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Pharoah

Best of the Web: King Tutankhamun's 'longer than normal skull, exceedingly large brain' revealed in vivid new facial approximation

Jennifer Nalewicki
Live Science
Fri, 02 Jun 2023 17:20 UTC
Tutankhamun
© Cícero Moraes, et alAn artist's depiction of what the ancient Egyptian pharaoh King Tut may have looked like.
The pharaoh Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut, is arguably the best-known ruler in ancient Egyptian history. And while much has been written about the royal youth, who held the throne from about the age of 9 until his death a decade later around 1323 B.C., his actual appearance is still a matter of debate.

But now, a new facial approximation provides a glimpse of what the historical figure may have looked like, revealing new insight into some of the former king's more peculiar facial characteristics.

"Tutankhamun is of archaeological interest not only because of his world-famous burial treasure, but because he ruled for a decade at an important phase in Egyptian history," Michael Habicht, a senior research fellow at Flinders University in Australia and co-author of the new research, told Live Science in an email. Tut's father, the revolutionary pharaoh Akhenaten, had discouraged worship of all gods except Aten, the sun disc. But Tut did not follow his father's ways.

Comment: See also:

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TV

Best of the Web: Ukraine's propaganda machine is vital for Zelensky: Here is how it works

Petr Lavrenin
RT
Sun, 11 Jun 2023 20:22 UTC
Zelensky
© GettyUkrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is seen on a big screen at the Council of Europe summit. Ukraine's propaganda machine is vital for Zelensky: Here is how it works Kiev is waging an extensive information war against Russia and it began long before the military conflict.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict isn't just about the clash of armed forces on the battlefield. It has also been marked by unprecedented levels of confrontation in the fields of information and psychology, cognition and semantics.

Kiev has arguably achieved more success on the information front, than on the ground. There the "fighters" aren't just journalists and information and psychological warfare specialists, but content makers and PR experts. Influencing the psyche, mindset, and emotions of ordinary people has become a big deal, as shaping Western public opinion is vital for President Vladimir Zelensky's regime.

The symbols of war

Anyone familiar with advertising and PR knows that tying an product to a colorful, memorable symbol, or slogan, will boost its popularity, especially in this era of short attention spans. During wartime, the same strategy works just as well with the news as with advertising and election campaigns.
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Will the elites ever behave? Aspirational oligarchs could spark a revolution

Peter Turchin and Mary Harrington
UnHerd
Sat, 10 Jun 2023 03:08 UTC
elites
© Jack Taylor/Getty ImagesOff-duty masters of the universe
Why do even the mightiest societies collapse? In his new book End Times, complexity scientist Peter Turchin blames both "elite overproduction" and a malign "wealth pump" that funnels spoils to the super rich. His theory of societal apocalypse is rooted in science: using mathematical models drawn from vast datasets of human history, he claims to be able to predict future tumult. He has been proved right before: in 2010, in an article for Nature, he predicted the West's decade of populist instability.

This week, he spoke to Mary Harrington at the UnHerd Club about populism, Tucker Carlson, and how to swerve the next big catastrophe. Below is an edited transcript.

Mary Harrington: Peter, tell us the thesis behind your fascinating new book.

Peter Turchin: Ever since the ancient Greek historian Polybius wrote about how the Roman Empire was able to grow quite so relentlessly, people have also tried to explain why societies collapse.

There are many different theories, but the only way to adjudicate is with mathematical modelling. First of all, you translate those theories into mathematical language, so that the predictions follow inevitably from their premises. Then you bring on lots of data to work out which theory best fits the reality.
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Cult

Best of the Web: Child Sacrifice Cult: California bill would punish parents who don't 'affirm' their child's gender identity

Susannah Luthi
The Washington Free Beacon
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
girl at parade
© Getty ImagesGay Pride Festival
A newly revised California bill would treat parents' refusal to "affirm" their child's gender identity as a violation of health, safety, and welfare in the context of custody disputes.

The bill, which has already passed the State Assembly, would require judges adjudicating such disputes over transgender-identifying children to favor the parent who "affirms" the child's preferred identity. Earlier this week the authors released an updated version that specifically defines "the health, safety, and welfare" of a child to include "a parent's affirmation of the child's gender identity" — a change that the bill's opponents worry will open the door to non-affirmation being treated as abuse.

Erin Friday, a San Francisco attorney and co-lead of the parent coalition Our Duty:
"When you say that gender affirmation is in the child's best interest for health, safety, and welfare, it takes nothing to say [non-affirmation] is now abuse — because you're not taking care of the health, safety, and welfare if you're not affirming them."
The amended bill, known as A.B. 957, is the latest in a slate of legislation to enshrine left-wing gender ideology in California law. State senator Scott Wiener (D.), who coauthored A.B. 957 with Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D.), is simultaneously advancing a separate bill that would require foster parents to promise to "affirm" trans-identifying children. In 2022, he introduced a first-in-the-nation law enshrining California as a "haven" where out-of-state minors can obtain sex changes without their parents' consent.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R.) declared last year that helping kids get sex changes is child abuse.
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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Aircraft experiencing 37% increase in turbulence over last 40 years

Ryan Hathaway
Weather Radar
Sat, 10 Jun 2023 18:00 UTC
airplane
Worried about flying? Things may be getting bumpier for you, a new study suggests aviation turbulence is worsening with climate change.

Research from the University of Reading shows that the skies that aircraft fly through today is much more unstable than 40 years ago.

Over the North Atlantic, one of the busiest flight paths in the world, the time spent in severely turbulent air has risen from 17.7 hours in 1979 to 27.4 hours in 2020, a 55% increase.

The data focused on clean-air flights, where other forms of turbulence were not present.

Moderate bouts of turbulence rose by 37% while light turbulence is up by 17%.

Comment: There are a variety of other signs that a significant shift is occurring on our planet, including, but not limited to the jet stream, atmospheric phenomena, geomagnetic storms, as well as at ground level with a seeming uptick in sinkholes, subsidence and uplift - to name but a few; and the driver of this shift is evidently not CO2, but something much more powerful: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Fire

Best of the Web: 'A situation that's unprecedented': Quebec confronted with more than 150 wildfires

Jacob Serebrin and Sidhartha Banerjee
CTV News Montreal
Tue, 06 Jun 2023 06:46 UTC
Premier Francois Legault
As one Quebec city that had been threatened by wildfires lifted an evacuation order Tuesday, authorities turned their attention to communities in the northern and northwestern parts of the province where firefighters worked to beat back threats from out-of-control blazes.
"We're following all of this from hour to hour, obviously," Premier Francois Legault told reporters in Sept-Iles, Que. "If we look at the situation in Quebec as a whole, there are several places where it is still worrying."

Comment: See also:

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Stop

Best of the Web: Bill to stop employees confronting shoplifters passed by California senate

Chloe Mayer
Newsweek
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 21:10 UTC
looter
© Agustin Paullier/AFP/Getty ImagesStore looter in Santa Monica, California amid BLM demonstrations
Lawmakers in California are hoping to push through controversial legislation that would ban retail staff from stopping thieves stealing from their stores.

Senate Bill 553, which was submitted by State Senator Dave Cortese, has been passed by the State Senate and will now progress to policy committees in the State Assembly. Cortese hopes the proposed law will prevent workplace violence and protect staff from being forced by their employers to step-in during robberies. But some store bosses are furious about the plans, with the California Retailers Association mocking the move as an open invitation for thieves "to come in and steal."

The political wrangling in California comes just weeks after Home Depot security guard Blake Mohs, 26, was shot to death during an attempted robbery in Pleasanton, California. Other cities in the state are also facing their own problems as they attempt to deal with lawlessness.

Comment: Given the unimpeded civil violence and destruction in cities such as Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, were closures of major businesses across the nation part of the goal or merely an added nation-debilitating 'benefit'?

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UFO

Best of the Web: Las Vegas police spot suspected UFO — and residents claim to see aliens

Alex Mitchell
New York Post
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:08 UTC
ufo landing las vegas body cam footage
© LVMPDStill shot from an Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department body cam April 30, 2023
Could this be the real deal?

Body-cam footage from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department captured a suspected UFO soaring across the night sky before a nearby resident called in a report of something "100% not human" on their property, local TV channel 8 News Now reported.

A Vegas officer's camera picked up the object at about 11:50 p.m. on April 30, and, according to the American Meteor Society, its flash was seen as far as Utah and California.

Approximately 39 minutes after, another man — who lives about 80 miles from Area 51 — made a chilling call to 911, saying that there were two unknown entities in his backyard after he and his family saw a similar object fall from of the sky.

Comment:





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Black Magic

Best of the Web: The Death Cult vs The Demon Weed

John Carter
Postcards From Barsoom
Fri, 09 Jun 2023 17:39 UTC
transgender children unicorn library pedophile
© completely ignerant/Twitter
The gender unicorns want you to smoke fentanyl instead of cigarettes, because they really care about your health.

I woke up today to a few stories from the People's Republic of Canada that throw the festering madness of our suppurating social order into sharp relief.

First up is video that's emerged from an elementary school somewhere in Canada, showing children being greeted by rainbow-waving teachers, including one dressed up as a gender unicorn, in a carnivalesque atmosphere calculated to encourage them to associate anal fistulas and adult diapers with happiness. STDs through joy.

The second story comes from Vancouver, where 11-year-olds are getting addicted to opioids thanks to the Canadian government's 'harm reduction' strategy. The theory here is that by providing junkies free hydromorphone, the junkies will stop being junkies. In practice what this means is that the Canadian government is dumping free opioids into the market, thereby dramatically increasing their supply, which is somehow supposed to reduce the number of opioid addicts. The hardcore junkies then take the Dilaudid, sell the dillies, and use the proceeds to fund their fentanyl habits. And who are their customers? Pre-teens, as it turns out, who can be converted into the next generation of track-marked zombies for just a few dollars a pill. A 14-year-old girl just overdosed as a result. Flooding middle schools with synthetic opioids is apparently a worthwhile price to pay for reducing harm from opioid abuse ... although how providing free opioids is supposed to reduce opioid abuse is an exercise she leaves for the students.
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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Annecy, France: 4 children of nursery age stabbed in playground by Swedish-approved Syrian 'refugee'


The Telegraph
Thu, 08 Jun 2023 10:44 UTC
france knife
Emergency services at the scene in Annecy, France
A Syrian asylum seeker has reportedly been arrested on suspicion of stabbing four children and an adult in a park in the French town of Annecy.

A man armed with a knife attacked a group of children aged around three years old at 9.45am on Thursday at a park near the lake in the town, a security source who asked not to be named and a local official told AFP.

Police said three children are in life-threatening condition. A man was also injured in the attack.

It was initially thought that six children had been injured.

Comment: Other reports stress that the attacker was shouting that he did it 'for Jesus', which is weird considering that it's usually done 'for Allah'.

Guess which country approved his asylum status in 2013? He apparently left Sweden recently, and had his asylum status denied in France on 4th June. The screwball is himself father to a young child.

Whilst these seemingly random knife attacks have been on the increase in recent years, this incident comes on the heels of a spate of attacks in recent weeks: Footage of the incident has appeared online:



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