TheVat

Three guys walk into a bar. Whoa, said a bystander, that must have hurt! I don't know if that was a Rodney Dangerfield joke, but it sounds like one he'd make. I hear his voice when I read that.

Also wondered. False Flag is SOP for Russians. With satellite photos and live video on the ground these days, conventional FF (military attacks) is harder to pull off so it makes covert attacks like car bombings more attractive.

Many kinds of thinking do not require a framework of words. Using images, or anticipating certain physical movements, is often primary in the arts, and in crafts. And scientists often manipulate visual symbols in a mental space to develop a concept or work out a procedure. And there are ordinary activities, like rearranging the furniture in a room, where much of your planning will be visualization and not needing words. Maybe you could try extending that kind of manipulation of visual symbols to other categories? Like this: instead of making a grocery list, start visualizing the store where you usually shop and where food items are located that you like. Create a mental map of your coming trip and how you will move through the store, using as few verbal labels as possible. (Just an example - don't blame me if a spouse or partner yells at you because you forgot to get the Dijon mustard!)

If Sanna Marin ever chooses to carry on the above tradition, please post here ASAHP.

Russians like people to share houses (at least, based on my last viewing of Ninotchka), so maybe they can talk the Snowdens into making their hideabed available.

Sposiba for that, tovaritch! Meanwhile, blowing up the Kerch Strait bridge would be a nice setback for Russia. Good luck and straight shooting to Ukraine. https://archive.ph/kzvt0#a-bridge-to-crimea-is-a-vital-russian-link-and-a-potential-ukrainian-target (screenshot of New York Times coverage, for the paywall challenged)

I would think the high menaquinone content is key to the better mineral uptake with Jarlsberg. Evidence keeps piling up for K2 as a bone density protector. Somewhat whimsical, the science thread turning into a cheese pricing lamentation. Perhaps transport prices could be reduced (and carbon footprint, as well) by converting all hard cheeses into wheels and rolling them to market?

Am a little skeptical of a Jared-MBS deal on nuke secrets - though I'm sure the Saudis want something for their billions. I would still look to Putin having control over Trump, perhaps some kompromat. The blackmailing the FBI theory, if there's anything to that, would suggest a Trumpian lack of awareness of what happens to people who mess with the FBI. Would love to be a fly on the wall in the room where Trump attempts to blackmail the FBI.

Holding my breath causes me to see small blue dots.

Thanks, I had a spasm of undue optimism re human nature, but all better now. And you're right, there will always be remoras. And LOL the former guy rooting for Langella. (if there is a media character he really aspires to emulate, it's my guess it's Frank Underwood on House of Cards)

I don't know, it seemed like this is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg serious was a useful prod to discussion. With some news, res ipsa loquitur. Can anyone conceive of an innocent reason why someone would take H bomb design information home with them? (grandkids like coloring in the diagrams? make spectacular 4th of July fireworks? tired of real estate, thinking of second career in nuclear engineering? Offbeat theme for wallpaper?) If this proves true, I think Trump's supporters will start to melt away like they did in that room at the end of Dave, where Frank Langella, the villain, looks around and his crowd has quietly vanished.

Hehe! What he said. It would be cool of the creatures were a sort of mnemonic for the element. You achieved that with the carbon creature, which looks like a lump of coal. Or the iron, which seems to have metal armor. Some of the others it's harder to discern the connection. Phosphorus looks like the Grinch with an aura - not getting that. I have an idea for plutonium, but Disney might sue me.

The National Archives exploded that lie promptly. Wish all TFG's lies could be handled so quickly. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA)," NARA said in a statement. "NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration," the statement from National Archives said.

(started writing this before exchemist posted) Due to the inverse square law, the gravitational effects of distant stars are negligible. When you were born, a neighbor in a house near the hospital was running their vacuum cleaner. This created some EMF emissions that might interfere with old tv signals back when they were on VHF frequencies, and would very slightly impact baby you's atoms. Would that make you a Vacuum Cleaner Baby, destined to go through life being tidy? Or perhaps there was a garbage truck backing up outside the wall of your birthing room. Would the miniscule gravitic force of that truck make you a Garbage Baby, destined to pick up debris? That's about how much sense astrology makes.

Yep. He called the bluff. And if the warrant stayed sealed, the Republican Right could push conspiracy theories from now up till the midterm elections in November. I would speculate that Jared is very relieved that the affidavits (the documents that you present to the magistrate judge in order to obtain a warrant) are staying sealed, since they would reveal witnesses. That could have made for some awkwardness at family dinners.

There's also an Occam's razor take on the notion that precise planetary and solar positions at birth influence your life and character - isn't it more likely that your DNA and nurturing and environment would have more effect? Sure, there could be some early seasonal effect from being born into hot weather and lots of airborne pollen v being born in cold midwinter, that kind of thing. But isn't it more likely that I'm analytical because my parents were, rather than because I'm a Virgo and the sun was blasting me with analysis-loving telepathy beams? Which causal explanation requires the fewest outlandish assumptions? Astrology annoys me, not least because I feel its pseudoscience tug the way many of my generation did. It's so easy to talk yourself into people fitting their sign, cherry picking examples as you go. Here's a concrete example: are Scorpio and Sagittarius people athletic because of celestial influence or because they are born in late Fall and thus among the oldest children in a primary school grade? A Canadian study found the latter, which seemed to be a result of early school athletic programs favoring the older children in a grade level - at age eight, say, an age difference of even half a year makes a difference in size and strength and coordination. Coaches pick selectively, and begin a process of favoring the oldest kids in a classroom. Think about how many small differentials like that, among schoolroom peers, can add up over a few years, creating a birth-seasonal effect on child development.

No, no, you don't need armies or weapons if you have feminine wiles and winsome smiles! Why do you think women keep pushing soy milk at men? Soy is a secret sterilizing agent that makes man-boobs appear and reduces any motivation to reproduce. Gradually, men are being pushed out (especially white men, who no longer control government, the Congress men are now just following marching orders from their wives!) and being replaced by females produced by parthenogenesis. Women are making up fake statistics to cover up this trend and conceal the secret war of extermination. Nolite te bastardettes carborundorum! I am sorry I said you are pontificating freely. That was wrong. Sometimes I am very stupid. From the soymilk and all the vegan entrees I am being fed. Did I mention the undescended testicles? Not important. Thanks again for your courageous struggle to get the word out on those deluded soymilk-addled kale-chewing elitist Liberals who are trying to exhume Ayn Rand's corpse and do unspeakable things to it! Onward, brother!

And yet here you still are, pontificating freely! Have to say, the quality of censorship has really declined since the X chromosomes started taking over. BTW, have you heard of the secret parthenogenesis lab those Civil War era ladies were running? My sister told me they had the process worked out in the Buchanan administration, which was the deciding factor in starting The War of Male Extermination a couple years later. Clara Barton was in charge. The nursing gig was just a cover. And why would my sister make that up?

Getting complete nutrition from a vegan diet is difficult - we humans evolved as omnivore hunter-gatherers. If simplicity you seek, a soy milk or pea milk with added B12 is a good start. Then whole grain, nuts, green vegetable (broccoli is handy as it provides both K and C), yams, mushrooms, and olive oil. And a little variety in your pulses (which are lentils, beans, chickpeas, soy) helps reduce gaps in nutrition. If you are willing to bend a little it may not be a bad idea to once a week have a few free range eggs or a few sardines. Compare how you feel (energy, alertness, strength) on the pure vegan diet with the almost-vegan diet.

Bar would be set pretty high for probable cause, I'd think.

Well who doesn't get upset when their record collection is taken? (sorry, short notice) Actually, some humor to be found in Trump's reaction: If you are raided and occupied, you cannot by definition be "currently under siege."

Looking at the OP, seems to be asking about the first category, conditions like peanut allergies where the person carries an Epi pen, and can go into anaphylaxis from even a small exposure. Seems to be an interplay of genes and epigenetic effects. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150224112917.htm#:~:text=This study suggests that the,allergy%2C and researchers wondered why. I would speculate that the alleles that predispose toward serious peanut allergy is higher in Old World peoples, since they have only encountered peanuts since Spanish explorers brought them back from South America (where they were native, and long cultivated, and likely some selective pressure had time to work there). I note that the allergy is lower in developing countries generally, and one theory on that involves the hygiene hypothesis, alluded to here already. In westernized nations most insulated from the natural environment, the rates are much higher.

So many allergies seem to be a mix of genetic and environmental factors. Many have been largely latent in humans during 99% of human history because the genes involved were not activated by environmental toxins or dietary choices or modern forms of sequestering children from the dirtosphere. Not clear there's been enough time for significant selection (and modern medicine, e.g. accurate tests for coeliac followed by gluten-free diet options, has largely eliminated selective pressure). And how many women say, "I was going to marry Fred and have babies with him, but then I learned he eats gluten-free. Never mind that he's handsome, strong, and smart, my man has to eat wheat!" If the genes for coeliac expressed consistently, and we were living in an agrarian society utterly dependent on the wheat harvest with no other carb options, then yes they would probably decrease in frequency under real selective pressure as the coeliacs would experience chronic IBS, poor absorption, intestinal lesions and failure to thrive such that they were skipped over as marital prospects. But that sort of society was probably rare, and now nearly nonexistent. There's almost always other options at the market, even in developing nations - millet, rice, cassava, etc.

Thanks. BTW, don't know why your name is above that quote I was reacting to, which was from the Dutiful Greg. I can't seem to edit that out, sorry.