August, 2019

“We call this an artificial tongue because it acts similarly to a human tongue – like us, it can’t identify the individual chemicals which make coffee taste different to apple juice but it can easily tell the difference between these complex chemical mixtures,” says Alasdair Clark at the University of Glasgow.

The tongue has two different types of metal tastebuds, which provide more information about each sample and allows a faster and more accurate response. Once liquid is poured over the metals, measuring how they absorb light reveals some of its properties...

🚨BREAKING🚨: Homeland Security Chairman Thompson & Ranking Member Rogers sent a letter to 8chan owner Jim Watkins demanding he come before Congress and answer questions on the site’s extremist content.

cc: @infinitechan pic.twitter.com/8SDSI1rFLj

— House Homeland Security Committee (@HomelandDems) August 6, 2019

Today, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Committee, sent a letter to Jim Watkins, the owner of the website 8chan, to request that he appear before the Committee to answer questions on what is being done to address the proliferation of extremist content on his platform. According to media reports, the killer who carried out the August 3rd domestic terrorist attack in El Paso, Texas, posted a manifesto describing his anti-immigrant, white supremacist beliefs on 8chan.

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Update 22:15
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“This message was identified as spam.” Just making sure you received it, @HomelandDems. pic.twitter.com/8K3JNpHPzp

— 8chan (8ch.net) (@infinitechan) August 7, 2019

Gov. Ron DeSantis is requesting that state police conduct an independent investigation into the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex abuse case and incarceration about a decade ago.

Specifically, the probe will focus on a work-release agreement Epstein had with the Sheriff’s Office and an agreement he reached with prosecutors.

“Floridians expect and deserve a full and fair investigation,” DeSantis said in a prepared statement.

Castro, whose district includes much of San Antonio, claimed the donors “are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'” Castro is the twin brother of Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro and chairs his presidential campaign...

"First of all the El Paso shooter posted on Instagram not 8 gen later someone uploaded a manifesto however that manifesto was not uploaded by the Walmart shooter. I don't know if he wrote it or not, but it was not uploaded by the murderer that is clear, and law enforcement was made aware of this before most people had even heard the horrific news..." - Jim Watkins, owner of 8Chan

Watkins said "the El Paso shooter posted on Instagram, not 8chan," and according to CNET, a spokeswoman for Facebook acknowledged that they have disabled an account tied to the suspected gunman on Saturday but the account hasn't been active in more than a year. On another note, it looks like the manifesto was posted by a troll or planted by disinfo agents on the message board to force an agenda.

A federal judge has sentenced a former lieutenant to Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo " Guzman to 28 years in prison after rejecting prosecutors' claims that he offered Chicago street gang members $25,000 to beat a government witness. Judge Ruben Castillo said 35-year-old Jesus Raul Beltran Leon must pay the price for being a "very significant drug dealer" during the sentencing in Chicago on Tuesday.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is teaming up with the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota and The Ohio State University to produce digital elevation models of the world through a project called EarthDEM. By feeding satellite images of an area from different angles into the Blue Waters supercomputer, the team will be able to create 3D models of the terrain. Blue Waters is one of the most powerful and fastest supercomputers in the world, capable of performing more than 13 quadrillion calculations per second.

While the NGA is charged with producing geospatial intelligence and maps for other intelligence agencies, war fighters and policymakers, it also provides publicly accessible mapping data for navigation or disaster relief efforts...

In a three-page letter, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-.N.Y., asked the National Archives to complete its review of documents initially requested by the Senate last year. Nadler noted that the House will soon weigh legislation that would codify conduct rules for Supreme Court justices... according to Nadler, tens of thousands of documents still remain in the possession of William Burck, a private attorney hired to process Kavanaugh’s records for the Senate. Democrats bristled at the arrangement, arguing Burck’s proximity to Kavanaugh made it impossible for the attorney to be impartial. Burck served under Kavanaugh when they worked at the White House together under former President Bush.

“While many in law enforcement have faced attacks by this president, Pete Strzok has been a constant target for two years,” Aitan Goelman, a partner with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP and one of Strzok’s lawyers, said in a statement. “It’s indisputable that his termination was a result of President Trump’s unrelenting retaliatory campaign of false information, attacks and direct appeals to top officials.”

Goelman added: “The lawsuit shows that, in bowing to the president’s desires, FBI leaders trampled Pete’s free speech and due process rights in ways that should be deeply troubling to all in government, and indeed, to all Americans.”...

The newly-discovered ultramassive black hole resides in Holmberg 15A, a supergiant elliptical galaxy located in the center of a group of over 500 galaxies called Abell 85. Holmberg 15A’s ultramassive black hole is estimated to have a mass of 40 billion times that of the Sun. “This is the most massive black hole with a direct dynamical detection in the local Universe,” the researchers said... “This black hole is not only one of the most massive known, it is also 4 to 9 times larger than expected given the galaxy’s bulge stellar mass.”

Looking at the data from the Mass Shooting Tracker, widely utilized by the media, as of this writing, of the 72 mass shooters, perpetrators in shootings that killed or wounded 4 or more people, whose race is known, 21 were white, 37 were black, 8 were Latino, and 6 were members of other groups.

51% of mass shooters in 2019 were black, 29% were white, and 11% were Latino.

Three mass shooters were Asian, two were American Indian and one was Arab.

... are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite all that has been said to the contrary. It all sounded good until I watched Kevin Cernekee, a Google engineer, say terrible things about what they did in 2016 and that they want to “Make sure that Trump losses...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

...in 2020.” Lou Dobbs stated that this is a fraud on the American public. @peterschweizer stated with certainty that they suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Trump. All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

Check out what @Google is up to for the 2020 election! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/roM2WNmUSP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey both attended services last weekend at Rev. Robert E. Fowler Sr.’s Victory Missionary Baptist Church in Las Vegas, while Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont held a town hall at the church last month. The Mercury News reported this week on the pastor's history, noting it's unclear whether the three candidates knew about his views -- which weren't exactly hidden. The Las Vegas Review-Journal covered the provocative pastor in 2017 and Fowler himself spoke publicly about the subject long before that.

A Twitter account that appears to belong to Dayton mass shooter Connor Betts retweeted extreme left-wing and anti-police posts, as well as tweets supporting Antifa, or anti-fascist, protesters. The most recent tweet on the @iamthespookster account was on August 3, the day of the shooting, when he retweeted a post saying, "Millenials have a message for the Joe Biden generation: hurry up and die." The user's Twitter bio reads: "he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / I'm going to hell and I'm not coming back." One tweet used the hashtag #HailSatan.

At first glance, the handwritten postcards and letters look innocuous, even warm, sometimes signed off by “Uncle T.” or “Your uncle, Father Ted.” But taken in context, the correspondence penned by disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to the young men he is accused of sexually abusing or harassing is a window into the way a predator grooms his prey, according to two abuse prevention experts who reviewed it for The Associated Press. Full of flattery, familiarity and boasts about his own power, the letters provide visceral evidence of how a globe-trotting bishop made young, vulnerable men feel special — and then allegedly took advantage of them.