The Idea of Zombie Apocalypse: Where Did It Come From?

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In the name of Allah, the Merciful to all, the Compassionate

The mainstream belief is the western civilization is so advanced and so extra-ordinary that you cannot find any relation between the contemporary ideas with ancient ones. But that’s not true. Contrary to this, most of ideas that you see in technology, movies, and even Sci-Fi, are actually recycled ideas from past.

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15-Year-Olds In Oregon Are Legally Allowed to get Sex-Change Operations

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In the name of Allah, the Merciful to all, the Compassionate

In a statement, Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman Susan Wickstrom explained about the age of medical consent in Oregon:

"Age of medical consent varies by state. Oregon law -- which applies to both Medicaid and non-Medicaid Oregonians -- states that the age of medical consent is 15."

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Sound like an expert with these phrases about Middle East politics

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By: Karl reMarks

Many people are hesitant to talk about the Middle East and its politics because it seems to be quite a complex place that requires extensive knowledge to understand it. While this is certainly true, there are handy phrases you can use that will make you sound like you know what you are talking about without actually bothering to study the area. We have collected these phrases in the form of a handy guide below. Note that if used properly, you can even go on to become a certain moustached celebrated columnist allowed to pontificate on the region with very little knowledge to go on.

‘It’s all about the oil’

This is the mother of all phrases about Middle East politics. It is one of the most effective phrases in the context of Middle Eastern geopolitics and one that can explain everything. It has even been used to explain Saudi Arabia’s 8-0 defeat at the hands of Germany in the 2002 World Cup and the backlash against Haifa Wehbe’s latest video clip.

‘It’s all about the oil’ is best used along with a patronising phrase such as, ‘you’re so naïve, it’s all about the oil’, or ‘don’t believe everything you read in books, it’s all about the oil’. Generally it’s better to use it about countries that actually have oil reserves, but in case you’re stuck and you’re discussing a country that doesn’t have oil, you can claim that ‘an American expedition found a large reserve of oil in Lebanon in 1917 but kept the information secret.’

‘Saudi Arabia, pffft!’

‘Who do you think created all terrorists in the world?’ ‘Saudi Arabia, pffft!’ ‘What is really happening in Syria?’ ‘Saudi Arabia, pffft!’ ‘Who is responsible for the decline of the Arab novel?’ ‘Saudi Arabia, pffft!’

These are typical exchanges that explain how to use this very effective phrase in the right context. Used correctly, the phrase will make both you and the person you’re talking to sound knowledgeable and wise and avoid going into pesky details. But it is essential to make the sound pffft, simply saying ‘Saudi Arabia’ will make you look like an amateur. For added emphasis, you can throw your hands up in the air when you say pffft.

A warning though, in case the person you’re talking to likes Saudi Arabia, skip to the next phrase.

‘The Shia Crescent’

Alternately called ‘Iran’s fingers behind everything’ this is a very popular phrase when talking about Middle Eastern politics. The beauty of the Shia crescent as a concept to explain Iranian expansion is that it actually looks like a crescent and therefore must be true. Other variations like ‘the Shia triangle’ or ‘the Shia Mickey-Mouse shaped region of influence’ failed to inspire the public imagination despite being more geographically accurate.

A popular elaboration on ‘the Shia crescent’ is to use the phrase ‘the Persians are the true enemies of the Arabs’. By calling them Persians instead of Iranians you gave the weight of history to an otherwise mundane statement. See also the next item.

‘Sultan Erdogan’

‘Why is Turkey….?’

‘Erdogan wants to revive the Ottoman Empire.’

Much like with Iran, everything about Turkey’s modern politics can be explained by Erdogan’s secret desire to revive the Ottoman Empire, including Turkey’s decision to no longer compete in the Eurovision song contest. Well, clearly the rules were biased against neo-Ottoman revivalist electro-pop.

The strong evidence that backs this approach is Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman presidential palace and the historic uniforms for his honour guard. Whenever anyone brings up Turkey, throw your hands up in the air melodramatically and say ‘Sultan Erdogan!’ Everyone will agree with you and you will feel very clever.

‘Obama is an idiot’

Who was responsible for giving the Muslim Brotherhood control over Egypt? America. Who was responsible for the coup that removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power? America. Who is responsible for Saudi expansion in the region? America. Who is responsible for the Iranian rise? America. Pretty much the answer to any question that starts with ‘who?’ in the Middle East is always America. While this might not be strictly true some of the time, America is a very popular choice that everyone can agree on holding responsible for everything.

In order to use this correctly however, you must simultaneously hold two seemingly contradictory opinions: that America is a clever and scheming power that controls everything in the Middle East and that America is extremely stupid. If you’re questioning this, then you’re not quite mentally prepared to discuss the Middle East intelligently.

On a similar note, you must remember that America is either completely controlled by Israel and does its bidding all the time, or is the puppet master using Israel as its tool in the Middle East, whichever is more convenient under the circumstances.

Regardless of which direction you follow, always close by nodding and saying ‘Obama is an idiot’. Everyone will agree with you.

'Ancient Tribal Rivalries'

If all else fails, you can always resort to the ultimate trump card: 'these are ancient tribal rivalries', which can explain any conflict in the Middle East. Sunnis and Shias? Ancient tribal rivalries. Saudi Arabia and Qatar? Ancient tribal rivalries. Fairouz or Um Kalthoum? Ancient tribal rivalries.

Clearly, colonialism, Western interventions, political rivalries and ideological conflicts have nothing to do with anything happening in the Middle East today. It's all down to who stole whose camel centuries ago. Because the Middle East is that simple.

Lastly, remember not to attempt any nuance or complexity when using those phrases, that will completely ruin them. When talking about the politics of the Middle East, it’s crucial to stick to one-dimensional clichés that everyone can agree on.

This guide will soon be available as a smartphone app in case you can’t remember all the phrases correctly.

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Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks

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Posted by Alexander Mordvintsev, Software Engineer, Christopher Olah, Software Engineering Intern and Mike Tyka, Software Engineer

Artificial Neural Networks have spurred remarkable recent progress in image classification and speech recognition. But even though these are very useful tools based on well-known mathematical methods, we actually understand surprisingly little of why certain models work and others don’t. So let’s take a look at some simple techniques for peeking inside these networks.

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Pope Francis Equates the Bible to the Quran

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Soldering Flaws Render U.S. anti-missile Nuclear Defense Unreliable

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By David Willman

Two serious technical flaws have been identified in the ground-launched anti-missile interceptors that the United States would rely on to defend against a nuclear attack by North Korea.

Pentagon officials were informed of the problems as recently as last summer but decided to postpone corrective action. They told federal auditors that acting immediately to fix the defects would interfere with the production of new interceptors and slow a planned expansion of the nation's homeland missile defense system, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

As a result, all 33 interceptors now deployed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County and Ft. Greely, Alaska, have one of the defects. Ten of those interceptors — plus eight being prepared for delivery this year — have both.

Summing up the effect on missile-defense readiness, the GAO report said that "the fielded interceptors are susceptible to experiencing … failure modes," resulting in "an interceptor fleet that may not work as intended."

The flaws could disrupt sensitive on-board systems that are supposed to steer the interceptors into enemy missiles in space.

The GAO report, an annual assessment of missile defense programs prepared for congressional committees, describes the problems in terse, technical terms. Defense specialists interviewed by The Times provided more detail.

The interceptors form the heart of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, GMD for short. Four of the massive, three-stage rockets are stationed at Vandenberg and 29 at Ft. Greely.

They would rise out of underground silos in response to an attack. Atop each interceptor is a 5-foot-long "kill vehicle," designed to separate from its boost rocket in space, fly independently at a speed of 4 miles per second and crash into an enemy warhead — a feat that has been likened to hitting one bullet with another.

The GMD system was deployed in 2004 as part of the nation's response to Sept. 11, 2001, and a heightened fear of attack by terrorist groups or rogue states. It has cost taxpayers more than $40 billion so far and has been plagued by technical deficiencies.

One of the newly disclosed shortcomings centers on wiring harnesses embedded within the kill vehicles' dense labyrinth of electronics.

A supplier used an unsuitable soldering material to assemble harnesses in at least 10 interceptors deployed in 2009 and 2010 and still part of the fleet.

The same material was used in the eight interceptors that will be placed in silos this year, according to GAO analyst Cristina Chaplain, lead author of the report.

The soldering material is vulnerable to corrosion in the interceptors' underground silos, some of which have had damp conditions and mold. Corrosion "could have far-reaching effects" because the "defective wiring harnesses" supply power and data to the kill vehicle's on-board guidance system, said the GAO report, which is dated May 6.

When Boeing Co., prime contractor for the GMD system, informed government officials of the problem last summer, they did not insist upon repair or replacement of the defective harnesses, according to the report.

Instead, Missile Defense Agency officials "assessed the likelihood for the component's degradation in the operational environment as low and decided to accept the component as is," the report said.

The decision minimized delays in producing new interceptors, "but increased the risk for future reliability failures," the report said.

Chaplain told The Times that based on her staff's discussions with the Missile Defense Agency, officials there have "no timeline" for repairing the wiring harnesses.

The agency encountered a similar problem with wiring harnesses years earlier, and the supplier was instructed not to use the deficient soldering material. But "the corrective actions were not passed along to other suppliers," according to the GAO report.

L. David Montague, co-chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed operations of the Missile Defense Agency, said officials should promptly set a schedule for fixing the harnesses.

"The older they are with that kind of a flawed soldering, the more likely they are to fail," Montague, a former president of missile systems for Lockheed Corp., said in an interview.

The second newly disclosed defect involves a component called a divert thruster, a small motor intended to help maneuver the kill vehicles in flight. Each kill vehicle has four of them.

The GAO report refers to "performance issues" with the thrusters. It offers few details, and GAO auditors declined to elaborate, citing a fear of revealing classified information. They did say that the problem is different from an earlier concern that the thruster's heavy vibrations could throw off the kill vehicle's guidance system.

The report and interviews with defense specialists make clear that problems with the divert thruster have bedeviled the interceptor fleet for years. To address deficiencies in the original version, Pentagon contractors created a redesigned "alternate divert thruster."

The government planned to install the new version in many of the currently deployed interceptors over the next few years and to retrofit newly manufactured interceptors, according to the GAO report and interviews with its authors.

That plan was scrapped after the alternate thruster, in November 2013, failed a crucial ground test to determine whether it could withstand the stresses of flight, the report said. To stay on track for expanding the fleet, senior Pentagon officials decided to keep building interceptors with the original, deficient thruster.

The GAO report faulted the Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, for "omitting steps in the design process" of the alternate thruster in the rush to deploy more interceptors. The skipped steps would have involved a lengthier, more rigorous vetting of the new design, defense specialists said. The report said the omission contributed to the 2013 test failure.

All 33 interceptors now deployed have the original, defective thruster. The eight interceptors to be added to the fleet this year will contain the same component, GAO officials told The Times.

The missile agency currently "does not plan to fix" those thrusters, despite their "known performance issues," said the GAO report.

Contractors are continuing to work on the alternate thruster, hoping to correct whatever caused the ground-test failure. The first test flight using the alternate thruster is scheduled for late this year.

The GAO had recommended that the Pentagon postpone integrating the eight new interceptors into the fleet until after that test. Defense Department officials rebuffed the recommendation, the report said.

In a response included in the report, Assistant Secretary of Defense Katharina G. McFarland wrote that delaying deployment of the new interceptors "would unacceptably increase the risk" that the Pentagon would fall short of its goal of expanding the GMD system from 33 interceptors to 44 by the end of 2017.

Asked for comment on the report, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, Richard Lehner, said in a statement that officials "have in place a comprehensive, disciplined program to improve and enhance" the GMD system "regarding the issues noted by the GAO."

"We will continue to work closely with our industry partners to ensure quality standards are not only met, but exceeded," the statement said.

Boeing declined to comment.

The GMD system is designed to repel a "limited" missile attack by a non-superpower adversary, such as North Korea. The nation's defense against a massive nuclear assault by Russia or China still relies on "mutually assured destruction," the Cold War notion that neither country would strike first for fear of a devastating counterattack.

GMD's roots go back to the Clinton administration, when concern began to mount over the international spread of missile technology and nuclear development programs. In 2002, President Bush ordered "an initial set of missile defense capabilities" to be put in place within two years to protect the U.S.

To accelerate deployment, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld exempted the missile agency from the Pentagon's standard procurement rules and testing standards.

Engineers trace the system's difficulties to the breakneck pace at which components were produced and fielded. In precisely scripted flight tests above the Pacific, interceptors have failed to hit mock-enemy warheads about half the time.

As a result, the missile agency projects that four or five interceptors would have to be fired at any single enemy warhead, according to current and former government officials. Under this scenario, a volley of 10 enemy missiles could exhaust the entire U.S. inventory of interceptors.

The Obama administration, after resisting calls for a larger system, pledged two years ago to increase the number of interceptors to 44. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have pushed for further expansion. The House this month passed a bill authorizing $30 million to plan and design a site for interceptors on the East Coast. The White House called the move "premature."

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Be Prepared: Gay Men With Boy Scouts In Tents

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By J. Matt Barber

I said it was coming. Many of us did. Two years ago this week the Boy Scouts of America voted to welcome into its ranks “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold.

Shortly thereafter I warned, “In so doing, the [Boy Scouts of America (BSA)] effectively waived the only legal defense it once had to preclude openly homosexual Scout leaders and gender-confused girls from its ranks: religious and moral conviction. It’s only a matter of time until the BSA is forced to capitulate to sexual extremists’ political demands and allow homosexual adults, men who define their identity based upon carnal appetites for other males, to take your boys on overnight camping trips.”

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PayPal’s new Terms Of Service: Your Content belongs to Them

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In the name of Allah, the Merciful to all, the Compassionate

This isn’t well-known, so you should probably share this with your friends, family… Really anyone who has used PayPal in connection with a website providing online content. On July 1st, 2015, Paypal will update its TOS agreement… to take away any and all intellectual rights to any content you provide online. If you use Paypal or accept PayPal, they will attempt to take ownership of any online content you add to your business or website. Read this easily-overlooked section of the new PayPal TOS:

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Russia’s Missile Wall in Iran

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By: Tony Cartalucci

The popular narrative surrounding the conflict between the West and Iran has always been one of a dangerous rogue state bent on obtaining nuclear weapons before triggering a nuclear-fueled Armageddon aimed at Israel. Underneath this elementary propaganda, lies a more complex truth underpinning a proxy conflict between East and West.

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US Assassinated First Pakistani Prime Minister: Declassified documents

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Pakistan Today:

Americans murdered the first elected prime minister of Pakistan through the Afghan government, declassified documents of US State Department disclosed.

Like a number of other high-profile killings, the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, has also remained a mystery. Conspiracy theories abound, yet are difficult to substantiate.

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