Category: They Made a Movie About This

Name of biblical judge found inscribed on 3,100-year-old jug found in Israel

A rare 3,100-year-old inked inscription from the era of the Book of Judges is displayed on Monday by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the excavation site at Khirbat a Rai. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI

Archaeologists have uncovered a small jug with a rare five-letter inscription, linking the 3,100-year-old ceramic artifact to a biblical judge mentioned in the Book of Judges.

The jug and ancient inscription — the first to feature the name ‘Jerubbaal’ — were found at a dig site in the Shahariya Forest, among Israel’s Judean Foothills, archeologists reported the discovery Monday in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

“The name of the Judge Gideon ben Yoash was Jerubbaal, but we cannot tell whether he owned the vessel on which the inscription is written in ink,” archaeologists said in a press release.

The inscribed jug, bearing the name Jerubbaal, was recovered from a subsurface storage pit lined with stones. Researchers suspect the small jug likely held a precious liquid, such as oil, perfume or medicine.

Though the jug features only five inscribed letters, close analysis suggests the original inscription was longer.

In the Book of Judges, Jerubbaal is first mentioned as a leading opponent of idolatry.

He’s also credited with leading a successful battle against the Midianites.

“According to the Bible, Gideon organized a small army of 300 soldiers and attacked the Midianites by night near Ma’ayan Harod,” said Yossef Garfinkel and Sa’ar Ganor, lead archaeologists on the project and professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“In view of the geographical distance between the Shephelah and the Jezreel Valley, this inscription may refer to another Jerubbaal and not the Gideon of biblical tradition, although the possibility cannot be ruled out that the jug belonged to the judge Gideon,” Garfinkel and Ganor said.

“In any event, the name Jerubbaal was evidently in common usage at the time of the biblical Judges,” they said.

Because the jug and its inscription date to roughly 1,100 B.C., the time of biblical judges, archaeologists suggest the discovery offers proof of the historical accuracy of the Bible.

“As we know, there is considerable debate as to whether biblical tradition reflects reality and whether it is faithful to historical memories from the days of the Judges and the days of David,” according to Garfinkel and Ganor.

“The name Jerubbaal only appears in the Bible in the period of the Judges, yet now it has also been discovered in an archaeological context, in a stratum dating from this period,” Garfinkel and Ganor said.

“In a similar manner, the name Ishbaal, which is only mentioned in the Bible during the monarchy of King David, has been found in strata dated to that period at the site of Khirbat Qeiyafa,” the archaeologists said.

Identical names being mentioned in the Bible, which have been found in other previously recovered inscriptions, they said, ” shows that memories were preserved and passed down through the generations.”

The Rise Of a Secret Unaccountable Police Force in America

Our founders knew that concentrating too much power in any one federal agency – especially a law enforcement agency – could lead to a tyrannical police state. It was one of their greatest fears. After all, they knew a thing or two about tyranny, and it was something they wanted to avoid at all costs.

As a result, today’s federal law enforcement agencies have very limited authority and very specific missions: Border Patrol patrols the borders, of course; DEA investigates narcotics; and the ATF enforces archaic alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives laws. The FBI has by far the broadest powers, but it too is constrained by a very specific set of rules and guidelines from the U.S. Attorney General – a process called predication. Contrary to what’s depicted on television, before FBI special agents can swoop in and take over a case, they must first have a federal predicate – they must believe that a federal crime or national security threat exists before they can investigate.

All of these federal agencies are transparent and accountable to the public, although some more so than others. They’re all subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was signed into law in 1966, and they routinely publish annual reports as well as internal investigations by their inspectors general.

All federal law enforcement agencies keep the public informed of their activities – all except one.

If you want to create a secret police force, the U.S. Capitol Police would be a good choice, since they’re already halfway there. The agency has scant oversight. It’s shrouded in secrecy and refuses to change.

The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is part of the legislative branch, which is exempt from FOIA requirements. Because they report to Congress, the USCP believes they too are exempt from FOIA. I should point out by way of comparison that even the CIA is subject to FOIA. Additionally, the USCP publishes no annual reports, and even the findings of its own inspector general are kept secret and not made public.

The mission of the USCP is to “Protect the Congress – its members, employees, visitors, and facilities – so it can fulfill its constitutional and legislative responsibilities in a safe, secure and open environment,” so you would think that the agency would focus its enforcement efforts in Washington, D.C., but that is no longer the case.

Congress is now seeking to nationalize the USCP by creating “field offices” in different states. Two field offices are planned for now, but more are coming.

“The new USCP field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas. At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” the agency announced in an email last week.

These new field offices will be used to “investigate threats” made against members of Congress, Acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman announced last week.

Clearly, Pittman and the agency she heads are reeling from the events of Jan. 6th 2021. In her press release titled: “After the Attack: The Future of the U.S. Capitol Police,” Pittman spells out some of the changes that have already taken place. While the chief announced the acquisition of two new “wellness support dogs” – Lila and Filip – a “pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency,” the purchase of new riot helmets, shields, and less-than-lethal munitions. Note that she did not identify the types of threats her officers will investigate in their newly created regional offices.

The one thing that is clear, given the USCP’s penchant for secrecy, the public will never know what they’re up to.

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They made a movie about this……….

Sons Of Liberty

Sons Of Liberty [DVD + Digital]

Sons of Liberty is an American television miniseries dramatizing the early American Revolution events in Boston, Massachusetts, the start of the Revolutionary War, and the negotiations of the Second Continental Congress which resulted in drafting and signing the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The miniseries is set in the years 1765–1776, prior to start of the American Revolutionary War. It focuses on historical figures and pivotal events between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain, particularly the events that led to resistance to the crown and creation of the Sons of Liberty. The actions of the Sons of Liberty were the beginnings of the Continental Army, and these take place mostly around Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak:

The Covid-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint that has never been observed in a natural coronavirus.

The possibility that the pandemic began with an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is attracting fresh attention. President Biden has asked the national intelligence community to redouble efforts to investigate.

Much of the public discussion has focused on circumstantial evidence: mysterious illnesses in late 2019; the lab’s work intentionally supercharging viruses to increase lethality (known as “gain of function” research). The Chinese Communist Party has been reluctant to release relevant information. Reports based on U.S. intelligence have suggested the lab collaborated on projects with the Chinese military.

But the most compelling reason to favor the lab leak hypothesis is firmly based in science. In particular, consider the genetic fingerprint of CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the disease Covid-19.

In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its genome at a prime location. Doing this leaves no trace of manipulation. But it alters the virus spike protein, rendering it easier for the virus to inject genetic material into the victim cell. Since 1992 there have been at least 11 separate experiments adding a special sequence to the same location. The end result has always been supercharged viruses. . . .

In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as “double CGG”) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2.

In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.

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Amazon US customers have one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

Amazon customers have one week to opt out of a plan that would turn every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the US into a shared wireless network, as part of the company’s plan to fix connection problems for its smart home devices.

The proposal, called Amazon Sidewalk, involves the company’s devices being used as a springboard to build city-wide “mesh networks” that help simplify the process of setting up new devices, keep them online even if they’re out of range of home wifi, and extend the range of tracking devices such as those made by Tile.

But Sidewalk has come under fire for the apparent lack of transparency with which Amazon has rolled out the feature, as well as the limited time available for users to complete the tricky process required to opt out. Other critics have expressed concerns that failing to turn the setting off could leave customers in breach of their internet service provider’s terms and conditions.

“Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices work better,” the company said in a Q&A document for users. “In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as smart security and lighting and diagnostics for appliances and tools.”

The feature works by creating a low-bandwidth network using smart home devices such as Amazon Echoes and Ring security cameras. At its simplest, it means that a new Echo can set itself up using a neighbour’s wifi, or a security camera can continue to send motion alerts even if its connection to the internet is disrupted, by piggybacking on the connection of another camera across the street. Other devices that don’t need a high-bandwidth connection, such as smart lights, pet locators or smart locks, can use Sidewalk all the time.

But the company’s plans have caused alarm among observers. Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technology officer of the US Federal Trade Commission, told the tech site Ars Technica: “In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber”. The feature may also break the terms and conditions of users’ internet connections, which do not allow such resharing, warned Lydia Leong, an analyst at Gartner.

Users can disable Sidewalk in the settings section of the Alexa or Ring apps, but have until 8 June to do so. After that, if they have taken no action, the network will be turned on and their devices will become “Sidewalk Bridges”.

Amazon is not the first company to look to create such a network. Apple has taken a similar approach with the company’s range of AirTag item trackers, which can connect to the internet through any compatible iPhone they come into contact with, not simply their owner’s. And BT, through a long-term partnership with Fon, ran a service from 2007 until 2020 that allowed broadband customers to share spare bandwidth in a public wifi network.

The preceding may be just be alarmist, but stay tuned because President Biden is on the job so I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.

“Gas Run Has Begun” – Fuel Stations Run Dry Amid Hacked Pipeline.

Gas shortages are being reported in the Southeast of the US amid the recent cybersecurity attack that temporarily shut down one of the largest pipelines in the US.

Colonial Pipeline Co. Chief Executive Officer Joseph Blount said the company was in the process of restoring its systems but wouldn’t resume fuel shipments until the ransomware had been removed, according to Bloomberg.

At the moment, Colonial Pipeline is manually operating a segment of pipeline between North Carolina to Maryland and expects a complete system restore by the weekend. However, gas shortages are already being reported across North Carolina to Florida to Alabama.

On Monday, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed an Executive Order declaring a state of emergency, temporarily suspending motor vehicle fuel regulations to ensure adequate fuel supply supplies throughout the state.

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In the emptiness of space, Voyager I detects plasma ‘hum’

ITHACA, N.Y. – Voyager 1 – one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space – still works and zooms toward infinity.

The craft has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause – the solar system’s border with interstellar space – into the interstellar medium. Now, its instruments have detected the constant drone of interstellar gas (plasma waves), according to Cornell University-led research published in Nature Astronomy.

Examining data slowly sent back from more than 14 billion miles away, Stella Koch Ocker, a Cornell doctoral student in astronomy, has uncovered the emission. “It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth,” Ocker said. “We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.”

This work allows scientists to understand how the interstellar medium interacts with the solar wind, Ocker said, and how the protective bubble of the solar system’s heliosphere is shaped and modified by the interstellar environment.

Launched in September 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft flew by Jupiter in 1979 and then Saturn in late 1980. Travelling at about 38,000 mph, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in August 2012.

After entering interstellar space, the spacecraft’s Plasma Wave System detected perturbations in the gas. But, in between those eruptions – caused by our own roiling sun – researchers have uncovered a steady, persistent signature produced by the tenuous near-vacuum of space.

“The interstellar medium is like a quiet or gentle rain,” said senior author James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy. “In the case of a solar outburst, it’s like detecting a lightning burst in a thunderstorm and then it’s back to a gentle rain.”

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Actually they’ve made more than one movie about this…..

Jeff Bezos wants floating colonies in space with weather like Maui all year long.

blue moon lunar lander BlueOrigin_Colony Two

Jeff Bezos on Thursday restated his ambition to build floating space colonies where people could stay in orbit in excellent climates, with weather like “Maui on its best day, all year long.”

The Amazon founder made the comments at a press conference in Washington, DC, where he unveiled the Blue Moon lander, a giant vehicle designed to deliver payloads — and perhaps astronauts one day — to the surface of the moon.

The lander, created by Bezos’ privately held rocket company, Blue Origin, aims to help establish “sustained human presence” on the moon, Business Insider’s Dave Mosher reported from the event.

Bezos also branched out into his far-flung ambitions to put up to 1 trillion people in space with O’Neill cylinders, a hypothetical technology meant to sustain human life.

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There’s a difference between ‘can do’ and ‘should do’, and some people, supposedly very smart people, apparently don’t know how to determine that.

Scientists grow human-monkey chimeric embryos in lab.

April 15 (UPI) — After injecting human stem cells into primate embryos, scientists were able to grow and maintain human-monkey chimeric embryos for up to 20 days.

The international research team, including geneticists in China and the United States, detailed their breakthrough in a new paper, published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists suggest human-monkey chimeric embryos can be used to build models for studying human biology and disease.

“As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease,” senior study author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, an expert in pluripotent stem cells who operates a lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, said in a news release. “An important goal of experimental biology is the development of model systems that allow for the study of human diseases under in vivo conditions.”

The research builds on previous successes achieved by Izpisua Belmonte and his research partners in China. The team first successfully created human-monkey chimeric embryos a few years ago, keeping them alive for only a few days.

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Nuro’s self-driving robot will deliver Domino’s pizza orders to customers in Houston.

Domino’s Pizza will start delivering pizzas via Nuro driverless cars in Houston this week as part of a pilot program, the company announced Monday. The company says “select customers” in Houston who make a prepaid delivery order from its store in the Woodland Heights neighborhood during certain dates and times can have their pizza brought to them by a Nuro R2 robot.

Here’s how the pizza deliveries will work: a customer places and pays for an order online from the Woodland Heights store and opts in to have the order brought by the R2. The customer receives a unique PIN via text alert along with updates on the vehicle’s location. When the robot car arrives, the customer enters the PIN on its touch screen, which opens the R2’s doors. Pizza ensues.

A customer retrieves her pizzas from Nuro’s R2 delivery robot.
 Image: Domino’s

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Earthquakes in divers places………

‘Huge’ explosion rocks St. Vincent as volcano keeps erupting.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (AP) — La Soufriere volcano fired an enormous amount of ash and hot gas early Monday in the biggest explosive eruption yet since volcanic activity began on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent late last week, with officials worried about the lives of those who have refused to evacuate.

Experts called it a “huge explosion” that generated pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and southwest flanks.

“It’s destroying everything in its path,” Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press. “Anybody who would have not heeded the evacuation, they need to get out immediately.”………

So, Daleks are taking over?

Crime-fighting robot patrols Las Vegas apartment complex


How would you like a robot warning you that you are violating a curfew regulation?

A security robot is helping to transform a noisy northeast Las Vegas Valley apartment complex into a quieter, more peaceful place to live, says a manager.

“Westy” has been patrolling the grounds at the 1,129-unit Liberty Village apartment complex, just outside the southwest corner of Nellis Air Force Base, since October. It is believed to be the first such use of a security robot at a Las Vegas apartment complex.

Officially known as a Knightscope MIN31KS, the human-sized autonomous robot offers a wide variety of security measures including four-camera video recording, facial recognition, license plate reading, verbal warnings, a telephone-like connection with human security officers and a presence that helps deter improper activity.

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Something of interest for the folks down south.

How Colombia’s drug cartels almost bought a Soviet submarine.

In 2019, footage of a U.S. Coast Guard interdiction of a homemade drug smuggling submarine took the world by storm, and for good reason. As we watched one of the baddest dudes we’re ever apt to see anywhere outside of a movie pounding on the hatch of the mostly submerged sub, many of us were shocked to learn that drug cartels actually have their own submarines.

What may surprise you more is that these amateur submarines were really a consolation prize for drug smugglers out of Colombia. Their first choice? An actual Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. What’s even crazier, however, is that the Russians seemed to be more than happy to sell them one.

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They Made A Movie About This

BLUF:
As a species, we are not anywhere close to fully understanding the Earth’s incredibly complex climate system — or the extent of the role we humans play in it. And we certainly are not at a place where we need to scrap the efficient fossil-fuel energies that we know work in favor of “green energy” technologies that are not currently up to the task.

Unfortunately, Texas is currently finding that out the hard way

Severe Winter Weather Across Southern United States Blamed on Global Warming

In their frenzy to blame every bit of unusual weather on climate change (which used to be called global warming), climate alarmists have more than once claimed that the warming Earth can also cause hideous cold weather. Now, the horrendous wintry weather that’s been downing power lines and freezing windmills in Texas is being blamed on — you guessed it — global warming.

Today’s example of counterintuitive weather phenomenon comes from MIT climatologist Judah Cohen, who has been quick to attach the wintry weather in the southern United States to global warming. “The current conditions in Texas are historical, certainly generational,” said Cohen, who is also the director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research. “But this can’t be hand-waved away as if it’s entirely natural. This is happening not in spite of climate change, it’s in part due to climate change.”

Cohen was one of a slew of authors of a 2019 article linking a phenomenon known as Polar Amplification to extreme winter weather events. Polar Amplification — known in the northern hemisphere as Arctic Amplification — suggests that the polar areas of Earth are warming far quicker than mid-latitude and equatorial regions due to several reasons, a key one being the reported loss of sea ice, as open water reflects sunlight less than sea ice.

In a nutshell, the “out-of-control” warming of the polar regions supposedly causes big swings in the jet stream and also may weaken the so-called polar vortex, which allows extremely cold weather to escape further southward than usual. “The energy escaping from the jet stream bangs into the polar vortex so it starts to wobble and move all over the place,” Cohen said. “Where the polar vortex goes, so goes the cold air.”

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China Is Creating a New Master Race

  • “U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” wrote then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a December 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1.”
  • All these Chinese moves are meant to obtain “biological dominance.” “There are,” as Ratcliffe noted, “no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”
  • The experiment evoked the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a “master race.”
  • Shenzhen’s He [Jenkui], after an international uproar caused by news of his dangerous and unethical work, was fined and jailed for “illegally carrying out human embryo gene-editing,” but in the Communist Party’s near-total surveillance state he obviously had state backing for his experiments…. Beijing’s prosecution of He, therefore, looks like an attempt to cool down the furor and prevent the international scientific community from further inquiry into China’s activities.
  • “What is most disturbing about these endeavors is that China has gleaned access to CRISPR and advanced genetic and biotech research, thanks to their relationship with the United States and other advanced Western nations. American research labs, biotech investors, and scientists have all striven to do research and business in China’s budding biotech arena… because the ethical standards for research… are so low.” — Brandon Weichert, author of The Weichert Report and Winning Space, interview with Gatestone Institute, February 2021.

 

China’s regime does not have ethics or decency, is not bound by law, and does not have a sense of restraint. However, with its rapid weaponization of biotechnology, it does have the technology to start a whole new species of genetically enhanced, goose-stepping humans. Pictured: Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army march on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

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Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments

CARSON CITY, Nev. —

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state’s economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday.

The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

The measure to further economic development with the “alternative form of local government” has not yet been introduced in the Legislature.

Sisolak pitched the concept in his State of the State address delivered Jan. 19. The plan would bring in new businesses at the forefront of “groundbreaking technologies” without the use of tax abatements or other publicly funded incentive packages that previously helped Nevada attract companies like Tesla Inc.

Sisolak named Blockchains, LLC as a company that had committed to developing a “smart city” in an area east of Reno after the legislation has passed.

The draft proposal said the traditional local government model is “inadequate alone” to provide the resources to make Nevada a leader in attracting and retaining businesses and fostering economic development in emerging technologies and industries.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development would oversee applications for the zones, which would be limited to companies working in specific business areas including blockchain, autonomous technology, the Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, wireless, biometrics and renewable resource technology.

Zone requirements would include applicants owning at least 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) of undeveloped, uninhabited land within a single county but separate from any city, town or tax increment area. Companies would have at least $250 million and plans to invest an additional $1 billion in their zones over 10 years.

The zones would initially operate with the oversight of their location counties, but would eventually take over county duties and become independent governmental bodies.

The zones would have three-member supervisor boards with the same powers as county commissioners. The businesses would maintain significant control over board membership.

The governor’s economic development office did not respond to questions about the zones Wednesday.