News Clips

nivek

As Above So Below
Texas House votes to allow Texans to carry handguns without a license or training

You may soon need a license to drive and vote in Texas but not carry a handgun in public.

After years of failed attempts by gun advocates, the Texas House on Thursday gave initial approval to a bill that would drop the state's requirement that most handgun owners obtain a $40 license to carry their firearm in public, concealed or openly. Currently, Texans 21 and over with no criminal record can get a license to carry a handgun if they complete a training requirement, don't have a drug addiction, and can "exercise sound judgment with respect the proper use and storage of a handgun," the Austin American-Statesman explains.

The measure would drop the license requirement, though federal background checks would remain in place for most handgun purchases, with exceptions for private and gun show sales. It passed 84-56, mainly along party lines; five Democrats voted in favor, one Republican voted against. The legislation needs another vote in the House, and it faces an uncertain future in the state Senate.

The El Paso delegation led the unsuccessful opposition to the bill, HR 1927. After a gunman murdered 23 people at a Walmart in 2019, followed weeks later by the mass shooting of seven people in Midland Odessa, "there were roundtable discussions and stakeholder meetings and a lot of promises — and I was hopeful, members, even knowing the political realities, I was hopeful," said state Rep. Joe Moody (D). "I'm so tired of doing nothing," he added. "I'm so tired of catering to a very small number of very loud people whose thinking about guns is wrapped up in unfounded fears and bizarre conspiracy theories."

Permitless carry has the support of the Texas Republican Party and the National Rifle Association. It is opposed by law enforcement groups, firearms trainers, and groups of clergy and veterans. At a break in the five-hour debate, a group of gun control advocates prayed and sang "Amazing Grace" in the gallery, before being escorted out by law enforcement.

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nivek

As Above So Below
Border Czar Kamala Harris to discuss plan to pay migrants to plant TREES to stop them coming to US in Zoom meeting with Mexico president in first intervention since Biden gave her job a month ago



Vice President Kamala Harris (pictured yesterday center) will hold a virtual meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (left) on May 7 to discuss migration amid an increase in underage migrants at the U.S. southern border. Mexico's top diplomat revealed the news and said the video meeting will focus on Mexico's questioned tree-planting program. López Obrador is trying to get the United States to help fund a massive expansion of the program (beneficiary pictured top right) into Central America as a way to stem migration.

Officials are scrambling to handle a dramatic spike in children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone (bottom right and inset), which has led to a massive expansion in emergency facilities to house them as more kids arrive than are being released to close relatives in the United States. Despite being tasked with managing the crisis at the southern border 31 days ago, Harris has not yet visited border facilities nor held any significant press conferences on the issue.


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nivek

As Above So Below
Submarine that vanished in Indonesia with 53 crew on board is found

Indonesia's navy on Sunday said all 53 crew members from the missing submarine are dead, and that search teams had located the vessel’s wreckage on the ocean floor, according to reports.

"We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts," military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said on Sunday, four days after the vessel went missing off the resort island of Bali.

"With this authentic evidence, we can declare that KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead," Tjahjanto added.

An underwater robot equipped with cameras documented the lost submarine lying in at least three pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of 2,750 feet, said Adm. Yudo Margono, the navy’s chief of staff.



That’s much deeper than the submarine’s collapse depth of 655 feet, at which point water pressure would be greater than the hull could withstand, according to earlier navy statements.

The cause of the submarine’s sinking remains uncertain. The navy previously said an electrical failure could have left the submarine unable to execute emergency procedures to resurface. Margono said emergency survival suits that are normally kept in boxes were found floating underwater, apparently indicating the crew may have tried to put them on during the emergency.

The wreckage is located 1,500 yards to the south of the site where the submarine last dove off Bali’s northern coast, Margono said.

The underwater robot deployed by Singaporean vessel MV Swift Rescue provided the images of the wreckage, while the Indonesian vessel KRI Rigel had scanned the area where the submarine was believed to have sunk using multibeam sonar and a magnetometer, Tjahjanto said.



The navy plans to eventually lift the wreckage and recover the dead, although the depth of the water poses a significant challenge, Margono said.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo delivered his condolences in a televised address Sunday.

"All Indonesians convey deep sorrow for this tragedy, especially to all of the families of the submarine’s crew. They are the best sons of the nation, patriots guarding the sovereignty of the country," Widodo said.

The German-built diesel-powered KRI Nanggala 402 had been in service in Indonesia since 1981 and was carrying 49 crew members and three gunners as well as its commander, the Indonesian Defense Ministry said.

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nivek

As Above So Below
He has betrayed our country and our allies...

..

Iran's foreign minister says John Kerry told him about Israeli covert operations in Syria

Kerry has previously been accused of colluding with Iranian leaders to undermine Trump administration


Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed in recently leaked audio that John Kerry, when he was serving as Secretary of State during the Obama administration, informed him of more than 200 Israeli operations in Syria.

Kerry has previously been accused of colluding with Iranian leaders to undermine the Trump administration. Kerry is now a part of the Biden administration and has a seat on the National Security Council as the special presidential envoy for climate.

Kerry shocked Zarif by revealing that Israel had attacked Iranian targets in Syria more than 200 times, according to leaked audio obtained by The New York Times and other outlets.

Zarif also spoke frankly about his limited power compared to Ayatollah Ali Khameini and the blow the U.S. dealt to Iran by killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

(More on the link)

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nivek

As Above So Below
PIERS MORGAN: RIP The Oscars - these grim, woke-ravaged, fun-devoid awards were a howlingly dull train-wreck that killed the Hollywood dream stone dead



If there was an Oscar for Worst Horror Story, it would go to whoever decided it would be a good idea to hold this year's event in a train station. Though ironically, that turned out to be the most perfectly appropriate venue for a grim, soulless three-hour ordeal that was the complete opposite of what Hollywood's biggest night is supposed to be about.

The Oscars had one job after the whole world had endured a year of hell with the coronavirus pandemic: make us feel better. Everything about it stank. But nothing quite prepared me for the opening of the show itself, or rather lack of opening. Regina King (left) tripped as she reached the podium and then announced: 'I know a lot of you people at home want to reach for your remote when you feel like Hollywood is preaching to you.' Yes, we do, which is why Oscars' ratings have collapsed in recent years as the woke lectures have increased in both volume and scale of sanctimony.

The Best Picture winner Nomadland grossed just $2.5 million, meaning pretty much nobody watched it. It's a beautifully made film, and Frances McDormand (bottom, right) gives a typically superb performance. But the scene where she literally sh*ts into a bucket could have been a metaphor for its box office popularity. To complete a host of crazy decisions, producers decided to ditch Best Picture from its usual place as the thrilling finale and replace it with Best Actor.

Cynics believed they did this to exploit feverish anticipation that the late Chadwick Boseman had posthumously won the coveted Actor gong which would provide a highly emotional denouement to the show. But in the eventuality, it went to Sir Anthony Hopkins (top, right). The problem was that Hopkins wasn't there and didn't appear by video-link either. It was a comically unexciting conclusion to a mind-numbingly tedious night.


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Toroid

Founding Member
No Burning Man festival again this year because of the pandemic, organizers say.
Burning Man, the annual countercultural arts event that typically draws tens of thousands of people to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, has been canceled again this year because of the pandemic, but will return in 2022, organizers announced on Tuesday.

The decision to forgo building the event’s makeshift temporary metropolis, known as Black Rock City, in late August came after months of deliberations among organizers, who sought feedback from past participants on issues like vaccination requirements and racial diversity. With vaccinations mounting across the nation, expectations were high that the festival, which began in San Francisco in 1986 and moved to the Black Rock Desert in 1990, would resume this year after being called off in 2020.

“But, although here in the United States we may be feeling the weight lifting and the light at the end of the tunnel brightening, we are still in the pandemic, and the uncertainties that need to be resolved are impossible to resolve in the time we have,” organizers said on their website, The Burning Man Journal.

The return of Burning Man — with its towering art installations, all-night dance parties under the stars, and desert-roaming vehicles shaped like Pac Man ghosts and fire-spewing sea creatures — had for many participants become a litmus test in the nation’s collective journey back to some semblance of normalcy.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
'Plain of Jars', one of the most mysterious archaeological sites, reveals its true age | Live Science
The mysterious Plain of Jars in northern Laos — a landscape dotted with massive stone jars hewn from sandstone thousands of years ago — was likely used as a burial site for much longer than previously suspected, and perhaps for up to 2,000 years, according to new research.


The massive jars, which were likely used to expose the dead to the elements until only their bones were left to be buried, could be more than 3,000 years old, new tests suggest.

Photos: Exploring the mysterious Plain of Jars

Shewan and her colleague, Australian National University archaeologist Dougald O'Reilly, have studied the ancient stone jar sites since 2016 alongside archaeologist Thonglith Luangkoth of the Laos Department of Heritage in Vientiane.

Last year was their fourth annual expedition to the site, which came to a close just as travel restrictions were being put in place after the COVID-19 outbreak; some of the research from that expedition was published March 10 in the journal PLOS One.
 

JahaRa

Noble


While watching this I was thinking about the "woke" movement and the new age silliness of "service to self" is bad and "service to others" is good. (often called STS & STO because, young people love acronyms or maybe don't like to type). We have to have balance and I think this video brings up some good points. In order to be free we have to allow others the same freedom, and we also have to acknowledge that there are some things we need help with and some things we can help others with, which does not diminish us, but rather strengthens all of us.

It is funny that my daughter and I were talking about this last night in relation to the vaccines and some people in the family that insist we all must have the vaccine. She and I think a lot alike, some things we deem important are not shared but as far as the way we think and why we do things, we are alike. The older daughter bought that "woke" silliness and we both end up having the same conversations with her about it. It is one thing to care for others (LGBT, Poor, different, etc) but to proclaim that and then to declare that "everyone should..." is contradictory, becomes about emotional knee jerk reactions to the lies and or manipulations from the media and politics.
 

JahaRa

Noble
Scientists Make Microplastics Breakthrough, Devising Method to Trap And Remove Them
Scientists Make Microplastics Breakthrough, Devising Method to Trap And Remove Them

Apr 29, 2021
Microbiologists have found a way to use bacteria to trap microplastics, removing them from the environment and making them easier to recycle.

The new technique, developed by scientists at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, uses bacterial biofilms—a sticky substance created by micro-organisms—to trap microplastic particles. The biofilm is then processed and dispersed, releasing the microplastic particles for processing and recycling.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
While watching this I was thinking about the "woke" movement and the new age silliness of "service to self" is bad and "service to others" is good. (often called STS & STO because, young people love acronyms or maybe don't like to type). We have to have balance and I think this video brings up some good points. In order to be free we have to allow others the same freedom, and we also have to acknowledge that there are some things we need help with and some things we can help others with, which does not diminish us, but rather strengthens all of us.

It is funny that my daughter and I were talking about this last night in relation to the vaccines and some people in the family that insist we all must have the vaccine. She and I think a lot alike, some things we deem important are not shared but as far as the way we think and why we do things, we are alike. The older daughter bought that "woke" silliness and we both end up having the same conversations with her about it. It is one thing to care for others (LGBT, Poor, different, etc) but to proclaim that and then to declare that "everyone should..." is contradictory, becomes about emotional knee jerk reactions to the lies and or manipulations from the media and politics.

When I listened to that video yesterday I also thought about the nonsensical woke liberation movement this country is experiencing, and it seems most people who have drank that kool-aid preach freedom but do not want others to have the freedom to do or say what they will...They only want freedom if it's promoted their way, supporting their goals and supporting their deficiencies...People have to acknowledge that others are going to live their lives as they see fit, not as it fits their agenda and as long as no one is harming others then that is fine...The woke radicals can't stand that though, they don't want others to like things they don't like nor do things they don't like being done, but then that's not freedom if we give in to this narrow and ignorant view of wokeness...

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