We don't even know everything we don't know – a fact that's been made evident in a new discovery. While running equations for quantum gravity corrections for the entropy of a black hole, a pair of physicists found that black holes exert pressure on the space around them.
Not much pressure, to be sure – but it's a finding that's fascinatingly consistent with Stephen Hawking's prediction that black holes emit radiation and therefore not only have a temperature, but slowly shrink over time, in the absence of accretion.
"Our finding that Schwarzschild black holes have a pressure as well as a temperature is even more exciting given that it was a total surprise," said physicist and astronomer Xavier Calmet of the University of Sussex in the UK.
"If you consider black holes within only general relativity, one can show that they have a singularity in their centres where the laws of physics as we know them must break down.
"It is hoped that when quantum field theory is incorporated into general relativity, we might be able to find a new description of black holes." //

the finding could have interesting implications for our attempts to square general relativity (on macro scales) with quantum mechanics (which operates on extremely small scales).
Black holes are thought to be key to this undertaking. The black hole singularity is mathematically described as a one-dimensional point of extremely high density, at which point general relativity breaks down – but the gravitational field around it can only be described relativistically.
Figuring out how the two regimes fit together could also help tp solve a really thorny black hole problem. According to general relativity, information that disappears beyond a black hole could be gone forever. Under quantum mechanics, it can't be. This is the black hole information paradox, and mathematically exploring the space-time around a black hole could help resolve it.

My goal was not to depress you if you or your loved ones are in any of these industries. It is just to get you thinking about the future so that you can be on the forefront of the new world with new job opportunities.

This can make for great dinner conversation with your kids. Ask them what they see in the future and what jobs will disappear and what others will be created. Part of being a parent is to help our kids to be resilient to change.

Remember the words of Albert Einstein; “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Animals have been used in the industrialized production of human vaccines since vaccine farms were established to harvest cowpox virus from calves in the late 1800s. From that point, and through the first half of the 20th Century, most vaccines would continue to be developed with the use of animals, either by growing pathogens in live animals or by using animal cells.

Although many vaccines and anti-toxin products were successfully developed this way, using animals in vaccine development – particularly live animals – is not ideal. Research animals are costly and require extensive monitoring, both to maintain their health and to ensure the continued viability of the research. They may be carrying other bacteria or viruses that could contaminate the eventual vaccine, as with polio vaccines from the mid 20th century that were made with monkey cells and eventually found to contain a monkey virus called SV40, or Simian Virus 40. (Fortunately, the virus was not found to be harmful to humans.) Moreover, some pathogens, such as the chickenpox virus, simply do not grow well in animal cells. //

For these and other reasons, using cell culture techniques to produce vaccine viruses in human cell strains is a significant advance in vaccine development.

RNC Research
@RNCResearch
Joe Biden says his “first job offer” was from Idaho lumber company Boise Cascade.

The company told the @nypost they have “no record” of him. //

this is a problem he’s had since he’s been in public life — he just can’t stop lying and he’s been lying for decades. He had to drop out of his first run for president in the 1988 race when he was caught plagiarizing and lying about his academic background.

It’s like him driving an 18 wheeler, hitting a home run in the Congressional baseball game back in the 70s, being a coal miner, getting arrested trying to meet with Nelson Mandela, marching for civil rights, going to the Tree of Life synagogue after the mass murder there — just to name a few of the lies he’s spun over the years.

He just can’t seem to stop making things up. It’s a sickness with him and the problem is it’s not just about puffing himself up to pander to people like this, it’s about lying on critical things like Afghanistan and even trying to make the former president of Afghanistan lie, too. //

blueskies820
4 hours ago edited
Clinically I'd say he's a pathological liar with narcissistic personality disorder.

A pathological liar lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little awareness. They have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others; are often considered manipulative and cunning; and create extravagant stories that may be maintained or tweaked over time.

They often believe their own lies. Pathological liars know how to be confident while lying and use their pathological lying trait as a defense mechanism (e.g. they fix their gaze upon you rather than looking away).

Some of the symptoms of a pathological liar are: they lie to gain something, they exaggerate things, they keep on changing their stories, and they live in a false sense of ‘reality.’ If confronted, they act defensive and never admit that they are liars. Lastly, they hold no value for truth.

Weeks ago, when cases and hospitalizations began to rise, I suggested (because of this thing called “data”) that COVID-19 hospitalizations went up because the bar for hospitalizations went down. Simply put, the numbers went up because hospitals lowered their standards for which COVID patients should be hospitalized. The study that The Atlantic published? It suggests that very thing.

So what has taken us so long to get to this point? Well, again, the problem falls on the CDC, NIH, and NIAID, who have not standardized data collection nationally for this pandemic. //

To this day, the CDC does not collect nationalized data for several factors which would help us better analyze how to approach this pandemic, including breakthrough cases and hospitalization case severity. That means that someone admitted to the hospital out of an abundance (and sometimes an overkill) of caution, is counted as the same hospitalization as someone with a much more severe case. To those making decisions at the top, a hospitalization, is a hospitalization, is a hospitalization. //

The federal government requires hospitals to report every patient who tests positive for COVID, yet the overall tallies of COVID hospitalizations, made available on various state and federal dashboards and widely reported on by the media, do not differentiate based on severity of illness. Some patients need extensive medical intervention, such as getting intubated. Others require supplemental oxygen or administration of the steroid dexamethasone. But there are many COVID patients in the hospital with fairly mild symptoms, too, who have been admitted for further observation on account of their comorbidities, or because they reported feeling short of breath. Another portion of the patients in this tally are in the hospital for something unrelated to COVID, and discovered that they were infected only because they were tested upon admission. How many patients fall into each category has been a topic of much speculation. //

Which was the primary motivation for the study, conducted by the VA Boston Healthcare System. The doctors who performed the study took it upon themselves to provide a line, which after a patient meets a certain amount of criteria, could classify them as a severe case. According to the study, (which has not as of yet been peer-reviewed), once patients had to be placed on supplemental oxygen to survive, they could be considered a moderate-to-severe case. What the study found was very interesting. Hospitalized patients, who required supplemental oxygen fell from 64% to 52%. That means that either alternative treatments were more effective, or (and as I have been saying for months) hospitals began admitting patients with less severe symptoms. To further confirm the point, the study found that up until January 2021, 36% of patients who were admitted to the hospital had mild or asymptomatic cases. That number rose to 48% by the end of June 2021.

So why would hospitals do this? The Atlantic article fails to question this, only to find ways that the study may be flawed by offering various caveats. Presumably, and very likely, this has to do with the fact that COVID hospitalizations are reimbursed at a higher rate than would say, your typical health insurance plan.

The late Andrew Breitbart accurately noted that politics is downstream from culture, something the Democrats have been aware of and used to full advantage since John F. Kennedy. The left now has a near monopoly on pop culture, i.e. the entertainment media, even in areas so ostensibly conservative as country music. While TikTok stars and social media influencers theoretically herald a new wave of personal brand popularity personas, the media puppet string pullers are still running things, threatening to either cut or strangle with said strings anyone who fails to dance to their chosen tune. //

This is the media‘s game. It feeds the delusion and illusion that an individual matters, when in fact it practices the exact opposite, laughing up its sleeve at those desperately clawing for their 15 minutes. The media could care less about who’s on TikTok, or who’s on the pop charts. It only cares about that which glorifies itself and feeds the lie that it not only matters, but also cares. No, no it does not. It prays for another flawed celebrity upon which to prey. //

This passive/aggressive cancel culture is a pernicious perversion. It is the National Enquirer and TMZ on steroids. These at least make no pretense of their mission. They are gossip sites and nothing more. The pop culture vultures seek to actively destroy for the apparent pleasure of doing so.

So where does this leave us?

A guideline was provided long ago:

To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ... //

are losing the culture war not only because we have abandoned the battlefield, but because we refuse to demonstrate basic human kindness and courtesy to those placed on pop culture pedestals and then attacked, as is currently the case with Billie Eilish, for being there. Let’s turn it around. We can provide genuine artistic options, and we can personally promote these alternatives by not withdrawing from the world, but rather smilingly refusing to sit down and shut up. Should we be in places where there is direct access to the genuinely influential, we can present an alternative to those who seek to leech on to their fame by caring about, and for, them as people. Never underestimate the power of simple respect. //

that are the exact opposite of hiding in our bunkers and railing against these people. Instead, when the media cretins pounce and demand their pound of flesh let’s support those who have the opportunity to, and will seize upon it, the ability to directly say to the attacked, “I will show you the most excellent way.”

Carl Higbie
@CarlHigbie
Before the cameras arrived vs after… COVID theater. This is why we don’t trust these people

Townhall.com
@townhallcom
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY: "Can you tell us where you are today?"

BLINKEN: "Yes. I'm at the State Department."

PERRY: "Couldn't be bothered to come down here and see Congress? Alright, that's great."

House Republicans
@HouseGOP
Secretary Blinken just admitted that the Taliban has blocked American charter flights out of Afghanistan.

This is a hostage situation. //

Blinken refused to answer questions about the reported call between Joe Biden and former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, where Biden allegedly told Ghani that whether it was true or false, he had to tell the public that they were beating back the Taliban — basically lying and deceiving the public. //

Then Rep. Scott Perry really got down to it with Blinken, asking him some great questions. Did the State Department block any Americans from being evacuated? Blinken claimed not, despite many reports to the contrary. How many Afghans did they evacuate who weren’t SIVs (in other words, how many were evacuated, not because they helped the U.S. but to bump up the numbers and were just refugees, not the people the State Department was supposed to be concentrating on getting out)? //

Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
Replying to @CurtisHouck
Annnd here's what some will argue was a big takeaway...

.@RepScottPerry: "How long was your recent interview with the FBI and was it a deposition?

Sec. Blinken: "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're referring."

Blinken goes on by refusing to comment further (3/3)

I think of people like Welles Crowther, the man in the red bandanna, the 24-year-old equities trader who had wanted to be a firefighter. The man who could have gotten out, but went back, again and again, to save people, because that was who he was and that was what he had to do.

The most striking thing that he said to the people he was trying to help that day is a lesson still: those who can stand up, stand up now; if you can, help those around you. What would you do in the last hour of your life, and what would it look like? Welles Crowther stood up, and gave his live to save others. And there can be no higher calling. I like to think that for those like Welles, it must be something when God welcomes them home to Heaven, “Here you are, my good and faithful servant.”

May we always remember those who lost their lives and those, like Welles, who gave his life to do all he could in that moment. For there is no greater love. May we also take his lesson to stand up, if we can — because there is such need for that now.

El Al was among the first to buy the gigantic jumbo with its iconic hump, and went on to break the record for most people on a flight, bringing 1,088 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. This is the story of El Al 001, the flight that made the Jewish world smaller //

For Israelis, the landing of the first El Al Boeing 747 at Lod (later Ben-Gurion) Airport on July 2, 1971, symbolized the opening up of the small and beleaguered country to the wider world. For many Diaspora Jews, it would mean that, for the first time, a visit to Zion didn’t have to involve emigrating there. El Al flight LY001 became the first direct non-stop link between the Jewish state and New York, the greatest Jewish city in the world.

But today the jumbo jet is simply too big and thirsty for the economics of mass air travel in the 21st century. No other machine did more to make the world smaller for so many people. But that world is now too small for the 747.

On Sunday, El-Al's last-ever 747 flight took the sky, drawing a huge Jumbo. It is expected to land at Ben-Gurion Airport later this afternoon, officially ending its service. //

Contracts were signed and El Al became one of the Boeing 747’s 27 launch customers. Today, it is one of only five of those original operators still flying jumbo jets. //

The 747 opened up an age in which rapidly increasing numbers of people could contemplate traveling thousands of miles to distant countries, safely and within mere hours, for work or pleasure. We are still in that age. Some 80 percent of the world’s population has yet to fly, but just last year around 100 million people boarded a plane for the first time. The 747 influenced our lives in ways we now take for granted. //

Fear of flights with empty seats proved unfounded. Throughout its service in El Al, the 747 was invariably, and infamously, packed. In fact, few airlines have succeeded in squeezing as many passengers inside. But even at full capacity, the 747 offered some unique advantages for the company’s clientele. No other aircraft had such wide spaces around the emergency exits — perfect for gathering a minyan (prayer quorum of at least 10 men) at any time of day or night, or for Jewish Agency officials to go through immigration procedures with new olim. For hundreds of thousands of future Israelis (like this writer), boarding an El Al 747 was their first introduction to life in their new homeland.

These highly skilled parents came together to not just solve their own kids' education needs but offer a high-quality education to families in their glorious Colorado mountain town.

Many say the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot is one of America’s darkest episodes. Others say the nationwide protests last summer over George Floyd’s murder were worse. Here’s data about both — you decide.

For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited nonsensical and irrelevant ad hominem attacks to be both spoken on the floor of the House and to be entered into the permanent congressional record. Sadly, her invitation was eagerly accepted. Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., called President Trump “a white supremacist president,” and “white supremacist-in-chief,” while Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called him “racist-in-chief.” //

“Fighting words” are ad hominem. They attack the person without addressing the argument. //

Oral arguments began on Feb. 22, 1971, with Chief Justice Warren Burger instructing Cohen’s lawyer, Melville Nimmer, that the offensive word in question need not be uttered in the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court. Seconds later, in his opening argument, Nimmer said, “What this young man did was to walk through a courthouse corridor wearing a jacket on which were inscribed the words, ‘F— the Draft.’” Presumably, this was the first time in history that such a vile word was uttered in that setting.

For his open defiance of the chief justice, Nimmer was not cited for contempt of court. Rather, he walked away with a 5-4 ruling that overturned 180 years of First Amendment jurisprudence. As Justice John Harlan famously wrote for the majority: “while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” //

Were this the only sad consequence of Cohen v. California, it would be bad enough. But things have devolved further still. In 1977, Cohen was cited as a reason to permit Nazis to chant Jewish insults and carry the swastika through Skokie, Illinois — a community of Holocaust survivors.

In 1978, the Federal Communications Commission lost its ability to keep obscenities off the air; and in 1986 public schools lost their authority to prevent students from screaming “F— you,” in the halls of education. In 1992 the court unanimously struck down long-standing prohibitions against the Ku Klux Klan’s cross-burning threats.

Beginning in the mid-’90s, the advent of so-called “hate speech laws” closed the circle. Now certain ideas cannot be expressed without public penalty. Florists, bakers, clerks, and printers have been devastated by lost business, government fines, and legal costs just for expressing the idea that the words “male” and “female” are not interchangeable. Meanwhile, the law permits them to be assailed with nonsensical words like, “hater,” “bigot,” and “Nazi.”

Such words do not serve as a “step to the truth.” Rather, they are meant to insult and incite economic and social violence against their targets.

It’s been a half-century since the Warren court poisoned popular discourse, there yet remain public places that prohibit the ad hominem and the obscene. For instance, rules in the U.S. House of Representatives dating back to Thomas Jefferson require members to “Avoid characterizing another Member’s personal intent or motives and discussing personalities,” and to “Refrain from speaking disrespectfully of the Speaker, other Members, the President or Vice President.” //

Unfortunately, however, those very rules are now under assault. The House Committee on Rules met on Jan. 12, 2021, and adopted an ad hoc rule change providing “that the prohibition against personality in debate with respect to references to the President shall not apply during consideration of H. Res. 21 or any special order of business providing for the consideration of H. Res. 24.”

Thus, rules against ad hominem attacks on President Donald J. Trump were suspended during floor debates on Vice President Pence’s invocation of the 25 Amendment (H. Res. 21), and the motion to impeach President Trump (H. Res. 24).

Thanks to Pelosi, the language of the school-yard bully has now entered our highest deliberative body. As Cohen led to the cancel culture in the public square, so name-calling on the House floor led immediately to the suppression of unfavored ideas in Congress. Within hours, eight senators and 139 representatives who had followed congressional decorum in calling for an investigation of election fraud suddenly found themselves threatened with censure and expulsion merely for expressing the idea.

In 1942, Justice Murphy asserted, as a matter of timeless common sense, that the First Amendment protects the expression and defense of every idea as a valuable step towards discovering the truth. Now, only 80 years later, the case is reversed. Nonsensical, vile, and intentionally injurious words are fully protected speech while the expression of certain ideas — even in the kindest possible terms — is strictly forbidden. Instead of protecting true free speech, we’ve crushed the speech that matters most: the articulation and testing of the truth.

Article VI of the Constitution describes what qualifies as the law of the land.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land…

The only national laws are the Constitution, congressional law, and treaties. Conspicuously missing are Supreme Court decisions. While the court is known for deciding the constitutionality of laws, its decisions are not themselves laws. In the strictest sense, the opinions rendered by the Supreme Court are binding only on the parties before it. //

The Supreme Court is just that, a court. It was established to adjudicate cases and controversies before it. Courts cannot make general pronouncements of law; they exist to settle disputes.

In fact, the Supreme Court is prohibited from issuing advisory opinions or ruling on laws that do not arise through litigation. Justices are not consultant scholars but arbiters in the limited setting of a legal case, not general legal or public policy matters. Courts issue their rulings in the form of judicial opinions, laying out the holding and the rationale. //

We assume when the high court rules, it is articulating what the Constitution says. The Constitution is the supreme law, but it is also a plain text. That text is the law, the ruling is not. As Justice Story said of judicial opinions in Swift v. Tyson, “They are, at most, only evidence of what the laws are, and are not, of themselves, laws.”

It profits a man nothing to gain the world if he loses his soul—and the deal is even worse if the earthly gain is just a chance at the fleeting respect of a few law professors. Nonetheless, that is how the left is hoping to tempt Brett Kavanaugh as the Supreme Court considers a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

Writing at National Review Online, Ed Whelan observes that such a sales pitch from Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman “isn’t subtle.” //

The justices should do their duty and follow the law and Constitution to the best of their abilities. In the case at hand, this means overturning Roe and Casey, which are legal abominations, exercises of raw power divorced from the text and history of the Constitution. //

The most important consideration is the wickedness of the radical regime of abortion on demand established by Roe and confirmed by Casey. In the age of ultrasound, we know what abortion is, and who it kills. The images eagerly shared on social media and stuck to the fridge condemn the atrocity of our abortion regime, in which the child whose features can be seen on the screen, and whose movements can be felt in the womb, has less legal protection than livestock.

This acceptance of, and reliance on, the violence of abortion poisons society. It turns what ought to be the loving, primordial union of mother, father, and child into a battleground of selfish interests. Abortion hardens the hearts it doesn’t stop.

Overturning Roe will not in itself end these evils, for the justices are unlikely to extend 14th Amendment protections to the unborn, although there is an originalist case for doing so. Abortion policy would therefore return to the states, leaving the pro-life movement to face a grueling state-by-state fight. But at least our democratic victories will no longer be overridden by the caprice of federal judges. //

Millions of voters have supported the conservative legal movement on the promise that it would fight to get courts out of the abortion business. Thus, if the Supreme Court, with a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority, voted to uphold Roe and Casey, the decision might well blow up the conservative legal movement for good. Most of the voters who care about the courts are not interested in Chevron deference or other (to a layperson) esoteric legal doctrines. Rather, they want Roe overturned.

Remembering Gen. Charlie Baldwin's story of God’s provision and presence is a fitting tribute on the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001. //

These are the stories Baldwin told reporters who asked him, “Where was God on 9/11?”

“The answer was ‘He was present.’ He was in the building when the terrorists struck. He offered healing to those who received it. He offered comfort to those who were dying. And God’s presence was overwhelming and even miraculous in some cases,” Baldwin replied.

CR reveals where most of the plastic you throw away really ends up and explains what to do to limit its environmental harm //

One of four things happens to plastic after you’re done with it. If it’s not recycled—and it’s usually not—it is landfilled, incinerated, or littered. The EPA estimates that in 2018, about 16 percent of U.S. plastic waste was incinerated. A relatively small amount was littered. Most of the rest ended up in landfills­—including a lot of the plastic people dutifully put into recycling bins. //

Certain types of plastic, however, are economically viable and relatively easy to recycle, and even in high demand. These include PET plastic bottles, like the ones soda and water are sold in, and HDPE milk jugs (respectively labeled with a number 1 or 2 inside the recycling triangle). But just 29 percent of the plastic used in these jugs and bottles was recycled in 2018.

What is in this bill that is supposedly so “restrictive” that the left is up in arms about it? It is a long bill with many different provisions, but here are some of the most important ones.

Texas Republicans added a requirement that registrars who receive notice from a voter who has moved must forward that notice to the registrar of the new county where the voter now lives. Opponents, like the American Civil Liberties Union, apparently don’t want registrars to keep accurate and up-to-date lists, which is why they keep suing to stop states from trying to clean up their voter lists.

A similar provision requires the Texas secretary of state to use Department of Motor Vehicles records—driver’s license information—to “verify the accuracy of citizenship status information previously provided on voter registration applications.”

In other words, if an individual provides documentation showing he is not a U.S. citizen when he obtained a Texas driver’s license, he obviously should not be registered to vote since both state and federal law bars aliens from voting.

Why would the Democratic legislators who fled the state oppose this? The only possible motive is that they want noncitizens to be able to illegally register, vote, and not get caught. I guess you could call this “restrictive,” but then restricting the voting of ineligible aliens to prevent them from diluting the votes of eligible citizens is what states should be doing.

The bill allows the secretary of state to go after any county registrar who refuses to comply with state law, such as removing aliens who are illegally registered to vote. //

The bill also increases the security of the election process by requiring large counties to implement an internal video surveillance system of all areas where voted ballots are handled, processed, and counted. Do opponents of this bill not want that kind of transparency to ensure nothing untoward is being done with ballots?

The bill requires “randomized audits” in four Texas counties in every even-numbered year. Audits ensure that all the laws governing the voting process are scrupulously followed, that voters can register and vote, and that voting equipment functions properly. What is wrong with wanting to periodically check to make sure that all eligible voters can vote and that elections are conducted fairly and securely? //

The Texas bill makes it clear that election officials cannot remove observers unless they are interfering in the voting process. Again, why would liberals and the media object to transparency? Shouldn’t observers be able to see what is actually going on in precincts?

Texas also added something it has not had before, which is an opportunity for voters to correct defects in their absentee ballots. Many absentee ballots are rejected because voters make mistakes. For instance, they forget to sign the ballot or they don’t provide all the required information.

This bill requires election officials to give voters the opportunity to correct any such problem. This expands voting opportunities in the state. It’s certainly not “restrictive.”

The picture above shows a near-optimum spread; we wound up with a thin layer that completely covers the die. Since it didn’t reach the edges, we know we didn't use too much paste, and that it wasn't applied too thick. If you know how large a pea is, beware of literally using a pea-sized blob. A paste ball about 1/10” to 1/6” in diameter should be enough; don’t use more than that! We're talking about a lentil-sized ball here.

I honestly don't know for sure either, but I see the same thing from time to time. I have one pool that's a uniform collection of Hitachi disks off an internal LSI2008 baed controller that never has errors, and a pool that's a mismash of WD (some 512, some 4K) & Seagate 2TB drives in an external case attached to a SAS expander by way of an LSI1068 based controller with external cabling, and go figure, it almost always has some small quantity of data that gets repaired with no device level errors (running this scrub right now):