Since i was not able to get this community from the ground, I will not be moving it elsewhere.

Thank you for coming everyone.

If anyone wants to further engage with FlightGear community, i recommend very active and populated discord server: https://discord.gg/rzuV2DR

Other options can be found at https://wiki.flightgear.org/Discord

Image for this post originates from https://wiki.flightgear.org/File:SOTM_2021-11_Right_after_takeoff_in_sunset_in_the_(MD-11F,_FedEx_livery)_with_early_WiP_HDR_pipeline_in_FG_next_branch_by_SP-NTX.jpg

used under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

The president has been discussing plans to rip up the grass in one of the White House’s most iconic locations and put in a hard surface to serve as a patio like the one at his Florida home and club.

President Trump has been busy upending the federal government, reorienting U.S. foreign policy, threatening trade wars and winning confirmation for his Cabinet choices.

But he has managed to find time for a project closer to home: He has told associates that he wants to rip up the grass in the Rose Garden, one of the White House’s most iconic and meticulously maintained spots, and replace it with a hard surface to resemble a patio like the one he has at Mar-a-Lago.

Designers have drafted options for how to remake the surface of the Rose Garden, which sits just outside the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. Mr. Trump has discussed whether it should be limestone or an easily interchangeable hard surface, with the possibility of installing hardwood floors for dancing, according to four people briefed on the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

The roses, apparently, will stay.

Mr. Trump has other plans for the West Wing. He wants to hang a grand chandelier from the ceiling of the Oval Office, the people briefed on the matter said.

What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight. Learn more about our process.

He has already covered almost every free inch of the walls and mantle space in the Oval Office with portraits of presidents, among other images; one frame just outside the office includes the New York Post front page photo of Mr. Trump’s mug shot when he was processed after being indicted in Fulton County, Ga. There are also gold vases and statuettes and at least one gold figurine embedded in an elevated wall molding. The figurine was screwed into the wall by Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, who traveled to Washington to perform the task, the people said.

Mr. Trump has also privately revived an idea he first pitched to Mr. Obama’s advisers when the former president was in office: to build a ballroom at the White House, “like I have at Mar-a-Lago,” which Mr. Trump says would cost $100 million.

But the ballroom idea is notional so far; the Rose Garden patio space is not, and it has been the subject of almost daily discussions.

In a statement, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said the president was seeking to restore the building’s historical stature. “The White House has not been given any tender, loving care in many decades, so President Trump is taking necessary steps in order to preserve and restore the greatness and glory of ‘the People’s House,’” he said.

Mr. Trump has made clear to associates that he wants to recreate the patio experience at Mar-a-Lago, his members-only club and home in Palm Beach, Fla., creating a better space for entertaining guests. When he is at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump spends hours of his evenings on the patio, with club members and other V.I.P.s dropping by his table to pay their respects. He often holds an iPad, controlling the playlist and blasting Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown at earsplitting volumes.

(...)

https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/us/politics/mar-a-lago-trump-grass-rose-garden.html

Hey, he murdered a person and got away with it, that's our guy!

Vice President-elect JD Vance on Friday said that he had invited Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car, to attend the Army-Navy football game on Saturday with him.

The two will join President-elect Donald J. Trump in a suite at the game, which is set to be played this year just outside of Washington.

Somdeep Sen, Associate Professor of International Development Studies at Roskilde University

The liberal world order, with its supposed commitment to the rule of law, human rights and equality for all, met its demise in Gaza.

There is more than enough evidence confirming the genocidal nature of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Yet, political leaders in the West have been uncompromising in their support of Israel’s efforts. At the United Nations, the majority of the world has consistently passed resolutions condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and called for an end to the occupation. Israel has responded by making UN agencies and personnel targets of war. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. The United States has rejected the court’s decision and Israel has continued to bombard Gaza. All of this has happened under a Democratic US leadership. With the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, we can expect a fast-track dismantling of whatever is left of this liberal order.

(...)

Researchers are conducting the UK’s first major scientific trials to establish whether giving homeless people cash is a more effective way of reducing poverty than traditional forms of help.

Poverty campaigners have long believed that cash transfers are the most cost-effective way of helping people, but most studies have examined schemes in developing countries.

The new study, funded by the government and carried out by King’s College London (KCL) and the homelessness charity Greater Change, will recruit 360 people in England and Wales. Half will continue to get help from frontline charities. The other half will get additional help from Greater Change, whose support workers will discuss their financial problems then pay for items such as rent deposits, outstanding debts, work equipment, white goods, furniture or new clothes. They do not make direct transfers to avoid benefits being stopped due to a cash influx.

Professor Michael Sanders, who runs KCL’s experimental government unit, said: “What we’re trying to understand is the boundary conditions for cash transfers. When does it work? For whom does it work? What are the amounts you need to give people in order to make it work?”

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Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration would declare a national emergency and use the US military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

In an early morning social media post, Trump responded “TRUE!!!” to a post by Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who wrote on 8 November that the next administration “will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program”.

Since his decisive victory, Trump has said he intends to make good on his campaign promise to execute mass deportations, beginning on the first day of his presidency. But many aspects of what he has described as the “largest deportation program in American history” remain unclear.

Trump has previously suggested he would rely on wartime powers, military troops and sympathetic state and local leaders. Such a sprawling campaign – and the use of military personnel to carry it out – is almost certain to draw legal challenges and pushback from Democratic leaders, some of whom have already said they would refuse to cooperate with Trump’s deportation agenda.

Right-wing groups, which use Telegram to organize real-world actions, are urging followers to watch the polls and stand up for their rights, in a harbinger of potential chaos.

Just randomly found in comments on imgur, might be old, but i think it is an example of actually beautiful data representation...

District Attorney Larry Krasner of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit on Monday to stop Elon Musk and his Trump-supporting organization, America PAC, from continuing their $1 million daily giveaway in Pennsylvania, calling it an illegal lottery scheme to influence voters in the presidential election.

Jeri Taylor, known to Trek fans for her work on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager has passed away. The Emmy-nominated writer and producer was 86 years old.

https://archive.is/v9RJo

It’s long been deeply unsettling to me how many behaviors associated with psychopathy Mr. Trump exemplifies. There are seven characteristics associated with “antisocial personality disorder,” according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: deceitfulness, impulsivity, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, irritability and aggressiveness, reckless disregard for the safety of self or others, consistent irresponsibility and lack of remorse. I’ve observed all seven in Mr. Trump over the years, and watched them get progressively worse. It’s the last one — lack of remorse — that gives him license to freely exercise the other six.

The past is prologue and, as Mr. Trump has said, he’s essentially the same person today that he was as a child. That is the central warning “The Apprentice” poses, and it comes just five weeks before the election.

Ever since Mr. Trump announced in 2015 that he was running for president, I’ve argued publicly that the only limitation on his behavior as president — then and now — is what he believes he can get away with. Mr. Trump has made it clear that he believes he can get away with a lot more today. If he does win back the presidency, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll have much more on his mind than revenge and domination — damn the consequences — in his doomed, lifelong quest to feel good enough.

The inside story of how the producers of “The Apprentice” crafted a TV version of Mr. Trump — measured, thoughtful and endlessly wealthy — that ultimately fueled his path to the White House.

Late in the summer of 2003, a team of television producers stepped off the elevator on the 26th floor of Trump Tower eager to survey the set of their next reality show. After years filming “Survivor” in jungles around the world, training cameras on exotic spiders and deadly snakes to evoke danger, they came looking for a different set of sensory clues, the tiny details that would convey wealth and power.

Right away, they knew they had a problem.

The first thing they noticed was the stench, a musty carpet odor that followed them like an invisible cloud. Then they spotted scores of chips in the finish of the wooden desks and credenzas. The décor felt long out of date, making the space seem like a time capsule from when Donald J. Trump opened the building early in his first rise to fame.

WINDHOEK, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Namibia plans to cull 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants, and to distribute the meat to people struggling to feed themselves because of a severe drought across southern Africa, the environment ministry said.

The cull will take place in parks and communal areas where authorities believe animal numbers exceed available grazing land and water supplies, it said in a statement issued on Monday.

Southern Africa is facing its worst drought in decades, with Namibia having exhausted 84% of its food reserves last month, according to the United Nations. Nearly half of Namibia's population is expected to experience high levels of food insecurity in the coming months.

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One of the Biden White House’s greatest achievements, from the perspective of its staffers, if not necessarily the country, has been to deny the press the kind of juicy leaks that were constant under Donald Trump and frequent under his predecessors. Save for a very narrow period of time, that is, when there was a push to force an aging president toward the exits: Then and only then we got a drip-drip-drip of fascinating inside information.

For instance, we learned that Biden hadn’t held a full cabinet meeting since last October and that his handlers expected scripted questions from his cabinet officials. We learned that his capacities peak between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and diminish outside that six-hour window. We learned that congressional Democrats, liberal donors and some journalists all had exposure to Biden’s decline that they didn’t discuss publicly until the debacle of the June debate. We learned that none other than Hunter Biden was acting as a close adviser to his father in the crucial days after that debate.

We even learned that from early in his presidency, the first lady’s closest aides worked to shield her husband from the staff that serves the first family in its living quarters, even as the aides themselves were given unusual access to the residence — as though it were essential to create a cocoon of loyalty and silence around the nation’s chief executive even when he isn’t on the job.

These are all interesting and pertinent facts about the man who officially leads the United States in a time of global danger — and they have not ceased to be pertinent because that president is no longer running for re-election.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/opinion/joe-biden-president.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CE4.0hyL.9CNFJAmhWmk2&smid=url-share

https://archive.is/u2JyP