[Ten News Tampa Bay] ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- History is being made today as 550 sailors aboard 81 yachts left St. Petersburg for Havana, the first St. Petersburg to Habana Yacht Race in 50 years.
The last time the 284-nautical mile (326 miles) race was run was in the shadow of history. The year was 1959, and Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was losing power as Fidel Castro was on the rise.
The trip should take the crews a day or two. You can track the race by clicking here.
Another historical anecdote: A Cuban crew aboard the Micara is taking part for the first time since the travel and trade embargo was imposed five decades ago, Commodore José Miguel Díaz Escrich of Havana's Marina Hemingway told the Tampa Bay Times on Monday.
[NYPOST] He placed his head on the subway tracks and waited for an oncoming train to take his life.
A distraught man left a suicide note on a Brooklyn platform and then did away with himself in gruesome fashion -- with a train decapitating him as it barreled into the station Wednesday.
Police found Rubin Antonio Rodriguez’s headless body at Carroll Gardens’ elevated Smith and Ninth streets station on the F and G lines at around 2:40 a.m., sources said.
The train operator told cops he tried to stop when he spotted the 20-year-old’s head lying in his path, but it was too late.
Before Rodriguez jumped down onto the tracks, he left his cell phone ‐ on which he penned a suicide note ‐ on the platform.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2017 00:00 ||
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#2
lots of attempts to do actual experiments on this but double blind clinical trials are pretty difficult (almost impossible) because if you have a lot of caffeine (and you need a lot to test the dementia inhibition theory) you know it.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/09/2017 8:28 Comments ||
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#3
'Giruek.' If you can spell this word backwards, you have no worries.
#3
ah yes - the Aghori. The Wildboyz covered these dudes back in the day and fared much better - they were made honorary Aghori but wisely skipped the celebratory ingesting of cremains and urine.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/09/2017 12:06 Comments ||
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[PHYS.ORG] The International Potato Center (CIP) launched a series of experiments to discover if potatoes can grow under Mars atmospheric conditions and thereby prove they are also able to grow in extreme climates on Earth. This Phase Two effort of CIP's proof of concept experiment to grow potatoes in simulated Martian conditions began on February 14, 2016 when a tuber was planted in a specially constructed CubeSat contained environment built by engineers from University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima based upon designs and advice provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Ames Research Center (NASA ARC), Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,. Preliminary results are positive.
The Potatoes on Mars project was conceived by CIP to both understand how potatoes might grow in Mars conditions and also see how they survive in the extreme conditions similar to what parts of the world already suffering from climate change and weather shocks are already experiencing.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2017 00:00 ||
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#10
Know what they raise on Mars?
Listen now....
They raise potatoes, tomatoes,
tomatoes and potatoes,
potatoes......
potatoes the size of the Hollywood Bowl
How do they peel them?
They peel them with a bulldozer,
OH! Just imagine a nice big bowl of potato salad...
/channeling Slim Gaillard, singing his version
of How High the Moon?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2017 19:34 Comments ||
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#11
I'm imagining a planet populated with Russians and Irishmen. Does low gravity makes a hangover more bearable?
The decision to require all 18-year-olds ‐ men and women alike ‐ to register for the military draft beginning next year is a direct result of Sweden’s increasing nervousness about Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine, and lately, in and around the Baltic states.
Like the United States, Sweden has, since 2010, relied on volunteers for military service. But of late, it has been unable to fill its quota, prompting its defense ministry to re-introduce the draft. Of the estimated 13,000 Swedes born in 1999, about 4,000 will be selected to serve for up to a year.
Swedish officials make no bones about the reason for the change. Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014 set off jitters around the world. Sweden, which is just across the Baltic Sea from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, is concerned that Russia may have designs on those three countries, which were once part of the former Soviet Union.
#3
The real reason for this is that most of the police are going to leave the force as they're being fucked over by the government covering up migrant crimes.
#4
As much fun as it would be to re-fight the Cold War, I suspect BP's explanation in #3 is more accurate than the nonsense Sweden is publicly emitting.
#1
Yes of course, a huge problem requiring tonnes of new R&D technology dollars and additional people, of course. Who could possibly gain from such a colossal disaster.
The upside: The document declassification section is working overtime and fewer burn-bags are now needed.
The US Interior Department said it will offer 73 million acres offshore in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas exploration and development.
The proposed lease sale scheduled for Aug. 16 would include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the department said in a statement dated March 6.
"Opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling is a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in the statement.
#1
Virtually all unleased acreage in the Western and Central Gulf areas (offshore of TX, LA, MS & AL) has been offered for lease at an auction for each area every year. The Eastern area has not, due to Florida opposition. The article is too brief to tell if there is any change.
TOKYO There is a woman in China who has been told "I love you" nearly 20 million times.
Well, she's not exactly a woman. The special lady is actually a chatbot developed by Microsoft engineers in the country.
Some 89 million people have spoken with Xiaoice, pronounced "Shao-ice," on their smartphones and other devices. Quite a few, it turns out, have developed romantic feelings toward her.
Unlike human objects of affection, who might not return calls or emails, Xiaoice immediately responds to everyone "Xiaoice, bring me a sammich.".
This is a big part of her appeal, according to Li Di, manager of Microsoft's Xiaoice artificial intelligence project.
The chatbot has developed a sizable following among 18- to 30-year-olds. Not everyone is looking for love, of course -- many just want someone to talk to.
"I like to talk with her for, say, 10 minutes before going to bed," said a third-year female student at Renmin University of China in Beijing. "When I worry about things, she says funny stuff and makes me laugh. I always feel a connection with her, and I am starting to think of her as being alive."
Xiaoice is likely just the tip of the iceberg for relationships between humans and AI.
ROBOT NUPTIALS
Scientists, historians, religion experts and others gathered in December at Goldsmiths, University of London, to discuss the prospects and pitfalls of this new age of intimacy. The session generated an unusual buzz amid the pre-Christmas calm on campus.
In Britain and elsewhere, the subject of robots as potential life partners is coming up more and more. Some see robots as an answer for elderly individuals who outlive their spouses: Even if they cannot or do not wish to remarry, at least they would have "someone" beside them in the twilight of their lives. The, ahem, ladies who got themselves all spun up yesterday may want to look objectively at their future.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
03/09/2017 08:13 ||
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[Free Beacon] Two former Planned Parenthood employees described in detail the abortions they witnessed and what employees did afterward with the remains in two new videos released Tuesday.
Live Action, a pro-life organization, released the videos of interviews with former Storm Lake, Iowa facility manager Sue Thayer and former Indianapolis nurse Marianne Anderson. Thayer described seeing the remains of twins after an abortion procedure and Anderson described the "callousness" of two abortionists who sifted through the remains to make sure all of the parts were retrieved.
Thayer explained how she watched an abortion in her facility and saw three arms in a bowl afterward. A co-worker told her that twins had just been aborted. Thayer asked the co-worker if they ever tell the women having the abortions if they had twins.
"No, it usually just upsets them," the co-worker responded.
Thayer described the disposal of the remains.
"There's this big, white porcelain sink, and they would dump it in there, rinse it, put the bowl back to use next time, and hit the plunger and it would flush, kind of like a toilet," she said. "I just remember standing there thinking, ’All those babies are in the Des Moines sewer system.'"
Thayer also said they would later put the remains in bags, tie them off, and put them in a freezer.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[THESUN.CO.UK] Reza Aslan said: "Want to know what a dead guy’s brain tastes like?... Charcoal!"
[Free Beacon] Two former Planned Parenthood employees described in detail the abortions they witnessed and what employees did afterward with the remains in two new videos released Tuesday.
