On July 26, in the aftermath of the Democratic Party’s ruthless midsummer coup of its own democratically elected presidential nominee, this column predicted that the elevation of dimwitted cackler-in-chief Kamala Harris to the party’s presidential slot would “spectacularly backfire.” More specifically, I wrote: Practically, the path to winning 270 Electoral College votes still runs through the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is frankly bizarre for Democrats to swap out the man who talks ceaselessly about his hardscrabble Scranton upbringing for a Californian who boasts the most left-wing voting record of any presidential nominee in modern history. I’m feeling pretty good these days about that prognosis. Harris recently campaigned in Erie, Pennsylvania—a crucial regional hub in this election cycle’s most important battleground state. Conspicuously absent from that snoozefest was incumbent Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa. Harris tried to pass off the snub as a nothingburger, suggesting that Casey was doing the more important work of knocking on doors and getting out the vote. This doesn’t pass the laugh test. Facing a spirited challenge from Republican hopeful Dave McCormick, Casey has clearly concluded that Harris’ immense Bay Area lefty baggage—her history of endorsing the Green New Deal, a national fracking ban, and crippling electric vehicle mandates—is an electoral albatross around his neck. It’s tough to blame Casey. Other vulnerable Senate Democratic incumbents, such as Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Jon Tester, D-Mont., reached the same conclusion a while ago. Such a conclusion makes a great deal of sense: A recent Marist national general election poll, for instance, shows Donald Trump up a whopping 10 points on Harris with registered independents. If that margin ends up being anywhere near accurate, it is extraordinarily difficult to see a scenario in which Trump loses. Harris has recently been engaging in what the psychology profession calls “projection,” ludicrously criticizing Trump for avoiding the media when it was actually Harris who infamously avoided a single one-on-one sit-down interview for weeks on end following the Biden coup. In reality, Trump recently sat down for two interviews with Time magazine, whose owner is a vocal Harris donor. Harris declined a Time interview, nonetheless. Prior to this week’s desperate, last-second change of course, which saw her sit down with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Harris had only deigned to sit down with the most obsequious media imaginable. One can only wonder how bad the Harris-Walz internal polling must be to impel her to ditch the far-left “Call Her Daddy” podcast and the friendly ladies of “The View” for the considerably more mainstream Baier. Desperate times sure call for desperate measures. Democrats routinely blast Republicans as misogynistic, but their own chronic misandry is so bad that Harris is apparently considering a sit-down with podcast king Joe Rogan, whose own brand of woke-skeptical irreverence sharply clashes with Harris’ identity politics obsessions and overt race-based pandering. The tables sure have turned. Will the last person hanging around Harris-Walz campaign headquarters please turn off the lights? Snark aside, this race isn’t over yet. But the Harris-Walz camp cannot possibly be feeling too good right now, either. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for their predicament. Throughout this interminable campaign season, they have studiously avoided substantive discussion of the four issues that Americans consistently tell pollsters are most important to them this cycle: the economy, inflation, immigration, and crime. Instead, they have repeatedly attempted to shift the electoral terrain back to the few issues that poll in their favor: namely, abortion and the Jan. 6 jamboree at the Capitol. In this, they have completely failed. The American people still care above all about the same four basic quality-of-life issues that they have cared the most about for years now. It is Democrats’ own fault that they are so woefully out of touch with the voters’ sentiments on those issues and that the Biden-Harris administration’s track record polls as poorly as it does. Perhaps, if the Harris-Walz ticket does go down in flames, Democrats will pause and take a long, hard look in the mirror. Perhaps they will recognize that promising late-term abortion is a peculiar way to pander to women, that pledging mass amnesty for illegal aliens is a counterproductive way to pander to Hispanics, and that dangling marijuana legalization is an outright offensive way to pander to blacks. Perhaps. But if history is any indication, they probably won’t. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Collapse of Kamala Harris appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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In 1971, Stephen Hawking suggested that a mini black hole from the early universe could be lurking at the center of the sun. His proposal was extended in 1975 by Don Clayton and collaborators who suggested that the power generated by the infall of matter onto such a black hole could explain the observed deficit in neutrinos of the electron flavor from the Sun. This deficit was known at that time as the solar neutrino problem, formulated by calculations of my early mentor, John Bahcall. Having a second power source in addition to nuclear fusion would have naturally reduced the production of solar neutrinos through nuclear reactions and accounted for the neutrino deficit. By now, better quantitative data from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada, for which the Physics Nobel Prize was awarded to Art McDonald in 2015, implies a different solution to the solar neutrino problem, in terms of the transformation of neutrino flavors inside the Sun. Nevertheless, could the Sun still host in its belly a primordial black hole that does not contribute much to its luminosity? After all, we know that 85% of the matter in the Universe is invisible. Primordial black holes with a mass similar to that od asteroids in the size range of 1–100 kilometers, could account for dark matter. If this is the nature of dark matter, is it possible that some stars captured primordial black hole in their belly? If so, what would be their fate? It is easier to address the second question. A black hole captured by a star could change its evolution and internal structure. The interiors of stars can be diagnosed through their oscillations, just like the use of seismic signals to probe the inner structure of Earth. The unusual evolution and interior structure of stellar hosts of mini black holes could be searched for in the future. Given the high speed of dark matter in the Milky-Way, the likelihood that the Sun captured a primordial black hole is one in ten million. Nonetheless, given the hundreds of billions of stars of the Milky-Way galaxy, there could still be tens of thousands of Milky-Way stars which have captured a mini black hole. Because of the smaller characteristic speed of dark matter in dwarf galaxies, most of the stars embedded in ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, like Tucana III and Triangulum II, could have captured a mini black hole. After consuming their nuclear fuel, the core of Sun-like stars contracts to make a white dwarf, a metallic sphere roughly the size of the Earth. Since the radius of the Earth is a hundred times smaller than the radius of the Sun, the average mass density of white dwarfs is about a million times larger than that of the Sun. The accretion rate of matter onto an embedded mini-black would therefore increase a million times, potentially igniting the white dwarf and triggering a supernova explosion. Rare explosive transients of a new kind could be searched for in the data pipeline of the Rubin Observatory, which will start operations next year. The effect of a mini black hole would be even more dramatic if it is trapped in the core of a massive star with more than 8 times the mass of the Sun. Such a core collapses to make a neutron star after consuming its nuclear fuel. The density of the neutron star resembles that of an atomic nucleus, a hundred trillion times higher than the mean density of the Sun. In that case, the rapid accretion of matter could turn the neutron star into a black hole, as I pointed out in a 2014 paper with my former postdoc, Paolo Pani, who is currently a professor in Italy. Under these circumstances, the primordial black home may be regarded as a seed that grows to consume its host star and transform it into a stellar-mass black hole. This channel could lead to black holes with the mass of a neutron star, an outcome which is not expected under normal astrophysical evolution. Currently, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observatory identifies compact objects as neutron stars or black holes by their mass, identified through their gravitational wave signal. The existence of a neutron-star channel to a black hole would cause confusion in this identification scheme and result in events where compact objects of neutron-star mass are detected in gravitational waves but release no electromagnetic radiation, due to the absence of matter. As I pointed out in a recent paper, just accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the growth of mini black holes of asteroid mass is suppressed by quantum mechanics. This is because the size of their event horizon is smaller than the size of atoms. If primordial black holes make up dark matter, then the nearest black hole would be inside the solar system. Having a black hole close to home opens an opportunity to study quantum gravity experimentally. A black hole with an event horizon the size of a proton would radiate spontaneously, according to Hawking’s 1974 paper, a power of 1 gigawatt, mostly in gamma-ray photons with an energy of a hundred times the electron rest mass. If we ever witness an asteroid-mass black hole in the solar system, it can be used as a testbed for quantum-gravitational experiments on a subatomic scale. Understanding it would guide us in developing a predictive theory that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity. Having such a theory would in turn inform us of what might have led to the Big-Bang. And knowing that would bring us closer to appreciating our cosmic roots. The post Does the Sun Host a Black Hole at Its Center? appeared first on Anomalien.com.

As we head into yet another “most important election of our lifetime,” it’s worth asking what this election truly stands for. Is it about the border, the economy, or law and order? Maybe for some. But at its core, this election isn’t just about policy; it’s about the very soul of our country, what America was intended to be from the beginning. We have a unique opportunity, much like our founders, to correct course and protect our freedoms. But to do so, we must confront a growing menace that threatens the well-being of every citizen: the unholy alliance between the federal government and corporate interests.On February 14, 1776, Thomas Paine wrote, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” We have the same exact opportunity on November 5. This time, we are not freeing men from the clutches of tyrannical rule through an overbearing monarchy. We can be the global standard-bearers for freedom from the iron grip of the bureaucratic deep state.Big Pharma and the bureaucratic state have no incentive to stop the rot because, simply put, too much money is at stake.The purpose of every modern Western government is to “keep us safe.” The United States is different. We have the following clause attached: “Keep us safe … but mind your own business.” This is advanced citizenship. While the government may try to weaponize under the guise of “keeping us safe,” it may not interfere with how we run our families, how we conduct our business, what church we go to, what we say, and how we choose to arm ourselves.Instead, the government’s role is restricted to things like keeping our borders safe, preventing adversaries from hurting us, keeping trade flowing, minimizing regulations, and ensuring justice for all. Anything beyond that is overreach.But what happens when the government, weaponized through its bureaucratic tentacles, does the opposite of keeping us safe? What if it’s getting rich from our misery?The COVID-19 pandemic exposed this relationship in a way many of us had never seen before. Government agencies like the National Institutes of Health were not only working hand in hand with Big Pharma but were also financially invested in the success of mRNA vaccines. Contracts between the NIH and Moderna dating as far back as 2015 show that government bureaucrats were preparing to profit from an mRNA coronavirus vaccine long before COVID-19 emerged. A contract signed by the NIH and Moderna in December 2019, just months before COVID-19 sparked a global vaccine demand, explicitly says that “mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates [are] developed and jointly owned by NIAID and Moderna.”The mRNA vaccine was poised to be a financial windfall for both the government and the pharmaceutical industry, and that’s exactly what happened only months later.The bureaucratic state has long overstepped its constitutional scope and has instead cozied up to corporations, reaping the rewards while Americans grow sicker. Just look at the numbers: 129 million Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and this trend has been worsening over the past two decades. Almost half of the U.S. population is living with two or more chronic conditions, and 12% of Americans suffer from at least five. Life expectancy in the United States has fallen to its lowest point in nearly 20 years. Autism rates surged from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 54 by 2016. ADHD diagnoses are skyrocketing, and a staggering 40% of school-age children have at least one chronic health condition.This isn’t just a health care crisis — it’s a national emergency. Why is it happening? Because our suffering is profitable. Nearly 90% of the $4.1 trillion spent annually on health care in America goes toward managing and treating chronic diseases. Big Pharma and the bureaucratic state have no incentive to stop the rot because, simply put, too much money is at stake.When you head to the polls in the coming weeks, remember that this election is about more than just lower taxes and border security. It’s about stopping the government from profiting from our pain. It’s about reclaiming the soul of America and putting the health of its people before the profits of the elite.We cannot allow this dangerous relationship between the government and corporations to continue unchecked. If we don’t act now, our children and their children will inherit a country where profits are more important than people. On November 5, we have the power to “begin the world over again” by unleashing ourselves from the bureaucratic state’s grasp. It’s up to us at the ballot box.Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

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Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Amazon launched four new Kindles this week, maybe the biggest single launch day in the 17-year history of the company’s wildly successful e-reader. One of them even comes in color! It is very much not a coincidence that the launch happened roughly a year after Panos Panay joined the company. Panay, a longtime Microsoft executive who was for years in charge of all things Windows and Surface, is now leading the devices and services team at Amazon. His big task is Alexa, and turning Amazon’s assistant into the AI platform of the future. That’s apparently coming soon. Maybe. But first: e-readers. On this episode of The Vergecast, Panay joins the show to talk about how he decided to join Amazon, why people love their Kindles so much, the S... Continue reading…

When Apple announced iOS 18 during the WWDC 2024 keynote, the company previewed several new features coming with its new Apple Intelligence platform. Many functions, such as Writing Tools, Notification Summarization, and Clean Up, are expected to land in the coming weeks. However, several others have been delayed until future software updates. Fortunately, it seems Apple is on track to release ChatGPT integration with Siri as soon as iOS 18.2, which is expected to be officially released by the end of this year. MacRumors found references to Siri's ChatGPT integration in its backend code as Apple prepares to implement support for third-party LLMs. Apple has explained Siri's new capabilities with ChatGPT before. According to the company, when using ChatGPT integrated into Siri and Writing Tools, users can get even more expertise from a third-party LLM. Siri can tap into the service for certain requests, including questions about photos or documents. And with Compose in Writing Tools, you can create and illustrate original content from scratch." To ensure iPhone user's privacy is respected, Apple says you can control when ChatGPT is used and will be asked before any of your information is shared. "Anyone can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account. ChatGPT subscribers can connect accounts to access paid features within these experiences." In addition to this Apple Intelligence feature, Cupertino is readying other key functions for iOS 18.2, including: Apple Intelligence: The new Siri experience. Image source: Apple Inc. Image Playground: Users can create playful images in seconds, choosing from Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. This app is built right into apps like Messages and is also available in a dedicated app; Genmoji: Make a brand-new Genmoji right on the keyboard to match any conversation. Provide a description to see a preview, and adjust your description until it’s perfect. You can even pick someone from your Photos library and create a Genmoji that looks like them. Next year, Apple will finally make Siri take over people's phones, tablets, and computers, as the assistant will be able to understand context. For example, if you ask about a podcast someone sent you a few weeks ago, it will let you know what it was. Below, you can learn more about the Apple Intelligence platform. Don't Miss: Apple Intelligence: AI, features, research, and supported devices The post Someone found evidence that Apple’s ChatGPT integration in iOS 18.2 could be coming soon appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: Apple Watch Series 10, Ninja Blender, Dreo space heaters, portable tire inflator, more Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Early Prime Day deals: Rare Nintendo Switch sale, $50 off Oura Ring, $105 Sony ANC headphones, more Today’s deals: Govee AI Sync Box 2, $55 Vizio soundbar, $499 M2 Mac mini, Acer Aspire Go 15 Slim laptop, more