@jon-nyc said in Hey Asshat MAMILs…: That could be dangerous. Often big groups are too spread out with a few stragglers 30-50ft behind. They may consider themselves part of the group for purposes of running the red, meanwhile other cars might not notice them. There must be a group leader and he or she has the legal responsibility of taking care of proper formation of the riders. I've also taken part in such rides many times. The formation is formally temporarily dissolved when climbing a mountain and then re-established on top. It doesn't happen that anyone is behind while the group formation is active. It can be quite annoying for cars but it is less dangerous for the bike riders than the alternative, I think.

@jon-nyc said in Meanwhile, at Columbia...: @Horace said in Meanwhile, at Columbia...: Difficult to not notice he happens to be an outspoken right-leaning sort. Most of us here have had no problem not noticing that. Please stick to the topic. This thread is about the pro-Hamas Columbia student.

You get what you pay for.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/african-giant-pouched-hero-rats-stop-tb-landmines Until recently, Carolina worked Monday through Friday, with weekends off. At her retirement this past November, colleagues lined up to applaud her and celebrate over cake. In her seven-year career, she had detected more than 3,000 cases of tuberculosis that health clinics had missed and, as a result, likely spared more than 30,000 other people from infection. But she's not exactly your typical employee. Carolina is an African giant pouched rat who can screen 100 sputum (i.e phlegm) samples for tuberculosis in 20 minutes—much faster than a human, who takes four days to process the same amount of information with a microscope. And she’s part of a cohort of 40 rats belonging to nonprofit APOPO who are helping to combat the tuberculosis epidemic in Tanzania and Ethiopia. “Everybody’s first impression is that the rats are our enemies,” Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, says of the animals’ reputation in Africa and beyond. “Once they see how they function, they fall in love with them.” African giant pouched rats are not your typical New York City–style rodent. They’re calm, easier to train than some dogs, and able to work up to seven or eight years (they live eight to 10 years in captivity). Their body alone is generally longer than a 13-inch MacBook Air—and their tail is equally as long, if not longer. (A New York City rat is only about 16 inches, nose to tail.) A giant pouched rat’s sense of smell is so strong that they could conceivably detect half a drop of chlorine in a space the size of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, says APOPO’s head of training Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents.

@Renauda 555

@jon-nyc said in In Elon's opinion...: Tell me I’m right without telling me I’m right. You can be right all day about generally applicable truisms about political rhetoric, without being meaningful. His details about why he believes he's doing good things relative to what the opposition would have done (which is what your point abstracts to) might be of interest, but you'd have to watch to find out, and I'm sure nobody is invested in whether you do.

Well he is in the news now and then.

If that article is even close to correct I support shutting it down.

That's a rhetorical trick they pull. It should have a name. Posture as if it's a given that you have credibility, then put that credibility on the line for a question that you can always claim some truth about without engaging with any honest pushback. I've heard Bret Weinstein pull the same trick, putting his credibility as a biologist on the line, over some question about the COVID vaccine. He openly challenged the world to rebut him, and some other biologists did so, and he never responded, last I checked.

LOL. On another note, I still remember reading about a story when President Reagan met Premier Gorbachev in Iceland. From the airport, there was Gorbachev and about 50 vehicles heading into town. There was Reagan with about 50 vehicles heading into town. And at the end, there was a pickup truck driven by the President of Iceland driving himself into town. LOL

I could go to 97 Irish pubs without leaving NYC.

To be fair that’s an opinion piece. I doubt most of the editorial board is there yet. But at least they no longer treat asking the question as a hate crime, so, progress.

Then go be a Navy pilot on a carrier.

@jon-nyc said in Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like: By the way, how did we miss the Granger story with all our talk about politicians straying past their sell-by date? In December 2024 it was discovered she had been living in a nursing home in Ft Worth, TX for the previous 6 months. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Granger Funny you should mention that. You must have talked to this magazine. LOL. Here is the follow up. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/14/kay-granger-dementia-dc-media-00210317 I guess just another example of the media overlooking Democrat politicians mistakes. Oh wait, she was a Republic. LOL Given that the U.S. Capitol is one of the few buildings in America where the reporting corps hasn’t been totally devastated, it was a confounding miss. Granger wasn’t a nobody. She’d been in office for over a quarter-century, and had been the top Republican on the Appropriations committee until last April. Her face was familiar both to her colleagues and the reporters who roam outside the House chamber. Curiosity might also have been triggered by the fact that she’d voluntarily stepped aside from a plum position that most members of Congress would have to have pried from their hands. There were also at least some opportunities for journalists to find out what was happening. Granger may have been absent from votes, but she briefly returned to the Hill for a retirement salute to her last November, well into the period where her son acknowledged “dementia issues” and just a month before the Express story broke. At the chummy event, speakers included House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, as well as Democrats Rosa DeLauro and Nita Lowey. Nobody mentioned anything awry when Granger, still an elected official, reappeared not for an important vote but for a laudatory send-off. During the tribute, Granger sat and looked on as her official portrait as a former Appropriations Committee chair was unveiled before a large audience of congressional colleagues and staffers.

https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-images-lavish-palace-saudi-arabia-mbs-neom-royal-megacity-2025-2?op=1 [image: 67bef9d7b1834fe3116578b8?width=2000&format=jpeg&auto=webp] Neom, the insane urban development project in Saudi Arabia, appears to be sinking faster than the giant holes they keep digging in the middle of nowhere. Increasing delays and soaring cost overruns have led to project cancellations and a general scaling back of the original vision. Now a Wall Street Journal report has uncovered an internal audit that reveals evidence of deliberate manipulation of finances by management to justify rising cost estimates to investors. The sense of impending disaster is even more shocking when you look at the only crazy structure that is now standing in Neom: an unbelievably giant palace. New satellite images obtained by Business Insider via US space company Maxar Technologies have revealed the gigantic complex, which appears to feature at least 16 buildings (plus other buildings in the property), four swimming pools, private beaches, extensive gardens, a marina, 10 helipads, and its own golf course. The palace is thought to be owned by Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman, and it’s only one of five palaces that will be built for the royal family in the 10,230-square-mile region known as Neom.

https://fortune.com/2025/03/15/f35-stealth-fighter-nato-allies-canada-portugal-trump-trade-war-europe-defense/ NATO countries are having second thoughts about buying America’s F-35 as the ‘predictability of our allies’ is doubted amid Trump’s seismic shifts America’s F-35 stealth fighter is seen by some allies as a potential vulnerability rather than a cutting-edge weapon that can boost warfighting capabilities. In recent days, Canada and Portugal have expressed willingness to explore alternatives to the Lockheed Martin plane as President Donald Trump has sown doubt about the US commitment to the NATO alliance. On Friday, Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said the country is actively looking at other fighter jets amid growing political momentum to scrap a $13 billion deal for 88 F-35s that was signed in 2023. Canada has committed money for its first 16 planes, which are scheduled for delivery early next year. Blair indicated that after accepting that batch of F-35s, Canada could turn to European aircraft to replace its aging fleet of fighters.

I was surprise to see the below picture. On a historic basis, the % of military vs. the overall population is not a big difference (except of course during major wars) [image: 1742092538048-screenshot-2025-03-15-at-9.34.37-pm.png]