Lurker > Humble_Novice

Sounds like you're just a bad writer.

Harnessing the motherlode of the suns power is almost within our reach.

The sun, our primary source of energy, bathes our Blue Planet in more solar energy than we can ever hope to reasonably use. Each hour, the sun sends 430 quintillion Joules of energy our way, more than the 410 quintillion Joules that humans consume in a whole year. With the sun likely to be around for another five billion years or so, we have a virtually unlimited source of energy--if only we could tap it efficiently.

Unfortunately, we are currently only able to harness a minuscule amount of this energy due to technical limitations.

But that could be about change, thanks to advances in one wonder-crystal--perovskite.

The U.S. Department of Energys (DOEs) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has forged a public-private consortium dubbed the US-MAP for US Manufacturing of Advanced Perovskites Consortium, that aims to fast track the development of low-cost perovskite solar cells for the global marketplace.

Darkprince isn't really known to make shit up about his life and he's been open about his life the whole time he's been here AFAIK

He says enough putrid stuff on his own that you don't gotta add stuff that's not true

This is a pretty good melty right now.

This never happened, do not listen to this outright lie. My dogs have a 600ft dog run outside as well as free reign outside. their sleep cages inside are not near any couches. Ill take pictures of it right now. This incident never happened. You are either lying or have me confused with someone else.

heres my living room. No cages near it at all. Couch in perfect condition lol

He could have killed that kid

well donnie said he's saved billions of americans so problem solved.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- California this week declared its independence from the federal governments feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and Americas budding 21st-century majority, embodied by Californias multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.

Speaking on MSNBC, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would use the bulk purchasing power of California as a nation-state to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. If all goes according to plan, Newsom said, California might even export some of those supplies to states in need.

Nation-state. Export.

Newsom is accomplishing a few things here, with what can only be a deliberate lack of subtlety. First and foremost, he is trying to relieve the shortage of personal protective equipment a crisis the White House has proved incapable of remedying. Details are a little fuzzy, but Newsom, according to news reports, has organized multiple suppliers to deliver roughly 200 million masks monthly.

Second, Newsom is kicking sand in the face of President Donald Trump after Newsoms previous flattery the coin of the White House realm failed to produce results. If Trump cant manage to deliver supplies, theres no point in Newsom continuing the charade.

Third, and this may be the most enduring effect, Newsom is sending a powerful message to both political parties. So far, the Republican Partys war on democratic values, institutions and laws has been a largely one-sided affair, with the GOP assaulting and the Democratic Party defending. The lethal ruling this week by the U.S. Supreme Courts Republican bloc, which required Wisconsin residents to vote in person during a pandemic that shut down polling stations, is a preview of the fall campaign. The GOP intends to restrict vote-by-mail and other legitimate enfranchisement to suppress turnout amid fear, uncertainty and disease.

At some point this civil war by other means, with the goal of enshrining GOP minority rule, will provoke a Democratic counteroffensive. Newsom, leader of the nations largest state, is perhaps accelerating that response, shaking Democrats out of denial and putting Republicans on notice. California, an economic behemoth whose taxpayers account for 15% of individual contributions to the U.S. Treasury, is now toning up at muscle beach.

What that means, of course, is left to the imagination. But not much is required to envision what might evolve.

Newsom, a former lieutenant governor who won the top job in 2018, has used the nation-state phrase before. Its a very odd thing to say. California, like its 49 smaller siblings, qualifies only as the second half. But its obviously no slip of the tongue. Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, a leader in Californias cumbersome efforts to produce more housing, said soon after Newsom took office in 2019 that reorienting the states relationship to Washington is a necessity, not a choice.

The federal government is no longer a reliable partner in delivering health care, in supporting immigrants, supporting LGBT people, in protecting the environment, so we need to forge our own path, Wiener said. We can do everything in our power to protect our state, but we need a reliable federal partner. And right now we dont have that.

The statement appears prescient in light of the Trump administrations failure to protect against a pandemic. Newsom was the first governor to issue a stay-at-home order, on March 19. Though his state is chock-full of cosmopolitan centers, and rural threats loom as well, California is weathering the virus in far better shape than New York, which has many fewer people and many more deaths.

Federalism has always had rough spots, but conflict is rising and resolutions are not. California is a sanctuary state while the Trump administration is fond of immigration dragnets. Marijuana is grown, marketed and used in abundance in the state while the White House conjures more restrictions. The Trump administration endorses extreme gun rights; California has other ideas. Most of all, Trumps failure to act, or even take responsibility for acting, in the face of pandemic has required California, like other states, to look out for itself.

One conflict, however, encompasses all others, and could galvanize Californians into new ways of thinking about their state and its relationship to Washington. The GOP war on democracy is inspired by a drive for racial and cultural supremacy that jeopardizes the democratic aspirations and human rights of Californias multiracial citizenry.

From Fort Sumter to Little Rock to Montgomery, the blueprint for states opposing federal control has a recurring theme. But there is no reason that states cant adopt a racist playbook for other ends. If California and other 21st-century polities withhold revenue, or otherwise distance themselves from Washingtons control, legal and political battles will escalate. Republicans will have a legitimate constitutional argument but it will be a morally tainted and politically illegitimate one so long as they continue to subvert majority rule.

The experience of states battling Covid-19 while the White House devotes its energy to winning the news cycle may be instructive. What is the difference, conceptually, between a state deploying its power to protect its populations health and a state using it to protect its populations democratic rights?

John C. Calhoun, who used the theory of states rights to defend the institution of slavery, is not generally a philosophical lodestar for liberal Democrats such as Newsom. But if Republicans (or foreign friends) succeed in sabotaging democracy in November, Calhouns theory of nullification, which posited that states have the power to defy federal law, could be ripe for a comeback on the left coast. With the heirs of the Confederacy now reigning in Washington, turnabout might be very fair play.

The issue: numbers are already being manipulated. If you die from pneumonia caused by COVID, your death isn't being included in COVID statistics.

What if they cant test the bodies though? Is there any way to know if people are dying of corona who aren't listed as such?

On Mondays episode of The Alex Jones Show on Infowars, Shroyer guest-hosted in place of his boss, prolific right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Shroyer took issue with the guidelines in place, equating the measures to tyranny and communismideas he claimed were more deadly than the coronavirus. It had become so hard to believe the state of the world, he said, that he empathized with followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

I guess thats why so many people have latched onto the Q movement, because its the only thing that makes sense to them at this point, Shroyer said. So, I get it.

Shroyer then threatened to mobilize the Infowars audience, which still comprises of thousands of listeners and viewers despite the outlet being banned from nearly every social media platform, to defy social distancing orders and gather in large groups.

Its time for the people in the Trump administration and people in the mediathis is the week, folks. Its make-or-break this week, OK? We cant go on like this anymore, Shroyer said. Re-open the economy next week, re-open everything next week, or I really might come on here just start calling for revolting against this.

He has now resigned

artificial pumping

maybe I'm not a good person but I don't feel bad at all. her hoax speech killed any sympathy I would have had for her

Another South Carolina sheriff has been indicted on numerous public corruption charges.

Indictments against Colleton County Sheriff Robert Strickland Jr., 40, by a state grand jury were announced Tuesday on more than a dozen charges including misconduct in office, using his official position for financial gain and sex, use of public funds to influence an election, distribution of a controlled substance and embezzlement.

And at a bond hearing Tuesday afternoon, Attorney Generals office chief grand jury prosecutor Creighton Waters told state Judge DeAndrea Benjamin that witnesses in the case were living in fear of retaliation by Strickland. Waters asked that the sheriff be put on house arrest and be required to put up a $50,000 secured bond.

They are very scared of him, Waters told the judge.

Although Benjamin declined the request to put Strickland, a Republican, on house arrest, she did require him to wear a GPS, put up a secured $25,000 bond, surrender his guns and stay away from witnesses in the case and his employees at the Colleton County sheriffs department.

Stricklands attorney, Andy Savage of Charleston, told the judge that his client was a S.C. Highway Patrol trooper for about 20 years and also worked for the State Law Enforcement Division as a teen. Savage said Strickland is undergoing weekly treatments for an unspecified malady and argued that the sheriff posed no danger.

Waters also revealed more details of Stricklands alleged crimes, including that the sheriff had various side businesses where he flipped houses and required on-duty deputies and staff to help out with that. In another side business, Strickland sold various used appliances and required his staff to help.

They had a name for it, your honor they called it code 48, Waters said. In various police codes, Code 48 is said to mean traffic repair needed.

Strickland also had a rural home he was doing extensive construction on, and he put deputies to work on it and had them clear brush around the property, Waters said.

Waters also said that Strickland used his supervisory power over the employment and wages of the sheriffs office staff to force an ongoing sexual relationship with an employee and made that employees job and salary conditional on the sex provided the sheriff.

Strickland also took an employee to a conference in Myrtle Beach, Waters said. He had no reason to go there he was only going there to pursue an extramarital affair with the subordinate. While there, Strickland gave the young employee, who was under 21, alcohol and Ambien, a prescription sedative that is illegal to use without a doctors okay.

Strickland, who was already suspended from office late last year by Gov. Henry McMaster after being indicted on a domestic violence charge, had a bond hearing at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Richland County courthouse before Judge Benjamin.

The investigation that led to Tuesdays announcement of new charges against Strickland was already in progress in November when Strickland was indicted on a domestic violence charge, Waters said at the bond hearing.

Savage told the judge that although there appear to be numerous charges against Strickland, the charges are really variations on several of the same violations. And furthermore, Savage said, none of the offenses carry a mandatory prison sentence they give the judge latitude to give no time at all in the event of a guilty plea or conviction.

Savage also said the victim in the alleged domestic case now objects to the case.

The charges against Strickland were announced by State Attorney General Alan Wilson in a news release. SLED agents conducted the investigation.

The new charges also include misconduct in office and giving a $3,000 government radio with secure first responder communication channels to a citizen with no valid official purpose for the device. Strickland had the transmitter disabled, and the device has since been recovered, Waters said.