She's just another far right moronic nutter.

Kari Lake, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, tweeted her dismay about drag queens performing in front of children on Saturday
Soon after, Rick Stevens, one of the Phoenix, Arizona-area's best known drag queens as Barbra Seville, said he performed in front of Lake's young daughter
He recounted how Lake invited him to her home to perform as Marilyn Monroe at her birthday party 10 - 12 years ago, and her daughter was in the audience
Stevens says he remembers her then elementary school-aged daughter in the audience because she was wearing glasses and he sympathized
The Lake campaign has denied that it was a drag performance and that her daughter was in the audience

Kari Lake, left, a GOP candidate for Arizona governor who has criticized drag, poses with drag queen Richard Stevens. According to Stevens, the pair were friends for more than 20 years and Lake attended at least 15 shows. (Courtesy of Richard Stevens)

It's NICE to be NICE

SUPERNice

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is widely tipped to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, condemned the bill as an attempt to "try to disarm law-abiding citizens rather than take serious measures to protect our children".
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has opposed the bill, and argued that it will not stop the violence.

Sadly, there are still numpties in power.

This murder was Nov 1994.
DNA used in evidence was in use since 1986, so why was it a cold case?

..... for the brain dead losers out there.

It's NICE to be NICE

SUPERNice

What's he going to prove beyond all doubt that he's a total moronic lunatic?

Do you mean what's he going to sell?

Snake oil

Didn't he take notice of Donny? You're suppose to lead from the rear and out of site.

Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
And the general sat
And the lines on the map
Moved from side to side

Then there is the higher capacity batteries that will only charge 80% of the battery due to the heat element. Oops.

Allendale — FBI agents arrested Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley on misdemeanor charges related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The arrest and search that unfolded at Kelley's home in Allendale outside of Grand Rapids add more uncertainty to a chaotic race for governor that has seen five Republican candidates blocked from the ballot for submitting fraudulent nominating petition signatures.

Prosecutors filed four charges against Kelley, 40. They are knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building; disorderly and disruptive conduct; knowingly engaging in any act of physical violence against person or property in a restricted building or grounds; willfully injuring or committing depredation against property of the U.S.

A few years ago I met a senior being (life form?) in the DWP. He was really shocked to learn that not everyone, let alone every person of pensionable age, had a functional bank account. Such is the "intelligence" of those that run the government systems....

Least it isn't like over here where they reason they don't have an account is because they are undocumented.

The current weekly payment regime for State Pension has been in place since 1948. I do understand that the opportunity of being paid calendar monthly would be more convenient for many. However, to make this choice available we would need to make significant changes to a large number of computer systems. I am afraid the costs of these changes would be too great.

Looking to the future, whilst there are no plans to introduce such payments, they remain an option as we look to digitalise the claims and payments process.

Council tax payers who receive their rebate by cheque aren't paying by direct debit - they probably don't have a bank account that can handle cheques. So the presence of an old-fashioned "big four" bank branch close to them is completely useless.

Government level 'solutions' have to be universal.

Some of those waiting in line said they couldn't afford to wait days for a cheque to clear through their bank

And here's another one for Boris to think about.

Council tax rebate cheques cashed at pawnbrokers

People have been cashing in their £150 council tax rebate cheques at a pawnbrokers because they cannot afford to wait for the money.

A large queue formed outside the Cash Shop in Rotherham, which deducts a £15 fee for the service.

Some of those waiting in line said they couldn't afford to wait days for a cheque to clear through their bank.

That's very close to where a parliamentary by-election is to be held on June 23. The verdict of the electorate will be interesting.

Isn't that more the 'con' of Marketing and Marketing food for the maximum profit?...

Meanwhile, there is no denying that going vegetarian or vegan avoids a huge and expensively wasteful cost of farming animals...


All on our only one planet,
Martin

Lumping the UK in with global figures for countries with vastly different farming practices means that some of the good news gets lost. Beef cattle and sheep in the UK account for just 5.7 per cent of all UK emissions, but this is reduced to 3.7 per cent if carbon sequestration (storing of carbon in the soil) is taken into account. While she says it’s a cliché, “It really is the how, not the cow.”

An ordinary, average British 4oz steak, Buxton worked out from numbers in an FAO report, is about 1.9kg of CO2e.

But that Vegan takeaway you ordered from 5 miles away added 2.7kg of carbon emissions emitted by the vehicle delivering it.

1 very small step for mankind, but will it be enough?

A Florida woman was charged in the death of her husband after their 2-year-old son appeared to fatally shoot him in the back, authorities said Monday.
Marie Ayala, 26, was charged with one count of manslaughter by culpable negligence, accused of failing to properly secure a Glock handgun the boy is believed to have shot his father with while he was playing a video game, according to an arrest affidavit from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
The boy's 5-year-old brother told authorities that his sibling accidentally fired the gun, the affidavit says.

June 8 (Reuters) - A 10-year-old Florida girl has been arrested after police say she retrieved a gun from her mother's backpack and fatally shot a woman during a physical altercation between the two women on Memorial Day.
The Orlando Police Department detained the unidentified girl and placed her in custody at the juvenile detention center on Tuesday, the department said in a statement. She has yet to be charged while her mother was arrested and charged with multiple offenses.

Despite what the documentaries tell you, a plant-based lifestyle isn't better for your health and it certainly won't save the planet

Canola oil, yeast, acidity regulator, methyl­cellulose, corn oil thickener, starch, gelling agent. “Hmm, I don’t like agents in my food,” says Jayne Buxton.
We’re in the refrigerator aisle of a well-known, high-end health-food supermarket in Richmond, London, reading the backs of packets of vegan ­sausages, burgers et al. As far as vegan products go, we’re dining at the Ritz.
Pastrami-style slices, scrambled tofu, vegan chorizo slices, jackfruit rendang, a canister of No-Egg Egg for £4.99. “That’s more than a carton of eggs,” says Buxton as she scans the ingredients. Gum cellulose dextrose, “That’s sugar. Do you want sugar with your eggs?”
You would expect the quality here to be better than anywhere else, but nutritionally, says Buxton, it’s a wasteland of chemicals and oils where nutritious protein should be.

“Someone’s going to arrest us in a minute,” she jokes. It does feel subversive. Like we’re poking around in veganism’s knicker drawer.

A museum believes a D-Day ration pack held in its collection is the only complete one of its kind in the world.

An X-ray on the waxed cardboard box by experts at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex revealed all the original contents were still intact.
Three chocolate bars, 10 biscuits, blocks of tea, sugar and milk and four pieces of toilet paper were among the items found in the pack.

Russian state media has confirmed the death of one of Moscow's top generals during heavy fighting in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Maj Gen Roman Kutuzov was killed leading an assault on a Ukrainian settlement in the region, a reporter with the state-owned Rossiya 1 said.
Alexander Sladkov said Gen Kutuzov had been commanding troops from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic.

His death comes as rumours circulated on social media that a second senior officer, Lt Gen Roman Berdnikov, commander of the 29th Army, was also killed in fighting over the weekend. The BBC cannot independently verify the claims.

Johnson, a businessman who has self-funded much of his campaign, was required to submit a petition containing 15,000 valid signatures in order to qualify for the gubernatorial primary election on Aug. 2.

The candidate submitted 23,193 signatures, but the Michigan Bureau of Elections denied his petition along with four other candidates, saying more than 9,000 signatures were fraudulent, thus dropping him below the qualification threshold.

Big Challenges ahead for producing the Metals required for the Energy Transition. Here a Discussion of the Swedish Situation with some wider implications for the Global Metal markets. This is from a *Lecture to the MSc class in Sustainable Development at Uppsala University*.

Tsk Tsi Tsk

I Can't Imagine ONEs LIFEs Work to Post 'bout USAs

Death and Destruction by GUN

Tsk Tsk Tsk

SUPERWdaF'

How Many NRA Members do you Know?

I must also be about due for my 2nd booster.

SUPERHealthy

A 15-year-old was has been shot dead in Mississippi in what police describe as a "prank gone wrong."
Police were called to reports of a shooting on Village Drive in Jackson on Saturday.
Jackson Deputy Police Chief Deric Hearn said Christopher Patton, 15, and two passengers, later identified as Derreon McGowan and Jakuious Galloway, pulled up in front of the home of Joshua Davis, 16.
Patton and the two others were wearing masks and toting water guns, which police said looked like real firearms, at Davis.
According to local media, Davis then pointed a real gun at Patton and shot him a single time in the chest, killing his friend.
The Jackson Police Department (JPD) believes the shooting was justified.
Police said all those involved were friends and described the shooting as being a "prank gone wrong," according to WLBT.

Currently, the CDC is monitoring six people in the United States for possible monkeypox infections after they sat near an infected traveler who had symptoms while on a flight from Nigeria to the United Kingdom in early May.

So this BS about airplane air being so fresh you don't need a mask to protect you ... looks like the real world says MASK UP.

Monkeypox cases in Spain have been linked to a superspreader event at an adult sauna in Madrid.
Enrique Ruiz Escudero, the region’s cabinet minister for health of the community, said on Friday that health officials had traced many of Spain’s 30 monkeypox cases to a single sauna in the capital.

Britain’s monkeypox tally now stands at 20 after 11 fresh cases were announced on Friday, and contact tracing and quarantine of close contacts is under way.
A “notable proportion” of the UK and European cases are in gay and bisexual men, health officials have said.

Three cases in Belgium have also been linked to a large-scale fetish festival in Antwerp, according to organisers. The Darklands Festival warned people who attended four days of parties, starting on May 5, that authorities had linked the event to the country’s three confirmed cases.

It is the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy and capable of completing the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.
What is less well known about the Millennium Falcon is it truly was the last ship to be built at the Royal Pembroke Dockyard.
Now an exhibition will tell the story of how Han Solo's beloved spaceship was built in an aircraft hangar in the Pembrokeshire town in spring 1979.
It will tell the story with photographs, film, models and costumes.

PC Craig Walker says no knife visible when colleague used spray without warning against man who died in custody in Kirkcaldy

An officer involved in Sheku Bayoh’s arrest has admitted that police fired CS spray and pepper spray at him without warning even though he made no direct threat and did not show any weapons.

Bayoh, a father of two, died in hospital in handcuffs in May 2015 in Kirkcaldy, Fife. He had multiple injuries after being hit with police batons, and being shackled and held on the ground by numerous officers.

This is our first look at the new all-electric Renault Scenic SUV with electric/hydrogen power and real-life interior rainbows

Pretty much the same moronic RINO names turn up yet again to try and block the Baby Food bill.

Here are the 9 Republicans who voted against a bill to help poor families buy baby formula amid the ongoing shortage.

But Joe got it passed easily.

WSJ sources suggest black box recorders from Boeing 737-800 indicate intentional input from cockpit

A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.
Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.
The Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed source who said: “The plane did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit.”
The China Eastern plane was cruising at a steady altitude and speed before it suddenly descended more than 20,000ft in just over a minute, and crashing near the city of Wuzhou in Guangxi province.
Chinese investigators have led the crash inquiry but US officials are involved as the plane is US-made.

Women are almost twice as likely as men to become trapped in a motor vehicle after a crash and they also sustain different patterns of injury, data suggests.

The research – the first large UK study to compare sex differences in injury patterns and the likelihood of becoming trapped after a collision – could help vehicle manufacturers improve car design and safety features to reduce rates of injury in both sexes. It also strengthens calls for the inclusion of more biologically accurate crash test dummies in simulations of vehicle collisions, to investigate their impact on women.

all I have to do is park on the designated markings and wait in the car.
I can hear bolts being undone as the battery is automatically removed from underneath the vehicle and replaced with a fully- charged one.
In less than five minutes, I'm ready to go again.

People from All The World Move Here EveryDay and Into The Night. Legally and Illegally.

Wat da Heck doe Birth CONTROL Mean? Dat be a Funky Term. Does NOT Belong in Same
Sentence as Abortion.

WTF, are you suppose to call a person "hairless" instead (BTW, it's not just men who go bald) and what about those who shave their heads to be bald.

Calling a man 'bald' is sexual harassment, a UK tribunal rules.

I can see this causing problems.

Removing a Prez with Less than 2 Weeks Left.

Congress Takes Years to Get NOTHING DONE.

'cept for RAISING Their Pay and Other GiveAways to Their DONORs

SUPERYap

da MORE PROFITs a Business Has - dA MORE SAFETY can be Implemented.

WASHINGTON/SEATTLE, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. planemaker Boeing Co (BA.N) is set to move its corporate headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, two people familiar with the matter said.

The move, likely to be announced as early as next week, comes as Boeing works to emerge from successive crises and industrial problems that have deepened its focus on repairing relationships with customers, U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

The move to Arlington - across the Potomac River from the U.S. capital - will place Boeing senior leaders close to the Federal Aviation Administration, lawmakers and the Pentagon.

Wind turbines spun by the airflow from passing vehicles installed on a major road in Shropshire will generate enough electricity to run all the streetlights for the nearby town in a UK first.

The vertical wind turbines, invented by a British company, can harness even a moderate breeze, which they say is generated by a car driving at 50mph, as well as by natural wind, and catch airflow moving in either direction.

They will be installed on 181 streetlights on the A442 after a deal between Telford and Wrekin’s Labour-run council and company Alpha 311, which hopes the turbines could become as ubiquitous as cats’ eyes on the roads.

The turbines will provide electricity to the grid, and are expected to generate a surplus beyond the needs of Telford’s 20,000 street lights.

One wind turbine in the middle of a motorway can generate as much electricity as 30 solar panels, or nearly enough to power two homes, according to estimates from Alpha 311.

it doesn’t belong to aliens.
Instead, the wreckage is the work of NASA, a component called a backshell that detached during the landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of the red planet in February 2021.

BERLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - As Germany speeds up investment in renewables, the energy consumption of its carmakers reveals just how reliant the country's most important industry is on fossil fuels, a Reuters analysis of environmental data shows.

Their dependence lays bare the hurdles automakers face in transforming their own energy consumption while moving the transport sector, responsible for around 30% of German energy consumption, towards electromobility.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and spiking gas prices have stepped up the urgency for German industry, which consumes another 30% of the country's energy, to move away from fossil fuels, with tools like carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates no longer enough to meet the new goal of energy independence.

Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) depended on non-renewable energy sources for around 80% of its needs, while for BMW (BMWG.DE) the figure was over 60%, according to 2021 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) data, based on 2020 figures provided by the companies.

Over half of the carmakers' energy consumption was from fossil fuels, with the largest chunk from natural gas, the CDP data - the world's largest repository of environmental data - showed.

Chief executives from the largest oil and gas companies received nearly $45m more in combined total compensation in 2021 as compared to 2020 amid the steep rise in gasoline prices across the US over the last year, a new report states

I took a MOCA test last month, my result was 0 (zero) out of 30.

That's 0 wrong answers

So 100% that Rump claims would be 30 out of 30 wrong.

I Continue to DENY

SUPERYep

15.46
Two Russian generals killed near Kherson – Ukrainian ministry of defence

Two Russian generals have been killed near Kherson, the Ukrainian ministry of defence’s intelligence directorate has said. Another is in critical condition.

The Ukrainian military on Friday hit the command post of Russia’s 49th army near occupied regional capital Kherson, according to the statement.

Updated at 15.58 BST

Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020, new research shows.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that over 4,300 young Americans died of firearm-related injuries in 2020.

While suicides contributed to the toll, the data shows that homicides form the majority of gun-related deaths.

Meanwhile, local officials in Central Florida sounded the alarm, warning the repeal could leave them with a burdensome tax bill. Currently, Disney is responsible for everything including road maintenance, building inspections, 911 emergency calls and sewage treatment at the theme park, which straddles two counties and covers 40 square miles.

“Orange County is going to be stuck with $164 million or more per year in expenses with no revenue,” Orange County tax collector Scott Randolph said. “So they’re going to have to raise property taxes. This is a huge tax increase on the citizens of Orange County that they’ll have to pay every single year.

A bully greenfinch was beaten at its own game after squaring up to a smaller bird.

A dunnock was perched peacefully on a branch before the finch approached and tried to pick a fight.

As the finch tried to peck at its rival, the small brown bird used its foot to slam its mouth shut.

Abstract

Some scientifically well-established results—such as the fact that emission of greenhouse gases produces global warming—are rejected by sizable proportions of the population in the United States and other countries. Rejection of scientific findings is mostly driven by motivated cognition: People tend to reject findings that threaten their core beliefs or worldview. At present, rejection of scientific findings by the U.S. public is more prevalent on the political right than the left. Yet the cognitive mechanisms driving rejection of science, such as the superficial processing of evidence toward the desired interpretation, are found regardless of political orientation. General education and scientific literacy do not mitigate rejection of science but, rather, increase the polarization of opinions along partisan lines. In contrast, specific knowledge about the mechanisms underlying a scientific result—such as human-made climate change—can increase the acceptance of that result.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 50 Republicans who once joined a lawsuit claiming the House’s pandemic-era proxy voting was unconstitutional (High court won’t hear pandemic proxy voting dispute) have themselves voted by proxy this year, remotely without showing up.

Researchers suspect an adenovirus may be involved, but are still searching for the cause of illness

Puzzled scientists are searching for the cause of a strange and alarming outbreak of severe hepatitis in young children, with 74 cases documented in the United Kingdom and three in Spain. Clinicians in Denmark and the Netherlands are also reporting similar cases. And in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said late yesterday it is investigating nine cases in Alabama.

Viruses can cause hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, but otherwise-healthy children rarely become seriously ill. As of 12 April, none of the U.K. or Spanish children have died, but some are very sick: All have been admitted to hospitals and seven required liver transplants, six of them in the United Kingdom, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) statement issued today. Two of the nine affected children in Alabama have required liver transplants, the state’s Department of Public Health announced this afternoon.

The leading theory is that an adenovirus, a family of viruses that more typically cause colds, is the culprit—up to half of the sickened children in the United Kingdom tested positive for such a virus, as did all the children in Alabama. But so far, the evidence is too thin to resolve the mystery, researchers and physicians say.

“This is a severe phenomenon,” says Deirdre Kelly, a pediatric hepatologist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital in the United Kingdom. “These [were] perfectly healthy children … up to a week ago.” Not all the news is bad, however. “Most of [the children] recover on their own,” Kelly notes.

“This should be taken seriously,” WHO’s Regional Office for Europe wrote in an emailed statement. “The increase is unexpected and the usual causes have been excluded.”

Scottish investigators first identified the outbreak on 31 March, when they alerted Public Health Scotland to a cluster of 3- to 5-year-olds admitted to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow in the first 3 weeks of March. Each was diagnosed with severe hepatitis of unknown cause. Typically, Scotland sees fewer than four such cases annually, the investigators wrote in a paper published yesterday. But there have been 13 cases in Scottish children as of 12 April, all but one in March and April.

Do you want to live under a dictator?

Got my answer from a "former friend" close to July 4, 2020: he wanted to live free under a dictator so long as it was the right dictator. Yes, he said that.

Guess people no longer want to think.

That laptop.....hehehe.

The original developer completed construction on this building in 2018 in compliance with all applicable building codes as documented by the city and the original owner. The building was re-inspected and passed City inspections in 2020 when Amazon leased the building.”

Logical!

You love Trump.
Trump loves Putin.

You love Tucker.
Tucker loves Putin.

You love Putin.

I LOVE SUPERLogic

Yep

Government figures quote 27.7 mpg at a constant 75 mph, so the touring range is excellent.

Fuel Consumption - Economy - Combined: 11 L/100km/26 mpg UK / 21 mpg US
Range : 727 Km or 452 miles

Kinder sweets recalled in US over salmonella fears.

The recall has also been enacted here in Australia.

WINNER of 2020 Prez Election: SUPERTrump

Yep

A recording published on the site chronicles fraught moments when pilots struggled with controls.
On the recording, one of the pilots can be heard groaning and breathing heavily as cockpit alarms ring. “Wait! Stop Stop!” he said, before adding “I’ll call you back! I’ll call you back!”
A few moments later, a pilot said: “The airplane is pretty much going nuts.” The air traffic controller responded: “I’ve seen on the radar, it swayed to the left.”

Just another young life snuffed out.

Boy, 3, Dies After Shooting Himself With Gun.

Why are these things being left lying around where kids can get at them?

Now, now, go easy there, that could be far too much for some to comprehend. ;-)

....guns laying around the place...

A Gun can LAY in PLACE FOREVER. Collecting Dust.

Then STUPIDITY Enters The Space.

The Hand of STUPID Picks Up the HARMLESS RESTING GUN

and Then......

Example from a Recent STUPID: One of Most Famous Person in World - and SUPER Intelligent - I Presume - Picks Up Gun - Points - Pulls Trigger - and......DEATH. A STUPID Moment or a STUPID Person. Or Both?

Or Should I Use da Word - MORON?

Yep

NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. gun owners say they own firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones, surveys show. But a study published Monday suggests people who live with handgun owners are shot to death at a higher rate than those who don’t have such weapons at home.

“We found zero evidence of any kind of protective effects” from living in a home with a handgun, said David Studdert, a Stanford University researcher who was the lead author of the Annals of Internal Medicine study.

Where is the supposedly world shattering Trump (Fake) Truth "App" for his faithful?...


Trump's 'Truth' Social app branded a disaster
wrote:

... While YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are among the 10 most downloaded apps, according to Similar Web, Truth Social is outside the top 100.

Users who find their way in can find the app a little empty, as many big voices on the American right have so far stayed away...

What Fakery or other money grabbing scam will he dream up next?

Stay safe folks!
Martin

April 4 (Reuters) - The two Southern tech entrepreneurs had the two qualities that Donald Trump’s Truth Social startup needed: tech-industry expertise and a politically conservative worldview aligned with the former president, a rare combination in the liberal-leaning industry centered in San Francisco.

Josh Adams and Billy Boozer - the company’s chiefs of technology and product development - joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social-media empire, backed by Trump’s powerful brand, to counter what many conservatives deride as “cancel culture” censorship from the left.

Less than a year later, both have resigned their senior posts at a critical juncture for the company’s smartphone-app release plans, according to two sources familiar with the venture.

A Gun can LAY in PLACE FOREVER. Collecting Dust.

8 Billion in World.

Less than 500 Million Infected

YepYep

Man accused of driving 157 mph in fatal Fort Worth crash that killed teen
The suspect was driving a Camaro when he crashed into the back of an SUV, police said.

April 1 (Reuters) - Two of Ukraine's military helicopters struck a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod on Friday, a Russian official has said, making the first accusation of a Ukrainian air strike on Russian soil since Moscow invaded its neighbour in late February.

Video images of the purported attack posted online showed what looked like several missiles being fired from low altitude, followed by an explosion. Reuters has not yet been able to verify the images.

The helicopters struck the facility after crossing the border at low altitude, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on messaging app Telegram.

The resulting blaze injured two workers, Gladkov added, while some areas were being evacuated in the city near the Ukrainian border.

However, Russian oil firm Rosneft (ROSN.MM), which owns the fuel depot, said in a separate statement that no one was hurt in the fire, though it gave no information on the cause.

Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it's true, oh
All the things come back to you

NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where fierce fighting by the country’s fast-moving defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought.

By way of comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops over 10 years in Afghanistan....

Any "sane" government loosing about 10% of a large force in matter of a few weeks would be seriously questioning both its strategy and how they managed to underestimate the effectiveness of their opponent. However I question the sanity of the current Russian leadership who appear to be saying "Only 10%, we can afford to loose many times that before we even consider giving in", (provided that number is not any of the top level leadership).

Nato military chiefs have been wary of the technology for years as they fear it is capable of tracking the alliance’s airborne warning and control aircraft, which act as air traffic control in the event of conflict.

The equipment can also jam radar reconnaissance satellites and drones.

A Krasukha-4 system is believed to have been used in Syria against Turkish forces flying TB-2 Bayraktar drones. The Russian electronic warfare radar was thought to have interfered with the control signal to the drones, causing them to lose control and crash.

Ukraine is using TB-2 Bayraktar drones to destroy Russian tanks and armoured vehicles.

Ouch!

First comment is that that version of the 737 is an earlier version and is not a 737 Max.

Second comment is that a nosedive like that for an intact aircraft from cruise altitude is weird...

No further guesses until we can get further details.

Condolences to all those affected.

Stay safe folks!
Martin

Three Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing flight suits in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, in what appears to be a bold statement of support for the nation that is currently battling a Russian invasion.

They were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.

A video showed the men – Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov, of Russian space corporation Roscosmos – wearing blue and white suits before blasting off on Friday.

When they arrived, they had changed and boarded the space station wearing yellow suits with blue accents.

However, asked about the suits once they arrived at the ISS – where they joined American, Russian and German crew – they did not mention Ukraine.

Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, said it had obtained memos produced by the Russian Department of Information and Telecommunications Support.

One document, it said, was entitled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”, or 3 March. The magazine published pictures of the memo, which it said it was given by “a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified”.

It said the memo included an instruction: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticises the actions of the United States [and] Nato, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the eastern countries and Nato towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.”

Sailors from HMS Spey have shifted a remote Pacific island one mile south on the world's maps – after proving it's been in the wrong place for 85 years.

Henderson Island in the South Pacific is an uninhabited land mass roughly the size of Oxford, one of four islands in the Pitcairn chain sitting between Chile and New Zealand.

The Royal Navy's offshore patrol vessel corrected charts used by mariners since 1937 while checking the waters around British Overseas Territories using sonar, satellites and airborne laser techniques.

More than 18 million people - three times higher than official records suggest - have probably died because of Covid, say researchers.

Their report comes two years to the day from when the World Health Organization first declared the pandemic.

The Covid-19 excess mortality team at the US's Washington University studied 191 countries and territories for what they call the true global death figure.

Some deaths were from the virus, while others were linked to the infection.

This is because catching Covid might worsen other pre-existing medical conditions, such as heart or lung disease, for example.

The measure used is called excess deaths - how many more people have been dying than would be expected compared to recent years, before the pandemic hit.

What I do know is that the day Biden got in gasoline went and started its climb towards a 100% increase in price at the pump.

I think that attacking a nuclear power plant should be the straw that breaks the camel's back as far as direct intervention by NATO or some other coalition is concerned. Such an attack can have serious ramifications for all of europe. This is more proof that a madman is in charge of the second most powerful nation on earth. And just when I thought it was safe to go to bed at night.

NATO can't intervene Bob as it's only a defence alliance for member countries and unless a member country is attacked it has to stay out of it.

Putin's not playing by the rules, why should NATO? I'm sure they could find a loophole in the rules if need be.

I still can't help but wonder what it is that the Ukraine has that Putin so desperately wants, or is it just the need to be the big bully on the block. He is ruining Russia's economic condition including his own and all his cronies.

Warm weather naval bases is a possibility.

Yes, there's a lot of old strategic U.S.S.R. infrastructure still left in the Ukraine.

I still can't help but wonder what it is that the Ukraine has that Putin so desperately wants, or is it just the need to be the big bully on the block. He is ruining Russia's economic condition including his own and all his cronies.

In 2020, Fox’s own lawyers successfully made the case in court that Carlson shouldn’t be taken seriously. And a Trump-appointed federal judge agreed.

U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil echoed Fox’s own arguments in finding that Carlson didn’t commit slander when he accused a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, of extortion, after the National Enquirer bought her story of an affair with Trump and then promptly shelved it on his behalf.

Why not? Because, Vyskocil decided, the whole tenor of Carlson’s show makes it clear to viewers that he is not stating “actual facts” about his topics.

“Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson’s statements as ‘exaggeration,’ ‘non-literal commentary,’ or simply bloviating for his audience,” she wrote, “the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable.”

She added: “Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.”

That’s the problem, of course. Too many in Carlson’s audience simply don’t arrive with that measure of doubt or disbelief. They swallow his nonsense whole.

Half my life's in books, written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know it's true, oh
All the things come back to you

What is it with Walmart parking lots and guns?

AP - Federal safety regulators say they will retain power to approve Boeing 787 airliners for flight rather than return that authority to the aircraft maker, which hasn’t been able to deliver any new Dreamliner planes since last May because of production flaws.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it told Boeing of its decision Tuesday.

The FAA said that once deliveries of 787s resume, it will perform final inspections and retain power to clear each new plane until it is confident that Boeing’s quality control and manufacturing “consistently produce 787s that meet FAA design standards.” It also said Boeing must have a plan for handling planes that need reworking.

“This will allow the agency to confirm the effectiveness of measures Boeing has undertaken to improve the 787 manufacturing process,” the FAA said in a statement.

For years, the FAA has relied on Boeing employees to certify the airworthiness of planes by deputizing some company employees to act on behalf of the agency. The practice came under intense criticism after two deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jets and revelations that FAA officials knew little about a key flight control systems implicated in the crashes.

The 787, a larger plane than the 737, has been plagued by production flaws such as unacceptable gaps between fuselage panels. Deliveries were stopped briefly in late 2020, then again in May 2021 and have not resumed. The halt in shipments has deprived Chicago-based Boeing of cash that airlines pay when they receive new planes.

Images of Canada's paralysed capital and of pandemic-rules protests have thrust the country's Covid response under the spotlight.

What started as a trucker-led movement to demand the end of a vaccine mandate has escalated to include all kinds of public health restrictions.

But since the pandemic began, Canada has fared far better than the US, despite similar income disparities, territorial divides, and comorbidities such as obesity and hypertension as its southern neighbour.

There is a staggering difference, for example, in how many more Americans have died because of Covid compared to Canadians, both in absolute numbers and as the ratio of deaths per million inhabitants.

So what is going on, and why might Canada's experience be different to that of the US so far? And amid mounting public pressure to relax restrictions, will Canada be able to keep a lid on the pandemic going forward?

Vaccination rates and healthcare differences

As of 9 February, 80% of Canada's population was fully immunised against Covid-19, along with another 5% that is partially vaccinated, meaning they had received at least one dose of a multi-dose vaccine.

In the US, 64% of people are fully vaccinated and 12% partially vaccinated.

Unlike the US, however, Canada has a universal, decentralised and publicly funded healthcare system administered by its 13 provinces and territories.

Trump Smooth Sailing Economic Machine

Donald Trump's accounting firm has cut ties with the former president and said a decade of financial reports should "no longer be relied upon".

The firm, Mazars, said in a letter to the Trump Organization that it could not stand behind statements it had prepared for Mr Trump from 2011-20.

But Mazars said it had not concluded they contained material discrepancies.

The letter was revealed in a court filing as part of a fraud investigation into the Trump Organization.