A soon-to-be-married man’s friends throw him the ultimate bachelor party. Cast: 1984 memories HBO wins again. They were great for showing these sex comedies. I liked this movie as a kid. For the obvious reasons CONTINUE READING... The post 84 From ’84: Bachelor Party appeared first on The Retro Network.

In the wake of the tumultuous English Civil War, the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell marked a seismic shift in the country’s political landscape. Emerging from a period of conflict that saw the execution of King Charles I and the rise of Parliamentary authority, Cromwell swiftly rose to prominence as a key figure in shaping England’s destiny. Cromwell’s astute leadership within the Parliamentarian forces not only secured victory but also paved the way for his governance during the Commonwealth era, with his image gracing English coins made by The Royal Mint – a testament to his stature and the imprint of his rule on the nation’s identity and currency. Here we explore how Cromwell’s portrait became a symbol of authority and change on English coinage post-Civil War, and why these coins developed from a puritan to royalist style, reflecting the transformational era he heralded in English history. The English Civil War The English Civil War had erupted due to escalating tensions between King Charles I and Parliament over issues of power, taxation, and religion. Parliament’s desire for more authority clashed with the king’s absolute rule. The conflict polarised supporters into Royalists (Cavaliers) backing the king and Parliamentarians (Roundheads) supporting Parliament. Battles ensued across England, with Oliver Cromwell emerging as a prominent figure in the Parliamentarian army. The war culminated in the king’s defeat, his execution in 1649, the establishment of the Commonwealth under Cromwell’s rule, and a period of political upheaval and experimentation. Changes to English currency One of the biggest changes to English currency came when there wasn’t actually have a monarch to depict on its coins. Up until Charles I’s reign, coins had all been very regal, but following his execution, England entered into a period called the interregnum where it didn’t have a monarch. In 1649, the coinage of the Commonwealth under the rule of Parliament reflected Parliament’s deeply Puritan beliefs, and were also very heraldic. The wording appeared in English rather than Latin and the monarch’s portraiture was abandoned, resulting in a very heraldic coin, featuring the cross of St George on both sides. Coins from Cromwell’s reignImage Credit: The Royal Mint Cromwell’s depiction as a Roman emperor After Cromwell took direct control in the 1650s, this Commonwealth and Puritan style was abandoned, and towards the end of his time as Lord Protector there was a complete reversion to the more familiar, royalist style of coinage, including coins featuring a portrait of Oliver Cromwell. The portrait depicted Cromwell almost like a Roman emperor, wearing a wreath, robes, and featured Latin inscriptions once more. This reversion to the familiar iconography of royal rule, without referencing Cromwell as king, was part of making the country feel at ease with Cromwell’s rule. Roman emperors ruled as kings, however they actively distanced themselves from the term ‘King’ in order to avoid comparisons to the earlier monarchy of Rome. Julius Caesar even rejected the title when offered it. Rome’s republic was founded on anti-monarchical views so the avoidance of the title of ‘King’ allowed an emperor to keep up a false narrative of non- autocratic rule, despite the emperor very much holding the power. There are many similarities between Britain’s interregnum period and Rome’s transition from a monarchy to republic to empire including the anti-monarchical stance which caused the change. Therefore, it’s incredibly fitting for Cromwell to have depicted himself as a Roman emperor. England had killed Charles I, the last king, and therefore Cromwell had to be very careful not to portray himself as a king.  Cromwell, depicted in the style of a Roman EmperorImage Credit: The Royal Mint Later coins under Cromwell’s rule Cromwell’s coins were developed further throughout his reign to include royal iconography on the reverse of them, including a crown, which perfectly exemplifies his delicate balance of not being stylised as a king but still showing the authority of a true monarch. Coinage after the Restoration After the eventual restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under Charles II, the wearing of a wreath in this Roman emperor style became a general stylistic trend for monarchs over the next few centuries. The first coins of Queen Victoria also follow this style, showing her bareheaded, but in the 1840s a hugely significant moment came where Victoria was shown on coins wearing a crown. This was the first time The Royal Mint had struck British coins showing a monarch wearing a crown since the start of the reign of Charles II. For the rest of her reign Victoria tended to be shown as wearing various different crowns.  However, the kings that followed Victoria’s reign, starting with Edward VII, all went back to being depicted uncrowned on British coins. They wore no royal regalia, not even a wreath like the kings before Victoria had done. Instead, coins depicted just a simple portrait of them. This practice lasted until Queen Elizabeth II, who’s portrait followed a similar trajectory to Victoria’s – wearing a laurel wreath on coins at the start of her reign, with further coins later on all with her wearing a tiara or crown.  The majority of Charles III’s new coins do not feature a crown, however some do, making him the first king to be shown crowned on British coins since Charles II. 

TDBBS LLC voluntarily recalls a total of 3,551 bags of Green Tripe dog treats due to the potential contamination of foreign metal objects in the dog treats on Thursday, June 20.

Snopes Suddenly Discovered that Biden and the MSM Have Been Lying About Trump for Years

The cosmic puzzle created by evidence of apparently enormous black holes in the very early universe continues to deepen. Observations by the JWST of one such anomaly, known as J1120+0641, indicate that the once favored explanation for how these objects could emit so much light so soon after the Big Bang is unlikely, forcing astronomers to try again.The extraordinary power of the JWST has allowed astronomers to observe galaxies more distant than any we have seen before. The further we look in space, the longer back we are looking in time – and we’re seeing these objects as they were not that long after the universe was formed. The fact that many of these seem larger and more developed than existing models appear to allow needs explanation,Among these oddities at the dawn of time are quasars, enormously bright accretion disks surrounding supermassive black holes. The intense brilliance of those of these early quasars, allowing for the billions of light years the light has had to travel, are indicative of very massive black holes. The dominant model of the universe doesn’t offer a path for black holes to get that big so soon. One explanation is that the objects we are seeing are particularly efficient at feeding, meaning the black holes are smaller than the quasars they have produced would suggest. This would be a very convenient way out of the mess, were it not that no signs of such efficient feeding have been spotted in J1120+0641, suggesting the black hole at its heart contains more than a billion solar masses.That doesn’t make J1120+0641 the heaviest anomalously large black hole - some are up to 10 billion solar masses – but it’s still big enough to be a problem given its age. It’s also the first black hole JWST has examined in a way that can test some explanations that would avoid the need to rethink our models of the universe. J1120+0641 was chosen for the task because in 2019, when time was being booked on the JWST, this was the most distant known quasar.The JWST’s repeated delays mean the observations didn’t occur until January 2023, by which time more distant quasars had been seen, but J1120+0641 was still an appropriate choice. We’re seeing it as it was 770 million years after the Big Bang.Dr Sarah Bosman of the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie studied J1120+0641 ‘s spectrum, collected by the JWST, and found it looks indistinguishable from relatively nearby quasars used as benchmarks, other than being surrounded by somewhat hotter dust.The dust may be hotter, but it’s not otherwise different, ruling out the explanation that dust anomalies were leading us to overestimate ancient black hole masses."Overall, the new observations only add to the mystery: Early quasars were shockingly normal. No matter in which wavelengths we observe them, quasars are nearly identical at all epochs of the universe," Bosman said in a statement. We can estimate the mass of a black hole from the light emitted by nearby clumps of gas in what is known as the broad-line region of the spectrum. These clumps are orbiting the black hole at close to the speed of light, and the broad-line radiation tells us how close, which in turn allows us to calculate the black hole’s mass. Using the JWST observations, Bosman and co-authors calculate J1120+0641’s mass at 1.52 billion times that of the Sun.Black holes grow as their immense gravity captures surrounding matter. However, there is a limit on how fast that can occur, known as the Eddington limit, caused by the balance of outward radiation pressure and the inward pull of gravity. There are ways the limit can be exceeded temporarily, but there are doubts about how long this can be sustained. In recent years, many black holes that appear to have reached impossible masses have been found, and the JWST has boosted their number significantly.If these giant early black holes really are the size we think, it requires them to have exceeded the Eddington Limit, or have started off enormous. This is known as the “heavy seed” scenario and requires an explanation of how black holes with masses at least a hundred thousand times that of the Sun could have appeared before there were any stars. By definition, these could not have formed the way black holes do now – through the collapse of very massive stars. Instead, the most likely explanation is that enormous clouds of gas somehow collapsed directly to black holes. How this occurred, however, remains a problem that has yet to be resolved.The study is published open access in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Luis Elizondo’s journey into the public eye began after his resignation from the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a previously covert department of the Pentagon tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). His departure in 2017 marked the beginning of a series of revelations that would bring the topic of UAPs into the mainstream discourse. However, this newfound transparency did not come without a cost. Elizondo’s assertions of danger were not made lightly. In a candid interview on The Good Trouble Show, he expressed a chilling sentiment that has resonated with others in his field: the act of revealing what one knows can be a risky endeavor. He emphasized his own stability and well-being, countering any notion that personal misfortune could be self-inflicted or accidental. His message was clear: should anything untoward occur to him or his loved ones, the implications would be far-reaching and ominous. “I would like to make this perfectly clear to the American people,” Elizondo said. “I am not prone to accidents. I am not suicidal. I am not abusing drugs. I am not engaged in any illicit activities.” “If something happens to me or my family members in the future, you will know what happened.” This sentiment is echoed by Congressman Tim Burchett, a vocal advocate for UFO disclosure and a personal acquaintance of Elizondo. Burchett’s stance on the inadequacy of whistleblower protections underscores the gravity of the situation faced by those who choose to come forward. His commitment to seeking answers and ensuring safety for those involved highlights a growing concern within the halls of power. “There is whistleblower protection, but it’s a joke, and we know it’s a joke,” he told Fox News. “Lou is a dear friend of mine, and I take any threat against anybody seriously, especially against friends and somebody that has given so much to this country and to this issue.” “So, I’m very much aware of it, and I’m very much alarmed. I’m pursuing every avenue I can to get to the bottom of it.” The narrative woven by Elizondo and Burchett is not merely a tale of intrigue and conspiracy; it is a call to action for a more transparent and protective environment for those who hold the keys to potentially groundbreaking information. The hope is that with increased awareness and support, the dangers faced by whistleblowers will diminish, paving the way for a new era of openness and discovery. The post Luis Elizondo claims that UFO whistleblowers are facing threats appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Mark Lorch: In George R.R. Martin’s fantastical land of Westeros in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, the spectacle of dragons breathing fire captivates his audience through a blend of myth and fantasy. For me at least, there’s also scientific curiosity. The images of dragons unleashing torrents of flames on the new series of House of the Dragon got me thinking: if dragons existed, what real-world biological mechanisms and chemical reactions might they use? But first, a chemistry recap. To ignite and sustain a flame, we need three components; a fuel, an oxidising agent – typically the oxygen in the air – and a heat source to initiate and maintain combustion. Let’s start with the fuel. Methane could be a candidate. Animals produce it during digestion. The images on the screen of Westeros show dragons are keen on eating sheep. However, our methane-fuelled dragons would need to have a diet and digestive system more like that of a cow to produce enough gas to burn down a city. There’s also a problem with the storage of sufficient amounts of methane gas. A typical methane cylinder might be rated for 150 atmospheres of pressure, while even a bloated gut can only tolerate a little over one atmosphere. So there’s no biological basis for non-marine animals to store gasses under high pressure. A better option would be a liquid. Ethanol could be an option. Maybe our dragons hold a vat of fermenting yeast in their guts, or they could have a metabolic system similar to Devil’s Hole pupfish, which live in hot springs in Nevada, US. Under low oxygen conditions, these fish switch to a form of respiration which produces ethanol. However, storage is once again an issue. Ethanol quickly passes through biological membranes, so keeping it at high concentrations and ready to deploy on the “dracarys” signal (which translates to “dragonfire” in the fictitious language High Valyrian) would require some otherworldly biology. So, if we are sticking to explanations with at least one foot in real-world biology, then my preferred option is something more oil-based. As anyone who has accidentally set fire to a frying pan knows, this can be a source of roaring flames. There is a biological basis for this in the fulmar gull. They produce energy-rich stomach oil that they regurgitate to feed their chicks. The oil also serves as a deterrent. When threatened, the fulmar vomits the sticky, stinky oil over predators. Thankfully, the gulls have not yet evolved a way to ignite their vomit. Feeding the flames Now that we have a fuel source, let’s turn our attention to the oxidising agent. As with most fires, this will most probably be oxygen. However, it will take more than oxygen in the surrounding air to generate a jet of pressurised flaming oil hot enough to melt an iron throne. And it would have to be well mixed in with the fuel. The better the supply of oxygen, the hotter the flame. A dragon could draw on some chemistry used by the bombardier beetle. This insect has evolved reservoirs adapted to store hydrogen peroxide (the stuff you might use to bleach your hair). When threatened, the beetle pushes hydrogen peroxide into a vestibule containing enzymes that rapidly decompose the hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. This is an exothermic reaction, which transfers energy to the surroundings, and in this case raises the temperature of the mixture to almost boiling point. The reaction is so aggressive it is sometimes used to propel rockets. The increase in pressure caused by the rapid production of oxygen and the boiling water forces the noxious mixture out of a vent in the beetle’s abdomen and towards its prey or threat. If employed by a dragon, this reaction has a few nice features. It would create the high pressure needed to drive the jet of oily fuel, the exothermic reaction would heat the oils making them more ready to combust, and most importantly, it would generate oxygen that would drive the combustion reaction. All the dragon would need is some sort of biological equivalent of a petrol engine carburettor to mix the oil with the oxygen and create an explosive mix. As a bonus, the erupting mixture would probably form a fine mist of oil droplets, like an aerosol, which would ignite all the better. The spark Finally, we need a spark to ignite the mix. For this, I’m going to suggest the dragons have evolved an electric organ similar to that found in many fish, particularly electric eels. These can generate short pulses of up to 600 volts, easily enough to create a spark across a short air gap. If these sparks discharged across the ducts at the back of a dragon’s mouth, they could ignite the high-pressure jet of oil and oxygen. While we’ll never see a dragon unleashing torrents of flames outside the realm of fiction, it’s intriguing to ponder the science behind fantasy. So, next time you witness a Targaryen’s command of “dracarys,” think about the biology behind that magical inferno. Mark Lorch, Professor of Science Communication and Chemistry, University of Hull This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post If dragons were real, how might fire-breathing work? appeared first on Anomalien.com.

A little over three years ago, Anthony Fauci went on MSNBC to address critics of his COVID policies. What made the attacks on him especially "dangerous," the doctor cautioned, was that they were actually "attacks on science."These days, of course, Fauci is eager to distance himself from the dubious "science" he once championed, be it public mask mandates, school shutdowns, or confident statements that the virus did not originate from a lab leak. It should be clear by now — if it wasn't before — that "science" is just as susceptible to superstition and groupthink as any human endeavor. Contradicting conventional wisdom can entail real risk.Had his rabies vaccine not worked on 9-year-old Joseph Meister, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur could very well have ended his career in disgrace and in prison. Not only did Pasteur have no proof that his vaccine would work on humans, he had no medical license allowing him to administer it. By that point in his career, Pasteur was already quite successful and had no reason to rush development on his cure for rabies. In the 1860s, he had disproved the conventional wisdom that illness and pests who spread it arose spontaneously from nonliving matter by showing that invisible bacteria were to blame. Identifying the enemy allowed the development of effective ways to stop it: among them the well-known process of destroying microbes in beer and milk that takes Pasteur's name. He also pioneered the process of artificially weakening bacilli in order to use them in vaccines. But the boy's mother was desperate for any chance at saving her son from a hideously painful death. For some idea of what he faced, we can turn to this contemporary case study:On the 17th of June, 1981 an Englishwoman traveling in India was bitten on the leg by a dog. The wound was immediately cleansed by her husband using whisky as an antiseptic. She later attended a local clinic where the wound was again washed and packed with antiseptic powder. The woman returned to England in July and the wound was redressed in her local hospital. By the middle of August she became constantly tired and complained of aches and shooting pains in the back. She was anxious and depressed, and appeared to catch her breath when trying to drink. By the 19th of August she found it impossible to drink more than a few sips. She could not bear the touch of the wind or her hair on her face and had moments of apparent terror. The following day she was confused, hallucinating, incontinent of urine and quite unable to eat or drink. For the next two days she was intermittently hallucinating and screaming with terror until she collapsed and had a cardiac arrest. Although she was resuscitated in the ambulance whilst being carried to intensive care, she died two days later, on 24th of August 1981, without recovering consciousness.So, Pasteur summoned some medical colleagues and proceeded to put his reputation on the line. As he wrote in his notebook: “The child’s death appeared inevitable. I decided not without acute and harrowing anxiety, as may be imagined, to apply to Joseph Meister the method which I had found consistently successful with dogs.”Whatever mixture of charity and ambition prompted Pasteur to make this audacious bet, it paid off. Meister fully recovered and lived into his 60s, and rabies was no longer a death sentence.

It’s been a difficult stretch for the American institutions forming the cornerstones of our society. Donald Trump’s felony conviction last month in a New York court is only the latest and most extreme example of the increasing weaponization of the criminal justice system. The Supreme Court, with a durable right-leaning majority, has come under sustained attack from the left for the supposed failure of some conservative justices to recuse themselves from certain court matters, or for allegedly accepting gifts from wealthy political patrons.Several government agencies have exhausted decades of goodwill in service of dubious ends, eroding hard-won credibility in the process. Public health services lost citizens’ confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic by pushing rigid mandates supported by neither science nor objective reality. While challenging such now-debunked policies could result in the loss of one’s livelihood, no apologies (nor proper accounting) have followed. If institutions are necessary but badly degraded, what can be done?While the U.S. military discharged unvaccinated soldiers, it also solemnly pledged to root out the so-called existential threat of "white supremacy" in its ranks, which its own studies later revealed did not exist. As the military squandered its traditionally high regard, veterans from various "alphabet soup" intelligence agencies united to support the Biden campaign just before the 2020 presidential election. Dubbed the "Dirty 51" by the New York Post, they declared the Hunter Biden laptop "Russian disinformation," despite the FBI validating its authenticity in late 2019 and Hunter Biden's current criminal proceedings confirming it again.The pandemic revealed rot at the local level, with public schools pushing DEI, critical race theory, and other “woke” principles through Zoom classrooms, finally observed by previously blinded parents. It also illuminated the unredeemed grift of public sector unions, exemplified by the Chicago Teachers Union, which consistently fought for massive pay increases while seeking to keep schools closed for as long as possible.Outside the public sector, other revered pillars of civil society have also abased themselves. Fortune 500 companies have eagerly embraced each successive progressive cause, but don't expect a refund or even an acknowledgment of the shareholder value transferred to Black Lives Matter and similar organizations focused solely on self-enrichment. Elite and middling universities have promoted noxious ideologies on campus for years, so it is no surprise that anti-Semitism and other hateful creeds now run rampant there. Meanwhile, major media outlets run think pieces and “news analysis” on the rising threat of disinformation while shamelessly evading responsibility for their starring roles in the Russian collusion and Hunter Biden laptop hoaxes. I could continue, but there seems little doubt that our institutions are rotten. Gallup’s 2023 survey of confidence in institutions reveals lows not seen in decades, if ever, for the U.S. military, Congress, public schools, the media, and many other organizations. As confidence in the entities meant to embody our values and advance societal objectives recedes, we must ask: Does declining faith in institutions matter? If so, what can be done?Many on the political right, having observed progressives hijack just about every American institution, have cheered the richly deserved comeuppance of everyone from Ivy League presidents to newly unemployed network anchors. While such schadenfreude is understandable, particularly given the odor of elitism and (whisper it) unearned privilege attached to these institutions and their toadies, it’s not so easy — and may in fact be foolhardy — to cashier them. Why?Consider what our institutions fundamentally are: repositories of rules and norms that shape or constrain our behavior or advance some widely held objective. They are the pillars of any functioning civil society, providing both a counterweight to one another and, critically, to the public sector and its various instrumentalities. A healthy community benefits from the balance of power among respected institutions with varying and competing agendas. The resulting diversity and redundancy, like telecommunications or neural networks, avoid the “bottlenecks” associated with concentrations of power or influence. Positive values tend to thrive when distributed widely. As the federal government expands in both size and scope, extending ever further into our lives, it is essential to have other legitimate societal loci of authority.If institutions are necessary but badly degraded, what can be done?Any solution requires an objective diagnosis of each institution’s specific ills. The nature of the organization is also crucial in devising a remedial strategy. The myriad challenges our institutions face include capture by ideologies or groups with distinct agendas, perverse incentives, lack of viewpoint diversity, groupthink, a dearth of moral courage, and lack of competition, among many others. Once we properly identify the problems with any given institution, we can develop a course of action. Recognizing that sturdy, functioning institutions are in the public interest, the solution set can be summarized as the new “3 Rs”: reject, replace, or reform. This approach transcends the simplistic right-wing caricature of failed institutions as irredeemably corrupt and avoids the left-leaning establishment’s default impulse to salvage any incumbent organization over which it exercises dominion.Rejection is most appropriate when an institution is so badly decayed by corruption, a muddled mission, or moral turpitude that it becomes "irredeemable," to borrow from Hillary Clinton. Examples of organizations that have lost their way or succeeded in their grift only through false advertising include the Southern Poverty Law Center, Snopes, and Black Lives Matter. The world would be a better place without these organizations, as they serve no salutary purpose. A replacement approach may apply where the stated (if not actual) mission has merit and competition is appropriate but where the subject institution is simply too far gone to be saved. Examples include media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, or certain universities. The emergence of schools like the University of Austin suggests that viable alternatives to “traditional” higher education can also spur reform of existing organizations. Charter schools in primary education play a similar role.Reform best applies to those institutions with “worms in the apple” but where more than a little of the original mission and luster remain. These institutions may have simply lost their way for some period or faltered under uniquely misguided leadership. Reform also may apply to those institutions that cannot be easily rejected or replaced as they are natural monopolies. These include the U.S. military, some universities (particularly public universities; with reforms at the University of Florida showing the way), and many large corporations.It’s tempting to throw away our debased institutions given the ignominy with which they have covered themselves. But they can play an essential role as shock absorbers within a healthy civil society. Without them, our choice is between autocratic, unchecked central government and anarchy. Maintaining legitimate, functional institutions is the only viable option for a free society.