Tuur said:

That's going to require checking out the settings on both phones. Today, even vehicles report in. I'm serious.

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Yes, very true. Perhaps that advice is futile, but I suppose limiting the settings might keep the info down a little.

ViaCrucis said:

It is being TAKEN from the current owners and REDISTRIBUTED to the original owners.

That IS redistribution of wealth. It is LITERALLY being redistributed from one person to another.

-CryptoLutheran

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It was a restoration not a redistribution. You don’t even know if the original owners are wealthy or not. The return of the land COULD help a family in dire straights or it might not and this happened once every 50 years. This is NOT redistribution of wealth. Land merely just got passed around owners.

Vambram said:

Each and every one of your anti-Trump statements are absolutely 100% incorrect.

What is your solution about the Russia & Ukraine war which Ukraine is clearly losing? Please remember that a diplomatic solution needs to be one that both nations would accept.

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Here is just my take on Russia and Ukraine for what little it might be worth.

There is no diplomatic solution currently unless either Ukraine or Russia decide to just give in. The two sides seem to be not even close at the moment. Even if Ukraine were to cede land, Russia really is not offering to allow meaningful security guarantees. Yes, there was talk, but really it was not serious. Trump generally does overstate his influence and progress but the reality to me seems that he has created a weakened Ukraine. This has occurred in part because the USA has waffled in their support. I think a diplomatic solution will only occur if the West stands more united and firm against Russia. More pressure on oil and trade, not less. More weapons, more aid, more ability given to Ukraine to fight into the interior. This could be done in a stealthy way, with little fanfare. Alternatively, Ukraine allies could really go hardline and pull out all the stops in communicating their intentions, yet still not enter the war directly unless Putin decided to go that route first.
It would be helpful though if Trump was more aligned with the EU and allowed them to participate more. Most of the EU is timid and afraid of Trump. I guess slapping big tariffs on can be scary. We should remember that only after everyone was onboard did S. Aftrica's apartheid really start to fall through because of the serious economic sanctions and isolation.

My thinking is that if Putin really thought that the USA and the EU would stand behind Ukraine for years to come, that he would negotiate. Prolonged fighting is why Russia finally left Afghanistan. I will admit that Trump does extremely well in many simpler negotiations. But larger ones are not as simple as a real estate deal. Larger nations are also not as easy to gain concessions from. So we have seen Trump very successful in helping stop war in smaller nations. (Thailand and Cambodia) Trump's methods too can help prevent escalation out of the gate in larger nations (India and Pakistan). However, the limits can and should be seen in long lasting, mired down problems such as Russia and Ukraine. I hope I am wrong but he overplays his poker hand sometimes because it is not a single hand with those entrenched problems but a game that will persist for quite some time. For instance, deals for trade in agriculture have lingered since the 1950s. Those aspirations were often sidelined to even begin to negotiate trade deals in other areas.

Lastly, I will say what probably many have thought. That it would seriously help if Trump were to get the Nobel Peace Prize. asap. I think he is obsessed with it in a good way. He wants to be a peacemaker. Still, it would make him more restful if that was a past achievement rather than an aspiration.

One of @stevevw's many many many images in the thread is this one.



What struck me was the well defined vertical cut forming a near right angle with what looks suspiciously like the early stages of a copper and abrasive horizontal cut line (note the large cut width which is a characteristic of abrasion cutting).
This indicates the vertical and horizontal cuts were done in distinctly different time frames.

Yet another one of my AI exercises was to ask GPT-5 to analyse the image, the only information I gave it was look for discrepancies and the material was either granite or limestone.
I was pleasantly surprised with the answer, it came to the same conclusion but with more information than I had envisioned.

Yes — there are several unusual aspects worth pointing out in this image:

1. The Vertical Groove​

• The deep, straight, narrow cut running vertically looks too clean and uniform to be the result of pounding stones or early copper saws with abrasive.
• It has the sharp parallel sides and straight trajectory more consistent with an iron/steel chisel or saw used in the later periods (Roman, Medieval, or even modern interventions).
• Ancient Egyptian abrasive saw kerfs are usually wider and more U-shaped, not tight and straight like this.

2. The Horizontal Groove​

• The shallower horizontal groove below looks more like an abrasive cut (copper saw + sand): wide, shallow, and rounded inside.
• The two intersecting marks (vertical vs. horizontal) suggest they were made at different times with different tools.

3. Surface Damage Around the Mark​

• Notice how the stone’s surface surrounding the vertical groove looks splintered and fractured in a way consistent with metal wedge or chisel insertion, not with ancient smoothing or polishing.
• That’s unusual if we expect this to be an “original” Old Kingdom working mark.

4. Painted Markings​

• There seems to be a faint red painted line or symbol on the right, over the granite surface. Egyptians often used red ochre or black ink to guide stone cutting. However, the fact it’s so close to the vertical groove raises the possibility that someone later marked the stone for re-cutting or documentation.

---

Summary of Unusual Features:

• The vertical groove is too sharp and narrow → likely later iron/steel toolwork, not Old Kingdom.
• The horizontal groove is wider and shallower → consistent with ancient abrasive saw kerf.
• The combination on the same block suggests this stone has been worked in multiple historical phases, possibly:
  • Old Kingdom (horizontal saw mark),
  • Later quarrying/stone-robbing phase (vertical iron/steel tool mark).

Would you like me to annotate this image with arrows and short labels (e.g. “later iron tool cut” vs. “ancient abrasive kerf”) so you can visually separate the phases of working?

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This thread is gross.

-CryptoLutheran

Postvieww said:

Being Christian in name is not the same as being Christian in heart.

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Jesus said nothing about guns...and he certainly didn't condone people being violent towards one another....what does that have to do with the thread? At all?

Children are dead in the name of violence.

ugh

Will the violence ever end?

Breaks my heart.

Hentenza said:

It returns to the original owners not to the community or the poor. This is not redistribution of wealth.

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It is being TAKEN from the current owners and REDISTRIBUTED to the original owners.

That IS redistribution of wealth. It is LITERALLY being redistributed from one person to another.

-CryptoLutheran

Bradskii said:

Hundreds of dead children and you accuse me of being emotional? What in heaven's name does it take for you to feel something about this carnage? All you are concerned about are your rights.

These threads disgust me.

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Change must occur. Change must occur. Change must occur.

I am saying that as someone who will never own a gun and will never use one.

This is about LIFE. NOT politics.

You are sooo right @Bradskii

Bradskii said:

I'm not the slightest bit interested in anything further you and anyone else has to say on the matter. I'm up to the back teeth with these threads. I'm really at the point of saying something I'll regret responding to some of the brain dead 'arguments', positions and claims of some people. Feel free to carry on demanding that no-one trample on your 'rights'. I couldn't care less about them.

Unsubscribing.

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Your choice . If you post be prepared to be challenged. I think as little of your opinions as you do mine. So I hope the rest of your day goes well.

FaithT said:

Maybe for Cinderella!

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Well? It's certainly an interesting looking building! Not to be married in or to worship, to be fair!

FaithT said:

My first thought when I saw this thread was my church could be on the list. Michie said it was pretty around Christmastime but that’s only because the pre lit Christmas trees dressed it up. It’s your typical 70’s style church in the round,and has a Mary/Jesus mosaic behind the altar.

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I actually had a man from the same diocese from mine complain about the Cathedral.

On the other hand...

We are the most conservative diocese in the nation and we are blessed with many young men discerning for the priesthood, and have most priest per Catholic in the nation, as well as many young women join religious life, because all of our women religious and nuns wear the habit.

JosephZ said:

I'm a gun owner, and like most gun owners, I want to see stronger gun laws.

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What would those laws do and what needs to be added in your opinion to stop a demented evil person from acting out their fantasies?

Ophiolite said:

You are correct. Fossils are exceedingly rare, except in exceptional circumstances when entire rock masses are built of their remains. Such a mass is being constructed, for example, on portions of the Bahamas Bank at present, or any other shallows far from terrestrial sediments and suitable for "corals and clams". But you won't get many seabird or fish fossils showing up there.

The study of the preservation of fossils is called taphonomy and I was about to embark on an amateurish description of the field, when I realised there was probably a Wikipedia article on the subject that would serve much better. There is, just here.

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Saving this!

Ophiolite said:

Hi Riley, I did provide you with some information in response to your original query about the rarity of fossils. It was post #29 and contained a link to wikipedia on taphonomy. It's worth a look.

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Thank you! I will look at it! I appreciate it!

ViaCrucis said:

That is, literally, a redistribution of wealth. The land was redistributed to the original owners of the land. That is wealth redistribution.

-CryptoLutheran

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It returns to the original owners not to the community or the poor. Maybe the previous owners belong to a rich family. This is not redistribution of wealth.

Freth said:

I grew up poor. Despite being poor myself I went around gathering food to make food boxes for others. When I worked and had extra money I gave freely to the poor. Now that I'm retired I'm poor again, living on a small pension, and receive food from the local food bank to supplement what little food I can afford. I know what poor is, I've lived it a good portion of my life.

I'm not against giving to the poor. I'm for it. I also agree that we should obey God. God commanded man not to steal. It is a valid point.

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My sympathies for your struggles.

But that doesn't address anything I said.

-CryptoLutheran

Hentenza said:

The jubilee year. Land that had been sold was to be returned to the original owner. Since land truly belong to God the land was leased rather than owned. This was not a redistribution of wealth to a different family, but a return of a family's original inheritance. The object here was to prevent families from falling into permanent poverty by losing their primary source of income.

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That is, literally, a redistribution of wealth. The land was redistributed to the original owners of the land. That is wealth redistribution.

-CryptoLutheran

Xeno.of.athens said:

You are incorrect. I did not forget unity in Christ, I am surprised that you would think so. The mere fact that people are Christians already implies, unity with Christ and faith in him, as one's saviour.

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You did not mention it. To you only those that agree with your doctrine, sacraments, and episcopate are able to unite. But thst is not what the holy scriptures say or teach. Christ is what unite us not the teachings of your church.

“If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭26‬-‭27‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Postvieww said:

Your premise is flawed. The problem...

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I'm not the slightest bit interested in anything further you and anyone else has to say on the matter. I'm up to the back teeth with these threads. I'm really at the point of saying something I'll regret responding to some of the brain dead 'arguments', positions and claims of some people. Feel free to carry on demanding that no-one trample on your 'rights'. I couldn't care less about them.

Unsubscribing.

Michie said:

So on a recent visit to our oldest son and his family, my wife and I drove around San Francisco in a Waymo AI taxi.

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Same here. All the young 'uns and their spouses and kids betook ourselves to Northern Cali for our last single niece's (from my wife's side, the full-on Koreans) wedding. She married a white geek boy which makes them a perfect match. With the poly-racial sho-nuf multi-cultural bunch in attendance, with people of varying percentages of White. Korean, French, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Black, and Other ancestry, one more multi-ethnic couple was pretty much what we'd expect. Fortunately, everybody spoke English, although I did get some laughs from my attempts at Mandarin and Spanish, which I once deluded myself into thinking I was good at half a century or so ago. We flew into SFO from Nashville because the Danish mob had never been there and wanted to see it, so we hung out there for a couple of days. It was fun, and most of the horror stories that we'd heard about what the town had become turned out to be rubbish, I t looked like the nice pafts of town were still nice, the bad parts of town were still bad. Being half Asian I like the large numbers of Asians there, but also being Southern it still seems pretty weird around the edges to me as well.

Anyway, Dansk son-in-law and I both being geekazoids, we had to ride the Waygo taxis. The way the lidar stuff was set up was impressive, and it obvious worked. the cars navigated SF traffic with perfect grace, picking us where we stood and dropping us precisely where we said, with never a misstep. The app was perfectly intuitive (a welcome surprise!), and there never was heard a discouraging word about any or it. And it was cheaper than a human piloted cab. Full marks.

That's the good news. The bad news is that human drivers are now officially on the road to obsolescence. It'll be a few years yet, but computer-driven vehicles will become more and more prevalent as their proficiency increases (and it will), and the prices come down (and they will) individual human drivers are going to go the way of the dodo. Seriously, I'm 72 years old, and I don't know how long I'll still be able to drive safely. Buying a car that I can sit down in, tell where to go, and have it simply goes there sounds like a brilliant idea.

public hermit said:

That's blatantly false. Israel has the keys to the gate that prevents a free flow of aid to Gaza.

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Then you need to inform NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/nx-s...food-aid-piling-up-not-reaching-those-in-need

Daniel Carlton said:

For those who are promoting their church as the only true church, please understand I was not talking about denominations but what YOU personally need to see in a church to make it acceptable.

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As a Lutheran I believe that the Lutheran Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord, especially the Augsburg Confession provide a true and faithful witness to true Christian faith. Because the Confessions are Biblical. If I didn't believe that, then I probably wouldn't be Lutheran. So the minimum of what I can consider acceptable is nothing less than what I regard to be the true confessed faith of Christ's Holy Church, i.e. the Ecumenical Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions.

If I were a Catholic, then the minimum of what is acceptable is that it is the Holy Catholic Church which Christ founded, which exists in fullness through its communion with St. Peter's successor and Christ's temporal representative in the person of the Pope in Rome. Thus anything outside and aside from this would not be acceptable.

If I were Orthodox, then the minimum of what is acceptable is that it is the Holy Catholic Church which Christ founded, which exists in fullness in all the holy bishops of the Church in communion with one another which has received the Apostolic deposit of faith in the Church's most holy Tradition which has been preserved and kept alive by the Holy Spirit since the beginning, and thus there is nothing acceptable except Orthodoxy.

Could a Baptist, for example, accept infant baptism? The answer is no; thus for the Baptist those things which are distinctively Baptist are what make their church/tradition/communion acceptable.

Thus each person is going to believe their church is biblical; if they didn't, they would not belong to that church. I would not be a member, or participate, in a church that I believed to be unbiblical.

So everyone is going to present an argument rooted in their theological and ecclesiological tradition.

This is unavoidable.

-CryptoLutheran

Hvizsgyak said:

You bet .

MSN

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Apologies to @Ophiolite for interrupting, but what exactly is the problem with that article? Is it what I talked about earlier with you, where it's basically comes down to how scientists reach conclusions you don't like?

Vambram said:

But there is a new and even more disturbing layer to the story. The government of Guatemala has now formally requested that these children be returned home.

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This. There's a case I know of where the minor held by ICE wants to return to Guatemala to his sister. Now, there's something sketchy about this particular incident, such as why there was a years-old warrant for removal that was discovered after a standard check for outstanding warrants related to different issue, but the family had already gone on record as saying he wants our of detention and to be in Guatemala with his sister.