2021-04-20

Cool

• First Video of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in Flight (JPL)

• Never mind outrunning a T. rex — you could probably outwalk it | Live Science

  "Our baseline model had a preferred walking speed of 2.86 mph [4.6 km/h]," which was significantly slower than earlier estimates of walking speed, van Bijlert said in the email.

Worthy

• An Afghanistan Veteran Looks Back on the "First Postmodern War" - TK News by Matt Taibbi

  Tom asked, “Do you know how many contractors have died in Iraq?” He paused for a second, and he said, “No.” Tom said, “Nobody does. There’s no way to know. We think 500 to 700 died,” but that's a private company. They keep their own statistics. We will never know how many contractors died in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s no legal mechanism for determining that, and as a result, we’re just not going to know. Historians hundreds of years from now may be able to mount lengthy campaigns to figure it out. That’s a problem.

etc

• Baltimore's Iconic Domino Sugar Factory Engulfed In Flames  | ZeroHedge

• Drones Light Up Shanghai’s Sky with a QR Code (That You Can Scan)

• Marijuana legalization has won

Horseshit

• Are social robots the future of child care?

• A grey single-pixel 'work' sells for $1.3m

• They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines–and Started a Cold War

• How the Pandemic Did, and Didn't, Change Where Americans Move

• China launches app for citizens to report anyone who has 'mistaken opinions'

• US Companies Are Helping Mexican Cartels Get Rich Kidnapping Migrants

• "The Internet will never go anywhere, all the writers and pressmen will become unemployed!" Self-Driving Cars: Still a Bad Idea - The Oasis

Culture War / Re segregation / Identdoctrination

• Pelosi: ‘Thank you George Floyd for Sacrificing Your Life’

• Former officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty on all three charges in the death of George ...

  + [George Floyd: Jury finds Derek Chauvin guilty of
  murder](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56818766)
  

  • Derek Chauvin Found Guilty On All Counts In Murder Of George Floyd | ZeroHedge

• House Democrats Unanimously Support Waters' Calls For "More Confrontation", Block GOP Censure Vote | ZeroHedge

• Sikh group wants probe of gunman's possible supremacist link

• A Different Way of Thinking About Cancel Culture

• Chauvin trial judge: Rep. Waters' comments may give defense grounds to appeal

• Pelosi: Maxine Waters Shouldn't Apologize for Comments to MN Protesters

• American Humanist Association Board Statement Withdrawing Honor from Richard Dawkins - American Humanist Association

  Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years accumulated a history of making statements that use the guise of scientific discourse to demean marginalized groups, an approach antithetical to humanist values. His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient. His subsequent attempts at clarification are inadequate and convey neither sensitivity nor sincerity.

  Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.

  + [Richard Dawkins loses ‘humanist of the year’ title over trans
  comments](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/20/richard-dawkins-loses-humanist-of-the-year-trans-comments)
  

  • Atheists for Liberty Statement in Support of Richard Dawkins

• Rep. Maxine Waters Asked For Police Escort As She Encouraged Protestors To ‘To Get More Confrontational’ | The Daily Caller

• Shining a Spotlight on Critical Race Theory in New York High Schools

• The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea

• There Is Absolutely No Evidence That Kristen Clarke’s Racist Letter Was Satire | National Review

• Facebook Bigwig Donated Millions to Black Lives Matter. Then The Company Censored Criticism of BLM’s Controversial Founder. - Washington Free Beacon

Media / Many Ministries of Truths / Censorship

• Substack: A Crack in Our Media's Berlin Wall | The Stream

• Shocker! YouTube CEO Accepts Free Expression Award from Event Her Platform Sponsored | Newsbusters

  Freedom Forum’s interviewer, despite the organization’s name, asked Wojcicki about her commitment to “protecting our community from content that can be harmful.” Wojcicki responded that the mere presence of controversial material such as “hate content, dangerous content” in the past made Youtube “no longer a platform that was viable for all these other voices out there.”

TechSuck

• IBM employee forced to stop kernel work for using personal email address | Hacker News

  • IBM to Kernel Maintainer: “You Are an IBM Employee 100% of the Time”

• Geico data breach exposed customers’ driver’s license numbers

• Remote code execution vulnerabilities uncovered in smart air fryer

• Hackers post 25,971 files stolen from Broward schools

• Discord Ends Deal Talks with Microsoft, Will IPO

Economicon

• Dogecoin hits all-time high as fans hail 'Doge Day' amid 600% monthly surge

• Unemployment Is High. Why Are Businesses Struggling to Hire?

• Actually It’s a $2 Billion Deli

  The simple valuation math is that Hometown is worth $13.01 (yesterday’s closing price) times 7.8 million (the number of shares outstanding), or about $101 million. But ordinarily companies are valued based on their fully diluted equity value, taking into account stock options and warrants. Here, there are 7.8 million shares, but also an absurd 155.9 million warrants. That represents a fully diluted equity value of almost $1.9 billion

• You can now buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Venmo—here's what you need to know

Poilitcks

• Supreme Court Asked to Compel Airing of Secret Intelligence Court’s Decisions

• Cannabis banking act passes U.S. House with bipartisan support

• White House outlines 100-day plan to upgrade U.S. cyberdefenses

• Schumer vows to undo federal marijuana laws, while GOP continues to balk

Security / Militaria / Crime

• Satellite Images Show Russia’s Expanding Ukraine Buildup

• Antifa Mole Leads To Multiple Arrests - Contextual Insurgent Project

• The Pentagon says more and more Russian troops are amassing near Ukraine, and it is not ...

• Authorities never sought 'red flag' hearing for FedEx shooter: prosecutor

• Nine injured after gunfire erupts at 12-year-old's birthday party

World

• Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident on hunger strike, explained

• U.S. ambassador refuses Kremlin push to leave Russia

  The United States ambassador to Russia is refusing to leave the country after the Kremlin "advised" him to return home following new Biden administration sanctions, two sources briefed on the situation tell Axios.

  • U.S. Ambassador To Russia Returns To Washington As Relations Sour Further

• Russia Further Ramps Up Military Pressure on Ukraine

• President of Chad Killed on the Battlefield

• 95% Indian Army personnel administered first dose of Covid-19 Vaccine

• Afghans Don’t Need U.S. Troops. They Need Islands of Stability.

• Russia's Putin to address nation as mass Navalny protests are planned

• ‘Follow the Party Forever’: China Plans a Communist Birthday Bash

Health / Medicine / COVID

• International Organizations Are Failing the World During Pandemic

• Disinfecting surfaces to prevent Covid often all for show, CDC advises.

• The Pandemic Will Be More Deadly This Year

• We need to know the origin of Covid-19

• Flushing a public toilet? Don't linger, because aerosolized droplets do

• Sleeping Too Little in Middle-Age May Raise Dementia Risk, Study Finds

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years

• An Earth Day message for California: Move faster on climate change

• Water crisis took toll on Flint adults’ physical, mental health