Taiwantology; Spider Bot; Not So Excited About Upgrades; Printing Mars' Maybe Habitat; and Syria Falls off Wall

False Religion

The Curious Rise of Scientology in Taiwan theatlantic

Scientology around the world is in broad retreat, but to be in Taiwan you would never know that. In an area slightly smaller than the combined size of Delaware and Maryland, with a total population of 23.4 million—roughly the same as that of the New York metropolitan area—Taiwan has 15 Scientology missions and churches. Per capita, it’s one of the most Scientology-friendly countries on earth. The island serves as a major source of donations and new members for the church, which has capitalized on L. Ron Hubbard’s early suggestions that he was a new Buddha. In a sign of Taiwan’s importance to the church, Scientology chief David Miscavige also attended the 2013 Kaohsiung reopening of the hotel as a Scientology megachurch.

1st Amendment and Cakes; Rain Bomb; Fiery Manure; Australia Drifts Away; Dragon Ants; NK'n Hate in Bullet Point Form; The Anti-US War Game Party; Breaking Communication Chains; Get Turkey Out (of NATO); Israel's Red Pill, Blue Pill Choice; Shrinking Okinawan Stake; Another Gay Christening; 58 Years of NASA; Yahoo's Solution to Hate; and a Dead Man's Fingerprint

Society

Constitution Check: Does the First Amendment protect a wedding cake as an art form? blog.constitutioncenter.org

Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at a potential Supreme Court test case about religious beliefs, same-sex marriage and a Colorado bakeshop.

Also see Masterpiece Cakeshop petition to the Supreme Court adflegal pdf

4 Sec Bust; Delivery Treading; Partial Future Today; Another 'Secret' Spy Satellite; Star Wars; Red Hot Spot; The Media Coup; Strait of Hormuz Knot

Tech

Royal Academy of Arts offers visitors an ultra high-res 3D digital sculpture in four seconds 3ders.org v

The Royal Academy of Arts royalacademy.org.uk in London has recently begun experimenting with a photogrammetry system that takes 96 photos in rapid succession via an eight camera system. These images can then be processed into a digital 3D model, replicating every feature of the face in intricate detail. The results are something some of history's greatest artists would be jealous of no doubt.

See the RAA's website for more images/info: The Veronica Scanner royalacademy.org.uk

Whale; Well-Sunk Sinkhole; Robotic Onesie; Brain Communiqué; Classifying Transgender; All-Inclusive Unless Biblical; Maze Daze; and Anti-Drone Defender

Creatures

Scientists say they’ve just discovered a new species of whale quartz

The first hints of a new species came from Japan in 1940s, when whalers reported catching an unknown beaked whale. Then, in 2004, a dead whale washed up on an Alaskan shore that looked vaguely familiar. The next hint came in 2013, when Japanese scientists used modern DNA analysis to test old samples and found evidence that indeed this mysterious mammal may be new to us. Then, finally, in 2014, another washed up dead on a shore in Alaska.

Spinning Halo; Hunting Our Dust on Asteroids; Printing Moon Houses; Mission: Space Force; The F-35 Looks Good, Anyway; Sudan's Breaking Up; Registering Printed Guns; More Pot, More Sick Kids; Stepping Qur'an Up; Severe not as Deadly; Dolly's Sisters Still Kicking; Amazon Drones; Self-Delivery; and 2-I's, 3D Screen

Space

The Spin of the Milky Way galaxy's Halo spaceref

Astronomers at the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts lsa.umich.edu (LSA) discovered for the first time that the hot gas in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning in the same direction and at comparable speed as the galaxy's disk.

Gas in the Grass; Floods of Deaths; The Aircraft Carrier Blues; Disillusioned in Turkey; NK's Submarine Missile Base; Brexit as Slow as Possible; Hate Crime Policing; Your Next Car's Black Box; Fiber Camera; The 97 Other Brain Regions; Chinese Magic; and Green, Bubbling Goo

Environmental

Trembling tundra - the latest weird phenomenon in Siberia's land of craters siberiantimes v

This extraordinary sight - in a video filmed of the tundra on remote Belyy Island in the Kara Sea off the Yamal Peninsula coastline - was witnessed by a scientific research expedition. Researchers Alexander Sokolov and Dorothee Ehrich spotted 15 patches of trembling or bubbling grass-covered ground.

China's G20 Excuse; The Spare Part Nuclear Site; Missing Iran-American; Editing Cancer in Humans; Spaced Out Trip; The Vacuum That's Been Done Before; Attracting Eyeballs with AI; Fire Lasers at Will!; Drone the Mine; Day in the Life of a Delivery Bot; and 129 Degrees of Perspiration

China

China to shut churches in G20 host city on safety grounds – reports theguardian

In an effort to reduce congestion, local officials have declared a week-long public holiday to coincide with the G20 summit g20.org and are reportedly trying to convince thousands of residents to leave town. Now reports have emerged that authorities are also banning religious worship during the annual summit.

Iran Doesn't Like Being Told 'No'; Stated Emergency; The UN Vote That Doesn't Count; Not Inclusive - Not Accredited; Hottest Year Ever (maybe); Heritage to the Beginning; Peanut Butter on the Prairie; Invisible, Mystical Dark Matter; Tweet Science; The Breeze Bird; Brat-Bot; and Internet Flight Test

Iran

Iran left with no choice but to confront the US, official warns jpost

Iran's Press TV quoted Larijani nytimes as issuing the warning in light of legislation proposed by US opponents to the Iran nuclear deal to further sanction the Islamic Republic and the UN's first bi-annual report on the deal's implementation released earlier this week which suggested that Iran was not following "the spirit of the deal."

Practicing Blowing Up South Korea; Coded Broadcasts; Deserting Syria; Israel's New Impeachment Law; Geshur's Mighty City; Girls Self-Identifying as Plaintiffs; Christian Flag Burns Atheists' Eyes; Cloning Against Climate Change; Google Powers Down; Chasing AI; Bots n Dogies; Bending Memory; and Accidental, Serious-Hard Alloy

North Korea

North Korea ‘practising blowing up South Korean ports and airports with nuclear warheads’ independent.co.uk

The drill rehearsed “making preemptive strikes at ports and airfields in the operational theatre in south Korea, where the US imperialists nuclear war hardware is to be hurled,” the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.

Leaked Secret Deal; 50k People Purge; Fists of Iron; Making Aliyah; Guessing Lone Wolves; Slug-Bot; Hip on Stem Cells; The Self-Driving Bus of the Future...Today; Sun Probe; More Than Break-Even Landings; SoftBank's ARM; and The Great Pyramid Papyrus

Iran

Secret document lifts Iran nuke constraints usatoday

The document is the only secret text linked to last year's agreement between Iran and six foreign powers. It says that after a period between 11 to 13 years, Iran can replace its 5,060 inefficient centrifuges with up to 3,500 advanced machines. Since those are five times as efficient, the time Iran would need to make a weapon would drop from a year to six months.

Also see A Year After Iran Nuclear Deal, What Has Changed? npr w!

Delayed History Erasure; About Gulen; Columbian Shopping Spree; NK's Tri-Fly; Drone Bridge; and Information Thread

Israel

Israel claims partial victory as UNESCO delays vote to erase Jewish ties to Temple Mount jpost

The failed Turkish coup over the weekend delayed until October a UNESCO unesco.org vote on Jerusalem that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

LGBT History Lessons; Struttin' Bot; Bomb Bot or Drone?; Ford's Robot Co-Workers; Nano 'Wind' Turbines for Nano Power; Cloaked Research; DNA Decoding in Space; Japan's Throne; South Seas Nuclear Power; A Friend in Africa is a Friend in the UN; Iran's 4th Test; and Terroist States Condem Terrorism Elsewhere

Society

LGBT History Lessons Heading for California Classrooms abcnews.go

The State Board of Education cde.ca.gov unanimously approved those changes in classroom instruction Thursday to comply with the nation's first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay Americans and LGBT rights milestones in history classes.

Do you remember that lesson you learned in school about the danger of rulling parties of some, shall we say, "less free" nations projecting/rewriting history to suit its purposes?

On Target, As Expected; Facebook Extremism Arrests; Putin Bans Evangelism; Turkey Offers Hand to Syria; UN, Help!; The Hague Dilemma; Islam Does Well in Prisons; Canada Anglican's Pro-Abomination Vote; Muslim Sees Peace in Third Temple; Make Less than $20? There's a Bot for That; Luke, the Brain Controlled Prosthetic; and DNA's Starry Night

Society

Transgender 'woman' arrested for voyeurism in Target changing room washingtontimes

Police responded to a call on Monday from a woman who said she noticed someone reaching over her stall and taking pictures while she was trying on clothes, the Post Register reported. The victim confronted the perpetrator, who ran out of the store.

Also see Transgender 'woman' accused of videotaping 18-year-old in Target fitting room pix11, where at least the police are shown with some remaining sanity:

Smith is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Bonneville County and was booked as a male into the Bonneville County Jail bonnevillesheriff on a $30,000 bond.

UN's Fraud Blindness; Hague Rejects China Who Returns Favor; 10 Year Long Hezbollah Shadow; Israel's First Year of Jubilee; A Sunni Bloc Israel?; BDS Lies. No, Really.; The Year America Ceased Pretending to be Christian; Doctors Without Bouncers; There's a Blind Mice Joke in There; FBI's 430k Kinda Legal Iris Scans; International Data Pact; Sheep View; Alive Ghost Fish; and Tiny-Apartment, Form of...Livingroom!

UN

Fraud? What fraud? Watchdogs find UN in 'a state of near denial' about internal corruption foxnews

That is the main thrust of a 133-page examination foxnews of “fraud detection, prevention and response” across 28 organizations in the U.N.’s network, carried out by members of the world organization’s Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), a special group of experts mandated to carry out examinations across the entire array of U.N. funds, organizations and programs.

UNESCO Denies Israel in Old City; China Plays the Victim; China to NK, Visa-Free; NK's "Powerful Measures" Threat; South Sudan Civil War; UK's New Prime Minister; Obama's Final Nuclear Push; Egyptian Peace; Tiny Scalpel; Dead Philistines; Squinting Astronauts; and Robot Nurse

Israel

Israel to UNESCO: ‘We’re not ISIS, don’t sever our ties to the Temple Mount’ jpost

UNESCO unesco.org called on Israel to halt all its archeological and restoration work in and around the Old City, as it submits its latest draft resolution on Jerusalem that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Diplomatic Impunity; UN Scolds Yawning Iran; Pride's Expansion; Brexit Once; Don't Zap Your Brain; White Sharks; Super, Smelly Mice; and The Red Rocket Car

Russia

Russia expels US diplomats in tit-for-tat row bbc v

On Friday, the US State Department said their move came after a Russian policeman attacked a US diplomat near the US embassy in Moscow.

Gay Mingled In; Women on the UK Front-line; 10 (More) States Sue Obama; State Money for Soft Landings; China Incensed in Seoul; Hold it Together NATO; Even Dallas is Israel's Fault; Syndrome K; Iran Seeks Nuke; House Denies Boeing; DNA Player; Robot Ends Standoff...and Life; Small, 3D Portions

Society

ChristianMingle now allows gay dating, after a lawsuit washingtonpost

The lawsuit, according to Christianity Today, argued that ChristianMingle violated California’s non-discrimination law that prohibits for-profit companies, such as Spark Networks, which owns ChristianMingle, from discriminating against customers on the basis of sexual orientation, among other categories.

Based on their ads, I've never thought of ChristianMingle as anything more than a cultural Christianity thing - and the fact that only 1 board member stepped down as a result of the ruling is probably a good indication that that's about as deep as their theology goes. However, still an illustration of the overarching enforcing of state religion.

Precision Medicine; Bugged Science; Stringraybo; Hottest Year Ever. Again.; Don't Worry...and Don't Withdraw; When Women Rule the World; Who Needs the Gospel When Your Church Has WiFi; NATO Meets; NK Stomps and Cries War; Just Another Peace-filled Follower of Mohamed; Shoot the Moon; and Internet Cars

Medical

NIH awards $55M to build million-person precision medicine study centerwatch

The PMI Cohort Program is one of the most ambitious research projects in history and will set the foundation for new ways of engaging people in research. PMI volunteers will be asked to contribute a wide range of health, environment and lifestyle information. They will also be invited to answer questions about their health history and status, share their genomic and other biological information through simple blood and urine tests and grant access to their clinical data from electronic health records. In addition, mobile health devices and apps will provide lifestyle data and environmental exposures in real time. All of this will be accomplished with essential privacy and security safeguards. As partners in the research, participants will have ongoing input into study design and implementation, as well as access to a wide range of their individual and aggregated study results.

See also Fact Sheet: Administration Announces New Actions to Advance the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative

US Sings Its Part; Kim Jong Un Sanctions; Mass. Transgender Compromise; Chi Phi is for "Men" Too; Israel and US Practice Self Defense; Navy Sails the Southern Seas; Delivery Drone Trial in London; and Power Grip

Israel

US accuses Israel of ‘systematically' seizing Palestinian land jpost

US State Department spokesman John Kirby further charged that such seizures plus “settlement expansions and legalization of outposts is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution.”

Trudeau's Pride; Public Accommodating Churches; Social Justice VBS; Religions Unite in Munich; Search Paranoia; Italy's Chaos; 100,000 Missile Threat; Manhattan Cleanup; Plasma, Que Rica!; Dumb AI = Smart AI; Stocking Up; Juno's Jupiter; and Buddha's Maybe Skull

Society

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau marches and dances in Toronto Pride parade 9news.au v

Thunderous applause greeted Mr Trudeau as he paraded down a main Toronto street on Sunday local time, waving a Canadian maple-leaf flag bordered with a rainbow.

Also see Syrian refugee marches beside Justin Trudeau in Canadian pride parade

$10.50/hr; Missile Fired at China - Accidentally; Israel Charging for Terror; Qualitative Edge for a Price; NC Hangs onto (Most of) Original Law; Brainless Consciousness; July 4th - Jupiter; and Underwater Drones

Minimum Wage

Minimum wage goes up in City of LA, unincorporated areas of LA County asianjournal

The minimum wage in the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated areas of LA County is now $10.50 an hour. The city and county join the District of Columbia and 12 other cities, states and counties that boosted the hourly pay rates on Friday, July 1.

If they keep this up, soon I'll be making minimum wage :)

Quartet Sings Same; Like Israel, Like Terrorists; Putin Warns Finland; Killing Law Breakers; Austria Tries Again; California's State Religion; The American Right; Anti-Abortion Laws Crumbling; and 10yo Gets PhD Fellowship

Israel

Israel should stop settlements, denying Palestinian development: Quartet report reuters

The report by the Quartet entities sponsoring the stalled peace process - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - said the Israeli policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution."

Also Quartet report cites violence, settlements and Gaza as barriers to Middle East peace – UN envoy from the UN and The Quartet Report pdf