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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:03:39 GMT -8
Don't trust atoms, they make up everything.
Maybe They Should Pick an Engelbert Humperdink Song Instead
Choirs performing at international rugby matches at the Principality Stadium have been banned from singing the Tom Jones classic, Delilah.
The stadium said it would no longer be performed by choirs after removing it from half-time playlists in 2015.
The song has caused controversy, with lyrics depicting the murder of a woman by her jealous partner.
A stadium spokesman said it was "respectfully aware that it is problematic".
Listen to the Delilah debate with Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio 5 Live
It has, however, long been popular with supporters of the national team and Jones has previously performed the song ahead of an international match.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:07:58 GMT -8
The GLSDB's Are Coming! The GLSDB's Are Coming!With the United States expected to send a new longer-range weapon to Ukraine, it has answered President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plea for rockets that can strike deep behind the front lines of the nearly year-long conflict with Russia. Now Russian forces will need to adapt or face potentially catastrophic losses. The new weapon, the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), will allow Ukraine’s military to hit targets at twice the distance reachable by the rockets it now fires from the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). If included as expected in an upcoming weapons-aid package first reported by the Reuters news agency, the 151-kilometre (94-mile) GLSDB will put all of Russia’s supply lines in the east of the country within reach, as well as part of Russian-occupied Crimea. This will force Russia to move its supplies even farther from the front lines, making its soldiers more vulnerable and greatly complicating plans for any new offensive. “This could slow down significantly,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defence minister. “Just as HIMARS significantly influenced the course of events, these rockets could influence the course of events even more.”
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:10:13 GMT -8
Tennessee Turns Down $8 Million, Because It Might Help Gay People
Tennessee’s recent decision to reject over $8 million in federal funds to combat HIV was motivated, at least in part, by right-wing provocateurs stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiment, according to four sources within the state Health Department.
The move by Republican Gov. Bill Lee will hamstring, if not cripple, efforts to combat one of the country’s most poorly controlled epidemics of the virus, HIV advocates said.
The announcement followed a political crisis in Tennessee that began in September when conservative media personalities, including Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro, launched attacks on Vanderbilt University Medical Center over its care of transgender minors, which they alleged was barbaric.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee delivers his inaugural address in the Legislative Plaza Saturday, Jan.21, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn.
Gov. Bill Lee delivers his inaugural address in the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, Tenn., on Jan. 21, 2023.John Amis / AP file
In October, the pressure wound its way to the unit that combats HIV, sexually transmitted infections and viral hepatitis at the Tennessee Health Department.
On Oct. 24, the unit’s director, Dr. Pamela Talley, told employees that because of the social media firestorm over Vanderbilt, information about the Tennessee Transgender Task Force — a volunteer team the unit established in 2018 to focus on trans health and HIV prevention — and other trans resources had been scrubbed from the department’s website. That is according to two staffers present, who, like two of their colleagues, spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Then, on Nov. 7, Talley told the unit that federal HIV funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for both the task force and Planned Parenthood in Tennessee would terminate at the end of the year, according to three staffers at the meeting, which took place in person and on a conference call.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:17:11 GMT -8
Wagner Group Has Method to Their Madness. Keeping Their Fighters Alive Isn't Part of It.1/ The Wagner Group's 'human wave' attacks, which have left the area around Bakhmut and Soledar strewn with the bodies of dead Wagner fighters, have been described in detail by a Russian source. It explains the brutal calculations behind Wagner's seemingly suicidal tactics. ⬇️ 2/ The 'Russian Criminal' website, which is linked to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, reports what a source – likely within Wagner – has told it about the mercenary group's approach to using recruited convicts to attack Soledar, sustaining huge casualties along the way. 3/ "The most experienced and well-prepared group of stormtroopers comes first, with excellent equipment. It's comprised of eight men, each with a 'Bumblebee' [possibly meaning an RPO-A Shmel thermobaric rocket launcher, effective against fortified positions]. 4/ "Whatever happens, the group must reach the firing line. "Whatever happens" is not a turn of phrase, but a task, the failure to complete which will end in execution [by Wagner], regardless of any [mitigating] factors. 5/ "Once fire contact has been made [with the enemy], the group digs into positions. Digging in is taught as meticulously as combat operations, so by military standards, digging in is almost instantaneous and very effective. 6/ "The area the group has reached is marked (a rag on a tree or something similar). Even if the group is demolished to zero, the next one already realises where the previous one has reached. The main task is to make contact, dig in and transfer positional data to the artillery. Read the whole thread here.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:19:06 GMT -8
Hunter Goes on the Offensive
Hunter Biden’s legal team is coming out swinging. Who knows what House Republicans were expecting, but President Joe Biden’s son is not going quietly into the night as they plan their unsubstantiated investigative attacks.
The Washington Post reports that Biden’s lawyers are on a letter-sending campaign. Attorneys have sent letters threatening a defamation suit to Fox News and Tucker Carlson to retract the damaging statements it has made or else. Letters to the IRS. Letters to both state and federal prosecutors, as well as the Justice Department and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, all demanding that those who gained access to and distributed data found on Hunter Biden’s personal computer be investigated.
An unnamed source told CBS News, “This marks a new approach by Hunter Biden and his team … He is not going to sit quietly by as questionable characters continue to violate his rights and media organizations peddling in lies try to defame him."
Biden’s attorneys are asking for investigations into the Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, former President Donald Trump’s ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello, and Steve Bannon, "for whom there is considerable reason to believe violated various Delaware laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden's personal computer data,” CBS News reports.
According to Lowell, the slew of letters "do not confirm Mac Isaac's or others' versions of a so-called laptop … They address their conduct of seeking, manipulating, and disseminating what they allege to be Mr. Biden's personal data, wherever they claim to have gotten it," Lowell told CBS News.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:21:51 GMT -8
The QOP Is For Freedom, As Long As It Doesn't Include Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee keeps on showing off Republican priorities, and civil rights and civil liberties don’t make the cut.
That’s not a subjective statement. They’ve done away with the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which focused on issues like voting rights, criminal justice reform, civil liberties, and other important issues.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:28:47 GMT -8
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Jim Jordan
The Judiciary Committee’s first hearing under the new Republican House saw GOP lawmakers shamelessly promoting, as predicted, the debunked lie that the devastating fentanyl crisis is tied to immigration. Despite government data showing that it’s overwhelmingly U.S. citizens and permanent residents who’ve been caught (keyword: caught) with drugs at ports of entry, committee chair Jim Jordan went into the hearing already deciding that U.S. fentanyl deaths were a result of a so-called “border crisis.”
Republican members were subsequently so incensed about being fact-checked, that they launched an attack on a reporter from The Washington Post after he’d called a lie by anti-asylum zealot Chip Roy a “rather insidious falsehood.” The Judiciary Committee’s Twitter account accused the outlet of “lying on behalf of Democrats.” Nah, they’ve just got caught.
“The whole thing is infuriating,” tweeted American Immigration Council Policy Director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. He wrote that The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff and his colleagues “have done intensive investigation into fentanyl smuggling, including interviewing US law enforcement, Mexican law enforcement, and smugglers themselves.” He pointed to “decades of evidence” showing that seizures are mostly through ports of entry and are tied to people with legal U.S. status.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:32:20 GMT -8
The Ghost of Dead Dog Past Comes Back to Haunt Lying George.
The FBI is reportedly looking into allegations that embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) stole funds raised for the life-saving surgery of a disabled veteran’s service dog.
U.S. Navy veteran Richard Osthoff told Politico that two agents representing the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York got in touch with him and requested text messages he exchanged with Santos in 2016 about the incident.
Osthoff has said he was connected that year to Friends of Pets United charity, which was run by Santos under the name Anthony Devolder. The veteran hoped to find the $3,000 he needed to pay for surgery for his service dog, Sapphire, who had a life-threatening stomach tumor.
Osthoff and another New Jersey veteran, retired police Sgt. Michael Boll, told Patch that the now-congressman offered to set up a GoFundMe page for the dog in May 2016. But once the fundraiser reached its goal, he disappeared with the funds, they alleged.
Osthoff said he contacted Santos to schedule the medical procedure; Santos suggested going to another vet clinic he was familiar with, which then said it couldn’t do the surgery. After that, Santos became harder to contact and later claimed his charity would use the money on “other dogs,” Osthoff said.
Sapphire died the next year.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:36:56 GMT -8
Today's Health Tip: Don't Buy Your Oxycodone in Mexico
If you walk down the right side street, the offers are plentiful, even in broad daylight. Young men in plain T-shirts draw near and call out their wares: Pills. Cocaine. Guns.
But if you wave them away and go just a few feet farther, you can walk into a pharmacy where you might get something just as dangerous.
You just won’t know it.
A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that pharmacies in several northwestern Mexican cities are selling counterfeit prescription pills laced with stronger and deadlier drugs and passing them off as legitimate pharmaceuticals.
In Tijuana, reporters found that pills sold as oxycodone tested positive for fentanyl, while pills sold as Adderall tested positive for methamphetamine. Testing conducted farther south in Cabo San Lucas and nearby San José del Cabo bore similar results, although there, even weaker painkillers — including pills sold as hydrocodone — also tested positive for fentanyl. Many are nearly indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts.
In total, the Times investigation found that 71% of the 17 pills tested came up positive for more powerful drugs.
A team led by UCLA researchers recorded similar results in a study last week, but this phenomenon has otherwise gone largely unnoticed. The new findings could represent a dangerous shift in the fentanyl crisis.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 2, 2023 10:39:20 GMT -8
The Satanic Temple Strikes. Give 'Em Hell, Satanists!
It’s not clear whether members of the Satanic Temple really worship—or even believe in—Satan or if they’re simply partaking in an elaborate kayfabe designed to one day coax a facial expression out of Mike Pence. Either way, they’re doing some great work.
The temple is known for its cheeky PR campaigns and pro-secular-government initiatives, which include supporting reproductive freedom, advocating for church-state separation, and doing other “Satanic good works.” And if they can piss off Samuel Alito in the process?
The Satanic Temple is opening a health clinic in New Mexico to provide "free religious medication abortion" and will name the facility "The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic" in mockery of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.
TST Health, the new medical services arm of the nontheistic religious organization, will provide telehealth screenings and appointments to provide abortion pills to patients. These services will be provided free of charge as part of The Satanic Temple's "abortion ritual," though patients must still pay for the medications from a pharmacy, which typically cost around $90, according to the TST Health website.
The New Mexico facility will be operated by licensed medical staff and will make its services available to state residents who are at least 17 years old, up to 11 weeks pregnant and medically eligible for an abortion.
Launching Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic in New Mexico is just the first step for TST Health, The Satanic Temple’s religious medical services arm. Plans are already underway to launch clinics in several more states, including those where the religious abortion practice is banned. The clinic's legal protections rest on TST’s central argument in several pending lawsuits: TST members’ participation in the Religious Abortion Ritual is exempt from state and federal restrictions, and bans on an essential part of a religious practice are unconstitutional and a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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