MicroB

Look up Ginggaew Lorsoungnern. She was executed by machine gun (10 rounds) in Thailand in 1979. Well, so they thought. She woke up in the morgue and started screaming and walking around. She had Situs inversus, so her heart was on the opposite side. At first they tried to roll her, to bleed her out. Then one of the officers tried to strangle her, but that didn;t work, so they dragged back into the execution room, tied her to the post and tried again, this time with 15 bullets. They had another execution lined up right after. Because of the botch, the second prisoner had to wait 10-15 minutes. Even that was botched. First time, 13 bullets, but he was still breathing. So they reloaded and put in another 10. Personally, if you are going to have capital punishment, it needs to be by the most horrific but quick method possible. If the state has the power to take a life, it needs to live with the consequences. Guilotine, unwashed. Witnesses to be present. Doctor on hand to confirm death by holding and presenting the head to the witnesses. The witnesses and staff can live with the memories. Fictionalised execution of Gary Glitter. Under the British approach, the condemmed would not be given an execution date or time.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/03/07/united-russia-criticized-for-gifting-meat-grinders-to-fallen-soldiers-mothers-a88281

I think there might be a lot of these things in the region Though it might be a replica.

I'm surprised by the size of the firing squad; 3 prison officers, who all volunteered. I'm not sure if they had 1 live round between 3 or 3 live rounds. Surprised not a 7 man squad. Or if there is objection to the Chinese approach.

Well the subject is whether Ukraine is a country or not. For some, if its not a country, then war is justified on the grounds that Ukraine should be considered an internal matter. But on the other hand, the 13 colonies were, at one time, never a country, and had to fight for their Nationhood in essentially a Second English Civil War, which resulted in a schism between the English peoples. It's forgotten, but it took over 100 years for the British and Americans to be fully reconciled. Its like falling out with your kid brother. Wait, that's the Russian attitude towards Ukraine, calling them little Russians, but not in a nice way. Its forgotten, for most of the 19th Century, we were not friendly nations, though most of that ire came from the west. Some of it became quite heated, with William Harvey, who lead the predictably named Patriots of America Party, calling for the complete extermination of the English. Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom. But Irish, and some American politicins will still call it the 6 Counties, and refuse the accept the settled position. There are people in Northern Ireland who will refuse to consider themselves as Irish. Here it gets really complicated. All people of Northern Ireland will support the Irish Rugby side, because that rpredates partition. But there is no all Ireland football side, and support for the Northern Irish football team. Now in reference to the website you found. It reveals a complex history, no different to the complex history of all of Europe. You might as well say Germany isn't a real country, nor is Italy, Denmark, Norway and indeed Eire. Of course I should be calling Eire the Republic of Ireland, because Eire was a word used by those who didn't consider Ireland to be a country. Of course Ukraine is a real country. Its as much a real country as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and indeed the United States of America. There are nutters out there who believe these aren't legitimate countries. What you are parroting is the line coming from Vladislav Surkov, the Grey Cardinal, who created Putin's policy. He considers the notion of being Ukrainian t be a mental illness. A distinct Ukrainian language emerged in the 14th Centry, 300 years before your country even existed. The Ukrainians then were the Cossack Slavs, who wanted rid of their Polish--Lithunanian masters. While they felt closer to the Muscovites, they wanted to become independant, and were nearly put on a pathway to becoming a western-leaning state with the failed Treaty of Hadiach. The Poles ceded the territory to the Tsars, and then started a Cossack insurgency against Moscow, which culminated in the Russians utterly destroying Zaporizhian Sich 100 years later (the semi-autonomous Cossack state), thus snuffing out Ukrainian yearning for independance. This is where it gets similar to England and Ireland following Cromwell. Cromwell worked to snuff out any sense of Irishness, in the same way the Csar did the same to the Cossacks. I think Ireland shows you can't eradicate a culture nor a sense of nationality. Ukrainian intelligentsia kept alive the Ukrainian language, in the same way that it was Irish elites in the late 19th Century who worked to revive what was thought to be a dead language (recent US moves to declare English the official language of America shows how important language is to a nation). If you want to debate your belief that Ukraine is not a real country, as a way to justify your support of the Moscow communists, fine. But you cannot try and twist that debate to exclude genuine historic parallels. This is what the Bolsheviks do; try and shut down debate and come up with a false history. Since you seem to be a Bolshevik, I welcome your view as a communist in this debate. Communist China does the same; try and deny that Tibet is a country, and more recently, they try and delegitamize the Republic of China.

Slightly off. Harold was an Anglo Saxon. He was born in Wessex (West Saxon) but was basically Danish. Athelstan booted out the Cornish from Exeter 200 years before the Norman invasion. The Normans (Norsemen) were themselves not of France. Ulster politics can be pretty messed up, and much more complicated than what outsiders think, even British outsiders!

Yeah, they should (or downgrade relations). China operates secret police stations from their Embassies. Glad you agree with that sentiment. The US recognises the wrong Chinese government, if one wants to put a cat among the pigeons. The Beijing government are illegal usurpers. Such a change would reverse the mistake done by Trickie Dickie, which essentally facilitated the rise of the PRC, which otherwise would have withered as some sort of enorous hermit state. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65305415 .

Where does he stand on Northern Ireland and Puerto Rico? In Northern Ireland, the loyalist terrorists would fly Israeli flags on street corners. Republican terrorists would fly Palestinian flags on street corners. These are truely screwed up pledges of unity and common cause.

An act no doubt more palatable if the Colonies recognise that 1776 was an enormous mistake and the American President can become the Governor General, and wear a cool uniform, if His Majesty is up for it. United Empire Loyalists descendants can finally go back and reclaim the property stolen from their ancestors who merely wanted to obey the Law. Boston Tea Party plotters can be finally exposed for being the collaborators they were (selling tea to the enemy etc). More like the United Stats provides the eleventth through 61st Provinces of a Greater Canadian Confederation. Based on population, Canada being the 51st state (in reality, 13 additional states (provinces and territories) would give them 26 seats in an expanded 126 seat Senate and 50 seats in Congress.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61666339 https://ir.tesla.com/corporate/elon-musk So he's a Tesla employee, but working remotely.

Need some South African light hearted song writing

So is he reforming the whole process of appointments of prosecutors in the US, removing the power to appoint or remove prosecutors from the power of the Executive? If he is doing that, more power to him. But I suspect he is not, merely appointing people based on ideological loyalty, continuing a cycle.

The wife was 65 years old. Not a ripe old age. Died 2-3 days into an infection.

When you have advanced AD you literally don't recognise a phone as a phone. Why would he need a maid?

It might not be that odd if they were a couple wanting to live a very private life. Since 2020, they were basically recluses. His wife was 3 decades younger than him. What happened to her seems to have been a freak occurence. The mortality rate of hantavirus is 50%. The wife had picked the dog up from the vet on the 9th Feb. This was the dog that was found dead. She was dead by the 11th Feb. The medication found was for a thyroid condition. The house was on an isolated 12m acre estate. Its not the sort of place where neighbours wave at each other on driveways. People with AD really have cognition problems. My father would never step on a black mat, because he throught it was a giant deep hole. He had lived in the same house for 40 years, but was convinced he was in a hotel. My mother had been a paraplegic for a decade, but he was convinced she was faking it, and on occasion lifted her out of the wheelchair throwing her on the floor, insisting that she should walk. He would wander out into the garden at night, sit down on a garden seat and defecate, thinking he was going to the toilet. People who find it a mystery why Hackman didn't pick up the phone don't have any experience of AD My parents had an emergency line installed by the RBL, who wanted a £1000 a year for a telephone answering service (not a hospital hotline). It was canceled. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is 5 years. My father was put on medication that they promised would extend his "good years". He died 62 months after diagnosis.

Alzheimers is not a single disease; its a syndrome resulting in a similar symptoms. For instance, some forms are caused by Type 3 Diabetes. About 25% of cases are related to Herpes simplex, and then you get into an autimmunity disease. Those benefiting from the ketogenic diet are likely to be those with impaired glucose control, ie T3D.

The thing is this was a propaganda photo designed to how plucky North Vietnam was taking the fight from the fields to the mighty Uncle Sam; David versus Goliath. In truth, the NVA had trucks, lots of them. Pack animals were mainly used in more remote trails. But Russia is the Goliath here. And the video being posted is not produced by the Russian Army filming unit showing the latest innovation in semi-autonomous, self driving, biodegradeable composite quadrapeds, but video from hacked off Russian squaddies requesting transport and getting sent donkeys. But what's curious; we are told that Russia has now pivoted its economy to a war economy, cue footage of tank production lines, with often middle aged production workers refurbing old T64s. Then footage of Russian soldiers in 40 year old Ladas and 1960s doormobiles. But they have entire car factories, such as Lada, who could be churning out light, fuel efficient transport based on ripped off Fords and Renaults. But they are not. Instead, those factories still operating are producing showroom stock.

In addition, the German reunification agreement forced Germany to scrap thousands of T72, T64 tanks from the DDR (some brand new), which they could have held in reserve. Germany must have reserves, because they fetched all those Marders from some place. remember, at the time, the UK and France expressed grave reservations about German unification, so there wasn't the mood to make the German Army too powerful.

While it was said in the context of Europe increasing defence spend (and there is an analysis that suggests the gap between US and European real spend might not be as great as at first glance, onceyou take into account US non-NATO spend in the Pacific and the DoD effective 60% wastage rate (60% of what the DoD buys they lose), there is a big elephant in the room to why Europe needs to turn to the US. 5,580 of them. Only 3 countries in Western Europe can realistically possess nuclear weapons; the others individually have economies too small to sustain the enormous cost (the burden in the US is 10% of their defence budget). France has always maintained its own seperate nuclear capability, a decision that now looks prescient. The UK, following a decision in 1958, essentially handed its stockpile to the US, and in return, purchases warheads from the US stockpile, and rents the missiles themselves from the US. The missile launching equipment in the Vanguards is entirely US supplied. That might have been a pragmatic decision taken at the time, when the UK was losing pretty much all of its weapons testing sites. Post war, the US actively prevented Germany from becoming a nuclear power in several ways, First through occupation army orders, and then through the NPT. Indeed the whole reason the US pushed the non-proliferation treaty was to prevent West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons. Technically, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands have access to around 60 free fall B61 (and other) weapons through the NATO sharing agreement (from US stockpiles, but hosted at national airbases). Canada also has access to some. Perhaps the US will like to donate these, and relieve itself of the maintenance burden. On the eve of WW2, the forces ranged against Germany collectively more than outweighed it, and there was already a degree of interoperability since so much was French. But the free nations were disunited in the face of Nazi aggression, preferring to believe the personal assurances obtained by negotiators at Munich, than tackling those 5th columnists in their own countries who wanted to cosy up to the Germans. In 1950, the US had more than enough people to take on North Korea all by itself, but was grateful for a coalition of united nation troops. In Vietnam, both South Korea and Australia let materiel support to the US. The UK provided more convert support. Yet North Vietnam was a tiny, poorly equipped country facing a superpower. In 1991, the US had enough power by itself to eject Iraq from Kuwait, but valued its allies, chiefly from Britain and France. The British are said to have performed a critical role, through RAF bombing runs, and through the Royal Tank Regiment support of lightly armed US Marines. Multinational patrols in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere have supported the US in maintaining the freedom of trade against a decrepit Iranian navy who had little more than speedboats. When America requested the support from NATO members to support their war against some farmers on donkeys armed with SMLEsm and flipflops, they responded to that call. Of the Western nations, only one country has prosecuted a war in modern times with an adversary anywhere near peer, on their own, and that was Britain, and its war against Argentina over the Falklands. I don't recall the US arguing then that the Falklands weren;t a country. The US wars in Greneda and Panama really don't count. US Presidential Remarks, 25th May, 2017.

"Care in the Community" is a euphemism. It refers to when the UK government started closing psychiatric wards and hospitals, claiming people with mental illness could be better treated in the community, car in the community, than in hospital. Of course many were, and were already being treated in the community. But it lead to many more people who were a danger to themselves and others, being on the proverbial street. The film gave legitimacy and validation to many paranoias, as have some some subsequent real events shown. Its forgotten that the film, not long after, inspired a couple of deranged kids to live out a fantasy, that they were living in an imaginary world, donned some leather coats and went on a machine gun rampage at their school. The Cortical Labs PR has a whiff of Theronostics about it. Neuron-based computing is not that new, but its still quite conceptual Cortical Labs could have selected other animal models; they could have selected fly (drosophila) neurons for instance, if all they wanted to do is create a biological computer consisting of billions of on-off switches. But that didn't pay the bills. The main application of cultured human neuron cells, or an organoid, is in drug research, primarily toxicology testing, as an alternative to animal testing. But also such models can be used to study drug candidates, but even that is a huge way from progressing a drug molecule from neuron cell to patient. Virtually all drug candidates for Alzheimers have failed. There is no cure, but as expected, research is showing etiology to be complex, and eventually a treatment might be nothing to do with neurons. Human cells were picked because the major application is drug research. If I was selecting a cell line to build an actual computer for an industrial application, I wouldn't pick human cells, or even a mammal cell. Shark neurons are just as functional, but offer greater practical applcation due to the physiological conditions of the shark body (lower temperature, different osmality). I think this PR is just an investment raising wheeze in an era when suddenly there is huge amounts of VC cash sloshng around. Theronostics was a company that claimed to have a diagnostic tool that could perform complex clinical tests on capillary blood. Capillary blood is finger prick blood. The business case was for consumers to walk into a pharmacy, and get all their bloods done while they waiting, empowering their involvement in their own healthcare. It was a terrific concept, and Walgreens saw a huge opportunity to cut out the hospitals, and save people lots of money. The company also had this apparent genius from England who had designed a nifty machne that apparently could do it. Only the machine didn't work. It did have some interesting technologies in it, when I assessed it, but some fundemental flaws. The company carried out fake testing, by buying in actual lab equipment, to try and fool the investors. The inventor was under so much pressure to get this device to work he killed himself. Elizabeth Holmes was the PhD dropout CEO with the strange deep voice (which was put on), a sort of tech "sis". She's now doing 11 years for fraud.

Life imitating art. The film that fueled a 1000 conspiracies and weaponised Care-in-the-community.

The United States was just those 13 colonies. So California, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and all the bits in between were never American? The Declaration of Independance was just an in-joke, joshing with King George. GThey didn't expect to be taken seriously.

Besides your understanding of Probability being a bit shaky; 2 and 4 are basically the same; the Establishment is the proverbial Wall Street. But also you believe its twice as likely that the American President is seeking to destroy the US economy than it is to bow to the undefined forces that some would contend have controlled the USA for nearly 250 years. If these decisions are eminating purely from him (I don't think they are, more from people who have gotten his ear), its more likely based on his experience in property development and how he thinks that can be applied to international relations and the world economy, which suggests, charitably, naivity. He thinks he shares the same qualities as other world leaders, and that he believes he has gotten to where he is through merit, because America is a meritous society; you work hard, you succeed. He would think he worked hard in business, and succeeded. Similarly, he'd think he worked hard in politics, and succeeded through votes at the ballot box, because he had to work hard to get those votes (hence his innate scepticism that anyone he thinks couldn't work hard shouldn't be earning votes). Putin and Xi also worked hard to get where they are, but worked in a different way, through guile and manipulation, because their rise to the top is having a deep understanding of process, and therefore key pressure points. The American President likes the North Korean leader, because they are both their father's sons, left a legacy, and both with ungrateful siblings/family. I don't think the US President is sitting in his office with behind him a geological map of Ukraine, a printed out spreadsheey from the Commerce Department to his left, a Bible to his right and a copy of the Constitution in front of him. He's being manipulated by people who see either someone like minded or someone open to suggestion, or both. Much has been talked about "Project 2025" which on the one level seeks to reorganise government, reduce its reach etc. Nothing it is is new, if one recalls the Bonfire of the Quangos. On one level, it claims to want to return America to is original or true values; this is the nonsense bit, because straight away it's generating a Ivanhoe- version of American history based around stories like the Shepherd of the Hills. Its been done before. "Britain" as a nation is a relatively modern 19th Century concoction, based on largely fictious accounts of Boudicia, Henry V and so forth, necessary to forge what was actually a new nation. Himmler did the same with the German Volk; he invented the fantasy for Hitler of Teutonic Knights, Germania and Buxom serving wenches, necessary to get people around one idea. I don't think the people behind "Project 2025" are Nazis or fascists, even though they might fit some definitions. But there are obvious contradictions in their message; reduce the reach if the state (reduced departments, good), increase the reach of the state (state role in personal morality, mostly bad). The 20th Century was this big struggle between Capitalism and Communism. Capitalism was the broad church; within capitalism, you had the liberal democrats such as Thatcher and Reagan, the social democrats such Gandhi, Brandt. Mitterand, Sanders, rubbing shoulders with absolute Kings and military dictatorships, who all mostly believed in the system of commerce and how we act with one anther. Communism was a narrow church; there wasn't that much difference between Pol Pot and Brezhnev really. As Communism crumbled, then you saw people try for so-called third ways. India, with the non-aligned movement, which was deeply protectionist (India protected Indian jobs, but with the result crap cars), Iran, with political Islam, which actually was quite a sophisticated ideology. Capitalism drew inspiration from the nebulous "markets". Communism based its legitimacy on the equally nebulous "masses". Political Islam based itself on the nebulous word of God (which extended to commerce). Political islam, as a single movement, fell apart for the same reasons it did 1200 years ago; no one could agree what that word of the Sky Fairy was. Capitalism seemingly won the 20th century, with political Islam quickly heading into irrelevance (backward countries no one was interested in). The early 20th Century saw Capitalism start to crumble, with the 2008 Crash causing many people to seriously question how they wanting to live. For some that meant turning to past failed ideologies of socialism/communism, fascism/nazism. The Arab Spring saw governments that were largely part of the Capiitalist tent being overthrown, and being replaced by we-don't-know-what-as-long-as-its-different chaos. I think a second American Revolution is underway, with the purpose to upend everything you know about what America is. That will likely shock people opposed and supportive of whats happening. Some might call it Oligarchy, call it Technocracy. Technocracy isn't new; its another 3rd Way that believes Experts (the Technocrats) should be in charge of government; superficially that sounds attractive. Of course you want someone who knows what they are doing running a ministry, wouldn't you? The government can be trusted to run the country, because they are experts. A vote is not important, because the experts already know the direction to take, and voters aren't experts. Voters can vote for things that don't alter that direction. Eventually there is nothing worth voting for. By then, life is more like Benign Feudalism; we are happy for the life we lead, but have no say it it., because of the rule of the Trusted Experts, who must be expert because they are so successful in life. The Proponants might say that this change, dedemocratisation, is necessary, because in 50 years time its going to happen anyway; people won't be runnng a country anymore, but machines will. Interest rates, if they are at all relevant, won't be set by election-watching ministers or committees of bankers but by machine. Wars are waged by win-loss calculations. Medicines dispensed based on personalised genomics. This is either halcyon days where we all sit around all day counting butterflies, while our manservant Robot Jeeves brings us our perfect steak/ Pad Ka Prow Moo every day. Or its a nightmare of killer robots cruching mounds of human skulls.. The late James Lovelock's vision is the Novocene; AI, technology rules us, and tends to use like we tend the roses in a garden. We like roses in our gardens because they look and smell nice. The Earth is a biosphere; life on earth, including humans, have created a benign environment quite unlike the harshness of Mercury, Venus and Mars, where electronics struggle to maintain reliability. So AI will look after us because we are important to the survival of AI. And then people talk about the Matrix, and anther rabbit hole/ But this 3rd Way might be as doomed as the others, It places too much faith in the infallability of technology; the expectation that technology will get better and better. Technology only gets better when people maintain focus. People get bored, the products becomes stale, technology whithers ("good enough"). Capitalism fails because too much faith in the markets, which get upended by bad faith (human behaviour). Communism fails because of too much faith in the masses (alturism, it turns out the masses like genocide). Islamism fails because it turns out the word of God is <deleted> spouted by an illiterate drug dealer. Musk, if he's one of the architects or adherants to technocracy is autistic. So he gets bored quickly. He obsessed about electric cars, and transformed the car market. he's bored of electric cars (Teslas are a bit old hat now, haven't really progressed in 10 years). He brought Twitter to make it the App of Everything. It now has less users. He's bored of that. His current obsessions are pumping out kids, and in his Aspergers head that will mean growing babies in pods, because thats a technocrat's faith in technology. He will get bored of that. He wants to go to Mars. Pretty sure he won't go to Mars, and he will be bored of rockets blowing up on the launchpad. Revolutions need chaos. From chaos comes order, and that's the intent. Create chaos that you can pin the mistakes on the failings of a person (a fall guy who will be dead soon), and then introduce the technocratic solutions to unpick these mistakes. People will be fully on board with that. Come 2028, world trade will be in a mess, with hideously complicated tariff systems, and no one really happy. Americans won't be happy as they can no longer buy Scotch Whisky after the distillers pulled out of a non-profitable market in 2027. The Chinese are stuck with fake Burberry after the firm decided to stop selling Chinese made products in European markets. Australians miss Japanese cars, when all they can buy are cardboard Chinese pickups etc. Someone will propose a technological solution to balance supply and demand, so that everyone can buy Scotch whisky, Chinese Burberry and Japanese pickups., and we'd lap it up as prices come down, but in a good way (disinflation is normally a pretty bad sign in an economy). People will get sick of 5 years of Slavs swearing at each other over a table, fighting over bombed out industrial cesspools, home to only some cats and babooskhas, and will impose technological arbitration. Decisions imposed by assurance forces, who are sat in Switzerland controlling remote drones equipped with enforcement measures. But the reality is the world will be in a mess. Treasury App 1.0 needs an upgrade after a 10 year old in Lesotho, with HIV, hacked it, and caused Vanuatu, now underwater (because one decided to leave the electric taps on all night), to be the richest country on Earth, and makes President Barron Knauss a one legged woman, because computer said no. Technological arbitration fails after the 50,000 AI-enabed loitering drones with a 50 year battery life decide to broaden their definition of aussurance to a wider area because someone didn't realise there is a New York in Ukraine, but also one in, er, New York, and declares everything between New York City Ukraine and New York City USA to be in the DMZ and go on the rampage, making it the most impacting city twinning decision in history. Computer says No.

I think she is proposing extending NATO-like protection to Ukraine, rather than changing the terms of the treaty itself, which will never happen because that needs an Article 12 process, and I'm not sure if there is a unaminlous agreement requirement for such changes. Then there is Article 8, which governs what treaties members can enter into outside of NATO. For instance, the US signed in 2019 a mutual defence pact with Greece. You might think why would Greece and the US need this given there is NATO. It was do with the US having the ability to ship LNG into the Balkans to weaken Russian influence in the region, as well as clear strategic interests in the Bosphorus in lite of what was then a resurgent Russia. Part of the Great Game. If the US chooses to recognise the legal status of the occupied Donbas, they might claim a conflict with the UN Charter 9right of self determination etc). on the basis they would suddenly recognise referenda as being fair and legitimate. Meloni's political positions are significant; she is generally assumed to reflect the thinking of the US President, and is his effective representative in the EU Council of Ministers.