The closures are because Walmart found that they didn't have the high profit levels in their smaller urban stores that they had hoped for, so they closed them in favor of their regular superstores. That's the same reason why they closed the one in our extremely safe neighborhood.

And no, a group invading a store and then stealing while the overwhelmed staff is powerless to stop them is not in any way new. It's an old technique of the Roma (Gypsies) dating back at least to the end of the 19th century in the Midwest (and probably other areas). The only difference today is that the ability to sell purloined goods online makes it more profitable.

The US, and almost certainly the Soviets, developed those at Oak Ridge back in the '70s and tested them up to the point of ignition. Whether they were ever deployed or not is anyone's guess.

The US proposal is a counter to the one from the Russians and Chinese to ban all weapons in space (I don't think observation platforms are considered weapons). Not making the news is the fact that the US has been blocking that attempt for years.

Using nukes in space would be stupid, and Russians are not stupid (contrary to our TV programs). It would take out everything, not just the enemy's equipment but your own as well. It's likely that the US resisted the alternative proposal because they've already fielded anti-sat technology of their own illegally, my guess would be a variation on their "smart bullet" developments. Destroying the power supply or comms of an opponent's satellite leaves your own intact, while avoiding the nightmare of a Kessler Syndrome situation.

Are you off your meds again? That doesn't even make a little sense.

The budget of the US Space Farce is only $30 billion, there's hardly any room for adequate graft there! We must increase it exponentially!!

(NASA's budget is only $24 billion.)

No, they tried to extend the resolution to all weapons, not just nukes. That was blocked by the US, but of course doesn't get included in the corporate media's brown nosing.

Over 150 countries, representing over 2/3 of the world's population, are ignoring the US-demanded sanctions against Russia. This is a rather transparent attempt to convince the majority to fall in line. For those paying attention it was revealing that the reason given for Russia vetoing and China abstaining from the proposal to ban nukes in space is that those countries wanted to amend it to banning ALL weapons in space. The amendment was of course blocked by the US, who almost certainly has space-based weapons already that it doesn't want to give up.

Uh, no. You're not talking from experience. Know how I can tell? Because every time I tried that I ended up getting the shit beat out of me much worse than before. It sounds like the two posters above you are also speaking from experience.

The site has been infested with Libertardians for years, their population ebbs and flows, but they're constantly present, kind of like the smell of the neighbor's chicken coop. It never ceases to amaze me that a fact-oriented web site is populated with so many fact-adverse Libertards.

The "increasing public perception" is just that, a perception created by the media for eyeballs. The reality is that violent crime is falling, has been falling for three decades, and there is no expectation that trend is likely to change any time soon. On the other hand political violence is rising, again to large extent because of the media. My recommendation to you would be to start to look a lot more critically at your media consumption, look for factual data rather than emotional statements (as few and far between as they may be).

If there are that many different groups you can guarantee that they'll spend far more time fighting each other than they ever will fighting the government. Infighting has always been the largest opponent of revolutionary groups, and in the US the three letter agencies encourage it.

A study a number of years ago found that dogs could tell the actual emotional state of a professional actor better than a human in the same room could. I always found that intriguing.

Ages ago I worked at a place doing physical security, so the installers were experienced doing low voltage wiring. I wanted to approach the zoos in Seattle and Tacoma (and later other cities) about wiring up the elephant house with controls that would allow them to call each other. In the wild elephants frequently communicate long distances from one water hole to another via low frequency sound. After investigating I found that (without any donations of equipment, just labor donated) the cost would have been around $4,000, so a project that I could have personally funded. Once I found the correct person to communicate with I found that the Seattle zoo was about to close the elephant house and send them to a reserve where there would be other animals. So nice idea, just bad timing.

This makes me wonder if it would be worth approaching them again, this time to see if they would be interested in letting their birds or apes talk to residents of other zoos.