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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:06:49 GMT -8
If you are being chased by a pack of taxidermists, do not play dead.
Those Damned Astonauts Are Littering!
Mysterious lights were seen in the sky over Sacramento, California. Obsolete equipment discarded by the International Space Station in 2020 re-entered the Earth's atmosphere causing the space junk to be seen burning over Northern California.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 200 pieces of space junk re-enter the atmosphere every year, though the majority fall into the ocean unseen.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:08:56 GMT -8
Tomorrow's Not Only the Sweet 16. It's the Start of Ramadan.
Following the announcement by authorities in Saudi Arabia and countries across the Middle East, the holy month of Ramadan will start on Thursday, March 23.
There are about 1.9 billion Muslims around the world, approximately 25 percent of the world population. Indonesia has the world’s highest Muslim population, with some 230 million Muslims living in the country. Pakistan is second with about 212 million Muslims, followed by India (200 million), Bangladesh (150 million), and Nigeria (100 million).
Many Muslims around the world will prepare for a month of fasting and the festivities that come with it. During the month, observing Muslims wake up before sunrise to have a pre-fasting meal, or suhoor, and break their fast at sunset with iftar.
Muslims believe that Ramadan is the month when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago.
Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with the Muslim declaration of faith, daily prayers, charity, and performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca if physically and financially capable.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:10:15 GMT -8
Check Your Eyedrops.
Three people have died, and four others have had their eyeballs removed because of rare bacterial infections linked to contaminated eyedrops, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.
The agency has identified 68 patients in 16 states with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of bacterium resistant to most antibiotics. Eight patients have lost vision in at least one of their eyes. Some have had to undergo corneal transplants.
Most said they had used a variety of eyedrops before becoming ill, but EzriCare Artificial Tears was most commonly reported. Those drops have since been recalled, along with Delsam Pharma's Artificial Tears and its Artificial Eye Ointment.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria are commonly found in water and soil and on the hands of otherwise healthy people. Infections usually occur in hospital settings among people with weakened immune systems. As many as 37 patients were linked to four health care facility outbreaks, the CDC reported.
This particular drug-resistant strain of the bacteria had never been seen in the United States before this outbreak, the agency said.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:13:23 GMT -8
The Russian Seem to Really Believe they Are Fighting Nazis. They're Gonna' Party Like It's 1945.
Russia is trying to fill the gap—with T-54 and T-55 tanks that started rolling off the lines in 1946
These are old tanks, in old configurations, with old guns, old armor, old turrets, and presumably old equipment.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:18:28 GMT -8
After All, He is a White Man
Trump has reportedly told friends and associates he thinks the media circus surrounding the Stormy Daniels hush money case will be a “fun experience,” and that he is hoping law enforcement officials make a “circus” of his arrest for the cameras—something they are very unlikely to do. In all likelihood, it’ll be a private affair, by arrangement between New York court officials and the Secret Service.
Being Arrested Usually Isn't Fun For a Black Person
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:20:30 GMT -8
It Won't Win Him One Single Vote!
The widely expected indictment of Donald Trump in Manhattan has all the makings of a political disaster for him. It should be the climactic event in a yearslong saga involving marital infidelity, sleazy financial dealings and now the first-ever criminal charge against a former American president.
Naturally, the question arises: Could this actually be good for Trump?
At another point in his political life, perhaps Trump might have turned this case into rich fodder for a comeback.
Not now. For all his unusual strengths, Trump is defined these days more by his weaknesses — personal and political deficiencies that have grown with time and now figure to undermine any attempt to exploit the criminal case against him.
Chris Christie Is the Voice of Reason?
‘An indictment would help Trump!’ is wholly premature
In all this, I did not expect the voice of sanity come from former New Jersey Republican governor and occasional Trump ally Chris Christie. “What else do you expect Trump to say ... than to say it helps his campaign,” he said on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday. “But, being indicted I don’t think ever helps anybody.” This view should be taken seriously, coming from a former prosecutor and longtime observer of Trump’s psyche.
Unfortunately, the media seems almost entirely credulous in airing the exact view Trump wants pushed — as happened too often in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. That raises the possibility of a self-fulfilling impact in the near term. His poll numbers might spike, but that says little about his ability to navigate through a primary season under the shadow of a criminal case, and possibly civil or criminal charges stemming from other current investigations. There’s no shortage of Trump-related legal matters that merit sober analysis.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:22:24 GMT -8
The Political Death of Gov. DeathSentence?
Reading Too Much Into Polls This Early is an Excercise for Fools and Political Pundits ... Is There a DIfference Between the Two?
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:26:03 GMT -8
So Many Investigations!
First, there is the investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Second, there is DOJ’s investigation of the effort to stymie the transfer of power following the 2020 election, including the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Both of the first two investigations are now led by Jack Smith.
Third is the investigation—led by Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia—into election fraud in that state, arising from Trump’s having asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to hand him an Electoral College win there.
Fourth is the set of investigations (some criminal, some civil) into Trump’s various corporate enterprises. The attorney general of New York state, Letitia James, and the district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, have each been leading probes.
Fifth is the long-running investigation Bragg is leading into the alleged campaign hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
But as it turns out, there’s a sixth—this one involves both DOJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it implicates conduct since Trump left office and after he was expelled from Twitter and launched his own social media platform, Truth Social.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:30:49 GMT -8
4.3 Degrees Celcius? Yikes!
Exponential 'methane wetland feedback' is occurring faster than the worst-case scenarios. A new study has found methane emissions from natural wetlands this century have outpaced the grimmest worst-case scenarios possible. The RCP 8.5 scenario ( Representative Concentration Pathway ) will deliver a 4.3-celsius increase in the world's average temperature rise by 2100. The system is based on carbon concentration in the atmosphere that will provide 8.5 watts of energy to global warming per square meter across the planet. The study in Nature Climate Change used a wetland model that found intensified methane release from 2000 to 2021. With 2020 and 2021 exponential growth with the powerful short-lived (10-20 years) greenhouse gas CH4 has a global warming potential 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which lasts in the atmosphere for centuries. Wetlands have always been a carbon sink, but no more. Our natural ally has become a carbon source and portends disastrous consequences in the fight against global warming. However, 40% of methane emissions are from natural sources. Waterlogged soils called wetlands, which are inundated with water for at least part of the year, are the world’s largest natural source of methane emissions. Wetlands take many different forms, ranging from Arctic permafrost peatlands to tropical mangrove plantations to salt marshes. Around 40% of all species live or breed in wetlands. They also provide key ecosystem services, such as water filtration and are important carbon sinks. As such, wetland restoration is often discussed as an important climate mitigation option. However, wetlands also release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The new study explores how climate change is affecting methane emissions in two key types of wetlands – permafrost wetlands and tropical wetlands. Found in cold temperatures at high latitudes, permafrost wetlands consist of partially frozen and waterlogged soils. As the climate warms and the permafrost thaws, long-dormant microbes are starting to “wake up” and release methane into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, tropical wetlands which are typically found in hot and humid climates. As the changing climate causes shifts in rainfall patterns, new soils are becoming waterlogged and these wetlands are expanding, the paper says. Overall, this means that global warming is driving greater wetland methane emissions. This process is called the “wetland methane feedback”. Recent intensification of wetland methane feedback
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Post by gainsborough on Mar 22, 2023 9:32:38 GMT -8
The indictment of Donald Trump merely burnishes his brand. He is shameless, and revels in his indiscretions, even when they become public.
But I think the American public is finally getting tired of his act, and now he's beginning to lose his mojo. I expect his behavior will become increasing erratic as he desperately tries to hang onto the spotlight.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:33:25 GMT -8
This Putin Critic Didn't Fall Off a Tall Building
It’s entirely possible that Dima Nova, the pop star whose song “Aqua Disco” about Vladimir Putin’s palace became an anthem of Russian anti-war protests, died in a tragic accident.
Dmitry Svirgunov, known as Dima Nova, is reported to have fallen through the ice on the Volga River along with friends.
Could have been an accident
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:36:05 GMT -8
No Sheet, Sherlock!
No aspect of the cryptocurrency industry escaped criticism in a scathing report from the White House this week.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers delivered a 35-page takedown of the idea that digital assets like Bitcoin are useful as an alternative to government-backed currency, the claim that crypto’s underlying distributed ledger technology could have some utopian application, and the notion that it could serve as a hedge against inflation.
“Although the underlying technologies are a clever solution for the problem of how to execute transactions without a trusted authority, crypto assets currently do not offer widespread economic benefits,” the council writes. “They are largely speculative investment vehicles and are not an effective alternative to fiat currency. Also, they are too risky at present to function as payment instruments or to expand financial inclusion.”
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:39:17 GMT -8
That's $50 for Every Man, Woman, and Child in the US
The University of Phoenix has continued to receive more GI Bill funding than any other institution of higher learning, despite its history of government scrutiny for misleading military veterans.
The Veterans Affairs Department sent the for-profit school $1.6 billion in GI Bill funds from 2013 to 2021 for students who enrolled in online and in-person classes. The GI Bill is intended to help veterans get a college education, but it’s also an attractive form of revenue for colleges.
Of the top 10 recipients of GI Bill funding, seven are for-profit colleges while two are private colleges, and just one is a public institution, based on a review of federal data that independent researcher Brett Herda shared exclusively with USA TODAY.
Carrie Wofford, president of the advocacy group Veterans Education Success, is not surprised. For years her group has tracked schools that aggressively enroll veterans, checking to see whether they are delivering quality education.
“These large for-profit college chains have massive recruiting efforts focused on veterans,” Wofford said. “They hire lots of salesmen and hold lots of events on military bases in order to target the GI Bill money which these companies call a ‘gravy train,’ as one whistleblower told the Senate."
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:41:24 GMT -8
This is a Cold, Cold Case
Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven's death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him.
They weren't able to crack the case of the German composer's deafness or severe stomach ailments. But they did find a genetic risk for liver disease, plus a liver-damaging hepatitis B infection in the last months of his life.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 22, 2023 9:43:19 GMT -8
They Should Have Gone to Waffle House
Two prisoners in Virginia managed to escape their cell by digging a hole through a wall with the aid of a toothbrush but were apprehended within a few hours after being tempted to visit a pancake restaurant.
In a statement, the Newport News sheriff’s office said two inmates were found to be missing during a routine head count around 7pm on Monday at the Newport News Jail Annex.
It was discovered that John Garza, 37, and Arley Nemo, 43, had dug a hole through a jail wall using “primitive-made tools” fashioned from a toothbrush and metal objects.
They then scaled a high prison wall and made good their escape.
However, the two men were quickly found after being spotted by members of the public at an Ihop, a branch of the popular pancake chain whose name is short for International House of Pancakes.
“I’m thankful for the citizens who observed Garza and Nemo at the Ihop and notified law enforcement,” said the Newport News sheriff, Gabe Morgan.
“It reinforces what we always say: ‘See something, say something.’”
Garza was in custody on charges including contempt of court, probation violations and failure to appear.
Nemo was being held on charges including credit card fraud, credit card larceny, forgery, possession of burglary tools, grand larceny, contempt of court and probation violation, the sheriff’s office said.
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