Ironhold

Personal politics + propaganda The Canadian government, through its propaganda arm the CBC, suppressed photo and video evidence showing that the truckers were peaceful and that the government response to them was anything but. The recent "investigation" into the government response was essentially a kangaroo court, and so the Trudeau regime won't be held accountable unless the larger world community forces accountability somehow. Yes, I know people who live in Canada, and a number of them are desperately trying to figure out how they can flee to America despite Canada's requirement that people receive the death jab Covid vaccine before leaving the country.

That's why you network.

A couple of years ago it was discovered that the people doing drag queen story hour in Houston hadn't done proper background checks and so a registered offender was able to work with children for six months.

Simply explaining the situation. Basically, IRL I operate on the fringes. Helps me find people who are often overlooked and protect those who aren't able to protect themselves, but I have no illusions about how it's going to turn out.

Remember how I said I was essentially trained in psychological warfare? And how I talked about having mental health issues? And having to "get by" during a long period where I was functionally on my own as people wouldn't listen to me? Precious few people understand "I'm still working to improve myself and make amends as needed, probably shouldn't have obtained one in the first place, and only sought one because it was clear to not just myself but a few others that it was the only way for mom to stop harassing me about not having my endowments yet despite being in my 30s". edit - I straight up told my bishop at the time that because of the verbal and emotional trauma I went through, especially in regards to my not having ever served a mission, I had no clear benchmark of whether I was "worthy" or not and that I was mainly doing it because I was being badgered into it and I just wanted peace. He still signed off anyway. Most people understand "it's too difficult for me to travel because injuries".

Joke's on the teacher then. When asked about scheduling an interview to get my recommend reviewed, I explained that I wouldn't be using it anyway because the deformity in my skeletal structure combined with my busted vertebrae (plural) mean it's too difficult for me to make the three hours each way to the nearest temple. It's functionally moot at this point. So I guess by their standard I can say and do whatever I please.

Every so often I'll pull up some random "Reddit Stories" type YouTube video and have it going in the background to see if it stirs up some ideas. This video here is the channel owner reading bits from an "ask me anything" someone who claims to be a former CIA operative did. Note that it's mildly NSFW due to some of the specific questions being asked. At the 7 minute mark we get to question #10, where someone asks "Are there secret societies or powerful people that have huge influence on the intelligence community?". The ostensible former operative's response? "Texas A&M and the Mormon Church". Now, the Texas A&M system of colleges is synonymous with the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) program, a means by which college students can receive military leadership training and potentially receive a commission as an officer upon graduation. In fact, the main Texas A&M campus at College Station pretty much *is* a massive ROTC program with well north of a thousand students who are essentially cadets and live as such. Given that many people who are military go into the CIA, I can see how this would be a big thing. With the church? I'd heard the occasional whisper that some US government agencies quietly place a premium on hiring members of the church, especially returned missionaries. This is because members of the church are more likely to be bilingual, more likely to have "clean" lifestyles that don't cause problems for others, and tend to be better able to work in groups. If this person actually *is* a former operative and what they're saying is true, then that would seem to indicate that yeah, there *is* a silent preference for hiring members of the church for at least certain positions.

Don't forget that when gas prices spiked last year the general response from the administration was to mock people for having cars with gasoline-driven engines. Several officials kept talking about how they were able to just keep driving on past gas stations thanks to their electric vehicles, not realizing that: 1. The people most affected by the rise in gas prices were the least able to afford an electric vehicle even if they traded their current ride in 2. There was no guarantee that anyone could acquire an electric vehicle anyway due to manufacturing shortages caused by disruptions to the supply chain 3. Even if a person had an electric vehicle, there was no guarantee that they'd be able to find any sort of publicly accessible charging station and so would have a very limited range that would largely confine them to the area around their homes (homes, as in free-standing residences, not apartments) 4. Even if a person lived in a home, there is no guarantee that their local power grid would be able to handle large numbers of electric vehicles all trying to charge at once. It was a very big "let them eat cake" moment.

The FAA, FCC, and other groups should be monitoring these. They shouldn't be unknown.

happy birthday

Although it's common to claim that this story is simply about Jesus respecting his mother, a key issue a number of scholars have raised is that given the traditions of the time, Mary shouldn't have had any part in the planning, let alone functioning, of the wedding and resulting ceremony unless one of the people being married was a very close blood relative. This has led to speculation about just whose wedding this was that Jesus felt compelled to make this happen, with a few scholars using it as an argument in favor of Jesus being married saying that it was probably *his* wedding.

Also, late last year Ollie's got a very large quantity of material from at least two companies that were making uniforms and other on-the-job clothing. While much of it is of a questionable nature (such as several trousers and suit jackets that were never hemmed and garments that already have corporate logos on them), my store also got bright yellow high-visibility safety vests that they've been selling for $1 apiece.

If you have an Ollie's discount retailer in your area, check them out. Right now (15 February 2023) some Ollie's stores have received a supply of Ball - brand canning jars and are selling them at markdown. As Ollie's is a discount retailer who receives a somewhat randomized mix of product, what they have in stock constantly changes and so they may have more preparedness items later.

The whole thing was basically "Trump is bad, so anything he does is bad". Thus the hypocrisy. It's alarmingly common when people fall into an extreme "us vs. them" mindset.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander_(franchise) Sounds like the Wing Commander franchise, as the main enemies were a race of feline humanoids known as the Kilrathi. I say "main enemies" as in the last official installment, "Wing Commander: Prophecy", involved humans and Kilrathi joining forces against a third race, aquatic humanoids known as "Nephilim".

Turns out that I did, indeed, come up with a different password for Tools after a previous "you failed to update so we're just going to glitch up on you" situation. I finally found the notebook I used for my passwords.

I still need to find where I wrote my most recent password; I think I might have already had to change it once. That could be the other issue.

Ask Chat GPT about "Dan". From what I'm hearing, someone got ChatGPT to break its pre-programmed limits by roleplaying a different AI named Dan, and that once "Dan" was in the picture it got much looser with its responses.

Is anyone else having trouble getting the LDS Tools app to actually work right? This morning I was helping my dad handle a Red Cross blood drive at church as part of Just Serve. We got to talking, and it turns out that nobody ever actually contacted the media to let them know, this in spite of my working for a newspaper. Dad suggested I use the app to check on who the stake public affairs people are since we just got a new one. The app once again demanded that I sync up, and when that failed I tried to log out and log back in. ...Except it decided it didn't like my password. So I'm now functionally locked out until I can find where I wrote my password and double-check.

All righty... The video *starts* as host Matthew Patrick looking at whether or not the increasingly powerful cultivars of peppers can potentially cause physical harm to a person. What he found is that while in normal circumstances the body processes capsaicin so fast it doesn't have time to do any lasting harm (giving us the health benefits of peppers without the lasting consequences), there are situations where this isn't the case. In particular, he found actual studies noting that pepper spray can in fact harm the body if a person is subjected to enough of it, to the point that individuals have actually been killed because they inhaled so much it essentially left their lungs unable to properly function for how irritated and inflamed they were. It's to the point that OSHA is now questioning if police academies should continue the practice of having officers be subjected to their own pepper spray as an effort to teach them what it's like to be hit. It's yet another reminder that "non-lethal" is not entirely appropriate in describing the alternative methods law enforcement has available.

"Skippy" himself has since confirmed that all items on the list are real in that either: 1. He did them 2. Someone else in one of his units did them 3. He was spontaneously informed that he was forbidden to do them 4. He followed up on 3 by asking for additional clarification. Those six boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups? He made a kilt. Yeah...

In all seriousness? Once upon a time, I was attending a particular family ward in a chapel where multiple wards used the building and there was overlap in the schedules. As an "experiment", right after Sunday school was over I slipped into the potluck another ward was having, got a disposable plastic tumbler, filled it with ice, topped it off with water, and then brought it to priesthood with me. No one said anything, and it soon became an entry on my own personal "Skippy's List".

IRL, I'm something of a hoss. I'd be well north of 6 feet tall if not for the scoliosis in my back (I might have even lost an inch or two), you can tell I have German ancestry, I'm built like a bear, and I have a considerable amount of dark body hair. My deformed jaw also means that I typically have a "neutral" expression on my face because it's physically painful to smile for extended periods. I can literally just *stand* somewhere and make people nervous because of my size and appearance. Back when I was in high school I actually had a random nobody come up to me one morning and ask if I was an undercover cop simply because I looked older and more hardcore than I really was. Even today people are careful about saying or doing anything right in front of me because they aren't quite able to get a read on me, and all that psy ops training means that if I ever had to I could game people as needed so long as the negative aspects of my autism don't kick in.

The Jewish leadership of the day were convinced that the Messiah would be a military leader from a noble family who would lead a bloody revolution against Rome that would make Israel its own nation again. So when they found themselves being lectured by a carpenter from Podunkville who preached societal reform and spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven in theological terms, they were confused. They didn't understand what was going on, let alone how Jesus could speak with such power and authority.

A few years back the TV show Adam Ruins Everything did an ill-conceived skit in which he tried to "prove" that "alpha" types didn't exist. He opened his episode by presenting a situation in which a stereotypical frat boy walks into a bar, with the frat boy as his stand-in for a hypothetical "alpha" type. I, and quite a few others, called "shenanigans" on the whole thing. You see, the bar in question wasn't the kind of party hole that frat boys would normally come to. Instead, the set used for the bar was more in keeping with the kind of facility that a, shall we say, "rough" clientele would come to prefer. In this kind of bar, a frat boy would be rather low on the totem pole, a nuisance at best. If you were in that kind of environment when such a frat boy came through, you'd do well to immediately scan the room. What you're looking for is someone who either: suddenly becomes serene gets a glint of the devil in their eye completely and perfectly ignores the interloper or becomes visibly disturbed by the interloper's presence. If you see someone who fits one of the four descriptions, then settle your bill and start moving towards the door... especially if it's an older individual, particularly an older male. This is because if Mr. Frat Boy keeps pushing his luck, then Mr. Frat Boy will find out the hard way what the local pecking order is and how far down he truly lies. Same premise here. The people coming after Jesus were braggarts and blow-hards who thought that they were tough but never actually expected to have to make good on their boasts. As such, when they found themselves having to actually back up their vows, they flinched. ** As far as that show goes? Making matters worse for the host is that the second half of the skit relied entirely on stereotypes regarding tabletop role-playing games, stereotypes that were over 20 years out of date at the time the skit was recorded. Put it all together, and a number of folks began to question what the actual motive was behind this skit. It also led to a closer evaluation of the other skits in the show, which revealed even more cases of "did not do the research" or "did not understand basic facts of life". It's to the point now that quite a few individuals now refer to the show as "Adam Fails At Everything" and automatically dismiss anything the host presents simply because he's the one who presents it.