Reporting on the NDAs: U.S. Troops Reportedly Required To Sign NDA Before Taking Part In Campaign In The Caribbean

Reporting on the pilot plot: U.S. Officer Sought To Convince Maduro's Pilot To Divert His Flight So He'd Be Taken By American Forces, Report Claims

Reporting on the capture of CIA agents: Venezuela Claims Capture of Alleged CIA-Linked Mercenaries As U.S. Conducts Naval Drills Near Its Coast

Reporting from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c891ex72nj7t

Media coverage from Latin Times: Venezuela Claims Capture of Alleged CIA-Linked Mercenaries As U.S. Conducts Naval Drills Near Its Coast

Administrators will see a new error message stating: Plugin mysql_native_password reported: ''mysql_native_password' is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please use caching_sha2_password instead.

The problem is: there is currently no known way to convert users to the new method without knowing the user's password, and how many folks will remember their database passwords? It just takes a simple line of SQL to convert the account, but finding all of the passwords and their use cases will be a nightmare.

To identify the users on the system who need to be updated, execute the following SQL on your MySQL server:

SELECT user, host, plugin from mysql.user WHERE plugin='mysql_native_password';

And then using the user's password, convert the authentication from mysql_native_password to caching_sha2_password with the following SQL:

ALTER USER '<USERNAME>'@'<HOST>' IDENTIFIED WITH caching_sha2_password BY '<PASSWORD>';

You'll obviously replace USERNAME, HOST, and PASSWORD with the appropriate values.
 

There are many reasons why mass incarceration is a problem. First, it is expensive. The United States spends more on prisons than on higher education, and the cost of incarceration is only going up. Second, mass incarceration is ineffective. Studies have shown that incarceration does not reduce crime rates, and it can actually increase them. Third, mass incarceration is harmful to individuals and families. People who are incarcerated are more likely to become unemployed, homeless, and addicted to drugs and alcohol. They are also more likely to be victims of violence.

There are many things that can be done to end mass incarceration. We can reduce the number of people who are incarcerated by reforming our criminal justice system. We can also invest in programs that help people who have been incarcerated reintegrate into society.

Ending mass incarceration is not going to be easy, but it is essential. It is time to invest in our communities, not our prisons.

Here are some specific steps that can be taken to end mass incarceration:

• Reform the criminal justice system to focus on rehabilitation, not punishment.
• Reduce the number of people who are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.
• Invest in programs that help people who have been incarcerated reintegrate into society.
• End the war on drugs, which has disproportionately affected people of color.
• Address the root causes of crime, such as poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity.

Ending mass incarceration will not happen overnight, but it is possible. It will require a concerted effort from all of us. We need to demand change from our elected officials, and we need to support organizations that are working to make our communities safer and more just.

– Bard (Google AI)

However, the current iteration of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has defied all logical or legal reasoning, and the majority of illegitimate justices have become activists who are sitting on the bench.

It was previously ill-advised to read the "tea leaves" of SCOTUS decisions based on legal theory. Sadly, we can now predict what 1) the legal outcome of a case should be and 2) the likely outcome of the case based on a #CorruptSupremeCourt making decisions in cases that affect our future,

In her suicide note, she detailed the problems that led up to her death. My series Leelah! is not about her or her life, but is dedicated to her in hopes of helping fulfill her last wish: "Fix society!" for transgender kids. I'm cisgender, so once my vision for the series is fully articulated I'll be asking transgender experts for help.

I will also be making sure any proceeds made from the series will go to organizations that serve the transgender community. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

- Gary Wright II

The series logo:

In my experience, THC/CBD is the safest alternative (other than sleep) to compensate for that imbalance. Caffeine in controlled doses may help some patients, but the way it works is by fooling the body by blocking critical receptors. Our human bodies already evolved to have cannabinoid receptors which are fully satisfied by marijuana in its natural form.

Those receptors are partially satisfied when we move the double hydrogen bond to create either Δ8THC/Δ10THC. There is absolutely no scientific reason not to fully legalize and decriminalize marijuana in the natural form. #LegalizeIt
Here's some very closely related studies on HPA Axis and alcoholism:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3860380/

The video is available here: https://storage.googleapis.com/media.cleverthings.net/video/Gary-Wright/Alabama/GuntersvilleCityCouncil-20210315-Gary-Speech.mp4

Good evening Mayor Dollar and City Council Members,

My name is Gary Wright, and I’m a resident of Marshall County. I was one of the Alabama marriage equality plaintiffs, and for over two decades I’ve been working on issues that affect the LGBTQ community in our state and beyond. So I’d like to make a brief statement in regards to the shirt that Councilman Randy Whitaker recently posted to social media.

Through his wife’s Facebook page, Councilman Whitaker says he “has friends and family members who are gay” which is not surprising because despite what his novelty t-shirt says, LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer and we represent over 10% of the population.

Because of the hatred that has been spewed from public podiums over the past few years, hate crimes are up across-the-board. What you do and say reverberate throughout the community. Not just in fostering hatred, but often resulting in self-harm by our most vulnerable communities. In young people age 10-24, suicide is the second leading cause of death. LGB youth contemplate suicide three times the rate of heterosexual youth, and are five times as likely to attempt it. 40% of transgender adults have made a suicide attempt. Each episode of LGBTQ victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse increases the likelihood of self-harm by 2-1/2 times.

Source: TheTrevorProject.org

While the social media posts and words spoken by our leaders are important, I’m much more concerned about what is posted in their hearts and the harmful actions they take. So I urge each of you to examine your heart, and if you’re unable or unwilling to treat everyone with the dignity and equality that they deserve, it’s time for you to resign from public office.

Thank you for your time and attention,
Gary Wright II

Note: There were microphone problems, so I removed my double face mask at the podium just before this video starts.

First, in modsecurity I block problematic country .TLDs, which I know is anti-social, but it prevents lots of headaches for my current business use case. This doesn't prevent a determined hacker from using a VPN for attacks in another country (like US), but it does cut down on much of the noise so that the system administrator can focus on actual hack attacks.

In the crs-setup.conf file I block the problematic TLDs:

SecAction \
 "id:[your rule ID may vary!],\
  phase:1,\
  nolog,\
  pass,\
  t:none,\
  setvar:'tx.high_risk_country_codes=RU CN RO UA ID YU LT EG BG TR PK MY AF IQ IR KP SA SC SY VA AE IL IN'"
 

And for spam control, in my postfix main.cf file, my configuration for the smtpd_sender_restrictions line looks like this (the last part is what is relevant by adding a PCRE list of domains):

smtpd_sender_restrictions  = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauthenticated_sender_login_mismatch, check_sender_access pcre:/etc/postfix/reject_domains

And in the /etc/postfix/reject_domains file I block each of the domains that are most likely to produce spam:

/\.xyz$/ REJECT We reject all .xyz domains due to spam
 

Note: Since the /etc/postfix/reject_domains file is not hashed, there's no need to run the postmap command after changes (unlike helo_access and other hashed files).

Once your Postfix changes are complete, you need to restart or reload Postfix with a command similar to:

sudo service postfix reload

Since Postfix is technically an MTA, you shouldn't really use it as your primary spam-fighting solution. I use many other tools such as SpamAssassin as Bayesian milters to fight spam, but you can head much of it off from the start by blocking domains and TLDs that are problematic for you!

Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, though decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

-Congressman John Lewis

Cause: Something to do with how Blender finds primary display in Windows environment and that data is saved in the startup blend file???

Fix: A bug report (https://developer.blender.org/T34962) has been opened for a very long time, but we need to further narrow down the root cause in order to fix it.

Workaround: When Blender opens in the wrong display (usually after an upgrade or after saving a new startup.blend file), you have to change your Windows Display Settings, then resave your default startup file, then reset your WIndows Display Settings back to your normal configuration. When you reopen Blender, it should open in the primary display device.

NOTICE: Depending on your display dimensions and configuration, fixing Blender may cause you to have to reset some custom settings (like reorganizing your desktop shortcut icons). The inconvenience of having to reset the locations of a few icons after the process usually far outweighs the inconvenience of the blender bug.

Instructions:

1. Go to your desktop, right-click on your desktop and choose Display Settings
2. Go to Multiple Display settings and change from Extend to Duplicate Display, apply and click Keep Settings. Minimize settings window.
3. In Blender, resave your default.blend file by going to File -> Defaults -> Save Startup File and then close Blender.
4. Go back to Display Settings again (maximize the window or if you closed it: go to your desktop, right-click on your desktop and choose Display Settings).
5. Go to Multiple Display settings and change from Duplicate to Extend Display, apply and click Keep Settings. Close settings window.
6. Open up Blender and it should now open in the primary display device.

The US House of Representatives has PASSED BOTH Articles of #Impeachment for Donald Trump:
Article #1: 230 to 197 (1 PRES / 3 NV)
Article #2: 229 to 198 (1 PRES / 3 NV)

The 658 page House Judiciary Committee Report on the #Impeachment of Donald J. #Trump

https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/CRPT-116hrpt346.pdf

This resolution impeaches President Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.
The resolution sets forth two articles of impeachment of the President: (1) abuse of power by soliciting the interference of Ukraine in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and (2) obstruction of Congress by directing defiance of certain subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives. -- H.Res.755 — 116th Congress

RESOLUTION = H. RES. 755 - Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Resolved, That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE I: ABUSE OF POWER

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency, in that:

Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit. In so doing, President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process. He thus ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.

President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct through the following means:

(1) President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government—corruptly solicited the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into—

(A) a political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; and

(B) a discredited theory promoted by Russia alleging that Ukraine—rather than Russia—interfered in the 2016 United States Presidential election.

(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump—acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government—conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested—

(A) the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended; and

(B) a head of state meeting at the White House, which the President of Ukraine sought to demonstrate continued United States support for the Government of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

(3) Faced with the public revelation of his actions, President Trump ultimately released the military and security assistance to the Government of Ukraine, but has persisted in openly and corruptly urging and soliciting Ukraine to undertake investigations for his personal political benefit.

These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections.

In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the Presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

ARTICLE II: OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS

The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. In his conduct of the office of President of the United States—and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its “sole Power of Impeachment”. President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution, in that:

The House of Representatives has engaged in an impeachment inquiry focused on President Trump’s corrupt solicitation of the Government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 United States Presidential election. As part of this impeachment inquiry, the Committees undertaking the investigation served subpoenas seeking documents and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various Executive Branch agencies and offices, and current and former officials.

In response, without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

President Trump abused the powers of his high office through the following means:

(1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding the production of documents sought therein by the Committees.

(2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and offices to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents and records from the Committees—in response to which the Department of State, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense refused to produce a single document or record.

(3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees—in response to which nine Administration officials defied subpoenas for testimony, namely John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.

These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous efforts to undermine United States Government investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.

Through these actions, President Trump sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the House of Representatives in the exercise of its “sole Power of Impeachment”. In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the House of Representatives to investigate “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. This abuse of office served to cover up the President’s own repeated misconduct and to seize and control the power of impeachment—and thus to nullify a vital constitutional safeguard vested solely in the House of Representatives.

In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

#impeached ⚖️ #history

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When someone is in your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person or people involved; and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships, and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being a part of my life.

~ Brian A. (Drew) Chalker

1. Record an audio track of character dialogue.
2. Analyse the audio track using speech-to-text artificial intelligence.
3. Receive speech-to-text results, but with the time offset information for words and phonemes.
4. Import those encoded results into a Blender 3D animation timeline.
5. Blender uses those results to match phonemes with timeline.
6. Mouth shape from character pose library is selected based on phoneme and timeline.

While this sounds like a dream (because it would be), I actually think the pieces for this are already out there. With Google Speech API, I can post my audio file to the AI and get reliable speech-to-text conversion with word confidence scores. If in our Python script, we set:

enable_word_time_offsets=True

we get the text results with time offsets for each word. I'm going to check with Google, but I bet there is a debug flag available to get the offsets for time offsets for each individual phoneme. Why can't we use that data to re-associate the words with our timeline in Blender?

Working from the other end of the pipeline, I see a Papagayo product that puts text into mouth shapes, and I see a Blender addon called Automatic Lipsync that puts the Papagayo data into Blender.

Mission: Don't we now have the technology to put ALL of these together into either a addon plugin, or better yet core?

I'm fairly new to Blender, so this is going to be above my skill level - but folks - although ambitious I see no reason why this isn't possible? Where do I begin to make this happen or what would be the most appropriate forum to further the discussion?

Resources:

A primer on using Google Cloud Speech API and how speech recognition works.

A page with instructions and example Python code for processing audio with time offsets.

The official page for Papagayo.

The official page for Lip Sync Add-on.

And of course, Blender 3D!

When a task or project falters, the (hopefully) automatic reaction is to do a thorough failure analysis, but you should also conduct a quick autopsy on even the most successful ones.  

Here's an example of how I apply this concept to every activity (even recreational ones):  For stress relief, I fly a virtual Cessna in a flight simulator usually taking off at DeKalb Peachtree and landing at Hartsfield-Jackson. Although I've made that flight a million times now, each time my "game" session is over I do a playback and autopsy of that flight.  I take away the excitement (or boredom) of what is happening out the window of the plane and just focus on what the instruments were telling me. Since it is tied to real-time weather, every flight is unique.  Then I watch my landing from the perspective of a virtual chase plane and critique it. Could I have used less throttle or a different fuel/air mixture to get better gas mileage? Even what felt like a routine and perfect landing will reveal minor imperfections.

It is true that practice makes perfect, but you have to make sure you are practicing the most efficient and most correct methods or else you're actually just creating and re-enforcing bad habits.  Practice makes perfect, but try to practice perfection, not mastering the art of imperfection.

Geeks are going to rule the world, and right now security folks can name their price. The best jobs are going to be technology related, but there are some tech jobs that can be done by people with little tech skills.  I'll be writing more about Virtual Greeters in a few months, but anyone with high-speed Internet and a VR headset can already get an awesome job working from home (or anywhere with Internet access) in a four hour work shift.  A "Virtual Greeter" is like the Wal-Mart Door Greeter, you virtually stand on the front page of a web site and greet customers and answer questions. These are AWESOME jobs for the physically disabled!

I've always been about sharing my code with the world, but the problem with open-source is that it is driven mostly by self-interest. This means the harder, less-interesting parts of code never get tackled. To fix this, we're creating a hybrid approach. The code is still open-source, but we let developers bid on those projects so they can actually get paid to do that boring but critical work. One person has made over $60K just doing a bunch of little jobs. If we get creative, the community can do what the failing government can't accomplish!

Here's a look at what this new economy looks like, and although High Fidelity is looking for mostly geeks - non-geeks should still check out their site and click on the project and team buttons. I have a feeling the majority of the best jobs are going to be found through sites and new economies like this one:
https://worklist.net/

My secret missions at #HoodArmy have been completed, and I'm going to start slowly releasing the details to the public. I will go into those later, but for now I can only say I wish I could take credit for everything we're getting blamed for! If you add up the time involved for my verified projects, you'll see it isn't evenly humanly possible to accomplish much of the stupid stuff I sometimes get accused of. LOL