MigL

I wouldnt go that far. China tried control news coming out of the country, that it had everything in control. They let the rest of the world know, only when they realized it was out of control. In effect, they had a stick of dynomite, they lit the fuse, and handed it to the rest of us when the fuse was half burned. On the other hand ( as CharonY likes to point out ), we took the stick of dynomite with the lit fuse, and put it in our back pocket, without taking any precautions or making any preparations. Multiple failures all around.

That is something that a lot of ( sensible ) people find hard to swallow. The fact that the chief orchestrator of the Capital riot seems to have gotten away with no repercussions. And a lot of the people who helped him avoid repercussions are the same people who supported his 'stolen election' claims that seeded the insurrection and riot.

As if Republicans didn't have enough problems, with the growing divide between members who want to hang on to power at any cost and those few who want to do the right thing, the 'fight' for control of the Republican party between M McConnel and D Trump, and now we learn that Rush Limbaugh has passed away. Not to make fun of anyone's passing, but maybe the last 4 years were too much stress on his heart.

Then again, there's also this ... A genomic region associated with protection against severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals | PNAS Which suggests that a genetic mutation found to reduce the risk of severe Covid-19 outcomes by 1/5, was found in all existing samples of Neanderthal DNA, and in about 1/3 of samples from people of European and Asian origin. Make of it what you will , but it does suggest genetic factors cannot be dismissed entirely.

Even for GR where gravity is not actually considered a force, the Equivalence Principle suggests that acceleration is equivalent to gravity ( without tidal effects ). That is why we can expess acceleration in g , or multiples of 9.8 m/s/s. IOW, an acceleration of 2g is equal to 19.6 m/s/s , and you would be 'pushed back' as if you weighed twice your normal weight, or the Earth's gravitational force was doubled.

The 'right' cancels the 'left' all the time, as INow states. The 'left' also cancels the 'right' frequently. But the people we are attaching those labels to, are still there. And their concerns and needs are not 'cancelled' at all, and will arise again, even stronger, when the next election comes around. If things don't change, America will be remembered as the nation that could not be brought down from the outside, but was destroyed from within, because neither side was willing to compromise. I am encouraged by Cindy McCain, after being censured by the Arizona GOP, who said "I"m a life-long Republican, but I'm an American first, and will do what is best for my country" More Americans, and certainly more politicians, need to start thinking that way.

Well ... She is much easier to look at, and, has normal hair. But ... She has bad taste in men, as exemplified by her husband, and the father she looks up to.

I don't know why everyone is getting so worked up over this. If you chose to define every bus as a big yellow vehicle, you can make the correlation that it is full of school-age children; and you'd be right. However, we all know there are different colored buses, full of older people, or even empty. Similarly, if you choose to define 'race' on the basis of external appearance, you can make the argument that there are many 'races' of humans. However we all know that external appearance can vary more widely within a 'race' than between so-called 'races'. I'm sure if we take Luiz' efinition of intelligence, that based solely on IQ tests, he may be able to make a correlation to brain size, and even to these different 'races' he has defined. That would not prove very much at all.

I've read your other topic also. I agree with you. There can be differing human 'races', depending on your definition of 'race'. The problem arises once you start categorizing these different 'races' according to real or imagined attributes. IOW, what do you intend to do with this information ? Is it beneficial or detrimental ? It's a lot like nuclear power. Is the intention to provide cheap power, or to build bombs ?

There are few biological factors which affect the outcome of COVID infections. One such is Vitamin D, or its deficiency in certain groups. A large factor seems to be access to health care. Our response, in Canada, while not perfect ( remote indigenous communities are more affected ), has ben better than the US response, because people, no matter their socio-economic status, are not afraid to seek health care. Americans, who don't have universal health care may be afraid of incurring the large costs associated with your health care system, and experience worse outcomes. Maybe J Biden can push for expanded health care coverage in the US, based on these findings.

TheSpeculations section is where non-mainstream ideas are presented, and defended with evidence ( mathematical or observational ). It s not equvalent to the Trash Can section, and is nothing to be ashamed of, or ridiculed. Some posters make it needlessly equivalent to the Trash Can, because they refuse to back up their assertions with evidence, or refuse to recognize evidence which is contrary to their assertions ( and we get quite a few of those types of posters ).

Einstein's field equations ae satisfied by symmetric Lorentzian manifolds of constant scalar curvature, even for an empty universe, with a positive, zero, or negative Cosmological Constant. They are respectively termed DeSitter, for positive curvature ( spherical ), Minkowsky, for zero curvature ( flat or Euclidian ), and Anti-DeSitter, for negative curvature ( hyperbolic ). Anti-DeSitter has become popular as of late, because of its role in AdS/CFT correspondence, where gauge forces ( of QM ) are described by the extra ( plus one non-compact ) dimensons of string theory, and is the basis for the Holographic Principle.

I think D Trump is taking the example of one of his favorite despots, V Putin. When V Putin was constitutionally prevented from running for the Russian Presidency, he inserted D Medvedev as a 'puppet', until he could step back into the Presidency and continue his efforts to make it a lifetime position for himself.

IE is like an old friend that I've known since the 90s. I just can't bring myself to totally cast it aside. I have to wonder, Saturday morning, the Democrats pushed to have more testimony/witnesses presented at the hearings, some of it very damning, but by Saturday afternoon that was all scrapped, and they went directly to the vote. Why the change of plans ? Why the hurry ? M McConnel made them wait until D Trump was out of office to have the Senate hearings, just so they could then all claim that the Impeachment was unconstitutional because D Trump was no longer in office. Drag the Senate trial out, present ALL the evidence, and make the Republicans who supported ( and continue to support ) him, look like the PoS the are.

Who is the guy in your avatar ? He looks wide-eyed crazy !

Can't you Brits just get along ? You're becoming more and more like Americans ever day 😄 .

You mentioned True Romance in yesterday's 3{29 pm post. I suggest you watch the movie True Romance, especially the part where retired cop, Dennis Hopper, explains the origins of Sicilians to mobster, Christopher Walken, in an effort to avoid torture by being killed swiftly. WARNING: Some may find video offensive and disturbing. View at own risk. ( incidentally, I am a native Italian )

Your posts make my head hurt. They are lik fingernails on a chalk-board. Very annoying.

I may have vocalized ( or typed ) that, JC, but there are at least 43 Senators who believe that isn't incitement. That pompous ass must be feeling rather smug. I hope his wife serves him divorce papers soon.

I say we storm the Science Forums headquarters where the vote was taken to change the interface. Apparently, that ( and much worse ) is now legal. And there's still criminal charges pending against D Trump, in New York and Georgia, that help me sleep better at night.

Is there no justice ? First the sham that was the OJ trial. Followed by the two Impeachment trials of D Trump. And now, this new interface ! Science Forums was one of the only places where I could still use Internet Explorer. Not any more ...

I fail to see why JC deserves two demerit points for pointing out that not being able o vote 'your conscience' is a fault of the American Political system, and that both dominant parties engage in this behaviour that Swansont finds scary. It's not like this is a new thing, or for Republicans only; why wasn't he scared before ? ( Sorry JC, I can only restore 1 point, but I liked your R Burns ) You know, the Democrats control the Presidency, the House and the Senate. They had better start getting used to criticism, as the ball is now in their court. And before someone says "Any mistakes they make should be forgiven because the Republicans and Trump were much worse.", I shouldn't have to remind you that THAT is 'whataboutism'.

As an 'atheist', I don't have a problem with the concept of God. The concept can be interpreted in many ways, and we are in no position to prove/disprove any of those conceptual interpretations. What I do have a problem with is exactly the 'human understanding' that has proven so easily corruptible by a few, to take advantage of the many, through the ages ( and continues to this day ).

M McConnel has publically stated that Senators are free to vote their conscience regarding the Impeachment. Whether re-living those scary moments on video ( so many that I hadn't seen before ) is enough to push a few more Republicans to do what is right, and restore some sanity to the American Political system, remains to be seen. The GOP must realize that if they don't vote to execute the impeachment, allow D Trump to form a new political party, and run for office again, it will split the Republican base, and they won't regain the Presidency/House/Senate for a very long time. They are basically caught between a rock and a hard place. Damned if they vote to impeach, and damned if they don't. Hopefully the American Government doesn't waste too much time relegating D Trump to a sad part of American history. There is still a pandemic going on; one that has killed almost TEN times as many Americans as were killed in combat in Vietnam.

It would me much more impressive if we knew the origin of the protein containing meteorite. Keep in mind that during the Earth's history, it has been bombarded by many asteroids. The one that hit the Yucatan Peninsula 65 Million years ago. for example, sent a lot of debris into space, along with quite a bit of organic material. If some of that material finds its way back to Earth, as meteorites, it is not really extra-terrestrial.