Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

This nation has been the witness to school violence with the first big incident being the Columbine High School in Colorado. We have had numerous incidents since then and today it has become almost a common event. Why do we need this kind of tragedy?
There may be several factors involved. One is the push to provide guns in every home, almost in every hand and that would serve the NRA very well as that organization pushes gun ownership. Not everyone wants a gun but at some point when all your neighbors are armed do you what to be the one without? The pitch that we must be ready to protect ourselves from, pick an enemy, Russia, North Korea, China, invasion of aliens, the take over of our government by the opposing political party, whatever. Stock up on survival goods and guns cause you are going to need them. Even the most level headed people can get tangled up in this web.
Violence is the answer, at all levels. Shoot first and ask afterwards. The roaring twenties had gangs roaming around robbing banks, killing rivals and just generally shooting up everything. These gangs were involved in illegal booze and prostitution and other crimes, but they were fighting one another and trying to stay away from federal agents. Today the agencies that are doing the most damage to secure power are members of or followers of a politician that once held the highest office in the nation, and hopes to again.
He advocates violence as a means to regain that position and also promosies to use violence on those that oppose him. Apparently this is fine with many people because he has support from some very wealthy people, who I assume hope he does not intend to harm if he wins. He also is not being called out by most of the nation’s news agencies, but that may be because those agencies are controlled by his donors.
It is telling that this level of violence and advocacy of violence is viewed as acceptable by teens and if the grown ups (?) can do it? Why should I do it differently? Violence covers our news with wars in multiple places. Movies depicting violence so they sell at the box office, even cartoons that depict fighting as the method to resolve differences. Then we turn on the nightly bull shit about the political crap and hear about threats of death being sent to members of juries that convicted and the beat goes on.
Teachers are leaving the classroom and lack of teachers is causing school districts to close schools. Without education we fall further behind in everything. Do we need to have a dictator that rules with an iron fist? Now we need to get back to civility and solving problems with the use of common sense. We need to take back our dignity and decency and rid ourselves of things that are destroying our society and way of life

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    The advocacy for bad attitude and violent reaction to issues has been promoted by the lack of honesty from all our political representatives. This has been an issue since they managed to take “We The People” out of the loop that determines their wages and benefits.

    That occurred in the 1960’s and since then we have seen more and more corruption and bribery at all levels of government. At present we have some super rich people that are doing everything they can to improve their lot by buying political representatives. They are destroying the middle class of the nation and thinking they are improving their position.

    The realization will someday set in that without someone to buy the products they are making that the money tree will no longer be producing money. When the system has only two classes, the very rich and the very poor, no one wins. History has shown that when the imbalance gets to the critical stage the overthrowing of power usually follows. 

   Are we at that stake? Very possibly only the need to realign our system will not be done by someone with only self serving greed as their driving motivation. Regardless of the hope about making the country great again, the intention is to see how much more can be stolen before our life ends. 

   The attempt to cheat the state of New York out of millions in revenue, the lying to cover actions that are viewed as immoral and all that was what got 34 guilty verdicts brought. Has it changed anything in the play book? Not a chance, the suckers supported through that and will continue to as long as the spin makes it seem like victim hood is our lot. 

   If the nation puts him back in power we will become the victims of even greater cuts than we have seen so far. All social support systems will be scrapped. Everything that can be exploited to discover mineral wealth will be exploited. For the few years he has left no major shift will be catastrophic but the policies that will be put in place will ultimately send this nation down the toilet. The only saving grace of that is that the rich will not survive either, without someone to support you and your lifestyle then all will come to an end.

   Our representatives and government officials need to have a code of ethics that does not allow for the crap we see today. This is of course, looking for the best from our fellow men and that is nothing more than a hope. The best has not been shown from any venue be it political or religious as power and greed seem to be the weakness that all succumb to eventually.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I ask the question because Dear Leader has proposed eliminating the income tax and instituting a base line 10% tariff on all imported products. This is essentially a regressive tax on middle and lower income people. I get the thought of no income tax sounds good but much to the dismay of the public a tariff is not a liability to importers because the corporations only pass the import tariff on to consumers. So let’s say your state has a sales tax of 7% and inflation is 3% that in itself is 10% to everything you buy now let’s add another 10% to that because as we know must of the things we buy are imported.

How tariffs are supposed to work is by causing an increase on the price of an imported product to encourage the purchase of non imported products leveling the playing field so to speak. The best way to impose tariffs is through federal legislation not by executive order because no company or industry will ramp up production of a product to compete with a tariffed import if that tariff only last 3-4 years. The mistake effective tariff lasts 10 years or more and also subsidizes the U.S. market of the tariffed product. Solar Panels is a prime example… tariff Chinese solar panels @100% but in turn subsidized American solar industry to ramp up production here so that in 10 years the American made panels are abundant more technology advanced and less expensive than the imported panels.

Tariffs are supposed to be designed to support local industry, not hurt local consumers.

The first words spoken on the telephone were, “Mr. Watson, come here.”

SCIENCE & INDUSTRY

The first phone call ever made was short, simple, and to the point. On March 10, 1876, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, uttered the first message ever transmitted over the phone: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Bell’s history-making call was to his assistant, the mechanic Thomas Watson, and it wasn’t exactly long-distance; Watson was sitting by a receiver just a few rooms away. But when Watson came into the room and informed Bell that he had heard each word clearly and distinctly, it proved to both men that this groundbreaking new technology was a success.

The power of his innovation was immediately apparent to Bell. In a letter to his father recounting the event, the inventor predicted that “the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas — and friends converse with each other without leaving home.” Bell’s vision, of course, proved remarkably prescient. His short phone call to Watson marked the beginning of a technology that quickly transformed the world. Though that first phone call was between two people in the same house, the telephone soon allowed people to speak to each other from separate homes, separate cities, and, by 1927, separate continents.

How Sunspots Work

By: Patrick J. Kiger  |  Updated: Jul 26, 2023

Sunspots’ Effect on Earth

Sunspots are connected with other solar events like flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A solar flare is a sudden release of energy from the sun, while a CME actually shoots hot plasma from the sun into space. The precise mechanisms that trigger flares and CMEs are not yet known, but the bigger the group of sunspots, the more intense such solar weather tends to be. Flares and CMEs can send enormous amounts of energy and charged particles hurtling into collision with the Earth’s atmosphere, where they can cause magnetic storms that disrupt or alter radio and cell phone communication and can wreak havoc with electrical grids. During the 1989 solar max, for example, a power surge triggered by solar energy damaged transformers that were part of the Hydro-Quebec power system. That surge left 6 million people in Canada and the northeastern U.S. without electricity for more than nine hours. Oddly, sunspot activity actually can help ham radio reception because the increased radiation causes the atmosphere to bend higher radio frequencies back toward Earth.

The increase in radiation that accompanies a solar flare is a theoretical health hazard to spacewalking astronauts, crew and passengers in high-flying aircraft, but there isn’t any evidence that people have actually gotten sick from such exposure.

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It’s unclear if there’s a link between solar weather and changes in the Earth’s climate, because our planet’s climate is influenced by so many other factors — from volcanic eruptions to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. The Maunder minimum in the 1600s and 1700s, when there was almost no sunspot activity, coincided with a period of cold temperatures and severe winters in Europe and North America. However, scientists haven’t been able to determine if the two phenomena were actually related, though they think that a decrease in the sun’s ultraviolet emissions may have triggered the change in climate.

What Was Earth’s Population Through History?  

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• ILLUSTRATION OF HUMAN POPULATION

Today, it’s hard to imagine our entire planet populated by fewer people than we currently find in a single major city. And tens of thousands of years ago, it would have been shocking — and quite possibly terrifying — to imagine a world in which humans had built settlements as vast and crowded as those that exist today. 

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Population growth has, for the most part, been a long and steady process. But while it took most of human history for the population to reach 1 billion, it  took only a little more than 200 additional years to hit 8 billion. Because of this rapid growth, the face of our planet and the influence that we’ve had on it have shifted massively in the last few centuries. Where it will all lead is an open question. But one thing is certain: People are currently living longer than ever before, and as things stand, the population will only continue to grow. Here’s a rundown of the world’s population throughout history, from prehistoric times to the present day. Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Prehistoric Times

Historians believe that around 55,000 early humans walked the Earth some 1.2 million years ago. By the end of the last ice age — about 20,000 years ago — the population had risen to about 1 million members of Homo sapiens. Over the next 15,000 years, as human societies improved, the population increased more rapidly. By 5000 BCE, the world population was at least 5 million, and some estimates go as high as 20 million. But even that higher number is still less than the present-day populations of cities such as São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo.  

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Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Antiquity

Classical antiquity — the period that saw the original Olympic Games and the first of Homer’s epic poems — began in the eighth century BCE. During this time, the global population was an estimated 50 million to 100 million. By 1 CE, the estimated population was at least 170 million. A significant chunk of this population was soon controlled by Rome. The Roman Empire reached its height in 117 CE, comprising all the land from Western Europe to the Middle East, with a total population between 50 million and 90 million people. 

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Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages, or medieval period, lasted from around 500 CE to 1500 CE, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance era in Europe. The greatest growth occurred in Europe during the high Middle Ages, when developments in agriculture, the rise of cities, and a decrease in invasions helped the population swell from 35 million to 80 million between 1000 CE and 1347 CE. Then disaster struck. Between 1347 and 1351, the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) ravaged the continent, killing some 20 million people — at least 30% of Europe’s entire population. It took until the 16th century for the population of Western Europe to once again reach pre-1347 levels. 

Globally, the worldwide population during the medieval period is estimated to have been at least 190 million in 500 CE, rising to around 425 million by 1500 CE. One of the greatest dents in the global population outside of Europe was caused by the Mongol invasion of China. Beginning in the early 13th century under the command of Genghis Khan, the war led to the deaths of tens of millions of people — at the time, the global population was around 360 million.

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Related:5 Facts About England’s Elizabethan EraCredit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

Renaissance Era

The Renaissance period in Europe spanned from the 15th century to the early 17th century, and can be seen as the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity in the West. The era saw a demographic shift as European powers colonized much of the Americas. Trade routes and colonies were founded, and nations began to engage in empire building. The worldwide population grewfrom around 350 million in 1400 to about 545 million in 1600 — a significant amount, but nothing compared to what was to come next.  

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Credit: Illustration courtesy of Madison Hunt

The Industrial Revolution 

The Industrial Revolution changed nearly every aspect of human society. Previously, birth rates and death rates were both very high, keeping the global human population comparatively stable. But when the Industrial Revolution began around 1760, improvements in technology, agriculture, medicine, and sanitation brought about a massive population growth spurt. In Western Europe, with people living longer and infant mortality on the decline, the population doubled during the 18th century from around 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again in the 19th century to roughly 400 million. Globally, a population landmark was reached in 1804 when the number of humans on Earth reached 1 billionfor the first time.  

Today — and Beyond

It took many thousands of years for the human population to reach 1 billion. But once that figure was reached, the growth rate became mind-boggling — and a source of concern due to the potential overpopulation of our planet. By 1950, the global population reached an estimated 2.5 billion. Today, the number of humans stands at a staggering 8 billion — and is currently growing by more than 200,000 people each day. According to the United Nations, the global population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion in the next 30 years, and could peak at around 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    Judging by what is reported by most of the mainstream news sources they must all be owned by Trump supporters. This in itself should be a crime as the biased nature of what makes the news is protective or at least supportive of Trump’s position. The 34 crimes he was charged with are compound crimes. Cooking your books is bad enough but to do it in pursuit of winning an election, for the presidency puts the extra burden on it that got this case tried. Even though he was found guilty on all 34 counts there is no positive indication that any kind of punishment will be applied. No one else in this country could get away with so much without being held accountable.

     There are three other cases that need to go to trial before the election and at best we can only expect to see one get there and that depends on the Supreme Court actually upholding the constitution. That is a really big question. If they vote in favor of total immunity we can only hope that Biden takes the bull by the horns and makes sure he stays in power and that Trump never get close to the WH. The court could, in fact, be writing their own pink slips with the action they take in this case.

     Since they have such disregard for the Constitution then what is to stop the sitting President from either firing all the justices he does not agree with or disbanding the court altogether? The Constitution did not create the court that was done by Congress so what if the President disbands it? 

    Many of the things that have occurred in the last few years need to be terminated in reference to the Supreme Court. The extravagant gifts and money that has been bestowed on the justices and their spouses needs to cease. Corporations need to be eliminated from person status. Life long tenure on the court needs to be reconsidered especially when considering health issues both physical and mental.

    As to the point of health, we need to look at all representatives on those issues. Some of the people currently serving in Congress appear to be very unstable mentally and being mentally ill and making decisions does not play well. Are they crazy? I really don’t know but if we go with “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, chances are it is a duck” theory then it is probably a duck. 

   Do we need for these people at all levels of legislation to be human, yes. We also should expect that they be knowledgeable in reference to the Constitution and hold them accountable in making decisions that do not serve the greatest good. Everyone in this nation deserves equal consideration whether you are rich or poor, black or white, were born here or chose to move here, we are all equal, we all piss yellow and bleed red.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

In lieu of the Supreme Court knocking down the ban on bump stocks and tired old meme that gun don’t kill people, people kill people, I really can’t deal with this stupid argument. The Supreme Court ruling came down today and I was told what’s the problem guns don’t kill but the same person refuses to have stricter regulations on purchasing firearms.

The comparison that pencils don’t misspell words or that cars kill people are over blown and really ridiculous. Your child can’t accidentally kill themselves if they find a pencil and cars have a great number of regulations in order to buy and operate so please stop this nonsensical rationalization.