Sunday, February 23
Saturday, February 22
Oussama Diab Artist
Oussama Diab applies a conceptual approach to painting by exploiting the stylistic variants of the medium as emotive prompts in order to explore how form can articulate the urgency of sociopolitical issues.
In The NEWS
Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Amazon MGM Studios gains creative control over James Bond film franchise (More) | Netflix to invest $1B in Mexico's cinema and television industry over next four years (More)
> San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama to miss rest of regular season due to blood clot in his shoulder (More) | MLB to experiment with automated ball-strike challenge system during spring training (More)
> Canada tops Team USA 3-2 in overtime to win 4 Nations Face-Off title (More) | PGA Tour leaders, including Tiger Woods, meet with White House officials to discuss possible merger with Saudi-backed LIV Golf (More)
Science & Technology
> Rare genetic disorder known as spinal muscular atrophy treated in the womb for the first time; patient, now 2 years old, shows no signs of the progressive neurodegenerative disorder (More)
> Researchers outline method to measure consciousness in animals; approach combines anatomical features with behaviors to compare with what is known about humans (More) | See longer essay on topic (More)
> Inhalable gene therapy to treat cystic fibrosis begins trials in Europe; treatment delivers healthy copies of the gene responsible for mucus buildup in the respiratory and digestive tracts (More)
Business & Markets
> US stock markets close down (S&P 500 -0.4%, Dow -1.0%, Nasdaq -0.5%) as investors question economic outlook amid looming tariffs (More)
> Amazon surpasses Walmart in revenue for the first time, bringing in $187B in Q4 (More) | Walmart shares close down over 6% after retailer says profits will slow for current fiscal year despite earnings and revenue rising for the quarter (More)
> OpenAI tops 400 million weekly active users, up 33% in less than three months, with paid business users crossing 2 million; user growth comes amid competition from China's DeepSeek model (More)
Politics & World Affairs
> IRS begins laying off roughly 6,700 employees, or over 6% of the agency's workforce; those who have worked for less than one or two years are primarily affected (More) | Federal judge rules Trump administration can proceed with mass government layoffs (More)
> New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) decides against removing New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) from office amid corruption case fallout, instead seeks increased oversight of City Hall (More)
> Hamas returns bodies of four people, including two child hostages who were the youngest abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack; Israel says one of the bodies does not belong to a known hostage (More)
Thinking for Ourselves
- Truth Social for conservative views
- Bluesky for liberal views
Hidden Quantum World Inside the Proton
During a deeply inelastic collision with a proton, a relativistic electron (highlighted in blue) can emit a high-energy photon (purple here) that penetrates interior of the proton, where it ‘sees’ only a fraction of the entangled quarks, gluons, and virtual particles. The excited proton later decays in cascades of secondary particles. Credit: IFJ PAN, jch
The inside of a proton is one of the most dynamic yet elusive realms in physics. Within this tiny particle, quarks and gluons interact in a constantly shifting sea of virtual particles.
For the first time, this approach successfully explains data from all available experiments involving the scattering of secondary particles in deep inelastic collisions between electrons and protons. READ MORE...
Friday, February 21
Pondering
Every morning, the first thing that I do after giving a treat to the cats make a cup of coffee using my Keurig coffee maker and a McCafe coffee pod. !2 ounces of coffee, followed by three heaping spoonsful of sugar free cappuccino mix.
It is not anywhere close to the Starbucks Vanilla Cappuccino that I purchase when I have a gift card, but it is close enough for me. With my coffee, I sit down in my lounge chair and begin to ponder. I ponder all sorts of stuff from theoretical physics to cosmology, astrology, ancient aliens, politics, the weather, my health, finances, to our next vacation.
When I am not pondering, I am watching the news, a cable TV series or movie (which is seldom because most of the new ones are garbage), maintaining my blogs (like this one) or writing on a novel.
Currently, I have completed 10 novels (100,000+ words each) and have 6 that I have started but stopped and started writing on another idea. I have decided to complete the ones I have started before attempting a new one again. Although, if I get an idea, I will write the idea down, so it is now forgotten.
When it comes to politics, I belong to neither party because neither party had ever done what they promised... this goes back to 1966 when I first got interested in politics. We have the same problems today that we had in 1966 and neither the Republicans or the Democrats have done anything to change that and both parties have had several opportunities when they controlled the house and senate. This lack of progress and unfulfilled promises leaves me wondering why we have a congress at all except to provide careers to some politicians.
Living in East TN, we experience fairly mild winters and even though we have some cold days, maybe snow and ice or sleet, our winters never last very long anymore. In fact, today is probably going to be the transition day from winter to spring as we have a gradually increase in temps so that by next Tuesday, we are in the 60s.
In case you are wondering, I drink McCafe with sugar free cappuccino mix all day long... stopping around 6:00 pm.








































