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Thread: The Cosmic Emporium

  1. #4081
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    Love

    Ready Steady Go ...




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    Wink

    Life's little stinkers ...



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    Returning Topic

    Continuing ...

    How Expensive is LONDON, ENGLAND? Exploring the City

    Gabriel Traveler


    Published on Jan 1, 2019

    13:46 minutes


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    Thumbs Up

    Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk

    ♪ Don't believe me ...
    Just watch ♪



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    Thinking

    A timely talk/discussion ...

    Steve Taylor - Spiritual Science: Why Science Needs Spirituality to Make Sense of the World

    LegaliseFreedom1

    Published on Jan 1, 2019


    "Steve Taylor discusses his book 'Spiritual Science - Why Science Needs Spirituality to Make Sense of the World'. Is it possible that the most profound mysteries of existence can be solved not through science or spirituality alone, but through an approach that combines them both? In this ground-breaking book, Steve Taylor offers a new vision of the world that is compatible with both modern science and ancient spiritual teachings. 'Spiritual Science' reveals Taylor's 'panspiritist' view of reality, one that transcends both conventional science and religion, and answers many of the riddles that neither can fully explain.

    The standard model of science has had limited success in explaining many phenomena, including consciousness, the connection between mind and body, altruism, and anomalies such as near-death experiences, psychic phenomena and spiritual awakenings, to name just a few. But from a panspiritist perspective - which sees spirit or consciousness as a fundamental essence of reality - it is possible to make sense of all these things. Drawing on the insights of philosophers, physicists, and mystics, as well as spiritual traditions and indigenous cultures, Taylor makes a compelling case for a spiritual vision of reality; a vision of a sacred and interconnected world, and of a meaningful and purposeful human life. The purely materialist model of reality is taking us to the brink of disaster. It is time to take a wider view before it's too late."


    website: https://www.stevenmtaylor.com/

    1:04"05 minutes


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  11. #4086
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    Thinking

    Mor (of a) man...

    Then President-elect Donald Trump calls out to the media as Mitt Romney leaves the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Bedminster, N.J., on Nov. 20, 2016, after a meeting to discuss the secretary of state job. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

    Incoming Sen. Romney criticizes President Trump's character in op-ed


    "Days away from joining the Senate's Republican majority, Sen.-elect Mitt Romney broadly criticized President Donald Trump's policies and character and argued that the president "has not risen to the mantle of the office."

    "With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable," the Utah Republican and 2012 presidential nominee wrote in a Washington Post op-ed posted online Tuesday night. "And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring."

    Romney's biting public assessment came as Trump and Senate Republicans faced a new governing dynamic. Republicans on Thursday will cede control of the House to Democrats, who were prepared to oppose Trump on a number of policies and promised a slew of investigations into his actions and those of his aides and campaign officials, particularly with regard to Russia's election meddling.

    Trump responded to the op-ed on Wednesday morning, tweeting, "Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not. Would much prefer that Mitt focus on Border Security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, and he didn’t. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN!"

    Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, had criticized Trump before — notably, in a March 2016 speech he called Trump a "phony" and a "fraud" and opposed his bid for the GOP nomination — but later he made peace with the president-elect and even expressed interest in joining his administration.

    Romney's rebuke of Trump drew a cutting reply from Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager. In a tweet Tuesday night, Parscale said Romney "lacked the ability to save this nation" and contended that Trump "has saved it."

    "Jealously is a drink best served warm and Romney just proved it," Parscale wrote. "So sad, I wish everyone had the courage" Trump? had."

    The reference to warm drinks seems to be a jab at the Mormon prohibition against "hot drinks," caffeinated beverages such as coffee and tea.

    In the column, Romney offered approval of Trump's corporate tax policies and efforts to cut regulations, appoint conservative judges and other "policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency."

    "To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation," Romney said. He later added: "With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring."

    While saying Trump's early administration appointments had been encouraging, Romney added that, "on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office."

    In describing a "deep descent" by the Trump presidency in December, Romney cited the departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House chief of staff John Kelly and what he called the appointment of people of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies, and Trump's "thoughtless claim that America has long been a 'sucker' in world affairs."

    Looking ahead, Romney wrote that he would act as he would with any president from either party in the White House, supporting policies he believes are in the best interest of the country and his state and opposing those that are not. And he said he didn't intend to comment on every tweet or fault.

    "But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions," he said.

    Romney, who will appear on CNN for an interview on Wednesday afternoon, will be sworn in as a senator on Thursday. He twice accepted Trump's endorsement for public office — once in 2012 while running for president and a more tepid approval during his latest Senate contest. He later said he would not have taken Trump's endorsement for president had he made the public comments Romney has since rebuked."


    by Associated Press/ January 2, 2019
    Source: Chicago Tribune

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    Reuben the Bulldog: Time To Get Moving?


    Published on Jan 1, 2019

    5:04 minutes

    Last edited by Gio, 2nd January 2019 at 14:56.

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    Question

    Musing Morris ...
    Cambodian Pyramid, And Our Lost Past ...


    Published on Jan 1, 2019

    14:17 minutes


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  17. #4089
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    Question


    This screenshot of a YouTube video taken by Debra Thompson
    shows what she believes is a UFO.


    Is it a UFO? Multiple people report seeing flying red sphere off SC coast.

    "A South Carolina woman says she filmed a possible UFO off South Carolina’s Kiawah Island on Christmas Eve, and other witnesses are stepping forward on social media to report they saw the same “beautiful red sphere.”

    “I’m not a nut,” wrote Debra Thompson in a YouTube post with the video. “...I just wanted to know if anyone has had any experiences in the last few days...It really is quite amazing when you see one that seems to ‘splat’ out of another dimension and change into a round shape.”

    Kiawah Island is just off the South Carolina coast, about 25 miles south of Charleston.

    Thompson says in the video that she spotted the object about 9:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve as she stood on the deck of her home. One five-minute video shows “an extraordinarily bright and beautiful” red ball as it bounces, stops, fades and then grows brighter.

    “What the hell is that?...It looks like fire in the sky,” Thompson says in the video. “That’s so weird. It just seems like it’s observing....I don’t think it’s some kid’s toy and I know it’s not an airplane.”

    TV station WCBD posted Thompson’s video on Dec. 27 and reported four days later that the station had “received several emails from people who believe they may have also seen the mysterious object” in eastern South Carolina.

    Even more people posted sightings on Facebook, including some who say they saw it in Ladson, North Myrtle Beach, Summerville and Edisto Beach, where someone told WCBD a room inside their home “lit up brighter than the full moon at about 6 a.m.”

    Thompson says she has also heard directly from witnesses, including one who “saw something strange in the sky last night while driving on the highway.”

    Some social media commenters have offered more down-to-earth ideas, guessing it was a drone, a Chinese lantern or a weather balloon.

    Thompson has disputed those theories on YouTube and Facebook, saying the object was flying, “not floating.”

    “It was dead still that night and crystal clear,” Thompson wrote Sunday. “There wasn’t a sound outside except for some owls. Not even a breeze. This was very high in the sky and it intelligently moved.”

    The website UFO-Hunters.com says UFOs have been reported at least twice before off Kiawah Island since 2009, including a 2012 instance in which the object was described as “a very red round light.”

    The Charleston Post & Courier reported on Dec. 31 that the sphere is “a phenomenon that turns up in the sky here every so often,” including multiple reports in 2015."



    Source:greensboro.com
    Last edited by Gio, 3rd January 2019 at 04:21.

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  19. #4090
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    Question




    Life After Facebook: What Would the World Lose ... and Gain?


    "In September, a group of high school students in Melbourne, Australia, started a Facebook group called “Subtle Asian Traits.” The teenagers are all first-generation Asian migrants, and they wanted a space to bond over the theme of living in a Western culture with Asian-born parents. The group has amassed nearly 1 million members in less than four months. What began as a place to share memes and inside jokes about Asian culture has become a community where members discuss the racism they experience, their struggle to be bilingual and the parental pressure they face on a daily basis.

    It would be an understatement to say Facebook had a tough 2018 — from multiple data breaches to unpermitted data collection and the revealed influence of Russian hackers in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Facebook tested the limits of user trust last year. But if the world’s largest social network went away, we would lose a lot more than the ability to share photos and send messages. More than 1 billion people around the world would no longer be able to connect with others who share their experiences and hardships like the members of “Subtle Asian Traits.”

    Recent U.S. news coverage of Facebook has largely focused on the issues of privacy and trust — warning us that the platform could be putting our personal data at risk. Some fear that the network effect — in which each additional member adds value to the platform for its users — could soon work in reverse for the embattled social network, especially among the prized younger demographic. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center …

    The percentage of users ages 18 to 29 who deleted the app in 2018 was more than double the proportion of those ages 50 to 64 who deleted it.

    The social network’s user growth has also plateaued in the U.S. and Canada, and declined in Europe, contributing to a $120 billion loss in market capitalization in July. As of the third quarter, Facebook had lost 1 million daily active users in Europe compared with the previous quarter. Twitter also saw user decline in 2018 — the company reported losing 9 million monthly active users in the third quarter, though a large portion of that figure comes from the spam and bot accounts it’s wiping from the platform

    But much of the world isn’t giving up on Facebook just yet. As of September, 85 percent of Facebook’s daily active users are outside the U.S. and Canada. “Concerns around privacy and sharing data are separate from the function Facebook serves,” says Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. “The idea of big-tech ethics is more abstract outside the U.S.”

    If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, the platform’s groups would be one of its hardest-hit offerings. More than 100 million Facebook users belong to a group of some kind. Anne Gu, a co-founder of “Subtle Asian Traits,” recently told the BBC that a member of the group said being part of the community was the first time she “felt a sense of belonging.” In India, “Breastfeeding Support for Indian Mothers” has more than 80,000 members who support one another through various stages of breastfeeding their children. “Africa Farmers Club” has connected 100,000 farmers across the continent to share production techniques and help grow profits.

    But the company’s reach goes beyond the limits of its own platform. Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp — two of the largest social media networks in the world. Instagram hit 1 billion users in June and WhatsApp reached more than 1.5 billion this year. If Facebook goes down, these other companies would effectively go down with it.

    On the other hand, the downfall of Facebook could open a wealth of opportunity for several other social media companies currently lingering lower on the totem pole. Public companies like Twitter and Snap might see some gains with a Facebook-size hole in the world, and small messaging platforms like Wickr and Silent Circle could see gains without Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp around. This may be especially true because both companies focus on encryption, something that’s becoming increasingly important in the wake of privacy concerns raised by Facebook this year. For the purposes of pure content scrolling, Pinterest and Reddit might see an uptick in users, and in terms of community engagement, neighborhood app Nextdoor could become the go-to for local organizing and events. “There’s really nothing that special about Facebook except that everyone is there,” says Hancock. If Facebook left the world, he says, people would find another place to gather on the internet.

    Several former Facebook employees have tried, unsuccessfully, to create that new place. Jumo, a philanthropic social network acquired by GOOD in 2011, and Path, a now shuttered mobile photo sharing and messaging service, were founded by some of Facebook’s early team members. Question-and-answer site Quora and team organization tool Asana were both started by former Facebookers but are not direct competitors of the company. Some ex-Facebook executives now shun the site, as well as social media as a whole. In 2017, during a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Facebook’s former vice president for user growth, Chamath Palihapitiya, said the company is “ripping apart the social fabric” in societies around the world. The same year, Facebook’s former president, Sean Parker, told Axios that the network is “exploiting a vulnerability in human society.”

    Still, if Facebook fails, it would serve as a cautionary tale to many that user privacy must be a top priority. Facebook’s neglect in this area may not ruin the company entirely, but risking the market share drop and PR nightmare that follows certainly doesn’t bode well for business.

    In December, the stock market declined by more than 20 percent since Nasdaq’s August high, and technology giants are largely to blame. Facebook fell more than 5 percent, wiping out $28 billion in market capitalization in a single day. But Amazon and Netflix also fell more than 5 percent. Tensions over the U.S. trade war with China, where the government blocks Facebook, are also partly to blame as fear among investors over a global economic slowdown looms large. But when it comes to Facebook, privacy concerns are front and center. Experts caution that the company’s missteps over data privacy are contributing to the worst market decline since 2008, and the total collapse of Facebook could mean a loss of its current $382 billion in market capitalization.

    Hancock says the way forward may be to treat Facebook the company and Facebook the platform differently. “Facebook Groups is an amazing space,” he says — and losing the platform means losing the potential of other offerings as well, like Marketplace, Oculus and its fundraising tools. “Still,” Hancock says, “I think we have to hold Facebook the business accountable.""


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  21. #4091
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    Wink

    Wink wink ...



    Let the ball busting commence !

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  23. #4092
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    Lightbulb

    Side of the moon you can’t see ‘is not dark, it’s just far’ ...


    China's lunar rover leaves wheel marks after departing the
    lander that touched down on the far side of the moon.


    WASHINGTON — "Despite the name of Pink Floyd’s best-selling album, the side of the moon you can’t see isn’t always dark. But it is far.

    So scientists call the area where a Chinese spacecraft just landed the far side, not the dark side.

    “The other side sees the sun sometimes. The other side is not dark, it’s just far,” said Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb. “It’s a mistake.”

    The moon is what scientists call ”tidally locked,” which means the same side always faces us, while another side always faces away, Loeb said. When Earth views a darkened new moon, the far side is lit. When there’s a full moon in our sky, the far side is dark.

    Every semester, Purdue University lunar and planetary scientist Jay Melosh demonstrates how the far side gets light using a bright light as the sun and students playing the roles of the moon and the Earth. But students still get it wrong on the midterm, calling it the dark side.

    Melosh traces the myth back to a Walt Disney television special in 1955 that talked about it always being dark on the other side of the moon and futuristic astronauts dropping flares.

    The term dark side really took off in 1973 with Pink Floyd’s mesmerizing album “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

    While China is the first to land a spacecraft on the far side, there have been plenty of detailed photographs taken by orbiting spacecraft. The first grainy pictures came from a Soviet craft in 1959. NASA’s Apollo 8 astronauts saw it first when they orbited the moon 50 years ago."

    Source

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    Question


    John Hogue Prophecy Special!


    From Whitley Strieber's Dreamland

    "What will 2019 bring?? Prophet John Hogue weighs in!"


    Published on Jan 4, 2019

    1:13:10 minutes


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  27. #4094
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    Wow. I used to go to Whitley's site regularly. It's been a while. It's good to see that "The Experience" is still going. I listened to the first few when they started, they were good.

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    Thumbs Up

    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Wow. I used to go to Whitley's site regularly. It's been a while. It's good to see that "The Experience" is still going. I listened to the first few when they started, they were good.
    Yes, it is good to see Whitley's site experience is still continuing to thrive.

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