Controlled Demonstration of a Tank Trailer Vacuum Collapse has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

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*promote due to Arecibo Observatory's collapse -- https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/12/03/2112258/drone-footage-shows-the-shocking-collapse-of-the-arecibo-observatory

Also, Contact movie used it.

@bobknight33 - I submit this post as a peace offering. Something I believe will bring us together during this passionate time. Something that will collapse the wall that separates us as Americans.

Voters do not determine the outcome of elections. Political candidates do not choose who will win or who will lose. People in good faith and people with corrupt minds have no say in the matter. It is just an illusion.

There is only one thing that determines which party will lose presidential elections.

The Fly.

Democrats have had their dreams turn to nightmares just as the republicans are now living their nightmare.

The Fly will make the decision of which party will lose the Presidency. Hillary fell victim to The Fly as you know. Once again the The Fly has made his (or her) choice as to which party will fall.

With this in mind I would like to offer an olive branch in hopes of peace between us and our political differences. We are both victims of something neither of us has any control over. Cheating is inconsequential.

The Fly has the power. 🥂 (sorry. no olive branch emoji)

this was a road collapsing, bridge looks fine:)

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His personal lack of planning, lack of concern, and total ineptitude caused it. Because he isn't a leader, he shirks responsibility, but the responsibility is his, personally.

And he did it again, 17 more of you chumps were hospitalized for heat stroke/exhaustion after another super spreader rally yesterday. When fire trucks and paramedics showed up to help the people collapsed on the ground, Trump actually suggested they might be the enemy attacking his crowd, saying "lets find out if they're friend or foe, and if they're foe let's take care of this", telling the crowd to attack the first responders who were trying to save their lives if they suspect they might be non cultists... he's so incredibly clueless and irresponsible, and he doesn't care if you die as long as you vote for him first.

How many have had to be hospitalized after Biden rallies? ZERO.


At this point, it's a certainty that his Petri dish events have killed at least hundreds by infecting thousands, in every state he visits there's a corresponding massive spike in cases and deaths a week or so later, contact traced back to his rallies every time. This is forcing new lockdowns and has already overrun the medical system in many areas.

Side note, he's socialistically dumping the problems on the first responders in the areas too, having made no plans or contingencies for these foreseeable fiascos, costing the local towns tens of thousands to millions in unrecoverable tax dollars to clean up his messes, and he still hasn't even paid for his rallies from 2016 in most cases, costing dozens of cities millions each for events he put on with the agreement to pay for them, agreements he consistently welches on.

As for his idiotic herd immunity plan guaranteed to kill at least 8 million Americans and likely to kill more like 50-75 million thanks to a total overrun of the medical system causing a lack of treatment for most, virologists have determined the immunity it might give the population wouldn't last one year before the virus mutates enough to reinfect everyone, starting the pandemic cycle over.

But you fell for the idea because you a low IQ tool.

And this is you guy you voting for?

🤦‍♂️

agreed.

I would add that science/doctors have been pushed out by the administration from day one, to the point that they use it to attack biden ("he's going to listen to the scientists!")

also, the inconsistency he is referring to for example in restaurants and flights, is entirely driven by economics, not science. Those are two of the hardest hit industries worldwide, you have a president who has made it clear he prioritises business over public health, of course they made some theatrical protocol to make it seem safer when really, its not.
(same in my country, and having a bakery myself have had to do the same stupid dance).

Pointing at the survival of christie, trump or any other celebrity, no matter how overweight, old or whatever, is not analogous to the experience of normal people who cant afford that level of treatment, most wouldnt have access to it even if they could afford it. not to mention that we dont even really know long term effects for survivors, including importantly how long the immune response lasts.

That whole segment just came off as the typical selfish "i dont think this will kill me, lets get back to normal" BS. Weve known for a long time now that what makes coronavirus dangerous isnt its mortality rate, its the combination of a long asymptomatic incubation period and airbone transmission that make it highly contagious, when hospitals collapse the mortality rate spikes.

I actually agree that we have to learn to live with this because i dont think a vaccine is nowhere near close to ready for global deployment, but i thought his arguments were terrible and his focus selfish.

***finally anecdotal experience here in Chile, 3 friends have gotten covid-
44 year old, former national team field hockey, good shape
41 year old, former point guard national team basketball, good shape
38 year old, professional poker player, overweight bordering on obese.

the 44 year old was in the hospital for 12 days, no ventilator, felt aches and pains for a solid month after going home
the 41 year old was in the hospital for 28 days, ventilator (and the induced coma that comes with it), still feels physically drained
the 38 year old had a fever for 3 days and never went to the hospital, is feeling fine

Between different strains and different body/blood types, comparing one case to another doesnt seem to work

You mean a Brahma day? Close. It's around a 311+ Trillion year cycle, and hardly resembles astrophysics beyond the one hypothesis that the universe "bounces" in and out of existence, expanding then collapsing then expanding....forever....but most hypotheses disagree. Some claim the universe will not collapse but expand eternally, ending in a big freeze, some suggest collapse in 5 billion years from now. Until we understand dark matter/energy, we are in the dark on this question.

The lifespan of Brahma (creator god) lasts for 100 of his years. His 12-hour day or Kalpa (a.k.a. day of Brahma) is followed by a 12-hour night or Pralaya (a.k.a. night of Brahma) of equal length. At the start of his days, he is re-born and creates the planets and the first living entities. At the end of his days, he and his creations are unmanifest (partial dissolution). His 100-year life is called a Mahā-Kalpa, which is followed by a Mahā-Pralaya (full dissolution) of equal duration, where the bases of the universe, Prakriti, is manifest at the start and unmanifest at the end of a Mahā-Kalpa.[13][24][25]

1 day (12 hrs: Kalpa) of Brahma = 4.32 billion solar years (1,000 Mahā-Yugas) (14 Manvantaras + 15 Sandhyās)
1 Day (24 hrs: Kalpa + Pralaya) of Brahma = 8.64 billion solar years
30 Days (1 month) of Brahma = 259.2 billion solar years
12 months (1 year) of Brahma = 3.1104 trillion solar years
50 years (Parārdha) of Brahma = 155.52 trillion solar years
100 years (lifespan: 2 Parārdha) of Brahma = 311.04 trillion solar years
I see a slight similarity, but not a correlation.


Oh my god, that's what you call perfectly describing psychology? Ok, your standard of proof is clearly light years away from mine.

Good poetry outweighs crusades, dark ages, etc?! Not to me.

You can say that, it's just a tool and can be used for good or bad, but in reality it's a tool for controlling the masses and pitting different segments of the population against each other. As a whole, religion has done exponentially more damage to individuals, society, and progress than any estimation of it's real world benefits. Only by adding the infinite good of heaven can the scales be even close to balanced imo.
The same may be true of science, it's real world benefits, which are ubiquitous and undeniable, may be outweighed by it's side effects since making the planet uninhabitable clearly outweighs extending grandpa's expected lifespan by 10% and keeping his lights on.

in general, hindu eschatology resembles the big bang/crunch. the cycle of expansion from a single point only to collapse to another single point and another expansion. these cycles are billions of years apart. (also some idea - that's too fuzzy to recall in detail - about matter changing and slipping into an alternative dimension might be a model of the great beyond)

will use Russell Bertrand - although not a poet, have read poetry that echos this thought (not gonna search) almost verbatim - when he said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” this was pretty much summed up the Dunning-Kruger Effect. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355363-one-of-the-painful-things-about-our-time-is-that)

the other you noted. meditation is healthy. of note, Sufism tends to focus on intense focusing, in music and song...and some of the musicians are peachy keen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRivHR0c28

and the poetry is beautiful (EX: Rumi). so religion has spawned some good things, too.

in short, religion is no more destructive than the person implementing it. do believe in ideas. whether it comes from a white cassock or lab coat. such is the freedom to keep a mind free.

or take it up w/René Descartes*. he seemed to be better at it than I.

*Descartes died when he was run over by a horse-drawn coach. This is where the saying "Don't put Descartes in front of the horse."

BTW: Earle song?

Personally I don't believe in bailouts. If the business was screwing up badly enough to be in a position to collapse if there is a dip in the economy, they deserve to fail.

@newtboy
-Including race as a determining factor in your admission score
as a 'liberal' ideal
This IS happening broadly, link to how and arguments for why it is 'good'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/03/harvard-beat-an-effort-end-its-use-race-factor-admissions-what-will-supreme-court-do/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2019/10/01/471085/5-reasons-support-affirmative-action-college-admissions/

-Enforcement of a race based "day of absence" where based on your race you were to be 'kicked off' campus for the day
Specifically the day of absence was at evergreen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_State_College#2017_protests
Similarly reverse racist attitudes though are common enough, like chasing out a student journalist here for simply covering an event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kVGtqp7usw

-"deplatforming" people for having dissenting opinions
Jordan Peterson is the biggest example, but my local uni has also banned pro-life student clubs too, so maybe I'm a little Canada biased on this?

-The entire circle-jerk of intersectionalism:
---"whiteness" needs to be defined as something inherently negative
Here's the Standford course on it if you or your parents wanna enrol:
https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&q=CSRE+32SI%3A+Whiteness&collapse=

---"Racism" needs to redefined as not simply racial prejudice, but racial prejudice PLUS power(you know, so only white people can be racist under the new definition)
Likewise offered at Stanford, unless this is the lone critical race theory course that doesn't champion the above prejudice+power definition.
https://law.stanford.edu/courses/critical-race-theory/

---"systemic racism" getting defined as anything with unequal outcomes, so if asian students do too well in math it must mean the system is favouring them and we need to step in


And I'm out of time,

but seriously I'm a little baffled this was remotely controversial? Identity politics is a game the left has been playing at HARD for at minimum the decades since Affirmative Action was launched. The notion that the idea would eventually get national level push back should have been easy to see coming.

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Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)