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Yep. The ladders, hooks and magnifying glasses will be picking it like the MAGA vultures so many of them are.
" Release date is 6/18. By noon that day RW rage monkeys will be all over it despite not taking the time to read all of it, 'cause that's the way they f'ing roll. Expect conclusion jumping, sweeping generalizations, cherry picking, junk science based assertions and misinformation galore, all of it seasoned with vitriol and, especially, bile.
Fauci Speaks His Mind on Trump’s Rages and Their ‘Complicated’ Relationship"
Hope Macron made the right decision is calling his snap election so quickly and before the Olympics.
Looking at the demos against the far-right there now, have a hunch he is on the right track.
Someone put it a tweet on the board earlier. One of the Chi boys, i think. Yep, blackhawks'
Great Tweet: You've Been Entertained By Drag Your Whole Life..
BrooklynDad_Defiant!
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171357499
Then arizona1's - ONLY one side are out of their minds....
Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton's 'Rainbowland' Banned from Wisconsin Elementary School Concert
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171547178
DesertDrifter's image
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174580293
Then janice...'s top suggestion -
Dolly's as much a feminist as Taylor Swift. Always has been. They should
do a tour together. That'd make serious box office.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174604137
About 60 now feels chilly. 20 degree difference high and low is big, ic your record .. https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/il/chicago/60640/date/2024-5-21 .. 42 to 96 is double that, plus. Is 49 here now. LOL i found a sweater tucked back corner top shelf, can't recall last time i had so many clothes on. Obviously i handled plenty cooler better as a kid. Combination of generally warmer weather since '67 here, and...older age, i guess. Had trouble getting out of bed. Very late at 7:15 now. Game starts at 10. Will i, won't i, not sure yet, but leaning to going up.
34 - 78 Generational gap get together. Sweet. Here’s Why Taylor Swift Loves ‘Legendary Empath’ Dolly Parton
The pop star also praised the country icon as a "storyteller for the ages."
Hannah Dailey
11/2/2023
Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift
Miller Mobley/NBC via Getty Images; Emma McIntyre/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Taylor Swift will always love Dolly Parton. In a new Hollywood Reporter profile on the 77-year-old country music legend, Swift was candid about all the reasons she admires Parton, who’s gearing up to release her first ever rock album — Rockstar — later this month.
Related
Dolly Parton Is Hard-Launching Her ‘Rockstar’ Era With Exclusive Movie Event: Get…
10/25/2023 https://www.billboard.com/culture/product-recommendations/dolly-parton-rockstar-movie-how-to-get-tickets-1235454506/
“Dolly is a force of evolution and transformation in our industry, but she does it with such playful levity it almost looks effortless,” the pop star told the publication. “Her sense of humor and mischief are easily my favorite things about her, because I think it forces the world to reconcile that a woman can be a serious artist and writer who also has raucous fun with it, can make people laugh and be in on every joke.”
“She’s never stopped challenging herself to clear new hurdles and explore new territory artistically, and I think that speaks to her great curiosity about the human condition,” added Swift. “She’s a legendary empath and the storyteller for the ages. She’s also having the most fun doing it.”
The interview comes almost exactly a year after Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, an honor she was initially hesitant to accept .. https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/dolly-parton-rock-roll-hall-fame-interview-1235066988/ .. because of her lack of experience in the rock genre. After her induction, the “Jolene” singer went on to craft Rockstar, a 30-track collection of originals and rock classics featuring guests such as Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Miley Cyrus, Lizzo, Pink and more.
Swift’s love for Parton is mutual. Last year, after the 33-year-old “Anti-Hero” musician butted heads with Damon Albarn over his claim that she doesn’t write her own songs, Parton insisted that Swift is “a great writer — with or without anybody.” “I think she’s done great,” she said of Swift in an interview at the time. “She knows who she is and what she wants. And I’m the same way. I’m going to fight if it goes against what I feel is not right for me.”
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-praises-dolly-parton-storyteller-for-the-ages-1235462093/
No heater. May have to go there, not yet.
Good. Yep. Afghanistan exit Trump's plan, not Biden's.
hap0206, Still?
Keep talking, Donald. eom
conix, No more allowance given for no live link from you.
Some guys the other day insisted that you could enable a crow to talk
if you split it's tongue. I poo-pooed the idea, still they said it was true:
Talking Birds: Fact vs. Fiction
There are a number of tales involving talking animals, but these tales require our suspension of belief. Even whil
we accept talking animals in the context of a story, we know that, in real life, animals don’t talk. Or do they?
[...]
A popular video [faulty link] featuring David Attenborough captures this array of vocal gymnastics…and more. The Lyrebird caught on camera in that trending video also mimics the sounds of camera shutters, car alarms, and even chainsaws. Yes, birds can mimic sounds produced by machinery; however, most birds that can do so have been raised in captivity. The Lyrebird in Attenborough’s video did, in fact, belong to a zoo. Not that this makes the Lyrebird any less impressive. Along with the chirps and whistles of other birds, Lyrebirds can also mimic the whooping chatter of a Laughing Kookaburra with startling skill.
http://world-bird-sanctuary.blogspot.com/2014/11/talking-birds-fact-vs-fiction.html
Manchin, attempts to out-sing his rivals - AU 0:08 / 1:38 The day the lyrebird met David Attenborough
good list .. add
... believe alternate facts
...don't use condoms, so you can't get an abortion
Yes, take the last literally, just reckon it would confuse some of them.
Some songs bookkeepers sing -- 1 + 1 = 2 except when it's needed to be 3. Then, even four might be better for you. And profits can be losses,
whatever, if best. Meanwhile the gap between CEOs and the workers who produce the CEO's salary grows astronomically larger, year by year.
EPA August 2016
Much of the Everglades are less than three feet above sea
level. The rising sea may submerge the low-lying portions.
Moreover, as sea level rises, salt water can mix farther inland or
upstream into the Everglades, which allows salt-tolerant species
like mangroves to spread inland but threatens cypress swamps
and other species that do not tolerate salt water. Increasing
salinity may also threaten the Biscayne Aquifer, which is the
primary source of drinking water for South Florida. The aquifer
is recharged by surface water in the Everglades, so saltier water
in the Everglades would reach the aquifer as well. The city of
Hallandale Beach has abandoned six of its eight drinking water
wells, because the water was becoming too salty to drink.
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-08/documents/climate-change-fl.pdf
Thank you, Mr. Fauci. You served the world well. Aside: Have the lies started yet, telling us Fauci lies in his book?
YAY. Some songs never lose their spirit... 58F, flucking freezing.
Wisconsin is a key swing state this year – and has a history of being unpredictable
" I Wonder What Alleged “Horrible City” Milwaukee Thinks of Trump
He claims he said it, but he was talking about voter fraud. Or maybe it was about crime.
Or, no, actually he didn’t say it at all, and Milwaukee is great in July. "
Have had this on tab for too long. Yours is perfect for it. Thank, pal, and keep talking, Donald.
Published: June 4, 2024 10.45pm AEST
Author Jonathan J. Kasparek
Professor of history, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Disclosure statement
Jonathan J. Kasparek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
View all partners
CC BY ND
Voters in Wisconsin – now considered a critical swing state ahead of the 2024 presidential election – may be among the most unpredictable in the nation.
Although former President Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 election and again in 2012, Wisconsin voters stunned pollsters by voting for Donald Trump in 2016, marking the first time since 1984 that the state’s electoral votes went to a Republican. Then, in the 2020 election, the state’s voters chose a Democrat again – Joe Biden.
Wisconsin voters have also vacillated in their support for governors – selecting Republican Scott Walker in 2010 and 2014 with sizable margins, then voting for Democrat Tony Evers in 2018 and 2022.
Nonpartisan state Supreme Court elections have produced similar results, with a mix of conservative victories in 2017 and 2019, and liberal victories in 2018, 2020 and 2023.
Better decisions start with better information.
Recent polling shows that the race between Trump and Biden is very close in Wisconsin. A win in Wisconsin could be a big step to winning the election for either Biden or Trump.
I am a scholar of Wisconsin history and politics. Overall, statewide elections for governor, senator and Supreme Court justice have resulted in conservative and liberal victories in almost equal numbers between 2008 and 2022. Understanding Wisconsin’s recent, complicated political history and demographics gives some important context on how it became a key swing state in this year’s election.
Donald Trump greets supporters after speaking at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024.
Alex Wróblewski/AFP via Getty Images
A history of Wisconsin’s voting
In the early 20th century, the Republican party dominated Wisconsin, winning every statewide election between 1894 and 1930 and controlling large majorities in the Legislature.
In the late 1940s, activists began rebuilding the moribund Democratic Party, which drew on two major areas of strength. The first was the industrial lakeshore regions of Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties, where the Democratic prospects were bolstered by labor unions and the strong socialist tradition of the city of Milwaukee .. https://www.mpl.org/local_history/milwaukeessocialisthistory.php .
Insert: LOLs No wonder Trump says it is a terrible place. Keep talking, Donald.
Democratic support for national civil rights laws and nondiscriminatory equal housing laws in the 1960s also made the state’s African Americans reliable Democratic voters.
The second major issue driving support for Democrats was Madison, the capital and home of the University of Wisconsin, which by the 1970s became known as one of the most liberal cities in the country.
After years of organizing, Wisconsin Democrats finally broke the Republican monopoly by electing William Proxmire as senator in 1957 – he was reelected multiple times and served until 1989 – and Gaylord Nelson as governor in 1958.
For the rest of the 20th century, Democrats and Republicans remained evenly matched. Although both parties had support from particular populations – Republicans were more popular in the suburbs, while Democrats held more sway in larger cities – both parties campaigned across the state. And rural voters could be swayed by Democratic candidates’ agricultural policies or by Republicans’ appeal to conservative social values.
A shift in Wisconsin politics
By the 1990s, though, Wisconsin’s political geography began to change. Declining factory jobs in the automotive, heavy machinery and farm equipment industries reduced the number of union members, sapping a major source of Democratic strength in the state.
At the same time, a shift toward corporate farming in Wisconsin – meaning large-scale agriculture production traditionally managed by private companies – reduced the overall number of small and medium-sized family farms. This created a rural state population not directly involved with agriculture and also diminished Democrats’ ability to appeal to nonurban voters.
Republicans capitalized on this trend by depicting Democrats as out-of-touch elitists who ignored those who did not live in urban centers such as Madison or Milwaukee.
After Obama’s 2008 election, Republicans rode a backlash against this perceived hostility toward rural and small-town white voters, electing Scott Walker governor in 2010. Republicans also secured a lopsided state legislative majority through partisan redistricting that favored their party.
The rural white voter
Trump’s 2016 campaign appealed to Wisconsin’s rural, overwhelmingly white voters, especially among those without a college degree.
Mitt Romney carried this Wisconsin demographic 52% to Obama’s 47% in 2012; Trump carried it 56% to 38%in 2016.
In 62 out of 72 counties, Wisconsin’s Republican vote increased between 2012 and 2016, and the sharpest increase was in rural counties. The “reddening” of these counties was instrumental to Trump’s victory, and this trend continued in 2020.
On the other hand, the most historically reliable Republican areas became noticeably less Republican. Republican turnout declined significantly in suburban Milwaukee counties, including Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha. Clearly, suburban voters were more skeptical of Trump than rural voters.
Heading into the 2024 Biden-Trump rematch, I believe this rural-urban split will likely continue, and the election will certainly be close. Many suburban Republicans remain unenthused about a third Trump candidacy, turned off by his legal woes and the chaos of Jan. 6.
Economy a top issue for Wisconsinites
Biden faces his own headwinds.
The most important issue for Wisconsin voters is the economy. A March 2024 poll conducted by Emerson College and political publication The Hill revealed that economic issues, including the costs of health care and housing, were the most important concerns for nearly half of Wisconsin voters.
Concerns about inflation are a recurring theme, as campaign volunteers have heard when they go door to door.
The Biden campaign recognizes unease over the economy as a threat, and the president has made multiple visits to Wisconsin over the past few months promoting his infrastructure plans and the growth in manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin under his administration.
Abortion and immigration also matter to voters
If concerns over the economy boost Trump’s chances in the state, another potent issue provides a significant advantage for Biden.
Approximately 80% of surveyed Wisconsin voters identified abortion rights as “one of the most” or a “somewhat” important issue for them in May 2024.
Right now, abortion is legal in Wisconsin until 20 weeks of pregnancy, but there are lawsuits challenging this policy.
Even some Republicans are uneasy with the fact that the three U.S. Supreme Court justices that Trump appointed were instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Trump’s continual shifting on abortion has not reassured some local Republican leaders who are worried about a pro-abortion rights surge toward Biden.
Additionally, Republican voters, despite the state’s distance from the southern border, express concern about immigration. Although this issue may help motivate Republicans otherwise not enthusiastic about Trump to vote for him, it is unlikely to sway many undecided or independent voters.
People walk along a street in Sister Bay in Door County, Wis., a swing county that has backed every presidential election’s winning
candidate since 2000. Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A duel to save America
The immigration issue is balanced by some Democrats’ concerns about preserving democracy itself and not electing Trump.
Both Democrats and Republicans have used apocalyptic language urging Wisconsin voters to “save America,” but Democrats can point to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and Trump’s ongoing legal problems rather than Republicans’ more abstract concern about border security.
In the recent Emerson College survey, 9.5% of Wisconsin respondents listed “threats to democracy” as the No. 1 issue for voters.
Pro-Palestinian encampments at Wisconsin universities, as well as the police response to the protests, might also undermine Biden’s support among younger, more liberal voters.
A Biden victory in Wisconsin would require a big turnout in Madison and Milwaukee. But the youth vote in Wisconsin – as well as elsewhere – may be diminished out of concerns over the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip, potentially costing Biden reelection. Strong turnout in rural counties, combined with continued anxiety over inflation, could very well make Wisconsin flip back to Trump.
https://theconversation.com/wisconsin-is-a-key-swing-state-this-year-and-has-a-history-of-being-unpredictable-230642
No, not conspiracy new or old, just change, is all - A New World Order in the Making
"I'm wondering about this..
Saudi Arabia ends petrodollar agreement: What it means for the USD, Bitcoin, and gold "
Hey, good post. This ties the petrodollar end to wider
developments. Interesting stuff. Is good to learn. Thks.
Helmut Sorge
December 22, 2023
Related topics:
“As the world continues to fracture into different blocs, a new world order is in the making,” observes ambassador Len Ishmael, Senior Fellow of the Policy Center for the New South, in her Policy Paper ‘The New South in a Multipolar World; Multi-Alignment or Fence Sitting?’ (October 23, 2023 .. https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/new-south-multipolar-world-multi-alignment-or-fence-sitting ). The major economies of the G7 remain at the helm, but “whereas the G7 share of global GDP was two thirds in 1990, today it is closer to one-third. In the meantime, the countries of the New South are adding more muscle to the G20, and an array of non-western groupings [is] forging a new identity: The New South. Will that be a moment or a momentum?” she asks.
“Time will tell,” is her answer. But, she says, “it is hard to dismiss the sense that change in the international structure is happening, greater multipolarity crafted by middle powers is evident, and The New South is very much part of this new chapter.” Dr. Ishmael, author of many books, including on the EU-African relationship, confirms that “the renewed interest of all major powers in securing support and partnerships with countries of the Global South is shown by the spate of recent African engagements with world leaders, including those of the U.S., Russia, China, and the EU, the invitation to Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia to attend the G7 Copenhagen summit (June 2023) as observers, recent comments by U.S. President Biden indicating an openness to discuss UN Security Council reform, G20 enlargement to include the [African Union], and the flurry of shuttle diplomacy by Western powers to Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.” This, writes ambassador Ishmael, “carries a significance which transcends the Ukrainian conflict.”
The writing on the wall leaves no doubt: “The West seeks to shore up supplies of critical raw materials (CRM) in the race with China in the transition to green energy, high tech, and artificial intelligence. But these encounters are also designed to woo countries away from China and Russia during this period of heightened tensions.”
The BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—does not claim to be a competitor to the G7 or G20, but when the original founders announced they would be willing to enlarge their group, announcing new members at their meeting in South Africa on August 24, 2023, more than 40 nations showed an interest, and 22 asked officially to join BRICS. For Navdeep Suri, Distinguished Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation in India (Global Memo, August 31, 2023) this is “clearly a symptom of a deeper malaise.” The West’s “proclivity to display unilateral finance sanctions, abuse international payments mechanisms, renege on climate finance commitments, accord scant respect for food security and health imperatives of the Global South during the pandemic are only some of the elements responsible for the growing disenchantment with the prevailing international system.”
[Insert: This is not conspiracy. it is much bigger than the "Global Cabal" of old and new which conspiracy people will always con others about. This is reality. An adjustment to world
order neither designed nor driven by a conspiratorial Illuminati-type group, nor by the powers that presently prevail in the UN. It's just people and countries looking at change.]
In her paper, Dr Ishmael wrote “the West is slowly facing the reality that Western interests are no longer de facto those of the rest of the world, and that the risk of losing global power and influence is real. Recent moves by Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices high ... by continuing to reduce supplies in tandem with Russia, underscores this reality, showing the determination even by a long-term Western ally to champion its own financial interests over those of traditional allies. Like South Africa, India, and many others, Saudi Arabia is unabashedly multi-aligned in pursuit of its domestic interests.”
A Critical Moment
When the BRICS named in August its new members—an almost bankrupt Argentina, oil-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the rather isolated Iran, impoverished Ethiopia, and economically stressed Egypt—‘Global Perspectives’ (August 31, 2023) published by the Council of Councils, which gathers opinion from global experts on major international developments, asked in a headline: “Seeking an Alternate World Order?” The fifteenth BRICS Summit, suggests Navdeep Suri, “has sent a strong signal that the post-World War II order should accept the multipolar reality and change with the time”.
The recent rupee-designated oil transaction between India and the UAE is not merely a swipe at the petrodollar arrangement which has prevailed since 1973, argues Suri, “but it is also a signal that the world’s major commodity exporters and importers can try to reduce their dependence on the dollar.” If not a new world order, suggests Suri, the BRICS expansion is “certainly an attempt at an alternative world order, one with a more sympathetic for the developing many versus the developed few.”
“A critical moment in the creation of a new world order may have just occurred,” writes Steven Gruzd, head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Program, South African Institute of International Affairs, in a paper edited for ‘Global Memo’. “After horse trading and arm twisting, the BRICS is now the BRICS plus six and the new members will add their voices to advocating for a more equitable global governance system, reforming the UN Security Council, and increasing influence for the Global South.”
“In addition the steady stream of summits involving countries of the Global South,” observed Dr Ishmael in her Policy Paper, BRICS, the G20, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the recently concluded two day G77+China South Summit, held in Cuba, “also point to a growing multipolarity, and diffusion of world power and a coming together of the Global South around an agenda of core interests notwithstanding their differences. There is a growing realization that the increasing weight of these countries can no longer be ignored.”
Considering this political and economic weight, the increasing power of the Global South, a vision of an independent, democratic nation named Palestine is no longer a mirage. It could be a reality if the powers to be give peace a chance and are willing to create, but not destroy or oppress, a nation without respected borders a capital surrounded by barbed wire and mines, and which is suffering from bombs and missiles that pulverize dreams.
https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/new-world-order-making?page=72
Christian Dolly Parton says, 'Love all people, regardless of sexuality.' Some at the source
of the guidebook prepared for Trump The Federalist's Project 2025,
B402, H/t sortagreen -- Project 2025 poses threat to democracy
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174565800
see Dolly as abusing her Christianity.
"I've actually missed all of this. What did happen with Dolly Parton?"
You'd know by now, anyway now i know more about it too...
Internet Rallies Around Dolly Parton After Bizarre Right-Wing Attack
A far-right outlet accused the musical legend of pushing a “false gospel.”
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Fans of 11-time Grammy Award–winning singer Dolly Parton came to her aid this week, in response to a tacky, homophobic hit piece published by a right-wing magazine.
The Federalist is a conservative outlet that has previously taken aim at Taylor Swift, accusing her of indoctrinating her listeners into man-hating feminism, a thinly veiled grievance about their inability to control the thoughts of young women. Now it’s taken aim at the Queen of Country herself, likely for much the same reason.
The newest article took issue with Parton using her Christian faith as a rationale for her acceptance of all people, including those who identify as LGBTQ+.
“Parton’s version of love, which includes condoning immoral sexual behavior, (be who you are she said), is unaligned with God’s vision for humanity,” the author wrote, going on to compare Parton to a secular leader spreading “false gospel.”
Trying to cut down such a beloved figure and awarded philanthropist is pretty ridiculous, and especially ironic for a publication that previously published an article pushing for her to be the next president of the United States.
The publication of this wildly homophobic tirade was timed to hitch a ride on the wave of attention Parton has received since announcing her new musical, Hello, I’m Dolly! Now, as one user on X declared, “they came for Dolly. we ride at dawn.”
More - https://newrepublic.com/post/182471/internet-dolly-parton-bizarre-right-wing-attack
The Latest | Hamas responds to Gaza cease-fire plan with ‘amendments,’ and US is evaluating
"Fact or Fiction? In This War, It Is Hard to Tell.
"October 7: Forensic analysis shows Hamas abuses, many false Israeli claims
"Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War""
VIDEO
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says ‘it is on Hamas’ to decide whether or not it will move forward
with a cease-fire plan. He spoke to reporters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday after meeting with Israeli officials.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 8:36 AM GMT+10, June 12, 2024
All links
Hamas responded Tuesday to the U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying it wants some “amendments” on the deal. The militant group’s reply apparently fell short of an outright acceptance that the United States has been pushing for but kept negotiations alive over an elusive halt to the eight-month war.
Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha said the response included “amendments that confirm the cease-fire, withdrawal, reconstruction and (prisoner) exchange.” He did not elaborate.
While supporting the broad outlines of the deal, Hamas officials have expressed wariness over whether Israel would implement its terms, particularly provisions for an eventual permanent end to fighting and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages held by the militants.
Also Tuesday, the U.N. human rights office said both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes in connection with a deadly raid by Israeli forces that freed four hostages and killed at least 274 Palestinians over the weekend.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Palestinians are facing widespread hunger because the war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies. U.N. agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.
RELATED COVERAGE
The Latest | US is removing aid pier from Gaza coast again due to weather, officials say
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-latest-06-14-2024-d7ad7cdcc705b94f82976a61d2320fc1
Israel-Hamas war roils congressional race outside New York City, testing Democrats in pivotal clash
https://apnews.com/article/bowman-latimer-congress-new-york-primary-israel-f1040cfb7e7c9f87e083d177b0ce1861
What are the main sticking points in the cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas?
[Excerts
-- Ending the war
.. Hamas has insisted it will not release the remaining hostages unless there’s a permanent cease-fire
and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
[...] But Netanyahu says Israel is still committed to destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, and ensuring it can never again carry out an Oct. 7-style assault. A full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, where Hamas’ top leadership and much of its forces are still intact, would almost certainly leave the group in control of the territory and able to rearm.
P - That’s in part because Israel has yet to put forward a plan for Gaza’s postwar governance, and has rejected a U.S. proposal that has wide regional support because it would require major progress toward creating a Palestinian state.]
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-ceasefire-negotiations-ab6925549d8f523a6e5c61e88e7eec8a
Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.
Currently:
— Hamas responds to Gaza cease-fire plan seeking some changes. US says it’s ‘evaluating’ the reply
— Netanyahu’s top rival left Israel’s war Cabinet. How does that affect the prime minister and Gaza?
[Excerpt: JERUSALEM (AP) — The resignation of a senior member of Israel’s war Cabinet was a dramatic show
of distrust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategy for the eight-month-old war with Hamas.
P - But the departure of Benny Gantz does not immediately appear to threaten Netanyahu,
who still controls a majority coalition in parliament.]
https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-gantz-netanyahu-war-hamas-hostages-b24508eea7f8b85b146427368c98b034
— UN says violence against children in conflict reached extreme levels in 2023, including in Gaza
https://apnews.com/article/un-children-conflict-gaza-russia-sudan-71671ae880f5a8064815517b2f74b739
— Dozens arrested in new pro-Palestinian protests at University of California, Los Angeles.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-campus-protests-ucla-arrests-eaf9c68ff5e3a8f6333a23ba5e5fe0e1
— UN says Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups may have committed war crimes in a deadly raid
— What does Israel’s rescue of 4 captives, and the killing of 274 Palestinians, mean for truce talks?
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hostages-rescue-hamas-gaza-biden-proposal-0faafb8a1b0e4f0050dd20efc81e937d
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Here’s the latest:
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says a senior commander has been killed
BEIRUT — Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced early Wednesday the death of one of its commanders, identified as Taleb Sami Abdullah or “Hajj Abu Taleb.”
The group did not give details on the location and circumstances of his death, but identified him as a “martyr on the road to Jerusalem,” the term it uses for those killed in the current conflict with Israel. Hezbollah published a photo of Abdullah alongside Wissam al-Tawil, another senior commander killed in an Israeli strike in January.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on Abdullah’s death.
Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified in the past month, as Israel launched its offensive into the key southern Gaza city of Rafah. Hezbollah has also stepped up its attacks, striking deeper inside Israel and introduced new and more advanced weaponry.
Israeli drone strikes have killed hundreds of Hezbollah members since exchanges of fire began on Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza.
Since then, more than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah members. The dead also include more than 70 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed.
U.N. humanitarian official in central Gaza decries death toll in recent days
NUSEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip — A U.N. humanitarian official on the ground in Gaza has decried the massive number of people killed and wounded by Israeli forces over the past week in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says nearly 300 Palestinians were killed and around 700 wounded in an operation to free four Israeli hostages held in Nuseirat, just days after an Israeli strike in the camp killed at least 33 people at a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinian families.
“I wish I could tell you this was a special week in Gaza, but this is the ninth month that weeks like this, nightmares like this take place frequently,” said Yasmina Guerda, a U.N. OCHA Humanitarian Affairs Officer in Gaza. “Indiscriminate attacks that kill women, children, mothers, babies, fathers, brothers and sisters.”
“This violence has to end. This war has to end,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
The Israeli military says its forces came under heavy fire and responded during the complex hostage rescue operation. Israel says it follows international law and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying militants operate among the population.
Residents of the built-up refugee camp recounted the events with horror.
“Gunshots and explosions everywhere. We are- It’s like a doomsday,” said one resident, Ahmed, who gave only his first name. His family sheltered at home, unable to leave the area because of the explosions and the sound of a drone overhead.
He’s worried Israeli forces could launch another raid like the one Saturday. “If this attack happened and I’m not home, what can happen to my daughter? To my wife?”
Hamas says it gave mediators its response to Gaza cease-fire plan with some ‘remarks’
BEIRUT — Hamas says it has given Qatari and Egyptian mediators its reply to the U.S.-backed proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza, with some “remarks” on the deal.
Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group said they were ready to “deal positively to arrive at an agreement” and that their priority is to bring a “complete stop” to the war.
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, told Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television that the group had “submitted some remarks on the proposal to the mediators.” He did not give any details.
The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt said in joint statement that they were examining the response and that they would continue their mediation efforts along with the United States “until an agreement is reached.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “We’re in receipt of this reply that Hamas delivered to Qatar and to Egypt, and we are evaluating it right now.”
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Hamas to accept the proposal, saying that the U.N. Security Council’s vote in favor of the proposal made it “as clear as it possibly could be” that the world supports the plan.
UN could reconsider role in US-built aid pier if Israel used it for deadly raid, humanitarian chief says
DEAD SEA, Jordan — Allegations on social media that the Israeli military may have used the U.S.-built pier for aid shipments in Gaza in a weekend raid that killed nearly 300 Palestinians would jeopardize future humanitarian engagement in the U.S. aid project if they turn out to be true, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Tuesday. The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly denied those allegations.
Griffiths, speaking at a conference on Gaza at the Dead Sea in Jordan, said an ongoing U.N. security review was examining whether any aspect of the month-old U.S. pier project in Gaza was used in Saturday’s Israeli military operation .. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-8-6-2024-a5d1ef04763a5ed17de2d050ebc5d490
The air and ground assault by the Israeli military killed 274 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It freed four Israeli hostages who had been held by Hamas since the group’s Oct. 7 attack in Israel.
The U.N. World Food Program, which oversees distribution of aid brought in via the pier, announced after the raid it was suspending aid work at the pier while it reassesses the safety of aid workers.
If the allegations are “true they are very concerning, because they would put at risk any future humanitarian engagement in that operation,” Griffiths said, referring to the U.S. pier project.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder says an area south of the pier was used in returning the rescued hostages to Israel. Ryder has repeatedly denied the pier, its equipment or any of its other assets were used in the deadly raid.
Griffiths was responding to a question Tuesday about whether the Israeli military operation Saturday, and the perception among Palestinians that the aid was aligned with the military, would affect the U.N.’s willingness to keep working with the U.S. sea route for aid.
While he had no proof either way, Griffiths said, the U.N. would be concerned if it found either the beach or the roads leading from the pier were used in staging Saturday’s military operation.
U.N. leadership was conducting the security assessment and would “see if it is becoming, to see if it is safe and proper and right and principled, for us to re-engage in that maritime operation.”
“You can be damn sure we are going to be very careful about what we assess and what we conclude,” he said.
Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians in northern West Bank near Jenin
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces killed six Palestinians on Tuesday in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Dan, near the city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, as violence flares across the occupied territory.
The Israeli army said it killed four militants in a gunbattle and wounded other fighters in the village, and a helicopter struck the area near a structure the militants were using. The army statement said four guns were also found during the raid.
Over the past few years, Jenin and the surrounding areas have become a major flash point in the decadeslong conflict.
------
[INSERT: brooklyn13, There are responses to attacks, and responses. I'll remind you of positions
of two very prominent and respected Israel leaders. One late, one still with us.
Ehud Barak blames Binyamin Netanyahu for “the greatest failure in Israel’s history”
See also: Vengeance Is Not a Policy
"There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.
"Omar and Tlaib Are Condemned in the US for Saying What Prominent Israelis Are Saying
"Supporting Palestinian rights is antisemitic because Israel wants it to be"""
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173028605
.. and ..
Netanyahu’s Betrayal of Democracy Is a Betrayal of Israel
"Israel’s Netanyahu back in power with hard-line government"
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170949384
[...]
Mr Barak advises the government not to rush a ground operation. “We’re not facing an existential threat from Hamas,” he says.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174567534]
------
Since the war in Gaza began, Israeli fire has killed more than 530 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry — some in gunbattles with Israeli forces, and others shot dead for posing no apparent threat. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have also been on the rise.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers semi-autonomous parts of the West Bank, has limited influence in the northern areas, where other armed factions have grown in power.
The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule. The more than 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have Israeli citizenship.
UN chief calls for more aid to Gaza at conference co-hosted by Jordan and Egypt
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-mideast-latest-06-11-2024-bbc5468ce80daf08f8caba07bdc56266
What It’s like to Live with a Brain Chip, according to Neuralink’s First User
"First human receives Neuralink brain chip implant, Elon Musk says"
Related: On the 50th anniversary of the birth of the internet, technologists balance optimism and warnings
The Pew Research Center surveyed 530 technologists, researchers, activists and business and policy
leaders about how people might be affected by changes in the internet over the next 50 years.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=151983706
June 7, 2024
Thirty-year-old Noland Arbaugh says the Neuralink chip has let him “reconnect with the world”
By Lauren Leffer
Moor Studio/Getty Images
All links
Noland Arbaugh has a computer chip embedded in his skull and an electrode array in his brain. But Arbaugh, the first user of the Neuralink brain-computer interface, or BCI, says he wouldn’t know the hardware was there if he didn’t remember going through with the surgery. “If I had lost my memory, and I woke up, and you told me there was something implanted in my brain, then I probably wouldn’t believe you,” says the 30-year-old Arizona resident, who has been paralyzed below the middle of his neck since a 2016 swimming accident. “I have no sensation of it—no way of telling it’s there unless someone goes and physically pushes on it.”
The Neuralink chip may be physically unobtrusive, but Arbaugh says it’s had a big impact on his life, allowing him to “reconnect with the world.” He underwent robotic surgery in January to receive the N1 Implant, also called “the Link,” in Neuralink’s first approved human trial.
BCIs have existed for decades. But because billionaire technologist Elon Musk owns Neuralink, the company has received outsize attention. It’s brought renewed public interest to a technology that could significantly improve the life of those living with quadriplegia, such as Arbaugh, as well as people with other disabilities or neurodegenerative diseases.
BCIs record electrical activity in the brain and translate those data into output actions, such as opening and closing a robotic hand or clicking a computer mouse. They vary in their design, level of invasiveness and the resolution of the information they capture. Some detect neurons’ electrical activity with entirely external electroencephalogram (EEG) arrays placed over a subject’s head. Others use electrodes placed on the brain’s surface to track neural activity. Then there are intracortical devices, which use electrodes implanted directly into brain tissue, to get as close as possible to the targeted neurons. Neuralink’s implant falls into this category.
Capturing neural activity can be like trying to record chitchat between two people in a packed stadium, says Douglas Weber, a mechanical engineer and neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University. To hear anything more than the crowd’s roar, you need to get up close with the person speaking. “The farther away from the speaker you are, the more mixed and muddled the conversations become,” he explains. Neuralink threads electrodes into the brain’s motion-controlling motor cortex, positioning “sensors right up next to the individual neurons that are conversing.”
Neuralink is not the first to do this. A device called the Utah Array—a tiny, rectangular grid of silicon spikes—is the standard electrode system for intracortical BCIs. It was developed by a University of Utah bioengineering professor, Richard Normann, in the 1990s; in 2004 Matthew Nagle was the first person to use a Utah Array BCI to control a cursor with his thoughts. Neuralink’s design, drawing on prior microwire research, is also not the first to replace the rigid Utah array with a network of thin, flexible threads that have electrodes along their length.
What Neuralink has done, however, is condense multiple advances into a single implantable, intracortical, wireless device. “They’ve kind of taken the best of everything that I’ve seen and put it all together,” says Jennifer Collinger, a biomedical engineer and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Data into Action
The Link’s circular electronic hub connects to 64 superfine threads that contain a total of 1,024 electrodes. That’s about 10 times as many electrodes as a Utah Array (though multiple Utah Arrays have been implanted into a single person’s brain at once). The Link transmits compressed neural data from the brain via Bluetooth, and an algorithm tuned to the user’s unique neural patterns translates those data into action.
Curated by Our Editors
Hollywood Should Give Brain Science a Star Turn
Deena Weisberg & Marc Coutanche
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hollywood-should-give-brain-science-a-star-turn/
New Soft Electrode Unfolds inside the Skull
Simon Makin
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-soft-electrode-unfolds-inside-the-skull/
Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact
Lydia Denworth
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-waves-synchronize-when-people-interact/
New Brain Implant Turns Visualized Letters into Text
Bret Stetka
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-brain-implant-turns-visualized-letters-into-text/
This Start-Up Wants You to Put Custom Bacteria on Your Teeth
Christina Szalinski
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-start-up-wants-you-to-put-custom-bacteria-on-your-teeth/
Arbaugh says he was able to move a digital cursor within a week after the implant surgery. He does so in two ways. There’s what he describes as “attempted movement”—or simply willing a paralyzed limb to do what it no longer can. By instigating movement of the muscles in his hand (which he says can still produce slight wiggles) and going through the mental motions of using a mouse with that hand, he can move a cursor around a screen with little effort. “It’s very intuitive,” Arbaugh says.
He's also found that looking at the cursor and picturing the path he’d like it to take enables him to navigate a screen. He calls this “imagined movement.” He uses both methods, often in conjunction with each other. The first is a bit more physically taxing, while the second requires some extra mental focus. But both allow multitasking: Arbaugh can talk or eat at the same time as he operates his computer.
Before the implant, if Arbaugh wanted to use a computer, he did so by voice command or moving a mouth stick across a touch screen (which required someone to help him get into position). But with his BCI, Arbaugh says he’s able to do more—faster, independently and more comfortably. Using the best BCIs “should feel as natural as able-bodied, voluntary movement,” says Leigh Hochberg, a neurointensive care physician and neuroscientist at Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the VA Providence Healthcare System. Hochberg has conducted multiple BCI human trials and studies, sharing what he’s learned with Neuralink and other companies.* Hochberg says he sometimes gauges how well a device works by how little a subject can describe the user experience. “If our participants can’t tell us exactly how they just did something,” he says, “we know we’re on the right track.”
Neuralink claims that Arbaugh has broken records for BCI cursor control and has reached eight bits per second, a measure that incorporates both speed and accuracy. (Neuralink has released its cursor control benchmark, a square-clicking task, if you’d like to compare your ability to Arbaugh’s.) Arbaugh says he uses his device for hours at a time to browse the Web, send text messages, scroll social media, navigate apps and—perhaps most importantly—play video games. Online chess and the world-building strategy game Civilization VI have been his favorites.
The device has one unavoidable drawback, he says: it needs to be regularly charged, interrupting his gaming sessions. To power up his implant, Arbaugh dons a hat with an embedded wireless charger—a big change from the plug-in BCIs still used in many research settings. Otherwise, using the Link has been mostly seamless, he says—except for when, in February, it nearly stopped working.
Retracting Threads
About a month following surgery, Arbaugh lost significant functionality in his implant. At first he thought it was a software bug, but the Neuralink team soon informed him it was a hardware problem. According to Arbaugh, Neuralink’s analysis of the electrode signals revealed that 85 percent of his implant threads had “retracted,” or moved out of position. Neuralink first publicly reported on the issue in a blog post on May 8, months after the setback was detected. (Neuralink did not respond to Scientific American’s questions about the thread retraction.)
“That was really hard to come to terms with,” Arbaugh says. “I was just sinking my teeth into it. I’d reached this high place. And after a month, it [felt like it] was all going to come crashing down.”
Weber notes that the possibility of such disappointment and anxiety is one of the “biggest risks” in human BCI research. “Imagine the stress of experiencing a spinal cord injury for the first time. Now imagine having to go through that again,” he says.
By tweaking the system’s algorithm to respond to the electrodes that were still transmitting data, Neuralink was able to restore much of his implant’s functionality, Arbaugh says. He’s since showed off his cursor prowess in video demos and says he’s back to breaking speed records. But some of the fixes have required creative solutions. The Neuralink engineers have created a system where Arbaugh makes a selection on a screen by hovering his cursor in place for 0.3 seconds instead of clicking. “We’re planning to go back to a single click where I initiate it,” he says. But that hasn’t happened yet.
Nor has the company released a formal scientific report on Arbaugh’s experience. That limits how much can be understood about the technology for now, says George Malliaras, an engineer leading the bioelectronics laboratory at the University of Cambridge. It’s not clear why or how far the threads retracted, if their position has continued to shift or if the remaining threads have stabilized, Malliaras notes. “We have to wait until papers are published with data,” he says.
In the meantime, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has green-lit Neuralink’s plans to move forward with the clinical trial and implant a second device in another person. The company will attempt to address the retraction issue by implanting the N1’s threads deeper than they were placed in Arbaugh’s case (eight millimeters vs three to five millimeters), as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. “It’s a strategy worth testing, assuming it doesn’t change the safety profile,” Weber says. “They wouldn’t do it if the FDA didn’t think it was okay, so it’s got to be something that was already approved in their protocol. Hopefully it fixes the problem.”
Arbaugh, however, isn’t discouraged by the setback. In his view, everything he’s gone through has a purpose: to improve the technology for others. “The whole point of this study was to find out what does and doesn’t work,” he says. Each bit of information Neuralink collects adds to the pool of data that might one day enable some of the most ambitious goals of BCI researchers: restoring movement to paralyzed limbs or sight to the blind. “I try to keep my expectations pretty grounded,” he says. But the ground seems to be shifting rapidly in the BCI field. He’s happy to be among the first, and he’s excited for the next person to get something even better.
*Editor’s Note (6/7/24): This sentence was edited after posting to better clarify how Leigh Hochberg’s
work on brain-computer interface has related to Neuralink and other companies.
Rights & Permissions
Lauren Leffer is a contributing writer and former tech reporting fellow at Scientific American. She covers many subjects, including artificial intelligence, climate and weird biology, because she's curious to a fault. Follow her on X @lauren_leffer and on Bluesky @laurenleffer.bsky.social
More by Lauren Leffer
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neuralinks-first-user-describes-life-with-elon-musks-brain-chip/
Day two ok, Was looking at two legged weekend, ended with five. My big disappointment was seeing Theegala
go from day best -5 at the time to -2. Oh, and seeing just now i don't have Aberg in Eli's.
Meant to have him in both. OOps. LOL
brooklyn13, Can you imagine how anyone who knows you would react on reading your,
"More Zionist b.s. from WaPo, actually why bother to read it, your mind is made up."
No doubt from the beginning of this latest round of war crimes, this time with some
from Hamas thrown in, rather than virtually all Israel's, whose mind has been rock.
Tell us why exactly Hamas still refuse the peace plan. Am thinking there could be some parallels with Ukraine
knocking back Putin's peace plan. What do you think. Some 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, for one.
Escalating murder in the West Bank, for two. What do you think. What are Hamas conditions
Israel won't accept.
Umm, probably. I could be the only Britishy Commonwealth one there. No Florida fans there yesterday though. Thinking now this
so far has been far from the cleaner healthier week planned, so may let it go by. Won't know for sure until about 30 min before.
Was a good comeback - Panthers beat Oilers in Game 3, on cusp of first Stanley Cup title
VIDEO
Associated Press
Jun 14, 2024, 01:17 PM
EDMONTON, Alberta -- Following their leaders who got them this far in the playoffs and a winning recipe that has worked all season, the Florida Panthers are on the verge of lifting the Stanley Cup.
Captain Aleksander Barkov set up a goal and scored another, Sergei Bobrovsky made some of the biggest of his 32 saves to thwart a comeback bid, and the Panthers held on to beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday night.
They can win the first title in franchise history as soon as Game 4 on Saturday night in Edmonton.
"We know it's going to be the hardest game for sure," Barkov said. "We don't take anything for granted. Every single day is one day at a time. Whether it's one period, one shift, we take it one at a time. That's how we've been all year."
Florida took another step toward hockey's mountaintop by pouncing on a handful of Edmonton turnovers and keeping Connor McDavid from scoring a goal. A late rally got the Oilers within one but fell short, as the Panthers leaned on Bobrovsky, who made a highlight-reel stop on Ryan McLeod in the final minutes to preserve the victory.
"They are a very skillful offensive team," Bobrovsky said. "They're going to make plays. You just focus on each and every one, and it's a fun challenge. It's a fun challenge to play against them because they bring the best."
Long before that, Barkov forced one of the giveaways by Evan Bouchard seconds before Sam Reinhart's goal, netminder Stuart Skinner coughed up the puck on Vladimir Tarasenko's, and Darnell Nurse gave it away on Sam Bennett's.
"We let them take that momentum and stride with it," Skinner said. "Just kind of silly mistakes. That doesn't need to happen."
Barkov had one of the signature moments by getting past the defense and beating Skinner on a breakaway, quieting for some time the crowd fired up for the first Stanley Cup Final game with fans in Edmonton since 2006. That series ended in defeat for the Oilers.
To avoid that fate this time and end Canada's Stanley Cup drought, they will need to complete a comeback from down 3-0 that has been done just four times in NHL playoff history -- and once in the final all the way back in 1942.
The last year a team based in Canada won the Stanley Cup was Montreal in 1993, months before the Panthers' inaugural season. Until this series, they had gone 1-8 in the final.
Behind Barkov and Bobrovsky, Florida has totally flipped that script. The two leading candidates for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP were arguably the two best players on the ice in Game 3, including Barkov bouncing back from a high hit from Leon Draisaitl that knocked him out of Game 2 on Monday night.
"Just from the start, our compete and our will and the want to win this one was huge," Bennett said. "Everyone down to our goalie were battling their butts off. It was nice to see the effort. You either have it, or you don't. We have 23 dogs on our team that have that will. You either have it, or you don't."
Winger Matthew Tkachuk, another big reason the Panthers got here, had a big assist and was responsible for turning up the pressure on Edmonton.
The Oilers wilted under it, losing a game in which they largely were the better team but could not overcome ill-timed miscues. Skinner allowed four goals on 23 shots, and Warren Foegele, Philip Broberg and McLeod scored, while McDavid for the first time all playoffs looked frustrated and out of sorts.
"We're trying to figure them out," said McDavid, who put five shots on net. "We haven't beat them in three games. We've had stretches that are good, stretches that are bad."
Bogging down elite opponents and defending them to the point of second-guessing their ability to score are huge parts of the Panthers' style and a big reason they are on the league's biggest stage, putting the cold ones on ice for a potential championship celebration 2,500 miles from home.
By holding on to beat Edmonton on Thursday night, they also showed no ill effects from waiting to fly from South Florida to Alberta, a decision that was questioned when their plane was delayed by storms and got in a few hours late Wednesday -- less than 24 hours before puck drop. Instead of looking jet-lagged, the Panthers were primed to pounce on opportunities to score and delivered when it mattered most.
"We keep staying with the moment," Bobrovsky said. "We don't think too much ahead of ourselves. We're just staying with the moment and enjoy the moment."
https://www.espn.com.au/nhl/story/_/id/40346970/panthers-beat-oilers-game-3-cusp-first-stanley-cup-title .
livefree_ordie, To be Beck's guest is to have something Beck wants to push. As long as Beck believes 'the spirit' speaks through him, and as long as he is still into world cabal conspiracy stuff, as he obviously is in that podcast, neither he nor his guests have much at all to contribute to worthwhile reading. Unless you are as mentally mistrustful as he is. This from your link is a top example of what i mean by sloppy thinking:
This isn't the "Global Cabal" conspiracy theory that's all over the internet, but the reality is just as terrifying. Alex makes the case that the U.N. and Bill Gates are building “a giant digital gulag for humanity” to assert digital control from the top down using tools like CBDCs and digital IDs to not only monitor what you do but manipulate it. Sweden already has thousands of people “with microchips in their hands.”
Your link - https://www.glennbeck.com/glenn-beck-podcast/is-global-cabal-conspiracy-theory
You tell us, IF it isn't his old ""Gobal Cabal" conspiracy theory that's all
over the internet" that what the hell is it. Bill Gates and the UN. LOLOL
Questions: How many people with microchips in their hands have been forced to have
them. How many have them because they find it more convenient than having
a wallet full of cards, and a bunch of keys to places they need keys for.
Every person who has a microchip in a hand wants it for convenience.
Some say Beck has gone more normal.
livefree_ordie, Actually my reaction to seeing his name after so long
was based purely on what i knew of him over a decade ago:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174596395
In there i said everyone deserves a 2nd chance, having been given the impression Beck had changed much.
After reading the podcast you posted i don't see how he has moved as far as i had had hoped perhaps he had.
PS: You giving anyone here but a fellow troll advice on open-mindedness and gaining
knowledge is as ludicrous as Trump giving advice on morality and/or ethics.
Shaw and Gandolfini, two talents too young. There are pluses for not being talented, too.
Shucks. My time Sunday 10am is the time game 4 is on, and the time pub opens. Could be there.
Yep. Kids appreciate learned experience stories. Good works.
It was until... then again it was...oh well.
LOLs I have a washing machine full of clothes.
Gonna hang them up in my bedroom, then go up to enjoy it with you.
More than depressing. Selective obviously still wouldn't have thought it was so bad.
YES GO OILERS!! O-O on now, eh. Oilers three new guys in. Enjoy. Damn, wasn't going to but am going up soon to watch it.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/live-blogs/panthers-vs-oilers-live-stanley-cup-final-game-3-score-updates/d6YxL2WVdWLm/
It's been years since seeing a good ice-hockey game.
Hey. Nothing wrong at all with your post. Just because someone decided to have some fun with you is no reason at all to think
there was anything wrong with your post. There wasn't. LOL, the comic about you your post encouraged was a beaut too.
Umm. So are you saying Musk is hustling dollars by exploiting nude women on his site now too. Am
asking since i haven't seen it mentioned before, and wouldn't know 'cuz have never searched the site.
"In Pat Robertson, Satan Meets His Match." Limbaugh, yep, of
course. Badly divisive guy. Graham and Robertson,too.
"I stand confused. Rush is the other dead guy. Good riddance.
Beck is unfortunately still alive, annoyingly like shitgibbon.
I willing to bet that neither graham nor robertson made it out of hell."
In Pat Robertson, Satan Meets His Match
The so-called preacher proved that spreading hate speech and slandering queers was a lucrative business to the tune of $100 million.
John Casey
June 10 2023 10:03 AM EST
When Rush Limbaugh died, we all yelled “Hurrah!” Even though you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, I did so in writing about the destructive Limbaugh, who was among the most hateful people on Earth.
I got a couple of messages after my “obituary” of Limbaugh was quoted detrimentally on a right-wing Christian website. “You will burn in hell because of what you did,” wrote one pious individual. It made me laugh because I wanted to respond, “Um, Limbaugh said I was going to burn in hell when he was alive, so I’m not seeing what’s so different about that sentiment now that he's dead.”
This brings us to the timely death of a truly evil man, Pat Robertson. If Limbaugh was a 9 out of 10 on LGBTQ .. https://www.pride.com/lgbtq/?utm_campaign=SmartLinks + hate, Robertson was an 11. We did nothing to him, but this “Reverend,’ if that’s what you call someone who preaches detestation and disdain, sure had it out for us in a way that was almost like an obsession. When someone is that contemptible toward you, it usually means they harbor a deep jealousy or they are just out of their mind.
I knew when my great-grandmother started to lose hers. After my great-grandfather died, she was all alone, and when we’d make the 45-minute drive to go see her when I was young, I remember that she suddenly started talking about watching The 700Club and singing the praises of Robertson. I remember my mom rolling her eyes.
The next time I’d hear that name was when I was in my first year on Capitol Hill and Robertson ran for president in 1987-1988. He really rubbed me the wrong way because he seemed to seethe with anger, which didn't jell with someone who preached the word of a loving God. By that time evangelicals had infiltrated the Republican Party so much so that Robertson came in third in the GOP primary races behind the eventual nominee and general election winner, Vice President George H.W. Bush, and U.S. Senator Bob Dole. That Robertson did so well was a scary moment.
And I had a scary moment the first time I saw the man. It was in Manhattan, and I was walking down Park Avenue, and a big limousine pulled up and Robertson got out. I shook my head, and remembered thinking something to the effect that Jesus never rode around in a limousine.
Pat Robertson lived lavishly, and he made a ton of money, millions of which were earned by spewing disgusting comments about us to his viewers and followers, who were no doubt freaked out enough people about queers that they sent him their hard-earned cash so he could keep broadcasting his hate, which brought more money — it was a vicious cycle. Vicious in the way he talked about us, but lucrative for Robertson.
One of his cash-cow comments went like this: “Many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.” Then, after the Pulse shooting: “The best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines and let [LGBTQ +rights advocates and Muslims] kill themselves.” Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, all the way to the bank.
I’m not going to repeat any more of his garbage, because he’s dead now, and so are his opinions, so they don’t matter anymore — but they did for a long time, over 50 years, and if you want to point a finger at why so much hate toward the LGBTQ+ community still exists, you can point that finger squarely at Robertson.
Sure, many people knew he was a whack job with all his insanely insensitive and idiotic comments, but to millions he preached the truth, and his hate speech was omnipresent at the worst time, when our community was dealing with AIDS deaths by the hundreds of thousands.
At a time when sympathy, understanding, and compassion should have been the order of the day, the supposed minister preached hostility, ignorance, and indifference. Arguably, he was at the zenith of his influence in 1988, when he ran for president, which was also right in the middle of worst period of the AIDS epidemic. Public opinion against gays and people with AIDS was a result of Robertson’s political and broadcasting bully pulpit.
For what he did, during that time period alone, Robertson deserves to burn in hell, and I say that without an ounce of remorse.
Some people, as they age, become wiser and also repentant for things they said and did in the past. The opposite held true for Robertson, which further demonstrated what a despicable human being he was. He never apologized, even when he went beyond the pale by claiming in 2013 that gays in San Francisco were spreading HIV by wearing rings that cut fingers while shaking hands. He did defend trans people a few years ago, to a point, but one good deed doesn't even begin to atone for all the incredible damage he inflicted upon us.
Even the Christian Broadcasting Network, where Robertson’s show aired, was horrified. It apologized, but Robertson refused. Like Donald Trump, Robertson didn’t know the meaning of the word "wrong."
Robertson was a precursor of Trump in one big way. Day after day, Robertson spouted lie after lie after lie, spreading venom and vitriol through the media, and his self-righteous and wrongheaded pre-MAGAs were brainwashed into sending donation after donation after donation. The more outrageous Robertson was, the richer he got, with an estimated net worth of $100 million at the time of his death.
Hate speech and hating queers is a lucrative business.
I recently did a journalism podcast, and the interviewer told me he read my tributes to Betty White, Queen Elizabeth II, and Regis Philbin. “It’s easy to write about people who spread love, peace, and happiness,” I said. “It’s also easy to write about people who were filled with hate.”
And no one in my lifetime was filled with more hate than Pat Robertson. Satan has met his match.
Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not
necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
https://www.advocate.com/voices/pat-robertson-homophobic-hate
Towing the line sounds like good solid stuff. I got wiped two days ago, thanks to a guy who has a prescription for medical marijuana so his vape is legal. And powerful for a guy who isn't smoking much anymore. He gave me a CBD tablet to try too. First one of those for me. Relaxing combination. Couldn't sleep much at all that night, and it took all day yesterday (with a nap in the afternoon) to get over it all. Now feeling more alive, and more healthy again.
Defiant Macron Predicts Chaos if France Succumbs to Extremes
"French lawmakers approve a bill that makes abortion a constitutional right
"hap0206, Invalid, disingenuous, misrepresentation recaps of yours,
[...]The Absurd Pregnancy Math behind the ‘Six-Week’ Abortion Ban
[...]What the Christian Right Gets Wrong About Birth Control
[...]Texas’ restrictive abortion law previews a post-Roe America
"Making Abortion Murder""
The French president called on people of good will to come together to defend the Republic in the snap election he decided to call.
President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday. Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Roger Cohen
Reporting from Paris
June 12, 2024Updated 2:07 p.m. ET
Declaring himself an “incorrigible optimist,” President Emmanuel Macron of France appealed on Wednesday to all French people “who reject the extremes” to vote for centrist parties in snap elections and so save the Republic from the bigotry of the far right and the antisemitism of the extreme left.
At a two-hour news conference, a third of it consisting of a speech by the president, Mr. Macron painted a somber picture of economic chaos, lawlessness and a society where there would be “true French citizens and lesser ones” if Marine Le Pen’s National Rally came to power.
“I do not intend to hand the keys of power to the extreme right in 2027,” Mr. Macron, who is term limited, vowed, alluding to the next presidential election.
Yet by dissolving the National Assembly and calling parliamentary elections starting 18 days from now, Mr. Macron has opened the possibility that he may have to hand over some of those keys in 2024. His gamble that the National Rally, which won more than double the vote of Mr. Macron’s centrist alliance in European Parliament elections on Sunday, will not repeat that performance in a domestic vote is a high-risk one.
If the National Rally emerges as by far the largest party in the elections on June 30 and July 7, as polls currently indicate it will, Mr. Macron may be obliged to name a prime minister from Ms. Le Pen’s party, probably its president, Jordan Bardella, 28.
Asked why he had rolled the dice, Mr. Macron said it was essential to have a “clarification,” a word he returned to multiple times. It would have shown disrespect for the will of the people, he insisted, if he had ignored the fact that “50 percent of French people voted for the extremes” in the European election — a reference to votes for far-right and far-left parties.
“You would have said, ‘This guy has lost it!’” he said.
The National Rally leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella at a campaign event in Marseille in March.
Christophe Simon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Yet that is precisely what many French people have been saying over the past few days. Even members of his own party have expressed dismay over a leader who made a decision that was not dictated by any constitutional requirement and that has thrust the country into turmoil on the eve of the Olympic Games, which begin in Paris next month.
Mr. Macron said he would not quit under any circumstances, would not debate Ms. Le Pen, and would not himself campaign for the elections, a task he said would be led by Gabriel Attal, the prime minister. Of course, his disquisition on the priorities of the election was itself clearly a campaign speech.
Asked repeatedly if he would name Mr. Bardella prime minister if the National Rally triumphed, Mr. Macron refused to engage in “fictional” speculation and took refuge in a defiant optimism that for now seems more wishful than anchored in facts.
The outreach of Mr. Macron to what is left of the French center seemed heartfelt and was laced with the word “humility,” as well as promises of governing in a different way. But it could not obviate the fact that he has effectively eviscerated the center-right Republicans, who are in turmoil over whether to ally with the National Rally in the election, and, to a lesser degree, the center-left Socialist Party since coming to power in 2017.
He has replaced them with a party that is little more than a personal vehicle representing what is known as “la Macronie,” a collection of centrists whose chief shared characteristic is their fierce loyalty to the president.
Mr. Macron appealed to ecologists, to Socialists, to Social Democrats, to radicals, even to what is left of the Communist Party, to come together before or after the election and trace a new path forward for France. This, he said, would need to recognize the widespread sense of “loss of control, dispossession, and relegation” among French citizens in rural areas and other places disconnected from the wired cities of the knowledge economy.
The problem is that Mr. Macron has made such promises before. At the time of the Yellow Vest protest movement that began in 2018, and after his re-election in 2022, he vowed to listen better and assume a new humility. There is little evidence as yet that the other political currents he has ignored during a very centralized and hierarchical presidency are ready to come to his rescue.
“We are not perfect,” Mr. Macron said, even as he dodged personal responsibility for the heavy defeat in the European election by saying that nationalist far-right movements were rising in many countries in Europe.
Protesting against the National Rally party in Paris on Tuesday. Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters
The president’s accusation of antisemitism appeared certain to anger the leftist France Unbowed party founded by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which has been fervent in its support of Palestinians and virulent in its criticism of Israel since the Gaza war began.
Mr. Mélenchon has accused the former prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, of presenting a “foreign point of view,” and Yaël Braun-Pivet, the Jewish president of the now dissolved National Assembly, of “camping out in Tel Aviv.”
Meanwhile, Ms. Le Pen, whose father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of her party, was an outright antisemite, has been outspoken in her defense of Israel and argues that her party has now become the natural home for the French Jewish community, given its hostility to Muslim immigration. Major Jewish organizations have up to now resisted her appeals.
Mr. Macron, clearly trying to appeal to National Rally voters, said he was determined to impose more “firmness” and “authority,” lamenting that measures already taken to increase the recruitment of police officers and curtail illegal immigration had not been “seen enough, felt enough, or understood by our compatriots.”
Talking a lot, as he is inclined to, Mr. Macron became impassioned several times when he spoke of the defense of the Republic and core French values. He equated the National Rally coming to power with a disaster that would impoverish and eviscerate the country.
“What would become of your pensions if the National Rally governed?” he asked. “What would become of your real estate loans whose cost will shoot up as interest rates rise?” His voice rising, Mr. Macron continued, “What would happen to our values, and our binational compatriots of diverse origins living in the projects?”
There was a difference, Mr. Macron argued, between a vote of anger, as in the European Parliament election, and the approaching legislative election. French people of good sense would, he said, step back from the brink.
He concluded thundering: “No to defeat. Yes to awakening, to a leap forward for the Republic!”
Roger Cohen is the Paris Bureau chief for The Times, covering France and beyond. He has reported on wars in Lebanon, Bosnia and Ukraine, and between Israel and Gaza, in more than four decades as a journalist. At The Times, he has been a correspondent, foreign editor and columnist. More about Roger Cohen
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/world/europe/macron-france-elections.html
conix, For mine, it would depend entirely on the worth of the article. On the legitimacy of it's content.
You should know me well enough by now to know that would be the answer to your question. Think.
See -- livefree_ordie, Actually my reaction to seeing his name after so long was based purely on what i
knew of him over a decade ago:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174596395
Could Pat Robertson be the dick you are thinking about:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=pat+robertson+
"He did the world a favor by leaving the planet.
He did die didn't he? What glenn kicked the bucket?
I'm pretty sure a far right asshole died a year or so ago??? Not the religious guys. "
On reading yours his name popped in.