baker this one's for you
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/sep/28/a-great-book-with-barack-obama-tom-hanks-interview-best-podcasts-of-the-week
Obama and Tom Hanks have an inspirational chat: best podcasts of the week
Daring to defy the norms of political lobbying, the ex-US president is becoming a podcast mainstay and is opening up about the books that inspired him. Plus, is the Richard Gere gerbil rumour true?–
aw man formatting fail
time for seppuku
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/world/americas/venezuela-gold-trump.html
https://archive.is/6yy6F
Trump Brought Venezuelan Gold to the U.S., but Refiners Won’t Touch It
The administration is brokering deals in a notoriously corrupt industry, including one with a company that the United States deems a security threat.
A Times reporter visited Venezuela’s gold production hub, the town of El Callao, this summer. Along with Minerven’s underground mines, it is home to hundreds of crude, privately run mining operations, including cooperatives known as brigades. The operators of those mines dig for gold and give a portion of it to the local gang, Tren de Guayana, as protection money, according to interviews with about a dozen mine owners, brigade leaders and Minerven employees.
That means that, in the Trump administration’s signature Venezuelan gold venture, the United States is importing bars that contain at least some amount of gold linked to Tren de Guayana.
The mine’s contractors, which provide machinery, catering and other services, paid protection money to Tren de Guayana, two workers employed by the mine’s contractors said in July.
https://x.com/ivgiz/status/2104492680344637441
I reiterate my call to use the pagers we distributed across Ireland. We didn't invest years and millions of dollars in this for nothing.
When a demon named Ornias harasses a young man (who is favored by Solomon) by stealing half of his pay and sucking out his vitality through the thumb on his right hand, Solomon prays in the temple and receives from the archangel Michael a magic ring which enables him to command the demons. Solomon has the young man throw the ring at the demon Ornias, which stamps him with the seal and brings him under control. Then Solomon orders the demon Ornias to take the ring and similarly imprint the prince of demons, Beelzebul. With Beelzebul under his command, Solomon now has all of the demons at his bidding to build the temple. Beelzebul reveals that he was formerly the highest ranking angel in Heaven.
Solomon's final demon encounter involves sending a servant boy with his ring to take captive a wind demon who is harassing the land of Arabia. The boy is to hold a wineskin against the wind with the ring in front of it, and then tie up the bag when it is full. The boy succeeds in his task and returns with the wineskin. The imprisoned demon calls himself Ephippas, and it is by his power that a cornerstone, thought to be too large to lift, is raised into the entrance of the temple.
Then Ephippas and another demon from the Red Sea bring a miraculous column made of something purple (translation obscure) from out of the Red Sea. This Red Sea demon reveals himself as Abezethibou, and claims to be the demon who supported the Egyptian magicians against Moses, and who hardened the pharaoh's heart, but had been caught with the Egyptian host when the sea returned and held down by this pillar until Ephippas came and together they could lift it.
There follows a short conclusion in which Solomon describes how he fell in love with a Shunammite woman, and agreed to worship Remphan and Moloch in exchange for sex. Solomon agrees to sacrifice to them, but at first only sacrifices five locusts by simply crushing them in his hand. Immediately, the spirit of God departs from him, and he is made foolish and his name becomes a joke to both humans and demons. Solomon concludes his text with a warning to the readers; he tells them to not abandon their beliefs for sex like he did.
Kapparot was strongly opposed by some rabbis, their reasoning was based on the caution that it is similar to non-Jewish rites.
In many Egyptian Jewish families, about a week to ten days before Rosh Hashana, grains of wheat (or, if not readily available, barley or lentils) are scattered on a piece of damp cotton wool in a small plate or shallow bowl which sprout in time for the New Year. Early in the New Year, usually after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, ten days later, the sprouts are discarded. I have not encountered reference to the practice of this custom in any other Jewish community other than that of or originating from Egypt.
They took place at the beginning of the fourth month of the Egyptian year, when the annual flooding of the Nile began to recede and the submerged fields began to re-emerge, ready to be sown. Small figurines in the form of Osiris were fashioned of moist clay and filled with grains, which were placed on a base. After a few days, the grains sprouted and a small growth appeared, the outline of which was in the shape of the clay figurine in which they had germinated (literally "which had given birth to them"). Thus, like its god, the soil of Egypt, after its annual death in the burning heat of summer, was reborn after the retreat of the floodwaters of the Nile, ready for a new growth of life. Do contemporary Egyptians, who still sow lentils on moist cotton wool to sprout for certain religious festivals, realize the ancient origins of this practice?
In the Responsa of the Geonim I have found that [in the days of the Sages of the Talmud] they made baskets from palm fronds and filled them with soil and dung and twenty-two or fifteen days before Rosh Hashana each and every one made one for each and every male and female child of the household and sowed in it Egyptian beans [ie cow peas] or pulses and it was called purpesa [parpisa] and it sprouted. And on the eve of Rosh Hashana everyone took his own and circled it around his head seven times saying: "This in lieu of this; this is my exchange; this is my substitute" and then threw it into the river.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbreeding_between_archaic_and_modern_humans
It is not clear that modern humans were socially dominant over Neanderthals, which may explain why the interbreeding occurred primarily between Neanderthal males and modern human females.
Denisovans received gene flow (0.5–8% of total genome) from "superarchaics" that was not shared with Neanderthals.
Before splitting from Neanderthals, their ancestors ("Neandersovans") migrated into Eurasia and interbred with an unidentified "superarchaic" human species who were already present there; these superarchaics were the descendants of a very early migration out of Africa.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
considered the first modern Jewish settlement in the Negev
what does that have to do with planet gods?
Velikovsky was a passionate Zionist and penned a weekly political column under the moniker "Observer" in the New York Post
https://www.varchive.org/obs/index.htm
>passionate Zionist
>Acts 28:3-6