"All the cool kids are saying 'woke sucks' and i do too, because I'm also COOL!"

But i think many don't really know what they're saying except to express "fuck the darkies, homos and liberals", without admitting it.

Fascinating nerds would look at physical evidence from a crime scene and figure out everything that happened and who did it.

Viewers at home are amazed seeing that crime has been conquered by science, and many people subsequently actually devote themselves to becoming "forensic criminologists".

The disappointing thing is that this forensic thing is really a lot of made up bullshit with almost no actual explanatory or scientific validity.

It turns out that there is really no established, agreed upon criminal forensics, no standards, no schools, no common practices.

It really seems like they're consulting hard scientific principles, when in fact they're pulling it out of their asses.

Not rigorously trained professionals based in hard science, but clever science geeks making shit up based on hunches of what they think "should" be true, using individual techniques and coming up with mostly unrepeatable results that don't match up with anybody else.

Kind of like medieval barbers, only not as organized.

From watching this stuff you come to one major conclusion: the results are such that any scientist given the same evidence would come to the same conclusion.

Nope.

Case in point: several decades ago, an old lady was found dead, clearly murdered, with little evidence besides a distinct human bite mark on her body.

The detectives went crazy trying to find a perp, and finally they matched the activities of a local young guy to the timeline, and picked him up.

They brought in a "bite mark expert", a forensic dentist, to match the teeth of the suspect to the marks on the victim.

What do you know, a perfect match!

(Fwiw, the victim was white, and the suspect was black.)

Kid gets sent away to prison for decades, all the time whining, "i didn't do it".

His lawyer keeps petitioning, but the years go by.

Finally they manage to revive the case to re-examine the validity of the bite marks.

We all hear about how victims of horrible accidents can be identified by their dental records even when nothing else remains of them, so we think DENTAL RECORDS are special, a "gold standard", like fingerprints.

They might be, but actually taking the prints and matching them is a whole nother deal.

These are complex 4D mechanisms working on each other, the teeth in the mouth of a person who is moving making marks on the 4D tissue of another person who is moving in time.

Depending on the angles and relative positions, which are actually in motion, almost any marks could be made.

It's almost unimaginably far from pressing an inked finger down onto a piece of paper.

Add to that the marks in organic human tissue aren't stable, they change as the tissue degrades.

But shouldn't there be a way to match teeth with the bite they produce?

Sure, but there are many more ways to fuck it up than there are to get a reliable match.

And there is NO RECOGNIZED ESTABLISHED PROCESS for doing this, you have to rely on anyone who says they can do it, and take their word for it.

"So you can remove my brain tumor? Do you have a diploma?"

"Nah, but I've been doing this for years, you'll be alright."

Anyway, they revisited the technique the forensic dentist used to match the teeth with the bite, and found out it was absolutely insanely variable.

Might as well glue some teeth to a strap and beat a piece of pot roast with it until you say, "Aha! We've got it!"

Looking into it you find no standards for how to match teeth to any kind of marks. As it turns out, matching a person to a given bite injury is almost ludicrously unreliable.

After like 3 decades in prison, this guy is finally released.

There are some forensic techniques that are reliable, like DNA. It's not done at all like you think it is, and they usually narrow suspects down to a family before selecting the likely individual.

But DNA science has very good odds.

"Bones", "NCIS", etc, not so much.

For once and for all, progressive DAs do NOT want to let criminals go free more than conservative DAs, this is UNTRUE.

The difference lies in willingness to convict on LESS EVIDENCE.

Basically, is it better to convict innocent people, or to let guilty people go free?

Conservatives think that if you OVER-convict, you're more likely to catch criminals, whereas progressives think catching criminals is not worth locking up innocent people.

Just because you convict more people DOESNT make it more likely you've captured actual criminals, because if you convict the wrong person, you're letting the actual criminal go free. But conservatives say, "we solved more crimes so its better", even if they got the wrong guy, its better than not getting anyone.

However, if you're stricter about making sure you have the real bad guy, the odds are greater you'll actually let him go.

There are problems with both approaches, neither is actually " right", it just depends on whether you want to put more innocent people in jail or get more criminals off the street.

Your preference is mostly when they try to put YOU or your family member in prison for a crime you didn't commit, THEN its unfair.

But if its someone else, you're more ok with the unfairness because you think it makes you less likely to be a victim of crime.

NEITHER ONE WANTS TO LET CRIMINALS GO.

But what is its structure?

It's not a molecule, like NO, NO², or N²O, because those substances have significantly different properties and effects than air.

Any O that encounters H with likely bond and fall out, although water is not made this way, in fact water is rarely made on Earth at all. Most of the water on Earth comes from space, brought in on asteroids and other objects, so the water we drink is actually billions of years old, created on other planets, and has possibly be consumed and urinated out by millions of creatures before us.

Who knows, maybe by extraterrestrial life forms. In any event, the water in Earth existed way before the Earth even existed.

The water you shower with, splash around in, is likely unimaginably older than anything else on Earth. Not just any water, all water, the water you use.

(There are theories that water was created here on Earth, but the conditions required are so extreme that most scientists believe that it came from space.)

Yes, we, like all creatures, subsist largely on piss and shit (dirt that plants grow in that feed animals that we eat is significantly shit, along with rotten plants. That's why we use manure in gardens).

So anyway, if air is actually just free-floating, unbound N and O, how does it keep in a certain ratio and not separate into regions of more concentrated nitrogen and oxygen?

How does it "emulsify" and maintain the property mixture so that every breath any animal takes always contains the right proportion of the gases?

If the oxygen separated locally, the animals there would be greatly affected, plus fires would be more intense.

Breathing pure or concentrated O is extremely corrosive and not good for animals for extended periods. It also encourages a condition called "hyperoxia", which is too much of a good thing, causing your tissues to literally rust away.

If nitrogen separated locally, animals would experience hypoxia, as if they were suddenly transported to a great elevation.

Breathing pure N is perfectly benign, but without O you will quickly go to sleep and never wake up.

By contrast if you breathe pure CO², toxic chemicals will build up in your body immediately and instinctively make you seek O. This is how it feels when you think you're running out of O, but in fact you don't notice that deficiency, you just notice the buildup of CO².

Interestingly, you DON'T notice the buildup of CO, with just one less O, which will silently put you down like N, which is why there are carbon monoxide detectors.

Let's not even talk about how we can suffocate on gas that contains abundant oxygen, the carbon just makes it inaccessible to us.

Like all elements, O and N have different atomic weights, but they're adjacent on the periodic table at 7 and 8, so they're very close.

But any mix of substances with different weights should separate out eventually, just like salad dressings or tequila sunrises.

It seems kind of weird, but the answer is "wind". Kind of.

Basically heat energy keeps everything moving so constantly that it can't settle out.

It's like putting a bottle of salad dressing in a shaking machine, forever.

At this point it's almost natural to wonder why this effect results in a mixture that's perfect for living animals like us, but that's a teleological fallacy, like creationism or "fine-tuning", because WE are optimized for whatever the MIXTURE is, it's not optimized for us.

Like the famous Douglas Adams puddle that found the perfect-shaped hole to fit it.

Some millions of years ago the air was considerably richer in oxygen than it is now, and as a result animals were much different.

For instance, insects were gigantic, there were dragonflies with 6ft wingspans, and the cockroaches... don't think about it.

Imagine having to live in that world.

But we live in this one where the air just so happens to be what we need to breathe, and if it wasn't?

Well we'd be dead of course. There's no "necessity" for human beings or any animals. 

That's right, no God. Oh well.

You may continue to call yourself a Republican, but we know that you have disqualified yourself by turning against our Savior, his holiness Donald Trump, sent from God to save us from modernity.

For your perfidy, you are to be cast out into the Darkness and forever branded RINO, Republican In Name Only. (Please! Anything but THAT!)

The term RINO pre-exists Trump and was originally used to brand Republicans who broke from general party solidarity, perhaps by refusing to vote in lockstep with the leader, making a principled decision to commit the worst crime in the GOP: helping Democrats try to do something actually good for people, or resist confirming awful corporate stooges to the highest positions of authority.

But then Trump came out of the shadows to pursue his criminal enterprises in broad daylight, things like bullying a foreign head of state to persecute his political enemies using the power of the US presidency, pressuring state officials to subvert election law to give him votes or cancel those of his opponents to enable him a victory that he did not deserve, along with other equally slimy actions.

Some Republicans broke and just couldn't stand the sickening immorality, not to mention gross criminality, of all this, and even voted to impeach Trump.

But underneath, these Republicans aren't really heroes, they're not even less Republican in any significant way.

People on the left may indeed be confused to think that so-called RINOs are to some degree redeemed from their backward social viewpoints by virtue of having been "cancelled" by the Great Leader.

But it's important that we remember: none of this is true. Even though they may have turned against Trump, which is actually just the minimally logical thing to do, beyond that they haven't changed for the better in any way at all.

Those designated RINO have become pariahs in the GOP, and at the same time heroes among many Dems. But neither of these appellations is actually warranted by their actual characters.

Bluntly, even anti-Trump Republicans still suck, HARD.

The current uber-RINO, Liz Cheney, has been receiving lavish admiration from lefties all over suicidal, I mean SOCIAL,  media for her brave stance against Trump, with some (on the LEFT!) even saying they would support her for President.

Similarly Adam Kinzinger, who would fill out the "Cheney/Kinzinger" ticket proposed by some breathless, wacky, full-of-hope lefties who think that people can CHANGE, and see the error of their ways, to become GOOD, CARING...

(God I'm tired. People whose brain oil has all drained out so that their brain cells are grinding together, seizing up, smoking and emitting noxious fumes, preventing any credible thoughts from being created, coming to conclusions like "Liz Cheney is a good person"... How much more can I take?)

But even these supposed "respectable" Republicans did everything they could to confound all Democratic efforts at progress for the people whenever they could, while voting along with Trump on the order of over 95% of the time.

Needy people getting government assistance with health care, child care, reduced prices, lower inflation, anything at all that would help desperate people of all ideologies, Republicans flatly oppose, along with environmental and corporate regulation designed to impede billionaires from just stomping all over everyone else, because it's REGULATION, and regulation is BAD!

These are not "RINOs", in fact there really is no such thing. A Republican is a Republican is a craven asshole.

A much more accurate classification would be "RFOT*", Republican Free Of Trump.

But to be an RFOT is not to be celebrated to any greater degree than a serial rapist who finds Jesus. Turning against stupid evil should be the very least thing we expect for anyone.

"Hey, seriously... THANKS FOR NOT SETTING MY KIDS ON FIRE! I know that wasn't easy for you and i want you to know how much we VALUE you."

In these critical times more than ever we must not be sucked into the RINO mind trap, because Republicans are always Republicans until they openly denounce their whole nasty sinkhole of fetid ideology, and until then we must not forget that they are against everything that we know is right: true religious freedom, actual freedom of speech, the right to associate with anyone you like however you like, the right to BE whoever you like, the basic right to control you own physical body, and so much more.

RINO and RFOT both start with "R", and that is something we cannot afford to forget or overlook, now or ever.

* Yes, I just made that up.

In any situation, the Good Guys recognize the Bad Guys, dispassionately identify their characteristics and how they threaten order .

Meanwhile, the Bad Guys openly hate the Good Guys simply for catching on to them.

You can see it in school kids who hate the teacher that catches them smoking in the bathroom. You can see it in crime, where the criminals hate the police just for catching them committing crimes.

It's even clearly evident in fictionalized accounts such as superhero movies, where the evil adversary hates Spiderman, while Spiderman simply tries to stop the criminal, but never expresses personal animus toward him.

Right now we have the group in power that's simply trying to do a job.

The out group is constantly expressing open hatred toward the in group.

When Trump was in power it disturbed many people, especially on the left, which led to his forceful ejection from office in a maybe election turn out that Trump and his followers deny to this day.

But during his term there were few to no large gatherings with masses of people screaming hate at Trump, even though many did hate him.

Immediately upon being elected, Joe Biden started enduring literally endless mass expressions of "Fuck JOE BIDEN!" at rallies and demonstrations, people started putting up signs and flags that proclaimed in huge letters, "fuck JOE Biden, and fuck you for voting for him".

People got together at huge events like auto races and would scream, "FUCK JOE BIDEN! FUCK JOE BIDEN!" endlessly.

And then in a bizarre turn a race car driver named Brandon misheard this chant and thought they were cheering him on, chanting "LET'S GO BRANDON!", And this became a sensation among the right, to be repeated millions of times in public and social media as code for "fuck JOE BIDEN."

People who try to stop their kids and even tv shows from using curse words seem completely ok with sending themselves in public by expressing this vitriol.

But that's what bad people do.

Nothing comparable ever happened with Trump. Those of us that opposed him felt quite bitter, but we weren't about to put profanities on our cars and houses, or scream them in public.

Obviously there are extreme circumstances where abusive leaders become hated, but in less clear-cut situations, people tend to assume these roles.

"How dare they catch onto me being a criminal, it's so UNFAIR!", cried everyone at the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

The January 6th commission that is simply collecting testimony from the people who were most closely involved with the attack, and the Trump supporters can't help but reveal themselves AGAIN, condemning the commission and people on it with vicious hatred.

It's ironic, because the transgressors are really the ones who have earned hatred from others, yet no one hates them, but THEY hate everyone else.

It's strange that there are these universal human behaviors wherein people reveal themselves and the roles they occupy in society.

Your think they'd be more cagey.

The Emergency Medical Treatment And Labor Act (EMTALA) is a 1986 law that requires hospitals to treat any patients that present with a life-threatening condition, regardless of their apparent ability to pay.

It specifies explicitly what must happen in certain cases, including that of a pregnant woman.

Federal law always supercedes state law, and states cannot make any laws to "block" federal law.

To wit:

They CANNOT let a woman die.

UPDATE: The DOJ has brought a lawsuit against Idaho to stop their illegally strict proposed abortion limits.

For a long time, many people just held to the Christian idea that man is different because God created us to be superior and have "dominion" over the Earth, but that's been weakened by the acceptance of the heliocentric model that says Earth is not at the center of the universe after all.

Then Darwin popularized the idea that man was not even divinely created, which puts our favor in question.

At first anthropologists said that man is the only animal that uses tools, but we've since found many other animals that use them.

Similarly some have said that only humans use language, and that's also wrong.

So what if anything separates man from animals?

The chin.

No other animal in the world has a chin.

Nobody really knows why we have chins or what function they serve, but we do have them, and no other primate or other animal does.

Yay humans!

As a progressive I go, "whoa, authoritarian WHAT?"

I don't see the Left as authoritarian, this is not Red China or Russia, you can pretty much do what you want as long as it's approved by our corporate masters.

But to be scrupulous I took a few steps back and looked again, and you know what I found?

The Authoritarian Left.

In fact, I realize that the left has been pushing an authoritarian agenda for decades now.

The Left is guilty of pushing decency, tolerance, and religious freedom on many people that don't seem to want it.

We've made the assumption that indecent, intolerant, theocratic people are bad, so we can just ignore them. Unfortunately, they won't go away.

In fairness, we've been tricked by conservatives over and over into thinking that they're really actually decent people, one Republican even ran on a platform of "compassionate conservatism".

Tacitly recognizing what the Left has long known, than plain conservatives are anything BUT compassionate.

Since the 60s, the Left has been insisting that everyone accept black and other non-white people as equal and just as deserving and capable as anyone else.

But conservatives feel oppressed by this, they believe they have the right to oppress any minority they want, it's part of "freedom". They seem to be still hurting from the Civil War. They won't accept that The Lost Cause is truly lost.

Like Trump, the South lost, but they won't accept either.

Since PC and "woke" entered the lexicon, they've been complaining that they don't get to use words like "ni@@er" freely anymore, and this loss of freedom is intolerable to them.

They don't accept that people should be able to connect with whomever they choose; to be right people should all be straight, so they want to keep marginalizing and criminalizing LGBTQ+ people.

Nobody is stopping them from being straight, but they resent leftist efforts to accept gay and trans people, because they don't think they should be made to tolerate them.

Bluntly they feel like "I don't want to be forced to live with darkies and fruits if i don't want to, and I reserve the right to harass and discriminate against them, which is my prerogative as a straight white American.

"And no Democrat is gonna tell me otherwise."

Remember, until the middle 20th century, white supremacy was considered by many on the Right to be an open and lofty principle. And I'm sure they resent us turning it into the bad, even shameful thing that it's been all along.

Perhaps most strongly they believe Leftists are persecuting Christians because we resist them trying to take over the culture and enforce biblical beliefs on society.

Leftists fight against putting things like the Ten Commandments in public buildings, and teaching prayer, creationism, and other religious doctrine in public schools, which are an arm of the government.

In that the Left consistently insists that all people should be accepted and treated equally regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual preference or identity, along with other things, they see us as enforcing these things at the expense of their freedom to reject them, which is actually authoritarian.

But in that respect, speed laws, and all other laws, are also authoritarian. One can easily see a point where EVERYTHING can be considered "authoritarian" to the extent that the term becomes meaningless, because EVERYTHING that's not strict anarchy can be considered as such.

"You can't tell me I can't shoot you in the face, that's AUTHORITARIAN!"

What's happened is that the Right has redefined "authoritarian" to mean, "stopping us from just doing anything we want to do, even if it's against all the express values of the United States of America."

Conservatives are the people of law and order, except if you try to enforce laws against THEM.

They've now emboldened themselves so much as the "oppressed class" that they are breaking every concept of decency and fairness to pursue a Christo-fascist theocracy, which is their dream.

These of all times is when the Left, along with all people who take decency and acceptance as primary values, must stand up strong, and ram our values down their throats if necessary, because we are right and they are WRONG.

As a progressive if someone wants to call me an "authoritarian of decency", I can live with that.

Right-wingers were out in force, protesting lockdowns and and even the wearing of simple masks in public.

They even attacked state capitols and planned to kidnap and possibly murder a governor for her "tyrannical" seizure of their freedom and liberty.

The conservative premise is that one the government takes away your rights, that's it, you'll never get them back, and it's usually a sign of more significant oppression to come.

"They've imprisoned is in our houses, and made it so they can arrest us for failing to cover our mouths with a piece of paper! We can't let them take our freedom like this or we'll never get it back!"

Ummm... They got it all back.

It turns out that it all went down just like public health officials said, the lockdowns and mask-wearing was temporary. And nobody was ever arrested for not wearing a mask, although some were probably arrested at mask-burning demonstrations for provoking violence with people who wore masks, something that they found strangely intolerable even though it was someone else wearing them.

"Your mask offends me!" And they accuse leftists of being snowflakes.

Even though these measures are in the past, no one is locked down, and no one is being asked to wear a mask, these people have gotten into the habit seemingly of complaining about how they've lost their "freedom", and now it includes freedom of speech.

People got tired of their childish complaining about simple measures to protect human health, so they responded and expressed a counter -opinion of, "You're making something out of nothing! Grow up and SHUT UP!"

Anyone who opposes a conservative opinion is to them necessarily a state actor violating the First Amendment.

Or agents of the dreaded Left, which somehow carry the power of government enough to be violating civil rights simply by speaking.

They expect even private tech companies to carry any stupid or dangerous thing they want to say, even when it's clearly in violation of existing Terms of Service that everyone must abide by.

They expect everyone to accept anything they have to say and not respond at all, because that constitutes limiting their "freedom".

It's gotten so bad that they complain they can't even express their backward and often racist ideas in public, because other people will react badly, and that's not fair.

"When i say i support Trump people just laugh and move away, and THAT'S NOT FAIR!", as if everyone has to like you no matter what you say.

They've so twisted all these concepts that many people just can't understand anymore.

But as things stand today, no one on either side has lost any freedom or liberty as a consequence of pandemic public health measures, and this needs to be communicated clearly.

The anti-maskers and others protesting pandemic measures were wrong, they have all the freedom they've ever had, and they should be made to acknowledge it publicly.