TheVat

Curious...not being of the Limey persuasion, is that a broader Beeb problem that you all are seeing over there? I doubt anyone here is taking sides with Iran. The Middle East seems generally to be suffering a paucity of peacemakers. And an abundance of defensive finger pointers.

For sure, that kind of propagandistic fakery is always to be watched out for. I'm pretty sure the Weizmann attack is a real story, given that the Institute is so high profile in an international scientific community, is easily found on Street View to match with the photographs of damage, and that multiple sources are reporting the same thing, including biologists who work there or do work in collaboration with them. At this point, it would be really hard to fake all of that with such massive coordination. I sympathize with the biologists, but less so with an Israeli government that has done so much to inflame the situation with their neighbors.

Not sure if you're familiar with my postings or family information I've shared, so let me just briefly cover that. I come from a family with two professional journalists and myself worked for a daily newspaper for a year as a college job. I always (ok, let's say 99% percent of the time because no one's perfect) check my sources, and try to find coverage in reputable news outlets which corroborate. You will note my link was from AP News and included photographs of the damaged campus of the institute. You will also find corroboration at the Weizmann website, and: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/19/israel-iran-scientists-weizmann-strike/d60ae498-4cfe-11f0-8fff-262d6ec54ab9_story.html https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/iran-destroys-israels-50-million-science-treasure-weizmann-institute-marking-one-of-the-wars-most-costly-strikes/articleshow/121977506.cms https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-iran-attack-news/card/israel-s-weizmann-institute-buildings-damaged-in-iran-attack-1KFe6Nmj0kQPFpl3lbNf I had come to think I had a good relationship of trust with regular members here, so if I've done something to tarnish that, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE to PM me with whatever concerns you have. Regards, Paul As do I.

Cold storage can slow changes, but it's effect are forensically detectable. Yes. Above freezing there are still types of decomposition going on. Below freezing, the formation of ice crystals will rupture cell walls and other structures, and this is discernible to forensic analysis. Yes, very likely. PMCT, histological study, microbiome analysis (certain bacteria will show changes even in very cold conditions), tomographic location of ice crystal artifacts, etc. Much depends on you obtaining a warrant or some kind of court order to perform such an examination. Try to conduct yourself in a calm manner and avoid language like "cornered like a mad dog," even if you're justifiably upset. Good luck.

Weizmann Institute damaged by Iranian missiles. AP NewsIranian missile strikes Israel's 'crown jewel of science'For years, Israel has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, hoping to choke progress on Iran’s nuclear program by striking at the brains behind it.Many of those labs focus on the life sciences, whose projects are especially sensitive to physical damage, Fleishman said. The labs were studying areas like tissue generation, developmental biology or cancer, with much of their work now halted or severely set back by the damage. “This was the life’s work of many people,” he said, noting that years’ or even decades’ worth of research was destroyed. For Schuldiner, the damage means the lab he has worked at for 16 years “is entirely gone. No trace. There is nothing to save.” In that once gleaming lab, he kept thousands of genetically modified flies used for research into the development of the human nervous system, which helped provide insights into autism and schizophrenia, he said. The lab housed equipment like sophisticated microscopes. Researchers from Israel and abroad joined hands in the study effort. “All of our studies have stopped,” he said, estimating it would take years to rebuild and get the science work back on track. “It’s very significant damage to the science that we can create and to the contribution we can make to the world.”

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-palestinians-food-aid-israel-284fa12b037db604342be1b3ea2120b4 Still killing civilians, still starving them, still blocking medical aid, nothing has changed. Still funded by the US, still demolishing infrastructure with US manufactured bombs. I have no intention of letting anyone forget this reality. And, as with all of these articles, the perennial Israeli attempt to sound like they give a shit: "The Israeli military says it is investigating." Really? And what are you finding, Israeli military? Anything you would care to share with the world?

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft exploded ahead of an engine test late Wednesday, sending a large fireball into the South Texas sky and dealing another major setback to Elon Musk’s company. It was the fourth time the company has lost a Starship spacecraft this year. In three previous test flights, the vehicle came apart or detonated during its flight. Wondering if Musk's "rapid iterative development" approach is really such a great idea for space travel. Maybe leave the "move fast and break things" to Zuckerberg.

So this was encouraging... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/no-kings-how-many-protesters-attended If this first large scale protest did indeed bring nearly 2 percent to the streets (including me, spouse, daughter and her BF), then that may encourage more to show up next time.

No apologies needed. It's useful to keep things in perspective as to where people are suffering. When I toss off ideas in a quick list, I expect there will be corrections. And I don't know about mortality statistics, given the wide variance in estimates. Some sources say deaths caused by the Gaza war is a multiple of the direct deaths number (~ 55K, IIRC), with much starvation happening right now. And Gaza has much higher ratio of civilian deaths, from all reports.

That's interesting, fitting this all into classical Marxist theory, but I think this thread concerns itself with a broader definition of fascism and is not seeking precise matches with historical instances. We're focused on examples like the OP, where you see people being dragged away by uniformed thugs because they are asking questions that are perfectly legal. This is understood to be a paver on the road to fascism.

March, write your Congress members, sign petitions, vote, donate to reputable relief agencies, get a degree in a health field and join DWB (MSF), Red Cross, etc, join Greta Thunberg in a food/medicine smuggling run, feign being a Right Wing ideologue on conservative websites while generating content that subtly undermines the RW positions on geopolitics and Likudist/ Zionist propaganda...

And now the senator from California is joined by the NYC comptroller. [ETA: posted before seeing Peterkin had also posted coverage) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/brad-lander-arrested-new-york-city-comptroller Masked federal agents just illegally arrested New York City’s elected Comptroller. Outrageous. The Trump Administration went after Brad Lander for asking this simple question: ‘Do you have a warrant?’

What?? Bumper sticker seen in Eugene, around that time: "Buck the Feavers!"

This could also inflame a lot of Shiites. Attack so near to Qom, which is considered holy among Shia Muslims, raises the specter of bringing religious outrage and vengeance seeking into the dynamic. Never a good thing in war.

Been mostly AFK, but IIRC this vast digression turned on whether or not comparisons to Nazi Germany were warranted. So it looks like that was thoroughly discussed and the OP question also answered - US Senators must follow an approved script in questioning the executive branch or else. Somehow I thought this thread would be a short one, concluding with "was anyone expecting anything else from the 47 regime?" What's really disturbing is that giving a senator the SA treatment is one of the LEAST awful things the Great Turnip administration has done. Which means that, again, theatrics are being used to distract people while they chip away at the rule of law and global alliances formed over the last century.

Interesting back and forth between you and Sohan, pessimism v optimism, a polarity where I find myself on a middle ground. Watching traditional hardball journalism falter in recent years, I can lean pessimistic especially when the worst people are getting AI tools of propaganda and flooding the social media zone. OTOH, Sohan's optimism can also be contagious in a good way and encourage people to get off the bench. I think Churchill's maxim, democracy is not a great system but it's better than all the others, holds. US democrats really need to come together and rebuild the focused progressive big umbrella that they used to sorta make work. Democracy is always fragile, especially in a nation which is (as you've observed) an uneasy union of several sub-nations. Some of them very far, in every sense, from DC.

Yeah, a lot of other factors, too, e g. there have been studies connecting sunlight levels with lowered rates of colorectal cancer. Vitamin D production seems to have a protective effect. This complicates the causation picture in places like Uganda, where you have copious sunlight, a very unprocessed high fiber diet, everyone walks a lot, and shorter average lifespan than developed countries. All those can cause lower cancer rates, but to what degree? With colorectal cancers one might be tempted to point to the diet as primary, but you'd need to look at a range of countries where those other factors are different.

<chuckle>

Oh the humanity! 💩 In the words of John Milton, "They also serve who only stand and wait.".

What seemed the most outrageous attempt at putting lipstick on this pig of an event was claiming that Padilla was perceived as some unknown potential marauder. Right, the senior US Senator from California, at an LA presser. The Sturmabteilung is back, dimwit thugs and their corrupt Cabinet skank with the charisma and oratorical skills of used cat litter.

So it looks like Alexandra Petri who wrote a political humor column for the Washington Post until five months ago (she took a maternity break) and who I assumed was coming back...is not coming back. In fact, she decided to go to work for The Atlantic, a non-Bezosian publication that will allow her to continue doing her vitally important job of making me laugh until I piss myself at things which would otherwise make my weep or gnaw off my extremities. Without further ado, here is a paywall free version of her first column: The AtlanticSo, What Did I Miss?“How much can possibly happen when I’m on parental leave?” I said five months ago.https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/06/trump-second-term-first-months/683169/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYhniaX1uDThh4_CnCxomanY&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share (Sorry, the top link may not give the gift access, but this one will)

Unless Sara lives in one of those school districts where Right-wing fundamentalist Christians are hijacking the science curriculum, I would have some hope that a high school biology course would dispel some of this confusion. I would also recommend Philip Whitfield's "From So Simple a Beginning" as a fine intro. Most libraries will have this, unless the book burners have got there already.

The statistical explanation appeals to my inner Ockham. The galaxies rotating opposite to us appear brighter, so they're their overrepresented in telescopic surveys. The BH conjecture is mind boggling - inherited angular momentum from a parent BH our verse lies inside of.

The soul is a metaphysical postulate, therefore science takes no stand on the matter. What can't be physically observed or measured is not accessible to the methods of science. That doesn't mean it can't be accessed in other ways, like meditation or a revelatory experience or some other sort of intuitive flash. But it's not going to be something proved or disproved - at least it seems unlikely that, say, one day a neurological procedure will be able to remove a small object that resembles a chickpea and is in fact a soul. (Though that notion is the basis for a funny movie with Paul Giamatti, "Cold Souls")

This article is about an SSA employee of 35 years being pushed out and then discovering her retirement package has been reduced, by the "big beautiful bill": NPRShe served the American people for 35 years. Now her reti...As part of Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," the House voted to end a retirement supplement aimed at helping federal employees who retire before they're 62.Santa Maria, who voted for Trump in the 2024 election, says she'd hoped that his Department of Government Efficiency would bring technical expertise and upgrades to the Social Security Administration. "But what they're doing now is just eliminating the people and leaving the rest with the outdated computer system," she says. And now, with part of her retirement on the chopping block, she's even more disappointed...