Iran Soon Can Send Nuclear Bomb to Israel

Iran is drawing closer to possible conflict as it simulates attacks on an Israeli base and signals that it could create a nuclear weapon if officials ordered it..

"Iranian braggadocio about their nuclear program is reaching new and unprecedented levels," Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.

"Iran’s former atomic energy chief is essentially hinting that Tehran has all the pieces of a nuclear weapon in place but disassembled," Taleblu said. "This commentary should be raising red flags for anyone who thought diversion of fissile material was the only thing that needed to be prevented and accounted for with international monitoring."  READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

Eating Healthy

 In 1987, when I was 40 years old, I gave up smoking cigarettes (cold turkey) after smoking 1-2 packs each day for over 20 years.

It was not an easy task because I had tried twice before and failed.

I addition to cigarettes, I gave up red meat, fried foods, and sugars.  It was not that easy because I really loved a cheeseburger and French fries. However, after several years, I would allow myself a cheeseburger and fries once or twice a year, and each time I ate one, it did not taste that good.

I switched from beef to turkey burgers and while the taste was not all that great, after several years I learned to enjoy the taste.  I also switched to eating chicken, turkey, all sorts of veges and a variety of different kinds of beans.  To this day, I do not like eggplant or Brussel sprouts.

My consumption of soft drinks is limited to caffeine-free diet Pepsi, Root Beer, and Dr. Pepper.  My coffee intact is also caffeine free and it watered down.  My water comes from flavored SAM's water.

Rice and Noodles are also part of my diet but I do not consume great amounts.  As far as the rice is concerned, I use Basmati and only cook 1/4 of dried rice to support my meals.  My extra thin spaghetti noodles are bundled no bigger than the diameter of a quarter.

Salads are seldom incorporated in my diet but when they are, I usually eat a chef salad or a grilled chicken salad.

I count my calories and attempt to eat between 1600 and 1800 a day.  If and when I exceed 2000, I usually eat light the next day, so the average of two days falls in between 1600 and 1800.   Over the last year, my weight has decreased from 260 to 215.

When I break my diet, and outside of a hamburger or a pizza, I will eat lasagna, spaghetti, a slice of apple pie, or a piece of strawberry cheesecake, or a cake doughnut.  I also like captain's crackers and lemon Oreos.

My total cholesterol level both good and bad is 70... so, I must be doing something right.

Relaxing Area

 

Einstein's Discoveries Lead to Gravitational Laser

Einstein’s work was crucial for the current understanding of gravitational waves and the development of stimulated radiation that culminated in the invention of lasers. Dr Jing Liu, from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, has combined the two into an intriguing proposal: it is possible to create the gravitational equivalent of a laser.

Let’s start with the basics. The word laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser is made of light all with roughly the same frequency (or, in other words, it is monochrome) and it is coherent, so it can be focused to a tight spot or can be used to create ultrashort pulses. By stimulating a quantum mechanical energy transition, it is possible to get light out all with the same frequency.

Natural lasers exist and they are called masers – with the "m" standing for microwaves. These astrophysical masers come from a bunch of sources, including comets, stellar atmosphere, and even the aurorae of Jupiter. So if light can make a laser, could gravity as well?   READ MORE...

The Blues Brothers

 

In The NEWS

Nike to lay off 1,500 employees amid restructuring.
The job cuts amount to roughly 2% of the sneaker company's total workforce and will occur in two phases between now and the end of May. The reductions are part of a broader restructuring plan that Nike hopes will help it save at least $2B over the next three years so it can invest in its growth areas, which include women's shoes and the Jordan line.


Bookkeeping
> This year's Super Bowl brought 882 private jets to Las Vegas airports.

> Usher's music sees a nearly 550% boost in Spotify streams after the Super Bowl.

Browse
> The world's smallest armadillos: pink fairies.

> Hubble telescope views a massive star forming.

> The top 100 pizza spots in the US in 2024, according to Yelp.

> Breaking down Iowa star Caitlin Clark's top moments using art.

> AI imagines new dog breeds to represent America's states.

> Man finds 70-year-old love letter in a toolbox.

Listen
> The economics of ATMs and why you have to pay a surcharge.

Watch
> The science of microwave ovens and what to avoid cooking in them.

> How a drying, toxic US lake could turn into the "Saudi Arabia of lithium."

> The family who has created neon signs for Hollywood (and hoards them).

> A mother cat feeds her kittens.

Long Read
> Prison inmates craft string instruments from wrecked migrant boats.

> How a financial advice columnist got scammed out of $50K.

> Explaining cholesterol and heart disease. (w/visuals)


Most Read of the Week: The gory origins of Valentine's Day.

Historybook: Football player and actor Jim Brown born (1936); Vanguard 2 launched as first weather satellite (1959); Michael Jordan born (1963); Volkswagen Beetle passes Ford Model T to become world’s bestselling car (1972); Golf great Mickey Wright dies (2020).

SOURCE:  1440 News

In God We Trust

Until I graduated from high school, my parents forced me to attend Sunday School and Church every Sunday, unless I was sick or there was simply too much snow to drive...

That forced behavior did not push me towards the church and religious beliefs but against it.  If religion, faith, and beliefs were so important, why did I have to be forced to go?

My biggest issue with religion and God is the fact that THE BIBLE is full of all sorts of contradictions, the least of which is the timeline for the Universe and creation....  The bible says that creation is only 6,000 years old in Genesis.

That is simply not true or accurate which undermines having trust in God.

On the other side of the coin, there is a greater probability of a creator than there is of not being a creator...  therefore, the creator may or may not actually be God.  Instead, the creator could be just an advanced form of extraterrestrial that had visited earth. 

This theory is supported in global mythologies and the stories they have shared about visitors coming down to earth from the heavens.

Even our own native Americans have cave drawings of travelers coming down to earth from the heavens.

Were these travelers the same God that was referenced in the Bible?

And if so, does that enable us to have trust in this God since the truth was never shared with us?

Somewhat Political

 

NASA Found a Super Earth

A NASA telescope orbiting our planet has spotted an intriguing super-Earth — a world some 30 to 70 percent bigger than Earth.

This rocky planet is in another solar system 137 light-years away, which in the vastness of space is considered relatively close (a light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles). The exoplanet, called TOI-715 b, is about 1.5 times the size of Earth. And, crucially, this world orbits inside the habitable, or "Goldilocks," zone.

"That’s the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface," NASA explained on its website. "Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere."

TOI-715 b orbits quite close to its star (each orbit lasts just 19 days) — but scientists don't think its a hellish, scorching world, like some other exoplanets. That's because its star is a "red dwarf," which is both cooler and smaller than our medium-sized star, the sun.   READ MORE...

Green River

 

Piano Playing

 

Reparations

The United States of America has wrong treated Native Americans, Japanese Americans, African Americans, and Middle Class Americans with their tax burdens...

In addition to Americans, the United States of America has wrongly treated Europeans, Muslims, Africans, and South Americans with their globalization policies, bribes, payoffs, and black operations by the CIA...

Consequently, the United States of America is pretty much hated by the rest of the world as well as the black people that live inside the borders of the USA...

To compensate our Native Americans, we gave them the ability to build, operate, and profit from gambling.

In order to compensate the black Americans, I propose that we give them the right to build, operate, and profit from gambling.

I am opposed to using tax dollars to benefit the blacks, especially because I was not responsible for slavery nor am I responsible for what my ancestors may or may not have done.  I am only responsible for what I do or don't do.

GIVE THE BLACKS GAMBLING CASINOS...

Somewhat Political

 

Consciousness

Even among non-neuroscientists, determining the origin and purpose of consciousness is widely known as “the hard problem.” Since its coinage by philosopher David Chalmers thirty years ago, that label has worked its way into a variety of contexts; about a decade ago, Tom Stoppard even used it for the title of a play. Unsurprisingly, it’s also referenced in the episode of Big Think’s Dispatches from the Well above, which presents discussions of the nature of consciousness with neuroscientist Christof Koch, Vedanta Society of New York minister Swami Sarvapriyananda, technology entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, Santa Fe Institute Davis Professor of Complexity Melanie Mitchell, and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.

Koch describes consciousness as “what you see, it’s what you hear, it’s the pains you have, the love you have, the fear, the passion.” It is, in other words, “the experience of anything,” and for all their sophistication, our modern inquiries into it descend from René Descartes’ proposition, “Cogito, ergo sum.” Sarvapriyananda, too, makes reference to Descartes in explaining his own conception of consciousness as “the light of lights,” by which “everything here is lit up.”  READ MORE...

Born to be Wild

 

Andromeda Galaxy

 

In The NEWS

Kansas City Shooting
At least one person was killed and 21 others were wounded after a shooting broke out near Kansas City's Union Station following the conclusion of the Chiefs' celebratory Super Bowl parade. As of this writing, 15 victims had life-threatening injuries, with two in critical condition; eight of those wounded were children.


Israel Strikes Hezbollah
Israeli forces launched a series of strikes across parts of neighboring Lebanon yesterday in retaliation for cross-border fire from Hezbollah fighters that killed one Israeli soldier and wounded eight others (including seven civilians). At least three Lebanese civilians and one militant were killed in the strikes.


Lyft's Bot Bump
Lyft shares rose over 60% in after-hours trading Tuesday following the rideshare company's fourth-quarter earnings report that featured a typo in its 2024 forecast. The swing was said to be largely driven after hours by algorithms trained to analyze data and automatically execute the selling or buying of shares without human intervention (read more).


Science & Technology

• Scientists develop "meat rice," where grains of rice act as scaffolding for cultured meat; high-protein dish can be prepared like traditional rice, may find use in food insecure communities, military deployments, and more (More)
• Researchers discover oldest known cave art in Argentina's Patagonia region, with drawings of humans and animals dating to roughly 8,200 years ago (More)
• Long-term effects of smoking on the immune system persist for up to 15 years after quitting; study finds heightened inflammatory response, dampened cellular response in ex-smokers (More)

Business & Markets

• US stock markets close up (S&P 500 +1.0%, Dow +0.4%, Nasdaq +1.3%), lifted by Uber, Lyft, and Nvidia shares (More) | Bitcoin's market capitalization surpasses $1T for the first time since 2021 (More)
• Uber shares rise 15% to record high after company announces first-ever $7B share buyback plan (More) | What is a share buyback? (More) | Tech giant Cisco to lay off 5% of workforce, or roughly 4,250 employees (More)
• Colorado's attorney general sues to block Kroger's proposed $25B acquisition of rival grocer Albertsons (More) | William Post, credited with playing a role in the development of the iconic Pop-Tarts snack, dies at 96 (More)

Source:  1440 News

Somewhat Political

 

US Politics

When the founding fathers designed our political system, it was predicated on the fact that our two political parties would always do what they thought was in the best interest of the people...  It was ok with the founding fathers that our two parties would approach that task differently because, they perceived that politicians would always see the need to compromise.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, even though it was the case just a few years ago.

Today's politician is not influenced by the constituents they represent but by the lobbyists that are constantly influencing their decisions and contributing to their campaigns.  Large donors expect that their donations buy them to right to tell the Senator or the Congress person what to do, and when to do it. 

Those kinds of decisions have nothing to do with the general public, except the general public does not really know that it is happening, nor do they think they can do anything about it if they knew.

If you are following what is happening in Congress, you know that a few weeks ago Speaker McCarthy was ousted from the speakership because a small majority did not like the deals, he was making with the Democrats...

The concept is that this is exactly what our founding fathers wanted to have happen.  Make deals with the other party to advance the country.

Now, I am reading that the donations by wealthy republicans to those republicans who kicked McCarthy out, are being withdrawn as a form of retaliation for what they did.  Those funds were to have been used in a re-election campaign and without those funds, there is a good chance these republicans will lose the race.

I understand the concept of payback but this payback is going to result in taking a seat away from a Republican and giving it to a Democrat so the Republicans lose control of the House...

That kind of retaliation is just plain stupid and results in this country not getting ahead because when the Dems take over, they will undo everything that the Republicans put into place.

HOW IS THAT GOOD FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC???