Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

Laili rock shelter on the island of Timor, north of Australia, appears to provide the smoking gun to rule out what was once considered the obvious route for one of the greatest and least understood migrations in human history. In the process, it may tell us something important about how people first arrived on Timor itself, and islands like it.The ancient presence of humans in Australia provides a major puzzle for anthropologists, particularly since it became clear how far back that began. Australia’s wildlife proves it was never connected by a land bridge to Southeast Asia, so the first inhabitants must have had the capacity to cross wide expanses of water. Yet interaction with what is now Indonesia apparently stopped, only resuming far more recently.Initially, it was widely believed that the first Australians reached their new home from Timor, now referred to as the “southern route.” Although today this requires crossing hundreds of kilometers of water, during the last Ice Age when sea levels were lower, Australia stretched much further northwest.However, for some time Professor Sue O’Connor of the Australian National University and other anthropologists have been raising questions about this path. There is no evidence of human habitation on Timor prior to around 50,000 years ago. Meanwhile, the oldest stone tools in Australia have been found in a layer of sediment deposited at Madjedbebe 65,000 years ago.Around a dozen sites of human habitation on Timor have been excavated, with no signs of an earlier human presence. However, O’ Connor told IFLScience that at most of these sites, the oldest evidence of humans sits directly on bedrock. “If the human presence is at the base of the cave a big erosion event may have removed all the sediment,” leaving uncertainty as to what was there before.However, at Laili on Timor’s north coast, O’Connor and co-authors of a new study found layers thick with tools, the remains of fire, and fishbones dating back to around 44,000 years ago, then a sudden shift. Below were meters of yellow sediment, with no signs of human presence other than the occasional younger tool or bone that had been pushed down. The contrast between this yellow sediment and the darker layers above formed through the mixture of ash makes this “a non-occupation layer” in O’Connor’s words, showing the site was definitely not occupied 55,000 years ago.Multifunctional stone tools found in layer 20 at Laili, the first human that shows evidence of human presence, in stark contrast to what is below.Image Credit: Shipton et al/Nature Communications. CC BY 4.0Theoretically, people might have been in Timor at the time, but chosen to live elsewhere, but O’Connor considers this unlikely. Laili holds the oldest evidence of humans on Timor yet, found after many searches. Moreover, it’s hard to imagine inhabitants ignoring such an attractive site for long. It sits near a large river that would have provided fresh water, and is within walking distance of the sea, where Timor’s residents would have got most of their food before agriculture. Where other sites sometimes have only a few signs of humans in their oldest inhabited layers, suggesting occasional use by small bands of people, Laili is rich with signs of humanity from the first dark layer.In some places, the evidence of ancient human presence is now submerged, after attractive coastal plains sunk when the Ice Age ended. However, O’Connor told IFLScience that Timor is different, plunging to the edge of the continental shelf almost immediately offshore. Geologic activity has also been raising the island, almost keeping place with sea level. “Laili Is 4 kilometers [2.5 miles] from the sea today; 45,000 years ago it would have been 5 kilometers [3.1 miles],” she said. There’s little scope for former sites to be lost.This leaves two explanations for Australia’s habitation. Either the dates at Madjedbebe are wrong, as a few anthropologists claim, and Australia was also uninhabited until about 45,000 years ago, or people got there another way.Supporters of the first idea note that it is the sediments, not the tools, that were dated at Madjedbebe. Perhaps humans arrived much later, but deliberately or accidentally buried tools in older deposits. Alternatively, they arrived via the “northern route”, crossing the Wallace Line to Sulawesi and then island hopping to New Guinea, connected to Australia at the time.Humans besides Homo sapiens lived on Sulawesi 200,000 years ago, but the oldest signs of our own species are a similar age to O’Connor’s finds on Timor. However, Sulawesi is a much larger and less explored island. It’s plausible humans were there long before they started painting the walls.O’Connor also told IFLScience that Sulawesi would have been a much more attractive location for humans looking to expand beyond mainland Southeast Asia. It has plenty of game such as deer, pigs, and possums that would have been familiar to arrivals from the mainland. “Timor has nothing but rats and bats,” O’Connor told IFLScience. Indeed, the absence of large mammals is part of the reason most caves there lack pre-human sediment, as cave users can track in mud or leave droppings.Timor’s sparse resources might not have mattered if people got there by chance, but the team doubts that was the case. “The traditional view held by researchers is that early humans who were making these significant water crossings were stumbling upon these islands by mistake, largely because it was so long ago,” co-author, ANU’s Dr Shimona Kealy, said in a statement. “Their arrival on Timor was no accident. This was a major colonization effort, evident through the sheer number of people who were making the journey. It’s a testament to these peoples’ level of maritime technology and the boats they created, but also their confidence and competence in braving maritime crossings.”The work is published open access in the journal Nature Communications. 

In the bitterly cold waters of the Arctic Ocean, scientists have discovered a strange and unique coral that’s “almost certainly a new species.”When you think about corals, you might imagine tropical temperatures, crystal-clear waters, and clownfish. However, corals are incredibly diverse and inhabit many different ecosystems across the planet, from the idyllic atolls of the Pacific to the darkest depths of the ocean. There's even an abundance of Arctic corals located along the edge of the continental shelf where water temperatures are just above zero degrees Celsius (32°F).The latest discovery was made by a team of researchers from the The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census that’s currently on a mission to document the depths of the Arctic Ocean. They set off from Tromsø in northern Norway on May 3 aboard the ship RV Kronprins Haakon and will be wrapping up their expedition this week.The potentially new species of coral were found living on the stalk of a crinoid, also known as sea lilies. Ocean Census released a video of their experts discussing the discovery – and, as you can see, they’re pretty excited about it.                   “We've seen very, very few corals since we've been here in the Arctic. On the dive today, we saw lots of these crinoids growing, and what we found on this crinoid is a coral living on the crinoid stalk. It's almost certainly a new species,” Professor Alex Rogers, Principal Investigator at Ocean Census, explains in the video.“It really demonstrates coevolution in the deep sea but also how effective the remotely operated vehicle [ROV] is. We get the specimens in such good condition that those sorts of relationships are actually preserved,” Rogers added.The curious coral is just one of the expedition's finds over the past few weeks. They previously explored the Svyatogor Ridge, a site at a depth of around 3,700 meters (12,140 feet) within the Arctic mid-ocean ridge system that’s loaded with hydrothermal vents. In this strange environment, rich in methane and sulfur, their ROV snooped around the array of chemosynthetic communities that live here, including tube worms and shelled bivalve mollusks.The coral was found living on the stalk of a sea lily.Image courtesy of Ocean Census & Martin HartleyThe expedition is especially significant because this environment is facing several existential threats. Along with being impacted by climate change, some of these unique habitats are being eyed-up for deep-sea mining. This would essentially involve dredging the seafloor looking for nuggets of rare metals, like lithium and cobalt, potentially causing irrevocable damage to the fragile ecosystems that dwell here.“Understanding every aspect of our ecosystem holds immense significance. Today, we possess new tools, empowering us to uncover discoveries previously beyond our reach. Innovations such as eDNA analysis, advancements in taxonomy, and machine learning represent sophisticated means of gathering essential information,” Jan-Gunnar Winther, Pro-rector for Research and Development at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and Specialist Director at the Norwegian Polar Institute located in Tromsø, said in a statement.“With our current capabilities to amass vast amounts of data and consolidate it effectively, there lies tremendous potential. If this data is made accessible and shared widely, not just by those who collected it, it could have a profound impact on scientific understanding,” Winther added.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has resumed sending back science data, six months after it began sending garbled patterns of zeroes and ones. Voyager 1 has traveled further than any human-made object, crossing the heliopause and heading into interstellar space. While doing this, it has continued to send back useful data to Earth, helping us learn about the space between stars outside of our own Solar System. All this while working with just 69.63 kilobytes of memory, and running partly on code written in the archaic computer language Fortran 5."The button you press to open the door of your car, that has more compute power than the Voyager spacecrafts do," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd explained to NPR. "It's remarkable that they keep flying, and that they've flown for 46-plus years."With such a mission, you'd expect the occasional challenge, even before you take into account the high-radiation environment it is heading through. And the Voyager 1 mission has certainly faced its share of challenges."Normal operations were interrupted last year when Voyager 1 began sending a signal back to Earth that contained no science or engineering data," NASA explained in a statement. "The team eventually determined the issue stemmed from a small portion of corrupted memory in the flight data subsystem, one of the spacecraft’s three computers."On May 17, NASA sent commands to the aging probe. It takes 22.5 hours for a signal to reach the spacecraft, before another 22.5 hours for a return signal, meaning there was a tense wait to see if the fix had worked.     Fortunately, the fix appears to have worked, with several systems now functional once more."The plasma wave subsystem and magnetometer instrument are now returning usable science data," NASA added. "As part of the effort to restore Voyager 1 to normal operations, the mission is continuing work on the cosmic ray subsystem and low energy charged particle instrument."Fingers crossed that other instruments can be fixed, and Voyager can continue to send back useful data, before the plutonium-powered system that powers the craft eventually runs out of juice.

Six years ago, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a Tesla into space, in a stunt that even the most hardened Musk haters would grudgingly admit is pretty cool.The Roadster has since been on one hell of a journey, currently moving away from Earth at the impressive speed of 25,290 kilometers per hour (15,715 miles per hour), with an arguably more impressive fuel efficiency of 10,671 kilometers per liter (25,100 miles per gallon), at the time of writing. Since its launch on February 6, 2018, the car has orbited the Sun 4.1 times according to tracker Where Is Roadster, rolling over as it goes. In 2018, we got a close look at the vehicle as it made a close approach to Earth.       IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Keeping an eye on the car isn't exactly astronomers' most pressing concern (for instance, what the hell is going on with all those vanishing stars), but a few have tried to calculate the fate of the vehicle, and whether it poses a threat to the Earth.In 2018, a paper did just this, though it was a difficult task due to the car's eccentric orbit."The Roadster bears many similarities to Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), which diffuse through the inner Solar System chaotically through (i) repeated close encounters with the terrestrial planets, and (ii) the effects of mean-motion and secular resonances," the team explain in the paper. "Initially, NEAs reach their orbits from the more distant main belt via strong resonances (such as the secular 6 resonance or the strong 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter). When entering these escape routes, many NEAs are driven onto nearly-radial orbits that plunge into the Sun."This puts impact likelihood with terrestrial planets at relatively low, at slightly more than 2 percent. The Tesla, however, is a little different."The initial Tesla orbit grazes that of the Earth, so one might expect an initial period with enhanced collision probabilities with the Earth before it is randomized onto a more NEA-like trajectory," the team continued. "It is therefore unclear whether the Tesla is likely to diffuse to distant, strong resonances and meet the same fate as the wider NEA population, or whether it would first strike one of the terrestrial planets."Looking at the Tesla's orbit, which crosses the orbit of Mars and Earth, the team was able to predict the likelihood it would crash into the terrestrial planets (including our favorite one, Earth).     The car will make another close approach in 2047 at about 5 million kilometers (3.1 million miles). Beyond 100 years, repeat close encounters with the planets make long-term predictions of the car's chaotic orbit "impossible". "However, using an ensemble of several hundred realizations, we were able to statistically determine the probability of the Tesla colliding with the Solar system planets on astronomical timescales," the team wrote.On a much longer timescale, the team calculated that the car has roughly a 22 percent probability of hitting Earth, a 12 percent chance of colliding with Venus, and about the same probability of hitting the Sun as hitting Venus. Fortunately for Musk, this will happen on a timescale of millions of years, and is unlikely to affect Tesla stock prices.The Starman placed in the vehicle, assuming it is still intact and somehow achieves sentience, may pray for a sooner impact. While traveling through space, the dummy has listened to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" over 624,000 times in one ear, and "Life On Mars?" has played in his other ear more than 841,000 times.The study is published in Aerospace.

History’s most amazing artifacts are the armors ancient warriors wore to battle. Not having the kind of technology we have today, it is amazing to see such intricate and outstanding work that survives to this day despite being battle-worn and suffering many blows in its days. The skillful hands of a blacksmith are what warriors and knights have to be thankful for. Without them, they would be riding to certain death. However, our concept and idea of what a battle armor in the ancient days are confined to the clunky, modern-day interpretation of Medieval European armor; those things that you see standing in dark hallways in horror movies or some creepy old guy’s dusty library. But the ancient world has a multitude of peoples in different countries and each country has a unique culture that is magnified by the clothes they wear, the food they eat, up to the garments they put on during war time. This helmet and the pair of greaves (shin guard), or cnemids, complementing it belong to the key elements of a panoply, the set of offensive and defensive arms that a Greek warrior would have used in combat. The Bronze Helmet (Greece) The Ancient Greeks are a talented civilization that has given us many things from astronomy to democracy. However, despite our understanding of them being scholars and politicians, the Greeks are also fierce warriors that have one of the most organized armies in the ancient world. The closest kind of armor that we are familiar with are those that we have seen in movies like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. While there may be similarities between those and their historical inspirations, we are only scratching the surface of what we know about Grecian battle armor. In 2007, a particular piece of armor was dredged up from Haifa Bay in Israel. It was a Greek helmet made of bronze and ornamented with gold leaves; images of snakes, lions, and a peacock’s palmette also add to the design of the interesting find. How it ended up in the bottom of the bay is still a mystery to researchers. However, it was not discounted that warriors who travel do lose some of their things such as weaponry, trinkets, and pieces of their garments for whatever reason. Archaeologists do believe that the helmet belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who might have taken part in a series of wars that ravaged the area which dates the helmet as far back as 2600 years old. Also, experts hypothesize that the unknown mercenary who owned the helmet might have fought for an Egyptian Pharaoh named Necho II. Further research on the helmet also revealed that it had similarities with another helmet found in the 1950s near the island of Giglio, Italy. “The gilding and figural ornaments make this one of the most ornate pieces of Greek armor discovered,” described Jacob Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Plant armor Plant Armor (Oceania and Micronesia) When we speak of armor, we think about heavy, shiny metal that is double – or triple – the weight of the average warrior. We imagine insanely hot smithies where blacksmiths hammer away at pieces of plate and sheet metal. However, in the far, coastal regions of Micronesia and Oceania, locals have found an unlikely yet very effective material to make their armor with plants. While the Greeks are also known to make their protective armors out of plant-based material, it is the warriors from the Kiribati Islands that have perfected the making of it. For the locals of this region of the Pacific, the armor and weapons that they produce were products of readily available material that they could forage such as palm fronds, tree bark, and even animal parts. Combining different materials from land and sea proved to be life-saving implements when battles began to arise. An example of this kind of armor is constructed using coir, a particularly strong fiber material harvested from coconut trees. Woven together and tightly, it forms an impenetrable layer that protects the body of the person wearing it. Also, like any battle armor, the plant armor comes in several parts that protect almost every part of the warrior’s body – it would even sometimes appear that a Kiribati warrior is more protected than his enemies. Covered from head to toe, a typical suit of armor from the Pacific and Oceania are a thick woven coat and trousers made of coir, a thicker woven vest, a woven back plate, and a helmet that is usually made out of dried carcasses of porcupine fish. It is said that the entire suit of armor can withstand projectile weaponry like arrows and spears as well as be able to parry bladed weapons in close quarter combat. 3,900-year-old bone armor suit discovered in Siberia Skin and Bone (Siberia) In September 2014, a team of archaeologists from Russia unearthed one of the world’s most mysterious pieces of armor. Made entirely out of bone, archaeologists believe that it belonged to a Siberian knight from 4000 years ago. What was even more stunning about the discovery was how they discovered it in near-perfect condition. Buried in the area of Omsk, Siberia, the armor was said to have consisted of several plates of varying sizes to match the wearer’s anatomy all made of bone that was woven together. Suspecting that the bones were from large animals like deer or horse, tests are still being made to find the exact age of the bone armor although, as researchers believe, it is most likely from the Bronze Age. However, what was quite puzzling about the remarkable find was that it was found to be buried on its own and not alongside a body. Because armor itself had great value during the Bronze Age, it took great lengths to keep it in great condition, and plenty of care and maintenance were required to keep it from deteriorating. The bone armor excavated in Omsk, therefore, suggests that it was buried as a form of offering. According to Yury Gerasimov, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in Omsk, the bone armor would most likely have belonged to an elite soldier or warrior. It would have given him “good protection from weapons that were used at the time – bone and stone arrowheads, bronze knives, spears tipped with bronze, and bronze axes.” Another inconsistency found about the bone armor was that it was far from the style of battle garments worn in that region of Siberia. Experts claim that its design had a much closer resemblance to the cultures of a tribe that originated in the Altai Mountains, a region that is about 1000 km away from where the bone armor was found. This, therefore, led the research team to hypothesize that the bone armor may also be a war trophy or a gift from one culture to another. Armor (Tatami Gusoku) Tatami Gusoku (Japan) Metal is one of the most common and practical materials used in making suits of armor. Its hardness is highly valued regarding protecting the body of the wearer from attacks. However, despite skillful design, some suits of armor can still be clunky and difficult to transport when battles are done abroad. However, in ancient Japan, armor was made with the same discipline as they make their legendary swords. We know the Japanese to be a disciplined race who aim for beauty and perfection in everything they do from pouring tea to clipping branches. The same discipline to perfection is also applied to their one of a kind armor. Called Tatami Gusoku, it roughly translates as “to fold armor” or “folded armor.” The reason being is that these unique pieces are made in such a way that they can fit into a small box which makes it easy for individual soldiers to transport them. The armor consists mainly of an armored jacket, a foldable cuirass, as well as a helmet and hood to protect their heads. It had parts that corresponded to a traditional Japanese full suit of armor, the ones we are more familiar with in movies and pop culture. The Tatami Gusoku is constructed by binding each protective plate with chain mail that links together to form a shirt-like garment. Sensitive parts of the body, such as the chest, had larger plates of metal bound by these chains. Also, the unique construction and material of this suit of armor makes it considerably lighter than its contemporaries and allow warriors an even wider range of movement since they are not particularly hindered by large and heavy pieces of metal in places where they need to be nimble. Horned Helmet of Henry VIII The Horned Helmet (England) Designed and made by Austrian goldsmith, Konrad Seusenhofer, the Horned Helmet was originally part of an entire suit of armor gifted by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to Henry VIII in the 16th Century. The horned helmet is nothing new in the world of battle armor. Technically, it was not a helmet but an “armet”; a headpiece worn by soldiers that protect his head as well as his entire face during combat. First introduced in the 15th Century, armets were more popular and extensively used in areas of Italy, England, France, and parts of Spain. But for this list, let’s just stick to calling it a helmet. This particular helmet jumps to the top of our list for its, well… “unique”… looks. Designed to completely cover the wearer’s face, the Horned Helmet resembles the face of a smiling demon with sharp teeth. On its head was a pair of metal horns that twisted outwards. Another peculiar feature of the helmet was a pair of metal glasses that sit on its pointed nose. Rumor has it that these glasses served a functional purpose because Henry VIII was allegedly near sighted and had a collection of spectacles that was discovered after his death. It was also rumored that the helmet belonged to Henry’s court jester, Will Somers, when it was first discovered centuries later. The whereabouts of the rest of the armor are no longer to be found and are assumed to have been destroyed or discarded as scrap metal over the years. Thankfully, due to its grotesque appearance, the helmet was saved from destroyed and is now preserved in the collection of the Royal Armouries in Leeds. While many suits of armor and helmets were used in battle, this helmet and its now destroyed suit were mainly used by Henry VIII in ceremonies and parades. The post Secrets of the Battlefield: Five Legendary and Mysterious Armor appeared first on Anomalien.com.

The video opens with the introduction of a dog suffering from a terrible skin condition, immediately drawing viewers into her heartbreaking plight. Initially, it’s assumed she is a senior due to her severe state. Her skin is covered in scabs, giving off a yeasty smell, and her paws are swollen with painful sores scattered across... The post Adorable shelter dog experiences pure bliss when she gets her very first toy appeared first on Animal Channel.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert claimed on the Wednesday edition of The Late Show that “dumb people” who opposed same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court legalized it nationwide have had their “stupid arguments” debunked by a new study. However, Colbert naturally only focused on the more crazy predictions and not the realistic concerns that have come to pass. Colbert began, “Oh, here's something that's not surprising at all. It's been nine years since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally in Obergefell. Now, here’s the thing: according to a landmark new study, in that time, same-sex weddings haven't harmed straight marriage. Well, duh. Everyone knew that at the time. It's like announcing, ‘New study finds making love to wife doesn't get neighbor pregnant.’”     He continued, “Now, but back before, ten years ago in 2015 before the ruling, back before it became the law of the land, dumb people made all sorts of stupid arguments against same sex marriage, including saying that legalization would inevitably lead to people marrying animals. Well, of course, marriages between humans and animals did not come to pass.” After a bit of a digression into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brain worm story, Colbert added, “Not only has gay marriage not been harmful, the study says that by extending marriage rights to a greater number of couples, interest in marriage increased for the broader population.” Sure, there is no concentrated political or social movement built around people marrying a dog, but after proponents won in Obergefell they did not declare victory and then go back to work on their proverbial farm. Instead, they moved onto gender ideology and sent misnamed civil rights commissions after bakers and called them Nazis despite people like Colbert claiming that other people's gay weddings will have no effect on your life. It turns out conservatives aren't so "dumb" after all.  In other Colbert news, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff joined him later in the program for an easy interview about what it is like to be the first male to hold his position and how he met Kamala Harris. Here is a transcript for the May 22 show: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 5/22/2024 11:44 PM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: Oh, here's something that's not surprising at all. It's been nine years since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally in Obergefell. Now, here’s the thing: according to a landmark new study, in that time, same-sex weddings haven't harmed straight marriage. Well, duh. Everyone knew that at the time. It's like announcing, "New study finds making love to wife doesn't get neighbor pregnant."  Now, but back before, ten years ago in 2015 before the ruling, back before it became the law of the land, dumb people made all sorts of stupid arguments against same sex marriage, including saying that legalization would inevitably lead to people marrying animals.  Well, of course, marriages between humans and animals did not come to pass, although I know one beautiful, lifelong union between a man and a worm. Not only-- why are you going "Aww?" Do you feel bad for the worm? Oh, no that worm has come down with Bobby Kennedy.  Not only has gay marriage not been harmful, the study says that by extending marriage rights to a greater number of couples, interest in marriage increased for the broader population. I mean that makes sense, once gay people get into something, it always becomes a trend. Like RuPaul's Drag Race, the music of Lady Gaga, or dressing like you have a shred of self-respect. The report also found that after gay marriage was legalized, same-sex households adopted more children and there was a drop in the rates of syphilis. Well, sure ‘cause once you have kids in the house, there's just no time for anything fun, like movies or restaurants or syphilis.

PBS NewsHour isn't normally an interview stop for comedians, but Bill Maher made an appearance on Tuesday night to promote his new book, a collection of his TV monologues. Overall, it honored Maher's HBO career in much the same way as Robert Costa on CBS. Host Geoff Bennett proclaimed Maher has "positioned himself as the ultimate truth-teller, who takes equal pleasure in punching at the left." Oh no! Then came a clip of Maher: It's not my fault the party of FDR and JFK is turning into the party of LOL and WTF." The most notable part came when Bennett complained to Maher: "What do you think accounts for the durability of Donald Trump as a political figure? By any objective or rational standard, the challenges facing him, the scandals, the criminal trials -- all of that should be disqualifying. And yet he's competitive!"   BILL MAHER : Competitive? He's winning. I mean, he's… BENNETT: Yes, the polls — some polls have him ahead, yes. MAHER: Most polls do, and in the states that matter. I mean, if I had to bet on this election — well, I wouldn't, but — I mean, I wouldn't. Yes, I wouldn't, because I couldn't bet against him. Certainly, it's at least a 50/50 that he's going to beat Biden. That's a great question, if only someone would write a book about Donald Trump. [Laughter] The funny part of Bennett question is brandishing an "objective or rational standard." PBS "progressives" simply don't understand that many Americans see an enormous double standard on scandals, that Bill Clinton can do what Trump cannot. Joe Biden can wildly exaggerate his life story, and Trump cannot.  Maher then repeated his CBS routine that Trump is insane, but voters overlook his bluster on the stump and on social media:  MAHER: I truly believe he's insane, in the sense that people talk about the malignant narcissism as if its some sort of quirk. It's more than a quirk. It's a real thing. But as a friend of mine always says, insanity photographs. You can't you can't take your eyes off it. There is a certain charisma quality to that, when somebody is just nuts,. And he is. He doesn't really ever think about what he's going to say. People give him credit for plotting this. He doesn't plot. Everything is just as it comes out of his mouth. One of the great advantages he has as a political candidate is that no one takes him seriously on policy pronouncements, because he just says anything and always has and always will. So, it's like, well, we can't really take it seriously. When he gets into office, he'll probably do the right thing. We like him. He's our kind of guy. So, that's actually kind of a great advantage when you are a politician. PBS types also can't understand that people are choosing policies, and not just people. They're not happy about inflation and untrammeled immigration. They don't like porny books in schools and transgender ideology and "systemic racism" talk. That's where "our kind of guy" comes from.  PS: Bennett also asked Maher about how he's been accused with all the "phobics" over the years:  BENNETT: Over the course of your career, your critics have said, that you are homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, sexist, fatphobic, ableist.What do you make of all that? MAHER: Well, I tell the truth as I see it, and I don't pull punches. That's always been the bond with my audience. People are hypersensitive, and I mean, I could go down that list. I don't think we have time. And I don't think you really want to get into every one of them. But they're all not true. I mean, I like all people. But there are things that have to be said about Islam. There are things that have to be said about health in America. There are things that have to be said about gender and what we're teaching children about it that are valid.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing supposedly to discuss sunsetting Big Tech’s tightly clutched liability shield that allows for censorship. But free speech and Big Tech censorship were hardly part of the discussion. During the May 22 hearing the Committee heard from three left-wing witnesses, a plaintiff’s lawyer, a former Democrat committee staffer and the Director of Engine Executive, which is funded by Google. But despite the fact that Big Tech censors justify silencing their users under the protection of Section 230, the Committee did not manage to bring in a single witness who showed up in support of free speech. In the three-hour hearing, only four members of the Committee even asked questions about Big Tech censorship and free speech. MRC Free Speech Vice President Dan Schneider, who attended the hearing, criticized the witnesses and most of the members for focusing on prohibiting already illegal content rather than promoting free speech. “It is fine for the Committee to be angry that Big Tech fails to remove illegal content. Nobody should tolerate illicit drug sales, human trafficking and other illegal practices, but those things are already illegal online,” Schneider said, before adding, “We don’t need to make online crimes doubly illegal. The laws just need to be enforced. The systemic harm that must be addressed in any Section 230 reform legislation is the abuse by Big Tech in how they discriminate based on political disagreements.” Representatives Jay Obernolte (R-CA), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), Russ Fulcher (R-ID) and Neal Dunn (R-FL) were the only members on the Committee who thought to address this discrimination.  Rep. Obernolte pushed a witness and former Democratic staffer, Organization for Social Media Safety CEO Marc Berkman, to address free speech concerns. [See More: Rep. Jay Obernolte Presses Witnesses Tummarello and Berman on Free Speech] Rep. Harshbarger asked Berkman about expanding “the rights of individuals to express views that often get conservatives kicked off of left-wing companies like Facebook.” Berkman ridiculously responded, “We do believe that’s a red herring.” But Berkman’s retort is contrary to the 6,816 cases of documented Big Tech censorship found on MRC Free Speech America’s exclusive CensorTrack database, including 187 against former President of the United States Donald Trump. Despite calling censorship a red herring, Berkman was unwilling to condemn discriminatory conduct by social media companies when Rep. Harshbarger provided him with a hypothetical case of a social media company shutting off comments on some posts but not others.  Rep. Dunn, to his credit, emphasized censorship when he spoke to the witnesses. “Today our internet is under attack. The American public gets very little insight into decision-making processes when content is moderated, and users have little recourse when they are censored or restricted. Recently, Americans have experienced a great deal of online politicizing from Big Tech during the last presidential election,” Dunn said. He followed with a reminder of the absurd Big Tech-government collusion in violation of Americans’ rights. “For example, you saw platforms like Twitter and Facebook immediately cut stories from being shared or talked about by the users on their platforms at the request of our government.”  The Organization for Social Media Safety CEO didn’t appear to care. When Dunn asked Berkman about how his proposal would impact free speech on the internet, Berkman claimed, “We believe the fears are really overblown in terms of impact on free speech that is happening over social media.”  Rep. Fulcher also spoke up for free speech, bringing up the important questions of whether users deserve transparency and accountability from the social media companies that censor them. Fulcher asked a witness, “When social media companies flag or remove content, is there any reporting requirement whatsoever necessary for that?”    Schneider panned the hearing, noting that all the witnesses and most of the members showed no concern for free speech. He even called out House Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) for arguing that the “tech oligarchs have not censored enough bad stuff,” instead of addressing the censorship of conservatives.  “The so-called free speech hearing left me speechless,” Schneider said, before adding, “This hearing intentionally hid the ball. The biggest problem facing America and the continuity of our system of government is Big Tech's silencing of viewpoints they disagree with. But for a couple of exceptions, all the questions focused on how there needs to be more censorship, not less.” Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.