Well-known academic and go-to source for U.S. intelligence and military agencies, Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University, insists that nothing bad was happening during the "five centuries of peaceful coexistence" between Muslims and Christians prior to the First Crusade, which was launched by cynical and evil Europeans, forever turning Islam against the West.

Is that true? My answer follows:
https://youtu.be/hgrrMhxAaog

Blaming these fires on "climate change" when there's little to no fire mitigation (clearing brush, trimming undergrowth, managing forests) and allowing millions of acre-feet of water to be washed out to sea are also really dumb ideas. Maybe these dumb ideas are what they mean by "man-made" climate change.

It's hard to ignore the record.

Fire officials say that homeless camp wildfires doubled from 2020 to 2023 to 13,909. There were 24 "homeless related" fires in LA County responded to every day of 2021.

According to NBC 4 in L.A., some of the homeless campfires started from campers illegally hooking up to underground electricity outlets. That's what caused a fire in Hollywood. //

In October 2024, Joe Biden's Administration officially pronounced an end to controlled burns in California for fire mitigation. //

In the Sacramento area, where a homeless camp sparked a 585-acre wildfire in June 2024, local officials were asked to provide homeless campers with firefighting equipment instead of telling the campers to get out. //

FloridaMan
15 hours ago
somebody's battery operated vehicle (there's no such thing as an electric vehicle) exploded... started the whole shebang...?

Changing just 0.001% of inputs to misinformation makes the AI less accurate.

"People stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation.". //

Ants maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze. //

The piano-mover puzzle involves trying to transport an oddly shaped load across a constricted environment with various obstructions. It's one of several variations on classic computational motion-planning problems, a key element in numerous robotics applications. But what would happen if you pitted human beings against ants in a competition to solve the piano-mover puzzle?

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, humans have superior cognitive abilities and, hence, would be expected to outperform the ants. However, depriving people of verbal or nonverbal communication can level the playing field, with ants performing better in some trials. And while ants improved their cognitive performance when acting collectively as a group, the same did not hold true for humans. //

bugabuga Ars Centurion
18y
268
But wouldn't a group of ants "communicate" by default? And "do not communicate" equivalent would mean turning off their sense of scent and otherwise hindered set of ants? The group of humans that does communicate solves problems better, so wisdom of crowds continues to be the expected outcome.

"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!" :). //

fkaOld_one Ars Centurion
4y
322
I don't know who I am said:
How did they get the ants to do it?
Yeah… why would ants want to move a piano? //

Calidore Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
11y
121
EmeraldArcana said:
Humans don’t do a good job communicating through pheromones. Those who’ve tried are often ridiculed.

The Doctor: They could communicate only by precisely modulated gastric emissions.

Emma: Oh no! Planet of the Bottom Burpers! So what happened to them?

The Doctor: They discovered fire. //

Les Pane Smack-Fu Master, in training
9y
95
Aren't humans just better at moving pianos because they're chord-ates?

[I'm so very, very sorry for that. Truly.]

Federal toxicology researchers on Monday finally published a long-controversial analysis that claims to find a link between high levels of fluoride exposure and slightly lower IQs in children living in areas outside the US, mostly in China and India. As expected, it immediately drew yet more controversy.

The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is a meta-analysis, a type of study that combines data from many different studies—in this case, mostly low-quality studies—to come up with new results. None of the data included in the analysis is from the US, and the fluoride levels examined are at least double the level recommended for municipal water in the US. In some places in the world, fluoride is naturally present in water, such as parts of China, and can reach concentrations several-fold higher than fluoridated water in the US. //

The inclusion of urinary fluoride measurements is sure to spark criticism. For years, experts have noted that these measurements are not standardized, can vary by day and time, and are not reflective of a person's overall fluoride exposure.

The agency tasked government labs, research institutions, and commercial companies to come up with better ideas to bring home the roughly 30 sealed sample tubes carried aboard the Perseverance rover. NASA deposited 10 sealed tubes on the surface of Mars a couple of years ago as insurance in case Perseverance dies before the arrival of a retrieval mission.

"We want to have the quickest, cheapest way to get these 30 samples back," Nelson said. //

"It has been more than two years since NASA paused work on MSR," the Planetary Society said. "It is time to commit to a path forward to ensure the return of the samples already being collected by the Perseverance rover.

"We urge the incoming Trump administration to expedite a decision on a path forward for this ambitious project, and for Congress to provide the funding necessary to ensure the return of these priceless samples from the Martian surface."
China says it is developing its own mission to bring Mars rocks back to Earth. Named Tianwen-3, the mission could launch as soon as 2028 and return samples to Earth by 2031. While NASA's plan would bring back carefully curated samples from an expansive environment that may have once harbored life, China's mission will scoop up rocks and soil near its landing site.

"They’re just going to have a mission to grab and go—go to a landing site of their choosing, grab a sample and go," Nelson said. "That does not give you a comprehensive look for the scientific community. So you cannot compare the two missions. Now, will people say that there’s a race? Of course, people will say that, but it’s two totally different missions."

Still, Nelson said he wants NASA to be first. He said he has not had detailed conversations with Trump's NASA transition team.

Brandon Morse @TheBrandonMorse
·
That time Chris Farley, impersonating Newt Gingrich, came to congress to swear Gingrich in as the Speaker of the House.

What a great time in entertainment/politics when we could all laugh together.

3:53 PM · Jan 8, 2025

Salon published an essay that compared the MAGA movement to ISIS. Their reasoning: men are drawn to both groups because of...toxic masculinity. The essay compared “so-called incels who commit mass shootings” to “Trump fans who attack government buildings” and “terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda." The comparison went on to conclude that "toxic masculinity" was responsible for the radicalization of members of both groups. By the way, gold star for the mental gymnastics required to get that January 6 reference in there. //

🇺🇸 2A Patriot 🇺🇸 🔫Gettr & Truth @RightSideRon
@RightSideRonUSA
·
Follow
Masculinity isn’t toxic. The absence thereof is toxic.
Weak men are abusive and spiteful.
Strong men are protective and loving.
Make masculinity great again.
2:51 PM · Jan 3, 2025

The question is, with billions of gallons dropping out of the sky, where does all that water go? Shouldn’t this be enough to end the drought and leave us with oodles of H2O?

Turns out, the answer lies in bad planning, wasted resources and bureaucratic entanglements. Why do I say that? Because most of this water will fly down the LA River and into the ocean, an ephemeral visitor that we fail to capture or effectively utilize. In effect, God is giving us the very answer to one of California’s most vexing problems—and we’re simply letting it slip through our hands. //

Voters in 2018 approved Measure W, which is aimed at improving L.A.’s aging stormwater capture system. Officials are making progress, but experts say there’s a long way to go. Of an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion gallons pouring into the Los Angeles Basin from current storms, only about 20% will be captured by the county. //

Hoi Polloi Boy
7 hours ago
The California State Water Project, as envisioned by Dem Governor Pat Brown back in 60s when dems were still rational, is only 50% built 60 yrs later.
Meanwhile the population has doubled and water is released from major reservoirs to the sea to save the Delta Smelt.

You can't make this stuff up.

The State of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging a violation of a congressional directive mandating the development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) Coastal Plain.

Known as the Section 1002 Area, the 1.5 million-acre stretch of Alaska’s northern coast was designated by Congress in 1980 for potential energy development.

In 2017, Congress explicitly directed federal agencies to open the area for oil and gas leasing.

But a December, 2024 decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management significantly curtailed this directive.

Nylon is one of the oldest and most commonly used thermoplastics but there still seems to be a lot of confusion about properly drying nylon and in general about how nylon is affected by moisture. //

You could use a nylon 12 which does not absorb as much moisture but Nylon 12 is really expensive.

The first form calculates the pressure or friction loss along a given length of pipeline with a specified inside diameter. The second form calculates the minimum pipe size to limit pressure loss to a specified value.

Additional friction pressure losses occur due to fittings. These losses in-effect add extra additional length to the total pipeline. Use this calculator to estimate how much additional length needs to be added to the overall pipe length below in order to estimate these additional losses. Learn more about the units used on this page.

the soon-to-be-former President Biden claimed that had he stayed in the race, he would have won the 2024 presidential election. That, folks, is denial that's measurable on the Richter scale. //

Steprock
21 minutes ago
I agree, Ward. But do you know how we know for a FACT that he would have lost?

Because he did lose! He was weighed and measured by his own party and thrown out. That was the race to the starting line and he didn't make it.

He lost before it started just like Harris lost to Tulsi. It's not wishful thinking; it's denying what actually happened.

He dropped out. He lost. That's the contest. That's the conclusion. No need to deal in hypotheticals.

Kindle
Your Notes and Highlights

Close to a couple of decades ago (ouch), when I was an active sports blogger, I wrote a list of online rules for myself, which I dubbed the four tenets of the blogging evangel. This was back when blogs and bloggers reigned supreme. Social media has long usurped their place, emphasizing quick quips and clips designed to gather maximum clicks. However, the basic principles remain relevant.

1. The ability to broadcast an opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion.
2. Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account.
3. Answer your email every time all of the time.
4. Never become what you profess to oppose. Never.
   Indulge me while I break these down a bit.

That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What's interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.

Did you hear that scraping sound? That's the sound of goalposts being moved. //

anon-gkyt
25 minutes ago
Hey, Durbin. What part of Commander-in-Chief don’t you get?? As for use of the military domestically, General Winfield Scott, the senior army commander, stated in 1861 a self-evident fact. The military is to deal with threats foreign and domestic. Ever heard of Lincoln using the US military domestically? If that was not “domestic”, the invasion of the Confederacy was simply an act of aggression by the US government.

Though the reactions from various fact-checking groups were pretty predictable, it was the one from CNN media hall monitor Brian Stelter that was perhaps most revealing of all:

Big picture: Mark Zuckerberg just announced sweeping changes to the social internet, all in line with the desires of President Trump and Trump voters.

Out with the fact-checkers that conservatives deride. In with more permissive rules for posting conservative opinions.

I mean, how absolutely horrifying, right? The free flow of conservative opinions on social media as opposed to the lopsided political biases from "fact checkers' we've seen for years on these platforms and which almost universally impact conservatives the hardest is apparently too bitter a pill for the pro-censorship Stelter to swallow: //

Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC
·
CNN is currently in court in Florida in a defamation case, had to settle with Nicholas Sandmann for defaming him, was the leading purveyor of the Russia collusion hoax, and hired the reporter who peddled the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinfo. https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1876666450208825470
Brian Stelter @brianstelter
Meta's framing – in its PR blog post – is "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes." An alternate title could be "More Lies and More Confusion." https://cnn.com/2025/01/07/media/mark-zuckerberg-meta-fact-checking-analysis/index.html
11:56 AM · Jan 7, 2025

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
Follow
The “experts” were left “head-scratching”after Trump suggested to clean up brush and build more infrastructure to store water.

They were perplexed by the most obvious solution imaginable.

Amazing.
9:11 AM · Jan 8, 2025. //

Trump’s suggestions have prompted head-scratching from experts who say his prescriptions — more raking, less water released into the ocean for environmental purposes — suggest he does not understand the science of wildfires. Critics also point out that most of California’s wildlands are federally managed. //

The 2024 budget also included increased funding for forest management and wildfire prevention. The state also has the largest aerial firefighting force in the world. Further, it should be noted that much of the land that burns in California and then spreads to populated areas is federally owned and maintained.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden's Forestry Service canceled all of its controlled burns last Fall out of worry the agency (and by virtue, the White House) would be blamed if anything went wrong. Yes, the federal government valued protecting itself from scrutiny over the lives and livelihoods of California residents. I'd say that's surprising, but it's not surprising at all.

One of the larger issues that does fall on the shoulders of California's leadership is water management. While rainy winters have helped mostly fill the existing reservoirs over the last several years, the lack of capacity has still led to valuable water flowing into the ocean. California has not built a new reservoir since 1979 despite suffering numerous droughts and wildfires over the years. That isn't lost on voters in the state, who passed Proposition 4 in November, which allocated significant funds to increase capacity that is sorely lacking. Whether that will be followed through on is anyone's guess. //

Trump attempted to change federal government policy to increase water diversions into existing reservoirs as a measure to fight wildfires. He was sued by the State of California and a series of environmental groups. They won an injunction in 2020, stopping his plans to provide more desperately needed water.

So then we have Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. These two have actively campaigned, promoted, and paved the way for legislation that makes/keeps abortion a legal procedure. But if you're a faithful and practicing Catholic, you don't believe this is morally correct. In fact, you believe it is morally wrong. There are groups like Catholics for Choice who think abortions are ok, but they're really just support groups for people who feel guilty and need others in the pen with them to make them feel less guilty. These people are nominal Catholics who reject one of the core teachings of the Church, and so they should just go join another outfit more aligned with their views. //

What disturbs me, though, is that we have two people who wave their Catholicism in our faces, and yet they still support the act of abortion. This makes them nominal Catholics who use their faith to further their own political careers...in my opinion. And this is bad. //

Biden and Pelosi, though, are a lot worse than these people because they use their positions as legislators to further what their Church calls a moral evil, all the while claiming and touting their Catholicism. How do they square that circle? Well, they simply tell us that while they don't personally believe in abortion, as lawmakers, they cannot force their religious views on their constituents who want abortion to be legal. How virtuous of them. And they promote abortions to make the voters happy so that they won't get kicked out of power by them. This is also known as "Selling Your Soul." You surrender your values on morality to serve another diametrically opposed to your own. //

There's no room to thread the needle here for a practicing Catholic. And what we have in Biden and Pelosi are two individuals who have been, unfortunately, temporally successful in doing just that. And now, each with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, I wonder what goes through their minds. Pelosi is probably thinking that she'll change God's mind by hook, crook, or bribery. And Biden? Well, he's going to visit the pope shortly. Maybe he'll be looking for absolution from Francis.

A Florida grand jury investigation ordered by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis reveals a "pattern of deceptive and obfuscatory behavior" by pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of Florida's 22nd Statewide Grand Jury and their forward-looking recommendations highlight concerns about vaccine safety data, the effectiveness of lockdown measures, and captured regulatory oversight. //

The grand jury's report delivered a stark assessment of pandemic policies, stating:

"This wasn't an 'information' problem, it was a 'judgment' problem."

They found that solid scientific research about handling pandemics existed before COVID-19 but was largely dismissed by public health officials and media outlets. //

On the issue of masking, the grand jury was unequivocal:

"We have never had sound evidence of their effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 transmission."

Instead of acknowledging this, federal agencies promoted what the report calls "flawed observational and laboratory studies." //

DeSantis wrote:

"The Grand Jury has made a number of recommendations that should be followed. The status quo cannot continue. The American people deserve transparency on how Big Pharma is using their federal tax dollars, and they deserve regulating entities that operate as watchdogs, not cheerleaders."

In their conclusion, the Grand Jury wrote:

"Somehow, because of panic, hubris, ineptitude or some unfortunate combination of the three, this widely rejected idea not only made its way back into scientific discourse in 2020, it became the law of the land in most of the United States between 2020 and 2022. It is clear to this Grand Jury that whatever benefits inured from these mandates, they were not worth the price." //

anon-78cb
an hour ago
Not only did the government become unpaid advertisers for the covid shots, they also made claims that would have been illegal for the drug companies themselves to make. The drug companies cannot make unproven claims in their advertising, but the government sure as hell did. Remember the PSAs claiming that the shots would prevent transmission? All lies. The drug companies couldn't go that far in their advertising, but they didn't need to because the government did it for them.