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Parkland high school massacre shooter pleads guilty
First
Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to murder charges and apologizes for Parkland high school massacre
Nikolas Cruz, the gunman who carried out the massacre of students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, pleaded guilty in a Florida courtroom Wednesday to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
Cruz, 23, faces a minimum of life in prison and maximum of the death penalty, which will be decided by a jury in the upcoming sentencing phase of the trial. The prosecution has said they plan to seek the death penalty.
See also:
Gunman Pleads Guilty in Parkland School Shooting
Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to all charges in 2018 Parkland massacre
5 things to know before Parkland school shooting change of plea hearing
It is good that the perpetrator of such a crime may be brought to justice.
I remember after the Columbine school shootings when it was promised that this would never be allowed to happen again. Unfortunately, our country strives to make it easy for children to access firearms unsupervised.
Second
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., mocked a Florida school shooting survivor as an "idiot" who "only talks when he is scripted" in a 2019 interview with a Georgia gun group, according to a previously unreported video obtained by NBC News.
"He is very trained. He's like a dog. He's completely trained," Greene said of the survivor, David Hogg, now 20, in an interview with Georgia Gun Owners Inc. in April 2019, less than two years before she was elected to Congress.
Videos of Greene, a freshman Republican, berating Hogg in Washington surfaced last week after she was appointed to the House Education and Labor Committee. House Democrats are pushing to bar her from serving on any committees, citing in part her previous statements suggesting that the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, were hoaxes.
How do people like this come to power? Where do they find voters who will vote for such people? Does this only happen in the USA? I feel confident that the good people of her voting district in Georgia will continue to re-elect her.
I like her "Trump Won" mask, now that it is abundantly clear he did not win after many lawsuits and audits later.
It is amazing to live in a time when people will believe the most ridiculous outlandish things without any critical thought. People can no longer tell fact from fantasy. Or facts simply do not matter.
Update: A prediction: Trump will win in 2024. Yes, really.
Post-Scarcity/Do We Need to Work?
I read an interesting article called Making a Living (The history of what we call work) which is a discussion of a book called Work: A Deep History. From the Stone Age to the Age of Robots, by South African anthropologist James Suzman.
It was particularly interesting because it delves into Keynesian economics and discusses the transition of human societies from hunter-gatherers to agrarian and then industrial, finally dealing with current day issues of automation, the growing disparity between well-paid and poorly-paid jobs, wealth inequality, environmental issues and the need for perpetual economic growth.
TL;DR: We have been conditioned to confuse wants and needs, keeping up with the Joneses is the source of many of our problems, and we'd do well to work a bit less and party a bit more.
They say that no one ever says they wished they worked more/harder on their death bed. I'm not so sure. I can see myself on mine wishing I'd achieved more. I don't necessarily mean the acquisition of material possessions, and I don't mean ticking off a bucket list, I just mean doing cool new stuff, learning, discovering and so on.
Don't get me wrong, I do value many material possessions. I value being warm and dry with somewhere safe to sleep, to have plenty of food and to have my medical needs met. I value having cool stuff to do things with. I'm sitting in a room just now with 10 computers of my own (11 if you count my old ZX-81). We have two good cars, which are very useful and a pleasure to drive. I wish I had a bigger brain so I could do more cool stuff...
What I got from that article was that there are a lot of people in the world who need to work to be fulfilled. That doesn't mean working themselves into poor health or an early grave and it doesn't mean working in order to acquire enormous amounts of material wealth but to achieve things, to do meaningful things, to discover new things, to heal the sick and so on.
We need Star Trek now more than ever. We need to redirect more of this effort and more of these resources to science and exploration. We'll all benefit, including materially, but most of all we'll become more fulfilled. Let's not suffocate ourselves on this rock in the pursuit of social status.
By the way, I spent the last two weekends planting trees, scattering seeds and planting saplings. I planted over 100 saplings (lodge pole pine, silver birch, sitka spruce). I've scattered thousands of seeds (rowan, juniper, larch). I have some oak and chestnut saplings from last autumn's seeds that need to be transplanted soon too. They'll need protectors to stop the deer eating them (again).
Next year, after the site has been cleared, I'm going to buy a few hundred saplings of other species to plant.
Another MP is Murdered
On Friday, Sir David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West was stabbed to death by a suspected Islamist terrorist while carrying out his constituency surgery at Belfriars Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea.
Amess was a Conservative Eurosceptic and passionate about animal rights.
This is a terrible tragedy and devastating for his family and friends, and his constituents have lost their democratically-elected MP who served his local area for many years.
This is a cowardly attack on democracy. For all its faults, he was elected lawfully and peacefully under the UK's democratic system. One of the features of the UK system is that Members of Parliament hold "surgeries" - open meetings in their constituencies - where ordinary people can meet them and raise issues directly.
In 2016 Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in the street by a far-right terrorist where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery.
Prior to that, the last MP to have been murdered in office was Airey Neave who was killed in 1979 by a car bomb planted by Irish terrorists.
In recent years, particularly due to the thread of terrorism, armed police have been on patrol in the UK. Do MPs need an armed guard when they meet their constituents?
Trump Urges Republicans to Sit Out Coming Elections
Trump Urges Republicans to Sit Out Coming Elections
Former President Trump is urging Republicans not to vote in upcoming elections unless the “fraud” of the 2020 elections is uncovered.
“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 and ’24,” Trump said in a statement released Wednesday. “It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”
Several thoughts:
- You cannot uncover a fraud which doesn't exist
- If you have thoroughly and conclusively documented it, then why isn't that in any of the numerous lawsuits? I'm sure Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and others would like to have that for their own court defenses against Dominion and Smartmatic. (see previous journal entries, with actual court documents that DO NOT include this conclusive documentation)
- I won't shed a tear if Republican's sit out the '22 and '24 elections.
- Maybe I'm not as brilliant as Mr. Trump, but "the single most important thing for Republicans to do" (or any political party) is to get voters out voting! I am too stupid to comprehend his insightful plan.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that President Biden lost the election due to fraudulent voting practices.
Please, PLEASE, PLEASE let's see that evidence!
Efforts by Trump supporters to prove the former president won in various districts have failed, including an election audit in Maricopa County, Ariz., that confirmed Biden’s victory.
Hey, I'm just pointing out what the dear leader says. I seriously try to avoid talking about Trump, specifically him personally, in recent months, since he is now largely irrelevant. (Talking about politics, covid, Dominion, MyPillow etc is NOT talking about Trump -- just to enlighten some recent ACs.) I felt this story worth pointing out. The best comedy is to point out what they actually say. You don't have to make anything up.
(Please, in the back there, stop laughing. Stop it!)
ODROID-H2+ Discontinued
ODROID-H2+ SBC discontinued due to supply shortage
I've mentioned the ODROID-H2+ a few times. It's now dead due to a lack of components.
TSMC: Chip Shortage Will Continue in 2022, 2nm Mass Production In 2025
If you "need" something, you might have to snap it up, price be damned.
California leads the way once again
First up . . .
California law requires stores have gender-neutral area for children’s products
California has become the first state to require large retailers to have gender-neutral sections for products like toys and toothbrushes — a law pushed by LGBT advocates who say that pink and blue marketing reinforces gender stereotypes and is harmful to children.
[....] “We need to stop stigmatizing what’s acceptable for certain genders and just let kids be kids,” Low said. “My hope is this bill encourages more businesses across California and the U.S. to avoid reinforcing harmful and outdated stereotypes.”
Would it perhaps be easier to simply require stores to have separate toy sections for each and every possible gender? Some toys that are intended for multiple genders might have to be stocked in multiple different toy sections.
Another idea: keep the colors pink and blue. Also offer items in other colors. Using the example of toothbrushes in the article, offer colors such as yellow, red, green, but not purple -- not ever purple.
Next up . . .
California law bans small off-road gas engines, including lawnmowers and chainsaws
California took another step toward its goal of ridding the state of all gas-powered engines thanks to a new bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday.
The new law will ban the sale of all off-road, gas-powered engines, including generators, lawn equipment, pressure washers, chainsaws, weed trimmers, and even golf carts. Under the new law, these machines must be zero-emissions, meaning they will have to be either battery-powered or plug-in, according to the Los Angeles Times.
What if I got one of the banned items from a state neighboring California, such as Connecticut. Will California have border inspection stations for off road gas engines, similar to agricultural border inspection stations?
If these lawn equipment, pressure washers, chainsaws, etc are able to be used ON the public roadways, then can they be sold and not affected by the ban?
As for portable electric generators, it would be possible to have a generator that is powered by a motor and battery. Also Home Depot offers green portable generators that should not be banned.
Make Your Own Umbrella Skirt
(This is part of an occasional series which began with Make Your Own Camera Tripod and Make Your Own Boxes With Rounded Corners.)
Tools: Scissors, needle.
Materials: Broken umbrella, elastic, sewing thread, (optional) glue.
A while back, I invited my friend to a beginner ballet class. I hoped my friend would become a regular and that we could meet often but unfortunately not. My friend was satisfied to attend one class and never repeat it. Unfortunately, this one class remains notable. My friend wore a home-made circle skirt during the class. Furthermore, my friend chose to wear this with the most incongruent velor leggings. It was very anomalous and it obviously made an impression. About 16 months after this class, the dance teacher asked me "How's your friend? Pieris? The one with the skirt?" Oh, jeepers. Said teacher had seen hundreds of new people since Pieris and yet few, if any, had made an equal impression.
Pieris is obsessed with making circle skirts. When Pieris isn't making circle skirts afresh, Pieris is often making retrospective improvements or repairs. Pieris has identical length circle skirts in 15 plain colors and various designs which are striped, checked and patterned. If the material is available, Pieris has a circle skirt in Gingham black, red, yellow, green, blue or purple - in 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, 1+1/2 inch and 2 inch widths. I've made four circle skirts with Pieris and, unsurprisingly, I've received a circle skirt as a Christmas gift from Pieris. I'd be only mildly surprised if Pieris made circle skirts in all official tartan clan patterns. Indeed, Pieris had at least five tartan patterns in a collection of more than 160 designs. It would be fair to say that my friend's primary interest in life is circle skirts and it is possible that my friend has only appeared in public wearing a home-made circle skirt for at least ten years.
My friend, Pieris, now looks beyond pristine fabric for clothes-making. A bonkers example came, at a bus garage, in the rain, when Pieris saw a broken, discarded umbrella in a litter bin - and salvaged it to make a leopard print circle skirt. When you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you're obsessed with making circle skirts, anything may be the next circle skirt. Unfortunately, this type of insanity is contagious. I mentioned umbrella skirts to friends and they thought it would be funny to make a skirt from a stereotypical red, yellow, green and blue golfing umbrella. It was rather uncanny to find such an umbrella on the way home; especially when the weather wasn't wet or windy. That's how and why I started salvaging discarded umbrellas. After this bizarre incident, I've collected more umbrellas; mostly large black ones. I intend to use them as material for a junk couture beginner sewing class but opportunities to teach have been limited. Given it has now become a trendy activity to recycle unlikely materials into clothes, I'd thought that it would be worthwhile to forward some wisdom.
Firstly, very large umbrellas are preferable unless you are making child size clothing or a very short skirt. A zipper is rarely practical with thin plastic and therefore the skirt is likely to be elasticated. This requires a waistband circumference which fits snugly over hips - or wider to prevent tearing. This is likely to reduce length by 6-8 inches (15-20cm) - or significantly more if the elastication is to be hidden within the material. Actually, elastic is likely to be visible unless you begin with a particularly large umbrella.
Secondly, a dark or highly patterned umbrella is preferable. For example, leopard print. White or pink umbrellas tend to be too revealing - and especially so when wet. Short or bright umbrellas work as an underskirt to add volume but they are not suitable on their own. A bright underskirt may be preferable with dark elastication to avoid unsightly seams. In all cases, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, 2cm or 2.5cm wide elastic is highly preferable.
Thirdly, an umbrella is invariably discarded because the frame is busted. The covering may have light scuffing but is otherwise in good condition. If the pattern is quite busy then minor holes can be repaired with glue. One exception to covering quality - which I have discovered the hard way - is that an umbrella discarded by a fence, wall or tree may be covered in dog urine. If the urine has dried, this may not be immediately apparent. A busted umbrella found on a park bench or in a litter bin is very unlikely to have this problem.
Fourthly, in the season when discarded umbrellas are most plentiful, it may be prudent to carry sharp scissors. This eliminates awkwardly carrying a broken umbrella frame. Removing the material from the frame is a relatively dangerous operation which may be hazardous to eyes. I've found that a relatively safe method is to hold the umbrella handle under one arm while cutting the fabric from the frame with the other arm. Furthermore, cut at the bottom of the umbrella. This keeps your head near to the fulcrum of the umbrella rather than the most dangerous stray ends. The material in middle of the umbrella can be cut very sloppily because a larger hole will be made for the waist.
Fifthly, opinions differ regarding umbrella trimmings. Pieris removes plastic or metal ends which affix the covering to the ends of the umbrella spokes. I prefer to keep them because it weights the skirt and reduces inadvertent blustery moments. Likewise, Pieris removes any strap which is used to keep an umbrella furled. I believe that straps remain convenient for storage. However, it should be noted that I'm vastly less experienced and it should be particularly obvious that I've spent less time considering umbrella skirts in detail. For a beginner, leaving the strap eliminates one source of error and, anyhow, if you're going to wear an umbrella, own it and don't leave any doubt. (Who knew that umbrella skirt manufacture had ideological differences?)
Finally, an umbrella skirt is very suited to wet weather given that it is invariably water-proof and/or quick drying. Plastic material also matches water-proof nylon and vinyl clothing. A particularly suitable combination is red nylon jacket, black umbrella skirt, red leggings, black boots and, of course, a black umbrella in good condition to match the skirt.
Xi Jinping Says "Reunification" Must be Fulfilled
China-Taiwan tensions: Xi Jinping says 'reunification' must be fulfilled
China's President Xi Jinping has said that "reunification" with Taiwan "must be fulfilled", as heightened tensions over the island continue.
Mr Xi said unification should be achieved peacefully, but warned that the Chinese people had a "glorious tradition" of opposing separatism.
In response, Taiwan said its future lay in the hands of its people. Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state, while China views it as a breakaway province.
Beijing has not ruled out the possible use of force to achieve unification. Mr Xi's intervention comes after China sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan's air defence zone in recent days. Some analysts say the flights could be seen as a warning to Taiwan's president ahead of the island's national day on Sunday.
Taiwan won't be forced to bow to China, president says
Taiwan will keep bolstering its defences to ensure nobody can force the island to accept the path China has laid down that offers neither freedom nor democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday, in a strong riposte to Beijing.
[...] Tsai repeated an offer to talk to China on the basis of parity. Beijing has refused to deal with her, calling her a separatist who refuses to acknowledge Taiwan is part of "one China". Taiwan's goodwill will not change, and it will do all it can to prevent the status quo with China from being unilaterally altered, she said.
Tsai warned that Taiwan's situation is "more complex and fluid than at any other point in the past 72 years", and that China's routine military presence in Taiwan's air defence zone has seriously affected national security and aviation safety.
See also:
US Spec Ops Training Taiwan Troops; NYC Police Union Raided
US troops secretly training Taiwanese since last year: Report
US special operations forces and marines have been secretly training Taiwanese troops for more than a year, risking the ire of China, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The Journal said on Thursday that about two dozen US service members have trained Taiwanese ground and maritime forces “for at least a year,” amid China’s rising verbal threats against the island ally of the United States.
Previously: Repeated Chinese Air Incursions Over Taiwan
FBI raids New York City police union headquarters
The FBI on Tuesday raided the Manhattan offices of a New York City police union, and several hours later two agents left the building with cardboard evidence boxes in their arms.
Armed with a warrant, the agents conducted a search in the headquarters of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, which represents 13,000 active and retired New York City Police Department sergeants and is the fifth-biggest police union in the country.
Simultaneously, FBI agents searched a home in the Long Island suburb of Port Washington, New York, an FBI spokesperson said. It belongs to the SBA's outspoken leader, Ed Mullins, sources told NBC News.
Doctors who deal with covid denial
The COVID-19 patient’s health was quickly deteriorating at a Michigan hospital, but he was having none of the doctor’s diagnosis.
Despite dangerously low oxygen levels, the unvaccinated man didn’t think he was that sick and got so irate over a hospital policy forbidding his wife from being at his bedside that he threatened to walk out of the building.
Dr. Matthew Trunsky says he didn’t hold back, telling the man: “You are welcome to leave, but you will be dead before you get to your car.’ ”
Such exchanges have become all too common for doctors facing COVID denial and misinformation that have made it exasperating to treat unvaccinated patients during the coronavirus surge driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
How some doctors answer.
DR. CARL LAMBERT, CHICAGO
Nicki Minaj is wrong
Lambert hears lots of wild misinformation from his patients. Some comes from Bible interpretations, some from rapper Nicki Minaj.
Some is the stuff of Internet conspiracy theories. People cite falsehoods spread on social media, according to the Chicago physian, who says he’s had patients tell him microchips are embedded in vaccines as part of a ploy to take over people’s DNA.
“Impossible scientifically,” he tells them.
Some of what he hears, as bullet points:
- hears from patients saying the vaccine will weaken their immune systems. He responds: “Immunology 101: Vaccines help your immune system.”
- patients worried about damage to their testicles — a rumor he traced to a tweet from Minaj, who spread false information that the vaccine causes impotence. ‘That’s outlandish,’ ” says Lambert, who says he now has to do “a lot of just kind of counseling that I did not expect to have to do.”
- Some of the misinformation is delivered from the pulpit, he says. People have sent him sermons saying the vaccine is “ungodly, or there’s something in it that will mark you” — a reference to a verse in the Book of Revelation about the “mark of the beast” that some Christians cite as a reason for not getting vaccinated. “There’s a mixture of, like, almost fear,” Lambert says, “and saying, ‘Hey, if you do this, maybe you’re not as faithful as you should be as, say, a Christian.’ ”
- he’ll have patients just wanting to wait, uneasy with how quickly the vaccine was developed and suggesting that the pandemic will end on its own. He warns them: “Please do not try to wait out a pandemic. A pandemic will win.”
- Lambert says his job is “a lot of just dismantling what people have heard,” answering their questions and reassuring them that “vaccines work like this, just like when we were kids.”
DR. VINCENT SHAW, LOUISIANA:
‘Stop looking at Facebook’
Some of what he hears, as bullet points:
- patients tell Dr. Vincent Shaw they don’t want the COVID-19 vaccine because they don’t know what’s in it, he pulls up the ingredient list for a Twinkie. “Look at the back of the package,” Shaw, a family physician in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says he tells them. “Tell me you can pronounce everything on the back of that package. I have a chemistry degree. I still don’t know what that is.”
- “They’re putting a tracker in, and it makes me magnetic.”
- “The patient couldn’t understand why they were given this for free because humanity, in and of itself, is not nice, and ‘people aren’t nice, and nobody would give anything away. So there’s no such thing as inherent good nature of man.’
- Some who get mild cases tell him they now have natural immunity and can’t be reinfected. “No, you’re not a Superman or Superwoman,” he tells them.
- He says one of the biggest issues is social media. Many patients say something they saw on Facebook made them decide against getting vaccinated.
There is more. More doctors. What they hear and how they respond.
Sadly, there is an endless stream of lies and misinformation online.
(minor edits after posting to reorganize block quotes)
