On one hand it does perhaps lack imagination, but on the other it makes perfect sense that aliens we first find would be much like us since they'd be attracted by our radio waves, and to become a space traveling civilisation they'd likely have similar motivations and their brains/reasoning capabilities would have evolved in a similar way. Afterall the human brain seems to be hardwired to find other humans - we see faces in the clouds and random floor patterns etc.

That new movie Arrival (2016) (not the Charlie Sheen 90s one) did a great job of unique aliens.

I guess another reason why fiction makes aliens like us is so that it allows a story to be told without the story getting bogged down on the details (unless that is the focus of the story).

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

To be fair, prior to the Windows 10 upgrade spam "updates" in Windows 7, one could generally trust Windows updates to be in the best interest of the user to install.

Then those came around, and suddenly Micro$oft got caught doing blatantly shady things and passing them off as "critical updates". "Get Windows 10" nagware, telemetry, "genuine advantage", etc. that snuck in by being as vague as possible in KB entries, sending the updates multiple times, and/or unnecessarily combining elements that users might have legitimate reasons to NOT want along with updates that actually were actually important.

I was running Windows 7 and made an informed decision to avoid Windows 10 (because I didn't want telemetry, don't approve of the "cloud" / seeing the OS as a licensed rental paradigm vs owning it, trend towards walled garden, etc.). Then one day I got the "GWX" Windows 10 update nagware through an update. I discovered how to disable / remove that, and started to scrutinize the updates more closely, but a while later it snuck back in and made me aware of M$'s attempts to hide it and get it on to ALL Windows machines.

For a while I continued to run Windows 7, while attempting to be vigilant about picking and choosing updates to keep those things I found undesirable out. After Windows 10 came out, in some ways that got even harder because they started trying to backport the telemetry etc. into 7. Eventually, I gave up and turned off updates altogether.

By that point, I had gone from checking in with Linux as a hobby once in a while to using it as my daily driver for all mission-critical stuff, along with any computer usage that generates personally identifying data (web browsing / banking / etc.). I keep Windows around purely for games that don't run well or at all in Linux. So, I don't care much about any vulnerability to ransomware or whatever as a result of not updating. All data that needs to be protected is on an ext4 Linux partition on a different physical drive and/or machine that Windows has no access to, so worst case scenario I lose saved games and have to reformat and reinstall Windows for games.


I wouldn't want to be doing important, work-related stuff like rendering on an un-updated Windows machine like the guy in the video, but on the other hand a big chunk of that is Micro$oft's fault for abusing the whole update process to put in stuff that benefits THEM rather than USERS.

Godsmack is how the wind feels
On the face of Mike Winfield
On his way home from the bar where he works
Nights - the worst nights, don't nobody tip right
And between the marriage offers and the fist fights
And if another mother fucker touch his wrist trying to pull him in to whisper
He ain't making it to midnight
Don't they know he got a lighter in his pocket
A matchbook in his sock and a block full of charred skeletons closeted begging to get out
He paused cause he's scared of airing out the thoughts
He can taste it in his mouth the sulfur and bitter carbon
Hearing all the burning bodies shout but no
That was a full lifetime ago and nobody ever has to know
He has never told well except Ronald
But that don't count he was sweet and exactly what he needed him to be at the time
Wine and candlelight and nice texts at lunchtime
Why had he not called Ron back
Guess there just wasn't a spark, ha!
No, no, musn't joke about these things
Wouldn't want to disappoint Doc Clark
So many hours on the couch
So many buried memories that take so many tears to get them out
Water hadn't never been a friend
Hold up - where had he seen that car before
Blue Acura dent on the left rear fender
Back again the sense of
Deja Vu
Strange things you
Never shake when you wake up in recovery
But suddenly noticing ash is covering his head cause it's raining from the sky
Dials home on his cell phone and gets no reply
What the fuck?
Where is the babysitter that he overpays
Body takes over and brain becomes disengaged
Michael is running his house is three blocks away
Adrenaline compensating for change in age
Since the last time that he ran it god dammit
Mike knows he gotta get home fast as he can
Looks up in the sky, glow's familiar
Knows those families died with similar
Awnings and on and on he keeps going
Hits the corner just as he hears the explosion
Screams come from the house, "Did you get them out?"
Mike asking the crowd that has gathered 'round
Tears running down his face
There's that familiar taste
He wishes it would take him to another place
Son and his baby girl in his home and he can't believe that it's gone in a cloud of smoke
And he's choking and running forward and hoping against hope that he might find them alive and well
When he knows the results too well and he knows that fooled himself
And he keeps walking towards the house rather what house is still left
No intention of stopping letting the smoke take his breath
Some strong arm rocks him aside Mike falls to the ground and cries
Why won't you just let me die
Why won't you just let me die

That's pretty sick *promote

Granted, the earth will be fine....but people and other higher life forms probably won't.
Population thinning will come too late, because these effects of overpopulation will last far longer than one generation....unless you mean it will thin out to zero and self correct, which is likely.

What you don't seem to get is that when the ocean acidifies enough, the dead sea life sinks and bacteria causes massive levels of hydrogen sulfide which can then come out of solution and cover land in toxic gas clouds, leading to another "slime world" of slimes and bacteria like happened after the end-Permian extinction.
I wouldn't characterize that as "all is well" myself.

I won't forget the French word for cloud again!

Nuage.

What game is this? The graphics are amazing! Although the clouds could use a little work.

*ban self link and spam http://updatesee.com/sales-rains-cloud-technology-arm-launches-contact-center-software-apayaa/

I think this is a normal occurrence in Texas in the early summer when grass and tree pollen (especially mesquite, it puts out visible clouds of pollen) are thick and thunderstorms happen almost daily. I had a horrible time with allergies growing up in Houston.

@iaui
i do not understand you defense of corporate media pundits,who most certainly failed to recognize the actual political climate of this country.

i am not saying EVERY pundit got it wrong.there were internet political shows that did address the rise of populism,and the reasons behind it,and that trump was a valid threat and not to be dismissed.

but for the most part,corporate media pundits all echoed each others sentiments in regards to this last election cycle.

there is a REASON why bernie sanders populist language resonated with the public,and many of those people were republicans.

there is a REASON why trumps populist language,which was vastly different than sanders,resonated with another sector of the population,and not all of those people were racist,sexist,misogynist homophobes.

and none of those REASONS were addressed by corporate media pundits.they preferred to talk about trumps bombastic speeches,his racism and sexism...total cult of celebrity,because it SOLD,it made them MONEY.

it is those very same corporate media pundits that actually facilitated the rise of donald trump,and his actual presidency,because they simply did not get the current political climate here in america.which is exactly what this video is addressing,that these highly paid,and richly rewarded,pundit class reside in their own tiny,little echo chambers,that happens to reside in close proximity to the very people they have been assigned to watch,criticize and report on.

they failed on an epic scale,and it is no surprise that the majority of americans have abandoned corporate media as if it had herpes,covered in aids.

and to make the argument that this video is suspect SIMPLY because bob posted it,is intellectually dishonest,because it does NOT address the video.i disagree with bob on pretty much everything,but to ignore or disregard this video based solely on the fact that you,or i,disagree with bob politically is just incredibly weak.

now if you wish to defend corporate media political pundits,and opinion makers,and have strong case where this video is wrong in regards to how the pundit class have failed,live in a bubble,and did not understand the underlying frustration and anger boiling underneath americas working class.i am all ears,because in my opinion they have utterly failed the american people.

and i am not dismissing your polling numbers,i am just saying they are not as relevant as you are making them out to be.polls can be manipulated to mean anything you want them to mean,and in my opinion are not a strong basis to formulate an argument to defend corporate media.

but i suspect your argument is more against bob than the video,and your skepticism is based solely on your disagreement with bob politically.not un-warranted i admit,bob has posted some extremely slanted videos,but so haven't we all in our own way.

but in this case?
this video is spot on,even though bob is the one who posted.

do not let your bob bias and prejudice cloud your judgment.

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To release all the energy you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you abuse it
Or use it for good?

They've armed the weapon
Countdown clock is set and
J. Robert Oppenheimer is sweatin'
Eyes are red and he's nervous
Cause on the surface this is armageddon
The shock bomb, but we're set upon and threatened
And with no sound the whole Alamogordo ground
Is glowing and cowed under one smouldering cloud
He's choked and wowed, everybody's open-mouthed
And over the ground the shock front blows, kapow!
Snap back to the alchemy
Hope before tragedy
Showed with bold math that we broke the whole atom
We choked; controlled action with poles of cold cadmium coat
To go capture neutrons and slow fracture
We broke, postponed that and we chose to go fashion
A most radioactive plutonium gadget then
Fat Man and Boy and Enola goes laughin'
As Nagasaki is blown and Hiroshima's blasted

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

Neutrons escaping from a source radiating
Merge and start atoms shaking; they begin
To unglue toward a decreased order
Entropic force distorts em
And supercharged with loads of protons they can only go farther
Cold war grows hotter--exothermal--Colorado to Joe Stalin
Coast to coast holes; silos but there's no farmer
Toe-to-toe drama
NATO and Warszawa in co-assured trauma
The globe groans everyone knows there's no calming
So show your foes and implode your core column
Quid pro quo Castle Bravo for Tsar Bomba
And move on and leave atolls exposed to gross doses of old fallout;
Slow-to-go toxins in shoals and so though we explode them no longer
Still the proof lives on in the blue lagoon water, father

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

When war games hit the stage of a gluon's rage
There's a military boot on the new doc's page
We were playing in the beginning, but grew up strange
Making radar and missiles, and new bombs blazed
And we kept grinding the lensed sights for the next sniper
Best believe son it'll pay to design fighters
All the gains of science analyzed by the
Man provide plans for sarin and cyanide
And our hands are blighted by crying
Eyes when dying lands are slammed if our grants expand the fire brighter
And there's no jury there's no sublime righter
This is our fight
And these minds are all ours so protect your pia mater
Try to feed and water good, seed trust, flee dishonour
Gotta be clean being Apollo stead of Vietnam and
Lay the armour down and be the one to stand up
And lead us on the trail of Spock
We'll elevate these motley progeny
To a future in a safer spot, an irrigated plot
Homicide a way forgot
Success is a lack of military options
Failure's not
Become a lover of a great and cosmic goal
We cannot condone these terror plots
So here we go it's our shot
Feel frail or not
This is the only world and humanity that we got

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

You gotta make your own mind up, man.

Personally, I'm less concerned with this level of "whitewashing" than I am with Cloud Atlas throwing "slanty eyes" on Tom Hanks.

"How you read this report is going to be clouded by how you feel about pot in general." Bingo.

No no new science here, though. No new studies. Just re-re-reviewing existing literature.

"We know almost nothing about the medicinal effects of smoked marijuana."

If that's true... then how much do "we" know about the effects of raw cannabis, complete with it's non-psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinolic acid? The large scale, peer reviewed method works far, far to slowly to be of any real use. It is too dependent upon those with enough financial funding to be considered an authority. If "we" finally perform the "right" study on cannabis, will that magically undo nearly 100 years of unjustified criminalization, untold millions of needless deaths, and pain and suffering?

@enoch,

neo-conservatives
I've said in a couple other threads if I was American I'd have(very sadly mind you) voted for Hillary. Not sure, but that should really lay the neo-con thing to bed right there. Doesn't mean I won't agree with them if they notice the sky looks rather blue...

the MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012
I don't base or form my morality around American law, so when and how it's deemed lawful or not for an American president to order something doesn't change my opinion one inch on whether the act is good or bad. Sure, it deducts a lot of points when a President breaks laws so that factors in, but if it's legal for a president to shoot babies we're all still gonna call it immoral anyways, right?

you find that it is the region,the actual soil that a person is on that makes the difference between legal prosecution..and assassination.
Between act of war, or peace time legal prosecution with proper due process.

this is EXACTLY what happened with afghanistan in regards to osama bin laden.
and BOTH times,the US state department could not provide conclusive evidence that either bin laden,or awlaki had actually perpetrated a terrorist act.

Sorry, but regarding Bin Laden that's a lie. The US state department held a trial and convicted Bin Laden already back in the 90s. The Taliban refused to extradite him then, and demanded they be shown evidence. They were shown the evidence and declared that they saw nothing unIslamic in his actions. Clinton spent his entire presidency back and forth with them, even getting a unanimous order from the UN security council demanding Bin Laden's extradition.

Smugly claiming that the US refused to provide any evidence to the Taliban because they were being bullies is ignoring reality. after spending several years getting jerked around by the Taliban claiming each new act of war launched from their territory wasn't their fault nor bin Laden's fault left a less patient president after 9/11...

now,is hannity guilty of incitement?
should he be held accountable for those shot dead?
by YOUR logic,yes..yes he should.
Can't say I'm very familiar with Hannity because I avoid Fox news at all costs.
Did he praise the killings afterwards and declare the shooter a hero like Anwar?
Did he council before hand in his books that killing those people was moral or just or religiously blessed like Anwar did?
Did he personally meet with and council/mentor the shooter before hand at some point as well, like Anwar did?

I have to ask just so we really are comparing apples to apples and all. If the answers are yes(and from Fox I suppose I can't completely rule that out just out of hand), then yeah, he's as guilty as Anwar.

now what if hannity had taken off to find refuge in yemen?
do we send a drone?

If he goes to Yemen we just laugh at our good fortune that he decided to kill himself for us.

To your point, if he finds a similar independent state to continue promoting and coordinating attacks as part of an effective terrorist unit killing new civilians every week then yes, bombs away.

Now if either he or Anwar remained in the US you arrest them and follow all due process. Oh, and to again shake the neo-con cloud you don't get to torture them by calling it enhanced interrogation, it's still a war crime and you should lock yourself up in a cell next door.

My whole thing is that setting up a state within a state and waging war shouldn't just be a get out of jail free card under international law. Either the 'host' state is responsible for the actions or it is not. If responsible, then like in Afghanistan it initiated the war by launching the first attacks. If not responsible, then it's declared the state within a state to be sovereign, and other states should be able to launch a war against the parasitic state, as has been happening with Obama's drones in tribal Pakistan.

Why hasn't Trump banned lightning yet? He's soft on radical cloud terrorists and a sympathizer....lynch him!