#Assignment Help in Colorado

[hellothetutorshelp-blog]

Assignment Help in Colorado

Study in Colorado provides students with education of international quality in institutions of international caliber like the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, and Colorado School of Mines. But college is not easy with so much study, tight deadlines, and complex course work. Not all students can balance study load with part-time jobs and additional activities. That is where The Tutors Help comes to ensure that students can achieve their academic achievements through quality assignment writing in Colorado.

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Well-structured assignments require proper research, critical thinking, and analysis, which could be intimidating to students.

5. Informaton Format and Referencing Errors

Some of the universities in Colorado have specific formats like APA, MLA, and Harvard, which are not known to the students.

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[follow-up-news]

The U.S. Justice Department is suing several large landlords for allegedly coordinating to keep Americans’ rents high by using both an algorithm to help set rents and privately sharing sensitive information with their competitors to boost profits. The lawsuit arrives as U.S. renters continue to struggle under a merciless housing market, with incomes failing to keep up with rent increases. The latest figures show that half of American renters spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities in 2022, an all-time high. That means exhausting, day-to-day decisions between medications, groceries, school supplies and rent. It means eviction notices and protracted court cases in which children face the highest eviction rates, with 1.5 million evicted each year, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. While the housing crisis has been assigned several causes, including a slump in homes built over the last decade, the Justice Department’s lawsuit claims major landlords are playing a part. The department, along with 10 states including North Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado and California, is accusing six landlords that collectively operate more than 1.3 million units in 43 states and the District of Columbia of scheming to avoid lowering rents.

[poisonpercy]

Important notes for U.S. Americans planning to vote on Election Day (November 5)

Several states allow you to register to vote at the polls on Election Day. Those states include Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia (D.C.), Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. If you would like to double check if your state allows same day registration, you can check here

Same day voter registration may not be available at your assigned polling place, so make sure to check with your local election office to see where same day voter registration is available

Make sure you know what you need to bring to vote. You can check the requirements for your state at vote.org or at rockthevote.org. These sites can also help show you what will be on your ballot and where your polling place is

Make sure you know your state’s polling place hours on Election Day. You can check out ballotpedia.org for the polling place hours in your state. I have also added some graphics with polling hours by state

Remember, if you are in line to vote when the polls are supposed to close, stay in line. As long as you stay in line, you have the right to vote

If you make a mistake on your ballot, ask for a new one

If the polling machines are down at your polling place, ask for a paper ballot

If you experience a problem at the polls or have any questions about voting, call the Election Protection hotline at:

866-OUR-VOTE (English language hotline)

888-VE-Y-VOTA (Spanish language hotline)

888-API-VOTE (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Tagalog hotline)

844-YALLA-US (Arabic language hotline)

301-818-VOTE (ASL video hotline)

If your name is not on the voter registration list, ask for a provisional ballot and follow up with your elections office to ensure your ballot was counted. To learn more about provisional ballots in your state, you can check out ballotpedia.org

[offender42085]

Post 1333

"....kinda real and yet kinda cheesy -- some of us laughed and cheered -- like something you would see in a made-for-TV movie." -- Fellow Inmate

Kevin Wayne Newland, Washington inmate 311751, born 1986, incarceration intake September 2007 at age 21, killed in an escape attempt June 2011

Murder, Possession of Stolen Property, Theft, Fogery

The attempted prison break in June 2011 occurred at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center, located in the remove northwest corner of Washington state on the Olympic Peninsula. Inside the facility’s garment shop, where about 70 inmates typically work making offender uniforms and coveralls. The prisoners were supervised by two unarmed corrections officers and a handful of civilian staff members, who are also trained in responding to prison emergencies.

While one of the two corrections officers was on a lunch break, two inmates – convicted murderer Kevin Newland and Dominick Maldonado put their plan into action.

Maldonado had been sentenced to a term of 163 years for attempted mass murder at a shopping center in 2005.

Maldonado grabbed the unarmed officer and held him hostage with a pair of scissors readily available in the garment shop, while Newland took keys from the guard, unlocked a forklift and rammed it through a rollup door.

Newland ignored verbal commands and a warning shot before an officer shot him, wherein shortly thereafter Maldonado released his hostage after seeing his partner killed.

Officials were quick to emphasize that it was standard procedure for there to be one officer on duty in the garment shop while the other took a lunch break. They also said the presence of the civilian staff, who train offenders in the garment industry, mitigated the officer’s absence.

As part of the investigation, an inmate who was working in the factory at the time described the events "as kinda real and yet kinda cheesy -- some of us laughed and cheered -- like something you would see in a made-for-TV movie."

When the attack occurred, the civilian employee in the vicinity tried to intervene physically, saw that he had little chance of success and quickly acted to alert prison officials. “If you would have had two corrections officers, it would have been a stronger response, but the civilian correctional industry workers responded very well,” an official said.

A union spokesman representing the state’s corrections officers and civilian Correctional Industries workers, said the civilian worker involved was repeatedly punched by Newland. Even after he broke free, Newland chased him down and beat him again before he was able to summon help.

Typically, corrections officers assigned to areas where prisoners live and work are unarmed, due to concerns that inmates might be able to take the weapons. Other officers, such as those assigned to special response teams, do carry guns.

Shortly after being convicted in 2007, Newland was linked to an attempted escape from the Spokane County Jail. In the common area of the jail, Guards found braided sheets fashioned into a rope, a shirt made into a slipknot and a sharpened wooden object. 

Before his incarceration, Newland had a career and love of breaking horses.

Newland was serving a sentence of 45 years.

Citing "ongoing safety/security concerns", the Washington State Department of Corrections transferred Maldonado (Federal Inmate 02071-122) to ADX Florence in Colorado in May 2016.

4o

[hades-in-bloom]

A Swim

Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

summary: Colorado wasn’t the only self-indulgent vacation that Kennedy took before he found a road to sobriety. When the world is the oyster, Bangkok is the pearl.

warnings & contents: cheesy af (help me), older Leon, drunkard Leon, thus mentions of alcoholism; mentions of/implied thoughts of suicide, kinda light angst (obviously); Hunnigan with an agenda; gn! and a tad bossy reader with Interpol background; heavy sexual tension, swearing

a/n: that was unplanned and uncalled for, so proceed at your own risk. Also, I need to scream about the man in Death Island. Omfg. Minors DNI! Masterlist xoxo

***

Ingrid called you in the middle of the night, reassuring that only you could track down the infamous Leon S. Kennedy. You breathed out a sleepy “…Why?” and got a response that you could barely consider an explanation. He took a vacation, Hunnigan said. He seemed to disappear, and she needed him back immediately. You could not see her face, but you could hear a pretty please in her voice.

“I am not even under D.S.O. command.” You groaned lightly. You have been working with several D.S.O. agents for the past couple of years, particularly with agent Kennedy, but you have been directly reporting to Interpol instead.

“I have already cleared you for this assignment,” Ingrid confessed. You stayed silent for a moment and then sighed. There wasn’t anything that Hunnigan could not do, after all. “He trusts you.”

As for you, Leon Kennedy trusted no one, but you wouldn’t get into this argument.

“Where was he seen last time?” You pulled yourself out of bed and walked towards the pair of jeans that were casually hanging from the only chair present in your room.

“Ingrid?” You called again when radio silence was your answer.

“We assume he is Bangkok, Thailand, since two days ago.” You sensed a touch of guilt in Hunnigan’s voice. “You have already been booked for a commercial flight.”

It took your tired brain a bit of time to do the math.

“Isn’t it like fifteen hours or so from JFK?” You inquired, genuinely concerned.

“Twenty hours,” Ingrid confirmed mercilessly. “You need to be at the airport within an hour.”

Rushing to your wardrobe, you devotedly cursed Kennedy to the high heavens.

***

Bangkok was hot. Your shirt became almost transparent in minutes and now felt like a second skin clinging to your body. You didn’t like it. You didn’t like any of it. Not until you find the son of a bitch, Kennedy, who went rogue due to no particular reason and made a decision to vacay on the other side of the planet Earth.

The taxi driver that you hailed on the street was painfully chatty, thanks to your creeping headache, but your suffering was about to end when your cab stopped in the middle of the road abruptly.

“That’s the place.” The driver told you in broken English, and you swiftly left the creaking vehicle that smelled of cheap cigarettes and incense.

The place was a dimly lit bar with little to no likable people inside. Damned Leon S. Kennedy was occupying one of the bar stools but was also spearheading the list of human beings that you felt no sympathy for at this particular moment.

He was drunk. You knew he appreciated his liquor, but you had never seen him even close to the condition he was in right now.

You briefly messaged Hunnigan that you have just found her “runaway bride” before shortening the distance to Leon’s chair. He made no effort to check out the newcomer, and you took it to your advantage.

“Surprise, you asshole.” You greeted him coldly. The agent blinked; you could see gears turn inside his intoxicated head while he was trying to identify you.

Finally, he grunted.

“The heck are you doing here?” His voice was hoarse. You blamed it all on some cheap brandy in his whiskey glass. “I am on vacation.”

“Your vacation is my vacation now, too, after Hunnigan made me fly twenty fuckin’ hours to find you.” You grimaced and took over the closest seat to Leon. He looked annoyed. You didn’t care.

“You look like you’ve had enough.” You concluded, having his drinking spree in mind.

He let out a drunken laugh that was devoid of joy. “What’s it to you if I have? I can take care of myself.” He scoffed and slurred his words a little.

A stubborn dumbass—you let out a heavy, irritated sigh. You felt your heat-infused headache intensifying.

“You cannot.” You gave him an unimpressed look. “At least I don’t consider it self-care when one drinks himself to death.” That was harsh, you thought. But right now he probably deserved it.

Your comment seemed to strike a chord with him.

“I told you I can take care of myself!” He raised his voice slightly, and some of the patrons looked over.

Jesus Christ. You wouldn’t consider yourself religious, though.

“How are you planning to take care of yourself?” You raised your voice slightly, too, giving him an unappreciative look. Suddenly, you quietly snapped. “I don’t know what you are thinking, Kennedy, but this is not a vacation. That’s a bloody suicide waiting to happen.”

You have seen alcoholics in your line of work before, and it didn’t matter what Leon thought of himself in this situation – but he looked like one.

To your surprise, he went silent, visibly taken aback. He blinked; there was a noticeable glimmer of confusion in Leon’s eyes.

Did not he realize that he was hurting himself this much?

“I’m fine…” Kennedy groaned, although his denial was slowly crumbling. “I’ll be fine…”

You could see he fought it – the alcohol numbed his feelings, but now, with a glimpse of sanity, they seemed to return to him in droves.

You watched him in awkward silence while he was babysitting his demons until he looked at you, both headstrong…

… and embarrassed?

“I swear, it would be better if Hunnigan sent some D.S.O. shrink, not you.” He grunted in disappointment, unwillingly sobering up. This vacation was over.

“Ingrid is worried about you.” You muttered, then scoffed. “And I’m your witness, Leon – you haven’t been fine in years. I know you long enough.”

He didn’t have to like what you said, but you thought he needed to hear this.

Leon gave you a dirty look. How could you see through him? The rest was tiptoeing around his alcoholism for ages, nurturing his drunken arrogance. You might not be nice, but what the others did was not kind.

The man cursed and fumblingly pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his Hawaiian-looking shorts; these made you stifle a chuckle. The image of invincible Leon S. Kennedy looking like this would be imprinted into your brain forever and ever.

He threw a few – too many – bills in local currency on the table and got himself up heavily from the bar stool. Now he towered over you grumpily. “What a buzzkill you are,” he mumbled, and you could smell that cheap brandy you noticed before on his breath.

You smirked, showing no remorse. “Let’s get you a cab, handsome.”

***

He stayed in one of the hotels right at the beach, and, stepping out of the taxi, you froze for a second, enjoying the view.

“That's one thing people got right about Thailand; it's beautiful here.” Leon hummed, approaching you from behind.

You still had your gaze fixed on the curves of the twilight bay when Kennedy spoke again. “You're right... I haven't been fine in years.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, making no attempts to hide your flabbergasted facial expression. Was this man admitting that he was wrong?..

Then pigs were about to start flying.

But Leon kept going.

“Do you want to know what's been happening in my head... How badly have things affected me?”

Was he even drunker than you thought?

“Yes, you dumbass.” You replied softly. Whether it was Ingrid’s push or not, Hunnigan was not the only one who cared about Leon to follow him around the globe.

The man walked towards the seashore, letting the waves lick his feet.

“My mind is so chaotic these days,” Kennedy admitted; his voice was barely a whisper. “Sometimes, I even lose sleep at night because of the nightmares of...”

Leon hesitated. You didn’t nudge, afraid of ruining his mood. He has already called you a buzzkill once.

At last, he sighed. Why was it so hard to talk about it?

“I made promises I couldn’t keep; that’s all you need to know.” Leon summed it up without looking at you. Did he really want to talk about it? You followed his tired, unfocused gaze, staring at the horizon.

“How about a swim?” Your suggestion came out of nowhere. You tilted your head, waiting for his response, and he glanced at you, confused, for the first time in the past moments.

Leon then let out a laugh in a drunken manner. “What? Now? In my state? I'll sink straight to the bottom.”

“You decided to vacation in Thailand – and not to swim?” You rolled your eyes at him jokingly and pulled him by his wrist. “Come on, Kennedy.” You begged. You might have been a tad aggressive back then, in the bar, but now…

You thought he deserved a break.

Leon groaned slightly but didn’t fight it, tagging along behind you. He felt a little dizzy; the cheapness of the served brandy was finally getting to him. Despite it all, he scoffed, his tone friendlier than before. “You are not going to let me forget that I am on vacation here, are you?”

You smirked, stepping into the gentle ocean waters and shamelessly ignoring his question. “We are not going to go far. I won’t let you drown, Kennedy.”

He smirked. “I trust you.” Oh, did he? Suddenly, shivers ran down your spine when you recalled Hannigan’s words. Why were you special?

You submerged in the water further with no regard to your clothes, now soaking wet. Leon, to your amusement, did the same.

“That should help with your hangover tomorrow.” You gave him a dirty look, and he huffed out a laugh.

“What's with all the dirty looks you've been giving me all day? You think I deserve it?”

“Oh, you deserve all of them.” You snorted - right before he pulled you by the waist, making you scoff out of surprise. You froze, barely reaching his chin covered with two-day stubble.

“You are drunk, Kennedy.” You reminded him softly, still making no attempts to leave his embrace. His intense gaze was trained on you.

“I'm not that drunk,” he scoffed, a grin forming on his lips. What the heck was going on?

“Oh, you are that drunk, Kennedy.” You smirked at him.

And then you felt it; his lips crashed into yours. Unconsciously, your hand darted to his hair, playing with the dirty blonde strands. A soft moan escaped your lips.

What were you thinking? It felt so wrong; you have been partners for years, and you didn’t like to mix work and pleasure. And if he had an excuse, let alone an awful one, to kiss you, you had none.

It felt so good, though.

Leon pulled away from your lips only when your lungs started to burn with a lack of air. His grin was too cheeky for your liking.

“You don't mind spending the night with me, do you?” The audacity.

You smirked. “I’ll spend a night with you when you sober up, handsome.” Otherwise, one of you might have regretted it – while him standing in front of you with wet hair and a soaked-up t-shirt made you hot and bothered. Damn, that man was fine. One way or another, at least.

“You should get to bed, Kennedy.” … And sleep through that hangover.

“Just one more…” He mumbled—one more taste of your lips. “... For today.”

Liar. So you whined into his lips softly when he kissed you again. And again.

Forcing yourself out of the water later, you looked at the boiling ocean; the waves crashed against each other as the sun set behind them. It took you all your willpower to let go of him this evening, and the only thought that brought you peace was that he was suffering at the loss of contact as much as you were.

***

You called him the following morning when you were making yourself a coffee.

“Hey.” Your lips curved into a smile. “How is your hangover, handsome?”

Leon, barely awake, first laughed, then groaned, and there was an audibly sound note of hangover in his voice, too.

“A dreadful headache... And I can still taste you on my lips, which doesn't help.” Your breath hitched. His comment about him tasting you stained your cheeks bright pink.

He yawned. “…I feel like crap.”

You mischievously bit your lip, although your tone was innocent. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

Leon, no doubt, knew precisely what would make him feel better right now.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Superflares once per century

More often than previously thought, sun-like stars hurl huge amounts of radiation into space. The Sun, too, is capable of such outbursts

There is no question that the Sun is a temperamental star, as alone this year’s unusually strong solar storms prove. Some of them led to remarkable auroras even at low latitudes. But can our star become even more furious? Evidence of the most violent solar “tantrums” can be found in prehistoric tree trunks and in samples of millennia-old glacial ice. However, from these indirect sources, the frequency of superflares cannot be determined. And direct measurements of the amount of radiation reaching the Earth from the Sun have only been available since the beginning of the space age.

Another way to learn about our Sun’s long-term behavior is to turn to the stars, as is the approach of the new study. Modern space telescopes observe thousands and thousands of stars and record their brightness fluctuations in visible light. Superflares, which release amounts of energy of more than one octillion joules within a short period of time, show themselves in the observational data as short, pronounced peaks in brightness. “We cannot observe the Sun over thousands of years,” Prof. Dr. Sami Solanki, Director at the MPS and coauthor, explained the basic idea behind the investigation. “Instead, however, we can monitor the behavior of thousands of stars very similar to the Sun over short periods of time. This helps us to estimate how frequently superflares occur,” he adds.

Looking for close relatives of the Sun

In the current study, the team including researchers from the University of Graz (Austria), the University of Oulu (Finland), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the University of Colorado Boulder (USA) and the Commissariat of Atomic and Alternative Energies of Paris-Saclay and the University of Paris-Cité, analyzed the data from 56450 sun-like stars as seen by NASA’s space telescope Kepler between 2009 and 2013. “In their entirety, the Kepler data provide us with evidence of 220000 years of stellar activity,” said Prof. Dr. Alexander Shapiro from the University of Graz.

Crucial for the study was the careful selection of the stars to be taken into account. After all, the chosen stars should be particularly close “relatives” of the Sun. The scientists therefore only admitted stars whose surface temperature and brightness were similar to the Sun’s. The researchers also ruled out numerous sources of error, such as cosmic radiation, passing asteroids or comets, as well as non-sun-like stars that in Kepler images may by chance flare up in the vicinity of a sun-like star. To do this, the team carefully analyzed the images of each potential superflare - only a few pixels in size - and only counted those events that could reliably be assigned to one of the selected stars.

In this way, the researchers identified 2889 superflares on 2527 of the 56450 observed stars. This means that on average, one sun-like star produces a superflare approximately once per century.

“High performance dynamo computations of these solar-type stars easily explain the magnetic origins of the intense release of energy during such superflares”, said coauthor Dr. Allan Sacha Brun of the Commissariat of Atomic and Alternative Energies of Paris-Saclay and the University of Paris-Cité.

Surprisingly frequent

“We were very surprised that sun-like stars are prone to such frequent superflares”, said first author Dr. Valeriy Vasilyev from the MPS. Earlier surveys by other research groups had found average intervals of a thousand or even ten thousand years. However, earlier studies were unable to determine the exact source of the observed flare and therefore had to limit themselves to stars that did not have any too close neighbors in the telescope images. The current study is the most precise and sensitive to date.

Longer average time intervals between extreme solar events have also been suggested by studies looking for evidence of violent solar storms impacting Earth. When a particularly high flux of energetic particles from the Sun reaches the Earth's atmosphere, they produce a detectable amount of radioactive atoms such as the radioactive carbon isotope 14C. These atoms are then deposited in natural archives such as tree rings and glacial ice. Even thousands of years later, the sudden influx of high-energy solar particles can thus be deduced by measuring the amount of 14C using modern technologies. 

In this way, researchers were able to identify five extreme solar particle events and three candidates within the past twelve thousand years of the Holocene, leading to an average occurrence rate of once per 1500 years. The most violent is believed to have occurred in the year 775 AD. However, it is quite possible that more such violent particle events and also more superflares occurred on the Sun in the past. “It is unclear whether gigantic flares are always accompanied by coronal mass ejections and what is the relationship between superflares and extreme solar particle events. This requires further investigation”, co-author Prof. Dr. Ilya Usoskin from the University of Oulu in Finland pointed out. Looking at the terrestrial evidence of past extreme solar events could therefore underestimate the frequency of superflares.

Forecasting dangerous space weather

The new study does not reveal when the Sun will throw its next fit. However, the results urge caution. “The new data are a stark reminder that even the most extreme solar events are part of the Sun's natural repertoire,” said coauthor Dr. Natalie Krivova from the MPS. During the Carrington event of 1859, one of the most violent solar storms of the past 200 years, the telegraph network collapsed in large parts of northern Europe and North America. According to estimates, the associated flare released only a hundredth of the energy of a superflare. Today, in addition to the infrastructure on the Earth's surface, especially satellites would be at risk.

The most important preparation for strong solar storms is therefore reliable and timely forecasting. As a precaution, satellites, for example, could be switched off. From 2031, ESA’s space probe Vigil will help in the endeavor of forecasting. From its observation position in space, it will look at the Sun from the side and notice sooner than Earth-bound probes when processes that might drive dangerous space weather are brewing up on our star. The MPS is currently developing the Polarimetric and Magnetic Imager for this mission.

IMAGE: Artist's impression of a Sun-like star exhibiting a superflare as seen in visible light Credit MPS/Alexey Chizhik

[guiltgal]

Part 29 of dc x pokemon series: J'onn J'onzz/Martian Manhunter

Another really difficult one to give pokemon to. For purposes, we'll be doing similarly to how we do the Lanterns and Kryptonian Variants: only pokemon he's obtained on earth, known of on earth, or have a Martian variant of earthling pokemon.

We're also keeping his base in Middleton for ease of not dealing with continuity.

Because J'onn has the earth identity of John Jones, he has pokemon he keeps openly as part of that identity.

It took J'onn a while to get used to the earthling way of dealing with pokemon.

Bluto: Due to J'onn's inherent martian fear and weakness of fire, he could not be assigned a common Arcanine when working as a police detective. Instead, he goes out of his way to capture and train one that resided deep in the Rocky Mountains. A rarer variation of the common arcanine that lacks the fire typing.

PI: Gumshoos

Preston: Meowstic that J'onn can make a comfortable, if muted and casual psychic connection with. His mind is similar enough to martian pet pokemon that it feels comforting.

Spears: Onix that J'onn caught on a whim but enjoys the company of. Rarely out of the ball when in populated spaces because of their size.

Kin: Sudowoodo that J'onn feels a surprising kinship with having to pretend to be something he's not to avoid potential danger (usually experimentation on J'onn's part)

Flight (also uses the Martian thought word for flight or the feeling of flying): Rufflet are common in the skies of Colorado. J'onn nursed one back to health and now has quite the keen and loyal Braviary that has had latent psychic abilities unlocked thanks to a mental connection with J'onn over such a long period of time.

These are pokemon more closely tied to J'onn as a hero and a Martian or simply ones that it would be strange for Detective John Jones to have.

[Martian spoken and thought word for Connection]: The first pokemon J'onn caught on earth. When reaching out with his mind, desperate for connection, his mind found another, though less complex than his own, and found e could convey complex emotions with his Alakazam.

[Martian word for the ability to change shape. Usually in regards to infants]: A ditto found in the same lab that J'onn rescued Mewtwo from. This ditto, being a product of failed cloning of Mew and not a common phenomenon pokemon, has typing out of the norm.

[Martian word for the vastness of space]: Cosmog.

[Martian word for Partner. Used in a military or 'manhunter' context exclusively]: J'onn's remaining Martian variant pokemon- A Martian Zoroark. Zoroark were to Manhunters what Arcanine are to police on earth.

[Martian word for Sandstorm]: J'onn's Flygon. Finds her appearance comforting as she shares features with Green Martians and he found her flying over Oklahoma's red earth, making him nostalgic for Mars.

Guidance: Shiny Slurpuff J'onn caught while deep in Choco withdrawls while recovering from his addiction. She helped him through it and now sooths him when he has cravings.

[Martian word for a Two-Way Mental Link between the lonely. A thought word exclusively.]: Mewtwo J'onn felt the complex mind of and rescued from a lab (where he also found his ditto). This pokemon joins J'onn only during dire threats in battle, but visits and connects with him mentally often as a friend.

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

May 23rd, 1985

Mom suggested for me to write in a journal during my stay in Colorado, just to see what I’m up to. Never been one for writing in a diary, but whatever.

Finally got off the bus a couple hours ago after an over 12 hour drive between states, and now I’m staying at pop’s place for the remainder of my stay. Not a bad house, but not great. Found a spider in my bed sheets and I still feel like something’s crawling on me.

It was surreal seeing Dad again after so long. Last time I saw him was around a decade ago, when I was still a stupid eleven year old. I can’t tell how I feel about being back in this town again. It’s nostalgic sure, but I can’t help but feel like I should’ve stayed in Wyoming. The plus side is that I can film a documentary while I’m down here for the college assignment I need to get done before the end of the year.

Still getting used to everything. Hoping this month won’t last too long. Starting to feel homesick already.

-Maxwell Wright

[shroomerr]

Shroom, darling! It's me! In your inbox! I hope you're doing alright! I got questions about Anh!

1) Was she born in South Park, or did her family move in? What is her family life like?

2) You mentioned before that her and Craig are close, even touched on their dynamic a little bit! What do they do when they hang out? Do they remain close after high-school?

3) When she's an adult, what do you think she does for a living? Is she happy doing it?

4) I am absolutely in love with that picture you drew of her and Kyle where she's the witch! What school of magic does she master? Is that her TSOT outfit?

5) Have you made a Playlist for her yet? If so, gimbe 🤲 please!

Present day shroomer here: I'm so sorry this took so damn long you can tell exactly how long ago this was written because I talk about my assignments SJDLAHA WHATEVERR TIME IS A CONSTRUCT ANYWAY

AHH DUDEEE 💓💞💖 THANK YOU SM FOR THESE QUESTIONS!!! Other than these assignments making me low key tweak, I'm doing good esp now that there's only one week left (it is now past the semester oops)!! Having these asks is such a nice distraction from all of the monotonous work. It makes me so happy that you want to know more about Hanh!!

(also no youre not going crazy haha, I changed her name from Anh to Hanh. Her full name is Dao Hanh Tran! Tran being her last name)

Ok, onto the questions!!

Was the born in South Park, or did her family move in? What is her family life like?

I mention it briefly here, but Hanh and her family moved into South Park! Timeline wise, I imagine that this move happens before the town became gentrified and people from all over started moving in. They're originally from Michigan and moved to Colorado in order to be closer to family, and South Park seemed like the perfect place to call home (but mostly because her dad found a ridiculously cheap house listing that was too good to pass up). To which Hanh was sorely disappointed, seeing as they just went from one cold climate to an even colder climate, but this time with nothing but mountains and rednecks all around.

Her dad is a restaurant owner and her mom works at a nail salon that's owned by one of their relatives. I think it would be pretty funny if her dad owned the City Pho that we see in Post Covid and if he had a sort of rivalry with the Lu Kim from City Wok, lol. No siblings. When she's young, Hanh has a good relationship with her parents. No tragic deaths or backstories of the sort (yet). She kind of has the perfect life, despite their busy schedules: they bring her out to go a lot of places, spend a lot of time with her and are financially stable. When they first move to South Park, her parents would usually pick her up after school and bring her to the nail salon or at the restaurant either to do homework or to help out with the business (because you're not truly Asian until you participate in child labour! Whoo!).

It's only after integrating themselves into the town more and becoming familliar with the neighbors (aka the M4) that her parents trust her to stay at the boys' houses more, only after getting to know their parents well enough. This is mostly because their workplace is outside of South Park and their closing hours are relatively late, so they don't want to make her stay up too late with them.

As she grows up, her relationship with both of her parents becomes rocky. Around when she reaches Middle School, her parents start putting a lot of academic pressure and expectations on her, especially her mom. Their dad also starts becoming more distant, not only from working on expanding the restaurant chain but also because of family issues stemming from Hanh's grandma on their dad's side: a lot of back and forth trips from South Park to Denver, who takes care of grandma because no nursing home would take her, their grandma's dementia making her incredibly difficult to talk to, etc. It starts causing a lot stress for Hanh's dad and subsequently causes a lot of problems at home, where now both parents are constantly fighting (with very poor attempts at hiding it). Pair that with stubborn attitudes, insecurities and blame games? Yea, nothing constructive is coming out of this. Around this time Hanh tries to avoid being home as much as possible: spending time studying at the library, Kyle's house, hell even at Stan's farm if she can. If I ever get to explore this in a story or comic, this would be a major plot point of what I would want to explore, along with the other boys' problems and dynamics.

Maybe someday I'll figure out a happy ending for them...

You mentioned before that her and Craig are close, even touched on their dynamic a little bit! What do they do when they hang out? Do they remain close after high-school?

Oof that last one was kind of heavy, so let's talk about something more light-hearted! So I'd like to think that Hanh was close with Tweek before they became close with Craig. Speaking of Tweek!! I feel so bad that I completely forgot about him in the best friend ask, but he's arguably one of her closer friends. At the very least, closer than Wendy. But yea, since she became close to Craig thanks to Tweek, usually all three of them hang out together: either studying (very rarely and very begrudgingly: Tweek has barely any time for studying with working at the coffee shop and Craig just doesn't care), or usually their main activity is just going to Craig's place to watch Red Racer for the 100th time (shh don't tell Craig but at this point Hanh barely pays attention and she just draws the whole time, lol). They do this pre-Creek and even post-Creek, because both Craig and Tweek find it stupid to let their relationship affect their other friendships, so they still stay close to each other. They tried doing a group miniature model assembly thing with one of Tweek's sets, but he got too stressed out trying to tell them all of the instructions and seeing them mess up that they never tried it again, lol. If Tweek is busy at the coffee shop, both Craig and Hanh will go there to visit him and keep him company (though Hanh tries not to go with Craig too often just so that the two love birds can have some alone time 🤭). But for specifically Hanh and Craig, I think the two of them are the types of people to not want to do anything too extravagant when hanging out together because just the thought of it can be exhausting: so they stick to just hanging out, watching cartoons, maybe play video games (trying to beat each other in Smash, Mario Party, fighting games, etc.) and sometimes just silently doing their own thing but in the same room. I think after high school, they'd definitely talk a lot less since I imagine that Craig and Hanh would move out of South Park so that proximity aspect does affect their friendship. However, conversations always get picked up as if no time has passed. So, yes, they still remain close even after high school :)

When she's an adult, what do you think she does for a living? Is she happy doing it?

When she grows up she becomes an artist! Specifically an illustrator, so not the kind that makes paintings and puts them up in galleries, but the ones that work with clients, does commissions, work for certain companies, etc. I'm not too sure specifically what kind of illustrator she'd be, since there's so many different kinds. Maybe she'd work as a concept artist for a game company, or as a freelancer picking up odd job offers from different indie studios, or maybe she'd even try to establish her own brand and sell her own merchandise! If after high school she's still hesitant on choosing that path, she'd probably study psychology just to have a fallback plan, but the final goal will always be illustrator! And yea, it's definitely something she's happy doing.

I am absolutely in love with that picture you drew of her and Kyle where she's the witch! What school of magic does she master? Is that her TSOT outfit?

Ok I had to look this up because I am a DnD NOOB I only know like....... the very bare minimum.

So I didn't really have a specific school of magic in mind of Hanh when I made that witch design. I just kind of thought "haha funny witch" and rolled with it because I love witches HAHA so I think she's kind of got a bit from every school of magic? I'm so sorry if this isn't the answer you were looking for, I really didn't think too hard about it when I made that drawing haha

But I can tell you more about the other question! So no, that isn't her TSOT outfit. I guess you could say it's her in a Monster AU? Since we have Vampire Kyle that originated from the Pinkeye Halloween episode, I kind of thought "oh if she was celebrating Halloween with them, she'd have a witch costume for that episode. Oh, what if I turn that into some sort of Monster AU?" And since a lot of the inspiration was taken from that fic I mentioned in the original post, it just got the synapses sparking HAHA

Her TSOT version though.... ooo.... I've been working on it for a while, and I've still got the game to play but I think I've got a pretty concrete idea of how I want it to look? There's just some kinks I'm not 100% sure on, but I've mostly got the lore figured out.

Have you made a Playlist for her yet? If so, gimbe 🤲 please!

ok, so funny little story uh.......... im a "liked songs" kind of person and i NEVER make playlists. ive actually only started making playlists like 2 months ago (and only started using spotify like 2 weeks ago) when i got sick of scrolling through my liked songs and i didnt even have any playlists for my characters UNTIL THIS ASK LOLL

But!! I've learned since then!! So let me show you what I've got so far:

In terms of a playlist that she'd listen to, I cannot give you an answer to this because this girl will quite literally listen to everything lol (not me projecting but eh whatever this whole character is me projecting anyway). It'll go from Beabadoobee, to Mother Mother, to Sleep Token, to Tyler the Creator, to New Jeans, to JVB, to DPR Ian, to Nothing but Thieves, to Tame Impala, to the Beastie Boys, to Charli XCX— yea ok you get the picture. It's rare for her to like everything from a single artist and she has songs from every corner. She's a fan of pretty much every genre, it's just that she'll be picky about what songs she ends up enjoying. So yea, her music taste is my music taste!

As for the actual playlist I made for her: it's a mix of both songs that I think fit her vibe and songs that relate to her story. Good luck figuring out which is which, though, because I put both of them together HAHA

Some songs are not related to her story/do not fit her characterization at all (ex: i think there's a beabadoobee song that talks about one night stands? and that is nottt the kind of person she is). It's also because I haven't had the time to check all of the lyrics for each song to make sure they fit her vibe, so I just decided to lump the both of them together lol.

(Some day I'll make one that's specifically works for her story, but I'd have to actually write it out first. But for now, this works.)

[toppickspavilion]

After Colorado Wildfires, Two Families Saw Different Insurance Outcomes

Introduction

The devastating wildfires that swept through Colorado left countless families struggling to rebuild their lives. While insurance is meant to provide a safety net in such disasters, the experiences of two families illustrate how insurance outcomes can vary dramatically. Factors such as policy details, coverage limits, and the responsiveness of insurance companies played crucial roles in determining the fate of these families. This article explores their contrasting journeys, shedding light on the broader challenges faced by wildfire victims.

The Wildfires’ Impact on Colorado Communities

Colorado has faced an increasing number of wildfires in recent years, with climate change and dry conditions intensifying the risks. The most recent wildfire season was particularly destructive, burning thousands of acres, destroying homes, and displacing residents. The financial and emotional toll on families was immense, making insurance coverage a crucial aspect of their recovery process.

Family One: A Smooth Insurance Claim Process

John and Sarah Thompson, residents of Boulder, were among those who lost their homes in the wildfire. Fortunately, they had a comprehensive homeowners insurance policy with extended coverage for wildfires. Their experience with their insurance company was relatively smooth, allowing them to focus on rebuilding their lives.

Key Factors in Their Positive Outcome

Comprehensive Coverage: The Thompsons had a policy that specifically included wildfire damage, additional living expenses, and a guaranteed replacement cost for their home.

Proactive Documentation: Before the disaster, they had maintained an updated home inventory with receipts and photos, which helped expedite their claim.

Quick Response from the Insurer: Their insurance company promptly assigned an adjuster, processed their claim efficiently, and provided immediate financial assistance for temporary housing.

Full Payout: The policy’s guaranteed replacement cost ensured they received enough funds to rebuild their home without financial strain.

Family Two: A Struggle with Insurance Delays and Denials

In contrast, the experience of the Martinez family, who lived in the same wildfire-affected region, was far more difficult. Despite having homeowners insurance, they encountered significant hurdles in receiving adequate compensation.

Challenges Faced by the Martinez Family

Inadequate Coverage: Their policy had lower coverage limits and did not fully account for the rising construction costs due to inflation and supply chain disruptions.

Claim Denials and Delays: Their insurer initially denied parts of their claim, citing ambiguous policy language regarding wildfire-related damages.

Insufficient Temporary Housing Support: The limited additional living expenses coverage left them struggling to afford alternative housing while waiting for claim approval.

Lengthy Appeals Process: They had to engage in multiple rounds of negotiations and even sought legal assistance to get a fair settlement.

The Broader Issues in Wildfire Insurance

The contrasting experiences of these two families highlight significant issues within the insurance industry when it comes to covering wildfire damages. Some of the broader challenges include:

Underinsurance: Many homeowners discover post-disaster that their policies do not provide enough coverage for rebuilding.

Policy Exclusions and Loopholes: Some policies have complex exclusions that leave homeowners vulnerable to partial or full claim denials.

Delays in Claims Processing: Insurance companies often take months to process claims, leaving families in financial limbo.

Rising Premiums and Policy Cancellations: Insurers have been increasing premiums or dropping coverage in high-risk wildfire zones, making it harder for homeowners to secure protection.

Tips for Homeowners to Ensure Better Insurance Protection

Given the uncertainties surrounding insurance coverage after disasters like wildfires, homeowners can take proactive steps to secure better protection:

Review and Update Your Policy: Ensure your coverage accounts for full replacement costs, including inflation adjustments.

Document Your Belongings: Keep a detailed home inventory with photos and receipts stored digitally.

Understand Policy Exclusions: Read the fine print and clarify any ambiguous terms with your insurer.

Consider Additional Coverage: Explore riders for extended replacement costs and temporary living expenses.

Work with an Insurance Advocate: In case of disputes, seeking professional assistance can help navigate claims effectively.

Conclusion

The stories of the Thompson and Martinez families illustrate how vastly different insurance experiences can be after a wildfire. While proactive planning and comprehensive coverage helped one family recover smoothly, another faced frustrating delays and financial hardships. As wildfires become more frequent and severe, homeowners must take steps to ensure they have the right coverage. Insurance companies, in turn, must improve their processes to provide timely and fair settlements to disaster victims. Understanding the nuances of insurance policies can make all the difference in recovering from a catastrophic event.

[daydreamerdrew]

Self Portrait, Normandy by Ellsworth Kelly, 1944; Ellsworth Kelly.

James Boudreau, the dean of Pratt's art school, was a general in the United States Army reserve. In the early 1940s, with war already raging in Europe and Asia and fears rising over the threat of aerial devastation from enemy bombing, the farsighted Boudreau organized an experimental laboratory dedicated to camouflage research and development. He recruited camouflage experts to the faculty and instituted a camouflage course.

Bob Tompkins was quick to sign up for it. He was taking courses at Pratt while also working at an advertising agency in the Chrysler Building for $17.50 a week. Ed Biow, Ellsworth Kelly, George Martin, and William Sayles also took the course. They built detailed tabletop models and went out to the Pratt family estate on the North Shore of Long Island to work with camouflage netting. Boudreau, a pilot, would fly overhead and snap photos to show them what their camouflage installations looked like from the air. "Amateuring around," Biow called it, but it led them all into the 603rd.

Kelly's journey to the unit involved an unusual detour. He requested assignment to the 603rd, but when his orders didn't come through, he was transferred to Camp Hale, Colorado, to join the Tenth Mountain Division ski troops. This, in spite of the fact he had never been on skis in his life! When his orders to join the camouflage unit finally arrived, he felt sorry to leave the beautiful mountain camp.

Ellsworth Kelly with silk screens, Fort Meade, 1943; Ellsworth Kelly and an improvised dummy jeep.

After basic training at Fort Meade, they began learning the ins and outs of camouflage. They experimented with everything from tin cans to chicken feathers to see what they would look like to aerial observers. They studied how to use texture, color, shadow, blending, and shape in camouflage. Ellsworth Kelly helped to silk-screen posters that introduced infantry units to these basic camouflage principles. In later years Kelly was to become famous for his minimalist painting and sculpture, and art critic Eugene Goossen argued that this exposure to military camouflage helped shape Kelly's aesthetic. "The involvement with form and shadow, with the construction and destruction of the visible... was to affect nearly everything he did in painting and sculpture."

—

The Twenty-Third's largest unit, the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, arrived at Camp Forrest in late January 1944. They did not yet have decoys to work with, so they improvised, fabricating dummy tanks out of wood and burlap and learning how to use them to create convincing deceptions that would fool enemy air reconnaissance. They used a spotter plane to evaluate what they had created and learn how to make things more realistic.

Soldier in Life Jacket by Ellsworth Kelly, 1944.

Normandy, June 1944 by Ellsworth Kelly, 1944.

Private Ellsworth Kelly wandered the streets of Paris alone, numbed by the experience. His friend Bill Griswold somehow finagled an invitation to Picasso's studio, but he didn't offer to bring Kelly along. Kelly was so shy that Griswold thought he would be awkward in the presence of the great artist. Kelly would return to Paris after the war courtesy of the GI Bill. It was there that he developed the minimalist style for which he became famous.

Young Soldiers Being Transported to the Front, Remagen, Courtyard, Chateau de Divonne, France by Ellsworth Kelly, 1945.

In later years, many Ghost Army veterans would emphasize how easy they had it compared to the frontline soldiers who were, in the military parlance, "at the sharp end of the stick." An incident in early March 1945 brought that home with stunning force. Trucks and drivers from the Twenty-Third were pressed into temporary service to ferry replacement troops to the front, near the German city of Saarlautern (now Saarlouis). Private Ellsworth Kelly was assigned to be one of the drivers. So was Ed Biow. "We picked up this division," he recalled. "Raw troops. Had never been in combat. Hadn't even had barely time to zero in their rifles." Some of the soldiers told Private Irving Stempel they had been in New York City just two weeks before. Biow remembered jamming them in so he could close the strap that went over the tailgate: "They were scared to pieces."

They brought the men up at night, under fire. "We sat there, bumper to bumper, and the Germans are firing what they called 'screaming meemies, which were essentially rockets but designed to make a horrible screaming noise. And there you are, sitting there in the dark, bumper to bumper, no place to go, no way to hide, while these suckers are swinging over your head and making this awful noise." Machine guns chattered nearby. The young draftees, some sick to their stomach with fear, arrived at the front just in time to be thrown into a dawn attack across pontoon bridges.

What happened next remained seared into their memories. "They started over the bridges, the flares go off, and the Germans wipe them out," recalled Ed Biow. "One minute, there's a live guy in the back of your truck, and the next minute, he's laying dead out on a pontoon bridge somewhere." Both Kelly and Shilstone made haunting sketches of the untrained soldiers headed to their deaths. All of the Ghost Army soldiers involved were angered and distressed at the senseless deaths. "These young kids were just cannon fodder," said Bob Tompkins, more than sixty-five years later. "And that really upset a lot of us."

Briey, 1945 by Ellsworth Kelly, 1945.

Joseph, Chudzik, Displaced Polish Boy, Bitburg, Germany by Ellsworth Kelly, 1945.

Ellsworth Kelly became one of the foremost American artists of the twentieth century. In 1948 he traveled again to France, where his work evolved from figurative to abstract, inspired by shapes and pure colors. Kelly returned to New York in 1954 and soon earned an international reputation. His shaped canvases, paintings, sculptures, and prints have been exhibited in major museums around the world.

In 1973 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted Kelly's first retrospective. Many more followed, including a retrospective of his sculptures at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1982 and a 1996 career retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, also in New York. His public commissions include a memorial for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

In 2013 President Barack Obama awarded Kelly the National Medal of Arts. "A careful observer of form, color, and the natural world," read the citation, "Mr. Kelly has shaped more than half a century of abstraction and remains a vital influence in American art."

excerpts, photos, and artwork from The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles

[covid-safer-hotties]

COVID-19 vaccination mandates boosted uptake among health care workers - Published Aug 30, 2024

Should health care workers be required to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine? A new study examines the effectiveness of COVID-19 mandates

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, governments and health care centers across the country faced a difficult but important question: Should health care workers be required to obtain the COVID-19 vaccine?

It was an economic quandary as much as an ethical one. Vaccine mandates could cause reductions in staff, either from workers missing time due to recovery from the vaccine or from opting to seek employment elsewhere. Additionally, health care workers are highly educated on the value of vaccines and had seen firsthand the perils of COVID-19, reasons to think them capable of making the best decisions for themselves and their patients.

Now, a new study from researchers at Tulane University has found that state-level COVID-19 vaccination mandates successfully increased vaccine rates among health care workers, a finding that, while perhaps unsurprising, provides evidence that the policy can boost vaccination rates even among a highly vaccinated, highly educated population.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, examined vaccination rates among more than 30,000 health care workers in 45 states, 16 of which issued COVID vaccination mandates. Researchers found a 3-4% increase in vaccinations among the group, an improvement on an already lofty baseline vaccination rate of 86%. The study only found increases in vaccination rates in states that required vaccinations and provided no option to opt-out.

“It’s great from a government perspective to see this policy increase vaccination rates in an already very highly vaccinated population,” said corresponding author Charles Stoecker, a health economist with Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “These results also show that how we craft these regulations matters. States that provided an option to take a regular COVID test in lieu of getting vaccinated didn’t see the same impacts as the strict mandate states.”

The findings provide valuable insight on the role vaccine mandates can play in the event of a future pandemic and why such mandates may be justified.

“The federal government has shown that it will defer to the states on this issue, and states have rolled back their mandates, but now we know we have this toolkit,” Stoecker said. “In the event of a new pandemic, this shows we���re leaving some vaccination coverage on the table if we let even highly educated health care workers decide for themselves.”

The vaccination increases were primarily seen in health care workers between the ages of 25-49 years. The 16 states which passed and upheld vaccine mandates without opt-outs were California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Washington, DC.

Stoecker said the next step would be to examine how these mandates affected disease transmission, which could help quantify the economic impact such policies have.

“The ultimate goal would be to be able to assign economic benefits to the vaccinations that happened because of the mandates,” Stoecker said.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2822221

[antxnous]

oc info dump again bc im crashing out over life hehe

TSGT. East

- even tho he loves boxing (and bare knuckle at that) he’s terrified of fucking up his face!! he’s vain!!! his nose has been broken in the past and he downs pounds of copium by pretending it isn’t crooked (it is)

- he plays devils advocate for the sake of pissing people off all the time. traumatised from the legion? maybe you aren’t viewing things from their perspective. maybe you’re just soft.

- speaking of the legion; he doesn’t think they’re as bad as the NCR is making them seem. “what do you mean a bunch of tribals in football gear are our biggest threat? my dad used to torture the brotherhood when I was growing up 😒🙄”

- I’ve said it before but he hates the Mojave. The sun, the desert, the people, the air, the plants, the animals… he’s the NPC that says “when I got this assignment, I thought there would be more gambling.”, or the nuclear winter guy.

- guns, tech, and fitness would be on his dating app profile lowkey

SGT. Hooker

- I don’t think I’ve talked abt him a lot but erm he got captured by the legion, didn’t help his squad out when they got tortured + killed one by one, gets carved up like crazy and then rescued but his CO was mad he didn’t do anything so he got demoted (MSgt -> Sgt. Was so close to Lt :3) And then his wife found out he was alive and divorced him. And then the NCR lost his records in CA because of being “declared dead” so he’s lowkey stuck in the Mojave regardless.

- he’s fully incapable of yelling or screaming from his torture and it makes his voice sound kinda gravelly, and it makes him a bit insecure so he lets his face do most of the talking (but he’s perma looking pathetic)

- his whole existence is to be depressing and funny for being depressing.

- surprising literally everyone he works with, he’s extremely knowledgeable w explosives but liek u Would never know because he’s forced to guard cargo for life

- the rangers freak him out, and also piss him off a little but not to the level of hate that East has for them. He just thinks they’re a bit unruly.

Colorado

- he likes comic books bc he can’t read, but he also thinks they’re on the same level as philosophy and might be convinced everything in them is real

- he draws out notes rather than write them, unless the person he’s talking to understands Latin. In which case he’ll provide u w essays.

- piercings and tattoos freak him out so bad, he stares at ppl like toddlers do w anyone who isn’t their parents.

- he’s developing arthritis in his shoulder from erm. overusing his machete :3

- I think parts of him miss the legion, but more so the legion he remembers, which was not the conditions in the Mojave, or even Arizona. also he’s a mommas boy and misses her crazy, even misses Diomede 💔 does not gaf about his little brother tho and is terrified on Cain on a level that exceeds his fear of Caesar and Joshua :3c

[beardedmrbean]

Friend or foe? Helsingin Sanomat tells the unlikely story of two Finns meeting on the opposite sides of a Ukrainian battlefield.

"Vaasa," who's fighting in the Ukrainian forces, took "Jari," who's in the Russian forces, as a prisoner of war.

Vaasa has a military background and said his decision to fight in Ukraine was largely professional. He explained that in his case, the alternative would have been to join a crisis management force in Lebanon.

Jari was only a few years old when his family moved from the Soviet Union to Finland in the late 1980s. His mother tongue is Finnish and he has lived most of his life in Finland.

HS writes that Jari never found his place in Finnish society and ended up leading a life of crime that eventually prevented him from getting Finnish citizenship. Moving to Russia also didn't turn him away from crime, which eventually resulted in his imprisonment and ultimately led to his deployment on the battlefield.

Jari will likely remain imprisoned in Ukraine. As Jari is not a Finnish citizen, the Finnish authorities have no obligation to help him. His options at the moment are poor, according to HS, which also discusses Vaasa's sympathy for his fellow Finn.

Clever teens

Some 13,000 wildlife accidents occurred on Finnish roads last year, with most involving collisions with deer and elk.

A new invention developed by four teenage girls in the US state of Colorado could help reduce these accidents, reports Ilta-Sanomat, explaining that their device called 'Project Deer' uses infrared cameras and machine learning to notify drivers when an animal might be close.

The project, which began as a school assignment, has already secured $12,000 in funding from tech giant Samsung for a prototype.

Finland's answer to preventing animal collisions has so far been low-tech — fences located along the sides of roads. The Finnish Road Safety Council has, however, pointed out that this system is hardly foolproof, as the risks of colliding with an elk are particularly high in the areas bordering these fences, especially in the dark.

Reclaiming a city park

The City of Helsinki is looking at ways to clean up Katri Vala park in Sörnäinen. Named after a poet, the park has long been synonymous with drug sales and use.

Hufvudstadsbladet reports that plans are underway this autumn to build an eight-meter-high spiral-shaped climbing tower and gym for residents, who say the situation in their neighbourhood is now even worse than it was before.

According to HBL, that's because of the synthetic hallucinogen Alpha PVP which triggers bizarre behaviour.

The paper asked Heikki Porola of the Helsinki Police if he felt drug use and dealing had increased in Katri Vala park.

"This is what we call hidden crime. Of course, we see disruptive behaviour, but I could also list 10 to 15 other places in Helsinki that have the same issues," he said, adding that it was also important for residents themselves to take an active approach to care for their neighbourhoods.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

Colorado’s Supreme Court has said that an anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group may start collecting signatures to approve Ballot Measure 142, a proposed law that would require schools to out transgender students to their potentially unsupportive parents. The group now has until August to collect about 125,000 signatures needed to get the measure on the November general election ballot.

The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) — a group who believe that a “radical agenda” of “indoctrination” in schools has “exploited” children by teaching them “x-rated sex acts” and giving them access to gender-affirming care — wants voters to support a law that would public school representatives to notify a student’s parents if their child experiences gender incongruence (that is, identification with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. “We believe this measure is so supportive of our kiddos that do identify as LGBT,” Lori Gimelshteyn, CPAN’s executive director told KUSA. Gimelshteyn helped write the ballot initiative. It reads: “Any public school representative who obtains information that a child enrolled in their public school is experiencing gender incongruence shall notify the child’s parents within 48 hours of receiving such information.”

“Do people not have anything to do than to interfere in the lives of someone that’s different from them?” said Mardi Moore, executive director of Out Boulder County, the local LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “This is specifically an anti-LGBTQ initiative. The folks behind it have been clear.” The initiative is similar to policies passed by other conservative school boards nationwide. School districts in California, New Jersey, and Florida have similar policies requiring educators to out their LGBTQ+ students. Indiana signed a similar student-outing policy into law last May.  Similar policies require school officials to notify parents and guardians if their child requests to use a name, gendered pronouns, or gendered school facilities (such as bathrooms or locker rooms) that don’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. The policy requires officials to communicate the child’s gender identity to their parents, even if the child doesn’t consent.

Colorado allows anti-LGBTQ+ extremist "parental rights" group Colorado Parent Advocacy Network's pro-forced outing ballot measure item Measure 142 to collect signatures to get placed on the ballot in November.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

MONDAY'S MUSINGS: LUMPING VS SPLITTING

Today's musings might be upsetting to some. Particularly to folks I like to call splitters. Now, there's nothing wrong with splitters, I just tend to be a lumper myself.

In biology and paleontology you have what are called lumpers and splitters. This refers to whether they prefer to split a species, genus, etc or lump them into one. Neither way is necessarily wrong, it's just how data is interpreted.

One example in paleontology is that of Saurophagnax vs Allosaurus. Is Saurophagnax really its one genus or just a really big-ass Allosaurus? I'm going to share with you some of the research I was able to dig up on the topic (and let me tell you, it wasn't much).

A study done in 1998 by David K. Smith compared femora, phalanges of the foot, dentaries and humeri (and a few others) between specimens from 6 major quarries: Canon City, Colorado, Dry Mesa, Colorado, Como Bluff, Wyoming, Carnegie at Dinosaur National Monument, Cleveland-Lloyd in Utah and the "Saurophagnax" site in Oklahoma.

He concluded that, morphologically (meaning through physical traits of the bones) there was no evidence of multiple species (outside of the Oklahoma site) and that Saurophagnax lies on the same growth trajectory as Allosaurus. Therefore, the most parsimonious answer was that Saurophagnax was not a separate genus. One point for Allosaurus.

In 1996, Williamson and Chure described large allosaurid bones from the Peterson Quarry in New Mexico. They had a partial pelvis, hind limbs and caudal vertebrae, However, the fossils had not been lab prepped yet nor were they reliably identifiable in the field. Later, in 2000, Chure lumped it in with Allosaurus. Two points for Allosaurus.

The biggest problem with Saurophagnax is that so little material has been assigned to it and it was designated based on vertebrae and size alone. While verts can be diagnostic, not all verts can be treated equal. If they were caudals, they won't be helpful at all. Never name something based off of size. That's just bad science. I mean, look at humans. If we based us off of size alone we would be split nine ways to Sunday.

Based on what little we have, I would say, right now, there isn't enough justification for Saurophagnax to be a valid genus. Maybe in the future we'll have more but for now, Allosaurus is just a hell of a lot bigger than we initially thought.