Appears the US National Anthem is offensive and is not to be sung in the US Capital according to Capital Police. Today's example is a child's choir who had pre-authorized a performance.

Who would have thought we would get to this point?




Outrageous! Children’s Choir Stopped Mid-Performance While Singing National Anthem at US Capitol, Capitol Police Claims it is a Form of “Demonstration” (VIDEO)

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06...le-singing

Quote:[i]Editor’s note: The man talking to the choir director was one of the guides who was told by the Capitol police to walk over and stop the choir immediately.
[/i]

In a shocking turn of events, the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir was interrupted and stopped while singing the National Anthem in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol.

The children, part of the esteemed Rushingbrook Children’s Choir, had traveled to Washington, D.C. last Friday, May 26th, for a scheduled Capitol tour and had received prior approval to sing a short set of patriotic songs inside the historic Statuary Hall.

However, as their angelic voices filled the grand hall while they sang [i]The Star-Spangled Banner [/i]with pride, one of the guides intervened, as he was told by the Capitol police that the children stop singing immediately. The abrupt interruption stunned the young performers, the choir director, and the assembled audience.

The Capitol Police did not allow the young children to finish the song and sought to explain to the choir director that singing the national anthem at the nation’s Capitol is considered a form of demonstration and/or might offend someone.

Ah yes, we all knew this was coming. I can't wait until they ban the sale and possession due to "hate speech"

Some expect the churches who preach traditional morality will be next.


https://www.ksl.com/article/50657730/dav...r-violence

Quote:The individual also included an eight-page document of specific Bible verses to substantiate their claim that the Bible includes many examples of the sensitive materials that have led to the removal of other books.

"You'll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has 'no serious values for minors' because it's pornographic by our new definition. Get this PORN out of our schools! If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk," the person wrote.

Quote:In the beginning, a parent filed a challenge to have the Bible removed from Davis School District libraries, citing passages describing sex and violence.

The district said let there be a review of the book. And it was so.
Now, the committee appointed by the district to review the complaint and decide if the Bible is appropriate for students to access has made its determination: High schools in Davis will keep the religious text on the shelf.

But it will be removed from elementary and middle schools for containing “vulgarity or violence.”
That decision on the book challenge — which gained national attention when it was first reported on in March — will take effect immediately, said Davis School District spokesperson Christopher Williams in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune this week.

‘Oppenheimer’ Earns R Rating, Imax Film Prints Are 11 Miles Long and Weigh 600 Pounds!

Quote:Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is officially rated R, Variety has confirmed with Universal Pictures. The film is Nolan’s first for the studio after his lengthy tenure at Warner Bros., where he directed tentpoles such as “Interstellar,” “Inception” and his Dark Knight trilogy. “Oppenheimer” will be Nolan’s first R-rated feature since 2002’s “Insomnia.”

The director confirmed last month that “Oppenheimer” is the longest movie of his career yet, running just shy of the three-hour mark. What does that mean for prints of the film? The Associated Press reports that “Oppenheimer” is so long that Imax prints are “11 miles of film stock” that “weigh some 600 pounds.” As is par for the course, Nolan shot the movie using large format film camera. Universal Pictures has now made tickets available for the film in premium theaters such as Imax 70mm, 70mm, Imax digital, 35mm, Dolby Cinema and more.

Nolan told AP that the “best possible experience” for viewing “Oppenheimer” is the Imax 70mm film format. However, that format only exists in 25 theaters across North America. Some of those venues include the AMC Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles, the AMC Lincoln Square in New York, the Cinemark Dallas, the Regal King of Prussia near Philadelphia and the AutoNation Imax in Fort Lauderdale.

“The sharpness and the clarity and the depth of the image is unparalleled,” Nolan said. “The headline, for me, is by shooting on Imax 70mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear. You’re getting a feeling of 3D without the glasses. You’ve got a huge screen and you’re filling the peripheral vision of the audience. You’re immersing them in the world of the film.”

Large format theaters are also essential to experience the sound design of the film. Nolan movies have been criticized in the past for simply being too loud, but it sounds like “Oppenheimer” might blow the roof off theaters when it comes time to showing the Trinity Test, which marked the the first detonation of a nuclear weapon.

“We knew that this had to be the showstopper,” Nolan told AP. “We’re able to do things with picture now that before we were really only able to do with sound in terms of an oversize impact for the audience — an almost physical sense of response to the film.”

Nolan has already revealed he was able to simulate the explosion of the atomic bomb without relying on VFX. “Oppenheimer” follows theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he leads the Manhattan Project and creates the atom bomb to end World War II. Cillian Murphy stars as Oppenheimer opposite Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh and more.

“Oppenheimer” opens in theaters July 21.

Yahoo! Entertainment

The Air Force trained an AI drone to destroy SAM sites.

Human operators sometimes told the drone to stop.

The AI then started attacking the human operators.

Soooo, then the programmers trained IT to not attack humans.

IT started attacking comm towers so humans couldn't tell it to stop.




Across the pond, the war machine gathers...Lessons learned from the battlefield...

Quote:Highlights from the RAeS Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities Summit

On 23-24 May the Royal Aeronautical Society hosted a landmark defence conference, the Future Combat Air & Space Capabilities Summit, at its HQ in London, bringing together just under 70 speakers and 200+ delegates from the armed services industry, academia and the media from around the world to discuss and debate the future size and shape of tomorrow’s combat air and space capabilities.

The topics ranged from lessons from the current war in Ukraine, resilience and agile operations, interoperability, space, multidomain operations, future sixth-gen platforms, low-cost drones, loyal wingman, to training, cyber, simulation, AI, deterrence and hypersonics and even speculative fiction’s role in predicting the future. The Summit had an extremely strong international presence – including speakers from the US, France, Germany, Brazil, Greece and Japan, representing the intense interest in building up national defences in the face of new and emerging threats. Organisations and companies represented included the RAF, NATO, USAF, UK Strategic Command, French Air Force, Luftwaffe, Brazilian Air Force, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Draken Europe, Reaction Engines, Freeman Air and Space Institute, Cranfield University, RUSI, British Army and Royal Navy to name just a few, giving an extremely wide range of views, thoughts and opinions. The Q&A sessions too, were notable in lively, pointed and extremely robust questions, with delegates showing no signs of running out of things to ask panellists and speakers.   
With so many speakers, and dual track sessions it is impossible to cover all the presentations in an article such as this, and this will only provide a snapshot of what was two days of intensive and thought-provoking presentations and a flavour of what was discussed. Let us take a look at some of the highlights.

Quote:....

Stringer pointed to new NATO Member Finland as providing some genuine insights into agile combat employment (ACE), now becoming a buzzword among Western air forces as they rediscover forgotten Cold War skills, calling their approach “rather impressive” and asking ‘how do we generate something like that?”

AM Phil Osborn, Strategic Advisor to Lockheed Martin, concurred in a later panel, saying there were: "Significant lessons to be learnt from [Finland] on resilience" and adding that the current strategic situation is one of most complex ones that West has faced.

....

Some five years on from the UK revealing the ‘Tempest’ mockup as the core future fighter for its Combat Air plan at Farnborough Air Show, Herman Clausen, Managing Director FCAS, BAE Systems, gave an update on GCAP from the UK industry point of view as the lead company in Team Tempest. The effort has now gone global and expanded with the addition of Japan as a partner on the programme in December – as well as the goal of flying a supersonic, stealthy demonstrator within the next four years, to support an ISD of 2035.  Clausen said “We are now well into the UK Concept and Assessment phase and we are getting ready in the next 12 months for the outline business case number two”. With the supporting evidence and technology assembled, and given the full ‘go’ decision by UK Government, “Our next major milestone after that is launching the full blown design and development programme at the start of 2025” said Clausen. In the UK, alone, the enterprise involves some 580 companies and organisations from traditional aerospace OEMS to academia and even video gaming and Formula One. The FCAS programme now employs almost 3,000 people directly, and most significant of all, 1,000 of these are new graduates – helping shift the demographics of the UK’s military aerospace sector to a younger, more diverse workforce of ‘digital natives’.

...


2Excel Aviation are now on the hunt for engineers to covert a Boeing 757 into a future fighter lab. (2Excel Aviation)

While much of the effort towards FCAS is going on behind closed doors and in classified facilities, there was a peek behind the curtain when Chris Norton, Co-founder and Director of 2Excel Aviation described his companies work into converting a Boeing 757 into a sixth generation fighter airborne laboratory to support the Team Tempest effort.

....




“In warfare you need an understanding of who your adversary is, what their strategic objectives are and how they have a capability to achieve those objectives,” he opined.  “Here we are looking at across a much wider, holistic spectrum, which is largely unregulated and your adversaries could be almost anybody. It could be a foreign state actor, a hostile intelligence service, a terrorist organisation, a protest organisation or a lone wolf. Then we need to ask what they are trying to achieve; is it a ISR or surveillance effect? Are they looking to achieve some form of external communications or propaganda effect? Could it be a disruption or other malintent?”

...


The potential threat posed by China was highlighted by many speakers at the summit, not least Air Cdr J Blythe Crawford, Commandant ASC, Air & Space Warfare Centre. “The changing character of conflict is such that we are now in what many have described as the dangerous decade,” Crawford began by saying. “Theorists have long wondered what we would do after the unipolar world that we've lived in for the last 15-20 years had evolved into something else. We've seen lots of actions from other state actors and competitors such as China and Russia, collaborating to try and push us back towards a multipolar world.”

He went on to emphasise that the mere character of past conflicts was traditionally confined to the air, land and maritime spheres, whereas we have now started to move into space and cyber domains. “These were already mature environments thanks to commercial entities” he explained, “but we [the military] are not in the same league in terms of innovation and capability development compared to our civil counterparts. They are moving much faster than we are and continue to accelerate away from us.”

“They are using Starlink for communications, Anonymous is conducting offensive cyber operations on their behalf, and they are even using Twitter for the geolocation of targets and crowdsourcing data online.”

Meanwhile, he cautioned those who automatically assume that organisations like Starlink and Anonymous would take the side of the UK military in time of need. “What happens if we end up in a conflict of choice rather than one of necessity?” he asked. “Some of those entities may not agree with our moral imperative and may decide to either remain neutral or even commit to the side of the opposition.”

Quote:

As might be expected artificial intelligence (AI) and its exponential growth was a major theme at the conference, from secure data clouds, to quantum computing and ChatGPT. However, perhaps one of the most fascinating presentations came from Col Tucker ‘Cinco’ Hamilton, the Chief of AI Test and Operations, USAF, who provided an insight into the benefits and hazards in more autonomous weapon systems.  Having been involved in the development of the life-saving Auto-GCAS system for F-16s (which, he noted, was resisted by pilots as it took over control of the aircraft) Hamilton is now involved in cutting-edge flight test of autonomous systems, including robot F-16s that are able to dogfight. However, he cautioned against relying too much on AI noting how easy it is to trick and deceive. It also creates highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal.

He notes that one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with a SEAD mission to identify and destroy SAM sites, with the final go/no go given by the human. However, having been ‘reinforced’ in training that destruction of the SAM was the preferred option, the AI then decided that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission – killing SAMs – and then attacked the operator in the simulation. Said Hamilton: “We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.”

He went on: “We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

Quote:[UPDATE 2/6/23 - in communication with AEROSPACE - Col Hamilton admits he "mis-spoke" in his presentation at the Royal Aeronautical Society FCAS Summit and the 'rogue AI drone simulation' was a hypothetical "thought experiment" from outside the military, based on plausible scenarios and likely outcomes rather than an actual USAF real-world simulation saying: "We've never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realise that this is a plausible outcome". He clarifies that the USAF has not tested any weaponised AI in this way (real or simulated) and says "Despite this being a hypothetical example, this illustrates the real-world challenges posed by AI-powered capability and is why the Air Force is committed to the ethical development of AI".]

Vintage UFO detector instruments, gadgets, gizmos, apparatus, & contraptions from the good 'ole days...including 21st century gimmick crap.

The 1973 GEOS-10. Compact and "Swiss"-made, for a cool $13.95 ($93 in 2022 USD)


Newspaper clipping from The Modesto Bee


Ornapress UFO detector Geos-10 Swiss Made Vintage


A 1974 DIY circuit diagram, fun for the whole family!





UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography (1969)


Contemporary device by Images Scientific Instruments, Inc. Total crap, looks terrible, needs a stupid app. Plenty of false positives, this thing gets fooled by a magnet even in the promo video!





Perfection from UFO Review:



UFO Review Flying Newspaper 1979


In 1953 the Canadian gov was planning to build a flying saucer observatory, led by the Dept of Transportation & Defense Research Board.


St. Louis Post-Dispatch


This 1964 UFO detector passed muster with Manilla Barber, a witch and retired Commander in the US Navy Nursing Corps.


The Philadelphia Inquirer

Quote:Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the lunar exploration program, made the statement in an interview with China Media Group (CMG) prior to the eighth Space Day of China, which fell on Monday this year.

Wu said the Chang'e-6 mission is expected to retrieve lunar soil samples from the far side of the moon in around 2024, which will be first time humankind will collect soil samples from the far side of the earth's natural satellite.

Moon-centered deep space internet

The chief designer also revealed China's plans to construct a moon-centered deep space internet to enhance connectivity and navigation for future spaceflight missions, according to the chief designer.

"We are building a satellite constellation around the moon, a system that can provide communication, navigation, and remote sensing services. After that, we can carry out future deep space exploration," said Wu.

"Afterwards, we will also build a moon-centered deep space internet comprising functions such as communication, navigation, remote sensing, etc. By doing so, we will be able to turn our earth-centered space infrastructure into a moon-centered system that can be extended to a broader scope in the solar system. With the internet, the moon will have access to TV programs, games and the WiFi network. And astronauts will never get bored on the moon," he said.

"The international lunar research station built by China is open (to international partners). We welcome the participation of developed countries such as the United States and European countries. We also hope that BRICS countries and some underdeveloped African countries will join us. We have put forward an initiative for all to sign contracts, deals or strategic agreements of intent," he said.

China formally established its lunar exploration "Project Chang'e" in 2004. In December 2020, the Chang'e-5 lunar probe brought back 1,731 grams of samples from the moon, marking the completion of the three-step lunar exploration program of orbiting, landing and return.

Chicom media

Quote:The year is 2069. After decades of unprecedented technological progress, humanity is on the brink of achieving interplanetary colonization. Against all odds, SpaceX successfully lands astronauts on the Red Planet.

As the astronauts exit their landing module, they make a discovery that will redefine humanity's understanding of our place in the cosmos. Embedded in the rust-red dust, they find ruins of ancient stone structures - columns, archways, even what appears to be remnants of bathhouses and villas.

The architecture appears unmistakably Roman in style. Carbon dating suggests they are at least 2,000 years old. How did such structures end up on a planet humans have never before visited?

The most incredible theory begins to take shape: ancient Romans somehow achieved interplanetary spaceflight, colonizing Mars in antiquity before ultimately losing the ability to reach the Red Planet.

The ruins represent an "outpost" of the Roman Empire, forgotten for millennia...

Colonus Mars

It is a heavy beast for anyone who has had to carry a rifle for long periods of time; sling or not. Some salty language when the Cons are covered so snow flakes or more sensitive and adverse to strong language might want to avoid the con part of the video.

Quote:Tuberculosis on the Rise: Here’s What to Know About the Disease
FEATUREDInfectious Diseases

George Citroner
Jun 1 2023
biggersmaller

(Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock)

0:006:06






Over the past few years, we have experienced isolation, mask-wearing, and significant behavioral changes in response to a declared pandemic.
As that emergency fades into the “new normal” of our post-COVID world—the mass migration of people into Western countries is setting the stage for something potentially worse.
The escalating influx of individuals from various regions has led to an unprecedented situation at the U.S. border, raising concerns about the introduction of tuberculosis (TB) and other infectious diseases not widespread in the United States.
New U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data published in March found that tuberculosis cases increased by 5 percent in 2022 to 8,300 cases in the United States.
Tuberculosis on the Rise
By the time the bacteria that caused tuberculosis was identified in 1882, the disease was killing an estimated 1 in 7 people in the United States and Europe. TB remains the leading cause of infectious disease globally as an airborne disease transmitted through coughing and sneezing.
The rise of drug-resistant TB poses challenges for effective treatment, with over half a million cases reported in the past year. Additionally, TB infection after COVID-19 has become more prevalent, raising concerns about potential outbreaks in the post-pandemic world.
Prompt treatment is crucial for individuals with active TB, Dr. Sarah Lee, chief resident for emergency medicine at Northwell Staten Island University Hospital in New York, told The Epoch Times. Symptoms such as coughing up blood, night sweats, fever, and weight loss can worsen without intervention. “Without proper treatment, about two-thirds of people with active TB will die,” she added.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan recently announced that the continuing arrival of migrants bussed north from states on the southern border is also bringing several diseases, most notably TB.
So far in 2023, the five boroughs of New York City have reported a TB rate over twice (pdf) the national average, with Queens experiencing the highest number of cases. Specifically, Flushing, Queens, has been severely affected, with a TB infection rate over three times higher than the city-wide average, primarily impacting recent immigrants.
In a letter (pdf) to doctors and health care administrators, Vasan notes a significant number of individuals who have recently arrived in NYC have either resided in or traveled through countries with high rates of TB. To address this issue, Vasan requested that all individuals who have recently arrived in the city from these countries and have not undergone TB screening be promptly assessed.
In 2022, nearly 90 percent of TB cases in the city occurred among individuals born outside the United States, and almost 80 percent of TB-infected individuals born there were non-Hispanic black or Latino, according to the NYC Department of Health.
Identification and Treatment Are Key
Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, stressed the importance of accessible diagnostics, such as chest X-rays. “So we can do a chest X-ray and say, ‘Is your chest X-ray clear or not clear?’”
Clear X-rays indicate latent infection, treatable with medication. In the case of active infection, doctors obtain a sputum sample to check for antibiotic resistance. “We can identify, because we’re in the U.S., what the resistance factors for antibiotics are,” Nachman said. In the United States, doctors can identify the specific antibiotic resistance factors, like rifampin or multidrug resistance, she noted.
There is a range of new-generation TB medicines available, such as bedaquiline and delamanid, to effectively treat multidrug-resistant TB in the United States, Nachman added. “So I want to say that the dangerous part is closing our eyes and not looking for it, as opposed to identifying and treating it.”
Neglected or incomplete treatment of patients with multidrug-resistant TB can lead to its spread in the community, making the disease more difficult—and potentially impossible—to treat.
In the United States, treatment for TB is free for the uninsured because TB is a declared public health hazard. “You don’t need to pay for your meds; you don’t need to pay for anything,” Nachman said. “We can get you in and get you treated and get you on meds.”
TB Vaccine Is Not a Perfect Solution
An easy solution to rising rates of TB in the United States should be vaccination against infection, according to Nachman. A vaccine, bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), has long been available against TB.
The vaccine isn’t effective against intra-thoracic TB and only “somewhat effective” against miliary TB, a potentially fatal form of the condition, which can lead to disseminated TB or TB meningitis, according to Nachman.
“So people thinking, ‘I’ve got a BCG vaccine, I’m not going to get pulmonary TB,’ the answer is actually, you will,” Nachman said. “We don’t have anything better.” The complexity of the TB bacteria makes it difficult to determine which antibodies or components can offer protection.
Another problem, according to Nachman, is that TB is primarily transmitted through close and ongoing household contact rather than casual encounters. She emphasized that the risk of spreading TB is significantly higher in overcrowded living conditions.

Quote:
A United Airlines jet is taxied to the gate at O'Hare International Airport in 2020 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
Travel
These Are the Best and Worst Airlines in the US
BY Tribune News Service TIMEMay 20, 2023 PRINT
By Lebawit Lily Girma
From Bloomberg News
American travelers have had more than their fair share of ongoing pain points with U.S. airlines this past year, from soaring airfares and missing luggage to staff shortages and flight cancellation chaos. Now, new data confirm there is increased overall consumer disappointment with American carriers compared with a year earlier, save for those in the very front of the plane.
On a 1,000-point scale, passengers rated their satisfaction at 791 points — a C+, in letter grades — according to the 2023 North America Airline Satisfaction Study, released on Wednesday, from consumer research firm J.D. Power. The number reflects an overall decline of seven points since 2022, making it the second consecutive year that sentiment toward US airlines has soured. The exception: first- and business-class passengers, who say they feel service has improved in the last 12 months.
The study reflects the opinions of 7,774 passengers who took to the skies from March 2022 to March 2023. Their satisfaction was measured across eight factors, including check-in, baggage retrieval, costs and fees, boarding and in-flight services.
Top grades went to JetBlue Airways Corp., which for the second year in a row surpassed Delta Air Lines Inc. as the best overall airline for passenger satisfaction in the first- and business-class segment. Southwest Airlines Co. took the top spot among consumers as the best carrier for economy travel, in spite of its multiple recent failures. American Airlines Group Inc. struggled across the board, ranking among the three worst airlines for every type of cabin class available.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the travelers in the back of the plane who have the loudest complaints; satisfaction with flying economy has dropped 19 points as price-conscious customers find costs and fees to be their greatest pain point. But like their fellow passengers in business and first, even economy travelers conceded one silver lining: Food and beverage service is getting better across the board. If you’re flying in JetBlue’s Mint business class, for instance, you’ll get meals straight out of New York City restaurants Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones, thanks to a recent partnership with Delicious Hospitality Group.
It’s not enough to offset the chaos associated with staffing shortages and inflated fares, though. High travel demand has been good news for airlines’ bottom line, but “if this trend [of inflated airfare and reduced service] continues, travelers will reach a breaking point and some airline brands may be damaged,” said Michael Taylor, travel intelligence lead at J.D. Power, in a release.
Help may be on the way. This fall the US federal government is expected to approve a new funding package for the Federal Aviation Administration as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act; there’s hope it will allocate budget to tackle staffing and technology deficiencies hampering operations at many US airports and airlines.
In the meantime, these are the best and worst airlines in the U.S. based on passenger satisfaction levels, by cabin.
Best in First and Business Class

• JetBlue Airways, Delta Airlines, United Airlines
  

Worst in First and Business Class

• American Airlines, Alaska Airlines
  

Best in Premium Economy

• JetBlue Airways, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines
  
• American Airlines, United Airlines
  

Best in Economy/Basic Economy

• Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways
  

Worst in Economy/Basic Economy

• Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, American Airlines
  

I'm sure ya'll can relate. Great presentation!