The sixth report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is alarming—but not surprising.

The panel’s first assessment of scientific research on climate change in 1990 found that burning fossil fuels substantially increases the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases—including carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxide—causing a rise in the global mean temperature and warming up the world’s oceans.

“Consequent changes,” the first report said, “may have a significant impact on society.” //

Policy makers, scientists, and concerned citizens who pick up the final version of the report might be surprised by one thing, though: It is dedicated to an evangelical Christian who said the root problem of climate change is sin.

“Looking after the Earth is a God-given responsibility,” John Houghton once wrote. “Not to look after the Earth is a sin.”

Houghton, who died of complications related to COVID-19 in 2020 at the age of 88, was the chief editor of the first three IPCC reports and an early, influential leader calling for action on climate change.

His concerns about greenhouse gases, rising temperature averages, dying coral reefs, blistering heat waves, and increasingly extreme weather were informed by his training at as atmospheric physicist and his commitment to science. They also come out of his evangelical understanding of God, the biblical accounts of humanity’s relationship to creation, and what it means for a Christian to follow Christ. //

As Houghton saw it, some religions teach that the Earth and the material world are evil. But the Bible teaches that creation is good, and depicts humans as gardeners divinely commissioned to cultivate and care for the world.

“We are more often exploiters and spoilers rather than gardeners,” Houghton wrote. “Some Christians have misinterpreted the ‘dominion’ given to humans in Genesis 1.26 as an excuse for unbridled exploitation. However, the Genesis chapters, as do other parts of scripture, insist that human rule over creation is to be exercised under God, the ultimate ruler of creation, with the sort of care exemplified by this picture of humans as ‘gardeners.’”

Houghton began to reach out to evangelical leaders to talk to them about the coming ecological crisis. He was influential in convincing Richard Cizik, John Stott, and Rick Warren to make climate change a priority and talk about it as a spiritual problem. //

According to Malcolm, who is now preparing for ministry in the Church of England and writing a doctoral dissertation on theology and climate grief, Houghton thought it was it was impossible to convince people to protect something they didn’t love. He wanted Christians to learn to love their environment and let climate change science move them to repentance.

“Our desire to be gods drives a great deal of the destruction around us,” she said. “There is something in the work of climate science that reveals the consequence of our sin, troubles those in power, and calls for us to sit with that, but also be aware that an alternative is possible—an alternative to our sin.”

Houghton didn’t live to see the release of the sixth IPCC report or to promote it to evangelical Christians. But the scientific assessment dedicated to his memory echoes a core theme of Houghton’s life’s work: Now is the time, it says, to turn from the path of destruction.

But he also just kept saying things that made no sense or that were demonstrably untrue.

Biden says he was warning people to get out since March or April. But then he was also saying that he himself couldn’t see the country falling, that “no one” could, so he can’t be blamed for not seeing it. So which is it? In July, of course, he claimed that he hadn’t been told the country might fall. That was a lie, as we found out later, as he was told in June that it was a possibility. We’ve been talking about the possibility since at least May.

He spoke about the Trump May 1 deadline – yelling that the choice was between that and surging far more troops in for more war which no one was talking about. But he himself broke that deadline in April, postponing leaving for four months. So he himself proved that was nonsense. Plus, Trump had a lot of conditions in the deal that the Taliban broke, but Biden didn’t hold them to the deal, which would have kept them in check. //

He says he disagrees with people who say he should have started sooner. Now, leave aside for the moment that his people were telling us in July they were working on getting interpreters out. So they were claiming in July that they were doing what he says now they couldn’t. But he says now – imagine if they brought in thousands of troops to get out people then, in the middle of a civil war? I don’t know Joe, was it better to bring in the thousands after you pulled out all the troops after they took complete control and we were at their mercy because of you?

But the whole point of doing it earlier was so that you didn’t have to do it all at once, so that you could have done it over months, slowly and carefully, fully vetting everyone. So you wouldn’t need “thousands of troops.” Plus, Biden pulled the remaining 2500 troops out, only to have to put 6000 back in. So he himself was “surging” in far more troops than he took out. Everything he claimed he was doing to reduce our involvement, only increased the risk and danger to our people and our Afghan allies. //

It was, to Joe Biden, about proving Joe Biden right about this issue.

There were a lot of sick things in it, but the thing that was sociopathic about it all was using his own dead son’s name/death for emotional blackmail. Some people may not like that I say that, but that’s what it is. He’s done that repeatedly in his rants on Afghanistan. He did it again in Tuesday’s speech, and he did it during his Dover meetings with the families who lost their sons and daughters in Kabul. So, for the record, Joe Biden’s son Beau didn’t die in Afghanistan. He died of cancer. He had previously served in Iraq. The families felt he talked more about his own son than theirs. We see him throw Beau Biden again into this speech. He acts like he was a Gold Star father, and it’s not the same thing. The families know that and they were offended that he made it about himself and not about their loved ones.

But more than that, it’s a cynical use of his son as a defense to being criticized, to make it not about facts, but about his pain, not even about the son. To me, that’s sick and even disrespectful to his own son, to use Beau’s death in that way.

According to NBC News, around 20,000 Afghans who had worked with the US government had applied for SIVs, and that was back in May. No doubt the number skyrocketed as it became clear the Taliban would prevail. When you add in their families, that number jumps to almost 75,000. In the end, we got out around 8,500, a tiny fraction of those we made promises to.

Putting aside whether one agrees with bringing SIVs here or not, the issue here is just how pervasive the misleading claims by Biden and his cohorts have been following the end of operations in Afghanistan. They’ve continually presented a rosy picture that is clearly not true. This airlift not only failed to get all Americans out, it overwhelmingly failed to get Afghan allies out as well. That’s not the reality the administration is admitting to when they trot out Austin to blow smoke up the collective backside of the nation.

What we are seeing right now is an administration that is flailing, desperate to cover up its incompetence. This airlift was not a roaring success. Rather, it was a rushed, ill-planned, chaotic retreat that left tens of thousands of people who deserved to get out to the tender mercies of the Taliban.

That leaves one big question remaining: Who exactly did we evacuate?

Announcing an air-speed record from Savannah, Georgia, to Doha, Qatar, might sound trivial or even a little absurd. Until you consider the context: This was the world’s largest business jet flying 6,711 nautical miles nonstop at Mach 0.88, or 675 mph, for 13 hours and 16 minutes, on its first international flight. Then it becomes a corporate milestone.

Gulfstream’s new G700 then set another city-pair record from Doha to Paris, flying 2,953 nautical miles at an average speed of Mach 0.90 (690.5 mph) for 6 hours and 15 minutes, before returning to headquarters in Savannah.

The War in Afghanistan has always been a black box, but the Biden administration just made matters worse.

According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001. //

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers. The//

Again, to reiterate, these reports do not include recipient information, and the Taliban already likely controls the war chest in question.

This directive doesn’t seem to be designed to protect our Afghan allies—or, if it is, it’s been poorly executed. One U.S. entity that we will not name has failed to remove a report detailing the Afghan forces by rank. That report, one could argue, could be used as a tally sheet for retribution, but it’s still publicly available. //

Again, to reiterate, these reports do not include recipient information, and the Taliban already likely controls the war chest in question.

My issue here isn’t the pragmatism on display. Of course, Biden is not going to be impeached by a Democrat House or Senate. McConnell doesn’t need to bother pointing that out. Rather, the question is if Republicans are willing to show any kind of killer instinct and to hold the left to their own standards.

For example, every criticism McConnell otherwise lodges at Biden isn’t going to result in his removal from office. Yet, that criticism is still valuable, correct? That’s especially true when talking about shaping perceptions for the next elections. An impeachment push isn’t about actually removing Biden from office. Rather, it’s about consistency and showing voters that the president deserves to be held to the same standard Trump was held to. The messaging is the point.

Yes, the ballot box will be the ultimate test, but what happens at the ballot box is influenced by how Republicans choose to fight back at this moment. GOP voters are watching, and they aren’t going to respond well to more Washington knee-bending. It is not lost on them that many Republicans went harder at Trump than they now go at Biden. //

In short, the question for McConnell isn’t whether Biden will be impeached. Rather, it’s if McConnell thinks he should be. If he doesn’t, he should say that instead of hiding behind obfuscations about what is or isn’t possible. Stand up, stiffen your spine, and take a position.

In the latest instance of an Amazon-related venture attempting to use regulations and legal routes to suppress competition, Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet venture wants the FCC to dismiss SpaceX’s application for the next generation of Starlink satellites.

In a document filed with the FCC in late August, Project Kuiper took the significant step of asking the regulatory body to entirely dismiss a SpaceX request to modify plans for the next generation of Starlink satellites. As previously discussed on Teslarati, SpaceX submitted that modification request on August 18th with one clear focus: optimizing Starlink satellites and the constellation’s orbital ‘shells’ to best take advantage of the imminent capabilities of the next-generation Starship launch vehicle. //

Nominally capable of launching at least 100 metric tons (~220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) in a fully reusable configuration, Starship would boost the mass of Starlink satellites SpaceX could orbit with one launch by a factor of 5-6 or more relative to Falcon 9. In other words, with Starship, SpaceX could feasibly fill out its Starlink constellation at least 5-6 times faster than with Falcon 9. //

In turn, while not unprecedented, SpaceX chose to modify its license application for the second (or third) phase of Starlink satellites – a constellation made up of almost 30,000 spacecraft – to include two distinct options: a constellation where Starship is ready on time and one where it is not. Amazon’s Project Kuiper project, Effectively a Starlink clone helmed by former senior managers and engineers that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk personally ousted in 2018 for being slow and overcautious, Amazon’s Project Kuiper was apparently not happy with the changes its competitor made. //

Published six days later, SpaceX pulls no punches in its response to Amazon, raking the company through the coals for an incessant number (dozens) of filed objections to Starlink while simultaneously failing to address crucial FCC questions about the nature of the Project Kuiper constellation. Bizarrely, SpaceX’s response also accurately points out how Amazon’s legal team seemingly fails to understand SpaceX’s modification request, which poses two mutually exclusive constellation layouts with mostly marginal differences. Amazon’s central argument appears to be that SpaceX actually hasn’t submitted enough information by meticulously detailing two constellation layouts instead of one, claiming that it left “every major detail unsettled.”

Two of Poland’s richest men have signed a deal to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, which they aim to complete by 2027. They see the plans as a necessary step in Poland’s move away from its reliance on coal and towards lower-emission forms of energy. //

The investors plan on setting up between four and six nuclear reactors with a capacity of 300 MW each. The plant would operate “on the basis of the most modern and safest American technologies,” they say. However, SMR-type reactors have not yet been commercialised.

London-based Solar Water PLC recently signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabian government as part of the country's clean future $500 billion "NEOM" project. The company is building the "first desalination plant with solar dome technology", a CNN Arabia report (translated on Solar Water PLC's website) explains. //

The plant is essentially "a steel pot buried underground, covered with a dome," making it look like a ball, Solar Water CEO David Reavley told CNN Arabia. The glass dome, a form of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, is surrounded by "heliostat" reflectors that focus solar radiation towards inwards. Heat is transferred to seawater within the dome, which evaporates and then condenses to form freshwater. The solar dome plant does not utilize polluting fibers that are typically used in reverse osmosis desalination technologies, and Reavley claims that it is cheap and fast to build at the same time as being carbon neutral.

“Sadly, the aircraft [A380] is handicapped by two engines too many, and also a generation of engine design, which is way behind the modern era engines that power today the likes of the 787 and A350 in particular. So we can compare and contrast how we put service onto our network through 787…We can almost operate two and a half, 787s for the cost of putting one A380 on and it simply doesn’t make economic sense anymore.” //

Etihad is moving to a 787 and A350-only fleet by 2022 for its widebody operations. //

Etihad operates both the -9 and -10 variants of the 787, which can seat 299 and 336 passengers in their highest capacity. This means flying 2.5 787s would offer Etihad far more capacity than a single A380 and improved efficiency gains. Even the first class-equipped 787-9s seat 235 passengers in the three-class layout.

As reported by Just the News, a series of desperate text messages between U.S. military commanders and private citizens mounting last-minute rescues tell a far different story than that presented by the Biden administration. “We are f*cking abandoning American citizens,” wrote an Army colonel, detailing how frantic, pleading Americans —waving U.S. passports — were rejected at the Kabul airport, as three empty rescue flights waited nearby, hours before the last American troops left Afghanistan.

ACLU
@ACLU
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has not responded to our emergency request to block Texas’ radical new 6-week abortion ban, SB8. The law now takes effect.

Access to almost all abortion has just been cut off for millions of people. The impact will be immediate and devastating.
1:15 AM · Sep 1, 2021

In what way is it devastating for a baby to get a chance at life instead of being killed in the womb? And given the argument for abortion is often economic regarding future life choices, how is it immediate?

A woman who wants an abortion and can’t get one because of this law can eventually put her child up for adoption. On the other hand, an abortion can not be undone once performed. That life can not be untaken. Thus, even on non-moral grounds, it makes no sense to block the law as litigation continues.

But to the ACLU and so many others, life in the womb is meaningless and holds no value. Just like those who supported slavery, they’ve made the arbitrary decision to deny personhood to a segment of humanity they find inconvenient and detestable.

Richard Hanania
@RichardHanania
You can’t screen for Down syndrome before about 10 weeks, and something like 80% of Down syndrome fetuses are aborted. If red states ban abortion, we could see a world where they have five times as many children with Down syndrome, and similar numbers for other disabilities.
12:39 AM · Sep 2, 2021

Children with disabilities are some of the most joy-producing humans on the planet, both for themselves and others. Why would anyone be concerned that a lack of abortion might result in more of them? But for too many, they become numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s a symptom of just how sick as a nation we’ve become.

Others compared pro-lifers to the Taliban because everything is stupid. But honestly, if the Taliban are more moral than the American left on abortion, maybe that should be a sign something is wrong? The Taliban are also against cannibalism. That doesn’t make cannibalism a right and just choice. //

The moral depravity on display over this Texas law is just astonishing, and it continues to be a minor miracle that we can exist as a country at all while one side continues to stump for the genocide of children. God forgive us for ever becoming desensitized to it and allowing abortion to become so pervasive in the first place.

six in ten people said the country has “seriously gone off on the wrong track.” That’s a horrible indicator for Biden.

On top of that, the latest Rasmussen numbers found that 52% want Biden to resign over the disaster of the Afghanistan withdrawal, while 39% disagree. But that wasn’t all.

An even bigger number agreed with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that Biden deserved to be impeached. 60% agreed with Graham’s statement that Biden should be impeached, with 37% saying no, according to Newsmax. //

Ldeer1960
3 hours ago
"...there’s been a lot of honest reporting and a lot of truth..." for certain values of "a lot", "honest", and "truth". If the actual truth were told accurately and across all media there would be a lynch mob around the White House, Congress and the Pentagon.

The ancient supercontinent Rodinia may be responsible.

The US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, which has been overseeing the slow and painful bankruptcy of the remains of SCO, announced that the TSG Group, which represents SCO's debtors, has settled with IBM and resolved all the remaining claims between TSG and IBM "Under the Settlement Agreement, the Parties have agreed to resolve all disputes between them for a payment to the Trustee [TLD], on behalf of the Estates [IBM], of $14,250,000."

In return, TLD gives up all rights and interests in all litigation claims pending or that may be asserted in the future against IBM and Red Hat, and any allegations that Linux violates SCO's Unix or Unixware intellectual property.

Why is TLD, the former SCO, finally agreeing to let this drop. Because, as some of us knew 18 years ago, they never had a case. Or, as TLD's legal representative, Blank Rome bankruptcy attorney Stanley B. Tarr, put it in a motion, "succeeding on the unfair competition claims will require proving to a jury that events occurring many years ago constituted unfair competition and caused SCO harm. Even if SCO were to succeed in that effort, the amount of damages it would recover is uncertain and could be significantly less than provided by the Settlement Agreement."

You think?

Computer power supply units (PSU) deliver the power to the PC hardware via a number of cables with connectors. Their generic specifications for various desktop systems are defined in Intel's design guides, which used to be periodically revised. Their latest standard is PSU Design Guide rev.2.0 released on June 2018. This document combines the requirements for ATX12V v2.52 and its five variations. Note that some brand name manufacturers did not follow Intel guidelines and used non-standard pinouts. Also see the information on new ATX12VO standard.

Standard ATX power supplies typically have the main power connector P1, additional 12V connectors, as well as peripheral, floppy drive, serial ATA, and PCI Express® receptacles, which we will describe below.

Connect five SATA drives to any free PCI-E x4 Slot, providing up to 1700 MB/s Speed.

JMicron JMB585 chipset supported in FreeBSD 11.4+

$50

1.The FS-S6-Pro is a PCI express 3.0 X4 interface to 6-Ports 6 Gbps max speed SATA 3.0 expansion card. It allows users add 6X Non-Raid SATA 3.0 Storage or AHCI Boot HDD/SSD on desktop PCs, Working Stations, MAC Pros and Network Attached Storage (NAS).
2.Select the ASMedia ASM1166 the most stable Non-Raid PCIE 3.0 SATA controller solution. PCIE 3.0 X4 interface provide 16Gbps total bandwidth. Each SATA 3.0 port will get 6Gbps max speed for AHCI boot and storage.

3. Plug and Play on Windows Server 2019, 2016, 2012R2, 2012, 2008R2, 2008, 2003R2, 2003 (32/64), Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8.x, 10 (32/64bit), MAC OS 10.4.x, 10.5.x, 10.6.x, 10.7.x, 10.8.X, 10.9.x, 10.10.x, 10.11.x, 10.12.x, 10.13.x, 10.14.x, 10.15.x and most of Linux kernel systems.
   4.Compliant with Serial ATA(SATA) Revision 3.1 specifications, auto switch to SATA 3.0 speed 6Gbps max. Backward compatible with SATA 1.0 and SATA 2.0. Support PCIE 1.0,2.0,3.0,4.0 protocol on motherbaord PCIE X4, X8, X16 slot

ASMedia ASM1166 controller NOT compatible with FreeBSD 12/ XigmaNAS

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The PCIUSB3S4 4-Port PCI to USB 3.0 Card enables legacy PCI slots to support the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard, which is capable of data transfer rates up to 5 Gbps. Using USB 3.0 devices with this card will increase data transfer rates with up to 1.3 Gbps of available bandwidth (PCI bus limit) - more than doubling performance compared to a USB 2.0 connection.

$75

it surely sounded a lot like he said they would get money if people — Americans and Afghan allies — who were still trapped in Afghanistan were allowed to leave. Sounds like a slow-moving hostage deal and did we just hear the bribe?

So, let’s see. We left our folks there and allies who needed to get out. We left the Taliban billions of dollars’ worth of equipment through the Afghan army, which they can now use for terrorism or to oppress the people. But now the Biden folks potentially want to funnel even more money to these characters that would keep them in power? The Taliban can hold them up for it, too, saying they have Americans. //

Joe Biden has put us in a box once again where we’re likely to see “pallets of cash” and negotiations with terrorists for hostages. Heck, Sullivan is saying they get money depending on whether they let people out — he’s literally saying it. Meanwhile, the Taliban are holding mock funerals for us in the country, parading around with a coffins draped in American flags. //

Rep. Mike Waltz
@michaelgwaltz
Trading economic assistance for safe passage home for Americans is de facto paying a ransom to terrorists.