Interesting News, Articles & Stuff

[florduh]

Now, I'm no big city robotics expert. But why does the car robot have claws?

Tesla Robot Attacked Engineer With Its Claws: Report

A 2021 injury report paints a grim scene of man vs. machine.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[cybrguy]

Israel is not the problem. Netanyahu is...

Post Article

This is important. If you respect my judgment from previous posts, please do me a solid by listening to this. This could be USA next. Terrifying happenings #WorldPolitics #government #politics

post.news

 

[Farid]

Netanyahu didn't create the Dahiya doctrine. He didn't create the Hannibal directive. He's an ugly face on a set of heinous policies that have been created by a military elite that have a wide range of political beliefs - including some that are quite egalitarian.

 

[Abele Rizieri Ferrari]

There isn't and won't be any peace settlement that both sides can live with. If it doesn't end with Russia losing the war and returning all of Ukraine's territory to Ukraine then Russia wins and Russia cannot win. If Russia wins, Moldova or Latvia or Poland will be next...

Do you mean it's impossible for Russia to annex part of Ukraine and be done with it? Why?

Poland and Latvia are NATO, attacking one member states equals attacking all of them. Highly doubt Russia is up for such a conflict.

 

[Piecho]

Summary of current work around using sugar fermentation for cannabiods production. Yes, totally bypassing growing phase - Fermentation | Free Full-Text | Converting Sugars into Cannabinoids—The State-of-the-Art of Heterologous Production in Microorganisms (mdpi.com)

 

[Radwin Bodnic]

Summary of current work around using sugar fermentation for cannabiods production. Yes, totally bypassing growing phase - Fermentation | Free Full-Text | Converting Sugars into Cannabinoids—The State-of-the-Art of Heterologous Production in Microorganisms (mdpi.com)

And also totally bypassing minor cannabinoids, terpenoids, VSCs...
Nothing beats the full spectrum, taste and effects wise.

 

[florduh]

Let's check in on the "moderate" and "smart" Republican candidate for the Presidency

This wasn't a gotchya question from a journalist. It was from a voter at a town hall. And it was an easy fucking question. In a sane country, her political career would be over.

Pretty illuminating answer though. Seems that the moderate Republican candidate believes the Civil War was just big gubernment telling hard "working" small business owners they couldn't own slaves.

 

[florduh]

This is a pattern with Haley. From 10 years ago:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1740209865577136598

Here's the thing. I almost feel bad for her. Haley knows the cause of the Civil War was slavery. Because she graduated the 8th grade. She just knows mentioning that slavery was bad will hurt her with Republican voters.

This is the problem Republican politicians have. To be nominated in that party, you have to pretend to believe insane shit to make 30% of the country happy. But doing so makes you look disgusting to the other 70%.

 

[vapviking]

Haley knows the cause of the Civil War was slavery. Because she graduated the 8th grade.

Maybe not, she's from Soth Carolina!

 

[Farid]

Any half intelligent candidate in her shoes would just play up the fact that Lincoln was a Republican.

Haley is too dumb to see that easy rhetorical win. It's a silly statement because the parties have changed so drastically over the years, but at least it can appease the base without alienating anyone. It's politics 101.

 

[florduh]

but at least it can appease the base without alienating anyone.

Saying slavery was bad or the Confederacy were the bad guys in the Civil War alienates white supremacists and you can't win a nomination in the modern Republican Party without them.

Another politician might be able to come up with an artful answer invoking Lincoln. But she's a woman whose birth name is Nimarata Randhawa. That's a tough role of the dice in the Republican Party. So she has to virtue signal a bit to racists.

 

[macbill]

Does pet ownership reduce your risk of cognitive decline as you age?

The study, involving nearly 8,000 people in the U.K., found older adults living alone benefited from having pets

www.deseret.com

 

[Piecho]

And also totally bypassing minor cannabinoids, terpenoids, VSCs...
Nothing beats the full spectrum, taste and effects wise.

Just the first steps in the interesting direction IMO. They do raise this as one of the next steps for potential improvement.
Would be happy to buy modified yeast someday and ferment sugar into THC, as I used to do with the grapes and vine ; p

 

[Bologna]

Yet another reason to LOVE Maine, as if I need more.... so glad I'm getting paid to live up here for the time being (5 days a week, and on route 1, too, @vapviking!) :

Maine disqualifies Trump from presidential primary ballot, citing insurrection clause

Move comes days after Colorado supreme court removes Trump from state primary ballot for same reason

www.theguardian.com

 

[cybrguy]

And let's not forget this year's Golden Duke Awards. This is TPM 's 15th year. Congratulations to all the winners.

Announcement: We Have Our 2023 Golden Duke Winners

We'll be honest, we thought George Santos was a shoo-in this year. And while you will in fact find him here among the list of honorees (we gave him his own category, after all) we've got plenty of…

talkingpointsmemo.com

 

[florduh]

Yet another reason to LOVE Maine, as if I need more.... so glad I'm getting paid to live up here for the time being (5 days a week, and on route 1, too, @vapviking!) :

Maine disqualifies Trump from presidential primary ballot, citing insurrection clause

Move comes days after Colorado supreme court removes Trump from state primary ballot for same reason

www.theguardian.com

The 14th Amendment seems pretty lenient. It just prevents insurrectionists from holding office again. This guy had other ideas:

Really fun little treat for the 14th Amendment and Civil War revisionism to be in the news this holiday season. Great opportunity to yet again dab on NeoConfederate losers.

 

[Bologna]

The 14th Amendment seems pretty lenient. It just prevents insurrectionists from holding office again. This guy had other ideas:

Yeah, I agree with the general... like I've said before, the whole family should've been "Mussolini'd" on January 7th. Then let's see the next reality tv show host/president try that...

 

[florduh]

Yeah, I agree with the general... like I've said before, the whole family should've been "Mussolini'd" on January 7th. Then let's see the next reality tv show host/president try that...

Well, I firmly believe that at least 90% of America's problems in 2023 all stem from how we treated the original insurrectionists in the aftermath of their failed rebellion. Too kindly.

At the very least, every slave owner should've been stripped of their money and lands. All of that should've been given to the people who toiled that land for centuries without pay.

The problem was, Lincoln selected a Tennessee Demonrat as his VP. He totally fumbled the bag on Reconstruction. It didn't need to be this way. Lincoln considered picking this dude:

Benjamin Butler. A Radical Republican who fucking hated Confederates and slavery. When he was the occupying general of New Orleans the population called him "The Beast of New Orleans". Because he ruled that den of traitors with an iron fist.

This is an hour long, but it's an easy listen. I went to high school in The Land of Lincoln and was unaware of this history. It's worth learning about. Because the insanity of today's politics all goes back to Andrew Johnson being in charge of Reconstruction instead of The Beast.

 

[Cheebsy]

Donald Trump says he did not 'bully' his way into Home Alone 2 cameo and says he is behind film's success

Matt Damon said in 2017 that Trump often made a cameo appearance in films a condition of allowing productions to use his buildings - but that the scenes were regularly left on the cutting room floor.

news.sky.com

 

[vapviking]

This is disgusting.
Police are not here to help anyone (anymore). They are here to get to their overtime pay and pension by defending themselves against anything that moves.
This guy entered the house with a Taser in one hand and a gun in the other, fired the gun in less than 3 seconds.

Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows

Body camera reveals Los Angeles deputy fired at woman who sought help for domestic violence as nine-year-old daughter watched

www.theguardian.com

In other Criminal Justice news,

AND, it seems if you are into crime, you got pretty good odds for getting away with it.
Murder is literally a coin toss, near 50/50 chance of getting away with it.
Other crimes have even better odds for the criminal!
Nice graph about it here,

Clearance rate - crime by type in the U.S. 2022 | Statista

In 2022, murder and manslaughter charges had the highest crime clearance rate in the United States, with 52.3 percent of all cases being cleared by arrest or so-called exceptional means.

www.statista.com

 

[florduh]

Police are not here to help anyone (anymore).

When were cops ever here to help anyone but the rich? Modern police in America were developed in the 19th century for two purposes: catching runaway slaves. And doing violence to striking workers.

The Railroad Strike of 1877 and the birth of modern policing

To abolish the police we need to understand their modern formation and long history of being used for class repression.

roarmag.org

Another aspect of history we forget: you don't have weekends because bosses decided to be nice. You have a weekend because workers got into live firefights with cops and Pinkertons.

Labor Wars in the U.S. | American Experience | PBS

As the pace of industrialization quickened, and profits accumulated in the hands of a few, some workers began to organize and advocate for unionization. The workers wanted more safety regulations, better wages, fewer hours, and freedom of speech and assembly.

www.pbs.org

AND, it seems if you are into crime, you got pretty good odds for getting away with it.

Yeah that's the thing. Lots of bitching about crime. But cops aren't there to reduce crime. Their job is to catch perpetrators of crime after the fact. And they're not even good at that.

You reduce crime by improving living conditions.

 

[vapviking]

The last lighthouse keeper in the US, retiring from her job at the oldest lighthouse in the US.

Last US lighthouse keeper steps down from role at Boston Light Beacon

Sally Snowman waxed philosophical about her 20 years tending the lighthouse on Little Brewster Island in Massachusetts

www.theguardian.com

 

[cybrguy]

Can somebody tell me what the FUCK is wrong with these people?

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article274244525.html

MO Republican pushing trans care ban suggests 12-year-olds should be allowed to marry

 

[Radwin Bodnic]

Can somebody tell me what the FUCK is wrong with these people?

Institutionalized pedo-criminality.
(And institutionalized incest as well, but that's another story).

The whole world is facing this societal issue. One of the most famous French actors, Gerard Depardieu, sexualized a 12 years old girl in front of TV cameras, in the meantime he is facing his third official sexual assault complaint, yet the French president is fully defending him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/movies/gerard-depardieu-emmanuel-macron-sexual-assault.html

 

[florduh]

Mr. "Free Speech Absolutist" is in trouble with the NLRB again.

SpaceX accused of illegally firing employees who criticized Elon Musk

The NLRB claims SpaceX “interrogated” participating employees.

www.theverge.com

At least 84 killed in blasts at memorial for top Iranian general Soleimani

Gen. Qassem Soleimani's death in a U.S. drone strike in January 2020 had sparked angry protests in Iran and across the region.

www.nbcnews.com

Over the holidays I had to hear from some of my dumbest relatives about how Trump is a peace candidate because "he didn't get us into any new wars".

I had to point out....it ain't for lack of trying! This gets memoryholed, but Trump assassinated Iranian General Soleimani in January 2020. Literally the only reason we weren't fighting a new bloody war at the same time we were dealing with COVID was that the Iranian Regime showed more restraint than the Trump Regime.

"But Soleimani was a TERRORIST". I got news for you. Billions of people around the world think every American General is a "terrorist". I can promise that if another country assassinated an American General and bragged about it, we'd immediately be at war with that country.