I don't "get cable", can't comment on the show.

On the event, it's widely reported that Adam's last words were: "Jefferson still lives."
though by that time TJ was assuming room temperature.

As there's minute left, one more point on the 4th.

KG3's log entry for July 4, 1776 was:
"Nothing of importance happened today."

In a dissertation, or peer-reviewed study perhaps.

But not so in a recreational current events BBS at a date site.

I haven't cyber-known you long IF, but long enough to know you could find fault with it, you'd already have posted it.

So the absence of it satisfies me you didn't find any, on that specific issue.
Candidly, your is a circuitous route to validation, but will suffice.

Thanks for it, and happy Independence Day.

The Drake equation: the estimation of other intelligent life in the universe, named after Frank Drake

For human life to exist on Earth, we NEED the water cycle.
Water evaporates from the oceans, gathers in clouds, condenses in cold air, precipitates out back down to Earth, flows from ground to stream to river, and back to ocean.

If a roughly Earth-sized planet is too far from the star, the H2O will never melt, and no H2O cycle will occur.
If too close, the H2O will boil away, never condense, no cycle.

It's the goldilocks zone that matters.

Considering the variables:
- the size of the planet
- the size and energy output of the star (white dwarf, red giant)
- the distance of the planet from the star *
is there a way to maximize the accuracy of applying Sir Francis Drake's equation by noting the ratio of the goldilocks zone, to the total possible planetary range?

* There may be a way to fudge this. A planet a little closer to the star, but a star that's a little colder than our sun may provide near identical terrestrial conditions.
So such SETI search may not necessarily exclude stars that aren't precisely like our sun.

"be honest" SH

"Honey" honestly replies:
"Oh NO my most deeply beloved!
You butt makes that dress look way, way, weigh too small!"

I'm not talking bad about candor or integrity.
But:

It's "honest" if a guy tells his fat dancing partner:
- "You know, for a fat girl, you don't sweat much." -

Honesty is a prerequisite to a viable relationship with me.
But honesty must never be used as an excuse to insult or hurt feelings.

Thanks for the topic S2.

S2 & 2A,
can you help?

One of my sources asserted heatwaves kill more humans than all other meteorological phenomena combined. More than:
- lightning
- tornadoes
- hurricanes
- floods
- blizzards
- cold-snaps
- etc.

After I read that, I read assertions that contradicted it.
Do you know which is true? *

These are some Canadian geese that stopped by on my pond for a brief visit. They don't seem interested in minnows, seem to prefer vegetation.
They hand around a while, and then take off.

Thanks for stopping by birdies!



A while ago, perhaps 10 years ago or so, there was a heatwave in Paris, France that reached 100F.
The banner headline in the local Paris newspaper read:
10,000 dead in heatwave

10,000!
Can you imagine?!



We mourn as a tragedy losses less than half of that, in a War that lasted years!

Yet those reported French losses occurred only over a few days time.

Is heat the greatest meteorological killer of humans, or isn't it?

S2

Unquestionably!

I'm not new world order. That's POLITICAL.

I was addressing BIOLOGICAL.

It's a hole nuther thing.

a) Kudos to the magnificent efforts of all including logistics & healthcare workers for their bravery in stomping out outbreak #1.

b) Regarding outbreak #2:
Our solar-system is already overcrowded.
There are already over 7 billion humans infesting Earth alone, with a few more in outer-space.

We make too many demands on resources:
- water desperately scarce in California
- famine common in North Korea and Africa
- atmospheric carbon reaching potentially lethal levels
- etc.

A nice healthy plague that would kill off about 2/3 of Earth's human population might help us along a little bit.
- what little petroleum is left would last three times as long
- real estate prices would moderate, as market demand would be diminished
- food could be more abundant, famine reduced
- etc.
Therefore: Don't sweat the petty stuff, and don't pet the sweaty stuff.

sigh
a
narah

Thanks I1.

Certainly. There are surely countless other criteria.

I'm trained as a scientist.
So when practical, I avoid qualitative criteria, and prefer quantitative criteria.

I've often read that the most famous of the Townsend Act taxes, the tea tax, was three pence per pound.
But no report I've ever read expressed it as a percentage.
But I found a PhD candidate historian and asked.
Here's what she wrote me:

My thanks to KD for this information.

So ct, how much tax do you pay on tea these days?

Perhaps in some sense.
But I think it's more realistic to think of citizen rights vs government authority as inversely proportional.

"Government is not supposed to be efficient." ct

Ironically ct, I asked my high school history teacher what the most efficient form of government was. He said: "Benevolent Despotism."

You may have inferred what I did not imply.

EVERYone else may. That's immaterial.
My question was not, are we the only ones?
My question was:

The question stands.
In less than 10 minutes it will be July 4, 2015 here in the Eastern TZ.

It is this historic anniversary and matters related thereto that this thread was intended to be about.

We pretend to like peace.
But in the new millennium we've been at War more than one War per decade. That doesn't seem too peaceful to me. I suspect that's above average, planet wide.

Not only does the U.S. spend more on military than any of the other 27 NATO member nations.
The U.S. is reported to spend more on military than all 27 other NATO member nations, COMBINED!!

It's hypocrisy, and potentially self-delusion / propaganda.
If we like War so much, why must we pretend to like peace? "To thine own self be true"?

If President Bush (younger) thought Saddam had WMD, why did Bush not send Blix or Ritter back in there, find them, neutralize them, and remove them?

Nope.
Bush wanted Saddam out.
And as we can now clearly see; it has been an exceedingly costly U.S. foreign policy blunder; perhaps the worst in all history.

Thanks ct for your thoughtful insights here.
I appreciate your constructive approach.

It's disappointing, frustrating, and annoying (but not surprising) how content-free the race is so far.
Christie blustered about he's the kind of guy America needs right now. I don't consider that a policy position, in the sense germane to the venue.

Trump is the only one I know of that's riled anyone, but that's due more to fruitless insult than controversial political policy.
If he wants to discuss immigration reform, that's fine.
But calling immigrants rapists hardly seems presidential to me.

Neither I nor Karl Rove take Trump seriously.

Well S2, let's step back.

This escape from an ostensible high security prison has embarrassed New York prison officials.

It seems the prison brass is in a mad scramble to scatter some fairy dust on it; so they don't look like what they are.

Some very simple security / procedural policy changes could have prevented this.

And it's not merely the embarrassment of allowing two convicted murderers mingle among the tax-paying population.

It's the over a $million $dollar per $day cost of the fuster-cluck they squandered searching for these guys.

Within a few hours, NY spokesman was saying -they could be anywhere-; instead of looking for them within the reasonable range they likely could have reached on foot.

Obviously they want to throw somebody under the bus in a hurry; to get the heat off them.

But in such cases, it's not merely who they nail; it's who they don't nail.
If the superintendent is not the warden; then WTF are they doing about the warden?!

This whole thing has been bungled since before the start.
These are reportedly not cell-mates, but prisoners from adjacent, separate cells.
And early reports indicate Sweat says they were at it for months, timing it so the steam pipes they were to crawl through would not have steam in them (ie, the Summer months; this escape didn't happen in February).

I'm skeptical about early reports on such things.
I'll wait until the dust settles a bit.
But so far, there are some serious unanswered questions.

It's the 2nd paragraph of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence that gets most of the attention:

BUT !!

Most of TJ / DOI is a laundry-list of whining:

What do you think?

U.S. "citizens":
- pay a higher percent tax under their own rule than they did under KG3.
- Have more red-tape regulations opposed on them in the 3rd Millennium than they did as royal subjects.

And what of the tradition of Independence Day fireworks?
It's a thinly disguised representation of the carnage-causing munitions of (the Revolutionary) war.

Q1: Are the People of the United States better off under self-rule, than we'd be as members of the U.K. today?

Q2: Are the Peoples of Earth better off, with the U.S.A. up to its usual shenanigans?

Webb has an impressive r�sum�.

But I've read, he'd run to the left of Hillary.

Takes care of that.

What I don't understand 2A,
why is Bernie Sanders attracting larger crowds than any other candidate OF EITHER PARTY?!

wtf

Thanks C7.

"Superintendent"?

Is that a rank higher than a "warden", lower than a warden, or the role of a warden?

Thanks mm.

Not sure about the Irish guy you mentioned.

But iirc I heard Israel requested an approximate tripling of U.S. aid.

Don't hold your breath waiting for them to start impeaching themselves. You'll be a purple corpse long before there's any such action from them.

And senate!

But a one time purge would suffice.
And that wouldn't be too tough to arrange.

If I were a few decades younger, I'd do it myself, go to law school, and then affect the remedy.

There are many crimes in the U.S.
Jaywalking, illegal parking, etc.
Rape, kidnap, and murder are all quite serious crimes.

BUT !!

There is only ONE crime that's actually defined in the United States Constitution.
Only one.

That is Art.3 Sect.3
the crime of Treason, the crime the Founders knew was the most serious crime, because it's the one that threatens the State, and the whole People.

Please note:
This section lists two independent definitions.
EITHER definition is treason, according to our Constitution.

And most members of congress (MOC), w/ few possible exceptions such as Ron Paul perhaps, are party to treason, conspirators to treason against the United States of America;
if they ever voted to fund the Drug War.
And their votes are recorded in The Congressional Record, an official United States federal government document.

It's not a war against drugs. It's a War against the People, citizens of the United States of America. It is a martial usurpation of the Creator endowed, Constitutionally enumerated, unalienable right of Liberty.

As Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Milton Friedman explains, our Drug Warriors increase the (black market) profits of our ostensible enemies by ceding control of the commerce to them.
That covers the "giving them Aid and Comfort" part.

I hope the "levying War Against them" part needs no explanation.

So most MOC are conspirators to treason.
And while the Constitution specifies that it is Congress that decides the punishment for treason,
it also specifies that no citizen convicted of such crime can hold public office.

There you have it.

It would be as complete a purge of Capitol Hill as we could get, without nuking the capitol while both houses were in session.

And it is all 100% perfectly and exquisitely legal.

Yes.
I know.
My comment was confined to what I see around here.

Our Forest Rangers tend to drive big HD pickup trucks. One stopped by one Summer while I was out by the road, just to say hello. After a 5 minute chat he he drove away, but his truck was so heavy it left tire imprints on the pavement. Most vehicles don't do that.

No law enforcement entity has routine patrols out here.

If we need law enforcement assistance, we've got to phone it in; either:
- Forest Ranger, or
- State Police
- Sheriff's Deputy
- Codes Enforcement
- Dog Catcher (yup! We've got one, a very good one!)

But the Troopers I see around here, responding to incidents are usually in large cars, or Suburbans, though I know and have seen they have other vehicles too.

Well 2A,
Havana has seen better days.

Perhaps Conan said it best:

The sad thing is how badly degraded so much of that formerly elegant architecture is.

None the less, I gather it's a tropical paradise, at least climatologically if not politically.

- Bring a camera, and lots of "film" (whatever size batts you'll need)
- be alert to street security risks (don't loiter in dark alleys early in the morning)
- Have a great time.

NOTE:
There will be rules about what currency, what exchange rate, what plastic, and perhaps what WiFi you can use.
You may know all this, but some others that don't travel as much might know; you can spare yourself a lot of severe headaches by just doing a little study and preparation before you begin your vacation abroad.
It's almost like living in another country.

Seems like we've all noticed it RA.
S2 called it what it is: "conflicting reports."

You obviously know a lot about guns, terminal ballistics, etc.

S2's right. Here's one 2A posted:

This isn't the only place I read it was a sidearm.

You make a very sharp point.
If those are exit wounds (reportedly shot in the back), I'd be astounded he survived.
But I'm an amateur at that. I don't know whether they're exit wounds or not.

I appreciate your skepticism S2.

But let's make a distinction here:

The "conflicting reports" you cite I don't dispute.
The question is why.
I suspect the reason is; we're playing telephone.

The on-scene officer reports to their patrol sup.
The supervisor hands of to his next in command, and up the chain it goes.
Those guys are pros. They do this all the time. So I suspect they're fairly accurate.

BUT !!

Then there are press briefings.
The press liaison tries to make a coherent picture from the puzzle pieces he's fed one at a time.

His information goes to reporters most of whom lack the technical expertise to understand this stuff. So they make mistakes.

BUT !!

I extremely doubt the NY State Police would PhotoShop forensic documentation; PARTICULARLY in a case like this.
I surely hope there's no other police case this year that gets as much attention as this one.
And I assume it will get an IG investigation.

So I trust the pics.

One other thing S2:
I'm a life-long New Yorker.
In the past decade, I don't recall seeing NY State Troopers in anything smaller than a Crown Vic; that's their econo-box.
Usually I see them in these huge Suburbans.

And guess what:
State Police Suburban SUVs seem to me to ride lower than other Suburbans.
I don't know why that would be; except that I'm guessing they're simply crammed with so much gear, a Crown Vic can't carry it all.

And these guys cover so many traffic collisions, etc; I'm sure if they have that much gear, they'd quite likely have the stuff seen in the pics.

PS
If you're wondering about the proximity to the tree-line;
perhaps that's because the Trooper was better rested, and more lightly outfitted, and so was able to close on his target, thus not shooting from the road, but closed on him to get a better shot, closing until the suspect was 40' from the tree-line, and then double-tapped him.

I personally don't see any obvious conflicts here; just unanswered questions.

Yes RA. That's what I thought 3.
I suspect NY State Police may generally carry hollow-points rather than ball-ammo.

I don't know what to make of the bleeding chest. But I wouldn't exclude the possibility it's from a wound / injury not cause by a bullet.

Let's not forget, these guys were on the run for 3 weeks.
I don't know if you've ever had to stumble around in the woods, in the dark, with both dogs and COPs in pursuit. But picking up a booboo along the way one might want Mommy to kiss can't be ruled out.

Looks like a blood-stain on the left thigh of his trousers. I assume that's drippage from the chest, but possibly not. Could be a puncture wound from a stick, etc.
We've got some nasties around here. Not just brambles, but hawthorn trees, and even some bugs that might give him trouble.

RA,
Do you know anything about the officer's firing position?
- running?
- walking?
- standing?
- kneeling?
- prone?
- One hand / two hand?

A laser site might help, but I rather doubt that in this case.

Also:
Were the ones that caught Matt not Troopers, but Rangers?

I'm wondering whether that's merely different levels of training / competence; or these guys settled between them that one would live, and one would die.

I suspect the authorities that have been suspended are unhappy that Sweat is alive and singin', and the responsible authorities that want to clean this up are delighted.

That prison not only needs new management. It needs new procedures. Cell rotation might easily have prevented this escape.

& Why not a few motion detectors in those core / utility channels? Such detectors are dirt cheap. I use them for home security. They're fine, and even work remotely.