Medieval villages in northern Kyrgyzstan may have been very close to ground zero.

In 1338 and 1339, people were dying in droves in the villages around Lake Issyk-Kul in what’s now northern Kyrgyzstan. Many of the tombstones from those years blame the deaths on a generic “pestilence.” According to a recent study of ancient bacterial DNA from the victims’ teeth, the pestilence that swept through the Kyrgyz villages was Yersinia pestis—the same pathogen that would cause the devastating Black Death in Europe just a few years later. //

In just five years, bubonic plague killed at least 75 million people in the Middle East, northern Africa, and Europe. Known as the Black Death, the cataclysm of 1346-1352 is still the most deadly pandemic in human history. But the Black Death was only the first devastating wave of what historians call the second plague pandemic: a centuries-long period in which waves of Y. pestis periodically burned through communities or whole regions. When English diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about the Great Plague of London in 1666, he was describing a later wave of the same pandemic that began in the mid-1300s with the Black Death. Centuries of life with the reality of the plague actually shaped the genetic diversity of modern European populations.

Switching to renewables will only happen if gas prices remain expensive.

For Hillary Clinton to add her voice to the partisan witch hunt demands derision because she is the reason Trump and some of his voters doubt elections. //

The Russia collusion hoax she paid for and promoted is the reason Donald Trump and some of his voters believed (and maybe still do) that enemies of the former president hacked Dominion voting machines, flooded battleground states with counterfeit ballots, and engaged in other Machiavellian machinations to steal the 2020 election. Yet Clinton plays the puritan, blaming Trump’s refusal to accept Joe Biden’s victory as the cause of the violence that erupted at the capitol on January 6, 2021—all while she continues to insinuate some six years later that the presidency was stolen from her. //

Given what the Clinton campaign did to Trump during the 2016 campaign, with assistance throughout from high-level FBI and DOJ agents, and given what Clinton’s deep-state cronies did in an effort to remove Trump from office, Trump wasn’t crazy to believe the farfetched stories of a 2020 election steal: He would have been nuts not to.

Yet Clinton claims Trump is the one who “wage[d] a criminal conspiracy to overturn the results and prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.” The projection lives loudly within her.

In a win for religious freedom and education choice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Maine government program that only granted tuition aid to parents who sent their children to a pre-approved private school without any religious affiliation is unconstitutional.

In a 6-3 decision that reversed a lower court ruling, the Supreme Court found that the Maine Department of Education’s decision to exclude religious schools from the government’s tuition assistance program violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Once there were 17 reactors in Germany. Now there are only three remaining, all of which are scheduled to go offline by the end of the year.

The move to “clean energy”—without nuclear—has accomplished three things:

1. It has prompted Germany, and the rest of the EU, to begin relying more heavily on Russian natural gas as it “transitioned.” Putin, who has begun demanding EU nations pay for their energy in roubles, is now able to undercut the European economy at will.

2. It has created the highest global electricity prices per household in the world. In 2019, German households were paying 34 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to 13 cents in the United States. The price of energy has doubled since 2000, when Germany first mandated decarbonization, an effort that forced energy companies to purchase long-term inefficient renewables at high, fabricated prices.

3. It has meant the burning of coal. Even before Russia began cutting off supply, Germany was more reliant on coal than the United States. This week, Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who earlier this year rejected a European Union label of nuclear energy as “green,” announced that in an effort to avoid future gas shortages—because cars can’t run on wind—the government would incentivize the use of more coal-fired power plants.

The “transition” to green that Germany began 30 years ago has not worked. In 2000, Germany obtained 84 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. By 2019, it was 78 percent. As Vaclav Smil pointed out a couple of years ago, at this rate, Germany would still be deriving 70 percent of its energy from fossil fuels by the year 2050. With a move back to coal in 2022, it will surely be even later, if ever.

That U.S. prosecutors didn’t find ballot-stuffing in Detroit and Atlanta says nothing about whether there were systemic violations of election law and illegal voting in 2020. //

But what Barr didn’t investigate—and indeed shouldn’t have investigated—were the many violations of state election law highlighted by Trump’s legal team in their lawsuits challenging the election results. For instance, in Georgia, the state election code requires residents to “vote in the county in which they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of the election” and “outside of the 30-day grace period, if people vote in a county in which they no longer reside, ‘their vote in that county would be illegal.’”

Trump’s legal team obtained solid evidence that as many as 30,000 Georgia residents voted illegally in their prior county in 2020. Trump never had his day in court on this challenge, though, which theoretically could have resulted in Georgia’s election results tossed. //

That’s not the business of the attorney general, however, so those Republicans seeing Barr as derelict misunderstand his role. Likewise, those Democrats championing Barr’s words, believing it establishes a coup attempt by Trump, ignore that his testimony focused solely on election fraud. //

While Barr could testify concerning the cases of voter fraud the Department of Justice investigated, in the aftermath of the November 2020 election the former attorney general did not scrutinize, nor should he have, violations of state election law or potential violations of the Equal Protection Clause caused by the states’ disparate standards applied during the election.

Mike Rusher
@mjrusher
·
Follow
OUCH: Biden is now the most unpopular POTUS in *United States history.

Now has the all time worst POTUS approval at the 517 day mark, per @FiveThirtyEight . *Data began in late 30's by @Gallup

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?cid=rrpromo #ncpol #ncga #ncsen
10:22 AM · Jun 20, 2022

First, a mini-primer on iptables.

iptables is both a command and the name of the Linux firewall subsystem. The command is used to set up firewall rules in RAM. The iptables firewall rules are arranged first into tables: there is the default filter table, but also nat, mangle, raw and security tables, for various purposes. fail2ban is doing traffic filtering, so it uses the filter table.

The tables are then further divisible into filter chains. Each table has certain standard chains: for the filter table, the standard chains are INPUT, FORWARD and OUTPUT. The FORWARD chain is only used when the system is configured to route traffic for other systems. The INPUT chain deals with incoming traffic to this system.

If fail2ban added its rules directly to the INPUT chain and wiped that chain clean when all the bans expired, then you would have to turn over full control of your firewall input rules to fail2ban - you could not easily have any custom firewall rules in addition to what fail2ban does. This is clearly not desirable, so fail2ban won't do that.

Instead, fail2ban creates its own filter chain it can fully manage on its own, and adds on start-up a single rule to the INPUT chain to send any matching traffic to be processed through fail2ban's chain.

For example, when configured to protect sshd, fail2ban should be executing these commands at start-up:

 iptables -N f2b-sshd
 iptables -A f2b-sshd -j RETURN
 iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m multiport --dports <TCP ports configured for sshd protection> -j f2b-sshd

These commands create a f2b-sshd filter chain, set RETURN as its last rule (so that when any fail2ban rules have been processed, the normal processing of INPUT rules will continue as without fail2ban, and finally, add a rule to the beginning of the INPUT table to catch any SSH traffic and send it first to the f2b-sshd chain.

Now, when fail2ban needs to ban an IP address for SSH use, it will just insert a new rule to the f2b-sshd chain.

If you are using firewalld or some other system that manages iptables firewall rules for you, or if you clear all the iptables rules manually, then these initial rules, and possibly the entire f2b-sshd filter chain, may be wiped out. You should make sure that any firewall management tool you might be using maintains that initial rule in the INPUT chain and doesn't touch the f2b-sshd chain at all.

I know this is an old thread but this is what pops up on a google search for this subject. I didn't see anyone give the most correct answer (imo) so here it is.

To change the Linux named port definition globally go to
/etc/services

ssh             22/tcp
ssh             22/udp

There is no need to change anything in the fail2ban configuration or in any other application that uses Linux named ports.

While connecting to your server through SSH can be very secure, the SSH daemon itself is a service that must be exposed to the Internet to function properly. This comes with some inherent risk and offers a vector of attack for would-be assailants.

Any service that is exposed to the network is a potential target in this way. If you pay attention to application logs for these services, you will often see repeated, systematic login attempts that represent brute-force attacks by users and bots alike.

A service called Fail2ban can mitigate this problem by creating rules that automatically alter your iptables firewall configuration based on a predefined number of unsuccessful login attempts. This will allow your server to respond to illegitimate access attempts without intervention from you.

In this guide, we’ll cover how to install and use Fail2ban on a CentOS 7 server.

Any service that is exposed to the internet is susceptible to attacks from malicious parties. If your service requires authentication, illegitimate users and bots will attempt to break into your system by repeatedly trying to authenticate using different credentials.

A common example of this is with SSH, which will be the subject of bot attacks that attempt to brute force common account names. Luckily, services like fail2ban were created to help us mitigate these attacks.

Fail2ban works by dynamically altering the firewall rules to ban addresses that have unsuccessfully attempted to log in a certain number of times. In a previous guide, we discussed how to get fail2ban up and running on Ubuntu 14.04.

In this guide, we’ll discuss in more depth how fail2ban actually works and how you can use this knowledge to modify or extend the behavior of this service.

The Basic Concept
The basic idea behind fail2ban is to monitor the logs of common services to spot patterns in authentication failures.

When fail2ban is configured to monitor the logs of a service, it looks at a filter that has been configured specific to that service. The filter is designed to identify authentication failures for that specific service through the use of complex regular expressions.

BNN Newsroom
@BNNBreaking
BREAKING: Surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary School shows that police never attempted to open either of the two classroom doors that housed the shooter-mass murderer and his victims-children/teachers.

This contradicts previous statements that police attempted to gain entry by using a ring of keys from a janitor.
12:05 AM · Jun 19, 2022 //

To make the timeline clear here, the shooter was shooting for 12 minutes outside without any police response. He then entered an unlocked backdoor, followed in by police minutes later. The police then barricaded the shooter inside the room per their own admission. Instead of attempting entry to stop the carnage, they sat around for over an hour until a Border Patrol team went in of their own volition.

Prior to this surveillance video, the police claimed they attempted to enter the room but were forced back by gunfire. Now, we know that they never even tried to get inside, choosing to retreat like cowards, completely absconding from their duty to protect and serve.

Further, a mother who entered the school to rescue her children recently revealed that the shooting inside the classroom continued well after the police arrived (again, contradicting initial claims by police that the shooter had killed everyone within a few minutes). That means that the shooter was systematically executing children while the police just sat there. That’s so unconscionable that it makes me feel sick to my stomach just to write.

It doesn’t get any worse than this, and it’s infuriating that so many, including some GOP senators, are choosing to obsess over meaningless, ineffective gun control policies instead of talking about the biggest, most direct failure in Uvalde. Lastly, the idea that any law-abiding citizen of the United States should be disarmed in the face of this shooting is asinine.

In other words, renewable energy generation is just another racket subsidized by the federal government. It’s not that there isn’t enough energy to generate electrical power. There’s plenty of oil, plenty of coal and natural gas.

But who can compete with subsidized energy like solar and wind? //

Moreover, intermittent sources like wind are allowed to bid into MISO’s capacity auction. But wind is unreliable and can’t be dispatched—you never know when it will produce, and you can’t make it produce when you want it to. So, wind bids in at an average expected level of generation. A simple visual (left) reveals what a fatal flaw this is.

As Orr, the energy analyst, points out, this model assumes that wind will blow at 15 percent capacity. But there is no guarantee that it will do so.

In the end, it comes down to a simple, mathematical equation: will our company make a profit from generating electricity or not?

It should be noted that this is a feature, not a bug of renewable energy. Making it too expensive to use fossil fuels to generate electricity is part of the charm renewable energy holds for green fanatics.

And they want you to feel pain, they want you to suffer. They figure you aren’t going to be mad at heroic green warriors fighting to save the planet. They think you’ll become enraged at the dirty, greedy, energy capitalists the heroic green warriors are trying to destroy — along with a couple of million jobs and a reliable supply of energy.

They just don’t mention those last two goals or say them out loud.

EU Signs Landmark Natural Gas Deal With Israel
“Israeli gas is expected to be sent to liquefaction plants in Egypt, then shipped north to markets in Europe.” //

Biden Admin Tried to Kill Europe-Israel Gas Pipeline Deal
The agreement allowing supply of Israeli gas was reached despite Biden administration’s efforts to kill a similar pipeline deal. Just weeks ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden State Department pulled the U.S. support away from the EastMed pipeline designed to deliver Israeli gas to the European market — reversing a Trump White House decision.

“Washington no longer supports the proposed EastMed gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, according to a Jerusalem diplomatic source,” the Israeli TV channel i24News reported January 19. “The Biden administration reportedly informed Israeli, Greek, and Cypriot officials in recent weeks of its change in attitude,” the news outlet added.

The Biden White House decision emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin as he was amassing troops along the Ukrainian border, and further consolidated Moscow’s stranglehold on the Europe’s energy supply. It was only the shock of the Russia military offensive on the Europe’s eastern flank which forced the policymakers in Washington and Brussels to rethink energy security and look for ways to reduce dependence on Kremlin.

It may seem reassuring, but it still means a whole lot of people with long-term symptoms. //

"Far more people were infected first with omicron than with delta," Kevin McConway, an emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said in a statement. "So even if the percentage of infected people who got long COVID during the two waves is on the scale that these researchers report—and it may well be—the actual numbers of people reporting long COVID after first being infected during omicron is still far larger than during delta."

Chloe had a similar experience. “Because my body didn’t match beauty ideals, I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough to be a girl, so I’d be better off as a boy. Deep inside, I wanted to be pretty all along, but that’s something I kept suppressed.”

She agrees with Dr. Anderson that more psychological evaluation is needed to determine whether underlying mental health issues might be influencing the desire to transition.

“More attention needs to be paid to psychotherapy,” Chloe said. “We’re immediately jumping into irreversible medical treatments when we could be focusing on empowering these children to not hate their bodies.” //

Medical professionals typically follow the affirmative-care model, which is supported by the American Psychological Association, validating a patient’s expressed gender identity regardless of their age. As a result, detransitioners frequently report that getting prescriptions is a breeze. A total of 55% said their medical evaluations felt inadequate, according to Dr. Littman’s survey.

In Helena’s case, all it took to get a testosterone prescription was one trip to Planned Parenthood when she was 18. She said she was given four times the typical starting dose by a nurse practitioner in less than an hour, without ever seeing a doctor.

Chloe said she was fast-tracked through her entire transition — from blockers to a mastectomy — in just two years, with parental consent. The only pushback she said she encountered came from the first endocrinologist she saw, who agreed to prescribe her puberty blockers but not testosterone when she was 13. But she said she went to another doctor who gave her the prescription with no trouble. //

“Because all the therapists and specialists followed the affirmative care model, there wasn’t a lot of gate-keeping throughout the whole transition process,” she recalled. “The professionals all seemed to push medical transition, so I thought it was the only path for me to be happy.”

Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. //

Images on the Golden Record

The following is a listing of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, et. al. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music. Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system, they will find themselves in empty space. It will be forty thousand years before they make a close approach to any other planetary system.

Images on the Golden Record

The following is a listing of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, et. al. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. Each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute. It contains the spoken greetings, beginning with Akkadian, which was spoken in Sumer about six thousand years ago, and ending with Wu, a modern Chinese dialect. Following the section on the sounds of Earth, there is an eclectic 90-minute selection of music, including both Eastern and Western classics and a variety of ethnic music. Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system, they will find themselves in empty space. It will be forty thousand years before they make a close approach to any other planetary system.

The paper found changes to the way the federal government measures inflation understate the current scope of the problem.

Maybe //

CDkeys essentially purchases tens of thousands of games in third-world countries, scans the keys and then sells the scanned versions in first-world countries. In doing this, they pay local taxes for all their game purchases, whichever country it may be. However, if they never import the physical copies of these games to the U.S, then the question arises whether they are paying import taxes to the United States. They may be importing just photos of scanned keys, but as a single scanned key can be worth $60 or more, it’s difficult to say whether these photos should be subject to import taxes or not.

All in all, though, I have to say that CDkeys is more legally legitimate than almost every other third-party key reseller. They don’t trade stolen keys, they don’t buy out celebrities, and they state their business practices clearly on their website. //

The CDkeys terms and conditions clearly state that they “accept no refunds or returns”, and that they are “not responsible for any loss or damage resulting from lost or stolen programs or use without permission”. This means that you have no real guarantee or warranty for your purchase.

If you want a 100% safe and risk-free purchase, then your only real option is to purchase retail.

Whether or not purchasing from retail or from CDkeys is better, is up to you. You should decide whether the risk is worth it or not