This is a copy & paste job from the New York Times. It's about when New York City was under an ice sheet thousands of feet thick. My numerous copy & paste jobs are my best posts because I didn't write them.

How the Ice Age Shaped New York

Long ago, the region lay under an ice sheet thousands of feet thick. It terminated abruptly in what are now the boroughs, leaving the city with a unique landscape.

By William J. Broad June 5, 2018

At the start of the last ice age, 2.6 million years ago, a sheet of frozen water formed atop North America that kept expanding and thickening until it reached a maximum depth of roughly two miles.

At its southern edge, the vast body deposited tons of rocky debris — from sand and pebbles to boulders the size of school buses. Then, some 18,000 years ago, the planet began to warm and the gargantuan sheet of ice began to melt and retreat.

Today, the southernmost edge of that frozen expanse is marked by a line of rubble that extends across the northern United States for thousands of miles. The largest deposits form what geologists call a terminal moraine.

The intermittent ridge runs from Puget Sound to the Missouri River to Montauk Point on Long Island, forming the prominence that supports its old lighthouse. The ancient sheet of ice also left its mark on a very modern phenomenon: New York City.

The ice over Manhattan would have buried even the tallest skyscraper and was so heavy that it depressed the underlying bedrock. As it melted, giant boulders embedded deep within its flanks landed throughout what became the city. Many are still visible in Central Park, unlikely obelisks scored by time.

But the island was the last hurrah, and the mammoth sheet of ice ended immediately to the south, in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. The terminal moraine, the mounds of rubble left behind, form much of their high ground.

While the line of glacial debris across the northern United States is often poorly delineated, the hilly ridge around New York City tends to be quite prominent. Its maximum height is roughly 200 feet, about that of a tall apartment building.

The rubble slowed the development of the other boroughs for centuries. Early developers sought flat land for homes and buildings and typically ignored the glacial ridges, especially their heights. Land there was too inaccessible, stony and yielding for easy construction.

Eventually, the neglected parcels became strings of parks, cemeteries, golf courses and, in time, some of the region’s most attractive neighborhoods, often heavily landscaped and densely wooded.

Today the ridgeline and its adjoining slopes hold Forest Park and Highland Park in Queens, as well as Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The nearby grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery include Battle Hill, a part of the glacial rise that represents the borough’s highest point.

Many city neighborhoods take their names from the ridge’s elevations, as well as its leafy embellishments: Glen Oaks, Hollis Hills, Jamaica Hills, Briarwood, Forest Hills, Ridgewood, Cypress Hills, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Greenwood, Bay Ridge, Lighthouse Hill and Arden Heights.

Why should remnants of the last ice age be so prominent in New York City, of all places?

Glacial Relics

It started long ago as the continental ice sheet developed one of its thickest regions over what is now eastern Canada. Vast fields of ice are incredibly weighty. Gravity pushes down hard. Any tilt or slant of the underlying terrain sends the ice moving slowly downslope.

For ages, the Canadian ice kept flowing into a long valley to the south that ran from the Lake Champlain area down through the Hudson River gorge. It was a reliable conduit. The river of ice and rock kept moving relentlessly southward until it hit a region warm enough to halt its slow advance.

During ice ages, glaciers advance and retreat in cycles. Paths differ. But overall, the southern end of the conduit saw massive buildups of boulders and rubble.

In recent times, the resulting moraine got much scrutiny from scientists because of its proximity to one of the nation’s first big cities. Just as early maps of the United States often focused on New York, so did geologic inquiries — starting nearly two centuries ago.

Despite the ridge’s prominence and early allure for scientists, it turned out to be no rival for skyscrapers and urban distractions. The moraine that shaped the city was all but forgotten.

“Clearly, it’s not on the radar,” said David E. Seidemann, a professor of geology at Brooklyn College. “The educational system here doesn’t emphasize earth science. And there’s so much else to do. I’ll go to a Yankees game over geology any day.”

Springtime, noted Sidney Horenstein, a geologist and environmental educator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, turns the glacial rise into a band of leafy green and opens a season favorable to its rediscovery.

“It makes it much easier to see,” he said recently, while gazing at the ridge from the Staten Island Ferry.

His collection also sheds light on how moraine study in general helped geologists in New York and elsewhere discover that the planet had experienced a series of ice ages. That breakthrough came in the mid 1800s.

Ridges, mountains and even flatlands are typically rooted in rocky strata, such as the bedrock that underlies Manhattan and makes it ideal for erecting skyscrapers. But early investigators found the hilly ridges to be composed of clay, silt, sand, pebbles, cobbles and boulders, all jumbled up together.

A related clue was that nearby rocks often looked quite smooth, even polished. At times, their faces also displayed parallel lines of groves and striations.

In 1843, an official report on the natural history of New York State cited vast glaciers as a possible explanation “now attracting much attention” for what geologists were uncovering. But it also listed a dozen other theories, including “the deluge of Noah,” or the biblical flood.

By the 1860s, a growing body of evidence had convinced most scientists that the Earth had endured ages in which rivers of ice transported rocks and coarse sediments over long distances — at times, it turned out, for hundreds of miles.

In the 1880s, the term “ice age” was coming into wide use, and experts began looking into some of the practical consequences.

Then in 1902, the United States Geological Survey published a large folioon metropolitan New York that detailed its rocky underpinnings, including the ridge. Multicolored maps showed the glacial rise amid emerging street grids and neighborhoods.

The accompanying report said the rise exhibited strings of “hillocks and hollows, or interrupted ridges and troughs.” It noted that some depressions held ponds, marshes and small lakes. The report put the feature’s overall width at up to two miles.

At first, the city used the stony ridge for woodlots and rain catchments. Slowly, the uses expanded to reservoirs, recreational areas and, in time, neighborhoods in which buildings and houses were built on strong footings and foundations for stability.

Today, despite the wide development of the ridge’s lower slopes, a Google Earth view of New York City — a composite of images from April, June and September — shows the glacial relic as an intermittent band of green.

A Geological Guide

Talkative and outgoing, his shirt often untucked, the model of a rumpled geologist, Mr. Horenstein is a native New Yorker with boyish enthusiasm for the city’s hidden faults and early beginnings, for ancient blows and catastrophes. A compendium of geologic jokes, he refers to himself not as a raconteur but a rockconteur.

Though long retired, Mr. Horenstein regularly gives public tours of the city’s geology, some of them organized by the museum. Recently, at a reporter’s invitation, he turned his attention to the glacial ridge.

At Umpire Rock in Central Park, overlooking baseball fields, the geologist noted places where glacial ice and rubble had carved massive grooves, wider than a human body.

Yet the rock’s overall surface was quite smooth. The reason, Mr. Horenstein said, was that ages of glacial abrasion had acted like sandpaper.

“Kids can slide down the rocks,” he said of many Central Park outcroppings.

Throughout the park are places where the retreating ice had dropped giant boulders that geologists call erratics, after the Latin word errare, to wander. By definition, the boulders differ in composition from surrounding rocks. Some of the park’s erratics sit perched atop flat rocks, looking at times like alien monuments.

“They’re rounded,” Mr. Horenstein said, because rivers of ice kept “dragging them around.”

Later, on a visit to Staten Island, he pointed to the much-celebrated skyline of Lower Manhattan. Current estimates put the ice’s thickness there at roughly twice the early calculations — not 1,000 feet, but closer to 2,000 feet, and possibly more.

“It was taller than any building,” Mr. Horenstein remarked, “even the Freedom Tower.” The skyscraper at the very top of its spire measures 1,776 feet high, after the nation’s birthday.

The forward edges of glaciers can be inclined or sheer, like a cliff. Mr. Horenstein said geologists believe the local face was sheer. Its precipitous edge shed not only tons of rocky debris but gargantuan blocks of ice.

The ice’s overall weight was so immense that it depressed the bedrock of the New York City region — and then, following the sheet’s retreat, the rocky depths slowly rebounded. Mr. Horenstein said the rise is calculated at more than 150 feet.

At Fort Wadsworth, a historic battlement next to the Verrazano Bridge, we stood atop the moraine and looked across the Narrows, the strait between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The land that would become the two boroughs had originally been connected by the glacial ridge.

Some 13,000 years ago, a large accumulation of icy water from melting glaciers was suddenly unleashed upstate. A towering wave of destruction crashed down through the Hudson gorge and proceeded to smash the southern end of the local moraine to smithereens.

“It was biblical,” Mr. Horenstein said. The wave created the Narrows, which now connects the Atlantic Ocean to one of the world’s largest natural harbors.

In the metropolitan area, the southern tip of Staten Island overlooks the Arthur Kill and Raritan Bay, and represents the southernmost part of the glacial rise. The site hosts the Conference House Park. It takes its name from an unsuccessful peace conference held there in 1776 during the Revolutionary War.

As we walked past a stone manor house where the meeting took place, Mr. Horenstein pointed to the rounded rocks in its walls and, based on color and texture, proceeded to tick off their likely sites of origin — some from upstate New York, some from New Jersey, and so on.

What fraction came from the glacial ridge?

“All of them,” he replied. “It was the local building material.”

We walked down to the nearby beach and wandered a few hundred feet to where the land formed a sandy bluff. It offered a rare glimpse into the heart of the ridge: a jumble of clay, silt, pebbles and boulders in a fragile matrix laid bare by the action of tides, hurricanes and pounding waves.

In all of New York City, “this is the only place you can see the moraine clearly,” Mr. Horenstein said, leaning into the wind. “This is it, the southernmost end.”

Mr. Horenstein held up a rounded stone. Somehow, it ended up in reporter’s backpack as a souvenir of the day.

Remarkably, millions of people live on or near the glacial ridge.

In all, it runs for roughly 30 miles beneath New York City. Invisibly, it links three boroughs, offering mute testimony to the power of vanished ice.

If the ridge is lost history to most of the city’s inhabitants, at least one knows something about the art of bringing it back to life.

“It keeps me young,” Mr. Horenstein said. “There’s always something to see, something you missed, something new.”

William J. Broad is a science journalist and senior writer. He joined The Times in 1983, and has shared two Pulitzer Prizes with his colleagues, as well as an Emmy Award and a DuPont Award. @WilliamJBroad

A version of this article appears in print on June 5, 2018, on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: New York on Ice.

A view from Green-Wood Cemetery, near Battle Hill, which is Brooklyn’s highest spot.Credit

Boulders like this one in Forest Park in Woodhaven were deposited by the ice sheet as it retreated. They are called erratics.

Umpire Rock in Central Park, whose distinctive grooves were formed by glacial ice and rubble.

The ice sheet is estimated to have been 2,000 feet or more thick, taller than One World Trade, whose spire measures 1,776 feet.

Somebody asked what I thought was an interesting question so I looked it up.

"Did native Americans believe in a heaven or hell in their traditional religions?"

They believed in the heaven thing. I found nothing about the hell thing.

Did they have a creation myth?

Yes. Like all religions they just made stuff up to explain what they didn't understand.

This is from Native American religions.

Creation myths

Even though they differ in detail, creation mythologies play a singularly important role in the religious life of many South American tribes. These myths describe the origin of the first world and its fate and sometimes include narratives of the creation and destruction of subsequent worlds. In some narratives creation is the work of a supreme being, and some myths describe creation from nothing while others involve creation from a preexisting substance. Moreover, many creation myths describe in dramatic ways the exit of the creative beings. They may be driven off, sent into the sky in the form of stars, or moved off into the forest, or they may take refuge in other levels of the universe. The manner of a being’s disappearance figures in the ritual celebrations that commemorate it.

The myths of the destruction of multiple worlds place a great question mark at the beginning of existence. Why should powerful worlds fall prey to disaster? Why should beings so perfect and powerful suffer destruction? The religious life of many South American peoples places this kind of question at the foundation of religious experience. Rather than providing answers to such questions, the myths of multiple destruction install the questions themselves as fundamental.

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There is a lot more stuff. If you don't think this is boring you can click the link.

North Korea's fat little dictator is a stupid fucking asshole.

Wall Street Journal - As Trump Plans North Korea Summit, Defectors Tell Harrowing Stories

Torture and starvation in political prison camps, public executions and forced abortions persist.

By Alastair Gale June 4, 2018

Early in the reign of North Korea’s current supreme leader, merchant Kim Young-hee shared a flea-infested prison cell for a year with more than two dozen other women, enduring regular whippings from guards. Her crime was helping her sister’s child flee one of the world’s most repressive dictatorships.

Conditions have only grown harder. Kim Jong Un, the nation’s third-generation dictator, has tightened border controls to prevent escapes since taking power at the end of 2011. Those caught risk prolonged imprisonment. North Korean women sent back from China have been forced to have abortions if the fathers were Chinese, defectors say.

Torture and starvation are routine in a vast network of North Korean prison camps operated since the 1950s with a total land area about 20 times the size of Manhattan. Around 100,000 people are held in five camps, according to the United Nations. Camps in central areas have added new facilities to house more prisoners, satellite images show.

The repression has been largely ignored as Mr. Kim seeks to rehabilitate his international image with a swing to diplomacy. As President Donald Trump prepares for a planned summit meeting with Mr. Kim on June 12—the first between a U.S. and North Korean leader—it isn’t clear whether he will raise the issue of Pyongyang’s human-rights violations, or if doing so would lead to any improvement.

Mr. Trump has indicated that he sees human rights as a major concern, including in a speech to the South Korean legislature in November in which he described prisoners as “enduring torture, starvation, rape and murder on a constant basis.” But at a meeting on Friday with one of Mr. Kim’s top lieutenants, the president said they didn’t discuss human rights.

Tales from the gulag are grim. One inmate of a North Korean labor camp from 2015 to 2016 described having to bend bodies in half to fit as many as possible in an incinerator, according to a recent survey by a South Korean state-run think-thank. It wasn’t clear how the prisoners died, but disease, starvation and work accidents can kill swathes of inmates.

In October 2016, four men and three women were executed by firing squad at an airfield in a border city near China, one defector said in the survey. In February 2015, five men were shot to death at a sports stadium just north of the capital in front of a few thousand locals, according to another defector in the same report. The survey was based on the testimony of 137 defectors who entered South Korea in 2017.

Ms. Kim pulled her shirt collar open to reveal red gouges across her shoulder. The female smuggler who arranged the escape of her sister’s child was sent to a labor camp, she said, and after her release shared stories of starvation and beatings.

Life became harder under the new leader after 2011. Officials demanded bribes of expensive items such as rabbit skins to allow traders like her to operate. The wealth gap was increasing. Ms. Kim, who survived by selling potatoes in larger towns and bringing back MSG to sell in hers, escaped herself in 2014.

“The state treated poorer people like dogs,” she said.

Ms. Park, another defector interviewed by the Wall Street Journal who asked not to be named to protect family still in North Korea, was jailed for escaping but made the decision to leave again in 2012. This time she had a backup plan. Like a friend who had been caught crossing the Yalu River into China a few days earlier she took along a cyanide pill just in case.

Since her first escape about five years earlier, fewer smugglers were willing to help those trying to flee, she said. The price of escape had risen to $2,000 from less than $100.

As senior U.S. officials prepare for the summit there’s been little talk of pressing the North Korean leader over human rights, something that also didn’t come up at the recent meeting of leaders of North and South Korea.

The main U.S. goal will be to secure a commitment to denuclearization. Some experts say Pyongyang’s frequent anger at criticism of its human-rights record could complicate that objective if Mr. Trump confronts Mr. Kim.

Opening with a call for the gulags to be closed would be a “bridge too far,” said Robert King, the U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea under the Obama administration. The regime would likely see that as a challenge to its political system, he said.

“This is beginning of process that has to go on for some time,” he said.

Failing to raise human rights would signal weakness on a critically important problem, countered Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a Washington -based organization

Bringing up human rights with Mr. Kim “is the right thing to do morally, ethically, legally and politically,” he said.

North Korea routinely rejects accusations of human-rights abuses and denies it operates prison camps. It refused to allow U.N. officials to enter the country for a research project into human rights published in 2014, and slammed the final report as an attack engineered by Washington.

However, it accepted some recommendations made by the U.N. in a separate 2014 report, including improving gender equality and general public awareness of human rights. U.N. officials say they have seen little clear sign of progress, but Pyongyang did allow a U.N. special rapporteur for the disabled to visit last year.

For those outside the country with a direct stake in North Korean human-rights issues, such as families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, engagement between Washington and Pyongyang raises hopes of a breakthrough.

Mr. Trump highlighted the case of one abductee, Megumi Yokota, in a speech to the U.N. in September. North Korea says Ms. Yokota died years ago, but her parents continue to campaign for her release.

Ms. Yokota’s mother, Sakie Yokota, said she was wary of North Korea simply using dialogue as a way to relieve sanctions pressure, but she hoped the time had finally come to resolve the abduction issue through talks.

“I am hopeful, but at the same time, I am afraid,” Sakie Yokota said.

Write to Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com

The universe is trying to kill us.

BBC News - Guatemala volcano: Dozens die as Fuego volcano erupts

Scientific progress saves human lives. From BBC News - some fantastic stuff. You want to click the link. This is a big deal.

I have this idea: Being alive is better than being worm food.

BBC News - The life of a woman with terminal breast cancer has been saved by a pioneering new therapy, say US researchers.

It involved pumping 90 billion cancer-killing immune cells into her body.

Judy Perkins had been given three months to live, but two years later there is no sign of cancer in her body.

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She remembers her first scan after the procedure when the medical staff "were all very excited and jumping around".

Another quote for my list of favorite quotes.

"Evolution was one of the biggest faith-killers that ever came down the pike."
-- Jerry Coyne

I found this is at Religion as therapy: Stephen Asma doesn’t care whether it’s true as long as it makes us feel better.

I read the whole thing. It's one of Jerry Coyne's best articles.

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This blog has 194 posts about Jerry Coyne at Jerry Coyne.

The National Academy of Sciences has a "suck up to religious stupidity" problem.

This is bullshit:

"Science and religion are different ways of understanding. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of both to contribute to a better future."
-- The National Academy of Sciences

Religion is good for nothing but getting in the way of understanding. Religions could not "contribute to a better future" because they are bullshit.

There should be zero tolerance for anyone who thinks a god is real or might be real. This is the 21st century FFS. Do we need the brainwashing, the stupidity, and the never ending religious violence? I don't think so.

A know-nothing fucktard said evolution is a theory but it's not a fact. Looking things up makes morons cry.

Biologists call evolution a basic fact of science. A fucktard said I was wrong so I looked it up which took about two seconds. Idiots should learn how to use Google.

The National Academy of Sciences

Is Evolution a Theory or a Fact?

It is both. But that answer requires looking more deeply at the meanings of the words "theory" and "fact."

In everyday usage, "theory" often refers to a hunch or a speculation. When people say, "I have a theory about why that happened," they are often drawing a conclusion based on fragmentary or inconclusive evidence.

The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.

Many scientific theories are so well-established that no new evidence is likely to alter them substantially. For example, no new evidence will demonstrate that the Earth does not orbit around the sun (heliocentric theory), or that living things are not made of cells (cell theory), that matter is not composed of atoms, or that the surface of the Earth is not divided into solid plates that have moved over geological timescales (the theory of plate tectonics). Like these other foundational scientific theories, the theory of evolution is supported by so many observations and confirming experiments that scientists are confident that the basic components of the theory will not be overturned by new evidence. However, like all scientific theories, the theory of evolution is subject to continuing refinement as new areas of science emerge or as new technologies enable observations and experiments that were not possible previously.

One of the most useful properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed. For example, the theory of gravitation predicted the behavior of objects on the moon and other planets long before the activities of spacecraft and astronauts confirmed them. The evolutionary biologists who discovered Tiktaalik predicted that they would find fossils intermediate between fish and limbed terrestrial animals in sediments that were about 375 million years old. Their discovery confirmed the prediction made on the basis of evolutionary theory. In turn, confirmation of a prediction increases confidence in that theory.

In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term "fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Instead, they investigate the mechanisms of evolution, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions.

Trump and Evangelicals

What is a Trump?

A Trump is an uneducated moron, also known as the President of the United States and the Commander and Chief of the United States Armed Forces.

How did a moron get the job?

There was an election in 2016. The candidates were Hilary Clinton and Donald Fucktard Trump. Trump never wanted the job and he knew he was not qualified for it. He was in it just to have fun. He knew he had no chance of winning and he didn't want to win.

How did this fucking retard get the job even though he's an idiot?

Virtually all the evangelicals voted for him.

What is an evangelical?

An evangelical is an uneducated moron, a Christian extremist, and a science denier. Evolution makes evangelical fucktards cry. Evangelicals would make America a Christian theocracy if they could get away with it. Evangelicals are stupid fucking assholes. They have zero moral values.

Why did the evangelical morons vote for Trump?

Morons like morons. Also Trump repeatedly sucked up to evangelical assholes. Before the election Trump ignored religions. If someone asked Trump "Do you believe in Mr. God" Trump would have said "What's a god?" There is nobody on this planet more retarded than Trump.

The good news is Trump will lose the election in 2020. The bad news is I said the same thing in 2016 and I was wrong.

Another copy & paste job. This one is about some extremely obvious evidence for evolution, obvious to anyone with a brain. Christian fucktards either have no brain or it's defective.

Intelligent Design Proponent Says God Must Be Stupid

Our friends over at the "Discovery Institute" (a misnomer if ever there was one) have in essence told us that God is just plain stupid. What's even funnier is that their boneheaded leader, Dr. Cornelius Hunter, doesn't even seem to realize what a gaffe he just pulled.

We do not know evolution to be an obvious, compelling explanation of the data—beyond any shadow of a doubt. Yet this is precisely what evolutionists claim. ... Here, for example, is what one professor recently wrote to me:

"An omnipotent god could do anything (we guess), but one who is omnipotent, serious, and thoughtful (at least as serious and thoughtful as an exemplary human) would not route wiring from giraffe’s larynx around its aorta."How does the professor know that an omnipotent, serious, and thoughtful god would not route wiring from the giraffe’s larynx around its aorta? What does the professor know about omnipotent, serious, and thoughtful gods? And what does the professor know about creating giraffes? Precious little, I’m afraid, in both cases."Wrong, wrong, wrong!

OK, Dr. Hunter, let me explain it in plain simple terms. God wouldn't route that giraffe's nerves from its brain, down around its heart, and then back up its neck to its larynx because it's a really stupid way to do it.

One of the replies to Dr. Hunter's column says it better than I can. Dave Mullenix writes:

That's a pretty easy question to answer. The routing we see in the giraffe makes the nerve at least ten times longer than a direct route, which requires more material to make the nerve and makes the nerve impulses take at least ten times longer to reach their target. It also exposes ten times more nerve to damage. The giraffe routing is not only unintelligent, it's spectacularly unintelligent! There are thousands of examples like this in nature, where evolution has created peculiar structures that would be far better if they were designed rather than evolved. In fact, just about everywhere you turn in biology, there are stupid "designs" that no intelligent designer would make. Contrary to Dr. Hunter's claims, these are some of the most convincing examples of why evolution must be true. In each case the "stupid" design makes perfect sense when you look at the complete history of how that feature evolved.

One of the most embarrassing arguments you hear from religious apologists is "God is smarter than you," or "God works in mysterious ways." It's the "easy out" excuse.

You can corner a religious apologist into the deepest logical contradiction you like, and presto-chango, he escapes! "Ha! God is so smart that HE knows the reason for this ridiculous claim I'm making, so I'm right and you're wrong!" And the apologist smiles smugly while his friends pat him on the back for being so clever.

We don't have to be gods to know right from wrong, clever from stupid, and impossible from possible. Over two thousand years ago the Greek philosophers realized that there were some laws that even gods had to obey. 2 + 2 = 4 is true no matter what universe you live in, and even God himself can't make it otherwise. And no matter how smart God is, there is still no excuse for a stupid design.

No amount of omniscience can change stupid to smart. But Dr. Hunter seems to know how to get a PhD and still be stupid.

A very interesting Wall Street Journal article about North Korea which explains why the little fat dictator would like to become civilized enough to get help for North Korea's economy.

Who is Travis Jeppesen?

Wikipedia - Travis Jeppesen

In 2012, Jeppesen made his first visit to North Korea. His fascination with the country led him to enroll in a Korean language program at Kim Hyong Jik University in Pyongyang in 2016, becoming the first American in history to ever study in North Korea. His memoir of his time in North Korea, See You Again in Pyongyang, will be published in 2018.

Wall Street Journal - A Consumer Class Wields New Power in North Korea

Kim Jong Un spurred the upwardly mobile ‘money masters’ to seek foreign deals to boost the economy. Now they want him to make a foreign deal, too.

By Travis Jeppesen June 1, 2018 14 COMMENTS

During my first visit to North Korea, in April 2012, my tour group’s North Korean guides suddenly stopped in their tracks at the door of a seafood restaurant one evening. We all joined the restaurant staff and diners, drawn to the glow of a plasma TV that had been hastily positioned on two wobbly dining tables by the entrance. There on the screen, giving his first public speech, was the country’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, about whom the outside world knew little and most North Koreans knew even less.

After ten minutes spent acknowledging his paternal predecessors and the military, with frequent interruptions for applause, the young Mr. Kim made a surprising pronouncement about the country’s priorities: He officially elevated economic development to an equal status with its nuclear weapons program. He promised that his people would “not tighten their belts again” and would “enjoy the wealth and prosperity of socialism as much as they like.” Western economic sanctions tied to the nuclear effort had put these dual aims in direct conflict, so Mr. Kim’s pledge created expectations and pressures within North Korea: Would he be able to strike a deal with the West?

In four subsequent trips since 2012, I have seen an increasing display of wealth on the streets of Pyongyang— Hermes handbags, Rolex watches, faces powdered in French cosmetics—and fewer tell-tale signs of poverty. Mr. Kim has overseen the evolution of a new socio-economic class in North Korea, known locally as the donju, or money masters. They are denizens of Pyongyang and other large cities who are focused on making lucrative deals and attaining personal wealth—but who also pay lip service to the doctrines of North Korea’s ostensibly state-run economy, which has been crumbling for decades. As one of my guides once gushed to me, “Our style of socialism is unique in the world.”

As a novelist and art critic, I was drawn to North Korea after exploring the contemporary art scene in neighboring China, lured by the chance to explore an isolated society where everyday life is shrouded in propaganda. Eventually I enrolled in language courses at Kim Hyong Jik University in Pyongyang—the only American taking advantage of a program offered to Westerners for the first time.

My studies enabled me to spend weeks in the “capital of the revolution,” as it has been deemed by the government, and to get to know a handful of North Koreans there. Though none of my guides ever criticized the government directly, during my later visits they felt no need to hide their love of luxury brands, personal wealth and business deals with foreigners. That was certainly not the case back in 2012.

The capitalist roots of the donju were established in the famine years of the 1990s. A series of natural and policy disasters, along with the collapse of the country’s then-chief benefactor, the Soviet Union, sent the North Korean economy into free fall. The public food distribution system ceased functioning for all but the elites in Pyongyang. Until then, the populace had relied on these essential rations as a means of sustenance, because “official salaries are meaningless and are scarcely more than token payments,” according to Seoul-based North Korean studies professor Andrei Lankov. To survive, North Koreans had to go into business for themselves. Traders began crossing what at the time was a very porous border into China and bringing back goods to sell. It was a brutal lesson in free-market economics: Do or die.

The widespread opening of jangmadang, as the black markets are known, eventually lifted the country out of the famine, and the new outlets never went away. The state periodically attempted to intervene under the reign of Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, by shutting markets down, regulating prices or initiating currency reforms that decimated private wealth. Yet the unofficial economy took over as the official one failed to recover: The Seoul-based website Daily NK estimated from the reports of defectors that, by 2008, over two-thirds of North Korean employment was in the black market. In a 2015 survey of defectors by a Seoul University professor, over half said those markets had been their main source of food.

The smaller and more elite donju class is made up of individuals who have been assigned to (or have bought their way into) the most prestigious jobs in the official state economy—where they enjoy an unofficial license to go into business for themselves. Under Kim Jong Un, it is increasingly easy for them to travel abroad to cut deals, and they have engineered any number of covert ways of violating sanctions. “If you have money, you can buy anything you want in North Korea nowadays,” one recent defector told me in South Korea.

In 2016, one of my North Korean guides, a donju, pitched me: Perhaps I knew some businessmen in Berlin, where I live, who might be of a riskier disposition and willing to covertly violate the sanctions. (For the record, I didn’t.) “We can do virtually anything,” the guide asserted. “I know some guys who are IT programming geniuses. But it doesn’t have to be computers. We can sell hair for wigs, for instance. Artwork—sure, we can provide. More than anything, we need foreign partners.”

My last visit to Pyongyang was just over a year ago, before the U.S. travel ban was imposed. One afternoon in my hotel room, I saw on the international news that the North had just fired a short-range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. That night, I had dinner with two donju working in tourism, to whom I broke the news, since it had not yet been on state media. Their reaction was not the ecstatic jubilation with which North Koreans are supposed to greet such events.

“What was the reaction of the Western media?” they asked with concern. I told them the truth: “Commentators suggest that more sanctions are on the way.” My companions looked down into their bowls of cold noodles, and a somber atmosphere permeated the rest of the dinner. The message, though unspoken, was clear: All this saber-rattling is bad for business.

My experiences in North Korea have taught me that the donju are the closest thing North Korea has to a dissident class. They are savvy and worldly and certainly don’t conform to the outside world’s image of the brainwashed Kim Jong Un fanatic; they don’t buy into the state’s propaganda. As for Mr. Kim, in April he declared that the country had met its nuclear goals and would now make economic development the top priority. In seeking a deal with South Korea and the U.S., Mr. Kim has perhaps joined the ranks of the donju himself.

—Mr. Jeppesen’s new memoir is “See You Again in Pyongyang,” published by Hachette Books.

Cashiers bag items last June at the Potonggang department store in Pyongyang, stocked with foreign goods.

Strollers promenade along the Taedong River in Pyongyang, across from the Juche Tower, built one meter taller than the Washington Monument.

Numerous members of the Trump Administration said President Fucktard Trump is an idiot, a moron, a dope, and dumb as shit. This is all true. Garry Trudeau is not making this up.

Kursk, Russia

I just played chess (https://lichess.org) with someone from Kursk, Russia. I never heard of Kursk so I looked it up.

Wikipedia - Kursk, Russia

Kursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history.

Later today I will look up the largest tank battle in history. I like to look stuff up.

I was winning the game but I was in time trouble. With 11 seconds left I might have had enough time to checkmate but I made a terrible move that made it possible for my opponent to get a stalemate which is a draw. Russia had 5 minutes left.

Stalemate: "a position counting as a draw, in which a player is not in check but cannot move except into check."

In other words if a chess player is not in check but can't make any legal moves the game is a stalemate which is a draw.

This is a bunch of fantastic stuff I have saved on my computer.

Louisiana has thrown out the United States Constitution to make their state a theocracy.

Thanks to Jerry Coyne's website I found this news article about Christian assholes illegally sticking their Magic Man into the public schools of Louisiana.

I wrote this comment at the news website: This god thing in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of our Bill of Rights.

Louisiana is the same state that lets incompetent biology teachers (who know nothing about biology) teach the moronic magical creationism fantasy instead of evolution. This is of course also a violation of the Establishment Clause of our Bill of Rights.

How does Louisiana get away throwing out our constitution to make their state a theocracy? Maybe it's because almost everyone who lives there is a fucking moron.

This is the news article:

This official Architect of the Capitol photograph displays a bronze plaque of the nation's motto. Louisiana's public schools will have to display this motto no later than August 2019.

Bill requiring display of 'In God We Trust' at public schools becomes law. Posted May 30, 2018.

By Wilborn P. Nobles III

wnobles@nola.com,

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Hundreds of public schools in Louisiana will have to display the national motto of "In God We Trust" on their buildings by August 2019, after Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the proposed bill into law last week.

The governor's signature May 23 means public school authorities must now display the national motto in each building used by a school under its jurisdiction. The law also requires Louisiana's social studies curriculum to teach students about the motto by the 5th grade, a provision that expands upon the existing law that orders schools to teach students about the U.S flag and other "patriotic customs."

When the law was initially proposed to Louisiana's senators in March, State Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, stressed it would help address "moral decay" in the public school system. She later told lawmakers she believes "this will serve to be an improvement to our schools" because they cannot assume students learn about the "patriotic history and founding of this country" when students are at home.

The U.S. Department of Treasury states the nation's motto has been on U.S. currency since 1864 "largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War." The motto can also be found in the fourth verse of "The Star Spangled Banner," though U.S. citizens are mostly familiar with the poem's first verse because it is the national anthem.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law making "In God We Trust" the nation's motto in 1956.

Louisiana's Legislative Fiscal Office stated in a fiscal note attached to the law that local school districts will not experience a "material impact" in expenses under this law. Although the schools are free to choose how they want to display the motto, the law states the minimum requirement of display can be a paper sign.

Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles.

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Christians are Christians because they're just plain fucking stupid, not to mention batshit crazy.

Reality: the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Christians don't like the dictionary definition of reality. They think reality can be anything they want it to be. For example the magical resurrection of the Magic Jeebus Man is reality according to Christian fucktards.

Christian morons, a magical resurrection is a fantasy. Fantasies are not reality.

Why do Christians think magic is real? Also why do Christians pretend they don't believe in magic? I can't imagine anything more magical than Jeebus becoming a zombie.

Obviously Christians have a stupidity problem. It's also obvious they're insane.

Some Christians eventually realize they have been wasting their entire lives believing in bullshit. Then they throw Jeebus in the garbage where the thing belongs. But this is just a very small minority of Christians. Most of these idiots can't be cured. They will spend the rest of their pathetic lives being completely wrong about everything.

Nobody cares about these subhumans. Unfortunately they can't exist without being stupid assholes who brainwash children. This is child abuse. Christians are child abusers and they belong in prison.

If you're a Christian and you're reading this: Get off my planet you fucking asshole.

A problem for Christian fucktards. The Magic Jeebus Man is not real.

This is one of the many reasons I love the 21st century. BBC News - New Horizons: Sharpest images of Pluto's surface.

The rugged water-ice al-Idrisi mountains meet the smooth nitrogen-rich ices of Sputnik Planum

BBC News: New Horizons: Sharpest images of Pluto's surface

By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent

The New Horizons probe has at last returned some of the super-sharp pictures it took of Pluto during its historic flyby in July.

The images released by the US space agency on Friday show details on the surface of the dwarf planet at a resolution better than 80m per pixel.

On Earth at this scale, one could easily discern a city park.

With New Horizons, we see crystal clear views of mountains, craters and smooth ice fields.

"These close-up images, showing the diversity of terrain on Pluto, demonstrate the power of our robotic planetary explorers to return intriguing data to scientists back here on Planet Earth," said John Grunsfeld, the head of Nasa's science directorate.

"New Horizons thrilled us during the July flyby with the first close images of Pluto, and as the spacecraft transmits the treasure trove of images in its onboard memory back to us, we continue to be amazed by what we see."

The probe got to about 12,500km from the surface of the dwarf and acquired a mass of pictures and other instrument data.

But because of the vast separation to Earth, and the modest transmitter on New Horizons, the flow of information back home has been extremely slow.

Indeed, it is expected to take until late 2016 to get everything in the probe's memory back on the ground.

The mission team prioritised what it wanted to see first, which included some general impressions of Pluto - the broad context. Now, nearly five months on from the flyby, we are being treated to some spectacularly detailed offerings.

Friday's pictures come from a photographic strip that incorporates a segment of its icy flat terrain informally known Sputnik Planum, and the adjacent rugged al-Idrisi mountains.

"These new images give us a breathtaking, super-high resolution window into Pluto's geology," said New Horizons' chief scientist, Alan Stern, of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.

"Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys; yet at Pluto we're there already - down among the craters, ice fields and mountains - less than five months after flyby! The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable."

All the pictures were acquired by New Horizons' telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (Lorri).

The probe continues to move deeper into space. It is now about 167 million km beyond the dwarf planet and some 5.2 billion km from Earth.

The spacecraft has been put on a course to fly by another object known simply as 2014 MU69. This will occur in just over three years' time.

However, the team does not yet have a budget from the US space agency to operate the probe at the roughly 45km-wide body. The scientists plan to submit a formal request for funding in the next few months.

More pictures of Pluto here.

In Florida (aka Idiot Florida) taxpayers pay for private schools that teach the magical creationism fantasy instead of evolution (aka the strongest fact of science). The stupid, it burns.

Creationism at publicly funded schools in Florida

"Some private schools in Florida that rely on public funding teach students that dinosaurs and humans lived together," reports the Orlando Sentinel (June 1, 2018).

The newspaper surveyed "151 private schools newly approved by the education department to take scholarships for the 2017-18 school year. Seventy[-]five of the schools provided information about their curriculum either on their website or when contacted by phone, and 30 of those, or about 40 percent, reported Abeka, BJU [Bob Jones University Press] or ACE [Advanced Christian Education] was a part of their academic offerings."

According to experts asked by the Sentinel to review the textbooks from these publishers, "[t]he most striking feature of the biology books is their focused argument against evolution, a fundamental building block of modern biology." Brandon Haught of Florida Citizens for Science said, of claims about dinosaurs in a workbook from ACE, "That was just plain-old, misguided, bad, horrible science, talking about dinosaurs and humans living together."

Concerns about the textbooks used in private schools that receive public funding have surfaced elsewhere. Writing in the Huffington Post (December 7, 2017), Rebecca Klein reported on a study that found that "many of the non-Catholic Christian schools" participating in private school choice programs were using Abeka, BJU, or ACE textbooks, which "often flout widely accepted science and historical fact."

Despite the public funding of these private schools, the Sentinel noted, "Florida law prohibits the department [of education] from asking about or regulating academics at these schools."

Anti-Evolution
2018
Florida

In America today is National Donut Day.

Donuts are junk food. I don't eat garbage.

Wikipedia - National Doughnut Day

National Doughnut Day, or National Donut Day - celebrated in the United States, is on the first Friday of June of each year, succeeding the Doughnut event created by The Salvation Army in Chicago in 1938 to honor those of their members who served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I. The holiday celebrates the doughnut. Many American doughnut stores offer free doughnuts on National Doughnut Day.

When I'm bored I answer dumb questions.

"Atheists: What would make you believe in God?"

Nothing. Same answer for the Easter Bunny for the same reason.

The god thing and the rabbit thing are equally childish and equally impossible.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Which level are you at?
1. believing in christianity
2. spiritual but not religious
3. pagan
4. not sure if there are any gods
5. claim with absolute knowledge there are no gods

Normal people would choose number 5.

There is no magic in the universe therefore magic god fairies are impossible.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Another question about the god thing was asked.

I am 100% certain magic god fairies are impossible. There is no magic in the universe. This is a basic fact of reality.

Same answer for the Easter Bunny which is no less childish than the Magic Man.

I'm hardcore atheist, aka normal person.

One more thing: Agnostics are idiots. Is magic real or not? Agnostics are too dense to be able to figure it out. Agnostics are part of the religious insanity problem. They have my contempt.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"Christians: What would make you disbelieve in God?"

I'm hardcore atheist but I used to be a Catholic.

I figured out Catholicism isn't a religion. It's a business and the customers are suckers. I stopped going to church at age 18. A few years later I became a hardcore atheist. The more I learn about science the more I realize the magic god fairy's magical powers were never required for anything.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"Can the souls of the departed observe what takes place on earth? You know, like watch there loved ones?"

Dead people can't observe anything because they're fucking dead.

This is called REALITY.

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"Why do some people not believe in God or a deity?

That's easy. Atheists (real atheists) are 100% certain magic god fairies are not real because they're fucking impossible. There is no magic in the universe. This is a basic fact of reality.

Why do some people think the Magic Man is real?

Extreme stupidity and afraid of reality. They're cowards.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"Is God really dead?"

The Magic Man is not real because the thing is impossible.

The god fantasy died in 1859 when Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species".

Unfortunately uneducated morons didn't get the memo.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"Atheists, I know some of you have a belief in God or maybe not but your reason for the origin of life? What is the logic behind it?"

You don't even know what an atheist is. Atheists have thrown your magic god fairy in the garbage. They know the thing is not real.

Everything, including how life got a foothold on Earth about four billion years ago, can be explained by natural processes.

Instead of wasting people's time ask a child how to use google then google "wikipedia abiogenesis". If you spend a year studying all the science and you still think the Magic Man did it, then you have an incurable stupidity problem.

I have zero tolerance for anyone who thinks a god is real or might be real. This is the 21st century FFS.

Trump is a fucking moron but sometimes he does something right.

U.S. President Donald Trump, center, flanked by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, shook hands with North Korean Gen. Kim Yong Chol at the White House on June 1, 2018.

Wall Street Journal - Trump Says June Summit With Kim Jong Un Is Back On. North Korean official hand-delivers letter to U.S. president in the White House from North Korean leader.

By Michael C. Bender and Vivian Salama June 1, 2018 145 COMMENTS

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said that the on-again off-again June 12 summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will proceed as initially planned, in remarks at the White House on Friday.

The comments came after one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s top lieutenants hand-delivered a letter to Mr. Trump on Friday and met with the president and top aides. Ahead of the meeting, administration officials had grown increasingly optimistic about the chances for the first summit between leaders of the two countries.

“We will be meeting June 12 in Singapore,” Mr. Trump told reporters. He tempered expectations for the initial meeting, saying the effort to get North Korea to end its nuclear program will “be a process.”

The letter from Mr. Kim was described as fairly basic, according to one foreign government official who was briefed on the contents. It expresses the North Korean leader’s interest in meeting without making any significant concessions or threats. The Kim lieutenant delivering the letter, Gen. Kim Yong Chol, who is under U.S. sanctions for his role in cyberattacks against American companies, is expected to remain in the U.S. until Saturday, the official said.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to spend the weekend in Camp David, Md.

U.S. officials have repeatedly insisted the summit will be aimed at the complete, verifiable and nonreversible denuclearization of North Korea.

Those demands sparked an outburst last week from Mr. Kim’s top officials, who insisted that the North would never give up its arsenal. The aggressive language, which belittled Vice President Mike Pence and suggested nuclear war, was enough for Mr. Trump to cancel the summit last week.

But North Korea expressed surprise at Mr. Trump’s reaction, and the two sides have resumed talks.

Gen. Kim, often described as Kim Jong Un’s right-hand man, met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday and Thursday in New York, and is in Washington on Friday to deliver the letter from the North Korean leader to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kim’s letter was to be inspected by U.S. officials before it was delivered to Mr. Trump, White House officials said ahead of the meeting.

That meeting after 1 p.m. and lasted more than an hour, and included Mr. Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. The North Korean general also has been accused of being involved in the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors, and has been sanctioned by the European Union as well.

Inside the White House, officials have been cautiously optimistic about a summit between Messrs. Trump and Kim on June 12 in Singapore. While officials said there is a chance the summit is postponed or canceled, several administration officials have said that meetings in New York, Singapore and on the Korean Peninsula have gone well during the past week.

“The answer is, we’re optimistic,” one White House official said Friday before the meeting began. “Everybody is thinking about this in a positive light.”

Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com

A college student wrote an article about "Inherit the Wind" which is a 1960 movie about a teacher on trial in 1925 for violating the Butler Act, a Tennensee state law prohibiting public school teachers from teaching evolution instead of creationism.

The student's article was well done. I recommend click the link: COLUMN: 'Inherit the Wind' dramatizes battle between evolution and creationism

I wrote a comment. Here it is:

Well done Mr. Mack.

Some nitpicking: "humans evolved from a lower order of creatures"

That implies humans are the pinnacle of evolution. There is no pinnacle. We are not the pinnacle of anything. Other creatures including our ancient ape ancestors are not a "lower order". They evolved just as much as we have. They just filled a different niche.

"At its core was the turbulent clash of ideas: Mysticism versus reason, religion versus science, the Enlightenment versus the Dark Ages."

I prefer reason and science. Unfortunately millions of Americans prefer the Dark Ages.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Wikipedia - Inherit the Wind (1960 film)

Simon & Garfunkel - "The Dangling Conversation" is a song written by Paul Simon, first released in September 1966.

It’s a still-life watercolor
Of a now late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our places with bookmarkers
That measure what we’ve lost
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

Yes, we speak of thing that matter
With words that must be said
“Can analysis be worthwhile?”
“Is the theatre really dead?”
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You’re a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives

Wikipedia - The Dangling Conversation

Quran 4:34

Why do Muslim scum treat women like farm animals? It's in their disgusting holy book: Quran 4:34.

Quran (4:34) - "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/wife-beating.aspx

An ex-Muslim, to answer a question I asked, explained why Muslim morons blow themselves up.

Muslimah's answer is very accurate, I'd just like to reconfirm that Islam carries with it a strong culture of encouraging martyrdom.

Those who die for the cause of Islam are supposedly given the highest ranks in heaven, and get more "heavenly benefits" than others. In Islam, there is not just hell and heaven: heaven and hell are separated into ranks depending on how good/bad you were in life. The highest ranks are given to prophets (e.g. Muhammed) and martyrs. The Quran is littered with references and warnings reminding you to work hard and make sure you get into the best rank, since there is no going back once you die.

Therefore, this sort of teaching brings forth the mentality that since heaven is eternal and you can never go back and change it, you have to use every opportunity to score as many points as you can. (This, incidentally, leads to a very high rate of anxiety and obsessive patterns in muslims, and OCD is unfortunately very common amongst muslims.)

Also, it means that if you have an opportunity to become a "martyr" you should logically take it.

Now, this is where things get particularly ugly because there are always people who are either corrupt or extremist, and they use "martyrdom" as an tool to convince muslims to do things that most sensible people would refuse to do.

For example, in the Iran-Iraq war, young boys as young as 14 years old were recruited by the thousands in the Iranian army. They were told that this is a holy war, and therefore dying in this war gives you eternal heaven. So teenagers dropped out of high school to volunteer for the army. They were often guided over minefields --- they were asked to clear minefields by simply walking over the mines and killing themselves. 40,000 young people died this way in 1 night just to clear a path to 1 city.

The same ideas work for suicide bombers. In fact, in the native language they are not called suicide bombers, they are called "martydom-seekers".

So, in summary, Islam inflicts upon its followers a number of mindsets which make them easy to manipulate into doing stupid things.

Unfortunately, Islam also comes with a number of safeguards to prevent common sense from taking over. For example, muslims are taught from a very young age that they are not allowed to question islam or even think about the idea that the teachings of Islam are not God's word. I was told that you're not allowed to even listen to somebody questioning Islam. So it kind of traps you within a number of mindsets that disallow most people from seeing beyond. It takes a lot of willpower and courage to go against all of that and start to think freely -- it took me years to finally break free from it.

I grew up in the middle east in a muslim family, and managed, over time, to free myself from the teachings of Islam and understand that it's all wrong. Unfortunately, that means I can never go back home.

Trump is a fucking lunatic.

BBC News: Trade tariffs: Chorus of condemnation intensifies

7th grade chess teacher in Portland, Oregon: "He wanted them to know how to think rather than what to think."

This is a Wall Street Journal article about a famous basketball player. I'm not interested in basketball but the basketball player shares my love for chess.

Wall Street Journal - The Warriors’ Key Chess Piece Is Also a Chess Fanatic

NBA playoff series are chess matches. So it’s a good thing that Klay Thompson really, really loves chess.

By Ben Cohen Updated May 30, 2018 23 COMMENTS

Oakland, Calif.

After a recent Golden State Warriors game, Klay Thompson opened the Chess with Friends app on his phone. He wanted to show a match he was playing against teammate Andre Iguodala to someone he’d never met waiting for him outside the locker room. Thompson thought Magnus Carlsen might be able to offer some assistance.

Magnus Carlsen is the best chess player in the world, according to the official rankings of the sport’s governing body. Klay Thompson introduced himself to Carlsen as the best chess player on the Warriors, according to the official rankings of Klay Thompson.

“Based on loose facts,” he said, “but whatever.”

Thompson plays chess as often as he plays basketball: almost every day. “It’s a great game,” he said. He owns multiple chess boards at home. He carries a magnetic chess set on road trips. And he juggles several chess games on his phone, which is a problem for Thompson: He’s not good at chess on his phone.

“In person, I’m real nice,” he said. “On the phone, I’ll make a couple moves, put my phone down for a couple of days, forget my strategy and think: Why the hell did I do that?”

He added: “You can learn a lot about someone playing chess.”

His childhood friend Seth Tarver, who now works for Thompson’s foundation, knows his chess habits better than anyone and offered this scouting report about Thompson’s game: “One thing about Klay is that he’s at his best when you back him into a corner. He’ll be playing loose, but once I show I’m a threat, he can really lock in.”

Which means Thompson plays basketball the way he plays chess.

The Warriors were down 3-2 in Game 6 of the 2016 conference finals when he scored 41 points to rescue their season. It was a once-in-a-lifetime game. Until it happened again. The Warriors were down 3-2 in Game 6 of the conference final last week when Thompson scored 35 points and sparked another epic comeback. Golden State wouldn’t be in the Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers for the fourth consecutive season without him.

Thompson is their rook. He’s the quietly crucial piece of this potential Warriors dynasty.

He doesn’t seem to mind that he’s an understated All-Star who will never get the glory of Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant. He prefers it that way. Golden State coach Steve Kerr calls Thompson “the most low-maintenance guy on earth.”

Everyone on the Warriors understands his value to their bid for a third championship in four years. His talents fit this team. They don’t need another ballhandler, and he scores the most points in the league off screens. They do need a ball-stopper, and he defends the other team’s best guard. The Warriors are perfect for Thompson, and he is perfect for the Warriors.

But there is nothing about Klay Thompson that screams chess player. This is someone who simply missed practice the day before he erupted for 60 points in 29 minutes. Why? Because he was sleeping. It was more characteristic of Thompson when the Warriors were in New York and he gave one local television station a man-on-the-street interview to discuss his thoughts about…scaffolding. He was identified by his name and occupation: “NBA player.” He might be the spaciest NBA player of his generation.

This is another classic Klay Thompson story. It was the end of the fourth quarter of a tie game in 2012, and the Warriors had the ball and could’ve held it for the last possession. Thompson was completely oblivious to the time, score and situation, though, and he launched a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left. Any chess player would’ve identified it for what it was: a blunder. The shot was inexcusable even before Thompson missed it, and Golden State’s horrified coaches attempted to explain why as he walked back to the bench.

“My bad,” Thompson said. “I’ll make it next time.”

The roots of his fascination with chess were also unexpected. It started in seventh-grade in Portland, Oregon. Riverdale Grade School’s chess teacher, Carl Haessler, a local securities broker who is also a United States Chess Federation Life Master and five-time Oregon state champion, taught his students to be cerebral. “I’m big on the Socratic method,” he said.

He wanted them to know how to think rather than what to think. “How to look down at this thing of all these pieces going every which way,” he said, “and cut out the white noise, look at what’s relevant, assess the position, come to a conclusion, make a plan based upon that conclusion and then make specific moves that fit the plan.”

This is not what Thompson was expecting from chess class.

“I took it as an elective just to waste time,” he said.

The other thing he was not expecting was that he would become obsessed with chess.

“And then I realized, wow, this is actually really fun,” Thompson said. “Just for an hour, to be with your friends, hang out and play chess. It was probably the best class I’ve ever had.”

What he appreciates most about chess are the moments when he can feel the advantage tipping. That sense is familiar to anyone who has watched the Warriors use a sliver of an opening to destroy other teams over the last four years. “I just love how there can be so many swings,” Thompson said, “and it can take one move to mess up the whole flow.”

Thompson is still with his friends, hanging out and playing chess. They abide by the rules of pickup basketball. There is no clock, and the winner of one match getting the advantage of playing white in the next match is their equivalent of make it, take it.

Tarver used to lose so often that he spent time studying why he was losing. “He knows some good tactics,” Tarver said. “I had to learn on the fly. I learned through him beating me.”

He stopped losing soon enough, and he declined to reveal too much about his current strategies against Thompson because they play nearly every day.

“I don’t know who’s better now,” he said. “He’ll probably tell you it’s him.”

Except if they’re playing on their phones. They’re evenly matched in person, when Thompson can devote his full attention to a physical chessboard even as his English bulldog, Rocco, attempts to play with him. But he gets so distracted online that Tarver has to nudge Thompson in person to make a move with his phone.

He’s not the only person who talks chess with Thompson. At one Warriors dinner this season, enough players and coaches were discussing chess that Golden State decided it would be a good idea to invite Carlsen to meet with the team. As it turned out, the reigning world champion is a maniacal NBA fan. He flew to Houston for the conference finals against the Rockets, and the Warriors arranged for Carlsen to have tickets. (Carlsen woke up Tuesday morning and watched Game 7 from Norway.)

Thompson was impressed by Carlsen. “That guy’s smart,” he said. “Understatement that he’s smart. He’s a genius.” And he took advantage of the opportunity to request advice on his openings. “He said he’d sit down and teach me some things one day,” Thompson said.

Thompson, who once compared Ping-Pong games with Roger Federer, thought better of challenging maybe the greatest chess player of all time.

“He’d play blindfolded and backward,” Thompson said, “and still beat me.”

Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com

Appeared in the May 31, 2018, print edition as 'The Warriors’ Chess Grandmaster.'