Category Archives: Transhuman News

OPINION:

The Republic of Molossia is a 1-acre micronation in Nevada not recognized by anyone on Earth. Its currency, however, is sounder than the dollar, pegged to a fixed commodity the way U.S. currency was once fixed to the value of gold, a policy that serves as a built-in barrier to inflation.

Molossia is a 1-acre joke and a tourist destination. Its president, Kevin Baugh, rules as a benevolent dictator over 35 citizens 32 of his relatives and three dogs. Transactions are conducted in Valora, and bank notes and coins are issued in various denominations.

The currencys value is fixed to Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at a rate of five Valora per 30-ounce tube, the way the dollar was once fixed to the price of gold, limiting the amount of cash the government could inject like heroin into the economy.

Our mission, according to Molossias website, is to pursue sound monetary and financial policies aimed at price stability and create an enabling environment for sustainable economic growth, worthy goals for the other 2.43 billion acres of America to pursue.

Inflation is at its highest in 41 years and the nation is in a recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Printing presses at the Treasury are going full tilt, with 80% of dollars in circulation by December 2021 having been created in the previous 22 months.

In dollar terms, $4 trillion existed in January 2020; by October 2021, the number had increased five times to $20 trillion, and still, the lust for easy money continued, meaning greenbacks in your wallet, 401(k), and bank account are shedding value every day.

On Friday, Jeff Sommer wrote in The New York Times, The latest government figures showed that in August, even a fistful of dollars bought 11.4% less food, 25.6% less gasoline, and 6.2% less housing than they did a year earlier.

When America followed the gold standard, it needed sufficient reserves on hand to convert paper money into bullion. Since, like tubes of cookie dough, the amount of gleaming bars it was possible to accumulate was finite, it prevented the dangers of fiat currency that were experiencing today.

The nation abandoned the system for the most part in 1933, seeking more flexibility in the name of combating the Great Depression, and cut the last remaining links between the dollar and gold in 1971, when President Richard Nixon feared that foreign nations might call in the notes and clean out Fort Knox.

But by empowering flawed human beings at the Federal Reserve to crank out endless greenbacks as if the faces of dead presidents somehow gave them value, there was no longer any restraint. A member of President Ronald Reagans Gold Commission, Rep. Ron Paul, explained the dangers in a 2021 New York Sun column.

Ronald Reagan once told me that no nation has abandoned gold and remained great, he wrote. Fifty years after Nixon closed the gold window, prices are heading toward 1970s-era increases. It is clear that America is heading toward another Federal Reserve-created economic crisis.

The crisis is here, and although the gold standard seems a relic of the dusty days of President William McKinley, its worth another look to rein in the big spenders in Washington who have delivered nothing like the prosperity and sound money that produced to at last end the Long Depression of the Gilded Age.

Inflation is just like alcoholism, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said. In both cases, when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first, and the bad effects only come later, and like alcoholism, the fixes are long and painful.

But the first step is the same for both spending and drinking too much: Stop pouring.

Molossia may be a joke of a country, but all good comedy as my late boss Rush Limbaugh used to say is based in truth. And when a nation seeks to print its way to prosperity with fiat currency, its no laughing matter. Its the surest way to ensure that an economy, like the fabled cookie, crumbles.

Dean Karayanis (@HistoryDean) is a producer of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, longtime Rush Limbaugh staffer, and host of the History Author Show on iHeartRadio.

Original post:
Nevada's micronation of Molossia has a sounder currency than the dollar - Washington Times

Timothe Chalamet in Dune/Warner Bros./Legendary

Despite a day-and-date release on HBO Max, Dune: Part One was a box office success, surpassing $400 million in global ticket sales en route to winning six Academy Awards. Its haul included an Oscar for Best Sound, won by Supervising Sound Editor Mark A. Mangini, Re-Recording Mixers Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill, Sound Mixer Mac Ruth, and Sound Designer/Supervising Sound Editor Theo Green.

At Mix magazines annual Sound for Film & TV confab on the Sony lot, Mangini and Bartlett detailed their work on the movie in a conversation moderated by Avid product specialist Jeff Komar, who pointed out that Komar, Mangini, and Bartlett had previously worked with Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049 (released in 2017).

Did [that experience give] you a better idea of his aesthetic and how he values sound? asked Komar.

Mangini said that they developed a shorthand working on Blade Runner. We learned many vital things, he said. Although what I do sound design and sound editorial is considered to be post-production, Denis always considered sound to be an integrated part of the shoot all the way until it becomes post-production.

Mangini noted that he and Green develop sounds during production often driving portions of the edit. We learned that on Blade Runner and brought it to Dune, he added.

Denis loves to allow us to fail, explained Bartlett. If we try something, swinging for the fences, he might say, its really cool, but not in my movie. It teaches you where you can go maybe all the way, but then dial it back or go in another direction. That was a wonderful thing we discovered on Blade Runner and went for with Dune.

Mangini said the sound is planned early on, first by deciding an overriding sound ethos.

Denis said to us that he wanted the movie to sound as if a documentary film crew was dropped on the planet and the sounds could be captured with a boom pole. To that end, Theo and I adopted FDR Fake Documentary Realism and that was the filter through which all the sound was heard. If it didnt fit that ethos, it wasnt in the film, so we didnt use anything synthetic that didnt happen in an acoustic space. We devised 3,200 original sounds and only three were not originated organically, he said.

Mangini then recounted an anecdote about the creation of one of the movies few synthetic sounds, for the shields.

In science fiction, it says that if theres a forcefield, you should see it and hear it, he said. But Theo and I were dead set against doing what we thought was a trope.

In what Bartlett called an experiment gone bad, he recounted that Theos computer made a strange sound that he captured. Theo saw the value in [that sound] and cut it in when the forcefield hit the shield. That showed us the way out of the problem. As that idea developed, those initial sounds would go on the strike [to the shield] and hold for eight seconds, with VFX adding a glow. Then we added a stutter, and VFX added a stutter also, he said.

This was happening before post-production even started, added Bartlett. This is a beautiful way to do it. Sound should be considered as an organic part of the production process.

Image via Paul Roman

Mangini added that on Blade Runner, Denis said he wanted us to compose with sound. (Hans Zimmer was the films composer.) That meant that Theo, Ron, and I brought a musical sensibility that doesnt necessarily mean melody, but the other aesthetics a composer brings to a movie, he said. We always wanted sound and music to overlap so you wouldnt see the joints [between them].

Bartlett noted that on both movies, they really exploited the spaces. On Dune, I used delays going into reverbs to try new things, he said. The film lent itself to that. You can talk plugins until youre blue in the face, but its how it affects you as a listener what matters is what we did to make you feel a certain way.

Komar asked the panel to explain their approach to Dolby Atmos.

Its not just the giant screen anymore, said Bartlett. This is the pinnacle of what you can do with sound. He revealed that the sound team and Villeneuve had a long talk about using Surround Sound on Blade Runner, but the director said he didnt like it. Then later, he said, I really love Atmos.'

On Dune, Bartlett said, he had so many tracks to play with. It started small but got bigger as I had ideas, he explained. Denis is very much a concept guy. Hell tell you what he wants out of the scene and you go get it. Or he can also be a show me guy. I could try things out and ask him what he thinks, so were showing him, not talking about it. He really has you bring your A-game.

Komar also noted that the dialogue is immaculate crystal clear and audible. Bartlett stated that Denis was adamant about hearing everything well. I clean up the dialogue, EQ it, compression, all the normal things I mix with clip gain to get every syllable heard and balanced, he said. With sound design, it piles up. Everyone wants to be heard but well mute it or push it out of the way. We call them gray sounds that arent useful to us. Its our job to create that clarity and depth for the audience.

Bartlett thanked Komar for Avid adding clip gain, something, he said, we use all the time. With regard to sound design elements, Mangini reported that Villeneuve encouraged the team to pitch their ideas and approved every design element and most of the music before post-production began.

Mangini and Bartlett then walked through the sonic creation of a handful of scenes, including when the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) tests Paul Atreides (Timothe Chalamet) by placing his hand in a box and holding a poison-tipped needle to his throat. Explaining that he will die if he removes his hand from the box, she emits an excruciatingly painful high-pitched sound the voice used as mind-control.

Image via Paul Roman

The voice itself was our most complex task, explained Mangini. It took 16 months to finish in the mix and [it] was the hardest thing for Theo to design. To leverage the voice as a weapon, Mother Mohiam must summon the strength of the ancestors. We didnt want to put a filter on the voice or a cocktail of plugins we wanted story-related ideas. So we brought in the voices of the ancestors by recording a group of authoritative women, and we hear their witchy voices throughout the room. He added that they thought it would be cool to also pull the oxygen out of the room. You didnt hear it, but felt it, he said.

Bartlett added that the beauty in that scene is from room tone. It gets sucked out to the high point of the sound, he said. You dont want to get there too fast but keep teasing people in anticipation of whats coming. In building up the sound and score, they used everything from dentist drills to guitars. It was a symbiotic relationship between me and Doug, he added. Zimmers score included Tuvan throat singing, creating cool layers of chanting that were spread out throughout this section.

The rescue of Paul Atreides is Bartletts favorite sonic scene in the movie. There are small sounds, giant sounds, both at the same time and everything in between, he said. Its real storytelling, with sound yanking you around and the score is so epic. It was really fun to mix.

Mangini recounted that the team went out multiple times to the desert to record sounds.

Apropos of FDR (fake documentary realism), I was trying to design the sound of a 400-meter-long worm sucking a Harvester into its maw, he said.

In addition to all the desert recordings, Bartlett said Hemphill came up with ideas such as using the sounds of ocean waves for the sand rippling sounds. When the big cloud of sand washes over Paul, that was Doug, filtering it with a live cue, he said. It was him performing it live.

Mangini noted that he also made a big growling sound as one of the elements of the wormhole. You cant move enough sand for the epic sound we needed.

Komar later asked Bartlett and Mangini to talk about how they exchanged and managed all the sound assets.

Avids ProTools and a shared server system at the studio, answered Mangini. I design sound, record it, populate a ProTools session, and hand that off. When Reel 1 is done, I have a typical review session and we have a Dewey decimal system to keep track of the latest iteration. He added that the way Doug and I work, we dont bring materials and import into another environment. We coordinated the plugins that people wanted to use, where they went, how many PCAs [Principal Component Analysis]. All that is pre-determined in the earliest stages of sound design and then dropped into a ProTools session.

Bartlett stated that he gave [the team] a template for dialogue very early on as well. You just keep carrying these things forward, he said. He also revealed that due in part due to COVID restrictions, he mixed the entire score in his home studio, which was outfitted with Dolby Atmos. It was fun and so intimate, he said. Thats where we really found the voice of the music and where it fit in. And it translated very well when we finally went back to Warner Bros.

For more coverage of the Sound for Film & TV event,click hereandhere, and click here for coverage of The Batman panel.

View original post here:
Dune Sound Team on Finding "The Voice," Using "Fake Documentary Realism" & the Rescue of Paul Atreides - Below the Line |...

As he seeks his third nonconsecutive term, former Republican Gov. Paul LePage has attempted to soften his stance toward immigration. But his statements have been inconsistent and sometimes contradictory as he balances the desires of his base of supporters with those who view asylum seekers as vital to the states economy.

LePage has long embraced the immigration hardliners in the Republican Party.

He partially channeled concerns over illegal immigration to reelection in 2014, and as Donald Trump described the southern border as overrun with criminals during his successful bid for president in 2016, LePage that same year described asylum seekers as the biggest problemin Maine at a town hall meeting in Freeport.

And what happens is you get hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, the ziki fly, [sic] all these other foreign type of diseases that find a way to our land, he said.

Ziki fly was an incorrect reference to the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness, but nevertheless, the former governors comments were typical of the language he used during his first two terms as he opposed public assistance for asylum seekers awaiting work permits and embraced Trumps foreign travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries.

The rhetoric hes using now is much different at least sometimes.

And Ill tell you, the governor of the state of Maine should have been parked in Washington, D.C., telling the President to let these people go to work, he said. If youre going to send them to Maine, were going to put them to work.

That was LePage during a debaterecently hosted by Maine Public and the Portland Press Herald as he took a position similar to his rival, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.

Mills and members of Maines congressional delegation support changing a federal law that bars asylum seekers from getting work permits until their asylum application has been in process for more than 180 days.

Weve got to lower the work eligibility, she said. Those people who are here legally and I have met personally with many of them. Lower it to 30 days. Theyre here to enjoy our freedoms and contribute to our economy. They should be allowed to do that.

Mills stance is supported by business groups, including the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, which views asylum seekers as key to solving the states workforce shortage.

LePage, whose political brand is closely associated with his business background, reiterated his view that asylum seekers should be allowed to work during a recent forum hosted by the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce even going so far as to obliquely chide Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for recently flying asylum seekers to Marthas Vineyardto make a political statement.

Instead of sending them to Marthas Vineyard, I want to put them to work, he said.

But thats different than what LePage told attendees about immigration at a town hall-style meeting in Mount Vernon in August, according to audio from the event shared by the Maine Democratic Party.

At one point, a man asks LePage how the state can deal with all the illegal aliens that are being dumped into our state, towns and cities.

Well, the only way you can do it is to do what Gov. Ducey and Gov. Abbott are doing. You rent a bus line, like Cyr bus line, and you ship em. You ship em to Washington, D.C., he said.

LePage goes on to say that the bused asylum seekers should be delivered straight to the White House.

That contradicts what he told a crowd of business leaders about immigration during the Portland chamber forum, but LePage also displayed a range of inconsistencies during the Mount Vernon event itself.

After initially suggesting asylum seekers should be bused to D.C., he tried to come around to the position hes taken in debates that asylum seekers should be allowed to work only to get wildly inaccurate pushback about immigration from some members of the crowd.

Well, we are the workers. Theyre coming into our little towns. Theyre bringing rape, murder, everything else, one woman yelled.

LePage again said the state has a lot of unfilled jobs, but the audience shouted over him.

Bring em in legally! Bring em in legally.

Yeah, they dont work!

Look, youre speaking to the choir. The person who has that policy is named Joe Biden, he said.

Im not sure why he [LePage] is saying both things at the same time, said Beth Stickney, director of the Maine Business Immigration Coalition.

Stickney is an attorney and director of the Maine Business Immigration Coalition, which includes chambers of commerce and individual businesses.

Stickney listened to LePages Mount Vernon comments, as well as immigration remarks hes made during debates, and shes identified accurate statements mixed with an array of false ones.

For example, she said LePage has at times insisted that asylum seekers are here illegally, which is false, and at others hes said they are here legally, which is correct.

And Stickney said LePages claim that federal rules prevent asylum seekers from working is also correct, although his claim during the Maine Public debate that the state could circumvent that prohibition with work IDs is not.

State law cannot override federal law. And the only way that asylum seekers will be able to get their work permits more quickly is for Congress to change the law back to what it once was, she said.

Up until 1994, asylum seekers could apply for work permits at the same time they applied for asylum.

That changed in 1996when Congress installed the 180-day wait period that exists today.

In Maine, the wait period has put pressure on host communities to provide food and shelter to asylum seekers through general assistance programs, which was made possible by a bill that passed in 2015 and that LePage attempted to veto, but not on time.

Now, his campaign is currently criticizing Mills for backing the program in an ad that falsely claims asylum seekers are illegal.

Mills giving taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants, the ad claims.

LePages campaign declined a request to interview the former governor to help reconcile his divergent claims about immigration.

A LePage spokesperson instead tried to make a distinction between asylum seekers who present themselves at a border checkpoint and those who cross illegally and then request asylum when caught by border patrol.

Stickney said the distinction does not change an asylum seekers legal status, nor does it justify bussing them to Washington, D.C.

This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.

More articles from the BDN

Excerpt from:
Paul LePage has softened his stance on immigration. Or has he? - Bangor Daily News

1. Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have been married for 26 years. 2. Steve Carrell and Nancy Carell have been married for 27 years. They met at an improv class at The Second City in Chicago and got married in 1995. 3. David E. Kelley, the creator/writer of Ally McBeal, The Practice, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences...the list goes on...and Michelle Pfeiffer have been together for 29 years. They met on a blind date in 1993, and were married later that year. 4. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall have been married for 35 years. They met at Northwestern (and then both ended up on Saturday Night Live), and got married in 1987. 5. Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin have been together for 51 years. They met in 1971, and after 42 years together, got married in 2013. 6. LaTanya Richardson and Samuel L. Jackson have been married for 42 years. They met at Morehouse College, and then wed in 1980. 7. Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen have been together for 21 years. They started dating in 2001 and got married in 2010. 8. Bo Derek and John Corbett have been together for 20 years. They started dating in 2002, and got married after 18 years in 2020. 9. Peter Hermann and Mariska Hargitay have been together for 21 years. They met in 2001 on the set of Law & Order, and got married in 2004. 10. Pauletta Washington and Denzel Washington have been together for 45 years. They met on the set of Wilma, which came out in 1977, and got married in 1983. 11. Maya Rudolph and director Paul Thomas Anderson have been together for 21 years. They've been dating since 2001. 12. David Beckham and Victoria Beckham have been together for 25 years. They started dating in 1997, and were married in 1999. 13. Tom Selleck and Jillie Mack have been together for 39 years. They met when Tom saw Jillie in Cats in London in 1983, and they got married in 1987. 14. Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy have been together since the '80s, and married for 25 years. They got married in 1997. 15. Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance have been married for 25 years. They met at Yale but didn't start dating until they met again 10 years later, and got married in 1995. 16. James Brolin (father of Josh Brolin) and Barbra Streisand have been together for 26 years. They met in 1996, and got married in 1998. 17. Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond have been together for 28 years. They met at The Second City (like Steve Carell and Nancy Carell) and got married in 2001. 18. Doug Savant, from Desperate Housewives, and Laura Leighton, from Pretty Little Liars, have been married for 24 years. They met while they were both starring on Melrose Place, and got married in 1998. 19. Mark Ruffalo and Sunrise Coigney have been married for 22 years. They got married in 2000. 20. Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have been together for 21 years. They met while doing A Beautiful Mind, and got married in 2003. 21. Jason Bateman and Amanda Anka (daughter of musician Paul Anka) have been married for 21 years. 22. Elton John and David Furnish have been together for 29 years. They met in 1993. In 2005, they joined in a civil partnership, and in 2014, got legally married. 23. Bryan Cranston and Robin Dearden have been together for 38 years. They met in 1984, and got married in 1989. 24. Jack Davenport (from Pirates of the Caribbean) and Michelle Gomez (from The Flight Attendant) have been married for 22 years. 25. Frances McDormand and Joel Coen (of the Coen brothers) have been married for 38 years. 26. Anna Kournikova and Enrique Iglesias have been together for 21 years. They started dating in 2001, and have been together since. They have three kids. 27. Jim Carter (from Downton Abbey) and Imelda Staunton (who will be playing Queen Elizabeth on The Crown next season) have been together for 39 years. They got married in 1983 after meeting while doing theater together. 28. Adam Sandler and Jackie Sandler have been together for 23 years. The met on the set of Big Daddy, and got married in 2003. 29. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard have been together for 20 years. They started dating in 2002, and got married in 2009. 30. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have been together for 22 years. They started dating in 2000, and then got married in 2002. 31. Jonathan Jackson (from Tuck Everlasting and Nashville) and Lisa Vultaggio (from General Hospital) have been married for 20 years. He was 20 when they got married in 2002. 32. Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline have been together for 37 years. They started dating in 1985, and got married in 1989. 33. Chynna Phillips (of Wilson Phillips, but also most recently known as the voice behind the viral TikTok sound "Holy Spirit Activate") and Billy Baldwin have been married 27 years. They got married in 1995. 34. Dan Finnerty (of The Dan Band) and Kathy Najimy have been married 24 years. Gloria Steinem officiated their wedding in 1998. 35. Robyn Lively (Blake Lively's half-sister) and Bart Johnson (aka Troy's dad from High School Musical) have been married for 23 years. 36. Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker have been together 20 years. They starred together on Soul Food, and started dating in 2002. They were married in 2005. 37. Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon have been together for 35 years. They met in 1987, and got married in 1988. 38. And finally, Bonnie Bartlett and William Daniels have been married for 71 years. They actually met at Northwestern University, and got married in 1951. BuzzFeed Daily

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38 Celeb Couples Who Have Been Together More Than 20 Years, Which Is Like, 150 Years In Normal People Time - BuzzFeed