The thing about history proving that communism is evil and undeniably cruel is something these people tend to willfully overlook. You can't miss it. It's pretty in your face, but these people always brush it off as having never been "real communism" or "real socialism." What they don't understand is that we as a species are not compatible with that kind of economic and governmental system, but that's another article.

But what history also proves is that people like this guy above are usually the first to be in mortal danger when these systems seize power.

Ex-KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov mentioned this in his warning about the steps communism takes to bring down a system, and at the end, he warned that the people who fought the hardest to bring the system down — who advocated for it and did everything required to bring these overreaching systems to power — are usually the first ones lined up against a wall and shot.

https://rumble.com/v2tsncy-the-four-steps-of-a-communist-takeover.html. //

It's because totalitarian governments don't really like ideologues, they want obedience. The people demanding "justice" and "equality" don't really fit in with communism, a system historically incapable of both. True believers — or the people who consider themselves the true ideological representatives — never stop advocating for a system that can never exist, and the last thing despots want is for the complaints and advocacy that collapsed the previous system collapsing this one too.

So it's people just like the they/them above who are the first to the wall to be silenced permanently. Their nature of being unpleasable, and perpetually the victim, has no use and only creates complication. Better to get rid of them then have to deal with them. Moreover, they become a great example of how crossing the regime won't be tolerated in any capacity.

But that's why they call them "useful idiots." They're easily lied to, easily manipulated, and they deploy themselves willingly against a system they've been brainwashed into believing is evil on behalf of a system they've been told will "work this time."

But the result will be the same as it always was if they should succeed. They will bring about the end of the system, then the new system will bring about their end. No longer useful, but still an idiot.

"People are out there taking photos of the names and their faces and posting them online with death threats to their family and to themselves," Lyons emphasized, explaining just one incident in Los Angeles where officers were doxxed after an operation. He was upset that they would be put in that position.

"So I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don't like what immigration enforcement is."

He wanted to know why the media was asking about masks, and not about the threats to the ICE officers and their families.

"Is that the issue here, or is anyone upset with the fact that ICE officers' families were labeled as terrorists?" he declared with great emotion.

Unfortunately for the NAACP, the supply of actual racism in America does not meet the demand. And while they are busy accusing Elon Musk of racism, environmental or otherwise, they are conveniently forgetting some facts. Musk's xAI facility is a roughly $12 billion investment in the city. It is believed that investment will create thousands of jobs in tech, engineering, construction, and other fields. You would think the NAACP would champion those high-paying jobs in a nearby black community. But sadly, for the very community the NAACP claims to care about, the race industry may be more profitable.

The targets were:

Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk Region
Belaya Air Base in the Irkutsk Region
Ivanovo Air Base in the Ivanovo Region
Dyagilevo Air Base in the Ryazan Region
Severomorsk (Main Administrative Base of the Russian Northern Fleet) in the Murmansk Region //

The airbases are the home to Russia's fleet of Tu-22, Tu-95M, and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers as well as AS-50 battle management aircraft. They were located from the Siberian Far East to the Arctic Circle. The furthest target, Belaya Airbase in Irkutsk, is over 2700 miles from Ukraine.

Reports indicate that at least 41 aircraft were hit. The unofficial tally indicates 24 Tu-22, 8 Tu-95MS, and 5 Tu-16 were hit. MiG-31 fighters and Il-76 transports were also hit. To put this in context, open-source data says Russia's bomber inventory is about 58 Tu-22, 47 Tu-95MS, and 15 Tu-160. These planes are the ones used to launch most of the missiles fired at Ukrainian cities. //

When you consider the operational readiness rate, Russia probably has less than 50 aircraft capable of flying...on the bright side, they have plenty of aircraft to cannibalize for parts. The Tu-22 and Tu-95MS production lines are closed, and the Tu-160 production is one, yes, one per year. For all intents and purposes, this represents a permanent decrease in the size of the Russian strategic bomber fleet.

How did this come to be? The special forces operated by Ukraine's intelligence directorate, the SBU, used semi-trucks hauling trailers that were drone launch pods. //

This was a fire-and-forget attack. There was no need for Ukrainian drone operators to remain on the scene to manage the attacks. An autonomously targeted drone swarm hit each target. SBU operatives placed the trucks, and the rest of the operation, from first launch to the self-destruct of the transport, appears to have been carried out without a man in the loop. //

According to online reporting, the Russians were prepared for a night attack by large drones and got a daylight attack by quadcopters instead. China has access to some 43,000 container ships registered in either the People's Republic of China or Hong Kong (which is basically the same thing). Imagine a few hundred of them carrying containers modified for launching drones. I would submit that a similar attack by China on US Naval and Air Force bases throughout the world would render a crippling blow that would force us to either acknowledge a possible Chinese conquest of Taiwan as a fait accompli or go nuclear.

frylock234
9 minutes ago
I'm not sure how the Democrats expect to maintain a constituency. Drive off men, and then erase women from existence.

What Grassley's investigation, and pit bull intensity, has produced is evidence that the FBI and the Department of Justice bureaucracy are partisan Democrat organizations who repeatedly punish conservative people for crimes while letting those on the left go free. Compare and contrast the kid glove treatment received by Nellie Ohr with the hammering given Roger Stone for similar offenses of the Russia Hoax. In the same way misdemeanor defendants for January 6 crimes were subjected to pre-dawn raids, held without bail, and imprisoned in brutal conditions while no one showed any curiosity about the Antifa and BLM goons who attacked police and police stations during the summer of 2020.

Keep in mind that this cover up happened on the watch of Donald Trump's own Attorney General and his personal choice to be FBI Director.

“Ohr never suffered consequences for advancing the phony Trump-Russia narrative and attempting to cover up her involvement in the hoax,” Grassley said in a statement. “Yet time and again, the American justice system has been weaponized against President Trump and his associates with reckless abandon.” He also noted that “The DOJ’s inaction on Nellie Ohr’s criminal referral — despite the obviously incriminating evidence provided in the FBI’s own analysis — undermines public trust in the rule of law."

Not only did Ohr not suffer any consequences for her lying, she never will. The statute of limitations on that offense has passed and she is home free.

Retired Professor OrneryCoot
6 hours ago edited
Since you asked, here are the essential elements of any legal claim:

1. There must be an enforceable duty to do something, or not do something, established by law, contract, court decree, custom, or otherwise. For example, there's a legal duty to not commit adultery, although they forgot to tell my ex-wife that.

2. There must be an identifiable breach of that duty by someone legally obligated to obey it. If I'm committing adultery with Kristi Noem, but only in my heart, I haven't breached any duty in the (secular) legal sense.

3. The breach of that duty must be the cause of any injuries complained of. This has two aspects: "cause in fact" (the "but for" test), and "proximate" or "legal" cause (the relationship of the breach to the harm as a matter of public policy: The fact that Hitler's father met Hitler's mother might be a cause in fact of WWII, but it is not a proximate cause).

4. The breach of duty must result in (i.e., have been the legal cause of, see above) identifiable damages to an identifiable party. As you might have guessed, there's an entire area of law devoted to the subject of what constitutes legal damages. The fact that the Democrats make my blood boil is not a legal item of damage.

Ancillary considerations include:

5. Any valid defenses to the claim, which can involve anything from immunity (yes, I did it, but the law allows me to because of who I am) to statute of limitations (yes, I did it, but you waited too long to complain). There are a myriad of other legal defenses, everything from contributory negligence to condonation and recrimination. Don't you wish you'd taken my Remedies class?

6. The jurisdiction of the court to resolve the matter. This includes such considerations as personal jurisdiction (i.e., whether this particular party is properly before the court) and subject matter jurisdiction (i.e., whether the court in question has authority over this kind of legal dispute, and the power to afford the kind of relief requested. You can't try a felony case before a traffic court judge). Another jurisdictional issue is the feasability of relief. A court shouldn't issue a ruling that would be impossible or even unreasonably difficult/expensive to enforce.

Applying all of these factors makes it pretty clear that most of what drives you and me crazy these days (everything from making excuses for murderers, racists, terrorists, etc. to providing them with material support) is not going to be actionable under the legal principles enumerated above, certainly not by us, and in many cases not even by the government. In support of the idea that this is a pretty good thing overall, I cite two words: Fani Willis.

I hope this answers at least part of your very excellent questions, above. I also wonder what our RedState Legal Eagle, @Susie Moore, would tell us about this?

North America has vast reserves of uranium, enough to power the United States and Canada for hundreds of years, and the Trump administration's Department of the Interior is now, as we see, fast-tracking approval of new uranium mines:

The decision, executed by the Department of the Interior, was made in just 14 days…a stark contrast to the months or years such reviews typically require. //

According to a report by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as of 2015, the United States' reserves of recoverable uranium were at 101,900 tonnes (metric), and Canada is blowing us away with 969,200 tonnes. That's a lot of uranium. But, according to this same report, the world champion by a wide margin is Australia, with 2,049,400 tonnes.

News News News
@NewsNew97351204
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Mayor Karen Bass used Walter Lopes’ Pacific Palisades home as a prop to pat herself on the back for helping the neighborhood rebuild after the January wildfires.

But SWR can reveal that Lopes’ house is the only structure standing for blocks and blocks in the charred, desolate Show more
6:34 PM · Jun 1, 2025

Lopes said he was only able to get started so quickly because he was rebuilding his house exactly as it was constructed just a few years ago — and he’s shelled out millions of dollars and pulled out all the stops to get it done. //

The reality is, five months after the wildfires tore through the Pacific Palisades, fewer than 300 homeowners have even applied for rebuilding permits – out of more than 7,000 structures destroyed.

Just 52 addresses have had permits approved, and fewer still have actually seen any construction – despite a batch of executive orders from state and local government meant to free homeowners from bureaucratic hell.

Multiple press outlets, including Fox News, the Associated Press, CNN, the BBC, and other outlets, ran with a report early Sunday morning claiming Israeli forces randomly opened fire on civilians gathered to collect aid. Sourced by the "health officials" and "witnesses," the claim involved dozens being killed and "at least" 175 injured. //

At least 26 Palestinians were killed and at least 175 were wounded as they made their way to receive food in the Gaza Strip, according to health officials and witnesses.

Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on crowds around 1,000 yards away from an aid site run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. A Palestinian journalist told the BBC that thousands of Palestinians had gathered near the aid site near Gaza's southern city of Rafah when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd... //

Eitan Fischberger @EFischberger
·
This is truly glorious:

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation just released security footage from the distribution site in question during the precise minutes that the "massacre" allegedly took place.

As you can see — It didn't happen.

Eitan Fischberger @EFischberger
Update via @IsraelWarRoom:

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says that talk of a "massacre" at the aid sites are "untrue and fabricated" and that the aid was distributed without incident.
6:08 AM · Jun 1, 2025

“Our advice is: Never give up [because] nothing is perfect, don’t sweat the small stuff, never stop communicating, and never go to bed mad,” wrote a pair of high school sweethearts married 40 years.

“Keep God at the center of your marriage and have fun together. Don’t forget to be best friends [and] laugh at the little things,” another kindly couple advised. “Stick together through the hard times [and] good times will eventually come again.”

“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments,” a well-wisher warned. “Be nice, communicate wants and needs.”

“Be quick to forgive and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” suggested longtime lovers of 43 years.

“Always respond to your partner’s bids for attention,” another urged. “If they say the sunset is pretty, drop everything and enjoy it together. If they ask if they look nice, truly take a moment to take them all in and give them a compliment. If they give you a quick hug, hold them longer. These small moments matter for intimacy.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court allowed President Trump to suspend a program that provided “parole” to 500,000 aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Democrats are crying foul, saying Trump isn’t following the law. But it was President Biden who broke the law when he allowed these migrants here in the first place.

While the Supreme Court’s reprieve doesn’t assure that the Court will ultimately rule in the administration’s favor, it is good news for now. For these parole programs were some of the most egregious misdeeds of Alejandro Mayorkas, President Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security.

This program ushered into the United States on a red carpet over half a million aliens who, under our
nation’s immigration laws, were flatly inadmissible.

In fact, the House of Representatives impeached Secretary Mayorkas for high crimes and misdemeanors in part because of these very programs: proclaiming that “Mayorkas willfully exceeded his parole authority” by “creat[ing], re-open[ing], or expand[ing] a series of categorical parole programs … which enabled hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens to enter the United States in violation of the laws enacted by Congress.”

When Congress granted the President the parole power in 1952, it was strictly for, as the House Judiciary Committee made clear, ONLY “emergency cases,” such as “an alien who requires immediate medical attention” or an inadmissible alien who needs to be here as “a witness or for purposes of prosecution.” //

In 1996, Congress reacted to decades of abuses by administrations of both parties by tightening the language of the parole power in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Among other changes, IIRIRA required that parole only be granted “on a case-by-case basis.” //

While Biden ignored the “case by case basis” requirement, and provided a mass parole, the lower-court judge who ruled against Trump, said that since parole can only be granted on a case-by-case basis, it likewise can only be terminated on a case-by-case basis.

So one law for Biden, another for Trump.

The Trump administration has canceled $3.7 billion worth of grants for multiple climate-related infrastructure projects, the majority of which were approved in former President Joe Biden's lame duck period after he lost the 2024 election.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright made the announcement on Friday and said the 24 projects failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.

The department said that after a "thorough and individualized financial review of each award," it found that nearly 70% of the awards (16 of the 24 projects) had been signed between election day on Nov. 5 and Biden's last day in office on Jan. 20. //

The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is claiming a loss of $4.6 billion in economic output, along with the loss of thousands of jobs, and it would be roundly interesting to see them show their work on that estimate. That loss of economic output, of course, requires that there is some profit somewhere along the way. If any of these enterprises were profitable, if any of them actually generated any economic output, they wouldn't require millions or billions in taxpayer subsidies.

There is also a storm of whining about how these cuts and others like them under President Trump "stifle innovation." Horsefeathers. If there is a profit to be made in any of these technologies, someone will go to the effort to develop them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report circulated to member states that Iran had grown its stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium to 408.6 kilograms from 274.8 kilograms in early February, an increase of around 50%. The Wall Street Journal viewed a copy of the report.

That means Iran has enough highly enriched uranium for roughly 10 nuclear weapons, based on IAEA measures of the minimum fissile material required, up from at least six at the time of the last report.

U.S. officials say it could take Iran less than two weeks to convert this highly enriched uranium into enough weapons-grade 90% fissile material for a nuclear weapon. //

anon-eruj
9 hours ago
They're not lying about peaceful use. You just have to understand what peace means to them. Once they kill all the jews and trigger Armageddon, the 12th imam will return and there will be world peace.

The anti-gun group Moms Demand has now gone a step further, as seen at an event they staged in Kentucky in support of new proposed legislation for gun safety education. Though this rally was back in February, it has taken time for a realization to come over the state, and specifically the local media, and it is an indictment of all involved. Credit to The Citizen's Voice for detailing this development.

Calvin Polachek detailed how he endured a shooting at Dallas High School, in Luzerne County, Kentucky, back in 2017, a tragedy that took the lives of his brother, best friend, as well as nine others that day. //

In one fashion - and only one fashion - he is accurate; nothing has changed. This is because nothing had to change. His story is completely fraudulent. There was no shooting whatsoever at this school.

For this fraud to transpire is astounding. This hoaxer, Calvin, was allegedly never vetted, and his story, clearly, was never substantiated. The passing of blame has been almost comical, were this not so pernicious. //

This is clearly a case of confirmation bias, where a compliant press promoted a gun control storyline and had a sympathetic video clip and some choice quotes that perfectly aligned with the narrative. It was too good to check, and now more credibility has been set on fire as a result.

These few lines are not intended as a full-fledged debugging tutorial, but as hints and comments about debugging a Bash script.

set -x or set -o xtrace expands variables and prints a little + sign before the line.

set -v or set -o verbose does not expand the variables before printing.

Use set +x and set +v to turn off the above settings.

On the first line of the script, one can put #!/bin/sh -x (or -v) to have the same effect as set -x (or -v) later in the script.

Over the course of a job, you may notice a customer has an unsafe electrical installation or equipment.

An Electrical Danger Notification* certificate is designed to be used by NICEIC registered electricians to provide a formal record that the customer has been informed of such danger. Apart from helping identifying unsafe appliances, the certificate will specify any work done to make it safe, and any urgent work that needs to be done after the date.

Jack56 Ars Scholae Palatinae
7y
607
julesverne said:
Upside:Engine bay leak issue, solved.
Downside:Booster exploded.
Payload bay doors balked.
Ship attitude control lost.
No data on payload deployment.
No data on engine relight on orbit.
No data on Ship reentry.
The list goes on.

I'm sure SpaceX will solve these issues. But the root causes of the failures may negatively affect max payload mass to orbit. And the cadence of failure is picking up. Reason: unknown. But losing key engineers can cause outsized problems. I have no info on this, but given the recent series of backslips, I wonder if any of the most creative thinkers may have jumped Ship(sorry) following Musk's "Roman Salute" and other scumbag actions. I sure as fuck wouldn't want to work for him, despite intense interest in the SpaceX vision.

The main problems have been propellant system & engine leaks. It's new engineering territory. The engine chamber pressure is ~300 bar. The preburners are at >600 bar (>9,000 psi). The turbopumps higher again than that. The wonder is that most things don’t leak. //

Erbium68 Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
3m
1,070
Subscriptor
DistinctivelyCanuck said:
What I'm finding fascinating about the current failure modes on the block two starship is that obviously spacex thought they had a full handle on these from block one: and so many "solved problems" have spiraled into challenging fixes.
Leak issues causing loss of control were obvious in the very first flight that made it to sub orbital: but resolved on the subsequent flights.
Vibration issues causing RUD's: quickly resolved in the very first flights and are back again.
The other interesting aspect: the ground burns at massey's that were designed to identify these failures aren't doing it at ground level. (remember that there was a ground burn test with a near ten minute burn with extensive throttling:
I think we can expect another couple of iterations of those long burn tests soon.

My limited experience in the field of engine development tells me that this is perfectly normal for such projects. The solved problems always come with unexpected caveats. Especially vibration.
An example from ship practice is early reduction gear failures in turbines. All sorts of things were considered, lubrication was improved and the things worked perfectly on long term dyno tests. And then broke up at sea even under good sailing conditions.
The cause was eventually traced to the vibrations from the props caused by interference from the rudders. It was difficult to fix, but fixes were found (flexible shafts, basically).
Despite being so well understood the problem recurs over and over again as new bearing, hull and rudder designs come into use.
There was also a major vibration problem that hit Luftwaffe fighters in WW2. Arguments about defective bearings, reduction gears etc. duly took place. It was eventually traced to the fact that the fuel being used by the test labs was better than that often used at the front, which was messing with spark plugs and causing misfires which resulted in the vibration.
In engines, whether piston, turbine or rocket, just about everything interacts in ways beyond the scope of computer modelling - because until the mechanism is identified, it can't be modelled.

Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh
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🚨 LMAO...!!

DOOCY: There was a video of the First Lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron. Do you have any world leader-to-world leader marital advice?

TRUMP: "Make sure the door remains CLOSED. That was not good."

🤣

"I spoke to him. He's fine. They're fine...I Show more

2:26 PM · May 30, 2025