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If you still watch broadcast TV, you can't miss these Kia ads with the CGI skeletons. They've saturated the airwaves with those things, to the point where I actually thought about the ad while I wasn't watching TV (that's some serious ad saturation, my lentils).

So I was like, there's got to be something behind this because there was music I don't know, and an aesthetic that's odd. I mean, seriously Kia is the car company whose very name reminds you of soldiers lost in war. For years they've gotten a pass on that here in the USA, despite the fact that it's far worse than the infamous Chevy Nova which sounds like "no go" in Spanish. I used to ride around the DC area wondering how many PTSD sufferers were triggered by it.

Did they really just embrace that and decide to associate their cars with DEATH? I mean, seriously, when I'm considering a car Kia has never really been on my list but all else equal I'd rather not consider the prospect of entering the afterlife and being condemned to drive your econobox as a skeleton for all eternity. What kind of marketing is this?

I suppose it's arguably good marketing, because I'm talking about it. OTOH, I'm not talking about it as something positive. This has literally done nothing but repulse me from their brand and image, but wait, it gets worse.

When I dug in to discover the story behind the skeletons it turns out They come from here, as confirmed by the Kia Soul Forums. That's right. NFTs. A "Dead Army Skeleton Klub". It looks like a macabre variation of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and so yes, Kia appears to have not only owned the KIA association but also embraced NFTs, the digital assets that a lot of us are sick of and love to hate.

Like, seriously, WTF? You just can't make this stuff up.

I never wanted to buy an NFT and now I want a Kia even less than before. I hope they come to their senses and, uh... bury this campaign.

https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/mayor-fights-to-end-the-federal-consent-decree-that-handcuffs-officers/

NOLA mayor fights to end the “federal consent decree” that “handcuffs” officers, caused mass resignations

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The Democratic Mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, is calling for the end of the decade old federal consent decree with her police department.

Mayor Cantrell says that it is not only creating a hardship for officers to do their jobs but also driving them away from the city.

The New Orleans Police Department agreed to a federal consent decree in 2012 which was designed to combat alleged acts of corruption within the ranks of the agency.

The consent decree was signed and went into effect in July of that year after it was signed by former mayor Mitch Landrieu and former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The consent decree mandated new policies and procedures, as well as federal oversight into anything the law enforcement agency did, something that no one is arguing, was needed ten years ago.

However, since that time, the mayor and others argue that the agency has been able to come into compliance with current laws so it is no longer necessary and is currently only causing a burden.

At a recent news conference, Mayor Cantrell said:

“The consent decree handcuffs our officers by making their jobs harder, pestering them with punitive punishment and burying them with paperwork that is an overburden.”

I say, tough titties, New Orleans. Your Democrat government is as corrupt as any in the country, including Chicago. And, I, for one, have not forgotten that NOLA cops shot at black people for having the audacity to seek shelter while black, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

If the feds end New Orleans consent decree, a whole bunch of people need their heads examined. And, any judge who finds in favor of New Orleans police request needs to be disbarred.

Police work was never meant to be easy, anyway. STFU and do your jobs, or resign. There are other people needing jobs.

UK’s National Health Service has ordered the closure of a controversial gender clinic for children over a report revealing that some health staff felt pressured to take “an unquestioning affirmative approach” to children experiencing gender dysphoria.

The Tavistock Centre, in north London, is known as the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Tavistock was founded in 1920 and originally focused on helping WWI shellshock victims. Since then it has grown to encompass a variety of services under the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust banner, with GIDS focusing on child gender issues. Since 1989 GIDS has treated 19,000 children with gender dysphoria (the feeling that one’s true identity is the opposite gender of their physical body).

The external report expressed concerns, among them the lack of knowledge about the effects of puberty blockers. Dr. Hilary Cass, the head of the review, wrote a letter to the head of NHS England on July 19:

…the most significant knowledge gaps are in relation to treatment with puberty blockers, and the lack of clarity about whether the rationale for prescription is as an initial part of a transition pathway or as a ‘pause’ to allow more time for decision making.

We do not fully understand the role of adolescent sex hormones in driving the development of both sexuality and gender identity through the early teen years, so by extension we cannot be sure about the impact of stopping these hormone surges on psychosexual and gender maturation. We therefore have no way of knowing whether, rather than buying time to make a decision, puberty blockers may disrupt that decision-making process.

It’s interesting to read a professional admitting that they do not know everything about gender dysphoria and transition because every time I hear an “expert” they sound as if there are no unanswered questions and that we have a full understanding of the effects of hormone blockers and surgery. If you want to see people who are completely sure of their realities, check out Matt Walsh’s documentary, What is a Woman, read Bonchie’s piece on it, or just read below:

Pediatrician tells Matt Walsh 'your sperm don't make you male,' 'wonderful' puberty blockers are 'completely reversible' in 'What Is a Woman?' documentary https://t.co/umKVYPgmbT

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/08/12/uk-pediatric-gender-clinic-forced-to-close-after-damning-report-faces-legal-action-from-former-patients-n611473

https://www.theblaze.com/news/walsh-what-is-a-woman

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/tavistock-gender-clinic-lawyers-latest-b2143006.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62335665

Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?**
Yes.
Possibly because dilution by CO2 plant forcing: more carbohydrates less protein.

If the hypothesis is confirmed, cow and lambs are what we need - they are tuned to transform carbohydrates into protein (grin)

** (about 7 minutes of message). Some links in the clip description too.

I know many people here don't care about sports, but I'm betting there are a lot of people here who know way more about engineering race cars than I do.

This weekend, Kurt Busch is missing his fourth consecutive race due to a concussion he sustained from a crash during qualifying at Pocono. As Busch drove through the final turn, he spun the car, and hit the wall hard in the right rear quarter panel. The right front of the car also hit the wall after the initial impact. It's a hard hit, for sure. But I've seen other impacts in recent years that looked just as hard and didn't injure the driver.

NASCAR switched to the next gen car this year, which features many changes over the gen 6 cars of the past decade. I believe that Ryan Newman's crash at the end of the 2020 Daytona 500 influenced the design of the next gen car. I watched that wreck on live TV and really thought I'd just seen a driver get killed. The tone of the broadcast, the way Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon talked about Newman's wreck was far too reminiscent of Dale Earnhardt's crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

Much like Earnhardt's crash, Newman's car got turned and hit the wall head on. Two decades ago, that impact might have been fatal. Now, drivers are required to wear a HANS device, which prevents their head from snapping forward in a crash and causing a basilar skull fracture, which is often a fatal injury. There is also a SAFER barrier that absorbs some of the impact. After the initial impact, Newman's car flipped and spun around in front of Corey Lajoie's car, which collided directly with Newman's driver's side window. Newman's head hit the roll cage, knocked him unconscious, and he sustained a brain bruise. Despite all of the safety improvements since Earnhardt's death, Newman was lucky to survive.

As I understand it, NASCAR designed the next gen car to have a stiffer chassis so that wrecks like Newman's wouldn't be fatal. However, a lot of drivers have complained that impacts to the rear of the next gen car are more violent than with the gen 6 car. Measurements of the forces experienced are not more severe than with the gen 6 car, but drivers say the impacts feel more violent.

It makes complete sense that the roll cage should be as strong as possible to protect the driver. If it's possible, strengthening the roll cage seems like an obviously good decision. Moving the driver toward the center of the car could also provide more protection. However, it's not clear to me that making the front or rear of the car stiffer would be beneficial in a wreck like Newman's. And if the front and rear of the car don't crumple as much, it seems like impacts in those areas would be more violent for drivers.

In a crash like Busch's, I expect the damage would be significant enough to require going to a backup car for the race, but not to injure the driver. Crashes like this are relatively common, particularly compared to Newman's crash. NASCAR is going to be a lot more dangerous if crashes like Busch's frequently injure drivers.

Am I missing something here? Shouldn't it be possible to strengthen the roll cage to protect against crashes like Newman's while also allowing the front and rear of the car to crumple enough to dissipate the forces from impacts? I'm not understanding why this is described as a tradeoff between providing more protection in a crash like Newman's but causing more violent impacts in crashes like Busch's. That said, I don't know a whole lot about the design and engineering of race cars, so perhaps I'm missing something.

Resolving the problem of time:

In Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity arises when a massive object distorts the fabric of spacetime the way a ball sinks into a piece of stretched cloth. Solving Einstein’s equations by using quantities that apply across all space and time coordinates could enable physicists to eventually find their ‘white whale’: a quantum theory of gravity. In a new article in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Donald Salisbury from Austin College in Sherman, USA, explains how Peter Bergmann and Arthur Komar first proposed a way to get one step closer to this goal by using Hamilton-Jacobi techniques. These arose in the study of particle motion in order to obtain the complete set of solutions from a single function of particle position and constants of the motion.

Three of the four fundamental forces – strong, weak, and electromagnetic – hold under both the ordinary world of our everyday experience, modelled by classical physics, and the spooky world of quantum physics. Problems arise, though, when trying to apply to the fourth force, gravity, to the quantum world. In the 1960s and 1970s, Peter Bergmann of Syracuse University, New York and his associates recognised that in order to someday reconcile Einstein’s theory of general relativity with the quantum world, they needed to find quantities for determining events in space and time that applied across all frames of reference. They succeeded in doing this by using the Hamilton-Jacobi techniques.

This is in contrast to other researchers’ approaches, including that of John Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt, who thought it only essential to find quantities of space that applied across all frames of reference. By excluding time, their solutions result in ambiguities in the way time develops, which are known as the problem of time.

Salisbury concludes that because the approach taken by Bergmann and associates resolves the ambiguity in the way time develops, their approach deserves more recognition by those exploring an eventual theory of quantum gravity.

Journal Reference:
D. Salisbury. A History of observables and Hamilton-Jacobi approaches to general relativity EPJ H 47, 7 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00039-8

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/lockdown-released-at-thomson-upson-county-schools-after-massager-was-mistaken-as-firearm

THOMSON, Ga. - Upson County Sheriff's deputies said a hand-held massager that resembled a gun prompted a lockdown at all schools in Upson County.

Deputies reported that the incident occurred on Tuesday around 11:50 a.m. when a parent dialed 911 stating their child saw another student with a handgun while in the boy's restroom at school.

Authorities were able to notify school staff, which caused the entire school district to be placed on lockdown.

"Through investigation, it was found that a male student had a hand-held massager that resembled a handgun. The student in possession of the massager admitted that he possessed it in the restroom and pointed it at another student," Thomson-Upson County officials said.

There were no injuries reported.

Apparent image here, though it is not clear the image accurately portrays the vibrator in question: https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/massage.png

I certainly hope this little sex terrorist is dealt with appropriately!! He probably intended to lure females into the boy's room where he would force himself upon them! /sarcasm

At least he didn't intend for anyone to consume his weapon of mass enjoyment. https://reason.com/2016/06/16/judge-upholds-suspension-of-the-pop-tart/

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A “large group” of federal agents has entered Donald Trump’s Florida residence in an “unannounced raid”, the former US president said on his social media channel on Monday.

Officials from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) entered the property in a move that “was not necessary or appropriate”, Trump wrote in a statement.

The circumstances surrounding the raid were not clear.

Trump was not at Mar a Lago when the officers arrived. He was seen leaving Trump Tower in New York City on Monday, where he also has a home.

The search, which the FBI and Justice Department did not immediately confirm, marks a dramatic escalation in a months-long investigation into how classified documents ended up in more than a dozen boxes located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. It occurred amid a separate but intensifying investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and added to the potential legal peril for Trump as he prepares to run again for the presidency in 2024.

In February, classified materials were found in 15 boxes of official documents related to the Trump presidency that were retrieved at Mar-a-Lago by the US National Archives. Under US law, all communication regarding presidential duties has to be preserved. The National Archives had referred the incident to the US Justice Department.

Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to comment on the raid, including about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally authorised the search, the Associated Press reported.

Trump claimed his home, the Mar-a-Lago estate, was “under siege, raided and occupied” calling it a “weaponization of the Justice System” that could only happen in “broken, Third-World Countries”.

He alleged in his statement the FBI move was backed by Democrats who “desperately” do not want him to run for reelection in 2024.

“They even broke into my safe!,” he said.

Trump’s son Eric Trump told Fox News that the search was related to the documents sought by the National Archives.

Melanie Sloan, a former prosecutor and an expert in government ethics, told Al Jazeera it was difficult to know the reasons for the raid without a search warrant or affidavit, but she said the circumstances suggested it had to be “more than run of the mill”.

“He can be prosecuted for improperly taking and destroying documents,” she said. “That is not something that is prosecuted frequently and to prosecute the former president for it would be a very big deal so there must be some kind of issue about the content of these documents and what is in them that he is attempting to destroy.”

There are numerous federal laws in the US that govern the handling of classified records and sensitive government documents, including statutes that make it a crime to remove such material and retain it at an unauthorised location.

Although a search warrant does not suggest that criminal charges are near or even expected, to get the warrant officials must first convince a judge that they believe they will find evidence that a crime occurred.

“The FBI would not have sought a search warrant, (and) a judge would not have signed the search warrant if there weren’t probable cause for the FBI to search the premises for documents that would disclose a serious crime,” Richard Painter of the University of Minnesota Law School and a former ethics adviser to George W Bush, told Al Jazeera.

Russia's private military contractor Wagner comes out of the shadows in Ukraine war:

Russia's private military contractor Wagner comes out of the shadows in Ukraine war Wagner group recruitment poster in Yekaterinburg saying 'Orchestra Wagner waiting for you'. [The] Mercenary group does not officially exist but is playing a more public role and openly recruiting in Russia. Three billboards in the Ural city of Ekaterinburg shine a light on what was once one of Russia's most shadowy organisations, the private military contractor Wagner.

"Motherland, Honour, Blood, Bravery. WAGNER", one of the posters reads. Another, which locals said first appeared on the outskirts of the country's fourth largest city in early July, depicts three men in military uniform next to the words "Wagner2022.org".

The billboards, which can be seen in several Russian cities, are part of Wagner's efforts to recruit fighters to join its ranks in Ukraine.

They also serve as a testament to the transformation the group has undergone since Moscow launched its invasion over five months ago, from a secretive mercenary organisation shrouded in mystery to an increasingly public extension of Russia's military efforts in Ukraine.

"It looks like they have decided that they will no longer try to hide their existence. By now, everyone knows who they are," said Denis Korotkov, a former Novaya Gazeta journalist and longtime observer of Wagner.

Wagner was established in 2014 to support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The US and others say it is funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful businessman closely linked to Vladimir Putin who is under western sanctions. Prigozhin denies any links to the group.

The group has since played a prominent role fighting alongside the Russian army in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and has been spotted in several African nations – places in which Russia holds strategic and economic interests. It has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and human rights abuses.

Despite its global reach, much of the group's inner workings have remained a secret to the outside world.

On paper, it doesn't exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organisational chart to be found. Russia's senior leadership, including Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly denied any connections between Wagner and the state.

Private military companies are officially banned in Russia, and the semi-legal framework mercenaries operate under has also meant that family members of deceased Wagner operatives were often pressured into silence when seeking information about their loved ones.

And while Wagner has gradually embarked on a PR campaign, with companies linked to Prigozhin funding propaganda films that glorify the deeds of "military instructors" in Africa, any mention of the group remained largely taboo in the public sphere. Journalists like Korotkov who investigated the group have been harassed for their work.

Russia's war in Ukraine has, however, brought the group out of the dark.

At the end of March, British intelligence claimed that about 1,000 Wagner mercenaries had gone to Ukraine. The group's role in the war appears to have since grown significantly after Moscow refocused its efforts on the east following its failure to capture the capital, Kyiv.

Wagner is believed to have played a central part in the capture of Popasna in May and Lysychansk in June, two strategically important towns that Russia largely razed to the ground during their seizure of the eastern Luhansk region. On Wednesday, British intelligence said that Wagner played a role in the capture of the giant Vuhlehirsk power plant in Ukraine's east.

As Wagner's role in Ukraine grew, so did its public image at home. Wagner publicly boasted of its involvement in the war with a message on its website stating: "They have already liberated Popasna, join us to liberate the entire Donbas! Go on your first combat campaign with living industry legends!"

When the Guardian contacted the email address posted on Wagner's website, an individual claiming to represent the group said that it started its recruitment campaign because "we saw that the support for our company is colossal, and there are many who want to join".

"But nothing changes, there is no Wagner and never was, it's just a legend. There are only Robin Hoods who protect the poor who are oppressed by the rich," the person added in an email exchange that was characteristic of Wagner's tongue-in-cheek public stance.

The website has since been taken down by Hostinger, the Lithuania-based internet domain provider that hosted it. A Hostinger representative said it took action when it discovered that the site was "cloaking" itself with fake identities, VPNs and crypto payments.

Wagner also appears to have established regional recruitment centres in over 20 cities, posting the phone numbers of recruiters on popular social media channels linked to the group.

The ads say that Wagner offers soldiers over 240,000 roubles (£3,370) a month, several times more than regular soldiers' typical wages.

The Guardian contacted several of the recruiters whose numbers were listed. Some used the mercenary group's symbols as their profile pictures on WhatsApp and Telegram, and none denied their association with Wagner.

When asked about Wagner's mobilisation efforts, a recruiter from the Nizhny Novgorod region in central Russia, who declined to give his name, sent a list of the documents needed to join up, which included a passport from any country that "wasn't Nato or Ukraine" and several medical certificates.

The recruiter also sent a list of items to bring once accepted by Wagner, ranging from shower gel to tourniquets and other medical equipment.

"See you in Molkino", the message concluded, referring to the town in Russia's Krasnodar district where Wagner is believed to be headquartered near a major defence ministry base.

Military analysts have argued that Russia's reliance on groups like Wagner shows the extent to which the country's regular army, which has lost as much as a third of its combat strength, has struggled to achieve its goals in Ukraine.

"Wagner private military contractors have reportedly played a critical role in the fighting. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether some Wagner detachments ... are in fact more elite and capable than regular Russian motorised rifle units," wrote Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, two leading specialists on the Russian military, in a recent briefing for the website War on the Rocks.

The war in Ukraine and Russia's military failures appear to have also accelerated Wagner's cooperation with the defence ministry. Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander, told the Guardian in an earlier interview that his troops worked closely with Russia's defence ministry when fighting in Syria.

That relationship appears to have deepened since the start of the war in Ukraine. According to an investigation by the independent Meduza outlet, the Russian ministry of defence has largely taken control of the networks that Wagner used to recruit new soldiers.

Korotkov, the Wagner expert, said it was hard to distinguish between soldiers fighting for Wagner and those in the regular army.

"The defence ministry has largely co-opted Wagner, and it now looks more like one coordinated group," Korotkov said, adding that such cooperation made it hard to estimate the number of Wagner soldiers in Ukraine.

And while Wagner's role in the invasion has made the group mainstream, some say its latest recruitment push threatens to diminish its overall military standards.