R I P T I D E S

As a former surf lifesaver I constantly find myself when I'm at a beach automatically in patrol mode, and I'm always troubled seeing the amount of swimmers that enter the surf straight into a rip zone. This includes, and most worrying of all children. I know a lot of people are kind of aware of what to do if caught in a rip, but it has been brought to my attention recently that a lot of people aren't aware of what a rip actually looks like or where the safest place to swim at the beach is if there is no flagged area.



One person will drown every two to three days this summer... 90% of those fatalities will be rip-related. Here are a few things that will help you and your kids stay safe this summer. I have also put together a few images that show what to look for.



1. The easiest thing to remember is that often the safest/calmest most enticing looking area along a beach is usually a rip. A rip is usually the area devoid of wave activity and appears darker and deceptively calmer. It can sometimes appear milky or turbulent, but it is always pretty much void of wave activity. All that water coming in via waves has to go back out somehow, this is what a rip is. (see pics).



2. Always take 5-10 mins when you get to the beach to observe surf conditions and identify where these areas are.

3. If you are caught in a rip, DO NOT PANIC. Go into floating mode and raise one arm as a distress signal when possible. See which direction the rip is taking you, is it straight out or at an angle? once you have determined this, and if you have the energy, swim to the right or left of the direction of flow, never against. Some rips can move at 3 times the speed of an olympic swimmer, you won't win! If you cannot swim out to either side of the rip, just go with it. Most rips won't take you out very far, and will usually spit you out not long after they take you, so keep calm and save your energy for the swim back to shore.

4. If you have kids, show them these pictures, educate them and make them aware. You can't always be watching them, and it is only a matter of a few metres each way of the point of entry to the water that could mean them being safe, or instantly caught in a rip.

Obviously the safest place to swim is always between the flags on a patrolled beach, but this isn't always practical given the immensity of our coast line and number of beautiful beaches. Of course there are many other factors that can come into play when it comes to beach safety, but rips are the No.1 killer. They are not hard to identify, and 10 mins observation before entering the surf is much easier than body retrieval.

The darker/calmer areas in the pics are rips. The one with purple dye shows rip movement.

Becoming Old

 

Investigating U F O's

AFTER A GREAT deal of speculation, the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have released a long-awaited report about their investigations into unidentified flying objects. The unclassified document, called “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” examined 144 incidents that occurred between November 2004 and March 2021 in which military pilots encountered something they couldn’t explain. Promoters of the idea that UFOs represent something beyond this world have been hyping up the release for months.

In only one case was the report able to deduce an exact nature of what their pilots saw with high confidence—it was a large, deflating balloon. It also concludes that further investigation of the other incidents would likely trace them back to some terrestrial cause, such as airborne debris, natural atmospheric phenomena like ice crystals, or flight vehicles from the US or other countries. But by their very nature, most of the reported cases are difficult to identify.

“The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP,” wrote the authors, using the military’s preferred parlance.

Today’s report follows in the wake of knowledge about a $22 million program known as the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, set up in 2007, whose existence was made public in a front page story in The New York Times in 2017. Though it contains no indication that any of its incidents could have been caused by things not of this Earth, it will be seen as a major victory by those who have been pushing for increased government disclosures about strange lights in the skies.

“No question, this is the story of the millennium,” says former CIA officer Jim Semivan, who helps run To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a company that researches UFOs and other unexplained phenomena. “This is going to reorder our consensus reality.”

His partner at To the Stars, Tom DeLonge (yes, from the punk-pop band Blink-182), agrees. “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle,” DeLonge says.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

The Expert

 

Divided We Fall

 

Proud Americans

 

Poll finds only about a third of young

adults are proud to be American

Click Here To Find Out Why...

The USA Likes Losing WARS

The last war that the United States of America won was World War II and they were able to accomplish that feat with the help of several other countries.

However, when we try to fight a war ourselves, we have a tendency to lose...  for example:

1. We lost the Korean War
2. We lost the Vietnam War
3. We lost the Iran/Iraq War
4. We lost the Afghanistan War

It is interesting to note here that sometimes it is internal politics that keep us from winning, sometimes is global opinions and influence that keep us from winning, and sometimes it is simply the stupidity of our own generals that keep us from winning.

Hard to believe when everyone keeps thinking how great this country is...

MY U S A

 When I think of The United States of America, I think of the following:

1. Freedom of Speech & Religion
2. The American Flag
3. Bill of Rights
4. US Constitution
5. Rock Music of the 60's & 70's
6. Hippies
7. Muscle Cars
8. Woodstock
9. Cheese Burgers & Fries
10. Milkshakes
11. Vanilla/cherry cokes
12. Smoking cigarettes
13. Drinking PBR's
14. Lying Politicians
15. Not trusting management
16. Cowboy movies of the 50's & 60's
17. Elvis Presley
18. The Rat Pack
19. President Kennedy
20. Martin Luther King, Jr.

NOTE:  

My USA no longer exists and my America was never being a member of the WEALTHY...   I was always Middle Class or lower...  but, we had fun and we enjoyed life as it was or had been presented to us...  there was no racial discrimination at our level as we got along with everyone who wanted to be gotten along with...  we respected limits and authority up to the point that it made no sense.  Playing with the police was fun past-time to see if they could catch us speeding.

We lived for music, fast cars, and fast women and did not give a shit about our future or the color of our skin or if we were WOKE or not...  and, all lives mattered to us, especially those we were our friends.  We did not believe in WARS or sending young people to fight in wars in another land.  We lived in a mental utopia that was virtually destroyed as we turned 21 and could legally drink alcohol anywhere.

My America does not exist anymore...

What Are You?

 

Omnipresent Consciousness

What is common between the delectable taste of a favorite food, the sharp sting of an infected tooth, the fullness after a heavy meal, the slow passage of time while waiting, the willing of a deliberate act, and the mixture of vitality, tinged with anxiety, just before a competitive event?

All are distinct experiences. What cuts across each is that all are subjective states, and all are consciously felt. Accounting for the nature of consciousness appears elusive, with many claiming that it cannot be defined at all, yet defining it is actually straightforward. Here goes: Consciousness is experience.

That’s it. Consciousness is any experience, from the most mundane to the most exalted. Some distinguish awareness from consciousness; I don’t find this distinction helpful and so I use these two words interchangeably. 

I also do not distinguish between feeling and experience, although in everyday use feeling is usually reserved for strong emotions, such as feeling angry or in love. As I use it, any feeling is an experience. Collectively taken, then, consciousness is lived reality. It is the feeling of life itself.

But who else, besides myself, has experiences? Because you are so similar to me, I abduce that you do. The same logic applies to other people. Apart from the occasional solitary solipsist this is uncontroversial. 

But how widespread is consciousness in the cosmos at large? How far consciousness extends its dominion within the tree of life becomes more difficult to abduce as species become more alien to us.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

Fireworks

 

A History of the Fourth of July

When the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did were considered radical.

By the middle of the following year, however, many more colonists had come to favor independence, thanks to growing hostility against Britain and the spread of revolutionary sentiments such as those expressed in the bestselling pamphlet “Common Sense,” published by Thomas Paine in early 1776.

On June 7, when the Continental Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies’ independence.

Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee’s resolution, but appointed a five-man committee—including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York—to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain.

On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Lee’s resolution for independence in a near-unanimous vote (the New York delegation abstained, but later voted affirmatively). On that day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that July 2 “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival” and that the celebration should include “Pomp and Parade…Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”

On July 4th, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which had been written largely by Jefferson. Though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd, from then on the 4th became the day that was celebrated as the birth of American independence.

Surprise Us

 

Dragon Man

Chinese researchers have unveiled an ancient skull that could belong to a completely new species of human.  The team has claimed it is our closest evolutionary relative among known species of ancient human, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.

Nicknamed "Dragon Man", the specimen represents a human group that lived in East Asia at least 146,000 years ago.  It was found at Harbin, north-east China, in 1933, but only came to the attention of scientists more recently.

An analysis of the skull has been published in the journal The Innovation.  One of the UK's leading experts in human evolution, Prof Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum, was a member of the research team.

• New type of ancient human discovered in Israel
• Face of long-lost human relative unveiled

The researchers say the discovery has the potential to rewrite the story of human evolution. Their analysis suggests that it is more closely related to Homo sapiens than it is to Neanderthals.

They have assigned the specimen to a new species: Homo longi, from the Chinese word "long", meaning dragon.  "We found our long-lost sister lineage," said Xijun Ni, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei GEO University in Shijiazhuang.

He told BBC News: "I said 'oh my gosh!' I could not believe that it was so well preserved, you can see all the details. It is a really amazing find!"  The skull is huge compared with the average skulls belonging to other human species, including our own. Its brain was comparable in size to those from our species.

Dragon Man had large, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth. Prof Qiang Ji, from Hebei GEO University, says it is one of the most complete early human skull fossils ever discovered.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

We All Make Choices

Some of our choices, we find out after we make them...  are good to excellent, while other choices are horrible to piss poor...  and, we wish we had never had the opportunity to even make the first choice...  and, each choice thereafter brings the same concern that it could be a bad choice...

However, some of us, don't really give a shit whether or not our choices are good or bad...  as we have the frigging right to make these choices regardless...  nor would these people care how their choices impacted others...

Which brings me to the heart of my thought...

Our current political administration in WashDC believes and perceives that they are making the right choices for the American People...  and, they think this way because it is the fundamental belief of their political party and therefore, since they are in that party then they must believe as their party believes.

To think and act otherwise would be political suicide.

BUT, these choices will not fully be know and/or understood for several years as the results are interpreted by historians and political scientists.  And, if they were good...  then great...  but if we find them to be bad choices...  then, guess who pays the price...

RHETORICAL QUESTION...

Personally,

I think the following movements are wrong:

• Black Lives Matter
• Critical Race Theory
• Cancel Culture
• Defunding Police
• Holding conservatives hostage via the media
• Becoming WOKE

Black Lives Matter teach separation not unity

Critical Race Theory teaches separation not unity

Cancel Culture teaches separation not unity

WOKENESS teaches separation not unity

Yes, this is my personal opinion

Yes, I am not well known or famous

Yes, I am not wealthy

I cannot imagine anything positive happening to us if we push for becoming a divided country...

 

In The News

 

Optical Illusions

Optical illusions are loved by almost all people for deceiving our brains and bewildering creatures. These illusions, which mislead our perception of reality, actually contain simple applications behind them.

I Was A Kennedy Democrat

I was a Kennedy DEMOCRAT...  back in the day...  supporting the end to the Vietnam War and the end of Racism in America through the Civil Rights Movement and the efforts of MLK Jr....  but, those days are GONE unfortunately and will never return as the Civil Rights Movement has turned into a BLACK LIVES MATTER movement completely ignoring other lives that are greater represented in this country.

BLM have turned into Critical Race Theory which is absurd to think that the ENTIRE WHITE RACE is trying to suppress the BLACKS when there have been so many BLACKS that have become more financially successful than their white counterparts.

BLM and CRT have given rise to concept of COUNTER CULTURE which wants to complete UNDO the history of the past and change it to meet their satisfaction and distorted needs.  

OUR HISTORY IS OUR HISTORY whether we like it or not...  and, blacks today only represent 13/14% of the overall American Population...

Recently, BLM and CRT along with Cancel Culture (or becoming WOKE) wants to defund the police because of the NEEDLESS killing of George Floyd...  and, much to the chagrin of Americans, numerous police departments were, in fact, defunded.

RESULTING IN AN INCREASE IN CRIME IN THOSE CITIES...

Imagine that?

Hard to believe, I know, but it is true...

In order to extricate themselves out of the HOLE OF SUPIDITY, Liberals and other Democrats are saying that the Defunding of the Police is because of the Republicans and their refusal to sign a financially inflated infrastructure bill...

• The Democrats LIED about Russian collusion with Trump
• The Democrats tried to impeach Trump over this LIE
• The Democrats LIED about Kavanaugh
• The Democrats LIED about the election
• The Democrats LIED about immigration
• The Democrats LIED with the help of mainstream media

After 73 years of life, I am WELL AWARE at the FREQUENCY in which ALL POLITICIANS LIE...  and, the last person that I trust is a frigging politician...  

HOWEVER, the Democrats, the Liberal Democrats, the Progressive Democrats...  all of the LIE WORSE THAN I HAVE EVER SEEN...

I lied to my parents when I was a child and when I because an adult, I lied to my first wife...  but, since that divorce, I have never lied again...  and have utter contempt for all those who lie and continue to lie...

It's July Already

 

Clean Building

Cities like Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen are working to clean up one of the world's most high-emission industries.

Quiet, clean and green are not words you would typically use to describe a construction site. But the site at Olav Vs gate, one of the busiest streets in the heart of Norway's capital city, Oslo, was special. In a first of its kind in the world, all the machinery used on site – excavators, diggers and loaders – were electric.

Work began on the site in September 2019, converting what was once a hectic turning zone for the city's taxis into a new pedestrianised area. Locals may have initially raised eyebrows at what appeared to be just another inconvenient construction site, but soon it was clear there something very different about it. In fact, this was a pilot project for the first zero-emission urban construction site in the world.

"When I visited the zero-emission construction site I was extremely impressed," says Mark Preston Aragonès, a policy advisor at environmental non-profit Bellona. "I was looking at these big excavators that you generally associate with fumes and noise and general annoyances, but on this site, when the operator turned it on you couldn't tell the difference between when it was on or off. It was really impressive to see such big machines make such little noise."

Decarbonising the construction industry is something in which Oslo wants to lead the world. And it's with good reason

Using electric equipment in place of traditional diesel engines meant that everyone in the vicinity noticed a reduction in ambient noise and pollution. "We observed shops keeping their doors open towards the street, even when construction work was going on just outside on the pavement," says Philip Mortensen, a senior adviser at the City of Oslo's Climate Agency. "The workers also reported much better communication on site due to lower noise levels, and that as a consequence the working environment felt safer."  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...