the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Tennessee drag ban temporarily blocked by Trump-appointed judge​

pressherald.com/2023/04/01/tennessee-drag-ban-temporarily-blocked-by-trump-appointed-judge/

By Erik Larson April 1, 2023
LGBTQ Legislation-Drag
Drag entertainer DeeDee speaks during a news conference held by the Human Rights Campaign to draw attention to anti-drag bills in the Tennessee legislature on Feb. 14 in Nashville, Tenn. John Amis/Associated Press Images for Human Rights Campaign file

A new Tennessee law restricting drag performances in public was temporarily blocked by a federal judge who ruled the politically charged statute may have “missed the mark.”

The law, which had been set to take effect Saturday, was put on hold for at least two weeks in a ruling late Friday by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker in Memphis, Tennessee, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.

“The United States Constitution – a law that is supreme even to the Tennessee General Assembly’s acts – has placed some issues beyond the reach of the democratic process,” Parker wrote. “First among them is the freedom of speech.”

The office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican who defended the law, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Legislators argued that the law was needed to protect minors from what they consider age-inappropriate material.

Drag performances have come under fire as Republican politicians latched onto the issue to demonstrate their conservative bona fides, including potential 2024 presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In 2022, there were at least 124 incidents of protests, threats, and violent actions against drag events and venues in the U.S., a November report showed.

The Tennessee bill, passed in March, restricts “adult cabaret performances,” including “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest.”

The suit was filed by Friends of George’s Inc., a Memphis-based nonprofit that produces “dragcentric performances, comedy sketches, and plays,” according to the ruling. Parker agreed with the plaintiff that lawmakers may have gone too far based on the record in the case so far, given the broad protections of the First Amendment. The judge said state legislatures are “laboratories of democracy” whose experiments “are not without constraints.”

“If Tennessee wishes to exercise its police power in restricting speech it considers obscene, it must do so within the constraints and framework of the United States Constitution,” the judge said. “The Court finds that, as it stands, the record here suggests that when the legislature passed this Statute, it missed the mark.”

Lawyers for Friends of George’s didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
 
Roccus7 said:

Tennessee drag ban temporarily blocked by Trump-appointed judge​

pressherald.com/2023/04/01/tennessee-drag-ban-temporarily-blocked-by-trump-appointed-judge/

By Erik Larson April 1, 2023
LGBTQ Legislation-Drag
Drag entertainer DeeDee speaks during a news conference held by the Human Rights Campaign to draw attention to anti-drag bills in the Tennessee legislature on Feb. 14 in Nashville, Tenn. John Amis/Associated Press Images for Human Rights Campaign file

A new Tennessee law restricting drag performances in public was temporarily blocked by a federal judge who ruled the politically charged statute may have “missed the mark.”

The law, which had been set to take effect Saturday, was put on hold for at least two weeks in a ruling late Friday by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Parker in Memphis, Tennessee, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.

“The United States Constitution – a law that is supreme even to the Tennessee General Assembly’s acts – has placed some issues beyond the reach of the democratic process,” Parker wrote. “First among them is the freedom of speech.”

The office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican who defended the law, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Legislators argued that the law was needed to protect minors from what they consider age-inappropriate material.

Drag performances have come under fire as Republican politicians latched onto the issue to demonstrate their conservative bona fides, including potential 2024 presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In 2022, there were at least 124 incidents of protests, threats, and violent actions against drag events and venues in the U.S., a November report showed.

The Tennessee bill, passed in March, restricts “adult cabaret performances,” including “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest.”

The suit was filed by Friends of George’s Inc., a Memphis-based nonprofit that produces “dragcentric performances, comedy sketches, and plays,” according to the ruling. Parker agreed with the plaintiff that lawmakers may have gone too far based on the record in the case so far, given the broad protections of the First Amendment. The judge said state legislatures are “laboratories of democracy” whose experiments “are not without constraints.”

“If Tennessee wishes to exercise its police power in restricting speech it considers obscene, it must do so within the constraints and framework of the United States Constitution,” the judge said. “The Court finds that, as it stands, the record here suggests that when the legislature passed this Statute, it missed the mark.”

Lawyers for Friends of George’s didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Click to expand...
Even pedophiles have rights. I’ve always been amazed how there is love for Roman Polanski among the left. He lives in exile in a country we can squash in one minute and yet no extradition for forty years. Gone is the nose but thank god jail is the end for pedo’s. Like roach motels “They Check In But Don’t Check Out”. Ethics behind the wire are not so liberal. Local laws in Tenn will become more prevalent to just get them to the Justice they can’t receive outside. Ya see the judge knows how the Laboratories of Democracy he mentioned works, he’s is the Meistro.
 
DRAG QUEENS...HOMOS...etc are no more pedophiles than so called straight people.

I can understand the case for tolerance of adult drags and gays, but not for promoting the life style...the tolerance maybe!

BUT as in all things left and right things go to the extreme and screw everything up.

Fo r YEARS gays fought to march in the ST PATRICKS day parade under their own banner. They were already allowed to March but not with a banner indicating their sexual preference which I agreed with, there was no reason. Well they finally won and you don't hear anymore chit about that anymore. Some things are all about the fight. Maybe they didn't like marching behind the police MOUNTED division? lol
 
Speaking of carnivorous reptiles, looks like T. rex might have benefited from Boxtox???

Imagine T. Rex. Now Imagine It With Lips.​

The apex dinosaur’s terrifying teeth were sheathed in lip-like tissue, some paleontologists say. Imagine them more akin to Komodo dragons than crocodiles.

An illustration shows a Tyrannosaurus open-mouthed, with a much smaller, bloody dinosaur in its jaws. Its teeth are covered from the outside with flesh.

An artist’s concept of a juvenile Edmontosaurus disappearing into the lipped mouth of Tyrannosaurus. Credit...Mark P. Witton

Brimming with serrated teeth bigger than bananas, Tyrannosaurus rex’s fanged maw is iconic. Many depictions of the prehistoric predator show its teeth sticking out even when its mouth is closed, like a snaggletoothed crocodile.

However, some paleontologists think T. rexes need some serious lip filler. In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers posit that Tyrannosaurs and related dinosaurs kept their dagger-like dentition hidden behind lip-like tissue. And while some critics are giving them lip about it, the study’s authors say it’s time we rethink what the apex dinosaur’s mouth looked like as it tore into prey.

While birds are the closest living relatives to theropod dinosaurs, the group that included mega predators like T. rex, their specialized beaks tell scientists little about dinosaur mouths. So researchers have often turned to crocodiles, whose exposed teeth poke directly out of the jaw with no lip-like tissue covering them. Even when a crocodile’s jaws are shut, its teeth are visible.

This has led many scientists and artists to depict lipless dinosaurs with their chompers constantly on display. One of the most influential depictions is the Tyrannosaurus from “Jurassic Park.”

“That animal has been copied so many times,” said Mark Witton, a paleoartist and researcher at the University of Portsmouth in England who has been illustrating lipped theropods for around a decade. “It carried that lipless look into pop culture to the point where we’re now struggling to get rid of it.”

Dr. Witton is among the scientists and paleoartists who have argued that theropods had a fleshy area surrounding their mouths. He and other colleagues recently teamed up to seek fossil evidence of these fuller lips.

Four views of a Tyrannosaurus head on a white background. From top, its skull and spine; a depiction of Tyrannosaurus with the crocodilian-like lipless jaws, with upper teeth sticking out; a lipped Tyrannosaurus with a closed mouth, showing no teeth; and a lipped Tyrannosaurus in mid-roar at an angle that shows its teeth behind the lip upper of its open mouth.

Scientists and artists have developed two principal models of predatory dinosaur facial appearance: crocodilian-like lipless jaws, second from top, or a lizard-like lipped mouth. Credit...Mark P. Witton

They focused on the teeth. According to the researchers, many theropods’ teeth were encased in a thin layer of enamel. The researchers hypothesized that constant exposure to air could make the enamel brittle and prone to splintering. Lipless crocodilians, for example, wear down teeth at an accelerated pace — an American alligator can go through 3,000 teeth in its lifetime. In contrast, Tyrannosaurs and other theropods tended to hang onto their teeth much longer.

To compare the wear patterns between crocodilians and theropods, the team studied thin cross sections of teeth from an American alligator and a Daspletosaurus, a close T. rex relative. They found that the enamel on the outer, exposed side of the alligator’s tooth was often more eroded than the tooth’s inner portion.

“We don’t see that pattern at all in Tyrannosaurs,” said Thomas Cullen, a paleontologist at Auburn University and one of the paper’s authors.

The wear on the Daspletosaurus tooth was different, a sign, they said, that a lip-like covering protected it from drying out.

“In our Tyrannosaur sample, we see even enamel thickness on both the inside and outside of the tooth which is more similar to what we see in animals that do have lips,” Dr. Cullen said.

The team also examined the skulls of Komodo dragons and other monitor lizards. These reptiles have blade-like teeth reminiscent of theropod teeth, which they keep moist under scaly lips. While monitor lizards are only distantly related to theropods, the team found the relationship between skull and tooth size was similar. That likeness dispels any notions that the largest carnivorous dinosaurs would have trouble fitting their teeth under their lips, they said.

But not all paleontologists are sold on theropod lips.

Thomas Carr, a paleontologist at Carthage College in Wisconsin, said the researchers did not account for the bone texture of Tyrannosaur skulls, which resembled the leathery texture of an alligator skull right down to where the teeth are embedded into the jaw. He also argued that the dentin of Tyrannosaur teeth was more significant than the enamel. “That’s the tissue that I think is arguably structurally more important to a Tyrannosaur because if the dentin shatters, then they’ll be eating bananas,” Dr. Carr said. As a result, he thinks keeping the enamel moist under lips was not essential for maintaining teeth strong enough to bite through bone.

The only thing that could drive the dinosaur lip debate to extinction may be a fossilized face. “We won’t have a firm answer unless we find a really rare example of a theropod with soft tissues of the face preserved intact,” Dr. Cullen said. “It is not impossible — it just hasn’t happened yet.”
 
www.foxnews.com

Christian mother sues state for denying adoption over her gender beliefs: Putting 'politics over children'

Oregon mother of five Jessica Bates claims the state rejected her request to adopt two siblings because of her Christian beliefs on gender and sexual orientation.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com

An Oregon mother of five claims her religious beliefs on gender barred her from adopting a pair of siblings in her state, and now she's taking to the courts to fight for her First Amendment rights.

Jessica Bates told "Fox & Friends First" on Wednesday that she was several months into the adoption process and successfully completed a portion of the training when the hurdle began.

" reported to my certifier because they really emphasized the sexual orientation and gender identity training, that you have to support it," she said. "I emailed her and told her I couldn't do that because of my faith, and then we had a phone call and, because I wouldn't take a child for cross-sex hormone injections, I was basically told that I'm ineligible to adopt in the state of Oregon."
 
this actually supposed to be a thread about strange & bizarre headlines - hence the WTF designation - for actual real & serious news - there's cany's What's going on in the World thread
 
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Did Timothy Leary have a former life in the Bronze Age????

Tripping in the Bronze Age​

A new study based on strands of hair found in a Spanish burial cave reveals that humans living about 3,000 years ago used hallucinogens, likely derived from local plants, as part of their rituals.

Bronze Age humans have been credited with a number of civilizational advancements: the invention of irrigation, the wheel, writing systems and the ability to forge weapons and tools from the durable metal that lends the era its name.

Now, strands of human hair discovered in an ancient burial cave in Spain suggest another novelty: a proclivity for consuming psychoactive drugs.

The hair, found inside wooden containers hidden deep within a sealed grotto on Minorca, an island off the coast of eastern Spain, tested positive for a number of mind-altering compounds, suggesting that the people who lived there 3,000 years ago incorporated hallucinogenic experiences into the rituals of their lives.

The findings, published Thursday in Scientific Reports of the journal Nature, provide the first direct evidence that ancient Europeans consumed psychoactive drugs much like their pre-Columbian brethren in Mesoamerica, the researchers said.

Elisa Guerra-Doce, the lead author of the study, said researchers were stunned by the results, especially because the cave interiors yielded no detectable signs of the drugs’ presence. A chemical analysis of the hair revealed evidence of three alkaloid substances known to produce altered states of consciousness: ephedrine, atropine and scopolamine.

The compounds themselves are produced by flora native to Minorca. Atropine and scopolamine, powerful hallucinogens, can be found in plants in the nightshade family, among them mandrake, henbane and thorn apple. Ephedrine, a stimulant, can be extracted from joint pine.

“These findings are so singular,” said Ms. Guerra-Doce, an expert in the anthropology of intoxication at the University of Valladolid in Spain. “Sometimes when people think about drugs, they think it’s a modern practice. These results tell a different story.”

Ms. Guerra-Doce said the way the compounds were distributed through each hair strand suggests the drugs were consumed over the period of a year, and well before death.

The cave, Es Càrritx, was discovered by spelunkers in 1995 and held the remains of more than 200 people who had been laid to rest over the course of six centuries, with the latest burial in roughly 800 B.C.E. Many were related across multiple generations. Curiously, the cave did not contain the bodies of pregnant women or babies.

For anthropologists, the cave’s most significant treasure were the tubular boxes, mostly wooden but some made of antler, that held tufts of hair dyed red. The boxes and their contents survived in large part because the cave’s opening, more than 80 feet beneath the upper ledge of a 300-foot-tall gorge, had been sealed off by rubble that had collapsed long ago.

Although there is no way to know why these ancient people were consuming such powerful drugs, Ms. Guerra-Doce noted that the boxes featured patterns that present-day humans might interpret as psychedelic inspired — a series of concentric circles suggesting the hypnotic bull’s-eye drawings of yore.

Ancient humans are thought to have used drug plants for both medicinal purposes and religious ceremonies, but until now, much of the scholarship has been based on indirect evidence such as pottery vessels, smoking pipes or plant residue from opium poppies or cannabis found at archaeological sites across Eurasia.

Giorgio Samorini, an Italian ethnobotanist who specializes in the archaeology of psychoactive plants and who was not involved in the study, said he was exhilarated by the findings. He said they added to a growing body of evidence suggesting that hallucinogens were an integral part of ancient societies worldwide.

He said the context of the findings suggested the drugs were consumed as part of a religious ritual. “This was not a profane purpose of ‘searching for a high’ but more generally the search for existential meaning that has been largely lost to time,” he said in an email.

Because the strands lacked hair bulbs, scientists were unable to do a DNA analysis that would allow them to determine the sex of those who had consumed the compounds.

The three compounds have a long history of human use. Ephedrine is a stimulant that provides bursts of energy and mental clarity, and it can stave off sleepiness. Atropine and scopolamine are powerful deliriants that can produce hallucinations and out-of-body experiences. In higher concentrations, atropine can lead to respiratory failure, paralysis and death.

Although impossible to know for sure, Ms. Guerra-Doce said the presence of these drugs suggested that the people who used them were guided by someone, perhaps a shaman, who understood their powers. “There is so much more we need to learn,” she said.
 
Real life SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

A Cobra Appeared Mid-Flight. The Pilot’s Quick Thinking Saved Lives.​

The pilot made an emergency landing after feeling a Cape Cobra slither under his shirt while flying across South Africa. “I had a moment of stunned silence,” he said.

A South African pilot is being hailed as a hero this week after he unexpectedly came face-to-face with a venomous snake 11,000 feet in the air.

The pilot, Rudolf Erasmus, 30, laughed about the incident in an interview on Friday, but he and his four passengers, all colleagues, were not hurling any “Snakes on a Plane” jokes on Monday, when he noticed a Cape Cobra, one of South Africa’s most dangerous snakes, slithering around the cockpit.

The group was on the second leg of its journey from the Western Cape to Mbombela, in the eastern region of the country, when Mr. Erasmus, a pilot for an engineer consulting company, felt something unusual. “I felt this cold sensation that was underneath my shirt, underneath where the hip area is,” he said.

He initially thought his water bottle was leaking. As he turned to the left, he saw the head of the snake under his feet. He estimated it to be between four and five feet long.

“I had a moment of stunned silence, like a moment of disbelief,” he said. “It’s as if my brain didn’t register what was going on."

Not long before he set off for his journey that day, airport workers told him that a Cape Cobra had been spotted climbing into the engine of the aircraft, a Beechcraft Baron 58, a small airplane that seats just a handful of people. But no one found the snake before takeoff, he said, so it was assumed that it had left on its own.

Cape Cobras typically live in the Cape provinces of South Africa, but are also found in southern Botswana and Namibia, according to the African Snakebite Institute. A bite from this snake, which comes in a range of colors and can grow to more than seven feet in length, can cause progressive weakness, issues with the respiratory system and even death. Most snakebite deaths in the southern portion of Africa come from Cape Cobras and Black Mambas, the institute said.

On the plane, Mr. Erasmus was considering what to do next. He was scared that the snake would slip through to the back of the cabin and cause panic among the passengers. Knowing that, he spoke over headsets to say that there was an uninvited guest onboard.

“No one was panicking or getting hysterical about the snake,” he said. “And there was a moment of silence in the cabin. You could hear a needle drop.”

It didn’t take long for Mr. Erasmus to make arrangements to land at the nearest airport. “That was definitely the longest 10, 15 minutes of my life,” he said.

After landing, the passengers exited the plane one by one. Mr. Erasmus was the last to leave.

“As I was standing on the wing, I moved the seat forward a little bit, and I saw this snake curled up in a nice little bundle underneath my seat,” he said.

A snake handler later arrived on the scene, but, again, the snake was nowhere to be found. After two days of searching, and disassembling parts of the plane, its whereabouts remain a mystery.

By Wednesday, Mr. Erasmus had bravely decided to fly back to the Western Cape on the same aircraft — this time, covering up as many holes as possible. “I was not really in the mood to come to a face-to-face with that again,” he said.

Poppy Khoza, the director of the civil aviation authority in South Africa, praised “how he handled what could have been a major aviation incident” in a statement. “He remained calm in the face of a dangerous situation and managed to land the aircraft safely without any harm to him or his fellow passengers on board,” Ms. Khoza said.

Richard Levy, an aviation expert and retired American Airlines pilot based in Dallas, said it was rare for pilots to encounter such scary incidents while mid-flight. He too praised Mr. Erasmus’s quick and calm thinking, and said the extensive training pilots undergo prepared them for unusual situations.

Mr. Levy mused that Mr. Erasmus could now land a job at any major airline, if he wanted. “I give him an A-plus for how he handled it, mentally, and for a very successful emergency landing,” he said. “He’s a hero, in my mind.”

It’s now four days after the ordeal and Mr. Erasmus said he was shocked that his story had become so popular. He said that by Tuesday he had become overwhelmed with calls from reporters, friends and family.

He’s currently enjoying the long Easter weekend and planning to get back to work next week, flying the same aircraft.

This time, he’ll be much more vigilant before setting off, he said.
 
The Telegraph

US has real UFO problem and it’s not Chinese spy balloons, says former Navy fighter pilot​


A former US Navy fighter pilot has told how his squadron encountered UFOs almost daily for months while training off the American coast.

The sightings included a near collision with an object that appeared like a cube inside a sphere, and a close encounter with a fleet of objects moving at 120 knots into the wind.

Lieutenant Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, is now leading an effort to encourage reporting of sightings, and advocating for scientific study of what the military calls Unidentified Aerial Phenomena [UAPs].

Last year, Congress held its first hearing into UAPs for 50 years, and the Pentagon has received 350 new reports in the last two years, 171 of which remain unexplained.

Sealed-off block of airspace​

Lt Graves told the Telegraph how in 2014 his squadron - the VFA-11 “Red Rippers” - was based on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, preparing for a deployment to the Persian Gulf.

The pilots trained in a sealed-off block of airspace called W-72 off the coast of Virginia, where nothing else was allowed to fly.

After the planes’ radar was upgraded pilots began picking up objects in the training area.

They were initially dismissed as radar errors, but then they flew closer and started seeing them on their FLIR systems, which are infrared cameras that detect heat.

“It was almost as if the sun was shining a flashlight [on the UAPs],” said Lt Graves. “We would have them on a radar, and then we’d have a FLIR. We’d fly by them as low as we could trying to see them.

“We were trying to figure out what the heck these things were. We were seeing them pretty much daily. We’d go out there and they’d be out there in the morning, they’d be out there in the evening.

“These things were pretty much always out there. That would range from two to three of them, to six or seven.”

Then, the near collision happened when an object passed right between two jets, within 50ft of the lead aircraft.

Lt Graves said the pilot involved was shaken up after landing back on the carrier.

Black cube inside of a clear sphere​

“He said ‘I almost hit one of those damn things!’ and we all knew what he was talking about,” he said.

“It was completely stationary and he described it as a dark grey or black cube inside of a clear sphere.

“He cancelled the flight, not trusting his ability to clear his airspace in front of him.”

The pilots began operating in different parts of their training area to avoid hitting the unidentified objects.

In early 2015 the USS Theodore Roosevelt relocated, as scheduled, from Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida.

But the sightings of UAPs continued near the ship even though it had moved 600 miles south.

That was when an F/A-18 pilot filmed one of the most famous of all UFO videos, showing an object looking like a “spinning top” or “gimbal”.

“It was a unique object that we recorded on one particular night only,” said Lt Graves.

“One aircraft from my squadron, they were returning to the boat, they were east of the ship, about three or four miles off the shore. That’s when they saw the gimbal.”

On the video, which was later declassified, the pilots can be heard shouting “Oh my gosh!” and “Look at that thing dude!” and “It’s rotating!”

Lt Graves was in the post-flight briefing with other pilots and a sizeable group of “intelligence folks”.

He said: “No one thought this was benign. It was very clear that this was unusual and outside the normal.

“What you don’t see [on the declassified footage] is the radar information, which shows a formation of four to six objects that were operating kind of outward of the gimbal.

“They turned very quickly, and they all kind of got jumbled up, and then they rolled out and reformed in the opposite direction. They turned, it was a sharp turn.”

He added: “I don’t know 100 per cent if they were the same objects we were seeing before [off Virginia].”

Americans for Safe Aerospace​

Since leaving the Navy, Lt Graves has launched Americans for Safe Aerospace, which is aimed at promoting reporting of UAPs, aiming to help coordination between the public and private sectors.

He said: “I think it’s moving in the right direction. I think a lot of the cultural baggage that had prevented the reporting has gone away, at least in the Navy, I can’t speak for other branches.

“I’ve been getting reports from people that are still flying out there, that are still seeing these objects.

“Some of them were describing cubes and spheres. I’ve heard it described over the course of eight or nine years, basically the same object being reported. Also nondescript, white objects are reported as well.”

He added: “We have to be aware that there are objects in our airspace and we are not fully aware of what they are. Uncertainty in our airspace is a national security threat.”

In terms of what they could be - foreign drones, extraterrestrial - he doesn’t know.

“An F/A 18 is not a proper scientific tool for understanding what we’re seeing,” said Lt Graves.

“So we need to gather more data. There’s a lot of things on the table, but we need more data.

“We’re just not at a point where we can draw conclusions.”

Video grab image shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots showing interactions with unidentified aerial phenomena - AFP

Video grab image shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots showing interactions with unidentified aerial phenomena - AFP
 
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