U-2 Planes for Secret Missions

 

In The NEWS

US issues travel warning for Israel as Iran attack believed to be imminent.
Iran has vowed to retaliate after Israel's airstrike on an Iranian embassy complex in Syria earlier this month that killed three senior military officials and wounded four others. The US State Department has restricted its employees from traveling to parts of Israel and has reportedly sent more US troops to the Middle East.



US House passes bill renewing contentious surveillance program.
The House approved the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, by a vote of 273-147, ahead of an April 19 deadline. The bill extends the act for two years, down from a previous proposal for a five-year extension. FISA's provisions (see overview) include allowing the US government to collect the communications of non-Americans located outside of the country without a warrant. A separate vote on an amendment to require a warrant failed with a tie.



At least one dead after semitrailer crashes into Texas public safety office.
A stolen 18-wheeler crashed into the Texas Department of Public Safety office Friday, killing at least one person and injuring 13 others. The driver, identified as 42-year-old Clenard Parker, was taken into custody. The office had rejected Parker's renewal for a commercial driver's license a day earlier.



Biden administration to forgive $7.4B in student debt.
The Biden administration announced it would be canceling student debt of more than 277,000 borrowers as part of its latest action geared toward income-driven repayment plans. The White House claims the latest effort brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness to $153B under the current administration.



Oil and gas companies to pay more to drill on public US lands.
Energy companies will need to pay 16.67% in federal royalty fees, up from 12.5%, for drilling on public lands, per final rules issued Friday by the US government. The new fee will last until August 2032. Other measures include requiring companies to pay $150K per lease on federal lands, up from $10K, which was established in 1960.



Robert MacNeil, creator of 'PBS NewsHour,' dies at 93.
In 1975, MacNeil, along with the late Jim Lehrer, launched a half-hour nightly news program that later became America's first hourlong evening broadcast. The show won a plethora of awards, including an Emmy for its live coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings. MacNeil left the show in 1995 to focus on writing; Lehrer took over until 2009 and died in 2020. MacNeil died Friday due to natural causes.



Roberto Cavalli, Italian fashion designer, dies at 83.
Cavalli launched his namesake fashion brand in the 1970s and was known for bold animal prints and "stretch jeans," which he pioneered by adding Lycra (a synthetic elastic fiber) to denim. His designs have been worn by celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Madonna, and Zendaya. The cause of his death was not announced.



James Webb detects origins of brightest cosmic blast since Big Bang.
In 2022, researchers discovered the brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded, dubbed the "BOAT" for the "brightest of all time." The event is now known to have come from the explosion of a giant star. Such explosions, known as supernovas, have been theorized to produce heavy elements like gold and platinum. However, no such metals were found from the BOAT, leaving researchers to question how these metals are produced.

SOURCE:  1440 News

Diversity - Equity - Inclusion

 A few weeks ago, I read an article where some high school was no longer offering advanced courses for gifted and talented students because it made all the other students FEEL BAD.

First of all, human beings are not EQUAL.  They are born with different mental, artistic, and athletic skills and there is nothing that we can do to change that phenomenon.

Diversity is an important issue as well as many of us should appreciate different points of view.  If fact, I went to high school in Cairo, Egypt and there were 28 students in my graduating class from 18 different countries.  Diversity in high school was the best thing that ever happened to me.

BUT...  you cannot force diversity on people in general if they do not want it.  If you were to visit some of these larger cities in the USA, you would see that each ethnic group lives in their own little section of the city - they do not live together nor do they intermingle with each other.  If the government tried to force this upon them, it would not be well accepted and eventually the ethnic groups would move out of the city.

The same situation will take place with this concept of inclusion.  

Can you imagine telling black folks that they have to start attending white churches in the spirit of inclusion.  Of course, the same resistance would take place if you told the white folks they had to start attending black churches.

Our government is trying to FORCE DEI into education and into the workforce and all they are doing is creating more animosity among the different races.  Mainly they are trying to put blacks into primarily white schools and businesses in an effort to fight against WHITE SUPREMACY.

As long as the white population of the USA is the predominate population, the blacks will say there is WHITE SUPREMACY. 

Somewhat Political

 

Our Consciousness

How Vast Is Consciousness?

Recent neuroscience recognizes two basic forms of consciousness. It all starts with the divisions we make: "Two broad types of consciousness must be distinguished" based on the neurobiological domain (LeDoux, 2023, 219). Creature consciousness is attributed to all organisms with a nervous system. 

The other form of consciousness, associated with more complex nervous systems, is mental state consciousness. It is "the ability to experience the world and one's relationship to it" (LeDoux, 219).

Recently, another category of consciousness has been added: existential consciousness. (Reber, Baluska and Miller, 2024). Here, consciousness is rooted in cellular intelligence as an expression of a living, self-organizing order.

This view of the cellular basis of cognition offers a promising new perspective on the vastness of consciousness in life. Is it necessary to stop seeing the possibility of consciousness as a form of sentience based on the presence of a nervous system?  READ MORE...

Roy Orbison

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> The 2023-24 NBA regular season wraps up this weekend; see latest standings and playoff picture (More) | US federal investigators accuse MLB star Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter of stealing $16M from Ohtani (More)

> Taro Akebono, American-born sumo wrestling icon, dies at 54 (More) | DJ Mister Cee, longtime radio host and hip-hop pioneer, dies at 57 (More)

> The 2024 Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) lineup announced, headlined by films from Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader; see full festival lineup (More)


Science & Technology
In partnership with Qualia Mind

> AI startup Humane releases its widely anticipated Ai Pin, a wearable badge that doubles as an AI-powered smart device (More) | Study suggests some peer reviewers of academic papers may be using chatbots to provide feedback (More)

> Scientists pinpoint how cells untangle overwound strands of DNA, avoiding potential errors in copying and reading its genetic information; applications include treatments for bacterial infections and new anticancer drugs (More)

> Google's DeepMind unveils robots capable of playing soccer after being trained on the rules via a type of machine learning known as deep reinforcement learning (More, w/video)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.7%, Dow -0.0%, Nasdaq +1.7%); Nasdaq closes at record high as technology shares climb, rebounding from earlier concerns over inflation (More) | Apple shares rise 4% in best day since May 2023 (More)

> Investment bank Morgan Stanley's shares close down more than 5% on report that multiple federal regulators are investigating its wealth management unit (More)

> Sam Bankman-Fried, former cryptocurrency mogul, appeals fraud conviction for crimes connected to the collapse of his now-defunct trading platform FTX (More) | See previous write-up (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Russian airstrikes destroy major power plant in Kyiv, Ukraine, and damage power infrastructures in Lviv and Odesa (More) | Ukrainian parliament passes military mobilization law; measures include tightening registration rules and introducing penalties for evading service (More) | Alexei Navalny's posthumous memoir to be published in October (More)

> Sen. Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) bribery trial to be separated from his wife's, federal judge rules; Menendez's trial over obstruction, bribery charges to begin May 6, while his wife's trial tentatively pushed to July (More)

> Harvard reinstates standized test scores for candidates seeking admission to the school, following other Ivy Leagues in rolling back pandemic-era policy (More) | See previous write-up (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

American Freedoms

What does Sharia law say about woman?

Shariah leaves considerable room for interpretation. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the past, they imposed a strict one, barring women from working outside the home or leaving the house without a male guardian, eliminating schooling for girls, and publicly flogging people who violated the group's morality code.    Aug 30, 2021                       SOURCE:  The New York Times

Most Americans, I would suspect, would object to living under Shariah law, especially American women; however, I cannot speak for them other than in general terms.

In 1776, we gained our independence from Great Britain and wrote our own constitution that was ratified by all the states a couple of years later.  The first 10 amendments to that constitution were called the Bill of Rights, and the very FIRST AMENDMENT addressed freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

By the year 2,000 many Americans, I would also suspect, do not really appreciate what freedom of speech really means nor do they understand what life would be like without our freedom of speech.

Until a child graduates from high school, he or she lives under the influence and control of their parents with the understanding that most of these children cannot really speak their mind in the presence of their parents.

However, when they graduate, they can and usually do say whatever they damn well please and quite often their comments land them in hot water with their superiors, if they work or with their teachers if they attend college.

It is several years before these high school graduates finally realize the power of the first amendment and how precious it is to be careful what you say and how you say it - even though their comments are protected...

What is not protected is how those comments may be interpreted by others and how that interpretation can influence and change relationships.

In many countries throughout the world if citizens say negative comments about the actions of their government, they are thrown in jail for several years in the hopes that they will eventually learn to keep their mouth shut.

However, that does not happen in the USA.  Nor does Shariah law because it restricts the freedoms of people, especially women.  And that freedom is something that we honor and take quite seriously, especially if you have had that freedom curtailed.

Somewhat Political

 

India Challenges China on Technology

For years, China has been Asia’s technology powerhouse.

It is home to what once were some of the world’s most valuable companies, from Tencent to Alibaba. It is where most of the world’s iPhones and other electronics products are produced. And it is now a serious player in electric vehicles.

But a shift appears to be underway, with other countries in Asia trying to take China’s crown.

India is one of these contenders. New Delhi has sought to woo foreign tech companies and has been increasingly successful, with giants like Apple increasing their presence in the country.

India is looking to boost areas such as high-tech electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, as well as support its burgeoning yet challenged startup scene.     READ MORE...

Gloria

 

The Cream

 

Groundbreaking Blended-Wing

(CNN) The basic design of commercial airplanes hasn’t changed much in the past 60 years. Modern airliners like the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350 have the same general shape as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8, which were built in the late 1950s and solidified the “tube and wing” form factor that is still in use today.

This is because commercial aviation prioritizes safety, favoring tried-and-tested solutions, and because other developments — in materials and engines, for example — mean the traditional design is still relevant.

However, a seismic shake-up is about to take place. An entirely new aircraft shape has been cleared to take off into California skies. At the end of last month, Long Beach-based JetZero announced that Pathfinder, its 1:8 scale “blended wing body” demonstrator plane, has been granted an FAA Airworthiness certificate and test flights are imminent.  READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
In partnership with Public Rec

> The 2024 Masters—one of four major championships in men's golf—begins today (3 pm ET, ESPN) from Augusta, Georgia; 2022 winner Scottie Scheffler enters as favorite to win (More)

> "Monopoly" live-action film based on the board game in the works to be produced by Lionsgate and Margot Robbie's production company LuckyChap (More)

> Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers will kick off 2024 NFL season in the league's first-ever game in Brazil (More) | World track and field governing body will be the first international sports federation to award prize money at the Olympics (More)

Science & Technology
> AI startup Anthropic says its flagship chatbot, Claude 3 Opus, matches humans' ability to present persuasive arguments (More) | US regulators to require most internet service providers to publish information on its fees, speeds, and more, similar to nutrition labels on food (More)

> Mathematician Avi Wigderson wins the 2024 Turing Award for his work in randomness in computation; award is considered to be the Nobel Prize of computer science (More)

> Researchers demonstrate adding a protein found in stem cells to engineered immune cells used in some immunotherapies boosts and extends their ability to fight cancer (More) | How CAR-T works (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (Dow -1.1%, S&P 500 -1.0%, Nasdaq -0.8%) on news inflation rose 3.5% year-over-year in March, and expectations that a rate cut will not come in June (More)

> Fitch downgrades China's credit rating outlook from stable to negative amid concerns over local and national government's reliance on China's property industry but keeps sovereign debt rating at A+ (More)

> Auditor KPMG fined $25M by accounting oversight board over allegations it failed to prevent cheating on training exams; settlement marks the regulator's largest-ever penalty (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Arizona Legislature blocks effort to roll back 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, with lawmakers motioning for recess to avoid vote; state Supreme Court ruled the Civil War-era law enforceable Tuesday (More) | See overview of law (More)

> House blocks procedural vote on bill renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ahead of April 19 deadline (More) | What is FISA? (More) | Biden administration reportedly considering executive order to significantly restrict asylum applications at the US-Mexico border (More)

> Six Mississippi police officers sentenced to between 15 and 45 years in prison for the torture of two Black men during the course of a warrantless home search in 2023 (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

TIME is NOT on our Side

 At 76 years of age, my life is not going to last much longer.  However, it is my hope that I have at least another twenty years.  My declining heath may not allow me to live that long but it is what it is.

Not too long ago, I was talking with a high school friend of mine (a Canadian) and we shared what stories we could remember from that period of time that our lives merged together.  The time was 1962-1966.

I could not remember some of his stories and he could not remember some of my stories...

This is not supposed to be a SAD commentary of our memories but help to share how quickly time passes us all by, and when it does there are very few things that we can recall.  That is what time does to us all.

We were 16 then and now are 76...  60 years has passed in the blink of an eye and most of those memories are beyond our ability to retain...  unless we have kept photographs...  which may or may not happen.

We value youth and view older people with contempt because they are no longer macho and no doubt never lived wild and free like the youth of the day are living.  This is where youth is ignorant and naive because those who were teenagers in the 1960s lived life more wildly than any other generation in the history of the USA.

I suggest you research WOODSTOCK...

Time moves by quickly and the sooner you understand that concept, the better off you will be.  I say this because each day should be a powerful day - a day that you are blessed to live - a day that you are blessed to enjoy.

These days should not just be lived to their fullest but should be lived with the future in mind - that is to say, how do I want to live when I am 76 years old and when I can finally retire? 

The title says it all.  Live your life for today but also live it for tomorrow.

Dolphins Playing

 

Nuclear Energy CANNOT Lead Global Energy

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is seen in the background, in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan on August 24, 2023 [File: Franck Robichon/EPA]

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake and a subsequent 15-metre tsunami struck Japan, which triggered a nuclear disaster at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Three of the six plant’s reactors were affected, resulting in meltdowns and the release of a significant amount of radioactive material into the environment.

Today, 13 years later, Japan is still experiencing the impacts of this disaster. Immediately after the earthquake struck, more than 160,000 people were evacuated. Of them, nearly 29,000 still remain displaced.   READ MORE...

Janis Joplin

 

An Ancient Computer