― Slaying Dragons
Jesus wept, Hell of a day out there, mates. One hell of a day indeed.
This is Sydney Harbour right now! Lends a whole new meaning to that Tourism Australia ad campaign.
”Where The Bloody Hell Are You?” indeed !!!#sydneyfires#sydneysmoke #ClimateCrisis
Image credit: @jikoala. pic.twitter.com/XWMk2edDpx
'Sadness and anger': coastal towns scramble to secure water supplies
Sydney, the city of biblical exile, disappeared behind a thick layer bushfire smoke that blanketed the city . . . Saying that it’s been a bit smokey in Sydney today is probably one of the all-time great understatements ...
Sydney ferry services were cancelled and workplaces evacuated on Tuesday as the city’s air quality soared to as much as 12 times hazardous levels.
The smoke is from bushfires ringing the harbour city – including in the Hawkesbury region and near Warragamba Dam.
It choked the harbour city on Tuesday, prompting a shutdown of Manly ferries because of poor visibility and setting off smoke alarms across the city.
Ironically, the NSW Rural Fire Service headquarters in Homebush was was one of the first buildings affected. It was briefly evacuated on Tuesday morning, after its smoke alarms went off.
Alarms were also set off across Sydney’s CBD, including in the city’s law courts, and train operators warned of possible disruptions to rail services. Elsewhere, local landmarks such as the harbour bridge and opera house disappeared behind a toxic haze.
Sydney smoke at its 'worst ever' with air pollution in some areas 12 times 'hazardous' threshold
Visualizing the Worst Air Pollution Days of 2019 - The New York Times – See How the World’s Most Polluted Air Compares With Your City’s – “We visualized the damaging, tiny particles that wreak havoc on human health. From the Bay Area to New Delhi, see how the world’s worst pollution compares with your local air. …Outdoor particulate pollution was responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015, with a majority concentrated in east and south Asia. Millions more fell ill from breathing dirty air. This fine pollution mainly comes from burning things: Coal in power plants, gasoline in cars, chemicals in industrial processes, or woody materials and whatever else ignites during wildfires. The particles are too small for the eye to see — each about 35 times smaller than a grain of fine beach sand — but in high concentrations they cast a haze in the sky. And, when breathed in, they wreak havoc on human health.
Visualizing the Worst Air Pollution Days of 2019 - The New York Times – See How the World’s Most Polluted Air Compares With Your City’s – “We visualized the damaging, tiny particles that wreak havoc on human health. From the Bay Area to New Delhi, see how the world’s worst pollution compares with your local air. …Outdoor particulate pollution was responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015, with a majority concentrated in east and south Asia. Millions more fell ill from breathing dirty air. This fine pollution mainly comes from burning things: Coal in power plants, gasoline in cars, chemicals in industrial processes, or woody materials and whatever else ignites during wildfires. The particles are too small for the eye to see — each about 35 times smaller than a grain of fine beach sand — but in high concentrations they cast a haze in the sky. And, when breathed in, they wreak havoc on human health.
I found the perfect new super hero name for me: Irony Man
Picasso with the Sharp Elbows
“All these nihilists and cynics are really just cowards. They act as if everything’s meaningless because that means ultimately there’s nothing to lose. Their attitude seems unassailable and superior, but inside it’s worthless…The alternative to the concept of life and death is the void – would it really be better if this world didn’t exist at all? Instead, we live, make art, love, observe, suffer, laugh and are happy. We all exist in a million different ways so that there is no void, and the price we pay for that is death.”
It was vintage Malcolm Turnbull on Q&A as Tony Jones bowed out
Hierro is a 2009 psychological thriller directed by Gabe Ibáñez and starring Elena Anaya, Kaiet Rodríguez, Bea Segura, and Andrés Herrera. Production company: Madrugada Films; Telecinco Cinema; Roxbury Pictures; AXN; ... Release date: 18 May 2009 (Cannes); 15 January 2010 (Spain)
Hierro is a 2009 psychological thriller directed by Gabe Ibáñez and starring Elena Anaya, Kaiet Rodríguez, Bea Segura, and Andrés Herrera. Production company: Madrugada Films; Telecinco Cinema; Roxbury Pictures; AXN; ... Release date: 18 May 2009 (Cannes); 15 January 2010 (Spain)
Redemption for NASA scientist who made bold global-warming call 30 years ago MarketWatch
US government drops case against Max Blumenthal after jailing journalist on false charges The Grayzone
Dilbert Creator Proposes “Mulligans” For A Kinder Internet
He lays out two such rules in his new book, Loserthink. His first proposal, which he calls the “48-hour rule,” states that everyone should be given a grace period of a couple of days to retract any controversial statement they’ve made, no questions asked. “We live in a better world if we accept people’s clarifications and we accept their apologies, no matter whether we think—internally—it’s insincere,” he says. His other idea is the “20-year rule,” which states that everyone should be automatically forgiven for any mistakes they made more than two decades ago—with the exception of certain serious crimes. – Wired
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Law Students Who Handwrite Their Notes Outperform Laptop Users By One Grade (e.g., B + to A-).
In the past couple of years I’ve noticed that more of my students are taking notes by hand, so apparently word has gotten around
Fr Schall: The man who launched a thousand libraries | Catholic Heral
In an essay titled “On the Reasonableness of Hell”, Schall wrote: “If the human soul is not immortal – that is, if nothing passes beyond this life – it follows that injustice and justice have the same results. Great crimes of injustice are gotten away with and great examples of courage or generosity are unrewarded. If either of these results is the case, then the world is made in injustice. It is rationally incoherent. It was this frightening alternative that Plato fought against, as we also do.”
Fr Schall: The man who launched a thousand libraries | Catholic Heral
In an essay titled “On the Reasonableness of Hell”, Schall wrote: “If the human soul is not immortal – that is, if nothing passes beyond this life – it follows that injustice and justice have the same results. Great crimes of injustice are gotten away with and great examples of courage or generosity are unrewarded. If either of these results is the case, then the world is made in injustice. It is rationally incoherent. It was this frightening alternative that Plato fought against, as we also do.”
Ars Technica – “The courts have long held that laws can’t be copyrighted. But if the state mixes the text of the law together with supporting information, things get trickier. In Monday oral arguments, the US Supreme Court wrestled with the copyright status of Georgia’s official legal code, which includes annotations written by LexisNexis. The defendant in the case is Public.Resource.Org (PRO), a non-profit organization that publishes public-domain legal materials. The group obtained Georgia’s official version of state law, known as the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, and published the code on its website. The state of Georgia sued, arguing that while the law itself is in the public domain, the accompanying annotations are copyrighted works that can’t be published by anyone except LexisNexis. Georgia won at the trial court level, but PRO won at the appeals court level. On Monday, the case reached the US Supreme Court. “Why would we allow the official law to be hidden behind a pay wall?” asked Justice Neil Gorsuch. Georgia’s lawyer countered that the law wasn’t hidden behind a paywall—at least not the legally binding parts. LexisNexis offers a free version of Georgia’s code, sans annotations, on its website. But that version isn’t the official code. LexisNexis’ terms of service explicitly warns users that it might be inaccurate. The company also prohibits users from scraping the site’s content. If you want to own the latest official version of the state code, you have to pay LexisNexis hundreds of dollars. And if you want to publish your own copy of Georgia’s official code, you’re out of luck…”
Crime group suspected of smuggling nuclear materials arrested in Vienna
Austrian
law enforcement together with the General Police Inspectorate of The Republic
of Moldova (National Investigative Inspectorate) coordinated and supported by
Europol, have jointly investigated and arrested a criminal organised crime
group suspected of smuggling nuclear materials.
Trump Administration Drops Plans For Mandatory Face Scans of Citizens US News
Keep Your IoT Devices on a Separate Network, FBI Says ZDNet. This seems to be the opposite of how the Echo works….you can’t tell Alexa to order from Amazon or turn on your music unless it has access to your data and your files.
New vulnerability lets attackers sniff or hijack VPN connections ZDNet
Trump Administration Drops Plans For Mandatory Face Scans of Citizens US News
Keep Your IoT Devices on a Separate Network, FBI Says ZDNet. This seems to be the opposite of how the Echo works….you can’t tell Alexa to order from Amazon or turn on your music unless it has access to your data and your files.
New vulnerability lets attackers sniff or hijack VPN connections ZDNet
THE
BOOK OF SERVICES: It looks like Facebook, and perhaps some citizens will find
some of its features just as creepy.
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THE
PIA REVIEW: Join Pia Andrews for a continuation of her audience-favourite
series in person.
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CAREERS: Job
cuts in the Department of Customer Service are an attempt to shave more than
$100 million off the state’s worker-related expenses.
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