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Explanation: Galaxies are fascinating not only for what is visible, but for what is invisible. Grand spiral galaxy NGC 1232, captured in detail by one of the Very Large Telescopes, is a good example. The visible is dominated by millions of bright stars and dark dust, caught up in a gravitational swirl of spiral arms revolving about the center. Open clusters containing bright blue stars can be seen sprinkled along these spiral arms, while dark lanes of dense interstellar dust can be seen sprinkled between them. Less visible, but detectable, are billions of dim normal stars and vast tracts of...

With a wary eye over the future of the federal courts, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Sunday of the perils of artificial intelligence (AI) when deciding cases and other important legal matters. His remarks came in the annual year-end report issued by the head of the federal judiciary, which made no mention of current controversies surrounding his court, including calls for greater transparency and ethics reform binding the justices. Noting the legal profession in general is "notoriously averse to change," Roberts urged a go-slow approach when embracing new technologies by the courts. "AI obviously has great potential to...

Doctors in California who mail abortion pills to patients in other states will be protected from prosecution. Workers will receive more paid sick leave on the heels of a big year for labor. And companies can’t fire employees for using marijuana outside of work. These are among the hundreds of laws that take effect Jan. 1 in the nation’s most populous state. Each year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs hundreds of laws passed by the state Legislature. Most take effect Jan. 1 the following year. But sometimes lawmakers will delay a law’s effective date for a variety of reasons, including...

'Still investigating churchgoers?' ... The FBI of the days when it pursued and captured criminals and protected American citizens apparently is gone. In recent years it has been documented to have colluded with Democrats to make up stories about President Donald Trump to try to hurt him. It has interfered in an election by telling media corporations to suppress accurate, but damaging, information about Joe Biden. ... Then it suggested traditional Catholics were domestic terrorists. And threatened pro-life protesters trying to keep unborn babies from harm. And more ... So when it released an innocuous holiday greeting just days ago,...

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden appeared in a recorded message that was as notable for the usual malarkey about the economy spewed by the geriatric Democrat as it was for his wife’s bizarre attire. In their interview with Ryan Seacrest that aired on ABC’s annual edition of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” from Times Square, the couple engaged in the usual gaslighting about the miracles of “Bidenomics” in their message to Americans to kick off the new year, one in which Americans will get their first chance for a referendum on the regime’s disastrous policies in...

Former President Trump went after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for vetoing a proposed ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors Saturday. “DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’ What was he thinking. The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST!!!” The bill, House Bill 68, also had the aim...

Deep State assesses that Ukraine liberated 395 square kilometers in 2023, but that Russia occupied an additional 683 square kilometers.

In less than a year-and-a-half, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has transported 85,400 illegal migrants to so-called sanctuary cities run by Democrats who don't want to adhere to federal immigration enforcement. New York City has borne the brunt of Texas offloading the crisis to Democratic enclaves, with Abbott sending 32,200 to the Big Apple starting in August 2022, according to his office. Chicago has seen the second amount of migrants sent from Texas with 24,500 migrants arriving over the last year and four months.

The settlement occupants left an abundant and continuous record of seeds, legumes and other foods...By studying these archaeological layers, Professor Kennett and colleagues were able to discern the types of plants that were being collected in the warmer, humid days before the climate changed and in the cooler, drier days after the onset of what we know now as the Younger Dryas cool period.Before the impact, the inhabitants' prehistoric diet involved wild legumes and wild-type grains, and small but significant amounts of wild fruits and berries.In the layers corresponding to the time after cooling, fruits and berries disappeared and their...

Straight-tusked elephants were the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene epoch, present in Europe and western Asia between 800,000 and 100,000 years ago.These animals had a very wide head and extremely long tusks, and were roughly three times larger than that of living Asian elephants, twice that of African ones, and also much larger than woolly mammoths.Estimates of maximum shoulder height vary from 3 to 4.2 m (10-14 feet) and body mass from 4.5 to 13 tons for females and males, respectively."We have estimated that the meat and fat supplied by the body of an adult Palaeoloxodon antiquus bull would...

VIDEOIt is impossible to watch this first Morning Joe Show of the 2024 New Year and not conclude that they suffer extreme TDS. They just can't stop obsessing about TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! It is soooo bad that they seem to have forgotten about the New Year earthquake in Japan. But, in their minds, no news counts unless it is TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! Oh, and when Joe and Mika are in bed together at night you can bet that both of them are thinking only of TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!

LINK: "Things to Come: A Live Overview" by Bill WhittleOn December 7th, 2023, Bill Whittle was invited to give the keynote speech at the Holiday Dinner for the American Freedom Alliance. In this 48 minute, unscripted speech, he develops in greater detail many of the themes that will be developed in the "Things To Come" section at BillWhittle.com.In this video, he discusses the Strauss–Howe generational theory as described in Wikipedia: "...devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American history and Western history. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational...

A pro-Palestine mob has created a New Years Day nightmare as they have blockaded the JFK airport and surrounding roads, causing a gridlock for travelers. The protest was arranged by the pro-Palestine group called WOL as they instructed participants to flood JFK Terminal 4 on Monday. Only passengers with boarding passes and employees with valid forms of identification are being allowed to enter the JFK Air Train at Jamacia Station. Cars can be seen driving on the highway leading up to the airport as protestors shout 'NYD KKK, IDF, you're all the same.' 'VICTORY! Port Authority has effectively shut down...

Kamala Harris likes to play pretend. Fortunately for her, there's no better performance of make-believe than the cultural charade that is Kwanzaa. And since it's politically advantageous to do so, Kamala the Chameleon purports to be a lifelong celebrant of Kwanzaa. Advertisement For years, Kamala has told tall tales of cherished age-old Kwanzaa traditions in the Harris household. She has repeatedly claimed to nostalgically recall fond childhood memories of multi-generational Kwanzaa celebrations led by "the elders"® sharing stories of yore and lighting candles on the "kinara," a knock-off menorah. (The first "kinara" was forged from a desecrated Jewish menorah, in...

Maine has now become the second state in as many weeks, following a December 19 Colorado Supreme Court decision, to make the determination that President Donald Trump cannot appear on the ballot in the 2024 election. In a unilateral decision, the unelected secretary of state and far-left activist, heretofore unknown Shenna Bellows, disqualified from her state’s ballot the leading presidential candidate and presumptive nominee for the GOP. Rejecting any pretense of acting in accordance with due process or the rule of law, Bellows reasoned that our “sacred” democracy would only be preserved if she took it upon herself to reject...

….. think you are crediting the propaganda about Russia and are blind to the manipulations that are underway. The West negotiated in bad faith with the Minsk Agreement to buy time for Ukraine to build an army trained, BTW, by NATO. The Belgrade Agreement was that Ukraine, the 3rd largest nuclear power in the world in 1991, surrendered its nukes, promising that it would remain neutral and neither NATO would advance nor Russia would invade. Zelensky broke both agreements on the order of the Neocons. When Zelensky was elected, he promised to end the civil war and seek peace with...

In a year-end speech to the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised an increase in domestically produced weapons in the coming year for the country’s war against Russia. “And next year, the enemy will feel the wrath of domestic production,” Zelensky said in the speech Sunday. “Our weapons, our equipment, artillery, our shells, our drones, our naval ‘greetings’ to the enemy and at least a million Ukrainian FPV drones.”

One person was killed and another four were injured in an early morning New Year’s Day shooting near a Los Angeles County shopping mall, police said. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said the shooting took place about 30 minutes after midnight Monday in the city of Hawthorne. Officers responding to reports of gunshots found one male victim suffering from gunshots at the scene and transported him to a local hospital.

"And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; "And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." "But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. ☰ John 2 (Other versions) 1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of...

The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage: China and India. A new study shows that the two emerging countries with the world’s biggest populations are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect stems mainly from ambitious tree planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries. The greening phenomenon was first detected using satellite data in the mid-1990s by Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues, but they did not know whether human activity was...