/meter, rather than at the breaker panel. Still, it makes greater sense to GFCI the entire home electrical system and Japan had an advantage in doing so early on, given the nation had to essentially rebuild most of their infrastructure after a bit of an unpleasant disagreement back in the 1940's. The US, well, we tend to hold onto things, so we've got parts of Edison's original DC system still in place, retrofitted to AC, terracotta water pipes in some cities (I know for a fact Philadelphia still has many) for water supply, lead pipes still persisting in the water supply in some cities, etc. Total Frankensteinian systems here, bastardized to pseudomodern "standards", with tragic results at times and pretty much an attitude of "let someone else pay to upgrade things to modern standards" until they fail utterly. So, we'll get water main breaks in 150+ year old pipes leveling parts of city blocks by undermined foundations, an electrical system that's a century and spare change old and don't get me started on our sewage systems in older cities... And occasionally, somewhat comedic events, such as when we had a power outage in my apartment building, where half of the building remained lit, somewhat chaotically (some floors had no lights, others had half the building lit), my own apartment in the dark, but the 220 volt AC unit behaving rather oddly due to logic failures, LED night lights operated, nothing else did and really odd voltages, as the outage was due to a neutral fault from pole to building. So, the entire building of hundreds of apartments lost neutral to the pole, the neutral then completing a circuit back via ground and/or via conduction between loads from hot to hot via the 220 hots. There are videos here on youtube about "neutral fault". Can create interesting issues, to put it mildly, each circuit's hot-neutral voltage was entertainingly different in different parts of the building and well, it took me a couple of minutes to figure out the problem and call the power company about it, as it was at the pole and not the building's service lines that the apartment owned and I'd have had to explain to rather sleepy maintenance personnel what was wrong... It was fairly late and I don't sleep that many hours, rarely have. And I was bored anyway... I suspect that the Japanese system would trip the power and protect the equipment in such a scenario. If anyone is intimately familiar with the Japanese power system and the precise protections of the main breaker, please do respond on if I'm correct. It would be quite along the philosophy of Japanese engineering, "why solve one problem when we can solve three with one solution?". I'd also be curious if arc protection is also in the standard or soon to be.
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  4720. 'He didn't fill out an application that doubles as a place mat at McDonald's", because this is the 1860's, so out of touch that they think companies still use paper applications. "You can't define fascism", how entertaining if they actually took the insane risk to actually ask someone. Especially me, their stereotype, non-college educated and I most certainly can define fascism, communism, socialism and capitalism quite well. I did have social studies, aka civics and quite well remember my lessons from the ice age. In detail. Well enough to literally satisfy college professors. Then, pivot to "close the border before another 9-11 comes", because so many of the hijackers came across our borders through the desert, rather than as privileged students and such by air. Oh wait, some of us remember 9-11, having fought your wars for you. I'm a dick though, I'll give you closed borders. Utterly closed borders, making sure the entire planet gives the GOP due credit for failed supply chains - again, no produce, missing meats, no car parts, no imports from China, chronic shortages of everything and pissed off starving people picking up torches and pitchforks heading directly their way. Then, pivot yet again into mythical handlers steering opponent candidates into, whatever hand wave bullshit they're plying. Know who used handlers extensively, which is telling that one would refer to when doing one's master's bidding? The Russians. We didn't have handlers steering tons of agents, well, we had a few, but the CIA wasn't the size of an army, the KGB and GRU were army sized. The more the right speaks, the more they tell on themselves. They forgot that they have the right to remain silent, which any attorney says at the onset, is always the best idea. "You're gonna do it anyway, when nobody can see", such a stalwart position of honor, denunciation without cause, again, out of the old Ruskie playbook. Traded in commies for Nazis, good job, traitors. Then, segue into the strange, bizarre and unusual, log splitting. Back to the roots, perhaps, given the GOP's first candidate was Lincoln, of log splitting fame? Oh wait, no, something insane about sex changes of illegal immigrants in prison, because there's ever such a line around the universe for such services - in a galaxy far, far, far away. But, they'll be quite an impressive army, locked in prison, stooped over from groin surgery, were they not fever dreams from too many methamphetamine doses, another Nazi failing that literally cost them a war. Yeah, Hitler's command staff and himself were delusional by the end of the war because they were constantly on meth, a new drug that swept through their social circles that gave their "supermen" superhuman no sleep, along with paranoid delusions that undermined any actual sane efforts in their losing war effort. Pepperidge Farms remembers, so do we. Then, go with the time machine gambit. "Harris broke it all", hoping nobody notices she wasn't in any office that could influence events in the way that they claim. Saw another one blaming Obama not being inside of the Oval Office on 9/11, you know, when W was President... Need a time machine to make that work, dipshit. Then, thank veterans for their service, then try to tar and feather them if they report what they heard with their own ears. Next then comes threats of violence from their looser wrapped peers, who never question the wisdom of threatening to shoot someone good with the same class of arms out to two thirds of a mile to a mile. Their best offering, one that went after their own candidate, firing at a distance that any basic training trainee on their first week with an M16, missed by a lot and their other key brain trust, one that thought bushes naturally sprout $90 rifle barrels... Their best and brightest, easily disarmed using only basic stealth maneuvering and a frigging screw gun shooting a bolt down the muzzle. Then, sit back and watch them take themselves out.
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  4767. A goodly number were plainly helicopters, for one, a great bloody dome perspex canopy being clearly visible, for a lot, the landing skids plainly illuminated and tail boom and vertical stabilizer being also plainly illuminated. The size, I discard that "data" immediately, as it's dark, night vision and distant object size estimates are just nonsense due to the limitations of human night vision. There's nothing to offer size comparison to in the dark, hence the estimates are pretty much always wrong. Or it's the second wave of the great Martian invasion of 1938, they just got hung up on confusing signage on a cloverleaf exchange and are just a bit late. But, there are some drones that do have the required illumination and beacon set required. Some experimental Amazon delivery drones, which are not in the areas of reported "activity" and some military drones, which aren't being tested outside of remote and restricted military reservations. They're not Iranian drones, as the Iranian drone carrier is quite literally what the US slang term was a "jeep carrier", merchantman converted to an escort carrier, about 1/3 of the fleet carriers of the time and oh, that Iranian "carrier" is 6400 miles away. The only thing Iran has with that kind of range is e-mail and telephone calls. Haven't heard the KC-46, which makes no sense unless the mythical carrier is now a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier that needs refueling. A P-8 would make more sense, but know nothings will just pick some random aircraft and hand wave it into the Federation Starshit Boobyprize. Did hear of some "sightings" in Delaware County, PA. You know, where PHL is located, as well as Boeing VERTOL, where they build Chinook helicopters and their parts at - about a half mile from where I grew up and where my kids live near, who oddly saw nothing odd in the sky beyond a few kids drones on rare *days*. Well, other than the usual flying saucers and occasional flying cups from a neighbor's domestic dispute. I am reminded though of the panic Mom told me about in 1938, with reports even that Concrete, Washington was attacked - what actually happened was a substation transformer failed, but the town police called the wire services for unfathomable reasons. There was quite a wrestling match between radio station personnel, management and supervisors with NYC police, who wanted to arrest the entire crew of the War of the Worlds broadcast, as apparently radio plays became illegal to the god-cops of the time, but they were overcame by the radio station personnel, the puny gods. Didn't even need a Hulk. Idiocracy is being overly kind. Folks, don't let anyone poke baby in the fontanelle, consider it a great public service to the future! Sigh, I really need to take up drinking...
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  4815. One small, but critical problem with your argument. Before he could charge Biden with his mythical charges, he'd have to charge himself. Trump negotiated the withdrawal, timing it for when Biden took office and refused to allow any planning or staging for said withdrawal. As for treason, I royally piss them off by showing them the Constitutional definition, one unique in the world, of what treason is and explain that one cannot give aid and comfort to an enemy when one is absent an enemy, as Congress has not declared war on any nation and hence, there can be no enemy in the eyes of the law and Constitution. Regardless of what the division of hate out of the ministry of love says. As for commies, yeah, more times than I can count, I've been denounced with the proud and well educated and thought out accusation, "your a commie". An odd take on my quite capitalistic income, which typically exceeded the speaker's sub-minimum wage income. Marxism, there is one form of Marxism I am endeared to, Groucho Marxism. ;) Alas, can't walk around with a cigar, does really nasty things to my blood pressure when I try to smoke the thing. Pity, I do enjoy a good cigar, just don't like the nosebleeds by the literal pint and the expansion of an aortic aneurysm. Oh, for those unfamiliar with the US Constitution... Constitution's Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 defines treason. Very, very narrowly and precisely, because such a charge was so heavily abused by the British Empire in its holy wars against other Christian sects.
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  4822.  @lillianshaver24  so, that means that fixed wing aircraft cannot achieve a stabilized approach, since they cannot change direction due to the tracks they're riding upon. Got ya. Both can take evasive measures, it depends on time of warning and initiation of evasive actions and that's pre-established for which direction each aircraft turns to. That said, the aircraft would have the maneuvering ability of an overfed cow, due to low altitude and speed, it being in a landing sequence. The helicopter would be in stable flight on its assigned course and slightly more nimble, but neither aircraft are fighter jets to begin with, so they're not going to be making any Top Gun kinds of maneuvers. Worse, the radar shows that they first received a potential collision alert at around 1 mile distance, with a mutual closure speed of around 300 knots. That'd give them around 10 seconds to locate each other visually, as requested and queried by ATC, in the dark, in a congested environment with significant air traffic and light pollution. An environment where human depth perception is infamously poor to begin with. Frankly, I'm more curious as to why the ATC automated systems didn't begin alerting after the fixed wing aircraft completed its last turn, as at that point, they were several miles apart. Regardless, experience has shown that there are no single points of failure in accidents like this, but a slew of multiple factors that all line up to create the conditions of the accident. And that's most of what the NTSB is there for, to ascertain all of those factors, figure out what part they played and offer suggested measures to prevent such an event from ever occurring again. Circling back to your comment, there is no fixed anything when a collision alert is sounded, the local flight computer takes priority over all, including ATC and standardized maneuvering is to occur once a potential collision is confirmed, as spurious alerts do occur often in congested environments.
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  4882. Well, let's review some of the initial objections. Ignored, those who lived downwind of the bomb testing. Mentioned, the folks who worked at the site and service members exposed, but not the civilian population - a group still ignored today. Most of the victim photographs and films from Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain classified today. Civilians were most of the victims of the bombing, true, they literally were taking work home, Japan wasn't honoring the Geneva and Hague Conventions (they weren't signatories of the Conventions, but did agree to honor them at the beginning of the war and entirely didn't) and having components in their home as secondary manufactories did make them targets under the Conventions. Odd that the firebombing of Tokyo never gets mentioned, as that series of bombings killed more than both atomic bombings combined. The Emperor himself said that the bombings were necessary to convince the warmongers to come to the peace table. I suggest that the Emperor knew his people a tad better than you or I do today. Finally, Nagasaki got short shrift in the movie. true. OK, who was the third man to walk on the moon? Yes, it cheapens their loss, but Hollywood watches time like the proverbial hawk in running time on films and the film is about a person, not the damnable, thrice becursed bomb. I began my military career working on nuclear missiles. For reasons beyond my comprehension, we were shown those classified images of the victims and suffice it to say, I fully support their remaining classified. People have harmed themselves after seeing those images, for they haunt many a nightmare. And I can think of only one use for a nuclear or thermonuclear warhead - asteroid ablation to divert a decade or longer distant asteroid from earth's orbit. Beyond that, I fully support Oppenheimer's views on global disarmament of nuclear weapons. They're products of the insanity factory and have no realistic utility in a civilized world. And it'll never be able to be a civilized world with the damned things around. And before some pinhead nitpicks over "suitcase nukes", the lightest warhead was a 60 ton yield, 70 pound dirty fission bomb, the rest weighted in at 120 pounds for 600 tons yield, then jumped rapidly to quarter ton and most weighed in at a half ton. All need a pretty bad assed suitcase to handle that weight and the Incredible Hulk to lug it around. The MADM and SADM warheads weighed in over 100 pounds, plus support components and used a duffel bag sized carrier.
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  4891. End of story, he exploited, likely unknowing, Murphy's Law. Barriers were down for maintenance, he showed up just in time. For the religious malconversion, there's a specific set of personality defects that are present in terrorists and I've real world experience there. Sociopathic and narcissistic being primary, schizophrenia helps, but are typically rejected by planners due to unpredictability and false triggering. I'd go on, but the audience would grow glazed eyes. His erratic behavior was reported by a second husband, not the wife herself, there might be bias, not a good house to stack cards on, hell, at this point the lot of "evidence" available is questionable, to put it gently. Consistent, likely, but weak tea. I've, as I've said, dealt with such people, both militarily and well, socially. Unpleasant, in some ways, to put it gently. But, one has to respect the culture and society or engage in hostile actions that are literally suicidal. Easier and safer to drop a JDAM on the SOB after departing and being beyond sight, as is the cultural norm in such an environment. I've argued religion with both Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, having read both religious texts. Understanding an opponent can frequently result in the ability to convert those willing and capable to something safer for all. The others, well, as I said, military and those not "disarmed" via ideas, remained a threat that had already killed multiple civilian non-combatants, so mischief managed via high explosives. In one case, we were able to help dig out non-combatants from the rubble of living next door, a decidedly unpleasant experience, but the villagers respected us for doing so alongside them and greatly appreciated the removal of a monster in their midst that they rightfully feared. Still have some nightmares of that dig out, more on other experiences, but I'm dealing reasonably well overall. Although, there is some threat to the VA budget by some amateur night at the White House again... Don't get me started on electrics, I've -45 db hearing loss, many internal combustion engine vehicles are quiet enough to be a threat at times to my deafening ass, electrics add to complexity and actually add to PTSD issues due to processing overload. As for a life of failure... One only succeeds if one fails and recovers and learns and advances. I've four careers under my belt at age 63, all being proficient at those careers, per evaluations. The career path failed economically, moved onward to more complex fields, from TV repair to IT security, on top of a military career. One lead complained to our trainer once, "He keeps making mistakes", the trainer replied, "Yes, but he never repeats a mistake, he makes all new mistakes and guided in the right direction". Said lead, also an infamous team wrecker, if things didn't go his way. Long story there, he found more fertile grounds for his toxicity. One odd thing reported, "They were at the same military base", that and a quarter won't get a phone call. There can be 25000 - 50000 employed and assigned on some military bases and nobody has a time frame. If I was assigned to a base that Benedict Arnold was assigned, did we know each other? You didn't address that, thankfully, as well as maybe a later awshit... And oh, my differential blood pressure is quite low currently, due to a flaw in my health system's communication between patient, pharmacy and resident. So, I'm far from at my best. There's one thing worse than aging. Not living long enough to age. <grumble> <grumble> <grumble>... Context, got about a half dozen medical issues that are trying to kill me, from a mitral valve blown, through AAA and more in between. While stressed by being so poor that a church mouse stopped off to drop of crumbs. Shared another moron's cultural and military history, but oddly refrained from renting an expensive vehicle, shooting myself and detonating a rather shittily designed bomb. I'll stick with my glue gun, "Got a gun and know how to glue your shoes to the floor with it". The rifles and handguns, safely inside of the safe. They only come out on hunting season, when I can be assed enough to consider dragging a deer or competition for cash prize. Hint, it's only competition now, when I have to calculate trajectories, wind, barometric pressure and the spin of the earth. In a way I can only suggest to being courtesy of my dyslexia. Want to meet up? <grumble> <grumble> <grumble>... :P
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  4904.  @alanmcentee9457 how fascinating it is that for the first part, you stop and ignore the remainder, particularly the general welfare of the US, which previously was defined as We The People. Yet, when examining the second amendment, you parse the final part. It's as if you cherrypick what you want, ignore the remainder and just pervert that perversion into some odd damned fiction that meets reality in absolutely no imaginable way. Here's a hint, ever heard of a section 8 discharge from the military? Section 8 housing? All entitlements under section 8, entitlements being a fancy word for rights. The entirety of Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;–And To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
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  4907. Immediately after my gallbladder was removed, I experienced around 9 months of lactose intolerance. Medically speaking, it made no sense, as lactase is produced in the intestine, nowhere near the gallbladder. I also quite enjoy milk, especially in my coffee, which I still drink a fair amount of. So, at the time, all of the current milk alternatives were quite expensive and goat milk was stocked by my local stupidmarket. So, I quite enjoyed the goat milk. Oddly, the indigestion I get from 4% cow milk wasn't present in the much higher fat goat milk, yet another case of, the body, have to live in it, ain't got to figure the infernal thing out. Eventually, the lactose intolerance passed and I was able to switch back to the much lower priced 1% or grudgingly, 2% cow's milk and butter again. But, on occasion, I'll cheat a bit and grab some goat milk. I've also got a case of quart Mason jars full of pasta sauce, pressure canned with goat meat. Something I do remind goats that I occasionally meet of, should they grow a bit mischievous and rammy. Largely, as my cousin could've used your advice in not getting a goat, for pretty much every reason that you gave. And I'd had the dubious wisdom of getting to eye level with the goat once and it rammed me straight in the forehead. Until the day she died, my wife swore that the goat's eyes crossed. I was a trifle preoccupied with exclaiming "Ow!" and rubbing a rather sore forehead, looked up and noticed the goat wobbling a fair bit, with its legs crossed as it sat on the ground. Sicilian-Americans do have a well earned reputation for being quite hard headed. The goat rammed my cousin in the thigh about a month later, giving her a dinner saucer sized deep bruise, never did learn who got the goat after that. Yeah, I'll leave the goat rearing to you and your peers. Laughably, I'm quite certain that the goat was just being playful and didn't anticipate that I'd be quite as massive in comparison. But, ever since, I have taken to remind goats that I'm an omnivore... ;) Not that they understand me. I'll stick to raising dogs, who I'll train to verbal directional commands and a few useful tasks, as they train me to walk and exercise with them. They've advised me that I'm highly trainable. Something that my wife agreed with over the course of 41 years.
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  4982.  @namenotfound8747  never had anyone complain my uniform was dirty, just after a day out with scouts getting asked why my uniform wasn't pressed and starched. He wasn't exceptionally happy about his career outlook when I turned around and he saw I was two grades superior to him. And your weapons were a wee bit better in quality. Nice custom shop pistols, tighter group capable rifles, why, it's almost as if the Corps expected you guys to actually hit your targets, rather than do what we did - make a shit ton of noise and behave as if we were static displays when engaging. Oh well, we promoted quickly, not based upon competency, but PT scores, so fire and maneuver tended to be beyond the capabilities of thought in many leaders. "Like, flank them with the gun, keeping them occupied and approach from here, here and here." "But, the gun isn't in that position." "If only it was on a vehicle that could move..." "They could engage it!" "It's armored, braintrust! And our rich and retarded Uncle has plenty more that look just like it. Now, move the goddamned vehicle, engage them before they bury us and that isn't a fucking request!" Covered in Kevlar, got more fire support than God and afraid to move at times. Peacetime fucks infantry up - always. Took months to get them to actually stop being pretty and capable of breaking shit again. Got in country and they fought like REMFs for far too long. If my uncles had fought like that in WWII, there wouldn't be a synagogue next door to my apartment today and a different flag! And be completely united in loathing our political leadership - oh wait, that's a constant throughout human history, disregard. ;)
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  5000. Lasers move at the speed of light for a reason, the L in laser is light. Coherent light, all waves fully in phase, which helps keep the beam from expanding excessively, as all photons are moving in the same direction and phase once they leave the laser output mirror. The laser is invisible because it's infrared, which the human eye cannot see. In theory, one could use an x-ray laser or UV laser and they'd be more efficient - outside of the atmosphere. The oxygen in the atmosphere doesn't like high energy photons, like x-rays and UV-C band light and ionizes, blocking propagation by blooming the beam, scattering it to hell and gone. So, x-ray lasers and UV lasers, largely would be confined to space, where ballistic missile and spacecraft threats could be intercepted. Masers are also of potential usage, but IR is more energetic, so why go to a lower energy microwave photon? For a rail gun, even Chuck Norris would be vaporized while trying to catch the slug. The biggest problem they've had is massive slide erosion, plus the capacitor bank is the size of a small village. OK, not really village size, it takes a industrial building sized generator and capacitor and cooling bank, the capacitor bank the size of a large heavy weight moving dump truck. Conductors that go to the rails are around as thick around as your arm, many times they're hollow, as the center of any conductor won't carry a current at all, due to magnetic effects and repulsion that electrons have for one another. I have some ideas for the rail gun erosion problem and the rail price would essentially be three times higher. Still, well worth the price, given that that projectile would literally blow clean through a WWII dreadnought class battleship. Plus, the railgun would still have a bank of capacitors on a ship, the old ammunition magazine spaces.
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  5008.  @chriswheeler6092  to be pedantic, we've not been officially at war since WWII. That was the last time Congress declared war. That said, one can't find very long periods where military action wasn't engaged upon. Hell, Yemen fired missiles at the Eisenhower just this week, missed, but they fired and they in turn received an unfriendly visit by Ike's jets. Above, there was a suggestion that only R&D and tooling was all that was needed, so that weapons could be built in time of need. OK, using that notion, we'd have no aircraft carriers built, so while our merchant vessels are burning and sinking, we'll have to build a supercarrier, combat aircraft, bombs and missiles, train crews, figure five years and we can respond. So, yeah, we need a standing ready force to respond in a sane amount of time. We also don't need an excessively large force that remains idle, as that's an insane waste of resources and funding. So begins the magical balancing act of well, human existence, balancing military readiness against available resources. One area Ryan skimmed over a lot on was WWII. That was a time of total war, the entire national economy was dedicated toward winning the war and that was true with all participants. Anyone thinking that remains true today via the mythical MIC, well, please show me a recent model Singer Sewing Machine Company machine gun, how about an International Business Machines machine gun? A pilot lamp company submachine gun company perhaps? All true in WWII, I've fired all three during my military career. Kind of missed that ancient grease gun... Nope, once the war was over, the demand of their rather novel product lines ceased and they went back to making sewing machines and adding machines and light bulbs for radios. There is a sizable dedicated defense arms and support corporate presence, there pretty much always was. Think that those ships build themselves? Think those M4's replace themselves sexually or something? No, they only fuck the folks they're aimed at and occasionally, their operators. Think those base showers fix themselves? Nope, they need contractors to electrocute troops in the shower, huh, bad example. Think those troops can run their own networks worth a damn? Trust me, they can't, they get top notch training, then become ComSec custodians and never touch the equipment beyond end user again. I know that last part from firsthand experience, as I offered to train them and give them an opportunity to do their jobs, but their commander declined, despite their desire to train in their actual military jobs and well, frequently, that turned into a retention issue that remains a problem today. So, we retain what we must to continue to conduct trade, keep our military ready to confront any adversary with current equipment, rather than as we did bloodily in the past, with obsolescent equipment and training, balancing that upon our available resources. It ain't easy. But, a truer thing was never said, "It's never easy". Otherwise, someone else would've already done it.
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  5044. How entertaining, "The Dogefather", actually admitting to his view that he holds a royal title of king of kings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(title) As I've said, he's literate. An idiot, but a literate idiot. I say, as many as can, buy a gallon of pine tar and some chicken feathers. Might need them to help remove that wide streak of yellow down Congressional backs. Just remember, before application, it does have to be properly boiling and a whitewash brush is recommended for application. Some traditions never should have been abandoned. For the rest, just pick a day together, stay home on a nationwide general strike until our own government is forced to surrender to the people who are their lawful superiors. Assembled, he could just lie, as he's done before and proclaim an incident free peaceful assembly is an insurrection and declare martial law. Home, well, it'd make an interesting case of insurrection inside of one's own living room. Even more fascinating if the accusation was made when one's enjoying one's own bedroom. Not that the government ever had and most certainly no longer has any chance of knocking on each and every striking citizen's door to compel them to report to their private sector employment and shop at our stores. Especially, given we've now witnessed what happens when sedition is met with silence. Stay home, let corporate America, in fear of bankruptcy, pressure those they bought and paid for via "campaign contributions" do their damned duty as they swore an oath to. And have each governor prepare articles of secession for their legislatures, dated to Julian date 2460767.208333. The date on the calendar saying it all, but the humorless idiots won't have a clue and respond to nothingness. After all, Musk shouldn't be the only one allowed to go for a literary pwn.
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  5051. It is decidedly odd, saw a different report that also claimed adverse weather, but interestingly, no adverse winds, which makes about as much sense as reporting the aircraft landing in a vacuum. That same report also blathered something about a bird stuck inside of a wing. I've heard of wing impacts, damaged control surfaces, but never, ever a wing penetration and hampering of flight controls. That report also claimed that the aircraft had performed a missed approach, then declared a mayday for lost engine approach, authorizing a reciprocal approach and landing any runway and direction. Perhaps coming in single engine and a subsequent failure of the remaining engine during TOGA and no APU to provide hydraulic power, save they had remaining hydraulics enough to have the aircraft under control. But, that could explain the configuration and excess speed. Everything is a head scratcher on this one, way too many things have to align the holes in the cheese and the media distorting reports via incomprehension hampers rational analysis. So, we're stuck with conflicting and/or nonsensical reporting until an investigation is completed, as usual. Well, at least no media outlet is proclaiming the phantom New Jersey drones caused it, being only slightly farther from the Iranian jeep carrier... As for the wall, it's an absurdity that's also an obscenity, the only thing missing is including a minefield! I'm sure that an excuse will be that the war is only in an armistice, not ended or something along those lines. Because a tiny wall is a major defensive structure in some imaginary realm.* *I'm retired military and a veteran, suffice it to say, that's in distilled sarcasm mode. Especially given the apparent construction of a double rebar, which implies high test concrete wall that may as well been solid steel.
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  5057.  @AlanKelly-nm9lx  so, all organophosphates are bad? Think on that very, very carefully. Because cell membranes are organophosphates, specifically phospholipid membranes. DNA is also an organophosphate. So, in that simple statement, you're saying that every cell in the world is poisonous. Guess we're safer then eating rocks? Now, a couple of things to remember. First, from Paracelsus, "The dose makes the poison". Oxygen is poisonous in high concentrations and indeed, increase the pressure and concentration and you'll swiftly do that dead thing. It's one of the biggies in limitations on how deep divers can go. Too much water is lethal as well, upsetting the electrolyte balance that's necessary or cellular respiration. Some spices are literal nerve agents, similar in action to nerve gas. Tasty though in their diluted form we enjoy as a spice! And some things, such as well, insecticides that are commonly utilized are very literally derived from nerve agents, they're acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, which leave acetylcholine bound to the receptor in nerve cells, leaving the cell turned on. Humans would suffocate with a lethal dosage, insects tend to starve to death, paralyzed. Yet, the Orkin guy came in, sprayed my apartment and somehow, I didn't end up on the floor doing the Funky Chicken. Oh yeah, the dose makes the poison. Big assed me can dilute any traces that I'm exposed to of that far less than 1% solution, bugs can't manage that dilution factor and they do that dead thing. And Mom taught me, wash your produce to get the insecticide off of the produce, even though it's usually washed coming in from the fields. Now, for glyphosate, another phosphorus containing herbicide, it blocks the shikimate pathway in plants, bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae and some protozoans, but not mammals or well, vertebrates or even insects. So, are you a microorganism or a plant? No? Then it's not toxic to you unless you get a dose high enough to drown in the shit. I've used it for weed control on concrete, in my garden, I use barrier crops that are toxic to pest insects and some that actually tend to repel pest insects, but that's a home garden plot, not a big assed farm that feeds tens of thousands of people. Heard the same bullshit arguments about fertilizers years ago, they old water as well as a colander. Now, want to argue about Monsanto's saving seeds for planting next year prohibition for farmers, yeah, that's just beyond wrong. But, spreading fear and misinformation, that's just as wrong. It's as bad as the bullshit that soybeans turn men into women, which ignores the fact that humans have been eating soybeans for quite a few thousands of years and obviously everyone didn't turn into a woman. That took an Executive Order's tortured illogic and poor language to accomplish, the ink on that drivel might just be dry by now... ;)
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  5136. You missed a lot on the Nazi eugenics program, 375000 forcibly sterilized began the program. Then, "Those unworthy of life", which was the elderly incapable of work, disabled, disfigured, mentally ill, social misfits and mentally disadvantaged were first denied food and water, then when that was too slow, the hard acid phenol was injected, causing massive muscle contractions, then nervous system collapse. When that was too slow, they moved to carbon monoxide trucks to gas patients in care facilities at the curbside. Over a quarter million were murdered in Aktion T4. Then, he moved to the death camps. And in paranoid moments, I consider the mysterious cybertruck federal contract... Easy to evade those though, cybertrucks are pure pavement princesses. Go into any kind of rough road and terrain, it'll get stuck like Chuck. As for deporting citizens, one isn't deporting them, they're exiling them. Already by Constitution unconstitutional, without due process, again neutralizing habeas corpus, the body of law, hence utterly lawless and literally placing the Constitution in abeyance. And to reinforce fear, now arresting judges and threatening all levels of public officials for "obstructing government officials". And an EO authorizing the tyrant god-king to command local police forces. Two words come to mind, well two sets of two words. Batshit crazy. Civil war. Looks like one condition being present, the other seems to be what he desires. I suspect, based upon comments when the film first was released, that Trump watched part of the film Civil War, but obviously missed how it ended.
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  5139. And his magical drones would have to fly a wee bit low. To detect alpha radiation, well, it's got a range in air of around 1.5 - 2 inches, gonna have to get a tiny bit low - inside of homes low, ramming into furniture low. Oh wait, maybe beta radiation, it's got a longer range and some nuclear components are beta emitters - oh crapmuffins, that's a whopping six inches. Plutonium and uranium primarily decay by emitted alpha particles, with plutonium emitting at a 3 - 5% rate gamma, which wouldn't escape the reflectors and tamper of the weapon case. Nukes don't generate gamma radiation in detectable amounts and again, we're talking a few feet if someone suddenly made a special gamma tagged nuke for no reason. A mythical nuke that would have unstable high explosives, long defunct tritium and oh, those were strategic missiles, weighed in at at least a half ton to a ton. And I actually have had my hands literally on a nuclear warhead. I started my military career in Pershing missiles. Thus far, the overhwelming majority of "drones" shown in videos online have been either passenger aircraft or helicopters. Most, requiring watching the extended video to see the autofocus finally overcome oversaturated sensors to actually focus on the point source that's the navigation lights. Then, one sees a tail stabilizer, skids, a canopy or wingtip beacons and tail logos. Telling though is the mythical warheads are from Ukraine, not any of the other republics. Who is Russia a bit miffed with this week and looking for an excuse to escalate to literal nuclear weapons - per Putin's own words? And no, they're also not mythical Soviet suitcase nukes, if they brought those into the US, we'd have done the same to them and we'd both have forests littered with really, really expensive paperweights that are toxic as all hell, with unstable explosives, as radiation and RDX are incompatible. That's one of the reasons for our bomb modernization program, the other being some other components that also have degraded.
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  5199.  @soup31314  OK, the US is being invaded. POTUS can't declare war, so he sits by idly waiting for Congress to come back into session and declare war and authorize hostilities. Great idea! The Big One hits California, the state is in ruins and burning, but the POTUS doesn't have the money or authority to send in help, see the above example of waiting for congress to come back into session to act. Those are emergencies and POTUS is authorized by law to issue emergency orders, as well as executive orders necessary in order to run the country in general. A real world example, beyond the GWOT, was FDR, who sent help to Pearl Harbor, despite not having the money issued by Congress to do so, but then asked Congress to declare war and authorize the funding of his response. Now, in this case, it's a copyright law case and like it or not, copyright law is a real thing and copyright law treaties are ratified treaties, to which the Constitution states simply, "Ratified treaties are the law of the land", making ratified treaties subservient only to the Constitution itself, which is ultimate in authority. The judge issued a default judgement, as the defendants didn't appear before the court and issued relief to the plaintiffs. I strongly suspect that the reporting is in error, as SDNY does not speak for the nation, as there are many, many other districts and 11 circuits. So, an order to remove the .com registration goes to Verisign, who owns that top level domain, who ignores the order, as they're under the 4th circuit, Eastern District of Virginia. For the .tv address, the people of the sovereign nation of Tuvulu would simply laugh and shake their heads in confusion over how a US district court could order another nation around without a means of enforcement and just go about their daily lives, as I highly doubt that the US Navy would even want to bother finding that island and enforce a court order that would be legally an unlawful order. ISP's in my home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would simply circular file the order, as we're under the 3rd circuit, Central District of Pennsylvania and hence, not under the jurisdiction of SDNY. They could order their personnel to blackhole the domain, save that that violates an international treaty on the internet, would require them to acquire a blackhole server, pay someone to configure and install it, then pay someone to block that domain and hope like hell it doesn't block all traffic, destroying their business and hence, unenforceable.
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  5227. We didn't call them charges on mortars, they're referred to as increments. They're typically smokeless powder, same thing that's in modern small arms cartridges. So, they don't explode, they burn rapidly via deflagration. Detonation results in a mortar tube becoming a pipe bomb. There are plenty of increment fires on youtube, where improperly disposed of increments catch a spark from the gun firing and catching fire. Fire bad around explosive rounds, says Frankenstein. Germany vociferously objected to US usage of shotguns during WWI. They cleaned out trenches quite efficiently. Disassembled, not so much, but short barrels equals wide dispersion of pellets, precision aiming just wasn't in the cards in trench warfare when inside of an enemy trench. But, at 100 meters, a shotgun's just weight to lug around. Great master key though. I don't get the question about ID plates from expended munitions. Does the questioner think that an enemy is going to order that part number for their own usage? Munitions are tracked by lot numbers and for some systems, serial numbers. It's nice to keep track of ordinance, it's even nicer if one batch is recalled and we have a serial number to say "yep, that goes away, it's recalled". Not worth the effort to remove plates before usage and well, the enemy don't know who fired what serial number bit of ordinance. Yeah, we didn't just train once and get stuck on a shelf. We trained, returned to unit, cleaned and maintained our equipment we trained on, train with the equipment, use that equipment, rinse and repeat each year in quarter year increments of each phase. The wider the variety of equipment one fields, the more crap you need to acquire and distribute to maintain and supply it. So, six models of tank means six models of tank parts and specialized munitions for each different type of gun used. It's called what it is, a logistical nightmare, as well as a training nightmare. As for doctrine, for much of my military career, the world largely concerned itself with two doctrines. NATO fighting doctrine and Warsaw Pact fighting doctrine, with small bits of North Korean to be a distraction. Across dozens of nations, it simplified things a lot and enhanced interoperability. That got honed during the GWOT by a lot. Warsaw pact is gone, but Russia remains, although to study performance thus far, I don't think that they know or train to any known doctrine...
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  5231. With no due respect, a regional rail train having a problem, currently appearing to be due to a malfunction on the train itself or it's a magical fire that followed the train for over a mile, isn't the moron's problem or fault. Do try to stay focused and not blaming the wind and rain on him, given he's got plenty of felonies he can take credit for. Such as that wonderful Corps of Engineers effort in washing away a crop and soil, which will magic a fire hundreds of miles away due to Harry Potter's wooden marital aid or something. And Christmas is because of him, he is the Virgin Mary, whose difficulties in early life are well documented, as it's tough to be breast fed by one's father. And he's gotta make concepts of plans to have a concept of a plan for his pogrom, emulating the Czars of old, murdering entire ethnic groups that don't run fast enough. And get rid of anything that helps US interests, then act surprised when terrorist recruitment goes way up. And he's rescinded the Constitution, he's gotta be building up a powerful thirst! And he's been Trumpy winning in court, Trump win after Trump win, which mere mortals would call having epic losses of the most Pyrrhic kind, but he'll not pay for those bills anyway. And Comer just admitted to dereliction of duty, when he claimed that these agencies had no oversight and his branch is the oversight for those agencies, boy I'd hate to be his defense attorney, given such a propensity to confess! And a fascinating Trump style redefinition of transparent, calling opaque transparent. Honestly, he'd have tried to say that to me, I'd have wrapped my cane around his head a few times. And Flood, sure thing, cut what keeps me alive, I'm sure Iran and North Korea would love to learn how to design and assemble a compact fusion warhead that can fit in the trunk of a car or one of their missiles. Since classified things are no longer of importance and are marketable. I'm sure they'd also love to know where the current Congressional bunker is in case of nuclear emergency is, as well as the communication node locations for it. After all, my pain is your pain, come and get it! You might want to ask President Musk for a copy of my classified 201 file sections first. Now, an interesting question on the fake buyout is, could that be construed, in conjunction with the threat of summary termination, as a fundamental breach of their employment contract with the US government? If so, it's fully recoverable and with punitive damages. But, it's nice to know that misappropriation is no longer a felony, stealing is now federally legal, people! Mr Lau seems to have missed the Musk/Trump message, food is to be made illegal and has to be either destroyed or taxed into a range that's inaccessible to the populace, thereby generating civil unrest that can justify martial law. It worked ever so well in France, just ask King Louis and Marie, although they're probably a bit hoarse after their experience with the National Razor. Thinking outside the box, from inside of the rubber room, I'm ever so comforted. Oh well, maybe he'll send some of his thugs in my direction, I'll be happy to store their ordinance for them as I eat their lunch. I always do enjoy light entertainment. Might take a trip if that happened, say kick Ravenrock's extension cord out. Only needs a dozen or so manholes to have an odd accident with an appropriate solvent that's commonly available. Oh yeah, never worked inside the box, so I really don't know what the box is from inside, but I do know its boundaries and constraints. You'd be playing with Briar Rabbit's briar patch, which isn't a good idea. My home literally defends itself and the best place to find me is behind you, picking your pocket of interesting things and oops, sorry about detuning your radio. Now, excuse me, I have to put away groceries. Donnie know groceries, they come out of pumps and apples, from the refrigerated section. Had to top off some shelves, as with winter storms, well, I'm lazy, so it was only about 200 - 250 pounds of them, most shelf stable, some delicacies are frozen though. Was only a four mile stroll across some annoyingly irregular terrain. And President Musk can trivially even confirm the purchases and my residence. On an upside note, I am looking for a low priced, but decent dry white wine for a reduction sauce for clams in an olive oil based white sauce and my local state store employees don't know a white wine from a red. Suggestions are welcome. Uptown Harrisburg is a bit of a confusing market for me when seeking quality wines sufficient for both table and cooking for a casual meal. Every damned wine I saw was unacceptably sweet or fruity. I'll be having a chat with their union rep, that location's employees need some actual training!
    1
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  5235. Your apology is accepted, backhanded and knuckles and all. They'll heal in around six weeks of immobilization, just don't coat hanger under the cast. One problem I've noticed amongst my peers and well, elders back during the ice age is fear. People grow fearful with age and hence seek authoritarianism. The worse were the peacenicks of my youth, those flowers soured with age. I'm also an odd bird, still a Boomer, not quite blooming if one is outside of the bathroom, but am an IT guru and IT security nazi from hell and oh, old SF type with a couple of damnable wars under my belt that I'm happy enough with to keep them away from others. And well, not joking all that much about a cast, my head is legendary for its robustness, as were Mom still alive, could attest to. Commanders spoke of my not requiring a Kevlar helmet for two reasons, one being legendary for retaining consciousness when all others were unconscious and my legendary stubbornness that withstood strict scrutiny. I am a walking, talking war and wars start and end in the mind. And one cannot defeat that which does not exist. I'll just get my coat... ;) Yeah, I pick on everyone, even myself and well, that's easy, low hanging fruit and all. Now, please excuse me, gotta go remind some big balls that a dick hangs above and has to urinate... We'll start with a nice, fine IT audit, both for access and data integrity. That'll tie the kid up until Social Security kicks in for Mr Pistachio. I really do love scaring INCEL types straight.
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  5287. Ah, Putin threatens missiles, Rocket Man with his super duper missile threatens someone else with his limp heat seeking moisture missile. Given his drug habit, even money that little blue pill won't fix his rickety rocket. And the chances of his actually successfully unlawfully ordering an invasion and declaring unlawfully war against Mexico is one of three: Slim chance, fat chance, no chance, as Milley himself suggested, that whole oath we all take on joining the military is to our laws and Constitution, not Caesar and his mighty word salad. Shoot Patriot antiaircraft missiles at drug labs? Talk about clueless! Not to mention, no POTUS may declare war any more than he can declare himself God. Though, I'm sure that Trump is certain that he can declare both at the same time. And his go-to of "there's a caravan" is beyond tired, even amongst his faithful, as the last one turned out to be one Dodgy caravan that barely ran with a single family inside, the previous a few hundred women and children. Guess those diapers were loaded, they were so dangerous. Looked great on international TV when a certain Texan governor strung razor wire illegally on the border, which states are not authorized to access, when infants were hanging from the razor wire quite dead. God and country, burn the babies once they're forced to be born, in Jesus' mercy. Sigh: Gonna be an interesting four years, all with a choice of Vance or keeping a raving lunatic with dementia and a bad drug habit in the Offal Office. I estimate it even money he'll nuke our sanctuary cities. Oh wait, that'd also be an unlawful order and ignored. Might get a military wide mutiny though, not sure what kind of government we'd have then, but a junta would be assured. I'm sure Russia would love a Russia hating military junta in charge of our nukes, with the shade of LeMay hanging over all to advise them... As long as one American man and one American woman survive, we've won.
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  5326. I said it was a propaganda ploy on day one. First, the MIRV warheads were all over the map, but embarrassingly close to one another as well. If they're close together, if they were nuclear, they'd have destroyed one another. All over the map, well, they didn't have explosives, they were test warheads and the CEP for the missile MIRV bus was rated for 90 - 250 meters, meaning that's how far off target they can hit, that'd be a fairly heavy explosives load to actually damage any real target and the dummy warheads that did strike buildings in an old rocket factory struck warehouses and pretty much only punched holes in the roofs. No fires, no collapsed warehouses and warehouses aren't exactly militarily hardened things. So, it was an OMG, we're gonna have to call in a roofer! Eeeeekkkkkkkkkk!!! Meanwhile, if they'd used nukes, most of their warheads would've suffered fratricide from the first detonating warheads, fallout drifting into Poland would've triggered Article 5 and Russia would have its own wonderful glow. And as a psyop, it was a failure, as it revealed their disinformation dissemination chains. That's like carrying a concealed firearm, then donning a frigging tee shirt that proudly states that you are carrying a concealed firearm and has great big fucking arrows pointing out where the firearm is concealed at. Or being a spy and wearing a hat saying that you're a spy. Nope, they took a test missile, lucked out in getting a couple to actually work for a change, launched their IRBM, called it initially an ICBM and it wasn't, dumped empty weighted warheads onto the area of a target and entirely missed the target, but managed to kill a kid inside of a civilian home. They simultaneously revealed their disinformation chains and discredited their own disinformation chains. That's right up there with foot shooting - using a howitzer. How do you follow that up? Nuke oneself?
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  5332. Known currently. SecDef has prostate cancer and had an elective procedure that had some issue that became an emergency sufficient to earn an ICU stay. So, likely to clear, ahem, flow procedure, possibly ablation (several methods for that), possibly expansion, biopsy, etc. So, either obstruction or sprung a leak of red stuff, the stuff that when you run low on does that killing you thing. Or priapism. The latter, I doubt, as that typically won't land you in the ICU. The treatment will just make you think that you will. Now, you're POTUS, being asked about SecDef's Johnson... Do you really want to discuss Old Blue on your SecDef with the press, for starters? Now, it was an emergency, ambulance and ICU and all. So, there might've been some brief confusion as his deputy gets staged into position, comms get transported and set up, etc, but later that day, not so much, but you're still getting asked about SecDef's dick. While alluding to contingency matters in the NMCC and line of succession. Now, consider POTUS' age and faith, I really don't see him willing to have him or his staff discuss another man's salami. But then, I am a fan of Occam's Razor. Add in, it sounds like the emergency hand-off turned into a goat screw, yeah, tons of rug sweeping under. Especially considering, who verifies POTUS identity in the nuclear chain again? Major? Champ? Commander? SecDef? The Acting briefly in Puerto Rico without secure comms and judging by some concerned delay, perhaps forgot a certain biscuit during a time of high tension between nuclear armed powers? Yeah, the pastabilities abound, all reasonable and embarrassing and should've been handled better. And well, when you want to get out of the hole, it's a lot easier if you put down the shovel.
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  5384. I'm reminded of an old strategy against our government, one originating back when I was just preparing to graduate from high school, which effectively did announce its intentions via lobbylist Grover Norquist's words, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Trump is doing his level best to accomplish both goals in one fell swoop, leaving only a monarchy that he's stuck sharing with Emperor Musk, who bought and paid for that Oval Office. With each and every step deliberately designed to circumvent the entirety of our Constitution, leaving no branch unsavaged, until only an Imperial Office shall remain, with two madmen at the helm and a nation and economy in ruin, a population that's starving and homeless and entirely forgetting that said populace just so happens to be the most heavily armed populace in the history of humanity and that as proved in 1789 in France, a starving population, when confronted by indifference on the part of their rulers, tends to react in a manner deleterious to the health and welfare of said ruler and their supporters. And this "honeymoon" ending abruptly with, "Let them eat brioche" (the actual alleged quote, cake being even farther out of reach than that rich bread that was already beyond the reach of those rising up in rage and hunger). And being defended by Chariles I's infamous attempted defense against a charge of treason against England, was, "the King can do no wrong". The king was promptly decapitated. Thus, accounting for two European kings in as many generations.
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  5424. Date of first use came in handy for networks where mandatory baselining was practiced, after X time the machine had to be formatted and reimaged. A line of script confirmed it was allowed on the network. :) Another winner was mandatory reboots, per network policy and leveraging uptime vs current time at intervals enforced that policy - in one network, with mandatory reboot with no choice. Three days after being directed to enforce that, the installation commander that ordered that enforced had his system reboot while briefing his general, to much jocularity between them that I was later clued in on to share a chuckle. It took six months before I got nailed that way... :) I did fall in love with KMS eventually. One extra tool against rogue machines and trust me, I nailed them as they came along and eventually, the automation capabilities caught up. Yeah, we have our own KM Servers, we had to, as some networks will never see the internet and we cannot confirm or deny the existence of things like SIPRnet hosts. DISA runs those, which is good, less for me to wrangle. :) Then, came TPM... That reminds me, budget in to activate that second system... :/ Oh well, eventually I'll be patching it and nagged with my credit card being on hand. At home, under duress, I maintain two Windows hosts. The rest are Linux, more for anything, free open source software and easy of maintenance, rather than a half dozen operating systems being supported at home, as I can't afford my own services. I'm reminded of Omar Bradley, "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics" and Patton ignoring all in his advance, outrunning his logistical train and well, the Russians recently emulated his columns fuel exhausted state... Yeah, Patton would've been the first to admit that he wasn't perfect. Unlike myself, I'm a perfect 10 - alas, that's on the Richter scale.
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  5454. A WWII computer was, at a minimum, one floor that's one city block by one city block, one model was larger and took up 3 floors. People manually calculating were actually faster for some mass calculations. Hell, for the beginning of the US space program, computers were extensively used - human computers. John Glenn's first flight into space was calculated by an IBM digital computer and due to the calculation running twice and giving different results, was recalculated by a human computer that Glenn trusted more than that new fangled IBM computer. The movie "Hidden Figures" shows a small window into their world at that time. Slotin and his screwdrivers were subsequently replaced with the Godiva device - the first of which was destroyed by a criticality accident that didn't kill anyone. There was a third criticality accident during the Manhattan Project, a chemist who turned on a mixer, which formed a vortex sufficient to allow criticality. He shut down the mixer and ran outside shouting that he was on fire. He died of radiation exposure some time later. Today, we understand the mathematics involved and can simply calculate what configuration one is operating under and apply the math. No blue glows, no loud, rude noises. Laughably, Stalin was getting daily reports from his espionage network, detailed reports, but due to the pressure of the war, wasn't able to do much about developing their own nuclear weapons until after the war ended and their first designs were US based designs.
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  5466. Ironically, there are two nations that lead the world in pain management research. The US isn’t one. Germany and Japan are the world leaders in pain management research. I’ve immense respect for opiates and opioids, I’m personally intolerant of the damned things as well. We still have morphine in battlefield medicine, a bit more restrained in usage, but necessary at times to prevent phantom pain. A drug I loved to hate. But then, I’m intolerant to the entire class, massive histamine response that’s it’s shy off allergy. And don’t get me started on Nixon… One of my other true allergies - to traitors. I do have two addictions. Caffeine and nicotine. And a bit of dependence of Bavarian foods…. ;) Hey, you can’t beat farmer foods! In moderation. But, for chronic pain, if the patient is terminal, go with the opioids, as addiction isn’t a real issue. Non-terminal, I’ll go with German and Japanese research. Because, “pain builds character” bullshit from the US only leads to my cane earning yet another dent, as I grant the speaker additional character. My personal go-to for back pain, think near agony, is a hot bath (around 104 degrees or so) and ibuprofen (second generation versions are less effective with me, dammitalltohell). Oh, additional irony with the US, heroin is “uncontrollable” in the US, but UK hospitals manage to use it routinely. Thanks, but no thanks here, but for those in need, well, I didn’t go to medical school or residency. Gotta go with the subject matter expert, just as they have to go with my expertise in my fields.
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  5467. The proteins in their blood literally denatured, due to the severe pressure gradient, resulting in fat being readily apparent in the divers remains bloodstream. They didn't even get to know something went sideways. The Soyuz cosmonauts knew, tried to reach the valve to cut off the air loss, but it was unreachable and upon landing, only bruising and bleeding from the ears suggested a problem. Well, that and being quite dead. NASA research showed that universally, upon exposure to vacuum or its equivalent for us, the entire gas exchange system voids all atmospheric gases from the blood through the lungs rapidly, exhausting O2 and CO2, as well as nitrogen (80% of our atmosphere), fibrillation begins in the heard, after 90 seconds, no experimental subject survived defibrillation and resuscitation attempts. Respect significant pressure differentials, for they'll not respect you at all - ever. But, you won't explode, even under 9 atmospheres to zero atmospheres of hard space vacuum, our skin is far tougher than our internal tenders are. Or more simply, the universe doesn't like you, take care that it doesn't kill you when you venture outside of what would be survivable - always. Respect a danger always, protect against it always, never, ever grow complacent. That won't get you to even survive as tame an environment as Mars, but you'll be at a good starting point. Humans have survived, as found by some misadventures here on Earth, about a minute under hard vacuum conditions, full body exposure, longer with a forgotten or lost/penetrated glove. Think cartoon bulbous hand, hurting like hell and gone, twice and better larger in size for a glove. Gene survived that mess, a few hours later, he was fine and amazingly, didn't have a full hand hickey. Just most of it. So, follow the checklist. I've designed a few, they account for a five star hangover, sleep deprived for a full month and being ill for a reason. Been there, done that under far less risk conditions.
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  5486. Doesn't matter if he was, he can't fire federal judges and he sure as hell can't do a damned thing to a state judge. Well, unless he wants to somehow convince the DoD to wipe their collective asses with the Constitution and federally invade and take over the state, illegally arrest judges and wonder why his military mutinies and the states all take up arms against him. Trump is like a schoolyard bully, talks smack a lot, but once hit back, runs away. He's gotten a pee-pee smack currently, at least until the courts actually collect the penalties. He'll continue to talk about coming back, despite there being no pathway forward, right until he rebrands that failure as a success and his sap brigade gleefully follows his "success" in jumping off the cliff. He'll continue to fail, as he doesn't recognize that states and federal are entirely different courts and jurisdictions and no POTUS has influence over state courts. He, despite pretending to serve one term, knows nothing whatsoever about our system of government and embarrassingly, foreigners understand our systems of government far better than he does. I'll close with, Al Capone did nothing wrong, the same as Trump, ignore that entire conviction and term in prison served... Enough said. Fraud is illegal for a reason, tax evasion is also illegal and tax evasion by fraud is coming soon. That intention has been telegraphed quite clearly. Then, it'll turn into coordination on who gets stuck with them in their prison - federal or state, for America's Least Wanted.
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  5490. Well, for a first inauguration with the flags at half staff, Trump needs to hop into his time machine. When president Taylor died, flags went to half staff, when Lincoln died, flags went to half staff, when well, every other president died in office, flags went to half staff. Uncertain for Harrison, as presidential succession wasn't established yet... Inauguration occurred as soon as was humanly possible after the death of the president, so Trump needs to set his WABAC Machine to before 1850, just to be sure his statement was correct - not that being correct or truthful ever was a concern for him at all. Perhaps we should begin fundraising now for a nationwide fireworks celebratory display for the very moment Trump finally drops dead. At 3:00, one of the rarest moments of Carter's life, painting himself into a corner and getting asked to step out onto the wet paint. ;) Been there, done that, got the tee shirt that proudly reads, "Kick me hard". :/ Trump vs deceased McCain, again making history by losing a popularity contest with a deceased person with his flag antics, then acting as if he could've denied a war hero and veteran leader in Congress a goddamned funeral. What a cheap, petty, short fingered little man, frustrated that his fingers cannot encircle his minuscule member. Go ahead and sue me. You'll get a wonderful choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule I did meet the SOB back around Y2K, tri-state Chamber of Commerce function, he was invited as a speaker of honor. He was the boor of the party, all conversations had to revolve around him and his speech was devoted to his successes, centering on a then five year old "success" in bankrupting his casinos. To a room full of business owners, whose eye rolls had me astonished that the Earth didn't flip off of its axis. The net effect on the event was, the following year experienced a very literal 95% attrition rate of people refusing to attend and the Chambers were forced for an entire year to apologize to their members and promise no recurrence of that prior travesty. Given a choice between meeting him again and making sweet, sweet love to a wood chipper, I'll go with the wood chipper. But, there is a positive note to end my tirade. I cannot ever be accused of character assassination for Donald Trump, for one cannot assassinate that which has never existed.
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  5574. He actually walked around the POTUS insignia bearing podium and made that salute three times, not once. And not an actual Nazi salute, but the original fascist Italian salute authorized by Mussolini. First, why is he at a podium bearing the seal of the President of the United States of America? Oh yeah, the inauguration. The Capitol Rotunda. So, more than anything, given the grunt, body language and facial expressions, basically an "up yours" to those sensitive and a suggestion of how the maladministration will proceed. Especially given that he paid for the election endgame. And Trump just recently tweaked some noses, suggesting Musk being in Pennsylvania had something going on with the vote tallying computers, which is obviously nonsensical, but now will bear investigation due to the repeated claim, in 67 counties. Because state budgets aren't important to the wannabe emperor. Additionally, the "Roman salute" is mythical, there's absolutely no historical mention of that salute, it's basically from an artist's work in the 1800's and Hollywood ran with that ball. Not atypical for Hollywood to run with the ball and turning out to be running with a ping pong ball in a football game. Honestly, out of all Hollywoodified military salutes, I prefer the Spaceballs salute. And yeah, the Victoria Cross was created in 1856, so Queen Victoria was a Nazi 64 years before the Nazi Party existed, must've used the Obama time machine. I did have a toothbrush mustache once. An accident with a Zippo lighter and high winds rather pruned one side, evened it up, yeah, that thing came off that night and I grew it back in a less absurd looking way. Given Musk is the Liberace of the business world, great showman, minimal to moderate skill as a developer of software and utterly incapable of mechanical engineering, but excellent at hiring quality managers, my read of it is, an intention to "trigger the libs" and distract from other things going on behind the scenes. Much the same as Trump's BS about Musk and computers and I've some familiarity with computers, doing IT and IT security for a living and some knowledge of Pennsylvania polling and vote counting practices, being born and raised in the state and again a PA resident.
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  5592. His good friend, Hannibal Lecter, a mythical character, much like his own character. Total nanu-nanu! Weaving around asylum, our asylum laws created out of shame after MV St Louis was sent to Europe and the 1000 Jews sent to the camps and somehow confabulating asylum into insane asylums that we closed under Reagan. He hasn't seen a beach since he was beached and learned how to walk. Some years back, when my tween grandkids were toddlers, I was sitting on the floor playing with them and our daughters noticed a bald spot. "Dad's got a bald spot!!!" My response was simple enough, "What the fuck did you expect? I'm getting old!" I'm lousy with candor. Trump rallies, "Our dreams are like our children...", from "My Fellow Americans", 'get a new speech, old man!'. So, he went YMCA, Arnold Palmer's member and now fellatio on a microphone on his way out of the closet. Mom used Liquid Gold on the kitchen cabinets. They never recovered. I make my own wood butter for the same general purpose, mineral oil and beeswax melted in an expendable pot. Got plenty of those turd coated pots that the coating fails on after a couple of years. And why I ordered stainless steel and cast iron to replace them, keeping the junk for wood coatings. Now, you've gotten something useful from something political, wood butter, 1/3 - 1/2 mineral oil to beeswax, depending upon what you're doing, more mineral oil for loose shoe wax levels, more beeswax for firmer general waxing. Mostly used on my wooden cutting boards after bleaching them sanitary, then rinsing and drying, then coating. Don't have an atomic force microscope for that back corner performance and well, don't swing that way, Donnie. Polls, well, DEWEY WON! Enough said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman#/media/File:Dewey_Defeats_Truman.jpg As useful as a stripper pole is for my income, which trust me, is utterly worthless. See my best side on the monitor as a churn while speaking, "I see London, I see France, I see my own underpants, excuse me for a moment...". No, all about him and image of immortality. I'll suggest amorality, but nobody can find such for a damned good reason. I'm discrete. I mean, I'm moral. Yeah, Mom said my eyes were brown for a damned good reason. Told her hers were the color they were for a good reason too. She exclaimed "They're green!" "Yeah, it turned moldy". She damned near broke her hand on my skull, which makes granite look soft. True story of actually mutually fun times. Even the swat. Queen bitch of the universe, when I was right, the Almighty didn't challenge, when I was wrong it was all in capitals. Damn, miss her and miss my wife, both holding that standard. Still churning over ass end views, suggest my ass has more hair than the back of my head. Vanity ain't my strong point. Doing a job is my strong point, get hired on, I do that job. Even as a DoD contractor, follow the damned contract we were paid to do, not underperform and then scope creep to try to keep that contract. Did a few favors, that I insisted never be considered, as they're not part of the contract, just taking care of the service members I once was one of.
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  5618. OMG, I was dealing with radiation all day! The damned bus wouldn't even try to use a radiation rejection system called an air conditioner "because it'd get too cold" as we hit near 90 degrees farhenhot. Seriously, I'm comfortable in 80 - 85, that was a bit warmer, I was actually covered with perspiration and was perfectly comfortable in Djibouti and Qatar. Enough said. Did get uncomfortable, badly when playing Santa Claus - oddly, largely for Muslim children. Light, heat, microwaves, radio waves are all electromagnetic radiation. Neutrons, what are they? Protons, who? Beta particles (aka really fast electrons, making grandparents CRT tubes embarrassed), huh? Alpha who? My skin blocks that shit, might as well verbally insult me, it'll hurt more. Gamma, no Incredible Hulk here, just, well, dead. Really nasty shit, ranging from knocking electrons up to super knocking them up and an electron and anti-electron get reproduced, totally bad karma for your cells in any way you wanna slice it. As in, what is that dead thing, Alex? Bananas, well... Argon balloon, lighter... OUCH! I was joking, dammit! An electron from a tritium particle hits a magical phosphor chunk, making it glow, so that you can see it, Ryan missed that. Can I get some Pu-238? If so, just drop it off with NASA, they're flat out of it. For personal collection, I'll be satisfied with a small sample of depleted uranium, hopefully encased in a wee bit of plastic to keep it safe from my radiation breath. While at the urologist, I was reminded oddly of the Davey Crockett missile. Mostly, due to the sample containers... Sir, you want me to shoot a whatlear whattle, just over there and then *what?!?!?!*, can you kindly urinate in this container, initial and date/time the sample? Because, you must be motherfucking high and I wanna see just what you're stoned on...
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  5644. I'm aware of only one field where what otherwise would be considered subtherapeutic dosing is common - pain management that utilizes what's more typically utilized as a general anesthetic. This is, of course, physician guided and managed, administered by a physician and monitored by a physician for specific physiological goals. And I recall that this was discussed in professional pain management conferences that I'd attended back in the mid-2000's and today is of a moderately effective management program for certain specified chronic pain instances. I did work with one cyanide containing food product for my dinner - cassava root. But, unlike wild cassava, aka bitter cassava - a famine food, this was cultivated root. The biggest risk wasn't cyanide poisoning, but of slicing and dicing my fingers. Did get one modest cut, so shallow it didn't even bleed, but annoyingly is over an index finger joint. What I get for careless handling of knives that I maintain as literal scalpel edge sharpness. And boy, was that cassava root (aka yuca root) good in my chicken stew! With some mixed veggies, cowpeas and kidney beans, plus my favored barley and a small handful of noodles. Got 3 quarts remaining in the fridge, with some home made bread awaiting another few meals. And I actually do know how to prepare the wild cassava, learned that while deployed in areas where it is a common famine food. I'll as happily avoid doing so, as chronic cyanide poisoning is a problem in those areas during times of famine. Google "Konzo" for more information.
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  5659. Only one problem, the project was canned because it was found to be impractical at all. When the fireball escapes the atmosphere, well, once it's cleared the atmosphere, its effects disappear. Had the Tsar Bomba device been constructed for its full 100 megaton yield, its fireball would've escaped the atmosphere with no additional effects on the ground and with only a modest part of that 100 megatons being felt on the earth. Simply put, gigaton devices just won't be all that destructive, as the weapons effects don't scale once the fireball escapes the atmosphere and there's nothing to transmit the heat. Teller did go on to hawk gigaton devices for asteroid ablation for any problematic enough to be in an impact trajectory, but nobody was interested. Especially given more sane yield devices would effectively do the same thing without requiring an absurdity of a launch platform. He then went on with some schemes for the SDI, aka "Star Wars", getting Reagan to buy in on magical x-ray lasers that never worked and never could work - it's one thing to have weak x-ray lase activity inside of a bomb casing during detonation, aiming it outside of the casing and having even 1% efficiency, just ain't in the physics. Eventually, even Reagan caught on and barred him from the White House, Teller's career sank swiftly after that and the knowledge of some extremely liberally interpreted research that basically was fraud did the rest to torpedo his reputation. And it didn't help that he was as popular in his field as the Black Death after his backstabbing Oppenheimer... We also don't have even 10% of the warheads left intact as is claimed in the video, courtesy of the START treaties. Basically, we've got enough to destroy Russia and the US as nations, with the Russians having nowhere as many warheads as we've got cities and towns, whereas the US has a bit more warheads than Russia has cities and towns, but military targets requiring multiple devices chews that excess up, taking a half dozen or so just to destroy one military airfield, worse for depots and large assembly areas on large bases. Products of the insanity factory, they're basically the least useful devices in the history of humanity.
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  5675. We've had high winds statewide in Pennsylvania for well over a week, wind doesn't exist. All I'll say is, he appears flushed and he does have a family history of severe alcohol abuse... Which would explain why he confused illegal Alien Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, what with him lacking intelligence at all. As for him never reading some mythical magazine of content that remains undiscovered, undiscussed or even described, well, he is well known to never read, he just looks at the pictures and goes with whatever story the voices in his empty head tells him. And United States Steel, formerly USX and renamed in 2001, the 8th largest steel producer in the world, is being sold to Nippon Steel for $14.1 billion, guess he wants the plants closed and rusting. No wait, it's just he isn't making money, so nobody else is allowed to make money, support your wannabe god-emperor or go broke. Oddly, Biden opposes the sale as well, supporting the union's objections to the sale. Guess he's now on Biden's side now! Quick, someone tell him so he can extol the virtues of selling out, GOP types are good at selling out. "I want to move the election to Tuesday", yeah, before your likely conviction and sentencing, but hey, I want a pony. But, we got 20 people, not 19, not 21, precisely 20, because INS reports to their god-emperor wannabe on individuals, entirely unlawfully, because of voices in his head. I'm sure they drove an illegal caravan from the DRC as well. Funny how he's not mentioned one of our primary East Coast ports being blocked though. Or the legal immigrants that were killed working on the bridge when it collapsed. And the Gettysburg comments did generate some confused looks, as Schnecksville is near Allentown and he was extolling the virtues of the traitor Robert E. Lee, who is no longer in favor. Guess he never visited Lee's plantation, seized by writ of attainder for his treason, now known of as Arlington National Cemetery. Oh wait, the dead service members were suckers, I forgot... And Gettysburg, beautiful now, was really wonderful after the battle, where Union soldiers got buried and Confederates were literally left to rot in farmers fields, which was what the battlefield originally was. A farmer took it upon himself to bury the remains in mass graves, as it's kind of hard to plant when bodies are covering the ground. As for Trump with "the nuclear codes", he already had them and well, they're useless alone, he needs well, let's use the old name, the SIOP and select from many menus of options on who to strike, where, when and how. In a guy who can't get through anything longer than a page with bullet points and pictures required content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan#Executing_the_SIOP Think this word salad server could give a cogent order that could actually be followed? The guy who asked if nuking a hurricane could put it out? Who basically made every state Alabama and doodled on a map to be "right" and still got it wrong? More likely, any such attempted orders would go on the Chief of Staff's desk to await his sobering up in the morning and seeing then if he still wants to nuke North Korea, as happened with Nixon. Obviously, we didn't nuke North Korea. Even more likely, he'd blow his response to the challenge he'd have to read back from his biscuit and be denied access to order anything, as a probable false order being originated by parties unknown. But, he does seem to be coming apart at the seams. A few courtroom images of him gagged, with obviously missing gag should suffice to lose some of his supporters, the rest will follow him, as the Zealots followed their leaders off the cliffs of Masada.
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  5680. We have 11 and are building more as we speak. One term for aircraft carriers is "bomb magnet", today, it's also a missile magnet. Hence, the fleet. Aircraft carriers, like their fleet can and are replenished as sea, via logistical ships. So, they can quite literally stay out at sea for a year or even longer. The line driven resupply method, as well as hose based resupply, go back incrementally to WWII. "We're on the same side", today. When I started in the US Army in 1982, we weren't. I rather like running low on adversaries and turning them into friends! :) BTW, I was born in Philadelphia. Google that, get a fair sized list, Pennsylvania is my home state. APO = Armed forces Post Office and zip code designates a specific area, AE being Armed Forces Europe. Which covers US CENTCOM AOR and US AFRICOM. Anything more granular is classified as confusing. ;) Catapults, other than the electromagnetic variety still being perfected, use live steam to operate them. Live steam is so hot, if a pipe ruptures, you don't even see steam, you get cooked instantly, with a scalpel precise jet. Elevators for planes went back to WWII and even the Soviet Union had a carrier that has elevators for aircraft. Alas, to the best of my knowledge, no McDonalds are on an aircraft carrier or any other vessel. Yet. And I was US Army, but I know the conditions and capabilities of my brothers and sisters at arms. Three US aircraft carriers wouldn't manage to take over Russia or China, too big for one, too damned many people in the other. Remember the first law of ground warfare, never, ever, ever get into a ground war with China. And as Germany learned, Russia. ;) Estonia, trivially taken with coffee cups. ;)
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  5695. For a notion, during the US Civil War, only 2% of the total population fought. It was a hair lower during the Revolutionary War. WWII had 11% fight. Women went into factories to build ships, weapons and munitions, children like my parents ran scrap metal collection drives to turn in for the war. Ironically, some prior proportion, sent by Japan, who bought US scrap metals before the war, at US forces. BTW, the riots in New York were so severe, the Militia was called out and shelled the Bowery, NYC to suppress the riots. We also had militia and regular troops patrol our streets to suppress the much later Nativist riots, literal religious warfare between Protestant and Roman Catholic adherents. Interestingly, the allegedly anti-semetic Grant, allowed full and unrestricted rights that every other citizen had at that time to - Jewish men and businesses. Beyond unusual at the time. Suggest, he was a bit more nuanced in intelligence. But, a good General takes orders, a good president has to be far more creative than that and also know how to lead in front of their leaders. Both sides were confiscating supplies along the way, especially food, as in those days, even the mighty rail logistical train was still in its infancy, so it was immense, neverending trains of horse carts with food or what one confiscates for food for their armies. Both sides tended to not win a lot of friends, as nothing was left for the farmer's family for winter. Even then, interrupting the logistical train still would wreak havoc on the enemy, as one can confiscate food, one can even conscript personnel, but ammunition and munitions comes typically from far more distant sources. The Mississippi River is the largest river in the US, essentially nearly dividing the nation in half, save for limited ferries for much of our history - until the modern era, when bridges began to abound and Eisenhower shoved the interstate system down our throats, which was a good shove, even if at the time, it was a horse pill. As for names, if the officer was good enough, I'd happily serve under Moses Foe, aka, Moe Foe. ;) Lincoln was quite at risk of losing the election. That's where Sherman was needed, Grant into greater play and driving forward with little more than piss, vinegar and napalm being excreted as one moves along, depleting any third column attempts. While the Confederacy ran off of voluntary contributions to supply the war effort, the Union had mandatory taxation, tariffs and more, both at that point, requiring conscription, with many desertions along the way. Yeah, the debates redefined the word debacle. BTW, General Hood has a fort named after him, not all that far from me and where we've taken a rest during a long convoy for rest and resupply, Fort A.P. Hill. Given Marfan's Syndrome, Lincoln's survival at that time is surprising. At that time, he was a decade beyond the normal average age where one would die of aortic dissection, in that era. 292 day siege, during an era lacking artificial lighting to illuminate runners on the river and small roads. Yeah, it was primitive back then, even gas lights were novel notions. Most homes, in northern Union cities still have water and sewer lines from that era today. Well, Jefferson Davis could've refused surrender, but being utterly out of armies, I have no idea how he'd stop even a few US Marshals from arresting him. Meanwhile, Lincoln's assassination wasn't a simple murder, it was a decapitation strike attempt, the line of succession was attacked strategically, with the VP avoiding via chance an attack. The feeling of occupation was due to The Reconstruction, which enforced black rights, rather than lip service only and slavery remaining de facto. The emotions of having a military force enforcing civilian laws forced the necessity of the Posse Communicatus Act, forbidding the US Army and by lineage, the US Air Force from enforcing civilian law as long as local law enforcement and the courts remain able to operate. Which is why, today, seeing someone in an apparent military uniform on the streets while armed and enforcing law is jarring enough for people to quite literally begin arming themselves. One of the scars of the Civil War era. Because, a violation, at the gentlest destroys all military careers for violating it, at worst, prison, massive fines and a loss of faith and trust that'll remain lifelong. I was a young teen during our bicentennial celebration, literally bathed in the history, due to the epic historical nature of such a date. It was just not long after the Civil Rights Era gained major gains that I fully agree with and would fight to the last drop of blood of whatever bastard tried to forcefully overturn that. And no real patriot ever wants a status quo, a real patriot wants to continually improve the nation that they've dedicated a lifetime in support of. Welcome to my mantra. Every right to a marginalized group further enhances and protects my rights and I'll protect those rights as I swore to do, way back in late 1981, to the last drop of blood of whoever tries to deny those rights, our laws and Constitution. For, that Constitution is my bible, our leaders that advanced rights and those who fought to protect our Constitution, my Gods. And being one of that August group, I'm lousy with smite, in an era rife in need of it and many begging for it. And while, today, I walk with a cane, everything around me is a weapon, so please never offend against our laws, societal norms and Constitution. Lest you do so in my presence and, like the idiot that coughed upon an infant over a mask, the moron that beat an elder down with a cane over mask rule enforcement of their state and company, the soon to be imprisoned for life regressives that have actually murdered workers over rules on private property owners requiring masks, I'll treat you precisely as I treated very real terrorists that attacked and especially, those who tried to go hand to hand and it'll be unpleasant in the extreme, with permanent injury, as I lack time to bandy about, as usual and it'll end the threat swiftly. I protect against any and all aggression upon those of my peers and I've the scars to prove that I was highly successful. Peace, success and long life as long as you refuse to be treasonous or stupid, but I repeat myself.
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  5731. So, the proper means of updating one's kernel driver's parameters/daffynitions file is. 1: Do not check for update file integrity, save to at least ensure the file is zeros. 2: Updates should be always mandatory and immediate. 3: This was missed, so emphasis for future reference - Updates must be distributed and installed immediately at COB on Friday on a *holiday weekend*, not just any Friday at any time. This will ensure the minimal disruption while ensuring the maximal destruction. Pour a liberal amount of gasoline on the floor on the way out. Did I miss any critical steps? Seriously though, I've actually used their software during an active, long ongoing attack by an APT from a hostile foreign nation's forces. We literally had biweekly visits from the FBI and DHS representatives, given our government contracts and some level off concern and said attacks had been ongoing for long enough to actually warrant a pension. A couple of SOX audits and well, our SIEM and loggers that were overloaded so badly we'd get events 19 - 26 hours after an event were augmented with Crowdstrike. Now, we were getting immediate alerts, had a Splunk interface to make life easy for hunting and alerts from Crowdstrike directly as well. Captured an attack via RDP on a server in realtime, capturing everything fully in realtime and reconstructing from packet logs their latest and greatest PE files they were utilizing. Did a write-up of a relatively novel for the era, if not exceptionally new method of dumping the binary into notepad, saving it, popping that through a program that'd tag it as a PE properly, sent the report and copies of the binaries and raw code to the government, who then got them fast tracked through pretty much every malware detection outfit on the planet, blunted dozens of attacks until they repadded and recompiled. By then, the behavioral analysis and interception definitions were distributed, so plenty of urine on a certain foreign nation's annoying people's Cheerios for a bit. Also, due to that software, we finally located the incursion point - a forgotten test machine on a DMZ at one of our foreign offices that hadn't been patched since the Almighty was in diapers. So, I rather respect their software and well, did respect their acumen - right until shooting out a must install on a Friday, which is a direct violation of the Commandments of Software Patching. Thou shalt not patcheth upon Friday, for therein lies the pathway to the damnation of wrecked weekends. I've had my share over the decades of mushroom clouds, a fat fingered edit on a computer logon script, fat finger supreme in a GPO edit, patches that behave in the testing groups setting off mushroom clouds all over a military base, random reboots due to a bug, but this one has seriously outdone even the time I sent out a policy per the installation commander that ended up rebooting his computer while he was briefing his commanding general, much to their mutual mirth. Or having to slam out a shutdown abort on my own machine... Try remembering the syntax on that in a few seconds, not like it's a common command - usually I'd be in a hurry to reboot due to instability, before the OS got eaten. Suffice it to say, I'm glad that I live out of range, here in Pennsylvania, for there's no amount of money that could cause me to want to be anywhere near their offices since Friday morning. Texas must be nearly molten around Austin! It's been warm enough here, three blocks from our governor's mansion since Trump got winged... This, well it cost a lot of Fortune 100 companies some real cheddar, so it's gonna be hot in that HQ. Two words coming to mind: Penny stock. And a feeling that there likely will soon be some really sweet deals on some high end servers on the used server market quite soon.
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  5776. Was married for over 41 years, my wife chose to largely be what's now the fad of tradwife, with modifications for our mutual happiness and choices. She did "own" the checkbook, largely due to the fact that she was better at it than me, since I do have dyscalculia and my balancing the thing looked like the dog balanced it. I usually did the shopping, as her disability grew more severe, previously we both did the shopping together. We also took turns cooking, even when I came home from work, if it was my turn or she wasn't feeling well, it was my turn cooking. The flip side was, whoever didn't cook got to do the dishes and we had a dishwasher anyway. Had to fix the damned thing a few times, but it worked well. When I was injured and before she became disabled, she would work to bring in enough to keep the household afloat. When the kids didn't need continuous supervision, she worked to bring in some extra scratch and keep busy. She was lousy with the sewing machine, always fouled up the spring tension, so that became my baby. And the vegetable garden was mine as well. I was also the preferred babysitter for the grandkids, as I was the only one that could keep the two eldest colic ridden babies happy and comfortable. Lost her coming up on 3 years ago, still keep turning to talk to her... And I do miss her keeping me in the right hat size. ;) Of course, I'm a perfect 10 - unfortunately, that's on the Richter scale. That said, this specific specimen is a typical INCEL, little boy looking for a mama he can screw when he wants only, coast the rest of the time, rather than having a partner in life. He'll continue this way, given the amount of pigment loss in his beard and die alone. And looking around, I realized that I'm down to one quart of pasta sauce. Considered making more, but am moving on Saturday, so that'll wait to christen the kitchen in the new apartment by making 4 gallons of sauce and pressure canning quarts to fill the case back up. Because a man who can't function in life by himself without griping isn't much of a man.
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  5780. I remember Protestants actually celebrating JFK's assassination, trumpeting the Catholic was dead. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. A hell of a lot of violence has occurred throughout US history to keep Catholics out of power. Today, the populace got snookered into embracing men who are the most extreme sect of Roman Catholicism that was considered heresy for ages - right until the RCC went bankrupt and Opus Dei financially bailed them out. All of which can be trivially found in a Google search, "Nativism in US politics", "Know Nothing Party", "Philadelphia Nativist Riots", "Protestants celebrate JFK assassination" for starters. The Philadelphia Nativist riots, literal religious warfare in Philadelphia city streets, where Protestants stole a cannon from the port defenses and attacked a Roman Catholic church, school, convent and hospital, killed responding militia and only returned to their home when a thoroughly pissed off militia commander ringed their area with artillery, since it wasn't the first time such violence had happened. Following, months of martial law, with soldiers patrolling Philadelphia city streets with fixed bayonets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_in_United_States_politics https://www.nola.com/opinions/hatred-of-catholics-led-some-to-cheer-jfks-assassination-jarvis-deberry/article_04891c1c-0b10-5362-b960-e244c1ac0654.html I remember the JFK celebrations that Protestants made. Don't have personal memory of the Nativist movement in the 1800's, but it's well recorded throughout history. So, in response to the election of a Black president, the WASP brigade joined up with their arch-nemesis. We'll get Handmaid's Tale, death camps and the worst of fascism, they'll fight it out later, to the detriment of the populace. Because, both sides are so disturbed, they wouldn't hesitate to use nukes, to "force God's hand" in returning to Earth, as insane as that sounds. I've spoken often enough to both, they're the worst that humanity has to offer, right up there with Islamist terrorists. Now, they ruin, erm, run the courts and are throughout the highest levels of government soon, good job in destroying a nation and probably, world. I'm already missing secular and sane rule.
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  5786. For most, especially IT students, it comes down to what one is comfortable using and also does what you need it to do. I could do all of the tasks discussed and more with my old Mac, alas, it was stolen during a move and I set some options to brick it. I keep one Windows system at home for specialty work and to read some medical equipment. Everything else is largely either *BSD or Linux. Each to its own strengths and abilities, as I'm fluent at the SA level on all. Might get a Chromebook, just for shits and giggles, but well, I can get pretty much anything to do what I need it to do, when I can't, I'll VM or remote into a bridge box I have to reach a machine that does that specialty task. Oh, for the record, my apartment's smaller. That means, if I shot a video, it'd sound like I'm videoing from the middle of a data center's server room. And previously, in a many hat role, I was base IASO, mail filter admin, antivirus admin, patch management admin, defacto IAM for the installation, web filter owner (I was the best out of automations at RegEx anyway), as well as requested and issued elevated access tokens. Plus command and staff, a few IA meetings a week and Shell Answer Man (especially when an organization needed assistance with a firewall modification request). Most of my work was conducted by scripts, stage a script to perform the task needed, check the script logs, massage any recalcitrant job(s), smoke cigarettes and drink coffee while the scripts did their jobs. I also owned all of the computer and user logon scripts and was consulted heavily for GPO modifications. I'm that prick that could give an accurate resultant set of policy result before the tool could. And yes, the sea did indeed part, but honestly, that was due to the DFAC's beans...
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  5795.  @gpcivil8807  so, sales makes something better? Which is better, Smith and Wesson or Colt? Odd that you didn't bother commenting with the well documented problems, from proprietary charging connector that nobody else in the world uses or their incessant automagic drive crashes and the intensive babysitting needed to simply avoid a crash in automagic mode. But, since we're talking about Musk, not Tesla as a product line producer, how's that hyperloop going? The magical brain electrodes that are doing precisely what was done in the 1970's, with an infection rate that's shocking even by 1970's standards and forced an end to that college collaborating with his company? SpaceX, well, he didn't have much of a choice but to make it priority #1, failure to perform on a government contract gets to be insanely expensive. Frankly, the man reminds me of Liberace, a fair pianist only, but a hell of a showman. If I had to choose a pianist when he was alive to play for royalty, he'd not be my first choice, but a superior pianist instead. Brand isn't the important part, function, quality and in the case of vehicles, the damned thing not trying to kill you is just a little bit important. Ain't heard of any Chevy Bolts ramming into emergency equipment and highway dividers. Or any other manufacturer stupid enough to have a car fart instead of making noises that would warn a pedestrian that a car was coming. Or blatantly manipulating stock prices repeatedly, despite orders to cease and desist doing so again.
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  5804.  @babu357  the military takes lawful orders, it doesn't self-mobilize and engage without lawful orders. And we weren't sworn to the people, we were sworn to obey lawful orders and protect the nation, Constitution and laws. The Constitution's preamble defining the nation as We The People of the United States. Nothing in the oath about a god-king wannabe or anything political and there are laws against military getting in any way at all involved in politics or policing. We also count on the folks at home keeping things reasonably stable and well, as close as possible to what we deployed to defend when we redeploy home. These antics are beyond disconcerting to those serving far from home. I know that well enough, I trained a hell of a lot of those who are now senior leaders. OT by a bit, went shopping at the local small supermarkets, around a 2 mile walk from home. Extra large eggs were at one market for $9.00, left them sit, large were $8.00, let that sleeping dog lie too. Ironically, the week before they were a buck less, but got a 10.39 pound ham for $6.11, which is now part frozen, part bagged in the fridge and the bone happily in the freezer door awaiting my pleasure of what soup to make out of it. Lamb was around the usual price. Pork was around average. Eggs are up due to bird flu wiping out entire flocks of hens. End of Jan, a report from Nevada reported bird flu in milk at dairy farms, then all flu and COVID reporting ceased from the government, per god-king's orders. Of course that'd happen, he was seven kinds of bent out of shape how the reports made his numbers look bad during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe I'll some green eggs and ham, like used to be made for me by Sam I Am. ;) Since my pantry is restocked again.
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  5816. I grew up in the US and attended middle school through high school in SE Pennsylvania. Common then, back during the last ice age, was gym class and mandatory common showers, segregated by sex. If you're unclear, boys had their own locker room and showers, girls did as well. Gym classes eventually got shared, locker rooms weren't unless you really wanted to get suspended and possibly expelled and enjoying the last reform schools. I joined the US Army, did 28 years and change. Shared showers were far from uncommon, in the field, well, shared field shower or sponge off au naturale in the middle of the camp. I've done both. Did clothing optional beaches, one laughably was half clothed, half clothing optional and a prominent sign warned "You may encounter nude bathers beyond this point", which Helen Keller could've easily ascertained on any warm part of the year. People enjoying the clothing optional ranged from couples with small children through people in their 80's or more. Like the school shower, the beach had a similar thing. If you don't want to look at the train wreck, stop frigging looking, idiot. Of course, I'm a pure, distilled Adonis. Just go to the closest cemetery, you'll not find anyone to disagree. OK, if you run into me, I'll disagree. Mom always said, I had brown eyes for a reason. As for doctors in the US, yeah, I've shocked more than a few, when before they could escape the room I had disrobed for examination. Although, I've yet to have a skin examination, being of rather olive skinned stock. That said, our eldest inherited her grandparents genes from the paler nations and already had melanoma treated. But, I did get a mammogram. Long story about hyperthyroidism induced adipose growth and a painful boobie. How girls can endure that growth without continuous complaints is beyond me! I've traveled the globe over the decades, saw more women breast feeding than I could shake an abacus at. To the point where, it's highly probable that even here, I've entirely failed to notice. Although, here, I might offer to eat my meal in the bathroom, with a droll expression and wink, which would likely send the poor mother into absolute fits of mirth. Anyone harassing her would likely get a very sincere reading from the biblical Book of Threats that I've actually read to Al Qaeda members. As far as television and boobs, I'm still trying to figure that disconnect myself, despite being born and raised in the US. We see boobs all the time when our leaders speak! And occasionally, an ass. With some, Samson could've defeated three Philistine armies with one of their jawbones. But, profanity is heavily fined if used on public airwaves. And one can get up to two years in prison. Media may, such as in states like Pennsylvania, be considered indecent (as well as clothing) if aureola or nipple are visible. Yeah, Queen Victoria is still alive and ruling in the US. Little known history. The Puritans rewrote the bible, there was another bible with more books and chapters before in English, but they outlawed it and under King James, was authorized under duress. Regardless of where one goes, people are people, the same emotions and sensations are present and guide overall behavior. Public behavior tends to be socially guided according to cultural norms, but notice I said overall behavior. People are people and people fuck. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people. That eventually means babies and babies need to be fed and a lot of the world can't afford formula and bottles, so go with what God/nature provided, boobies to feed from. And I very well may slap the silly out of the next village idiot that I hear tell me that babies are damaged by seeing boobs. Well, at least slap the lead paint chips out of that idiot's brainless skull. Naw, shit splatters. Given, kids running naked at beaches was normal in the 1960's. Breastfeeding is natural. An ass is only something to be concerned about if it speaks and there is an open flame nearby.
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  5842. Nobody's deleting files. They'll stay hidden on the servers on the classified networks. And "they're working day and night deleting files" is telling, given it takes literally seconds to delete tens of thousands of files if one needed to. They count on the public's ignorance on how computers work to shift attention away from their never releasing that which they claim to have ordered released, with a pair of winks and nods. Using just the JFK files alone, at least 99% of the people that'd be listed in those files are long dead, so if there was anything to be found, it'd be released without harm. Yet, still isn't released. So, that implies some national security issue keeping a section classified and given the impact of the event, fairly glancing, but still of current importance, such as maybe questioning a known Russian agent and some data that's of use today being mentioned in that section and cross referenced in other files, so remains classified. So, "Oh, the Epstein files", where we already know the majority of shenanigans in it, as a shiny to divert attention away from the non-release of any of the files that contain nothing notable to begin with that's germane to the assassinations. And precisely what I predicted when he signed the EO to release the files that are on Pam's desk in some alternate universe. Sources and means will remain protected, so the files will remain sealed and since the press' attention is so easily diverted, it'll become as if the EO never existed and the files will remain sealed. After all, to Trump, his EO's are as valid as his campaign promises, made and forgotten if he loses interest.
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  5887. I'm reminded of a few things. One, providing IT support for a young man with Usher Syndrome, who was deaf, legally blind, had a guide dog and was the personal assistant to the installation's communications unit operations officer, who answered to a commander who was so good in school he got to wear two stars on his hat as a direct report to. Yeah, a two star Admiral. When that individual called our hell desk for support, he had a significant problem beyond user level intervention. I even had the opportunity to work closely with him when we upgraded operating systems and had to tailor his desktop environment and eventually, defeated by some hurdles, I called in both the server admin for the remote desktop environment and the unit EEO, who had experience with helping tune the environment for the visually impaired users. I've never been shy about getting help when something goes beyond my capabilities and I've actually set up such environments myself, but not having that position, I didn't have the access, so hand it off to those better suited to the task. Needless to say, he had some major hurdles, but he is highly proficient at his job. Much being past tense, as my company lost our contract and the new company didn't pick me up, then I suffered some debilitating maladies of my own that remain ongoing. I'm also reminded of events of very nearly a century ago, specifically Acktion T4 and the actions of Wilhelm Frick and Karl Brandt, under the direction of some Hitler guy. For those unfamiliar with that travesty, that was the forced "euthanasia" of those deemed insane, disabled or unfit due to age or other disability, which was delayed pending initiation of the war by invading Poland, then France, when they finally starved, drugged to death or literally rolled carbon monoxide vans up to care homes and hospitals and murdered between 275,000–300,000 men, women and children. Both were hanged, Hitler already ensured his own sentence was self-imposed and executed. She got of supremely easy. As my take is, she may well have planned a murder-suicide, but while likely intoxicated with her benzodiazepine, changed her mind and called for help. Supporting that was not remaining in the garage with her deceased or dying sister and dogs, but retreating into the home to call for help. And well, given her prior crimes against humanity as a producer, New Jersey was too good for her, Texas is even excessively merciful, hell is far more appropriate, save I really wouldn't want her as a companion in my vacation home. I'd far prefer bedbugs. Maybe as a neighborhood Karen instead, I enjoy tormenting those.
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  5941. You've entirely not actually listened to her viewpoint. We were married for 41 years and basically, were marriage counselors for many. Listening, actually listening was key in a relationship. One can quite literally be modest while naked. My wife actually illustrated that to me continually, while naked on nude beaches. If you don't understand provocative behavior and not, we're really done. You simply refuse to accept other viewpoints and only conflict can resolve things. But, the reality of it is, the actual number of pedophiles in America is far under 1%, per FBI statistics. That you claim to know far more than tens of thousands of federal employees dedicated to convicting such criminals is astonishing! What you flailed for is a term the SCOTUS used, prurient interest. Google it. Both mom and dad showered me, I'm as attracted to dad's balls as mom's balls and by definition, she didn't have any. The artwork, David had a small set, positively geriatric. Venus, no thanks, not my type. Oh, restrict knowledge? OK, let's start with restricting knowledge of how to eliminate the heretical knowledge of an inertial confinement device, aka a thermonuclear warhead. Want to discuss that in detail and why to restrict that knowledge above all others? I can do that in spades, with detailed information to restrict. Or maybe that information should be free, only what boobies and balls look like should be restricted, for doctor's better ignorance. You've revealed a brain, use it outside of your context for a change! It's what God gave it to you for.
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  5963. And the Apostles did speak in Tongues and the Lord Jesus then machine gunned them down for heresy, for the Lord God spake exclusively in Middle English. About as acceptable as a church allowing the word bullshit be chanted, as the only time that might be considered acceptable were if the entire congregation stepped into the excrement of a male bovine. Which I believe was a cut out scene from Blazing Saddles... Regarding large crowds of followers, had millions of followers gather in my studio apartment. Thank heavens for Lysol! Ironic, a video making points about chants of Bullshit having a baked in advertisement for a bidet... ;) Which is actually a highly underutilized device in this country. Was the handiest thing to have when I ate something I really shouldn't have when I was overseas... Sure beat using paper to smear meshit all over myself. As for profanity, have yet to have even one Trumpite start a profanity contest with me and continue it for more than a few seconds. 28 years military, profanity is a language that I'm fluent with - regardless of a half dozen languages I'll use and translate. But that's OK, I'm required to forgive them and besides, they denied the exchange, citing their rights under the fifth commandment. I usually only cite rights under a fifth of whiskey, but hey, that's me. But Trump, of course he couldn't quote any section or verse of the bible, he can't even figure out which side is up for a bible. He's obviously a total stranger to judge not, lest you be judged or do unto others as you'd have done unto you, the former a warning about harsh judgement being promised to those inclined toward harsh judgements, the latter just damned good advice. Oddly, most claiming great affinity for the bible can quote the Old Testament origin for either verse, as Christ said nothing in the New that wasn't present in the Old. I'll close with, remember my campaign and vote for me - for absolutely nothing. Not running for office, I'm lacking a small match temperament and far too inclined for a frank exchange of views.
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  5965. Lying about a subject does your cause ill. For one thing, shall we discuss the SALT and START treaties and the restriction on the number of operational warheads? If Russia and the US went at it on a full scale thermonuclear war, given that targeting is counter value, first ICBM installations would be targeted, then nuclear capable air force bases, followed by submarine installations, each with a half dozen or more warheads for target to ensure hardened structures are destroyed. Each side is capped at 1,550 operational and duty ready warheads of any nuclear or thermonuclear mixture they choose, within the ICBM warhead cap previously agreed upon. To give you a hint, across each of our respective continental masses, we have a hell of a lot more cities than warheads together. Given that cities aren't the primary target, weapons are, that lowers the number of casualties significantly. It''s really hard to kill a lot of people in farm country in the US or Russia! Oh, lemme guess, <gasp!>, nuclear winter? Disproved in the 1990's via much improved modelling that also managed to prove the threat of global warming. Those models proved to be correct when the oil fires from Gulf War I was modeled. The "experts", with their antiquated models predicted at least a decade of cooling from the soot of the oil fires, it was a couple of cooler, wetter months only. Meanwhile, the plutonium pits are degrading from helium embrittlement, the explosives growing sensitive from neutron and beta capture, hence, the deterrent needs to be dismantled and reworked. A non-operational deterrent is not a deterrent. Now, if you want to talk about being rid of those fine products from the insanity factory, I'm all ears! At one point in my military career I might have worked on the damned things, that doesn't mean that I like them. P.S., I'm not really especially concerned over nuclear fallout, as warheads since the 1960's were efficient enough that less than a half ton of fallout per large yield warhead was a bit high, most were much, much lower. The only way to see significant fallout is for the warhead to be set for ground burst and everything on the ground within the fireball gets sucked into the still fissioning fireball and irradiated via neutron activation. Although, Putin did give me a moment of pause and consideration when he mentioned cobalt-60 warheads, which would mean that all bets are off, as we'd have to salt one class of warhead the same way. I've no clue of what's he was smoking when he said that, as even at the hottest parts of the Cold War, nobody was insane enough to salt their warheads. Too high of a chance that "On the beach" would turn very, very real.
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  5983. So, DEI is fraud, waste and abuse and having good relations with Sri Lanka is also fraud, waste and abuse because we don't like dark skinned people that talk funny is the justifications. No, those are policy decisions and racism. Frankly, wave papers in front of me, it's like that infamous red cape before a bull, I'm reaching for them to read the alleged receipts. More likely, she's showing the White House shopping list for hamburgers. Just as when some tried to make hay over SecDef Lampshade Wearer's $48k paint job, I showed literal receipts as to why it was justified and actually, not by his request. SecDef gets the misfortune of having a SCIF inside of his home. The paint, literally an inside and out Faraday shield to prevent EM radiation leakage allowing someone to literally tap the electronics from a half mile away. The floors and ceiling gets a similar treatment, special windows that are shielded and window covers get installed as well, the tip-off being the $1k door (no, the lock is a GSA mandatory combination lock that costs $1500 - $2500 depending upon mounting hardware and oh, the required encryption devices cost twice the paint job in price. Yeah, wave receipts or bills at me, I'm not an accountant, but I do know government programs, government costs and yeah, that hammer was actually a specialty tool, not some Home Depot toy, gotta work as well in space, Antarctica, the equator and anywhere else DoD needs to use it. You should see the spec book for just a high temper bolt, it's a thick binder after DoD got ripped off and men injured by non-tempered bolts failed and nearly killed them. The biggest red cape, lying to me. I despise lies and being talked down to and one quickly learns my blunt candor and intelligence are par none. And I remember his previous maladministration, when he waved a binder around as proof that was full of blank pages. Didn't ask for your documentation of your thoughts, Mr President, I asked about that program you've never documented or evidence you claim to have and oh, never presented and never will because it doesn't exist. Still, I do most strenuously disagree and object to calling Musk and Trump pieces of shit. It is disrespectful and demeaning to perfectly useful excrement that only awaits composting to be able to be effectively recycled. Trying to compost them would be like trying to compost and recycle cobalt-60, if they composted, they'd still emit toxic radiation for over a century. Oh, excellent proof that aliens live among us. I'd simply introduce people to some of my neighbors, most if not all are legal and many in the process of becoming citizens. Be careful though, I've gotten them into the habit of sharing recipes. ;)
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  5987.  @AverageAwesomeDude  one problem with a single Jesus is, the Romans had a massive bureaucracy, with records on everything from the name, residence and birthplace of every subject and citizen to who was executed and why. No records have been found that mention him as a person, but records to exist that speak of many preachers running about and preaching everything from rise up and make war against the empire to give unto Caesar his damnable tax money. Most of what is in the New Testament is directly traceable to the Old Testament, from prophesies to being nice to your neighbor and not swinging a sword at anyone who gets you mad. Worse, Paul came along and there's still a fair amount of dispute among theologians as to how much Paul upstaged Peter while Peter was traveling and preaching. As Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ". How many forgive, rather than speaking of smiting whoever and wherever someone that angers them, who call themselves Christians? So unlike Christ. How many are willing to turn the other cheek, rather than resorting to Smith and Wesson? How many withhold judgement, lest they be judged according to the harshness of their judgement? That's the lesson, few listen to their own faith and are hypocrites by condemning strangers before learning anything about them, why they do things and simply judge and condemn. How should they be judged, if not according to their own rush to judgement and harshness of their judgement? The lesson isn't that of a man or son of anyone, the lessons are the message and lessons to learn and live by. For who would be judged the better person, the one behaving because of threats of eternal torture and nonexistence or someone that behaves because it's the right thing and better thing to do?
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  6074. Frankly, with Vance's first tirade, well, Zelensky's a far better man than me. I'd have fractured Vance's hyloid bone and explained that a Marine just fell to an old Army retiree. Trust me, the psychological impact of that is tremendous. And like Marines, we also got paid to take martial arts classes and use them downrange. And I'm not typically one inclined to strike first. That said, he's antagonistic because he questioned the words of the god-king. That's black heresy and should've been rewarded by burning at the stake or something. The god was challenged and the challenger must be punished by the faithful, the worst the punishment, the more faithful the follower is. And I counter with, those rare earth metals won't ever go to the United States of America, I'll have them reacted with other elements to be unrefinable first. And chemically, it wouldn't take much to render even rare earths commercially nonviable with common elements. I also freely admit to a character flaw, I am a very, very, very, very vindictive man. Still, there is one upside for this imbroglio. The UK has had a mutually warm reception between their PM and President Zelensky. I just checked my magical 8 ball, the odds look good for a rare earth mineral deal for the occasionally United Kingdom.* *Kind of an in joke between some friends in the UK and myself, I make a similar quip about the rarely United States of America. I'm also known to poke fun at everyone, especially myself, because well, the lowest hanging fruit is the easiest available. But then, if I somehow royally, immeasurably ever screwed up and ended up as POTUS, I'd refer to my office as the Oaf Filled Office and when SNL lampooned me, at the earliest opportunity, I'd be on SNL lampooning myself properly and likely outscoring them in belly laughs. After all, my skin is nearly as thick as my skull, which literally stunned a goat once. Yeah, that's a true story of both epic poor judgement around goats, species miscommunication and well, a goat literally butting me in the forehead and it ended up stunned, while I rubbed a sore spot and said, "Ow!", much to my wife's mirth. She literally swore unto her dying day that that goat's eyes crossed, not that I could tell, it was only sitting on its rump, rear legs crossed, front legs splayed and wobbling.
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  6084. As you've mentioned, we've had bases on Greenland, hell, we still have Thule AFB, now under the Space Command and hence, still USAF as the Space Force is only a combatant command under the USAF. With radar that looks to space and sea. With the SOSUS net, which runs across the GIUK gap, so that no evil, nasty Ruskie submarine can sneaky through. So, given our ability to have Denmark (well, until now) rubber stamp anything we wanted to install there, it's a simpler question. Why buy the cow when you already get the milk for free? Greenland talks about independence, albeit very weakly, as most of their GNP comes from Denmark. The mineral wealth is dubious in some ways, as much of it is under the glacier and nobody has ever considered mining through a kilometer of ice. Or even doing more than drilling ice cores. Well, other than us, we did try to build an ICBM base inside of the glacier, due to differential movements within the glacier, the hallways literally stopped lining up quickly, the nuclear reactor they installed to power the base leaked like the proverbial sieve from the hot loop, we eventually abandoned the base and the drums of radioactive ice there - right until Denmark found out about it and made us come back and clean that shit up. Leaving only areas that are glacier free for exploitation and there's no promise from nature that Greenland won't do to our mines what it did to the Viking settlements - bury them in ice later on. No, rather than buying the cow, he wants to buy the cow and pasture of ice, then pay someone to travel 1900 miles to get the milk that was formerly delivered. And rather than use diplomatic channels and methods, he went bull in the china shop looking for the tea service. Well, that service is now shards on the floor, good job, what next, fire? As for Russian threats, they're no greater now than they were before. Russia doesn't have Star Trek transporters, ships travel around the same speeds now as during WWII. Airplanes have been traveling at the same speeds for two generations. Missiles have been around since the 1960's, albeit at much lower numbers of 1550 deliverable warheads for the US, around 1650 or so for Russia. And Arctic ice clearing opens up areas far, far, far closer to Russia and just as wealthy in rare earths as on Greenland, especially near the Siberian Traps, where massive magmatic provinces brought such elements to the surface and water did its thing separating them into veins that are now becoming accessible. Or maybe it'll become, Greenland today, Iceland tomorrow and next week, Airstrip One. I guess Obama could get the part of Manny Goldstein...
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  6155. Non Guccione began construction on a casino in Atlantic City, which left steelworks literally over the roof of the home of Vera Coking. When Trump purchased the failed project, he razed the girderwork mess, resulting in damage to her home, she refusing to allow his workers repair the home. An eminent domain battle ensued and she and two other property owners prevailed. Still trying to figure out how Guccione's erector set ended up hanging over her home, since that apparently is criminal trespass. Around a decade ago, a creditor of Trump's failed casino purchased her home after she moved to a retirement home in California for a little over half of her asking price that Trump refused and Guccione refused to pay, getting around $580k or so, her asking price being $1 million. The other property owners getting 2.1 million and 1.2 million. Drones may not overfly private property below a specific altitude, I remember that from when I was working at CSC, whose seniormost officers discussed licensing of drones with the FAA director, which became effective soon after and guess what company got to handle the registrations? No bribes, just golfing buddies, because buddies taking care of buddies with government contracts is OK. I've had to explain to friends in foreign lands about federal and state, given their nations (European, mostly) strong central governments. The easiest way I found was to consider the US a strong federation of 50 nations with one overarching supreme Constitution that significantly restricts the federal authorities of the national government over the states beyond that which is outlined within the Constitution. Given Eurozone, that got the concept across well enough. Special thanks to History News Network for the naming of the guilty: 'The first record of the anecdote appears in a 1787 journal kept by one of the delegates to the convention, James McHenry of Maryland. He wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” McHenry added a footnote to the text: “The lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philad[elphi]a.”' Why Elizabeth Willing Powel was erased from the majority of tellings of the story is beyond me, unless perhaps, they wish to reject that republic. Given that she did play pivotal roles at the time of the penning of our Constitution and before, that's the only reason I can figure, unless some, women included, want to deny women the agency that they had at the time of our nation's founding.
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  6162. Amazing, they used a lot of groceries on the campaign trail. When we traveled, we rarely used groceries, as we didn't have a stove hanging out of our assholes. Laughably, I did own a gasoline camp stove, but that was packed. The one place one won't use groceries is when traveling like that, no time or place to prepare groceries, so one dines out and well, all Trump does is hamburgers. And I'm damned sure he doesn't know the recipe for a hamburger. Ironically, did go grocery shopping on Friday, eggs were extra large for $9.00, large for $8.00, went to another store where I got a steal for $7.00 for large eggs. But, the public aren't allowed to know about why egg prices are up, as god-king ordered all reporting on bird flu concealed from the public and his own reports. Which, just before he got a chance to fuck up the entirety of our national government and C3 systems, there was another report out of Nevada of highly pathogenic influenza detected in dairy cattle and their milk in Nevada, but that might make the god-king's numbers look bad, so reporting on it's illegal by imperial decree. After all, he's here to Make America Gaunt Again by starvation and disease. Well, at least I didn't have trouble paying at the grocery pump. Dear Lord, we've been invaded successfully by the Moron Militia. Because, drilling is energy, refining oil isn't necessary and that our oil won't work in our refineries, oh yeah, I forgot, Harry Potter's magical wooden dildo will rescue us. Or give us splinters. And gasoline will make bird flu killing entire flocks of hens off, ummmm, undead egg layers or something? I dunno about undead eggs though, not after having two eggs explode because I kept them too long. And "the win", apparently, Dementia Donnie has forgotten that contributors and the win was in NOVEMBER AND THIS IS FEBRUARY. Someone tell him the months of the year in order please. As for vacation, President Musk wants VP Trump on vacation, he's tiring of using the queening stool. No, those were regular sized hats, you're just now noticing their severe microcephaly. Also known in a less professional term as having a pinhead. Small skull, malformed and tiny brain, usually disastrous at birth. I said it when he was in office last time, back when his porch lamp still was dimly lit, a physician does not perform a Montreal Cognitive Assessment in a vacuum, one has a very good suspicion that's usually confirmed by the assessment. Still, doesn't matter much, he's just a smoke screen for GOP misleaders and President Musk's actions as they convert our nation into a totalitarian dictatorship and once Dementia Don is no longer useful, he and his family if malcontents will also go to the camps with big ovens.
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  6199.  @seandobbins2231 save for that whole democracy thing. You know, if one isn't a criminal, specifically a convicted felon, one can run for public office and create policies. Not specialists, whose opinions are known to vary depending upon who is paying for their "services" and well, listening to them while growing up, as often as some physicians told us smoking was bad for us, there were an equal number claiming smoking was good or neutral to one's own health. Hence, decades of inertia, until finally the prostituted voices got drowned out by their peers - rather than weeded out via self-policing of their ranks, which was intended. Our largest problem now is that political leadership has ended up selected strongly by largely religious minorities, who are enforcing idiocy and forcing it down a nation's throat, resulting in a race to the bottom and those are the very results we see here. An upside, due to that idiocy, one party went full Nativist mode and is rapidly destroying itself, just as that Nativist group destroyed the Whig party in the mid-1800's. Excuse me as I farther calm down. Just detonated at some militia goofball in another channel, who proclaimed all militia members were labeled by our government as domestic terrorists. He won't enjoy the exchange further, as I was unit historian for a historic National Guard unit - one founded under Colonel Benjamin Franklin. And well, lessee... Militia being, by Act preexisting this nation as able bodied males of military age (ages specified by each act and occasionally differing), later updated for females (initially only in the National Guard, but expanded by legislation, but leaving conscription an unresolved question) as unorganized militia and organized being organized militia that was in 1903 given a new fangled nation, the National Guard. So, he's getting hit over the head with both codified law and history. That seems to make me a liberal in his book, a decidedly odd and telling tell on his part.
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  6220. Congratulations! You finally noticed that he's been quoting Hitler. He's been doing it for ages, now it's just completely out in the open. Interestingly, he's also getting things out of order, beginning Aktion T4 a trifle early through the VA now removing volunteers that were previously feeding dementia hospice patients and making visitation difficult to impossible before his invading Poland - erm, I mean well, damned near everyone on a randomly shifting list. Hitler acknowledged having to wait for the mass extermination of elderly, disabled, mentally disadvantaged, insane or otherwise "unproductive and undesirable" until after war began, so that he could justify it with the populace as a "necessary sacrifice to prevent sapping the strength of a nation at war by supporting the unproductive drains upon society". His ideas on eugenics, originating in the US... And there are "Russian ships and Chinese ships out there", yeah, other countries have also always used the oceans too. The US doesn't own the seven seas, there are even ratified treaties to that very effect. Oh wait, forgot, god-king outranks laws and the Constitution and only must needs consult with Emperor Musk before the Empress may decided upon an action. Although, I'm at a quandary here, how does the US invade and send US forces throughout the land on immigration enforcement and cut the DoD budget by 50% all at the same time? Other than, it's yet another smokescreen. And he's forgetting, there are 15.8 veterans in the US and he's successfully pissing us all off. Not an exemplary career move, given he's only got 2.86 million troops and that number is dropping due to his own actions. Given we also know where the ammunition supply points are. And the C3 nodes. And logistical distribution hubs. And assembly areas. And we don't even need to go for stupid battles, we just need to foul logistics nationwide, hamper communications, everything grinds to a halt and without logistics and communications, well, you've got a rabble. A bit of solvent here, some concrete there, missing steel somewhere else...
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  6222. If he were alive and I asked Schrodinger to solve the Schrodinger equation for a relativistic electron orbital, well, we'd both call it time to hit the bar and hope Lorentz doesn't show up there as well. There, Dirac would be waiting for us... ;) Doubles all around, 'cause now it'll get dense. Cap off that night by casually mentioning that, in 2024, we're really close to achieving commercial level fusion power, only between 5 and 40 years away, then get the bar towel to clean up the spit drinks... I'll start the food fight though. Engineering is, like chemistry, simply applied physics. And anyone wanting to say that quantum physics isn't useful, turn your computer off, since you don't respect or acknowledge its technology and come talk to my tunneling diode and tell it how it doesn't work. Don't make me dust off the laser... Erm, nitpick, optical vs UV? Both are optical, Balmer is visual light (although there still is that whole IR thingie), Lyman is UV, which still is light. Both use the same basic optics, just different tuning and materials (same again with IR). It's only when the wavelength gets really long or much shorter than mere UV that things turn into a pain in the gonads to focus and reflect reasonably efficiently. UV absorbs and converts to heat, but visual light doesn't? Uh, no, six of one, half dozen of the other, just more energy downconverting to heat with UV and don't get me started on hard gamma (gonad pain, remember?). Perhaps, a bit too Goobered down? As for quantum mechanics vs classical, a fission reactor is a fine example. I can kludge together a basic, ugly fission reactor without quantum mechanics. If I want an efficient one, I'm going to need quantum mechanics. Lasers, well, I need quantum mechanics, they're not magic, just the darkest of the dark arts, mathematics. ;) I'll disagree about cannot agree to disagree. After all, there is Schrodinger's Mouse, who had the grave misfortune of trying to ascertain the wave function of that damned cat... I'll just get my hat and coat...
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  6228. I dunno, I've said repeat a few times over the radio. The indirect fire eventually makes an impression. ;) I tend to prefer to refer to explosions visual and audible effects as "thunder, fire and brimstone". It gets the point across reasonably well. Hmmm, ignored by Hollywood? Blast cavitation injuries, avulsions from the same, hollow organ ruptures, shrapnel injuries (even on the rare occasions they hint at it, it's tiny wounds, not missing limbs, half of a head, seeing through a thorax, evisceration... Then, there's shake and bake, Willie Pete and HE quick, everyone will try to bunker in for HE, but when WP comes to visit, try to keep up with the old SOB! Movies and bullets, a bullet hits, it always goes straight. It also always has to come out to fix a problem, which is bogus, as anything needing the bullet removed also means repairing blood vessels and bones, otherwise, if it isn't damaging anything, leave it the hell alone and not injure the patient even more. Circling back to explosions, MASH did one scene well. Hawkeye was operating on a patient with a bone jutting from his body. He remarked, "Well, he doesn't need this", a nurse queried if the damage was that severe or something similar, he remarked, "No, it's not even his". Someone stepped on an antitank mine and one of his bones from his leg impaled the patient. It was a true story. Or the Afghanistan case, where an RPG round was impaling a patient. The surgeon evacuated the OR, only volunteers worked on him to remove the round from his body, just in case it detonated and killed everyone present. Next, in military situations, an explosion sends all manner of shrapnel, both from the device and whatever is nearby. Service member gets some of the shrapnel, but escapes significant injury from the blast itself. Fortunately, his body armor prevented any penetrating injuries, the ESAPI plates did need replacement and the fractures beneath were treated and healed uneventufully. Rib fractures suck, but sucking chest wounds suck even more.
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  6231. Given that the capsule of the cobalt-60 source is intact, Homer would never be radioactive, as cobalt-60 isn't a neutron emitter. But, there's another extremely common source that resembles that capsule, a phosphor coated tritium vial, the tritium also coming from nuclear power plants. Again, he'd not be radioactive, as it's intact. Although, the amount of tritium, were the source compromised would be decidedly unhealthy, it's unlikely to reach LD50 for tritium on a chemical basis. Biochemically speaking, tritium sucks in organic reactions... As for Cerenkov radiation, it's not only present in water, it can and has occurred in air, the eyes (OK, yeah, that's mostly water) and I've personally observed, much to my horror, its presence in glass. Really long story there. Oddly, there have been survivors of prompt criticality accident who observed the glow in the room air. Got sicker than all hell, but they survived. Suffice it to say, any children resulting from them are not on my family's intimate relationship list, as some of their DNA "eggs" got scrambled for certain. I've been, off and on, reading an interesting IAEA report on criticality accidents. My thought, the entire time reading it and after, "A bunch of 5 year old kids with daddy's loaded gun in their hands". I'm firmly convinced that Homer Simpson is a real person and he bounces back and forth mostly between the US and Russia. ;) Still, I'm in the market for a cobalt-60 source, so I'll soon be calling around South America to evaluate a few potential sources... :/ No, I'm sure Kyle recalls the orphaned sources at the heart of a couple of accidents and one in Mexico, which contaminated a hell of a lot of US steel that's still in use, you can't wink and smile about those deaths.
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  6256. Flouride, isn't that what bread is made from? Fluoride, depends upon the fluoride, not that these brain trusts would be capable of comprehending the difference between stannous fluoride and chlorine trifluoride. Frequently enough, these same fu - erm, folks also call white phosphorus a chemical weapon, no it's an allotrope of an element, in a military context, incendiary and primarily used to generate tons of steamy smoke. Not a nerve agent, blood agent, choking agent, blister agent, CNS agent, etc. It's akin to calling a water balloon a chemical weapon. Traces of fluoride compounds will help reduce tooth decay, excesses can cause tooth discoloration, weakened teeth and bones and major health problems in extreme dosage cases - which happens naturally in a number of places around the world where the ground water is high in fluorides. Guess humans shouldn't have gotten off of that battlestar... Chlorine trifluoride, I'll happily play with that any day - if it's on a different continent than I am on. It's a much better oxidizer than mere oxygen (seriously). Great oxidizer for any rocket, it'll oxidize the fuel and the occupant instantly. Great for cleaning the containment vessel of a nuclear reactor though, the uranium will go into solution as uranium hexafluoride, which is where one wants it for processing. Which means, you'll not find me anywhere near a reactor containment vessel that's being cleaned of uranium traces... It's nasty enough to burn sand, glass, water (yes, water), ashes, chemists who violate safety protocols and as one researcher documented, in the event of a metallofluorine fire with the stuff, a good pair of running shoes is strongly recommended. As for "fluoride is a toxic element", erm, that'd be fluorine. So is chlorine, are we gonna ban all salt in the world now? Iodine is toxic, you'll be just as dead without it as you'll be without chlorine in salt.* Now, excuse me while I refill my bottle of hydroxic acid, aka hydrogen hydroxide, aka, dihydrogen monoxide, aka frigging water. Paracelsus said it best, "The dose makes the poison". * I have Grave's disease, a form of hyperthyroidism. One older endocrinologist warned me to avoid iodine containing foods, even while taking my methimazole (which blocks forming the iodine containing thyroid hormones that I form in excess). I asked if he was concerned with the Wolff-Chaikoff effect and he said no, more out of concern of a thyroid storm. A hint, I didn't see that quack again and found a competent endocrinologist. The Wolff-Chaikoff effect is iodine overload, which so busies the thyroid gland (OK, massively Goobering things down by a lot) that it completely shuts down hormone production in favor of taking up that excess iodine. When I was hospitalized in moderately poor condition due to a thyroid storm, the competent endocrinologist suggested that as an option to wrangle my thyroid under control until the methimazole began to take effect. Fortunately, rather than bounce between extremes, my thyroid was good enough to cooperate with more conservative treatment with the drug alone.
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  6284.  @grimmertwin2148  no, it doesn't. It's still being worked on as a combined part of treatment for PTSD, along with traditional therapies to desensitize veterans to stressful stimuli. When the hell are people in this country going to grow up and not seek a quick fix, magical pill solution to a complex problem? To the OP, hard to address PTSD once it's fully established, one needs to address it promptly as it begins for full and rapid recovery and that's complicated when TBI's come into play, of which the Vegas attacker had suffered at least one, likely multiple. Helmets don't keep you from getting your bell rung good, they only keep one's skull intact. Ten helmets won't stop countercoup injuries or shockwaves from injuring a brain. And a TBI makes one more prone to PTSD that's likely incurable, as the brain has experienced significant tearing and other damage. As for "his prescription", he's addressing what can be reasonably addressed. We can't rebuild brains, we can address the most common and harmful - those radicalized. When assessing which risk to address, one looks at rate of occurrence, annualized loss expectancy and a number of other factors. Part being cost of loss. Which cost our nation more? A dozen people mowed down, one shot and killed, two cops shot and wounded or one suicide with one injury to a bystander? Sounds cold? Good, it's supposed to be, it's called using reason, not emotion. It's the most effective way to deal with complex problems, as emotion clouds one's thinking and colors perceptions, resulting in incorrectly addressing a problem and likely worsening the problem.
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  6299.  @vanessarodriguez4259  rebuild and recover is exhausting at best when one's young. As one ages, it's double, triple and more tough to do until it's pretty much impossible. Been through a bit of that myself and I'm just in my early 60's and reasonably fit. In theory, one can build structures and even configure properties to withstand tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. In practice, nobody anywhere could afford such an insanely expensive thing. Not even the wealthiest or even the government, which is why nobody does build them other than for test units. Besides, who wants to live underground? I'm in south-central Pennsylvania. So, winters can get a bit annoying to get around, since I'm stuck walking with a cane. As a result, I prepare a modest pantry with about a month and a half of food, largely dry goods and canned goods and a well stuffed freezer. It avoids me finding myself on my back, wondering why the sky is in front of me when it's icy out. That's actually come in handy, as I and thousands of others had our food stamps stolen via a skimmer ring out of NYC. Just reconstituted a gallon of dry milk last night, picked up some bread and eggs from the food bank and I've enough flour to make a half dozen loaves or so if I need them. Not a prepper, just creatively lazy and frugal. When weather is good, I'll walk the two miles to the market, load my folding shopping cart up, walk the two miles back. The river is literally across the street from me, but I'm on a high floor and at worst, were it to flood, which would take a hell of a lot, I'd lose what's in the fridge and freezer when the apartment building's utility level flooded. That's happened in the past, but it's basically a once in an actual century event. I've lost everything I own twice, yeah, that's heavily wearing in the extreme, restarting life from scratch gets harder as one ages. So yeah, know where they're coming from. Hopefully, they find a place that's safe and secure and a bit better protected and affordable, as prices have been insane and growing worse from a mismanaged pandemic.
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  6362. Tech genius Musk, who famously announced that the US government doesn't use SQL databases, still ignores a report thanking the US Treasury Department for their assistance in tracing a bug used in a compromise at Treasury of a PostrgreSQL server, which I guess isn't SQL because Emperor Musk says SQL isn't being used at all in government. And given the sheer number of Oracle databases I monitored compliance with for the government, Oracle isn't SQL either. Nor is MySQL or MSSQL. And his geniuses, the bestest in the universe, straight out of kindergarten are the super douper bestest, using out of the box configurations and passwords, no port filtering or shuttering of unused services and ignoring best business practices, totally the bestestestest. At getting pwned. I swear, it's like watching Wile E. Coyote opening up the latest package from Acme, ya know what's gonna happen next just ain't gonna go so well for the Coyote. Oh, the "not using SQL" was Musk's excuse for using WordPress, rather than oh, software that the US government has master site licenses for and hence, is bought and paid for. And the first thing one does when setting up a server is to disable services that aren't used, change default passwords, block ports that are not to be used externally. That's literally the first steps when loading the server - before it's put online to the production network, let alone the big bad open internet. Yep, the Coyote falling off the cliff again, wearing dynamite and a missile's heading toward his impact point - loaded with a nuke stolen because nobody was there to secure it. I've set up servers from bare metal up, put up sites, databases and well, a whale of a lot more, administered them, verified baseline configuration compliance, patch level compliance, etc. When I was done, I had the things reviewed by someone not in my chain of command. I got to review their work in return. Anything amiss got corrected. Then, I scanned the damned things with vulnerability scanners and when we used one of the nastier vulnerability scanner that could deliver some hostile payloads, those were the servers that we ran those specific tests upon. Some of those very servers lived on our DMZ and hence, were internet facing and provided services to external users. Not a one was compromised. Clint Eastwood famously addressed an empty chair at a convention, perhaps he should go to the White House and address that empty head.
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  6366.  @thaisstone5192  I see that elementary reading was never taught to you. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. So, in your version of the world, levying war requires Congress to declare war, so the war of 1812 wasn't a war, since Congress couldn't meet when Washington D.C. was burning. That means Benedict Arnold was never a traitor or something similarly insane. Levying war means taking up arms. Trump wouldn't take up arms, he's too great a coward to do that. A case might be made for sedition and even for advocating for the overthrow of the US government, both serious felonies. Treason, nope, Congress didn't declare war, so he couldn't have an enemy to give aid and comfort to. He sure as hell wouldn't risk himself by taking up arms. So, treason is impossible. And even sedition is dicey, as one would have to show that mens rea existed and that he fully and overtly ordered violence be employed for the purpose of unseating our government. Not by preponderance of evidence, but beyond a reasonable doubt. Laughably, sedition has been proved against leaders of Proud Boys, those convicted already now serving their sentences and Oath Keepers trials are ongoing. Still no direct Trump ties to any such orders. But, there is ample evidence to support his advocacy for the overthrow of the government via an attack on said government, specifically Congress and blocking of its Constitutional powers and the penalties are equal with sedition. Shall we instead stay with having a Constitution then?
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  6376. When will billionaires care about the poor and working class? History answered that well in France, when they refined and perfected the usage of the French National Razor. For the historically challenged, the National Razor was a cutsie name used in reference to the guillotine. Once the wealthy and ruling elites started taking significant losses, they paid very serious attention. Once that murderous and self-destructive wave was over, they continued to pay attention and the wheels stayed on the cart, well, once they got reinstalled. Currently, Trump's in economic trouble anyway, he no longer has anything resembling a reserve of liquidity, his assets are heavily leveraged and he couldn't even throw bond for an appeal in a massively injurious civil case. And with Musk, the gloss is off the muskmelon, with multiple recalls undermining the myth of his tremendous innovative wisdom due to Tesla recalls, fires, self-drive vehicles that unerringly collide with emergency vehicles, a boring company that hasn't bored even an earthworm in a decade and more, a brain link company that's literally caught up to bleeding edge devices from the early 1970's and I can go on and on, that plus his Twaddle antics plus SEC intense interest and now anger, he'll start to implode soon enough too. I'll not show much sympathy for an unsympathetic dweeb who started out his wealth by skillfully inheriting an emerald mine, helping build a couple of websites and buying companies, then taking credit for the companies engineers successful projects. He's literally the Liberace of the business world and a hint from a pianist, Liberace was a decent piano player, he was far from the world's best, he was just a good showman.
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  6383.  @ClaudiusCaelum  LLM AI's don't understand what anything is, they infer associations and maybe, just maybe they get things right or they run out of data on a search and then confabulate a response that's beyond fantasy. Ask some disbarred lawyers about that one, presented cases to a court of law with confabulated nonexistent cases and laws included. If one has to go over the results with a fine toothed comb, one has wasted time and electricity on a useless effort that one had to manually duplicate. Forensic audits are a huge pain in the ass, but they are worthwhile enterprises, as errors and intentional malfeasance is trivially uncovered. An auditor worth their salt would detect false entries that cite papers by famous neurosurgeons Doctors Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young as false, scatter a few faked papers and still get caught. An LLM AI would accept the "papers" on their face and cite the folk rock supergroup as neurosurgeons. @Zentirix doesn't recognize that, likely out of naivete, but I don't, as I'm an old IT guy, did loads of IT security, which includes IT auditing and hence, got roped into forensic audits on occasion. You obviously don't as well, as you obviously know the generalities of some AI types and yeah, face recognition and well, image sampling to look for differences they excel at, large language models, ain't anywhere near ready for prime time due to untrustworthy to wildly fantastical results eroding their utility. Once you go into complex technical, good heavens, what a mess those LLM's can produce!
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  6408. Let's look at one popular sugar alcohol that's used on tablets and caplets, as well as in emergency medicine. Mannitol. It coats, in tiny quantities, those "pills" so that they won't stick to one's mouth, retain their shape better and oh, slide down smoothly. Most people won't even notice. On the high side of the scale, say 10 grams+, well, you'll literally urinate like a garden hose is attached, as it opens the kidneys wide open. Good for a few medical conditions, coupled with dual large bore IV infusions with normal saline and electrolyte monitoring and adjustment. As a coating, pretty much unnoticable. Unless you're sensitive to it, then all bets are off, but the races to the bathroom are most assuredly on. I've had some similar issues, finally traced it to a non-dietary source, my thyroid. I have Grave's disease and control can get a bit funny at times, in some very un-fun kinds of ways. Diarrhea being the least of the issues that can arise, but quite messy and annoying, as we're talking brown water projecting out. On the worse side, had severe tachycardia, tectonic hypertension and CHF that required hospitalization twice. Oh, also gave me an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Wee! Dietary tracking helped tremendously, cooking food from scratch also helped a lot. The thyroid being absolutely no help at all. Guess it was getting too tired to help, what with all of that trying its level best to kill me. Adjusted the methimazole dosage, went from an SPO2 of 80 on room air, pulse in the 150's and BP of a Hulk (235/190 at one point), with fluid filled lungs, which also partially collapsed to complete a set of problems on a Saturday night admission to hospital to driving the nursing staff nuts walking the halls on Wednesday. Charting diet helped ward a repeat, as the GI tended to act as an early warning alarm. Oh, there's another extremely common sugar alcohol in foods, cosmetics and even soaps, glycerol, aka glycerin, if you want it to sound scary, 1,2,3-Trihydroxypropane. Yeah, I'm not a fucking chemist either, but their names for various common chemicals can be quite entertaining - do look up the many different chemical names for just plain water. Causes bloating in some, largely typically based on dosage, because too much of anything can make life miserable or shorter. I'm fortunate that I don't have issues with sugar alcohols, straw mushrooms can make me projectile vomit, wood grown mushrooms won't do that, don't look at me, I only live here. Sabine did get one thing wrong. Most sugar alcohols are not absorbed at all, they pass right on through and bacterial growth/overgrowth is variable, depending upon species and still poorly understood, as is our microbiome (it's now under intensive study, someone's gonna make a ton of money on Rx biotics eventually!). I am sensitive to some cholinergics, such as atropine that's an additive in some medications, burn through my beta blockers early, CNS depressants just bounce off of me, anything processed by my liver tends to have an extremely short half-life, so ethanol tends to have minimal effect in under legendary dosages. Opiates and opioids, no thanks, get a massive MAST cell dump of histamine, just under allergy level, but enough to make me feel like I'm dying and that pain is better than taking those. Everyone's physiology is different, if it was the same, we'd all be clones and well, we'd all be the same and conversations would be boring. Now, excuse me, dinner is calling me. Pasta, with home made pasta sauce, cooked with fresh pork hocks until they fell off of the bone, home made meatballs and probably a fruit cup that'll likely have some sugar alcohols in it naturally. There is an upside to being a reformed chef, I make the sauce in two gallon batches and can it. Next batch will have some pork, but mostly be goat meat, got a good price on that, I've also used lamb and oxtails. The bones add gelatin, thickening the sauce and flavor, the meat, more flavor and well, meat. I've also done it vegetarian, largely when I was out of meat and new in country, then I used olives in place of meat. Tomorrow, something entirely different, with tons of green veggies and some potatoes in some preparation to be determined tomorrow. I do a small carb load in the morning, minimal and variable mid-day and larger carb load for evening. Keeps my weight sane, which keeps my glycemic levels sane and well, I'm by far the eldest in my father's side of the family to not be type 2 diabetic, largely insulin resistance caused by high body fat index. We also run high on triglycerides and cholesterol, all in bad numbers as a family. Because, that's not a chocolate bar at the bottom of my gene pool and some SOB urinated into it for good measure. And I studiously avoid kryptonite. ;)
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  6430. The preferred and used with his VOM was formerly referred to as Kleps clips. The other alligator clips that he liked, actual alligator clips, the tiny version a later invention that was entirely misbegotten for electronics usage. Seriously, leave the toy 'gator clips in the bedroom for use as nipple clamps, that's all that they're good for and the recipient will properly thank you with a hammer. Yeah, I loathe alligator clips intensely, always have, always will. Given a choice between using a cheap alligator clip and soldering my dick into a circuit, I'll plug in the solder station. And unlike Adam, I am a certified electronics technician, IT guruilla (work with me, people!) and quite mechanically proficient. Hopefully, Adam was drinking something when he read that. I've a thing for sending fluid down someone's nose... ;) But, I actually am certifiable, erm, certified in electronics and generally certifiable overall. :P And remember, I have a gun and I know how to grease my car with it! (muffled, while under the car) Where are all the *@&^! grease fittings?! Yeah, seriously gave away my age there, huh? To further date myself, my first Fluke meter was a Fluke 77, shortly after they were first introduced. I encountered Fluke meters in electronics school back in '78. When the 77 was introduced, I was working a counter sales gig at an electronics wholesaler. The owner initially objected to my using a stray component, specifically resistors and batteries to demonstrate the units to techs at the counter - right until he saw how many cases of meters I was selling. I didn't sell a damned thing, the meters sold themselves. Autoranging largely sold itself, nowhere as good in quality as my Beckman 310, it still did more than well enough troubleshooting circuits in my side jobs. I left my won Sencore meter on the floor behind the driver seat for a decade... Still, if anyone has a Simpson 360 laying around and needing a home, I could happily give it utility in testing circuits that benefit from such low impedances. Seriously!
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  6443. That elite operator wouldn't have stood a chance when I was homeless after my wife of over 41 years died. Nothing to lose and a full can of beans, that entire neighborhood would've been toast. After all, when I was retired, I was tagged REF. Retired, Extremely Flatulent. Fucking POG's and fobbits, you don't need violence when one can utilize two brain cells competing for fourth place to negotiate. A neighbor mentioned that I always talk about food. It's true, I actually do, it was actually one mode I primarily utilized on entering new villages. When they expected my binder to be full of a parade of terrorist pictures, it turned out to be recipes from villages and I proclaimed a free recipe exchange for all. Find common ground, well, everybody eats and everyone save Hare Krishna and Seventh Day Adventists enjoy good food and new recipes. I am thankful to both latter groups and some Hindus for a COVID vaccination clinic program that likely prevented my own likely demise. Only ended up with a bum mitral valve, which is a damned sight better than our youngest daughter, who had Long COVID until just last year and still has some lasting effects and oh, thank you Trump, a new infection. I bequeath unto Trump the Obama time machine as well. Just because I feel like being a dick. And loathed you when we met back in 2000. The victim, well looks to be about the age of my kids, so there's no attraction there. My wife and I took quite a few such souls under our wings, no BS services involved, resolving a societal conflict and their decisions, then deconstructing those decisions and well, in her case we'd have likely redirected her to social worker positions and we need those badly. A mentor is worth their weight in platinum. Our eldest once observed, "You give the wisest advice, but make the most questionable decisions". I replied, "How do you think I could achieve such knowledge without making those questionable decisions and mistakes?" A long pause later, she conceded the argument. And a new lesson was learned. I'd also trained her to beat into jelly any boyfriend or other parnter that was abusive. One ex-boyfriend attempted to rape her during a school field trip, she beat him down hard, but disobeyed stomping him until either the corner or police arrive, got suspended for violence. I appeared to the principle's office in full dress uniform, for once wearing all of my medals I usually studiously avoided wearing and my emerald beret and carefully explained that my children's safety and his and his family's safety were directly linked from then on. He was a guidance councilor when I was in junior high school and we knew each other well, the in school suspension of the attempted criminal was out of school, law enforcement was advised to watch out on that family due to some criminal activities and bribery of the wealthy father and the suspension was waived and absence to family zoo trips and museum trips deleted from their records. The only threat of violence was the only real one, I'm not nice under cornered conditions, but Socratic wins over pure didactic always. Both are invaluable in their place in education. And it comes out at a Godfather's example, "Your signature will be on the paper or your brains will be on the paper" when reason fails. Then, the hogs at a farm down the road get fattened mysteriously. Skin and teeth absent, given durability and DNA analysis capabilities. Entertainingly, I'm always the designated babysitter for infants and toddlers. I'm damned good at redirection and splinting colic ridden infants bellies until they grow muscles enough to close that valve. And I've repeatedly fed dki-dik gazelles by hand. Think a gazelle the size of a house cat. Even my own gentle wife couldn't manage that one. And wrestled with the "Alpha" of the canine kennel at the base, who was infamous for biting down every handler and dog in the kennel, we got along famously. I analyze, predict, confirm predictions or adjust accordingly, continue onward and that's the first ten seconds of meeting. First, friend or foe that might become a problem, then consider how to move forward with the goal of neutralization or becoming friends, unlike sociopaths, friends are treasured and protected until they do wrong, nobody, especially not me gets protected when wrong. Then, it comes down to admitting a whooppsie or venturing into sin sinning ain't a good thing. Gonna have to consult the Department of Smite or something. Fucking up, well, we all do it, me, I've got a Richter scale, I'm a solid 10. How we unfuck our fuckups, that's what counts and if we can give a lesson, better. Killing people off offhand, amateur hour at the opera, hope they get the perpetual whoopie cushion. Although, I do not object to a fully, in depth hundred million dollar research project conviction and needle in the arm that's fatal. Get it damned right or go home. I really miss the dik-dik gazelles, one male even suggested head butting, which was cute, given a cousin's goat tried that and collapsed after and I was going, "Ow! "and rubbing a sore spot on my forehead, much to my wife's hilarity and "I told you so!". That after her playing around watching a sitcom and pretending to wallop me over the head with the cast iron skillet, long story short. Long story short, was watching her antics in the window in our SW Philly row home, noticed the crack as her wrist gave out, the actual minimal impact upon that which does not exist and the eyes of our children growing to moon size and my own formerly infamous thunder, "Oh, did I fart, my apologies". The family in joke that's real, the bottom fell out of the skillet when she tried to make gravey.
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  6461.  @RyanMcBethProgramming  tipping my hat on the observation that an attorney couldn't be assed to read a constitution he was speaking about. One expects attorneys to be prepared and well informed on such things if they're speaking on them. Perhaps, you've found one former President's next attorney? I've noticed that you also do what I have frequently done in in person discussions about the vote, give the history of who was enfranchised first, as many have forgotten their school civics classes and foreigners are confused no end by our federal and state systems, being accustomed to strong central governments. Still, could Ukraine successfully run an election during this war in particular? Color me dubious, the chances of organized Russian interference and injected false ballots would be quite high. It'd be right up there with expecting a free, fair and valid ballot during Nazi occupation and we know who'd end up getting hailed. Back to civics lessons, recent online discussions, "Why did they bother to give this guy bail?", "Why is this guy even getting a lawyer for defense?" and worse, displaying pure ignorance on the contents of the Constitution, a document written in plain English and understood trivially by even Elementary school students. But, cutting school budgets and confiscating dictionaries from libraries are important for our nation's welfare. But, what would I know, I ain't got no brunging up. Oh, wasn't only Privates doing stupid stuff, after all, we had the Private of the Officer Corps to also tilt nipple to... ;)
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  6490. There is no gravitational attraction causing ships to collide. Shipping and naval vessels in general tend to use well established sea lanes, which increases the probability of rescue, should something happen and people are in lifeboats or worse, in the water. Large vessels have one characteristic, it isn't being so massive that they form some magical gravitational field, but instead, they're massive and they can indeed stop on a dime - as long as that dime is a few kilometers long. Most commercial vessels also have a turning radius that's essentially, well, it steers like a cow. Try to steer fast, it's like taking a commercial airliner and shoving the rudder 90 degrees over, the last time that happened, the entire tail was torn off and the airliner crashed, killing passengers, crew, aircraft and people and structures on the ground. At Midway, more vessels were lost more to fires, which eventually heated the magazines suffiently to detonate the high explosive munitions, one Japanese carrier died that way, after a US bomb detonated below decks, entering via the airplane elevator, rupturing the aircraft gasoline fuel lines, firefighting lines and magazine flooding lines, the fire finally overheating the magazine and BOOM! Exoskeletons are being designed, some day, they'll even make them practical. Likely, in 20 years, along with fusion power. Rinse and repeat every 20 years. High tech, insanely expensive things like stealth are still useful, as Russia is incessantly developing newer and faster missiles, like hypersonic cruise missiles, China, new stealthier fighters, etc. It's rather difficult to shoot at what you can't find on radar and have to close to visual range to even know what direction the target you're seeking is.
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  6495.  @rickdesper  don't read the useless news story, the SCOTUS site has the full decision available for reading. He did indeed punt, for a well reasoned and described reason, as was proven in the case presentation itself. Moral grounds shift both geographically and culturally over time, so what's pornography to some Florida illiterate soccer mom is fine art for the entirety of the world. Can't turn to history, as fig leaves were added at one point a century after the artwork was accepted by the same church. Can't turn to culture, when we have mothers telling other mothers to feed a baby in the same bathroom they'd refuse to eat or feed their children in. Still, there is a perfect, 100% effective solution. Eliminate every human life on the planet. Then, everyone will get along. Yep, even more idiotic. Hence, the punt, as case law has to stand for a long frigging time, potentially, for centuries. And can you define pornography that would even be accepted by half of the community in which you live? I sure as hell can't and I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle and had a booster using a dictionary. Or even try to explain to a computer what pornography is, as opposed to art or medical illustration for educational purposes. I can use boolean and regular expressions to describe the entire solar system first, not even come close to that task. But, totally defective, a SCOTUS Justice is an almighty God, with all powers and descriptions readily available, despite time and culture shifts, by pure, distilled whammy.
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  6525. A hospital gift card for malpractice? Naw, no thanks, I've always wanted to own a hospital and its employees. Chest pains, automatic O2 and ECG, ECG will tell the tale easily enough. At that point, if the person claims to be Jesus Christ, I don't discontinue treatment and restrain them, if I have reason to believe that they are not Jesus Christ, I schedule neurology to consult, not perform the medical equivalent of shooting at his head with a machine gun! I had transportation disconnect my O2 once for transport for imaging, turned out my lungs were partially collapsed, partially fluid filled, totally a bad scene. Mr Transportation then dutifully brought me back to the ED and utterly failed to reconnect my O2, leaving me on room air and SPO2 dropping to 80%. Doctor was decidedly irritated... Turned out to be minor, it was only heart failure secondary to a thyroid storm, triggering severe tachycardia and obscene hypertension. Got back on O2, sats jumped back into the upper 90's, where they remain today without supplementary O2. Was sure I knew how ugly it was, then the endocrinologist came by and suggested that if my BP and pulse don't approach survivable soon, they'd administer iodine. A large dose of iodine literally temporarily shuts down the thyroid gland's hormone production, which I knew, much to Doctor's surprise. Thinking that, they're into Hail Mary land. Thankfully, the propranolol and methimazole did their jobs and 3 1/2 days later, I walked out of the hospital. Oddly, never needing restraints, although I'm sure that the floor nursing staff was tempted once I was feeling better and began roaming the hallways out of sheer boredom (and well, to sneak out for a smoke (nearly made it, bad timing, as one of my nurses was coming in a bit early for her shift and spotted me 10 feet from the exit)). The nurse administrator of the unit laughed at my attempt, realizing that had I wanted to "escape", well, in conversation I gave her six patent egress points from the facility and every one of them was workable. ;)
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  6536.  @purupurupikopuyo-k5w  I had unexplained diarrhea for four months, doctor initially being a bit distracted over some things that could quite literally kill me quite swiftly, what was initially characterized by a radiology resident as severe mitral regurgitation (it was low end moderate) and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which is a big deal. Once those were at mischief managed, aka watchful waiting, it was, "Hey wait, you said four months?! Let's order some tests now". No eggs or worms or suspect critters like protozoa was the first test. Inflammatory markers were high. Sodium, chloride and magnesium were dangerously low. A few other markers were ambiguous for several conditions, which isn't unusual in such cases and I was referred to a GI specialist. A few additional tests, primary prescribed a steroid to calm the raging brown waters, which controlled the worst, GI doctor prescribed a colonoscopy (which amazingly went through well, three other attempts leading to a comedy of events like broken down cars, a major storm rendering getting the procedure done, etc), which revealed Crohn's disease. My primary, knowing my dietary habits of basically everything from scratch because I'm a cheap SOB, ordered me to eat prepared foods, an Rx for magnesium oxide and called a few days later to see how I was faring. I explained that I'd excavated my salt cellar and was salting my foods for the first time in over 30 years, repeat testing showed much better sodium levels, chloride levels were happy and magnesium was dead center of whatever normal is. Minimal processed foods, because well, they suck. GI doctor also ordered a few metabolic and specific tests, B-12 was good, as was folate, which was surprising given the inflammation, eroded tissues and other deficiencies, so obviously my diet was more than sufficient. Just got my second infusion of infliximab to curb some of the immune system effects that spur the wider inflammation, we'll see, it'll work, not work or I'll grow an ear from my scrotum. OK, I invented that last bit. It'll work or we'll have to stop playing with TNF-alpha antibodies and go with vedolizumab, which is a bit lower in efficacy, but still fairly decently effective, but not very well liked by my insurance company. We'll see how it goes. I'd already staged things to appeal successfully if their recommended drug is ineffective and to put it simply, I agree with their medical reasoning in this case. My knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pharmacology is quite good, so if it came to an argument, those physicians are going to have one hell of a tough row to hoe, as I've also written peer reviewed papers in other fields and know how to present an airtight presentation. And high on my to-do list is smoking cessation, as I've also noticed before the biologic treatment some signs of autoimmune dysfunction that could be warnings of some things becoming a problem and autoimmune and autoinflammatory syndromes are worsened by cigarette smoking. And it's also likely I'll need surgery for a disc problem and that has a very high failure rate in smokers. I know these things because Google scholar is one of my closer friends, as are peer reviewed papers on such subjects. And peers love little more than to savage shoddy work from a peer.
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  6559.  @karenholmes6565  when he owned Taj Mahal, he'd ordered the onion domes for the spires. He promptly tried to stiff the roof builder, as a check was stipulated in the contract immediately upon signing off on completion. The builder had a plan in place though, cranes and crews converged upon the casino and they began repossessing the builder's roof. Trump's local management proclaiming that checks could not be locally issued, they lacked facilities or even checks, please wait, etc. Long and short, before the domes could be dismantled, magically, a check was printed locally for the amount due. Given his track record and his public statements, he'd hate me to hold a contract. The moment he stated he wasn't going to pay, all of my equipment and services would be withdrawn, as I'd declare a fundamental breach of contract and have my attorney immediately file litigation, as I have absolutely no hope that he'll honor the contract and seek to recover damages. Not a material breach, he promised not to pay and that's about as fundamental as one can get. Yank his sound, teleprompter, whatever he's contracted for, mid-speech and remove it back to storage offsite. Trust me, his audience would be initially irritated, but as word spread that we were collecting equipment he'd otherwise steal the use of, they'll be laughing at his dancing, since they won't be able to hear his infantile cries. If his staff interferes with removal, call the law for grand theft. Restrain the staff and prevent departure, it's kidnapping and unlawful restraint. Let the prick put himself into yet another felony corner. While his crowd is entertained by his impotence.
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  6583.  @jackieow  first off, only suicidal idiots run around in fallout. At the Castle Bravo debacle, the men trapped in the shot cab (the crew that actually pushed the boom button) stuck a plain G-M tube based radiac meter out of the door, saw levels that measured between holy crap and I'm dead already and closed the door. Room measurements were much better, but still lethal within the day, so they found where the film was stored, which was the best buried place and stayed there until early evening. They sealed up and called it good, as HEPA filtration wasn't a thing yet - that came out of Castle Bravo's accident and subsequent research). Then, the radiation had dropped as the hottest radioisotopes decayed. A quick trot off to an impatiently waiting helicopter, they went to their ship. 12 days later, it was safe for the troops to stomp about and stomp about they did. Something like Chernobyl, yeah, all bets are off, as long lived radioisotopes are about and nobody wants to spend a century or two inside of a bunker. That said, wearing an N95 mask, I'm not going to really give a toss about alpha emitters, they're stuck inside the mask and my epidermis is blocking them. BTW, I was on our radiological survey team back in the Army and I originally worked on Pershing missiles, both 1A and II (for all of the microseconds those existed before being treaty driven to extinction, thankfully). Now, in an ideal world, one would have both a G-M tube and radiation spectrometer scintillation detector, sealed and HEPA filtration shelter a couple of meters down and Scotty to beam you out. Alas, none of us are named Musk.
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  6587. I've no problem with the second amendment, within its context. The militia, due to the various militia acts, remains military aged individuals (originally only men, but fairly recently changed) of military age and of sound mind and body. Hence, regulation on who can lug around what, where and when, as well as when assembly while armed or for armed purpose is allowed. Now, go ahead and say we don't regulate those things. Show me where someone can legally enter a school with a machine gun or artillery piece (yes, you can legally own both, pass the background check and pay the $200 tax stamp, it's yours (and each round for the artillery piece also being a $200 tax stamp item)). You can't, as that's unlawful and indeed, a felony. The militia is also prohibited from mobilizing itself and just charging forth on mythical missions - their government has to call them up to protect their nation, state or county. And I am a multiple firearms owner, who properly secures his firearms and am both a competition marksman, occasional hunter and happily retired military veteran. Regulation on activities with firearms predate this nation, one law I reviewed from Philadelphia prohibited celebratory gunfire within city limits generations before the Declaration of Independence and was retained when we became a nation. But, the NRA was, during my lifetime, hijacked by the industry in response to NRA support for the Gun Control Act of 1968, usurping the sportsmen and women alike and turning the organization into a political industry support group. Oh, training of the unorganized militia is conducted by the Civilian Marksmanship Program, a federally regulated and created organization. I am a proponent for the concealed carry on one's person of howitzers. 105 mm and up. Google the things to get that joke. My personal carry weapon being an M65 Atomic Annie. I figure nobody will bother someone concealing an 11 inch bore, nuclear capable cannon that's 86 tons and 85 feet long. :P OK, stopped carrying decades ago, when I figured out out sporting an armed criminal would have to be to allow me to get mine out to equalize the odds...* *Yes, I'm serious there. After figuring that out while having to clean the damnable thing, yet again, I locked it up and only removed it to go to the range to defend myself from the tyranny of unperforated X rings on round targets.
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  6595. In the beginning, that isn't zoned out, he lost the program. He was spinning his wheels trying to figure out what he was supposed to do when she swooped in as a crutch to divert him to "play his music" and had to prod him multiple times until he caught on and played it up, confabulating along the way. This will be the first US election where a candidate is running that could actually be legally declared non compos mentis. Who would have nuclear launch capabilities that is utterly unchecked. The same brain trust that previously took an entire afternoon to convince to not nuke a hurricane off the coast of Africa to blow it out. A continent with 54 countries that he thought was one country. And we can be damned sure that Vance would let him, no 25th amendment, just let the atrocities flow. And his loyal followers would support it the entire way, ordering a double Flavor Aid ala Jim Jones special. Meanwhile, foreign agitator bots are online and on steroids, full afterburner for them. Anything to destabilize and neutralize us as they hope that they can charge their way across the globe while we're distracted by fighting one another. And the mainstream media, who once were our loyal watchdogs, busily scampering around his latest antics in his decreasingly frequent lucid moments that he can hold up a new shiny to distract them and get free press. He can not be allowed to win this election or this nation will never recover. So, vote like your nation depends upon it, because it actually does. If not, well, at least I literally live on ground zero of a strategic target.
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  6604. Oh, picked up a dozen large eggs at the dollar store for $8.60. Still had a fair stock of them, as the neighborhood isn't exactly notable for wealth. Well, save for the chap a few blocks down the road, but the governor has never been observed shopping in the local neighborhood. Still have a $19 food stamp reserve until a week and a half from now and my pantry is fully stocked, as is my freezer. One benefit of preparing from scratch and walking for most of my groceries two miles each way to the store twice a month. Keeps me in shape too, which I've needed since doctor stuck me on a steroid for the past couple of months. As for spend nothing day that's mentioned in the comments, that's my moving day, new apartment and all, so ain't shopping and don't need anything from the store and frankly, one day of losses like that literally won't even be noticed. A nationwide general strike would be noticed, even if only 2% participated, get a higher percentage and well, that's a hell of a lot of lost profits. I'm curious though, does Trump have a concept of a concept of a concept of a planned concept of a plan? And I seem to recall his blathering something about the Mexican border being closed, despite all of that traffic going through... Maybe it's patrolled by unicorns or something? Ladies and gentlemen, Reality has left that building and is not expected back anytime soon! And the January 6th choir, aren't they also the size 14 1/2 chorus line, they look quite fetching in their prison tutus and prison boots. And Chairman, JTF is fired, because of MAGA, Make Apartheid Great Again. Scored one for Emperor Musk! Apparently, we were the aggressor in Pearl Harbor, using this maladministration's standards. Shouldn't we be surrendering and apologizing to the Emperor of Japan? Since we're now Waltzing around reality, rather than living through it. But, a better plan? OK, first we don't go with, "Pay me well and we'll give you a surrender", we'll go with Zelenskyy's checkmate, "I'll resign like you want me to - if we're given NATO membership". Loads of wet paint across that corner they painted themselves into. The National Sex Offender Registry and search pages are available, must've been down for maintenance. They do maintain those servers, so they can and will go offline during an assigned service outage for patching. Annoyingly, they don't seem to post a scheduled service outage page and they should, it's a standard practice to allow people that utilize their services to know when the services will be unavailable and for approximately how long. :/ Tell us the five things that you've done this week, just don't respond with anything classified. And so, everyone that works constantly with classified information got fired and nobody knows anything sensitive, yay for winning via losing! Anti-Trump bias, aka preference for outright lies is only acceptable. And oh noes! Trump gets angry! He might just turn into the Phenomenal Bulk! Oh, too late. We're gonna need a bigger Beast.
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  6609. I dunno, that one guy with a pro mask, every unit has "that one guy"... I was that other guy, the one standing smoking a cigarette inside of a cloud of RCA, shunting men to where I needed them and I'll feel irritated when I get the time later. Yeah, I was that prick that stood in a cloud of CS, CN, OC, whatever the lowest budget agent was that week and smoked a cigarette while directing men around to where they needed to be. Yeah, me and protests, I'll let somebody else be a soft target. I'll be bringing up the rear with a full case of beans, the Conventions be damned. Seriously though, that's always been a pet peeve on Hollywood crap, big badda boom, people go flying through the air in precisely the same way people don't fly, remain intact and yeah, nope. Loads of shredded and broken, tons of red stuff that the bodies are running out of, everyone's in shock as our central nervous system isn't constructed with extreme concussions in mind - as military medical science is finally discovering. The problem with tracers is, they work both ways. Blood, old medic's adage, eventually all bleeding will stop - react wrong, it'll stop the way you didn't want it to. Still, one other adage, "Don't get shot". The bodies in rooms, anything of intelligence value? As for war crimes, conducting war crimes is the swiftest way to find oneself in the midst of a reprisal, as the Waffen SS learned the hard way after summarily executing Allied prisoners. Another Hollywood gun is a lot newer, but we used similar for .50 BMG simulators, propane gas gun that has a spark plug to detonate the gas when the trigger is depressed. Then, there's CGI boom-boom-bang-bangs. Never ceases to amaze me on how quiet Hollywood guns are, as you said, shoot-em up inside of a room, end up with dead people and deaf people. Eh? MRAP, same with aircraft, fuel hungry beasts that eat spare parts for light snacks. The one area most frequently forgotten in films is, vehicles - armored or combat aircraft are fuel hungry as all hell. Hell, even Patton forgot that lesson and had to learn when his tanks exhausted their fuel until the fuelers caught up. The problematic White House assault is easy, Scotty fucked up with the transporter. That's why we said to never drink and beam. Damned senior officers always thinking that they're special... :P Whatever are you talking about with the sandbags? Every CSM worth his salt will want fresh sandbags, with fresh paint on both sides. Yeah, you know I had to go there. ;) The Beast is a tank that's disguised as a limo. Yeah, the hummer would've come apart like an opera singer at a rap concert. Current issue for Protective detail is the MP7, a wee bit of improvement over the 9x19.
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  6624. Heroin is illegal in the US, but commonly prescribed for post-operative pain in the UK. Remember, this is international , not US centric and biochemistry and pharmacology is decidedly not any nation or continent centric. But, addictive potential is a topic lousy with confounders. Opiates and opioids have aversion factors, such as triggering MAST cell responses, I'm lousy with histamine and feel miserable taking the infernal things. That aversion tends to limit the potential for addiction and that's only one example. Susceptibility is another, such as genetic predisposition, secondary to slightly different receptor configurations or even ion channel differences. So, we look at mass numbers to determine addictive potential and far more are addicted to opioids than benzodiazepines and alcohol is outside of the scope of a discussion on pharmacology and addiction, as I've yet to see a recorded case of alcoholism secondary to a prescribed medical treatment! But, I do agree that the DEA's drug schedule is bullshit, as it's largely via Congressional input, hence political in nature more than anything evidence based. As for ethanol withdrawal, I've been known to pack away that dosage, then quit without sequelae and amazingly, my liver panels were normal. Not a clue how that worked out, but it has repeatedly for me, again, confounders like genetics and perhaps, my Grave's disease shifting my metabolism upward a bit might be what comes into play. But therein lies a confounder of medicine in general, both pharmacological and in medical theory, individual idiosyncrasy. But then, that drives everyone to distraction... ;)
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  6637. I remember the nitrogen levels and protein becoming a major legal and public health matter and scandal in 2008. Milk collection locations at the time were entirely unsupervised by the PRC government and to boost product output as demand increased, unscrupulous management directed the milk be diluted and melamine added to boost nitrogen content, which would fool protein level testing. The problem being, melamine breaks down in a way to produce kidney stones, in this case, large, destructive kidney stones and oh yeah, a lot of that milk went into baby formula. "On 1 December, Xinhua reported that the Ministry of Health revised the number of victims to more than 290,000 with 51,900 hospitalized; authorities acknowledged receiving reports of 11 suspected deaths from melamine contaminated powdered milk from provinces, but officially confirmed three deaths." That's just in China, the milk was also exported and true numbers difficult to find, as it went to many developing nations. Many of the children require dialysis to survive. 17 went on trial over it, with one life sentence, two executed, the rest getting 19 years, commuted to 15 years and change. For those unfamiliar with melamine, it's used as a fire suppressant, in making plastic dinnerware (I ate from melamine plates as a kid), dry erase boards and more. Note how it's not used as a food ingredient. It's not soluble in water, so they had to add another chemical, such as formaldehyde to it (in low quantities, still not a biggie, the body makes that as well whenever it's making DNA) and they added maltodextrin, a carbohydrate to emulate milk sugar.
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  6640. I entirely advocate for the colonization of Mars. Difference between President Musk's idiocy and my idea is, the colonists are short term, as the colony would be for research and study of Mars and low gravity environments, not some inane notion of permanence that's utterly unsustainable. Tours would likely end up being only six months at most, due to the debilitating effects of the lower gravity and radiation (some mitigation for the radiation would be below ground facilities, allowing regolith to protect against the radiation). Might as well go with a megastation in orbit, with a large centrifugal gravity system, since I'm going moonbeams for funding such a money pit. Why actual humans? Versatility. Robots aren't anywhere as versatile as a human chemist or geologist, as was instantly proven when we put the first geologist on the moon and basically as soon as he set foot on the lunar surface, he discovered a sample that was groundbreaking. A robot can't gin up a chemical test, a chemist or geochemist can. Let the robots stomp the surface, little can be achieved by personal stomping about - usually and the unusual is also where humans excel. And thankfully, the unusual is infrequent, so leave the squishy humans inside the labs and the robots outside to get broken. As for Musk the innovative dreamer, he's invented nothing, developed nothing, everything he's gotten has been bought, save for an inherited emerald mine. I'd not have sought advice on electricity from J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt, I'd speak to Edison and Tesla, who actually did invent and develop the technologies personally. And nuking the moon? Oddly, Russia never suggested such an absurd thing, that was the US Air Force and Carl Sagan's first assignment, which got kiboshed once Sagan's report was submitted showing how tiny a nuclear detonation would be visually from earth. But, orbials would be a good idea, remember that mega station notion? Still obscenely, beyond the fever dreams of insane in expense, but more sustainable if properly designed and well, can be protected from major harm from holes getting occasionally punched through it. In much of earth orbit, it'd be magnetically shielded to a fair degree. Water can be the additional shielding/thermal regulation/water supply that's recycled. Use lunar regolith for soil for grow beds, although use for organic life support would require immense amounts of space. Achilles heel, maintenance of such a behemoth would be a cast iron bitch. Still, I volunteer President Musk's billions for funding the project. Should take only a few hundred trillion to design, construct, launch, assemble in orbit and maintain for a decade or so. I'm sure his fans will happily fill that modest gap between the two figures... I'll wait. And wait. And... Huh, black dwarfs sure are hard to find, even up reasonably close at 1 AU! Until then, I advocate for Musk to personally colonize the surface of Venus.
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  6667. This is a new technology, nothing like it existed before. It's not as if there were steel cases with a lock that is opened by selecting multiple numbers from multiple, oh, just spitballing here, directions turned on a dial. We could then call it a combination lock. All, to keep important things safe. Encryption is totally new, nobody has encoded information before, so ciphertext would be a total Enigma to anyone without the keys to decrypt the information. Totally novel, Caesar couldn't come up with a cipher at all! No, it took Lou Cipher to invent such devilishly clever things. For the security and cryptographically challenged, the first bit is about a safe. First used by Ramses II in the 13th century BC, although it was more a pin and tumbler lock. The Romans had combination locks for their safe boxes. A Muslim engineer came up with a much more modern combination lock for safe boxes in 1206 and the modern security safe hails back to 1850 or so. Enigma was an encryption system that baffled the Allies during much of WWII. While it could eventually be mathematically broken, changing the configuration of the machine would set the analyst teams back to square one for months to years - it was simpler to steal one from operational warships. Caesar cipher was an encryption scheme that's childish by today's standards, about as weak as ROT13 "coding", which is just subtract 13 from the ASCII symbol value to decrypt. If you missed Lucifer, that's OK, I'm sure Lucifer misses you too. ;) It's literally the same issue as demanding the combination to your safe. I ran into some annoyances while traveling on duty, once to the point where I called a phone number, reported the issue and the TSA agent's phone rang within two minutes and he wished that he followed my advice to wear hearing protection when answering. The computer had a nice red sticker on it, with white letters with the cryptically ill informing SECRET on it and he was ignoring my classified documents courier card - until that phone rang. Once he saw and I related that it was classified and showed my courier card, the most he was allowed to do by law was to document and report the contact, prohibited by law: Demanding access to something you have no need to know the contents of. Misuse of that trust gets the abuser's security clearance revoked for cause, with potential criminal penalties attached for good measure. A total meteoric end to one's career.
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  6673. Tsar Bomba was an ironic bomb. The bomber had a maximum range with the bomb of 300 miles, the bomb, detonated at half yield. Because the uranium tamper was omitted, lowering the yield by half, the bomb was ironically, the cleanest nuke ever detonated by mankind. Detonated a week before I was born as well. The non-testing of nukes is a non-issue, as for one, the physics are well enough understood. For two, Russia and the US both signed on to the test ban treaty to halt such insanity. With respect, I grew up during the atmospheric testing era, I'm quite literally more radioactive than my children and grandchildren, tossing gamma radiation quite brightly under a gamma camera's baleful gaze. Learned that during a background check, followed by a thyroid scan for my Grave's disease. If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer my grandchildren not get that specific glow. As for Russia's threats, China used to threaten the Soviets on a routine basis, a Soviet joke being "China's Final Warning" and "Paper Tiger", which Russia today enjoys a similar status of doing. I literally live on ground zero, as my area is ringed literally by military depots, so I'd be a bad odor in the air if they actually launched and well, we'd launch and we have more nukes than they have population centers under the last START treaty. They don't, but our society and nation would effectively cease to exist. Hence, why I call the turdmuffins what they are, "Products of the insanity factory". Expensive as hell to make, expensive to maintain and utterly useless. And I started my military career in such weapons. Stupidest weapons ever frigging invented. Might be useful if one put them onto interceptors with interplanetary range to ablate part of an incoming asteroid, otherwise, useful as a bustline on a bull. And when the Soviet Union fell, Russia maintained only one weapon class, nukes. No choice, given the suicidal defense theory embraced by two stupidpowers. I've no love for Russia, to put things mildly, intense dislike would be more accurate and an understatement. I also have no need of disinformation.
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  6693. Ah, but will the asteroid lower the price of eggs? OK, the original odds of impact was given at around 1%, based upon extremely sparse data, with large amounts of uncertainty. Recently, the numbers started looking, still highly uncertain, but had oh! More than doubled at around 2.3%. Out of the sheer number of things that can quite literally kill me immediately and there are a few, that asteroid is the lowest probability harm on the list and well, longer term problem that can't even be verified. We've also gone through this exact same shuffle in the past with other asteroids, some making the news. Now, I can go into risk assessment math and bore everyone into a coma, but really, need I bother? One stands a superior chance of winning the lottery than being harmed by this asteroid is the end of the day probability, per the math and well, experience. It didn't start off with oh, 30% chance and jump to 50% chance, the uncertainties are immense and frankly, of scientific value currently only, not even on an emergency response or mitigation radar. Density is unknown, a rubble pile would come apart as it enters into the Roche lobe, giving a really nice meteor shower. It also wouldn't explode, it'd fall apart if it somehow stayed integral. Assumptions are made that it's spherical and it's more likely either a contact binary or potato shaped, as it's way too small to form a sphere. The mass is unknown. It could be a puffball, in which case it'll disintegrate swiftly under G forces from the air itself, most of it evaporating. It could be a starship and what does god need with a starship? Until more is known, well I take greater risks walking to the supermarket twice a month. Obviously, I still eat - more obvious if you actually saw me. ;) As for the apocalypticlly inclined, if you really, really want a catastrophe, pop on by and pull my finger. You'll get your nose hairs curled to your heart's content. For a real disaster, well, I could always try replicating that salmon dish disaster, not only didn't the dogs not want it, most scavenging insects avoided it as well. The EPA still hasn't forgiven me that gaffe. The remnants are currently safely stored under the sarcophagus at Chernobyl, which is why Ukraine was so annoyed over that drone strike. Given my AAA, mitral valve damage, thyroid disease, autoinflammatory disease and autoimmune diseases, well, crossing the street is more dangerous still, the rest, like crossing the street remain at "Watchful Waiting" until something occurs that actually merits concern and response.
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  6696.  @kenbrown2808  my response would be, "The jurist in this matter is respectfully and cordially invited to pound sand up his ass until the end of time, as the Middle District of Pennsylvania is not the slave of the Southern District of New York and the costs involved would both destroy the global internet, which is against international law and ratified treaties, as well as be sufficient to bankrupt any nation attempting to usurp such control, as only the People's Republic of China has a firewall capable of such a feat". Not my district, not my wheelhouse, not my domain and entirely not my problem. I am not under their circuit or district, so the orders are irrelevant. I am not the global god of the internet throughout the world, so it's a big nope. I don't control the 1589 top level domain controllers that are scattered across the globe, so hell no. I'm under the 3rd circuit, they are under the 2nd circuit, so bye-bye. And even were I under their jurisdiction, services ordered that are involuntary and unpaid is slavery, which is unconstitutional. .tv is a top level domain, as is .com.The TLD .tv is owned by the island nation of Tuvalu, which is decidedly outside of any US court of law. The TLD .com is owned by Verisign, which is headquartered in Reston, VA. Reston, VA is under the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is under the fourth circuit. Frankly, it looks like the reporter screwed up the jurisdiction of the court, the authority of the court and the impracticality of compliance with the order, unless the jurist is directing the US to go to war with Tuvulu, which is laughable. Lord, save us from tech correspondents reporting on the law and law correspondents reporting on tech, for they always turn the story into a pig's breakfast!
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  6701. The reality of it is, most journalists don't understand science in general and any specialty field is lumped in with The Professor from Gilligan's Island, a polymath of polymaths and full time engineer, so all science is the same and magic. So basically, you have someone who has absolutely no damned clue about what the item being reported upon actually is, trying to explain it without seeking anyone conversant in that subject. I might as well get a medical study interpreted by my barber, at least that would have a historical relationship, if utterly unrelated today. But wait, it gets better! For major, long playing events, they'll get science populisers, like Bill Nye, explaining why they were injecting cesium-137 into the reactor to stop reactions and how boron is a fission product (I'm not joking, Bill really fouled that up about as badly as I'd expect an engineer to foul up a field he never worked or studied). So, we get reports about a study performed somewhere, by someone, on something, at a time indeterminate and for all I know was conducted 1000 years ago, some scientist's life story and family history reporting on one modest discovery (yeah, I fell asleep too) or other inanity that is the reason that I still keep a lead pipe next to my driver's seat. Science is fuchsia. What? You saw it. Science explains our universe and how it works. We started out explaining colors in really unique, precise ways, red, yellow and blue. Yay! Then, someone found the color fuchsia, which ain't all that hard to find in nature and boom, there's a new color called fuchsia. If we listen to the antiscience types, language has to be abolished, since fuchsia never exited at one point and language is hopelessly defective because now it can define what fuchsia is and worse, science can give us a specific code to reproduce that color. You know, better is really worse or some idiotic bullshit. OK, I'll just slap a mauve on the idiot. An oddity in myself, I perceive part of the UV-C spectrum as an odd shade of iridescent fuchsia. UV-A and B are just deeper shades of violet. I see those with the eye that had the natural lens removed and an implant that is uncoated installed and when I discussed it with a biologist, he theorized that it was likely a fluorescent effect, which would also explain some of the other effects when seeing those shades. No, I am not about to allow anyone to start poking my eyes to see what proteins are doing what oddity with light, you're welcome to those after I'm dead and they likely have denatured. Besides, we have plenty of similar examples in technology and nature. Why, I've got some fun crystals in the drawer that emit different colors when lit by an IR laser... Fluorescein dye is another fine example, discovered in 1871, used in ophthalmology in 1882, tagged proteins with it in 1941, actually started to understand how the shit worked in the 1990's. I laugh about how many drugs I carried in my Army medical bag that we really didn't understand how they worked! Just as well, it'd be boring as hell if we knew everything!
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  6739. I'm growing ever more confused. While objecting to Republican attention on what's inside of women's pants, why there is ever such a growing fascination on what's inside of DonOLD's pants. Beyond his absurd proclamations of perfection in essentially every way, from absurd claims that fall flat on their face on his intelligence and competence in all things, come his claims of physical perfection, which Helen Keller can see are patently false. So, why a fixation on his underoos? That's somehow a campaign issue? That's right up there with saying that I'm unfit to vote because I shit myself due to an attack of Crohn's. What is a campaign issue is loosely related to his claims of perfection, it's the fact that he's habitually, incessantly and by nature flat out more full of shit than a Christmas goose in literally everything that he says. To the point where, were I to have met him for the first time today and he introduced himself (unlikely, as his ego is such that he believes he needs no introduction), I'd card his ass. That he thinks shoving bright light up your ass and injecting disinfectants is a good idea, that nuking hurricanes off of the cost "of the country of Africa" to blow them out is a good idea, that trespassing on federal forests to rake them out like other nations don't and he claims that they do is, that he wants to suggest summary executions and chargeless imprisonments is, that fascists and totalitarians are good people that should both be coddled and emulated decidedly is. What is inside his pants, when did you decide to become Trump? Maybe you need to run out and buy a white hat, so I can tell who is who.
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  6759. Lemme get this straight, the jurist was unaware of who was inside of the jury box and entirely unaware of the shiny steel bracelets with their shiny linking chain? That sounds like a serious, life threatening emergency, as the jurist is decidedly not awake, aware and oriented times 3. Still, I'd apologize and rightfully earn a contempt citation, "I apologize your Honor, I really need to watch my frigging mouth and shit, there might be some fucking cunt around". Given her inappropriate action that engenders serious doubt in granting faith and credit to the judiciousness and wisdom of the judiciary. I'd likely also have to apologize for breaking her bailiff... Questions to answer, is the jurist responsible for activities in the hallway that fall outside of the case under her jurisprudence? When did the first amendment get repealed? Oh, that non-apology is me being nice, but thoroughly irritated. I'm more than capable of making Saint Peter go into a tirade of profanity previously unheard by any ears - right in front of the throne. I've literally gotten a nun to curse while standing on the church altar. She was promptly caused to retire, which was my goal, due to her abuses to students. Now, an appropriate action on the jurist's part would be to state her offense to a statement, then strongly suggest an apology. I've ate crow pie the size of Texas, when approached that way. I then blamed it on its actual cause, intracranial flatulence. Cole's slaw: thinly sliced cabbage. :P Broken bailiffs: for when just leaving them badly bent just won't suffice. Left with their shoelaces tied together works quite well - as long as they don't notice you doing it.
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  6761. I'm reminded that Trump also said that Biden wanted to hurt God. And that he'd fire God, as God is a pussy for letting his child be killed. Donald Trump, turned Easter into keister. When it finally arrives, do enjoy Ass Sunday, courtesy of Dumb Donald, the firer of the Almighty. Jesus, I really don't drink enough for this shit. What really fucks me up is, one supreme court, subservient by design of required Constitution that's subservient to the US Constitution, found the US Constitution unenforcable, because of Trump God-king, the emperor of the universe. I'll not even go into "the stock market is good" bullshit, while Americans literally are homeless and starving, it's a god-hurt thing and one cannot try to hurt the god-Trump. As for absentee voting, why again do the GOP want to remove the right of our military to vote, yet again? We fight your wars, but are denied the vote?! Then, a former POTUS wants to further abuse us by trying, abortively, to consider our confiscation of voting machines?! Trump is guilty of sedition. Per the Constitution, his family are outlaws, utterly unprotected by the Constitution and hence, our laws as long as he is alive. That, under common law at the time the Constitution was written and hence, inherited. Note, I've not said treason, that's also provided for in the Constitution precisely. Sedition had to be defined after the civil war. So, folks, we either have a god-emperor or we have a remaining republic. That any evangelical Christian considers otherwise already makes me think, and the thoughts ain't pretty. Being an ordained minister myself.
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  6775. OK, so we know that the building plumbing is, well, dodgy if workers attribute a rotting stench in the office to the plumbing. We know that multiple layers of security are entirely absent, ranging from access control on the data systems to physical security of the facility, no alerts were raised when an employee checked in and disappeared from the planet without existing the facility. That's even more alarming than cholera and typhoid passing plumbing! With security this lax, anyone could be doing anything on their network and systems, not a soul would notice. Start with a full Sarbanes Oxley audit, it's literally that big a deal business wise, not to mention employee safety wise. The management has no clue who is and is not inside of their building and systems, didn't even notice a decomposing employee until someone literally blundered into someone likely beginning to liquefy. I suspect after such an audit, there will be multiple senior management position vacancies. Meanwhile, the DA can examine from other angles what other laws have been utterly ignored. Even with remote work, someone checking into the building and their ID doesn't check out of the building, that should've triggered some form of alert to the management to check and correct the discrepancy to ensure both employee safety and facility and data security. And someone needs to examine what other audits aren't being conducted, as I'm certain anything this lax proves that nebulous leadership has permitted other areas to have entirely absent security. In a financial sector business. When I was working information assurance for the DoD, had this happened on my base, I'd have been looking for a new job with a spectacularly poor reference and I'd not have been alone!
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  6778.  @anonjoeoof2113  I tend to not get injured, since retiring from the Army. Previously, when I did, I rarely needed hospitalization, save a couple of times for outpatient care. One advantage of being a medic is having one's own aid station that one works out of. A couple of months back though, well, heart racing, BP insanely high, SPO2 of 85 and obviously feeling lousy - while COVID-19 was peaking in my county. You can guess what was running through my head. Pulse 135, BP 225/130, SPO2 85, atelectasis with fluid and partial collapse in both lungs, totally fun times. Noted also, even if doctor didn't mention it was phenomenally high voltages shown from the left ventricle, which told me longstanding hypertension to the point of cardiac muscle hypertrophy. Light bulb comes on - it wasn't COVID-19, it was proved out that essentially, my blood wasn't moving well from the tachycardia and rather narrow window in BP, resulting in lung dysfunction (there are a few other factors involved, it's a touch complex for here). COVID-19 was indeed ruled out, although heparin was given to ensure no unpleasant surprises and dexamethasone administered for the inflammation, preventing some really degrading conditions. Free thyroid hormones were elevated over tenfold above normal, thyroid stimulating hormone was nearly absent and I had a previous diagnosis of Grave's Disease - a form of hyperthyroidism. I was in a classic thyroid storm, indeed, a fever can also be expected during a thyroid storm, but that remained absent. So, the words that I never thought I'd utter came from my lips, to laughing agreement from doctor, "Oh, thank God, it's only a type of congestive heart failure!", rather than COVID-19, which would, within six sigma certainty, punch my ticket. Used to be an SF medic, my A&P knowledge, as well as general medical knowledge is more than sufficient to converse comfortably with physicians, had to do that by radio on occasion for treatment suggestions within the scope of equipment vs time to evacuation to definitive care, with an eye toward stabilizing the patient for up to a day or two. Can't accomplish that in a knowledge vacuum. Drugs carried were those that, optimally would have multiple uses - even if used off label and critically, were temperature stable in an uncontrolled environment.
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  6797. Shooter and someone in the crowd are dead. Known and established, the intended victim and shooter are both humans. I'm not inclined to suspect some mythical magical home made weapon. One image that was said to be the shooter was a man in an elevated position with a rifle. Sounded like an assault rifle round, not a full throated roar of a high power rifle round series and that'd be consistent with the rate of fire as well. Basically, if it's bucking like a bronco, it takes a bit to get back in the geographical region of one's target in my own military experience. I'll also say, Trump did precisely what he was supposed to do, drop and cover and let the agents protect him, although clearing the stage was delayed and somewhat chaotic. I do have some slight suspicions, but I'll not discuss them at this stage, as I far prefer analysis to include facts. Oddly, one conservative pundit is already blaming the Secret Service and essentially calling them incompetent. And I'd love to hear how they got past the multiple diamond protection zone that's about as sterile within several miles as one can make it. Nobody on rooftops for miles, manhole covers are welded down, somehow an entire rifle shows up as big as Cleveland, I've some serious suspicions. Weird question on secreting the weapon "in the blistering heat", as it wasn't that hot, our asses and rifles got hotter in the sandbox and oddly entirely failed to melt or fail. That whole steel melting at 2500 and all... How did someone get a rifle and ammunition into the sterile area is one big question. How did they get to an elevated position within the sterile area? Scotty in on it and beamed it in?
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  6823.  @Rickettsia505  can't say the same for two reasons, couldn't vote until late 1979 and well, was chased away by those who don't drink but like tea, the Know Nothing Party. Haven't looked back since. The Know Nothings having destroyed the original first conservative party in the US, the Whig Party, resulting in conservatives abandoning it and creating the new fangled Republican Party. That party's first presidential candidate being some Lincoln guy. Much gnashing of teeth and renting of bad ideas and a war later, they faded into obscurity. But, other Know Nothing antics involved their Nativist faction stealing a cannon from the port of Philadelphia and showing true devotion to the first amendment, the staunch Protestants proceeded to bombard a Roman Catholic church, convent/hospital and school, then murder militia that were dispatched to restore order. The militia commander then ordered a full battery of artillery to aim at the idiots and ordered them to return the purloined cannon and go home. Militia with fixed bayonets patrolled Philadelphia city streets for weeks afterward. Well, they're back and linked up with neofascists that are replicating old Nazi bad ideas. Actually read the history, they've nothing new, it's tired old retreads shoddily assembled and installed. Their champion, Machine Gun Jesus of the prosperity gospel, their prophet, the beast who was struck in the head with a sword and survived, their god being Mammon and the Lord of the Lies. Always use one's adversary's weapons against them.
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  6856. Doge shit is not a federal agency, so releasing PII and financial data of citizens if a clear violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. Worse, that information is being released to an individual who lacks an adjudicated clearance, aggravating the violation. Hence, we have zero oversight, uncleared persons in possession of the PII of a majority, if not the entirety of the US population and for all we know, that data's being sold to China. Is VA patient and treatment data going to Islamist backed nations? No oversight, so we've no idea who is doing what with our citizens most sensitive data. Especially from a President that's stated his contempt for the very Constitution that he swore an oath to protect and uphold. He and his co-conspirators need to be removed by any and all means necessary to achieve that goal. Oh, the dedicated Trump bots that aren't foreign sponsored are pushing a unique plane crash set of "theories", one involving a female pilot literally conducting a kamikaze attack upon a civilian airliner to make the god-king look bad. The other, also being a female flight crew, well, lady bits destroy all and she was responsible for magical hand wave collision between aircraft at an over 300 knot closure rate, more hand waving facts and commonsense away. I am willing to bet that were the State Department files to be closely examined, Elon Musk's documents are not fully in order and multiple false statements are sworn to. Both being all that's required to rescind his naturalization.
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  6924.  @kylehill  had an iodinated contrast agent the other day for a CT scan, one of the potential side effects is a worsening of Grave's disease, which I have. Didn't have to worry, as I'm taking a medication that blocks an enzyme in the thyroid hormone iodination chain, preventing iodine from being linked to form the hormones in excess. It'd essentially behave the same way as potassium iodide and similar iodine drugs to shut down the thyroid gland. Because, a high dose of iodine does precisely that, it shuts down the thyroid gland as it takes up the administered iodine via the Wolf-Chaikoff effect. It's also an emergency treatment for a thyroid storm. The day after the radiologist's report was posted, my doctor called and tried to convince me to go to the hospital because my AAA had a thrombus in it. She missed the CT from two years prior that listed the same thing, "Yeah, but now you've got a second one". No, actually, it's two additional at the nephratic artery branches, they come with aneurysms. It's kept this long, no clots wandering about, it'll keep until the vascular surgeon's appointment in two months. She's consulting with the vascular surgeon, ain't heard back, so I suspect the surgeon agrees with me and not the resident. They're residents so that they can learn and I've always been a good instructor. And an incidental finding of a mass on an adrenal gland, which hasn't changed in size or shape in a decade. And that my lumbar and thoracic spine is a train wreck, which is also readily apparent from symptoms and that I need a cane to walk. Yep, I'm a walking pathology exhibit. With rather significant knowledge and experience in pharmacology and A&P.
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  6937. I'm using tons of radiation right now. Otherwise, I'd be frozen and stubbing the shit out of my toes. Oh, ionizing radiation, my bad! Used that two days ago, got a CT scan to figure out how much of a train wreck that I am, the railroad's still sending full trainloads of heavy wreck equipment... The CT beams, guided and shielded largely with the magical metal of incandescent lamp filaments, cutter of metals in industrial applications, reflector of x-rays and gamma radiation in radiology equipment and x-ray and gamma telescopes, tungsten, the pain in the ass to work with metal. And oh, I do glow a fair bit in gamma. Had a thyroid scan using I-131, before dosing, they perform a background check, got my potassium-40 onboard as we all do, some strontium-90, cesium-137 and a few other isotopes your generation wouldn't have. Was born a week after Tsar Bomba detonated, when the nuclear armed nations had the dubious wisdom of detonating their products from the insanity factory in the atmosphere. Not that any cancers came of that, at least that's what our government told the downwinders repeatedly. I'm also known for anger management issues, unusual strength, but only turn green if I've eaten some food that's a bit off. ;) Actually, that's all measured in trace radiation levels, using a gamma camera, which also uses tungsten tubing to focus the energy for imaging. Which makes me wonder if this filament might be a good basis for those tubes, adding tungsten plating within for increased reflection efficiency and the tungsten impregnated plastic adding efficiency lost via the thinner reflection coating at a modest resolution cost. Gain being decreased cost and more importantly, less heavy support for a much lighter reflector. Because, tungsten is heavy and dense, as in "Oh my God, I need a new foot now that I've dropped this tungsten brick on it!" kind of heavy. And yeah, you'd be in the market for a new foot. It's damned heavy. It'd be also useful for a quick, fugly casing for homebuilt instrumentation, like my radiation spectrometer I built from plans on CERN's educational outreach site. Which reminds me, gotta scavenge a mylar cap for a radiation window, a cheap headset for the jack and a 10k resistor and 0.05 uF cap for coupling to the computer. The processing software is javascript and python, both already happily installed on my computers. Not too bad a price for the filament, considering. Guess I'll be ordering a printer soon after all. My americium source will be an excellent test sample for the filament.
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  6953. Huh, "The Soroses", so George got himself cloned and was running around the nation handing out cash? Must've missed the clone with the wheelbarrow full of cash! Must be that new cloaked wheelbarrow that Wonder Woman flew around in. And that had what to do with firearms safety again? Oh wait, lemme guess, ANTIFA ebil, fascism is cool, gotya. "Unarmed, the government can do anything they want with you", OK, lemme think now really, really hard. Explain how your 9mm and dinky little AK or AR is gonna win against a B-52 again? A howitzer? A tank? A gunship? An ATACMS system? A 120 mm mortar? Just getting started and what I've listed can eliminate all life in a five square mile area in minutes. Do tell this veteran more about small arms repelling an invading army, maybe the Taliban will learn something, since they couldn't even slow our entry into their nation and we did degrade Al Qaeda down from blowing up US embassies all over Africa and destroying a pair of large office buildings to embarrassments like a caught printer bomb by mail, a diaper bomb and a shoe bomb that'd embarrass Maxwell Smart. Tell me more, I purr, as I proceed to eat the leopard's face... For the record, I do own and compete with an M1A, AR15 and M1911 and also believe that firearms are investments and investments get protected by secure storage. And that the NFA needs to be expanded to place semiautomatic firearms derived from selective fire military service rifles into a class equal to suppressors. And a hint, suppressors aren't very difficult to purchase at all, but the background check is about as intrusive as a colonoscopy. Or acquiring a security clearance. I've no inclination to get a suppressor, as they wear out too quickly and really won't give me any real benefit in competition (indeed, they're disallowed for precision marksmanship competitions I enter). I've absolutely no use for a paycheck eliminator, aka machine gun, but won't begrudge anyone wealthy enough to piss their money away that way - once they pass the screening that's equal to getting a TS clearance. And believe it or not, you can also legally buy artillery, each and every high explosive round being an NFA destructive weapon and costing a $200 tax stamp itself and thanks, but no thanks, I'll take a demied version of a howitzer that can't make rude noises and give it to a VFW post. I do believe though in the utterly unrestricted right to keep and arm bears. I'm confused with "It's pretty difficult to buy one on your own", erm, what? Go to a gun shop, pay for the weapon, fill out a 4473, clerk calls or enters the info into the computer, NICS does the background check, collect one's receipt and firearm and leaves. I can literally go to the gun shop right now and be in and out in around 20 minutes with a firearm, if I wasn't flat out broke and wanted yet another thing to have to clean quarterly. Not very interested though, got two hands, that means one at a time and if I'm not using the thing, why would I want it cluttering up my safe? Two competition rifles in different calibers, two hunting rifles for different environments, two pistols for pistol fire competition and practice is more than enough maintenance for my needs, never could figure out the bozo that has a half dozen AR's of the same type and still only has two hands. But then, never did hang around with such yahoos, way too unsafe on a range. And having sold firearms that were used, so that I could replace them with less worn models, I've always taken handguns to a gun shop for a 4473 and NICS check and paid for it, just for peace of mind and long guns, I'm super careful of, although those I've only worn down one enough to require replacement.
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  7001. "Do you even own a suit?" "Yes, but today's your mother's day to wear it and our shared rubber, which leaked to create you. But, just to make you happy, after we win this war, I'll show up in a new suit - featuring a g-string, your wife's favorite. Now, someone kindly give that man a harrumph". Seriously, dick lips is my first thought and I'm the guy who incorporated Lorentz into relativity and incorporated momentum. And yeah, so that all need brain bleach, I do indeed own a g-string, in copper, gold and camouflage. The latter, for my late wife. For those interested, complimentary scanning electron microscope imagery is available. Kid Rock's suit, yeah, comical and my first thought was your first comment, but the Resolute Desk, erm, look up the history of what was signed on it, looks like shit Mel Brooks would come up with. Still, a red version of Evil Knievel? Operable, Trump saying, "I don't know much about it, but signed an EO". This EO grants power to singular rich people over Congress and the People to god-kill-murder-death-kill those who price gouge. Kinda don't have a problem with that, can leverage it against them as well. Oh wait, EO's no longer count, given the signalgate mess and the EO's against it (the codified laws of Congress are minimal, most 'laws' are EO's for cleared stuff). Still, your guest gave me an idea. Not a god-king, but a court jester for Emperor Musk. And his wholly owned Offal Office. For the challenged, offal being lungs, kidneys, occasionally heart, etc left over from meat animals as food. Aka, poor people's food. Now, excuse me while I go fry some scrapple, offal loaf and a favored regional breakfast food. Eggs still being insanely expensive and god-king beyond his power to fix. But, eggs are coming from Turkey, to be tariffed... Because, empress Donna Trump can indeed fuck up a wet dream - always.
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  7031.  @TomSpeaks-vw1zp  more like the truth, that they've replaced the God that they claimed to worship by openly embracing the self-proclaimed god-king wannabe and their mutual god, mammon. Although, Jesus is most certainly a welcome visitor, maybe he can bring Elijah along, I'll set a place for both. I'd only ask that they call in advance so I can run out and get some kosher foods for their needs. What I never do is blame the devil for the actions of mankind. For, the devil's most powerful weapon is an age old enemy of humanity, human nature itself. I'll plea guilty to profanity in a church though, twice and once, to actually uttering a curse inside of a church. The first time, the chaplain rushed in to scold me for the profanity, saw the blood pooling at my feet from a cut through the web of my fingers between pinkie and ring finger going over an inch deep, learned I uttered the profanity in reaction to his assistant demanding I stop bleeding on the floor (sorry, forgot my antigravity unit or I'd have bled onto the ceiling). The chaplain quickly had his assistant apologize and get swift transportation to a treatment facility. The other, shortly after my wife died, a guest minister told me happily that I should be glad that my wife of over 41 years was dead. With some swift profanity, I suggested he get his sexual reference buttocks off of the property, as his life was in grave danger - albeit a lot less politely. Our minister quite agreed with me, if not my selection of language. The third, an exchange with a Roman Catholic priest at my mother's funeral, he made a rather unfortunate remark, I cursed him in the Almighty's name to experience the same justice that he'd denied others. Suffice it to say, the curse was effective, as shortly afterward he was caught molesting children in the parish. Obviously, I've never claimed to be a diplomat, probably why the state department won't hire me. More likely, because I never applied for a state department posting though... But, I'm fairly certain that I'll be more welcomed than these falsely claiming Christians, for at least I know the teachings, the origin of those teachings and do far better at living by those principles than they do.
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  7039. Heh, just on the intro, I've got a really good idea on where this is going. A soft "reboot" is just a restart and well, doesn't actually perform a lot of resets that are done on a true cold boot. I'm guessing that discussing the three finger salute generating an NMI would have gone too far down into the weeds for the desired video length. For the non-conversant, an NMI is a non-maskable interrupt, a signal that the CPU cannot ignore. Effectively, it's the computer equivalent of going up to someone and getting their attention by slapping them in the face. Not good at parties, but good for a DOS computer that's effectively locked up in a loop. And an interesting thing to intercept just to get the computer's attention enough to be allowed to log on... Needless to say, a source of some engineering mirth. Which dates back the august days of when computers were initially programmed with toggle switches to tell them to read their boot instructions from paper tape or lace cards - whoops, punch cards. Lace cards, occasionally called death cards had every hole punched and would jam the reader, requiring the 129 Card Removal Tool, aka card knife be used to extricate the offending card and starting the tradition of calling security to escort the offender from the premises - for their own protection from an enraged staff. Death card losing is charm as a name, courtesy of some Nazi misbehavior and genocide things and all being selected via one bit set on an IBM punch card. Don't want to mistake the two or one will find both a card removal tool and a real knife used upon one's tender bits. I only date back to paper tape, punch tape and magnetic tapes.
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  7073. The first object shown, a helicopter, bubble canopy model, which is a very common type. Second image, looks like a Jet Ranger helicopter, as is readily apparent by the tail, the third, another helicopter. Not uncommon in the areas, given the areas listed in the first two minutes, given LaGuardia, JFK, PHL and oh yeah, McGuire AFB, Lakehurst NAS and Boeing VERTOL in Delaware County, PA. They're not drones from an Iranian jeep carrier, which is currently being monitored in the Persian Gulf, a close 6400 miles away. They're more likely to be a second wave of the Great Martian Invasion of 1938, which had a similar volume of eyewitness sightings called into police. And Concrete, Washington, suffering a substation failure, the town PD called in an alert on the wire services, adding to confusion among some. In short, another mass panic, driven more by media reporting than well, unusual activity, as flying machines aren't exactly a new phenomenon these days, although small drones are somewhat novel, large drones remain rare and extended range beyond 20 - 30 minutes of flight are beyond rare due to their insane pricing. Add in tensions of the Ukrainian conflict with Russia, Russian adventurism in general, political uncertainty and the usual turmoil of life, of course people are seeing Martians or Iranians or lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Or we can knee jerk, bring back the old Nike-Hercules missiles and use neutron bombs to shoot down the mythical drones that are actually licensed aircraft. Yes, the Nike-Hercules carried neutron bombs, to destroy Soviet bombers and fizzle their nuclear warheads. Over our cities and towns. Hysteria is harmless though. And they really are Martians invading again, they just got hung up on that confusing clover leaf exchange.
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  7089. They have absolutely no authority to force me to obey the law of gravity. Alas, that law enforces itself. But, the Constitution also states that our federal government must secure and protect the public welfare, given the Constitution itself defines the nation as the people. Not dying from a fairly easily preventable disease most certainly is in the interests of the people and when one is speaking of a pandemic that's national, within the purview of the federal government assisting state and local governments and institutions. So, Congress cannot pass a law enforcing gravity, but can order masks be worn on federal property and tax and allocate tax dollars to support the states in battling a national pandemic. States who refuse to allow local counties to manage a pandemic are misguided, as a state government micromanaging, rather than coordinating county and city efforts is a fool's errand that can only go wrong. Full disclosure: Our youngest daughter, in her mid-30's, contracted COVID-19 a couple of months ago, while she was working at a hospital in housekeeping. That was ascertained to be due to a lack of compliance with hospital procedures by closing COVID-19 patients room doors to prevent the spread to the staff. The hospital, once they became aware of the issue promptly ensured compliance via inspections and training. She's slowly recovering after a couple of weeks of hospitalization. Our eldest is an RN in a hospital, she's contracted COVID-19, but thankfully remains asymptomatic. The route of transmission for her appears to be related to reuse to failure of PPE, which despite some lying by our national leadership, still remains in short supply. The companies simply can't keep up with, let alone modestly exceed current demand. I have pre-existing medical conditions, as does my wife, said conditions essentially guarantee our demise if we experience any significant level of exposure, so we mask up when in proximity to other people (it doesn't make sense for when we're simply outside, as we're in a rural area, but entering a store or area congested with people outside, it''s mask time). Keep the good information coming, Mack! Just had to textually beat down an inlaw's championing a disinformation campaign by the cult Falun Gong's Epoch Times. Disinformation has to be fought with real, true information and while it sucks to find out one is wrong, one feels a lot better once one knows what is true and what is bovine defecation being passed off as food.
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  7096.  @weswelborne4582  one shocks ventricular fibrillation, one shocks ventricular tachycardia, which can lead to ventricular fibrillation. One doesn't shock asystole, as there is nothing to synchronize a shock with and the shock would be useless anyway. Compressions only buy time to get a defibrillator to hopefully be able to shock ventricular fibrillation, which is a leading cause of eventual asystole. Once sufficient time has passed without defibrillation or if a defibrillator was ineffective, the humane thing to do is cease fruitless efforts. A little over a year ago, I had to make that very choice with my wife of over 41 years. The EMT's and paramedic initially wanted to continue, but soon realized once the paramedic plugged in the monitor, that zero electrical activity was irreversible. The sepsis moved quickly and caused catastrophic damage. I suspected what was the case early, due to hard earned experience as an SF medic. The paramedic's monitor confirmed that my world was destroyed that night. Well, I'm off to collapse for a day and a week. Took a 10 mile stroll today and my body's reminding me that I'm not still in Army shape and that I'm 61 years old. Gotta rehydrate as well, it was 95 degrees out and one small Gatorade (Lord, but I hate that flavored lactated Ringer's solution crap) and a single water bottle, well, didn't urinate since 11:00 until 19:00 and then, it was quite dark, that dipstick says I'm around a quart low. I'll eat in a couple of hours, once rehydrated.
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  7108. Hey, he's addressing the high cost of eggs compared to other foods by raising the price of the other foods. And it'll be all Obama's fault and why he'll ask Congress to declare war on the country of Antarctica to stop the invasions from there. And it'll jumpstart agriculture in the US, so that the crops can then rot in the fields with nobody to pick them. Which is the fault of NATO, who we'll have to also declare war on and invade that country. The shame of it is, the average MAGAt will believe it, hook, line and sinker. Hell, he already had, during the campaign, proposed we steal Canadian water for California by running a pipeline from a Canadian river to the locals that need the water, which of course would involve invading Canada. Because that worked out ever so well the other two times we tried it... When all of his misdirected efforts finally trigger domestic unrest against his maladministration, he'll direct that sanctuary cities are the root cause of all of the problems with hidden aliens magic magic causing mayhem and order the thermonuclear destruction of those foreign lands. All because his parents allowed people to poke baby on the fontanelle when he was an infant. Full disclosure, I do intensely dislike the man as a person, as I've actually met him in person around Y2K. He was the boor of the party, literally, even managing to piss off my wife - a veritable saint, as she managed to put up with me for over 41 years. Still, we've gotta give Trump some slack, he had a tough time of it as an infant, being breast fed by his father and all.
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  7126. Artillery is just my way of saying hello and acknowledging your existence. The WP, complimentary smokescreen for your movements - honest. The HE quick and air, just a shoulder tap to keep you moving into range of MG's and eventually, small arms. Perfect hearing? My VA social worker is now pushing hard on my hearing loss claim. Got damned tired of repeating herself loudly and clearly. And the phone continues to ring... Don't get me started on RPG's, got some ribs that get occasionally angry over some fractures I didn't initially recognize, being too busy shooting the SOB three times before he was allowed to fall down. Yeah, the round missed me, the fragments didn't and I actually noticed some time afterward. An RPG did disable an M1 Abrams, flank hit hit between idler wheels on a tank that didn't have skirts. Hit the "brain box", mildly burning a gunner's flank and back. Everyone got out, the tank didn't Harry Potter magically blow up. A Russian tank probably would have due to the solid gold turds launched by the evacuating crew impacting the fuses below their feet... My own likely would be solid platinum. Most tanks going up, if they go up, like a lighter rupturing, short, sweet and done and stinks like burning meat. Firefights, carried 2000 rounds in a butt pack for my team, along with some IV fluids and necessities, ammo being chief. It was also rarely disbursed, gotta remove my LBV and belt to get at it or you're feeling up my ass and if you don't secure the damned thing well, I very well will shoot you myself. Combat load was around 200 rounds and that don't last long in burst mode at all. Anyone firing burst was a warning in my team that some SOB got within pistol range, but switching weapons would take too long and hence, a distress call and attempt in desperation to get rid of the trouble. I also had an additional duty of secondary DMR, despite being Geneva classified unacceptable, for a number of mutually acceptable reasons and memorandum for record filed. Largely because the only man who outshot me was our battalion senior sniper. By one point always, always enjoyed and learned from his doing so. Of the lot, I still preferred the M14. Automatic fire was as accurate as farting in a tornado, but an effective noise bombardment weapon in a pinch, a kilometer and under, precise as one desires with match rounds and with MG rounds still could drive the tacks out of a target quickly enough to get off of the range fast. My secondary was a custom M1911, as my unit was given a choice in custom sidearms, no idea why. Chose a GI model with match barrel and bushing. Great to 50 meters. Used sights at 25 meters and greater, point of fire below that and never missed my target. DMR, I missed on occasion and once, wished I missed and have nightmares about that one. Never missed when it was up close and personal. Used a knife once, because I fucked up and got entangled by a man defending his home and family. The home being empty of anything of concern, it was later ascertained. Welcome to nightmare #2. Oh, entertaining, took an M16A1 and turned the barrel green in full auto fire to burn off rounds, rather than count them individually for turn-in, due to a Lieutenant signing blindly and opening rapidly the cases. On a .50 cal range. Engaged targets at 1 KM with the rifle on auto, traversed in using a full sling wrap, nailed man sized targets at that range with six rounds out of much of the magazine. Wondering range NCO's then attempted without the sling wrap or training and embarrassed themselves. Wasn't always a medic, son. And I still shot competitively for small cash awards and holiday meats. And intensely dislike violence. A weapon is a tool, like any other, rarely used and put away when not needed, just like my hammer. My hammer being more frequently utilized, my screw gun being utilized more often, my screwdrivers much more often and my knives, incessantly as I really do enjoy eating food and my teeth aren't that gigantic. And reflux eroded those down to a pair - literally. The remnants are shards that I really do need to see a surgeon about ASAP. Had two fears in my life, one was losing my wife, which happened nearly three years ago due to sepsis from a tooth infection that rapidly progressed, the other being a dentist, having several major misadventures over the course of my life. And I freely admit to a character flaw, I am a very, very vindictive man. To the point where my own commanders feared my reprisals as much as the terrorists did. Which thankfully resulted in our mutual going home for the day. Which was what was desired in the first place. But, resulted in an excursion and recipe exchange. No lie, my trade secret was recipe exchanges. Build common ground, well, everyone eats and enjoys something new. And cooking off beats shooting at each other. Oddly, some of the best cooks turned out to be terrorists. Go figure. Oh, pot, kettle. Oh bollocks! Wanted to make some tamarind juice from paste, but the fridge is full. Oh well, cook the swai fillet or the whole parrot fish... Or the leftover ham slice... You've got a knife, I've got a tun, come on buddy, let's have a little fun and the leftovers go to the cat and dog. ;) Well, better than Jealous Man.
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  7130.  @Feline9Bluvixen  churches have always been meetinghouses, for political and secular use. You'd overturn over 1000 years of common law and our entire nation's history since 1797 over Trump's abuses? First lesson, the government is not utilizing that church, a candidate for office isn't a government, they remain a private citizen. It gets in the weeds a bit under IRS rules, but even the IRS leaves much of that rightfully alone. Now, as for the church, there are a few parties concerned here. There is the church leadership and the parishioners and well, that is between the two groups to muddle through, not my monkey, not my circus. If it was my church however, suffice it to say that there'd be more than hair singed in that leadership group. Then, there's between the deity and both followers and leaders of that church. See the monkey and circus, I've enough problems of my own without borrowing some from a deity. @masia1950, again, property rights and over 1000 years of common law, plus tradition of using churches for meetinghouses for religious and secular purposes. 501(c) 3 comes into play for tax exemptions for income, as we don't do federal property taxation. Now, any monies received for a political rally would be taxable income for the church, that said, such usually gets overlooked intentionally, as it's usually not worth the taxpayer's investment for the amount brought in and frankly, with Trump's history of stiffing venues, the income would be zero. Especially given he's still not paid up many venues from 2016! Besides, how do you audit the Chosen One? Oh, the IRS already showed that one with a potential $100 million due... Guess he should've parted with some of his almighty dollars.
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  7155.  @d614gakadoug9  yeah, that could either turn expensive or expensively entertaining, rather than enlightening. Entertaining, if it's only the reference legs on a wheatstone bridge wandering in value randomly. Expensive, if it's measuring production or providing a reference bias... Well, unless one's goal is to, rather than turn out a flat and true product, produce a funhouse mirror. ;) Sounds only minor, until one considers the difference between a non-precision automotive bearing and a high speed turbine bearing. Then, wobble shakes things apart and lateral runout can turn a stator into fragments as the rotor tries to convince it to joint it in its motion. Did you ever look at what's required for use in space? That's even tighter, due to thermal, oxidative effects of the rarefied upper atmosphere and radiation effects, to name a few variables (not to mention no free oxygen being permitted in anything, especially insulators). Worked briefly with that, boy, but the requirements were demanding, exacting and absolutely necessary. Or, in the case of the Mars rovers, one EE asked, "Do dust devils possess an electrostatic charge?". Everyone he asked didn't think so, but couldn't find any reference. So, he made a trip to the desert with some instruments and was horrified to find tens of kilovolts accumulating within dust devils. That necessitated a complete review of rover circuitry. The finding being, as initially designed, the rovers would've failed catastrophically on first contact with a dust devil. Now, they're optical cleaning events.
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  7164. So, smelt started the fire? Because Trump smelt smoke? Someone kindly send Trump a box full of smelt from anywhere they're not endangered or overfished. By US Postal standard freight. It'd be perfume compared to his diaper odor. As for our 51st state, we already had one place vote to become a state and Congress ignored it, Puerto Rico. Where Trump decided to lend a hand after a hurricane flattened much of the island by throwing in the towel and withholding Congressionally authorized and earmarked aid funding, which used to be a felony until the SCOTUS decided we have a god-king, who may rule by fiat. And Hollywood Hills is a wee bit different in national perception than Hollywood, aka tinseltown. Not that the guy who thinks that supermarkets sell apples out of the refrigerated section would have a clue, he's still working on "pull my finger" and not shitting himself. One's a neighborhood that's upslope from the studios and lower neighborhoods. But hey, we're actually now being invaded via a mutual assistance pact of longstanding success. Canadian firefighting equipment and personnel are in the country helping out, despite the odious maledictions of VP Trump and President Musk, his almighty master. And the dreaded FEMA assistance is spooled up - well, dreaded by MAGAts, who prefer to try to hunt that assistance down and end it, then bitch that they're not getting assistance. Now, someone good with Photoshop, feel free to screen grab an image of Trump tossing that roll of paper towels, turn it into a log headed toward Hollywood Hills... When someone's trying to force feed you hemlock, always give them the first drink. Now, maybe someone with a large airplane can send the lot of MAGA misleaders to the disaster zone and their hot air, properly directed, could counter the winds.
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  7177. Please try learning where your capslock key is and oh, frame thoughts before blathering and going nuts with emoties. I did consider making a Trump crack or seven, but didn't, as simple human decency prevents turning politics into a showpiece when people are sick in the hospital. E. coli is most often spread through excrement. In many cases, from literally the slaughterhouse floor, when poor practices swept excrement of slaughtered and in the process of being butchered animals made it into the meat, which was ground and sold for public consumption. Those problems were eventually addressed with much hard work on the part of the USDA. That left a second reserve, excrement contaminated soil, in some cases, soils from foreign farms that were fertilized with uncomposted excrement, in others, from runoff from pastures. That remains an exposure point that crops its head up from time to time. Hence, the uncertainty in whether it's the meat or the onions. What's commendable is the speed in which the problem was admitted to and being addressed, of taking actions despite uncertainty and inevitable losses by doing so, to halt any potential for more cases while still investigating and awaiting cultures. Rarely have I had cause to express respect for this company, but in this, I tip my hat to them in salute and I'll be thinking of this response when I enjoy my next McChicken or McFish. Sorry, I just really don't enjoy beef all that much, though a Big Mac also occasionally will wend its way though my gullet...
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  7185.  @martinhumble  I also am a competition marksman, pistol and rifle, precision marksmanship. As in, pull any of that youtube yahoo high volume of fire crap on our ranges, you're swiftly trespassed from the range. And your example fails in places like New Jersey, where you'd have outlawed hunting entirely, as they only allow shotguns to be used in hunting. Although, I got my Pennsylvania shotgun serenade this morning, it's pheasant season and with the windows open, the fire from across the river is audible. Upside, they're sane in this area, it doesn't sound like the pheasant are shooting back. Can't say the same in some counties in deer rifle season, where in one county, it sounded like the Battle of the Bulge and tree tops were getting cropped above my head - I left for a saner county to not find any deer. That remains an enumerated right. That said, rights come encumbered with duties and responsibilities and restrictions. I can't conspire to commit a crime being a speech related limitation, can't utter a false alarm and incite panic. Can't incite a riot. Can speak politically, can assemble peaceably (and assembling armed in my book is not peaceable assembly). We have reasonable restrictions on every right to ensure a peaceful, productive and happy society. And as an owner of one and user of the military version for multiple decades, I do consider those AR's and AK's weapons of war. Want them, they got in a new chapter of the NFA, right up there with suppressors. Keep them for the confirmed sane. Although, an AR is not some magical high power death ray, it's actually a varmint round originally. High power are battle rifles, which fire the equivalent of a 30-06 - enough to drop a grizzly, where an AR would only make a grizzly angry. Either one being decidedly unhealthy for humans though. Just a pet peeve, where some idiots in their ignorance make the damned things out to be death rays. OK, that rant aside, "With great power comes great responsibility", wise words. I also use other words with a similar intent that'll become quickly clear. Firearms are expensive investments, especially high precision ones like mine. One doesn't leave investments in a sock drawer, one doesn't leave investments under a seat cushion, one doesn't leave investments laying on a table, one secures investments inside of a safe. That protects one's investments from theft and fire, as well as unauthorized access. One is also responsible for one's investments, go play with a financial instrument in an unlawful way, you'll find out in prison how you violated the law. The same should be true for one's investment in the form of a firearm, as it can cause harm at a much greater range than a mere bearer bond. And I'm entirely reasonable, I entire advocate for the unlimited concealed licenseless carry of howitzers. Anyone that can conceal between 3 - 10 meters of barrel that weighs 12 tons or more can carry whatever they want to. Anything else requires a CCW. Open carry, location dependent, as I've been where cottonmouths lived and wouldn't go near those areas without a rifle (just for its greater precision). Hell, Pennsylvania has always been an open carry state, save in Philadelphia, the state's only first class city (by population size determination), which only allows permitted concealed carry. Pretty much nobody bothers. The few that do are usually "I have a right to" and well, some folk wander around wearing Jesus Saves sandwich boards too, as long as they're not threatening anyone or trying to hurt anyone, a tiny few haven't caused harm yet. And the howitzer crack is for a reason, I can be unreasonable, such as wanting firearm safes as non-negotiable for long guns, a similar, but smaller acceptable if bolted to the wall or floor or both for handguns. Don't make me park that howitzer on your foot. ;) Because then, I'd have to buy one and parking for those is a real bear. :P I did applaud recent events when parents were charged over allowing a minor child unrestricted access to "his" firearm (he can't lawfully own one and access is to be supervised per federal and most state laws). Rights get responsibilities, after all.
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  7213. Wow, I must be having ministrokes! I fart a lot lately, courtesy of dexamethasone treating newly diagnosed Crohn's disease. Obviously ministrokes, not a bowel disorder. I've also wobbled and missed door pulls, due to nerve damage from a herniated disc and well, I walk with a cane to avoid falling when one knee will decide to go on vacation because I can't feel what position it's in or the amount of force is being applied. Aka, loss of proprioception. Disinhibition, that's apparent, but it's also been his trademark, such as that is for his entire life. Previously, just attributed to his being the boor of the party. One need not search for an organic cause for someone simply being an execrable human being, some people just are naturally that way, know better and just don't give a tinkerer's damn. Usually, they're just ostracized by society and they only manage to make their neighbors and family miserable. The slurring, could be word lookup issues, could be medication induced, could be TIA issues, all common in his age group. Now, that he's unfit for the office, that was a given back in 2016, that he's still a candidate, well that is his right under the Constitution, that he has any support from a major political party is just damning for that party. I miss the old days, when our conservative party actually lead, rather than followed populism and nativism, which doomed its predecessor conservative party, resulting in the formation of the Republican Party. It seems that we've a dearth of brave men and women today and eventually, the GOP will implode just as the Whig Party imploded, with no replacement party in place to give the nation its next Abraham Lincoln. Although, the microphone thing, yeah, that was beyond odd, coupled with Arnold Palmer's member and YMCA, perchance he's just gradually coming out of the closet. Personally, mike fails after being checked, double checked and all of the preliminary work done, I'd just make a Grand Conspiracy of the Space Aliens joke and move on or even "That microphone works about as well as my opponent's campaign platform!".
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  7235. Funny how they voted for Trump to bring down prices, but now they want even higher prices. This is like "I'm gonna own the libs by playing Russian roulette with a machine gun". Save that the gun is actually a damned howitzer and they're in a crowded square. On top of that, Trump shut down disease tracking and reporting, scientific research grants, including a non-small cell lung cancer vaccine approval testing candidate that's been globally successful and of course, medicaid to make sure Aktion T4 gets a good start. Threatened a trade war with Columbia, who imports our oil and grains (we don't use what grains we produce, we export them all and import Canadian grains) and chemicals, the oil easily gotten from a nearby neighbor, grains from a half dozen sources and chemicals trivially available from China, resulting in a permanent loss of US exports, howitzering the foot again, Dumb Donald. And he's screwed Nvidia with tariffs on chips that they import to the US for US usage - including their GPU for AI applications. Now, if he does levy tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, we'll raise prices even higher, basically double for basic staple foods. Our exports are going to tank, as the workers that harvest our crops aren't showing up to harvest out of fear of ICE antics, soon the slaughterhouses will get the same and there goes chicken prices (beef and pork are slaughtered mostly in Canada, as we closed most of our large livestock slaughterhouses years ago). And our oil largely comes from Canada, our own oil being incompatible with our refineries and exported as crude abroad. Maybe he'll nuke our own cities next, call it urban renewal or something. And to this tanglefoot of his own device, he responds by vacationing already in Florida to play with his tiny balls and golf sticks.
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  7245. My response to Bernie, as a taxpayer, voter, veteran, military retiree and grandfather is, "Bernie, putana su mama" and the conversation will accelerate downhill fast. I'd begin discussing the relative merits of exploring how many times my cane will wrap around his empty skull and advanced to explore just precisely what I did in the Army during the wars... One thing I'm certain of, he's a Republican politician, he's got no stones in him to swing at me, regardless of what I explain about his family members habituations and species. Unfortunately. Nearly lost my wife while I was on duty with the military at a rather remote location. It literally took an entire day to locate me and my team to get an emergency message to me. Loads of emergency transportation wrangling got me home, in such a rush that it turned out I still had all of my field equipment, accountable items and sidearm still with me. Got home to find an empty house, no kids, my wife missing and nobody answering at her family's numbers, my parents having no clue where she was. The emergency being an ectopic pregnancy that literally was about to rupture and the religious hospital (closest and hence, required by military regulations at the time) insisting on my permission to abort the non-viable, about to kill her pregnancy. It turned out she was at her mother's house recovering, doctor violated hospital policy and got fired for it and saved her life, she was recovering, the kids were with her mother, who was at the store getting additional food. Grew some gray hairs that day! The hospital administrator had an attitude problem, thinking I was some National Guard bozo (her words) and well, the police were summoned, saw my ID and sidearm, siding with me. She insisted that the hospital, regardless of the laws in force at the time, would never change their policy. A quick call to a friend in D.C. halted all federal funding to that hospital until they complied with the law, as was authorized under the law. Never sure came quickly for them! Yeah, I bite and I bite hard in multiple ways. God was their guide they said, interesting given that they're still notorious for being malpractice central for the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
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  7256.  @harlanjackson6112  largely, from growing up among Italian-Americans, many "off the boat". I suspect you can guess my lineage based upon my family name. ;) Yeah, I do agree on the downfall of Rome, not the cause, but a factor. There was a loss of expansion, which sustained the Empire, increasing resistance at the border regions of the Empire and dozens of internal issues that caused crumbling from within via corruption and internal strife. Splitting it didn't help much either, nor did some visits by some Attila guy. It really became clear when Rome began bringing in mercenaries to augment flagging legions and eventually had to embrace some odd cult called Christianity to fill their ranks. The mercenaries then moving on to, in a fair number of cases, become involved in the sack of Rome. And yeah, I agree as to his education, as most in the US couldn't tell a Hun from a sticky bun, much to my embarrassment - hell, most born US citizens can't even get basic facts of US history even 10% correct or what our Constitution actually says. Indeed, our nation was modeled by the Founders to emulate the best of the Roman Republic and avoid its Imperial existence, something Trump and his all girl band would gleefully embrace - then be mystified when we'd also decline swiftly. One day in the chow hall, I made a Roman salute and hailed Caesar and his mighty salad (yeah, not gonna hail any emperor) to close out a quip to someone. One of my NCO's objected, rather insubordinately to my "Nazi salute". My glare set him aback a bit, as it informed him that such familiarity and insubordination was noted and my statements informed him of my disdain for his ignorance of history. I explained that the Nazis adopted part of the Roman salute, as did the Republican Party in the US throughout the 1930's, of which there are miles of film evidence supporting that fact and to kindly learn a bit of history and what specific salutes were before commenting to superiors out of sheer ignorance in the future. Always educate when admonishing. Otherwise, admonition serves little purpose.
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  7275. The missile attack wasn't much of anything, the Russians literally took an off the shelf intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) and duck taped a MIRV bus from an ICBM in place, the results being more off target than close to target and basically, missing their intended target by as much as our atomic bomb missed its target in Nagasaki (literally nearly two miles off target). Assuming the rocket factory was the intended target. That's early 1960's accuracy. Current single warhead accuracy, which should be on par with MIRV accuracy, expected to be at most 90 feet from target. The equivalent of showing up to a modern sniper duel with a smooth bore Brown Bess infantry musket from the Revolutionary War. Suffice it to say, not quite even an annoyance - especially given the dummy rounds the warhead bus was loaded with. Was it hypersonic, yeah, anything suborbital would be hypersonic, about half the velocity of what an ICBM would come in at, but still actually well, half the speed of an ICBM and easily enough intercepted. Just another hand wave to suggest he'd use nukes to get his way, while not doing so and ratcheting up the nuclear tensions as much. The economic side, well, that's just comedy gold. It's right up there with Trump's interpretation of tariffs and who pays for said tariffs. Japan and HIMARS, yeah, goes with Russia "producing" missiles and China's ambitions toward Taiwan and well, overall telling the US to stay on our own continent, trade and interests be damned or else we'll nuke you, nukety, nukety, nuke, nuke, nuke, boo. To which I reply, well, all of our carriers are nuclear capable and oh, none need to be accompanied by the incessantly used oceangoing tug that keeps your single carrier mobile. Also, nobody has yet to sink one of our cruisers with missiles, despite a few attempts, how's your newest submarine Moskva doing again? Trump's selection for envoy to Ukraine, odd interpretations out there on that. Envoys don't set foreign policy, the POTUS and Congress work together to do so, typically with POTUS leading, Congress consenting or removing assent and POTUS must then adjust or lose funding for those efforts. Despite Trump's desire for acquiring the right of imperial decree. I won't go into economics, I know my areas of competence and my understanding is elementary at best. I do know psychological operations, nuclear operations, general military operations, information operations and nuclear doctrine and operations with IRBM's quite well, as that last was what I began my military career in. An ICBM can reach anywhere on the planet, hell, our space programs were basically a dick showing match on ICBM accuracy, reliability and quality, because if you can reach the moon and return, you can reach anywhere on the planet with accuracy. IRBM, those are around a thousand miles or so and less with accuracy within 90 feet or so for both ICBM and IRBM classes, a bit closer today, hence the smaller warheads compared to the 1960's. The increased accuracy is why we moved operations from the old Cheyenne Mountain bunker to a regular office building, as the accuracy rendered that bunker moot - it'd be destroyed with an accurate precise hit, when when the bunker was built, it was anticipated that a close strike would be around 20 miles from the mountain with megatons. Ten kilotons right on target is equal to getting hit with a .44 magnum in the kisser, compared to that megaton missing by 20 miles being a shotgun going off and missing by 10 feet. Loud, but only made one angry. Russian sources playing up some 50000 warheads that are sitting in tiny pieces on shelves all over the country in both nations, with 1700 deployable warheads for Russia and around 1550 deployable by the US. For comparison, Russia doesn't have quite as many cities as we have warheads, we have a bit over ten times more cities and towns than Russia has warheads and that's mooted, as one would want to disrupt the ability for the other guys to rain warheads on one's cities by taking out theirs and that typically takes a half dozen per military base. Still would wreck both nations entirely though. No, no nuclear winter, that got falsified in the 1990's with improved modeling and oh yeah, the old models proved false as well by that whole failed predictions of Gulf War I winter that lasted a month or two and was regional only, the dissipating. So, extinction, nope, save for the two countries that would be so wrecked as to no longer be capable of annoying the world again. Which likely would have some major economic impacts and wreak their own kinds of havoc in the ensuing vacuum. Still, starvation because one's food won't grow or starvation because the economy collapsed in the vacuum of US dollars, dead remains dead, death by starvation doesn't care the proximate cause, just the end result. And people thought I was crazy when I suggested that after the Soviet Union fell that offering NATO membership to Russia as an new entry member might be a good idea... Which then could've been leveraged into a trade union membership as well. Naw, that was crazy talk, they're done, the Cold War is over forever, the war to end all wars was won. Again. Again. Again. Fucking idiots.
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  7292. To show the actual power of the round, shouldn't you replace your butterfingers? ;) I've ten thumbs to loan you, if it's any help... My earliest memory, Mom telling not to jump, lest I get stuck by a diaper pin. Being a natural born asshole, I jumped and got pricked with the pin. My next earliest memory was of Mom sitting me in front of the TV, telling me to "Watch him, he's the President, he's important", while she took down the drapes for laundering. She never finished that task that day, as I interrupted her with the news that the President was shot in the head. Was watching what I'd later learn was CBS. Hey, being born in late 1961, that's a major series of accomplishments! Especially given, I was born a week after Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuke ever detonated and I'm still fairly radioactive, per a gamma ray camera (benchmark scan for a test I wasn't allowed to study for and a talk with the radiologist). ;) That' my excuse and I'm sticking with it. But, the marksman in me gently reminds all, via my gentle lead pipe, range is a factor. Keyholing only starts when the round meets resistance, which pretty much when it hits a body or on a day that ends in Y in English. But, do come to talk with me after you've shot someone and witness what a bullet will do personally. I've already done so. Not an experience that I recommend. Or as I related to Dad, who barely missed WWII, nothing good to recommend the experience. Having to pee so often, you might wanna talk to doctor about that... I'll just get my hat... ;)
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