A newly obtained document includes Manos Antonakakis’s synopsis of what he told the special counsel’s team about the Alfa Bank hoax.

A Georgia Tech researcher’s candid reaction to the indictment of a former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer hints at an intriguing development in the Russia collusion scandal. Two days after the indictment dropped, the researcher told a university lawyer and other higher-ups that the special counsel had lied in the indictment about the Alfa Bank hoax, according to a document first obtained by The Federalist on Thursday.

But the details the Georgia Tech researcher explained instead reveal a more damning scenario concerning his peers’ potential access to data from the Executive Office of the President, or EOP, during the Trump transition period.

According to Botanical Medicine, the anti-inflammatory actions of glycyrrhizin (GL) may stem from suppression of cytokines:

“As testimony to its anti-inflammatory properties, glycyrrhizin alleviated allergic asthma in an experimental mouse model, increased the IL-4 and IL-5 levels, decreased eosinophil counts and IgE levels, and upregulated total IgG2a in serum.

These results indicated that glycyrrhizin interfered with the production of IgE by decreasing the IgE-stimulating cytokines. It also attenuated lung inflammation and mucus production in mice.”

The overuse of financial sanctions risks much of the world losing confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

How Secure Is My Password?

most easy password

It would take a computer about
4 hundred billion years

Unified Patents, Microsoft, the Linux Foundation, and Open Invention Network are beating back open-source patent trolls.

Patent trolls, aka Patent Assertion Entities (PAE)s, have plagued open-source software for ages. Over the years though, other groups have risen up to keep them from stealing from the companies and organizations that actually use patents' intellectual property (IP). One such group, Unified Patents, an international organization of over 200 businesses, has been winning for the last two years. This is their story to date.

Aluminum doesn’t solder well, and that’s because of the oxide layer that rapidly forms on the surface. [Ted]’s solution is to scour the aluminum with some mineral oil. The goal is to scrape away the oxide layer on the aluminum’s surface, while the mineral oil’s coating action prevents a new oxide layer from immediately re-forming.

After this prep, [Ted] uses a hot soldering iron and a blob of solder, heating it until it sticks. A fair bit of heat is usually needed, because aluminum is a great heat conductor and tends to be lot thicker than a typical copper ground plane. But once the aluminum is successfully tinned, just about anything can be soldered to it in a familiar way.

[Ted] does caution that mineral oil can ignite around 260 °C (500 °F), so a plan should be in place when using this method, just in case the small amount of oil catches fire.

Windows Defender May Be Enough //

So what are the downsides of Windows Defender? Its bare-bones nature means you can’t schedule scans and have to manually opt to run one instead, which is something you may forget to do as often as you should. You’ll also miss out on features like sandboxing— which allows you to test programs you’re unsure about—along with VPNs, password encryption, and various other tools that help keep you safe online. //

When it comes to scanning for, detecting, and removing threats—any of the free or paid options will do the same job. Some of the extra features like password generation, sandboxing, VPNs, etc., may make you safer—and having them all handled by one program places less of a burden on your PC. But those features may not be something you’ll use. Sandboxing can be an incredibly useful tool when it comes to keeping your PC safe, as it allows you to install and run programs in a fenced-off area of your computer while you test them out. However, if you’re the kind of person who never installs programs you don’t completely trust, you don’t need a sandboxing program.

Reagan didn’t put the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history by launching wars of aggression or by mimicking Soviet central planning. He did it by helping America get back to being what it was always meant to be: prosperous, powerful, peaceful.

I watched Reagan help turn this country around. I delighted watching him do it with that good humor and sunny disposition that drove the Left nuts. I still do.

Long story short — too late, right? — Reagan fought communism with capitalism.

So of course, it worked.

Communism can only win by default when its victims are too brutalized or too uncaring or sometimes just too ignorant to resist. //

Our country over the last two decades or so has taken a dark turn into what we might call “soft Communism.”

No walls, no barbed wire, no minefields keeping us locked in, but something even more insidious.

Wokeness, cancel culture, domestic spying, and social-credit-type controls from Big Tech and even the banking system …

… these things are the communism of my adulthood, just like the military might and propaganda efforts of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were the communism of my formative years. //

But you can’t fight communism, whatever form it takes, with nothing but good wishes and some personal perseverance. You’ve got to fight communism with capitalism, just like Reagan taught me all those years ago — and that means first and foremost having a sustainable business model.

Israeli health officials recently reported the country’s first case of polio in over 30 years.

An unvaccinated child, 4, from Jerusalem, contracted the highly transmissible virus, making it the first polio case in Israel since 1988, the Israeli Health Ministry said Sunday. //

Most people infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) are asymptomatic. Approximately 1 out of 4 people with poliovirus infection will develop flu-like symptoms, and about 1 out of 500 infected will develop more serious health effects.

Sewage testing in Jerusalem indicates a potential for many asymptomatic cases. A new vaccine campaign is being implemented. //

The recently reported case was identified in a child who was 3 years and 9 months old and showed symptoms of paralysis, said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the WHO.

He said this was an isolated case of a vaccine-derived poliovirus, a mutated form of the virus that can be fostered by the oral vaccine used in many countries and can cause paralysis when spread over a period of time between unvaccinated children.

“It is definitely not a wild poliovirus, imported from Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Mr. Rosenbauer said in an email, referring to the main and most dangerous form of the virus. “That we know for certain. But more needs to be found out, in terms of where or how this strain emerged, and whether it is circulating.” //

simpsonson | March 9, 2022 at 8:13 pm
Is it possible that this case (and others potentially) is a result of terrorist biowarfare as payback for Israel making Jerusalem its capital?

Milhouse in reply to bart simpsonson. | March 9, 2022 at 10:33 pm
Very very unlikely. This particular case is a weird variant that seems to have mutated from the oral vaccine. This cannot happen to the injected vaccine, which is why in most first-world countries that is now used instead of the oral one; but in Israel, because of its proximity to areas where polio still exists, both varieties are used — the shot in infancy, and then the oral as a booster in mid-childhood.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease…” //

There are 9,000 federal drilling permits companies can use to bolster oil production!

Biden repeated this line in his speech about banning Russian energy sources, including oil. We’ve seen gas prices go up before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it’s only going to get worse. //

Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, confirmed the industry continues to use “a higher percentage of federal onshore and offshore leases than at any time in the past, and it’s continuing to increase production to meet surging demand.”

But Biden leaves out necessary information because it voids his argument:

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the administration as to how the process actually works,” Sommers said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

“Just because you have a lease doesn’t mean there’s actually oil and gas in that lease, and there has to be a lot of development that occurs between the leasing and then ultimately permitting for that acreage to be productive,” he said. “I think that they’re purposefully misusing the facts here to advantage their position.”

The majority of our foreign oil comes from Canada. It’d be more if Biden opens the Keystone XL pipeline. Mexico and Saudia Arabia come next. Russia makes up about 8% of what we got last year:

Generally speaking, uncooked bacon should not sit out for more than two hours at room temperature. The reason is that bacteria such as Staphylococcus and Salmonella can multiply rapidly at room temperature and cause severe foodborne illness when consumed. So if your raw bacon has been sitting out longer than two hours, as painful as it may be, it’s best to toss it in the trash.

Unfortunately, this is also true for raw turkey bacon and frozen raw bacon that has been sitting out as well.

South! tells one of the most thrilling tales of exploration and survival against the odds which has ever been written. It details the experiences of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition which set off in 1914 to make an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent.

Under the direction of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition comprised two components: one party sailing on the Endurance into the Weddell Sea, which was to attempt the actual crossing; and another party on board the Aurora, under the direction of Aeneas Mackintosh, sailing into the Ross Sea on the other side of the continent and tasked with establishing depots of stores as far south as possible for the use of the party attempting the crossing.

Veteran polar explorer Tim Jarvis is on a mission to discover exactly what happened on the most famous survival story in expedition history — Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 800-mile boat journey across the Southern Ocean and deadly mountain crossing of South Georgia.

Aired: 01/08/14

Expires: 09/23/23

Rating: TV-PG

Sir Ernest Shackleton led famed expedition that became timeless story of human survival.

In 1915, intrepid British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew were stranded for months on the Antarctic ice after their ship, Endurance, was crushed by pack ice and sank into the freezing depths of the Weddell Sea. Today, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic announced the discovery of this famous shipwreck, nearly 107 years later, 3,008 meters down, roughly four miles (6.4 km) south of the ship's last recorded position.

The shipwreck is in pristine condition partly because of the lack of wood-eating microbes in those waters. In fact, the Endurance22 expedition's exploration director, Mensun Bound, told The New York Times that the shipwreck is the finest example he's ever seen; Endurance is "in a brilliant state of preservation." The expedition has released the first images of the wreck—the first time anyone has laid eyes on Endurance since its sinking a century ago. Bound et al. included shots of the stern (with "ENDURANCE" clearly visible), the rear deck and ship's wheel, and parts of the deck and hull. //

Shackleton's brilliant navigator, Frank Worsley, painstakingly calculated the coordinates for the position where Endurance sank using a sextant and chronometer. He recorded that position in his log book: 68°39'30" south; 52°26'30" west. But there was some question as to the accuracy of the marine chronometers he used to fix longitude, which would have affected the final coordinates. //

The wreck of the Endurance is a historical monument, marked for preservation under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, so nothing was touched and no artifacts were removed. The images and scans that are still being collected will be used in a planned NatGeo documentary (to air this fall), as well as for educational materials and museum exhibits. You can check out NatGeo's short TikTok video announcing the discovery below.

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has faltered so far thanks to military, supply and tactical blunders – but the Russians are still capable of crushing their defiant opponents.

With monotonous regularity over the last generation, the American people have had the following statements so constantly drummed into them by the media that most Americans, it seems, have come to believe them:

1. Fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are dangerous pollutants, and anyway we are running out of them.

2. Nuclear power is so dangerous that it cannot safely be used; indeed, the nuclear facilities already in existence represent such a mortal danger that they should be shut down.

3. But there is one hope: power derived from the sun and winds. These are infinite in quantity, or at least indefinitely great; and they are also safe and clean. All we need is a few years in which to develop this kind of power, and our energy needs will be taken care of.

Only the first of these three statements is true, with some qualifications. The second and third statements are utterly false, although it is popular to believe that they are true. //

How is it possible, in the span of a brief article, to prove the comparative safety of nuclear power? Here are a few examples of how nuclear power works and what its effects are on consumers of that power. For an excellent longer treatment, see Petr Beckmann’s incomparable book The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear.

Underexposed: What If Radiation Is Actually GOOD for You?

By: Ed Hiserodt

There is a very large disconnect between the actual dangers of exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation and the fears of such exposure. A tiny leak at a nuclear power plant is front page news, while there has never been a death or even an injury to the public from escaping radiation. Meanwhile 50,000 deaths from auto accidents go almost unnoticed. 

This fear is particularly ironic since hundreds of studies show that low doses of ionizing radiation result is lower cancer rates and overall mortality. One of these studies examined in some detail was done by Johns-Hopkins involving an initial pool of 700,000 workers, some of whom worked on ships with nuclear propulsion, while others (randomly selected) were employed on non-nuclear ships. The nuclear workers had a standard mortality rate of 0.76 times that of non-nuclear workers.

In largest "ecological" study in history, Professor Bernard Cohen of Pittsburgh University was attempting to correlate level of residential radon with lung cancer. He was astonished to find that the opposite was true -- the more radon, the less cancer. Of course these data, from 1,729 counties (about 90% of the U.S.), didn't faze the Environmental Protection Agency that has continued its crusade against radon exposure.

The positive benefits of low doses of radiation is known as "hormesis" and is identified in over 150 studies and other documented evidence presented in the book.

Use OSMC to turn your Raspberry Pi into a media center! Watch your videos, listen to your music, view your photos, and take advantage of Kodi’s huge library of add-ons!

This guide was completed using a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ with OSMC Release 2019.04-1.

The OSMC (Open Source Media Center) is a free and open source operating system based on Debian Linux and The Kodi Project. It’s a very cool, feature-rich OS with great community support. It’s also easy to use! This guide will show you step-by-step how to get going with your own Raspberry Pi powered media center.

In 2014, the National Electrical Code included a new requirement. 690.12(1) through (5) A short requirement, only six sentences.

PV system circuits installed on or in buildings shall include a rapid shutdown function that controls specific conductors in accordance with 690.12(1) through (5) as follows.

1. More than 5’ inside a building, or more than 10’ from a PV array
2. Controlled conductors shall be limited to not more than 30V and 240 volt-amperes within 10 seconds of rapid shutdown initiation.
3. Voltage and power shall be measured between any two conductors and between any conductor and ground.
4. The rapid shutdown initiation methods shall be labeled in accordance with 690.56(B).
5. Equipment that performs the rapid shutdown shall be listed and identified.

But those six short sentences had a big change on PV system design. Gone were the days of simply wiring the solar panels, or modules, to the grid tied inverter or charge controller through a simple pass-thru or combiner box. Rapid ShutDown (RSD) has a noble cause. It is to protect the firefighters trying to put out a fire in your home or business. Even when they turned off the grid power to your house, and the inverter automatically shut itself off (in accordance with UL1741), the wires from the solar array all the way down into the inverter or controller were still live. In grid tied systems, they could have as much as 600VDC. Combine that voltage with a firefighter’s ax to vent the roof, and you have a disaster on your hands.

Rapid Shutdown gives the firefighters a way to also shut down the DC power from the solar array to the inverter. In 2014, it could shut it down to the area up to 10’ from the solar array, and more than 5’ of entering a building.

Over 170 million U.S.-born people who were adults in 2015 were exposed to harmful levels of lead as children, a new study estimates.

Researchers used blood-lead level, census and leaded gasoline consumption data to examine how widespread early childhood lead exposure was in the country between 1940 and 2015.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, they estimated that half the U.S. adult population in 2015 had been exposed to lead levels surpassing five micrograms per deciliter — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threshold for harmful lead exposure at the time.