NASA’s elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary. 

Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope’s demise Tuesday. 

Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9½-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty. 

“Kepler opened the gate for mankind’s exploration of the cosmos,” said retired NASA scientist William Borucki, who led the original Kepler science team. 

Super Earths found

Kepler discovered 2,681 planets outside our solar system and even more potential candidates. It showed us rocky worlds the size of Earth that, like Earth, might harbor life. It also unveiled incredible super Earths: planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. 

NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz estimated that anywhere from two to a dozen of the planets discovered by Kepler are rocky and Earth-sized in the so-called Goldilocks zone — the habitable area around a star where the temperature would permit existence of liquid water. But Kepler’s overall planet census showed that 20 percent to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky could have planets like ours in such a habitable zone for life, he said. 

The $700 million mission even helped to uncover last year a solar system with eight planets, just like ours. 

“It has revolutionized our understanding of our place in the cosmos,” Hertz said. “Now we know because of the Kepler Space Telescope and its science mission that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy.” 

Almost lost in 2013 because of equipment failure, Kepler was salvaged by engineers and kept peering into the cosmos, thick with stars and galaxies, ever on the lookout for dips in in the brightness of stars that could indicate an orbiting planet. 

“It was like trying to detect a flea crawling across a car headlight when the car was 100 miles away,” said Borucki said. 

The resurrected mission became known as K2 and yielded 350 confirmed exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, on top of what the telescope had already uncovered since its March 7, 2009, launch from Cape Canaveral. 

In all, close to 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed over the past two decades, two-thirds of them thanks to Kepler. 

Kepler focused on stars thousands of light-years away and, according to NASA, showed that statistically there’s at least one planet around every star in our Milky Way galaxy. 

Borucki, who dreamed up the mission decades ago, said one of his favorite discoveries was Kepler 22b, a water planet bigger than Earth but in an area where it is not too warm and not too cold — the type “that could lead to life.” 

Successor spacecraft

A successor to Kepler launched in April, NASA’s Tess spacecraft, has its sights on stars closer to home. It’s already identified some possible planets. 

Tess project scientist Padi Boyd called Kepler’s mission “stunningly successful.” 

Kepler showed us that “we live in a galaxy that’s teeming with planets, and we’re ready to take the next step to explore those planets,” she said. 

Another longtime spacecraft chasing strange worlds in our own solar system, meanwhile, is also close to death. 

NASA’s 11-year-old Dawn spacecraft is pretty much out of fuel after orbiting the asteroid Vesta as well as the dwarf planet Ceres. It remains in orbit around Ceres, which, like Vesta, is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Two of NASA’s older telescopes have been hit with equipment trouble recently, but have recovered. The 28-year-old Hubble Space Telescope resumed science observations last weekend, following a three-week shutdown. The 19-year-old Chandra X-ray Telescope’s pointing system also ran into trouble briefly in October. Both cases involved critical gyroscopes, needed to point the telescopes. 

Hertz said all the spacecraft problems were “completely independent” and coincidental in timing. 

Now 94 million miles from Earth, Kepler should remain in a safe, stable orbit around the sun. Flight controllers will disable the spacecraft’s transmitters, before bidding it a final “goodnight.” 
…

From: MeNeedIt

NASA’s elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary. 

Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope’s demise Tuesday. 

Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9½-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty. 

“Kepler opened the gate for mankind’s exploration of the cosmos,” said retired NASA scientist William Borucki, who led the original Kepler science team. 

Super Earths found

Kepler discovered 2,681 planets outside our solar system and even more potential candidates. It showed us rocky worlds the size of Earth that, like Earth, might harbor life. It also unveiled incredible super Earths: planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. 

NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz estimated that anywhere from two to a dozen of the planets discovered by Kepler are rocky and Earth-sized in the so-called Goldilocks zone — the habitable area around a star where the temperature would permit existence of liquid water. But Kepler’s overall planet census showed that 20 percent to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky could have planets like ours in such a habitable zone for life, he said. 

The $700 million mission even helped to uncover last year a solar system with eight planets, just like ours. 

“It has revolutionized our understanding of our place in the cosmos,” Hertz said. “Now we know because of the Kepler Space Telescope and its science mission that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy.” 

Almost lost in 2013 because of equipment failure, Kepler was salvaged by engineers and kept peering into the cosmos, thick with stars and galaxies, ever on the lookout for dips in in the brightness of stars that could indicate an orbiting planet. 

“It was like trying to detect a flea crawling across a car headlight when the car was 100 miles away,” said Borucki said. 

The resurrected mission became known as K2 and yielded 350 confirmed exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, on top of what the telescope had already uncovered since its March 7, 2009, launch from Cape Canaveral. 

In all, close to 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed over the past two decades, two-thirds of them thanks to Kepler. 

Kepler focused on stars thousands of light-years away and, according to NASA, showed that statistically there’s at least one planet around every star in our Milky Way galaxy. 

Borucki, who dreamed up the mission decades ago, said one of his favorite discoveries was Kepler 22b, a water planet bigger than Earth but in an area where it is not too warm and not too cold — the type “that could lead to life.” 

Successor spacecraft

A successor to Kepler launched in April, NASA’s Tess spacecraft, has its sights on stars closer to home. It’s already identified some possible planets. 

Tess project scientist Padi Boyd called Kepler’s mission “stunningly successful.” 

Kepler showed us that “we live in a galaxy that’s teeming with planets, and we’re ready to take the next step to explore those planets,” she said. 

Another longtime spacecraft chasing strange worlds in our own solar system, meanwhile, is also close to death. 

NASA’s 11-year-old Dawn spacecraft is pretty much out of fuel after orbiting the asteroid Vesta as well as the dwarf planet Ceres. It remains in orbit around Ceres, which, like Vesta, is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Two of NASA’s older telescopes have been hit with equipment trouble recently, but have recovered. The 28-year-old Hubble Space Telescope resumed science observations last weekend, following a three-week shutdown. The 19-year-old Chandra X-ray Telescope’s pointing system also ran into trouble briefly in October. Both cases involved critical gyroscopes, needed to point the telescopes. 

Hertz said all the spacecraft problems were “completely independent” and coincidental in timing. 

Now 94 million miles from Earth, Kepler should remain in a safe, stable orbit around the sun. Flight controllers will disable the spacecraft’s transmitters, before bidding it a final “goodnight.” 
…

From: MeNeedIt

NASA’s elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary. 

Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope’s demise Tuesday. 

Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9½-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty. 

“Kepler opened the gate for mankind’s exploration of the cosmos,” said retired NASA scientist William Borucki, who led the original Kepler science team. 

Super Earths found

Kepler discovered 2,681 planets outside our solar system and even more potential candidates. It showed us rocky worlds the size of Earth that, like Earth, might harbor life. It also unveiled incredible super Earths: planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. 

NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz estimated that anywhere from two to a dozen of the planets discovered by Kepler are rocky and Earth-sized in the so-called Goldilocks zone — the habitable area around a star where the temperature would permit existence of liquid water. But Kepler’s overall planet census showed that 20 percent to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky could have planets like ours in such a habitable zone for life, he said. 

The $700 million mission even helped to uncover last year a solar system with eight planets, just like ours. 

“It has revolutionized our understanding of our place in the cosmos,” Hertz said. “Now we know because of the Kepler Space Telescope and its science mission that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy.” 

Almost lost in 2013 because of equipment failure, Kepler was salvaged by engineers and kept peering into the cosmos, thick with stars and galaxies, ever on the lookout for dips in in the brightness of stars that could indicate an orbiting planet. 

“It was like trying to detect a flea crawling across a car headlight when the car was 100 miles away,” said Borucki said. 

The resurrected mission became known as K2 and yielded 350 confirmed exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, on top of what the telescope had already uncovered since its March 7, 2009, launch from Cape Canaveral. 

In all, close to 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed over the past two decades, two-thirds of them thanks to Kepler. 

Kepler focused on stars thousands of light-years away and, according to NASA, showed that statistically there’s at least one planet around every star in our Milky Way galaxy. 

Borucki, who dreamed up the mission decades ago, said one of his favorite discoveries was Kepler 22b, a water planet bigger than Earth but in an area where it is not too warm and not too cold — the type “that could lead to life.” 

Successor spacecraft

A successor to Kepler launched in April, NASA’s Tess spacecraft, has its sights on stars closer to home. It’s already identified some possible planets. 

Tess project scientist Padi Boyd called Kepler’s mission “stunningly successful.” 

Kepler showed us that “we live in a galaxy that’s teeming with planets, and we’re ready to take the next step to explore those planets,” she said. 

Another longtime spacecraft chasing strange worlds in our own solar system, meanwhile, is also close to death. 

NASA’s 11-year-old Dawn spacecraft is pretty much out of fuel after orbiting the asteroid Vesta as well as the dwarf planet Ceres. It remains in orbit around Ceres, which, like Vesta, is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Two of NASA’s older telescopes have been hit with equipment trouble recently, but have recovered. The 28-year-old Hubble Space Telescope resumed science observations last weekend, following a three-week shutdown. The 19-year-old Chandra X-ray Telescope’s pointing system also ran into trouble briefly in October. Both cases involved critical gyroscopes, needed to point the telescopes. 

Hertz said all the spacecraft problems were “completely independent” and coincidental in timing. 

Now 94 million miles from Earth, Kepler should remain in a safe, stable orbit around the sun. Flight controllers will disable the spacecraft’s transmitters, before bidding it a final “goodnight.” 
…

From: MeNeedIt

NASA’s elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary. 

Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope’s demise Tuesday. 

Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9½-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty. 

“Kepler opened the gate for mankind’s exploration of the cosmos,” said retired NASA scientist William Borucki, who led the original Kepler science team. 

Super Earths found

Kepler discovered 2,681 planets outside our solar system and even more potential candidates. It showed us rocky worlds the size of Earth that, like Earth, might harbor life. It also unveiled incredible super Earths: planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. 

NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz estimated that anywhere from two to a dozen of the planets discovered by Kepler are rocky and Earth-sized in the so-called Goldilocks zone — the habitable area around a star where the temperature would permit existence of liquid water. But Kepler’s overall planet census showed that 20 percent to 50 percent of the stars visible in the night sky could have planets like ours in such a habitable zone for life, he said. 

The $700 million mission even helped to uncover last year a solar system with eight planets, just like ours. 

“It has revolutionized our understanding of our place in the cosmos,” Hertz said. “Now we know because of the Kepler Space Telescope and its science mission that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy.” 

Almost lost in 2013 because of equipment failure, Kepler was salvaged by engineers and kept peering into the cosmos, thick with stars and galaxies, ever on the lookout for dips in in the brightness of stars that could indicate an orbiting planet. 

“It was like trying to detect a flea crawling across a car headlight when the car was 100 miles away,” said Borucki said. 

The resurrected mission became known as K2 and yielded 350 confirmed exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, on top of what the telescope had already uncovered since its March 7, 2009, launch from Cape Canaveral. 

In all, close to 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed over the past two decades, two-thirds of them thanks to Kepler. 

Kepler focused on stars thousands of light-years away and, according to NASA, showed that statistically there’s at least one planet around every star in our Milky Way galaxy. 

Borucki, who dreamed up the mission decades ago, said one of his favorite discoveries was Kepler 22b, a water planet bigger than Earth but in an area where it is not too warm and not too cold — the type “that could lead to life.” 

Successor spacecraft

A successor to Kepler launched in April, NASA’s Tess spacecraft, has its sights on stars closer to home. It’s already identified some possible planets. 

Tess project scientist Padi Boyd called Kepler’s mission “stunningly successful.” 

Kepler showed us that “we live in a galaxy that’s teeming with planets, and we’re ready to take the next step to explore those planets,” she said. 

Another longtime spacecraft chasing strange worlds in our own solar system, meanwhile, is also close to death. 

NASA’s 11-year-old Dawn spacecraft is pretty much out of fuel after orbiting the asteroid Vesta as well as the dwarf planet Ceres. It remains in orbit around Ceres, which, like Vesta, is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Two of NASA’s older telescopes have been hit with equipment trouble recently, but have recovered. The 28-year-old Hubble Space Telescope resumed science observations last weekend, following a three-week shutdown. The 19-year-old Chandra X-ray Telescope’s pointing system also ran into trouble briefly in October. Both cases involved critical gyroscopes, needed to point the telescopes. 

Hertz said all the spacecraft problems were “completely independent” and coincidental in timing. 

Now 94 million miles from Earth, Kepler should remain in a safe, stable orbit around the sun. Flight controllers will disable the spacecraft’s transmitters, before bidding it a final “goodnight.” 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Jimmy Page once painted a dragon, and used it to slay.

The guitar guru was so bursting with creative inspiration 50 years ago that he felt compelled to pick up a brush and use his skills from art school to take poster paints to his favorite instrument, a 1959 Fender Telecaster, and decorate it with a psychedelic beast.

He calls the axe “the Excalibur” that he wielded through the wildly eventful year of 1968, when his old band, the Yardbirds, crashed, and his new band, Led Zeppelin, was born just two months later.  

“My whole life is moving so fast at that point,” Page, now 74, said as he reflected on Led Zeppelin’s 50th anniversary in an interview with The Associated Press at the Fender guitar factory in California. “Absolutely just a roller-coaster ride.” 

Page said he had Led Zeppelin’s sound, and first songs, fully formed in his mind before the Yardbirds were even done.

“I just knew what way to go,” Page said. “It was in my instinct.”

He found his first ally in singer Robert Plant, whom he invited to his house to thumb through records and talk music.  

Page said he used an unlikely bit of folkie inspiration — Joan Baez — to show Plant the sound he wanted, playing her recording of the song “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and telling him to emulate the way she sang the top line of the song. Zeppelin would put the tune on its first album. 

Page still marvels at how fast the whole thing took off after Plant brought on drummer John Bonham and Page pulled in his friend John Paul Jones to play bass.

“The whole journey of Led Zeppelin and the rise of Led Zeppelin, each tour was just extraordinary, and the growth and the respect and love of the band, and the people that were flooding to see us,” Page said. 

The first record also included “Dazed and Confused,” with Page famously using a violin bow on the dragon guitar, which he played on every electric song on the record.

The guitar had been a cherished gift that guitarist Jeff Beck had given Page to thank him for recommending Beck for a job in the Yardbirds, which had brought a handsome payday.

“He’d bought a Corvette Stingray, and came roaring up my driveway with it,” Page remembered. “He said, ‘This is yours.’ I was absolutely thrilled to bits. It was given to me with so much affection.”

Page said he made immediate and intense use of the instrument, and wanted to “consecrate” it, so he went at it with paints that were used at the time for psychedelic posters, and summoned the dragon.

Page later left the guitar behind at his home in England on an early U.S. tour with Led Zeppelin in 1969. He’d come to regret it.

When he returned, exhausted and abuzz, he found that a ceramicist friend who had been serving as his house-sitter had painted over the dragon in his own mosaic style as a “gift” for Page.

“It was a disaster,” he said.

Page angrily stripped off all the paint and he placed it in storage, where it sat for decades.

Flash forward 50 years. Page was assembling a book for the band’s anniversary, and the dragon guitar kept popping up in pictures.

Page felt that maybe it was time to bring the old beast back to life. He worked with a graphic artist who helped illustrate the book, using photos to repaint the guitar, and recreate its old look. 

He loved the result so much that he approached Fender, and the guitar maker happily signed on to make an anniversary rendition for the public. The design will be unveiled in January.

“It’s absolutely identical,” Page said. “You wouldn’t see any difference. If anything, the colors were just slightly richer.”

Four different versions of the guitar will be released next year.

Along with the book, the instruments are a tribute to the band’s 50-year legacy.

Asked what kind of gift one might get for his bandmates for such a milestone, Page said, “I might give them a paintbrush, and the body of a guitar, and see if they can do something with it.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Jimmy Page once painted a dragon, and used it to slay.

The guitar guru was so bursting with creative inspiration 50 years ago that he felt compelled to pick up a brush and use his skills from art school to take poster paints to his favorite instrument, a 1959 Fender Telecaster, and decorate it with a psychedelic beast.

He calls the axe “the Excalibur” that he wielded through the wildly eventful year of 1968, when his old band, the Yardbirds, crashed, and his new band, Led Zeppelin, was born just two months later.  

“My whole life is moving so fast at that point,” Page, now 74, said as he reflected on Led Zeppelin’s 50th anniversary in an interview with The Associated Press at the Fender guitar factory in California. “Absolutely just a roller-coaster ride.” 

Page said he had Led Zeppelin’s sound, and first songs, fully formed in his mind before the Yardbirds were even done.

“I just knew what way to go,” Page said. “It was in my instinct.”

He found his first ally in singer Robert Plant, whom he invited to his house to thumb through records and talk music.  

Page said he used an unlikely bit of folkie inspiration — Joan Baez — to show Plant the sound he wanted, playing her recording of the song “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and telling him to emulate the way she sang the top line of the song. Zeppelin would put the tune on its first album. 

Page still marvels at how fast the whole thing took off after Plant brought on drummer John Bonham and Page pulled in his friend John Paul Jones to play bass.

“The whole journey of Led Zeppelin and the rise of Led Zeppelin, each tour was just extraordinary, and the growth and the respect and love of the band, and the people that were flooding to see us,” Page said. 

The first record also included “Dazed and Confused,” with Page famously using a violin bow on the dragon guitar, which he played on every electric song on the record.

The guitar had been a cherished gift that guitarist Jeff Beck had given Page to thank him for recommending Beck for a job in the Yardbirds, which had brought a handsome payday.

“He’d bought a Corvette Stingray, and came roaring up my driveway with it,” Page remembered. “He said, ‘This is yours.’ I was absolutely thrilled to bits. It was given to me with so much affection.”

Page said he made immediate and intense use of the instrument, and wanted to “consecrate” it, so he went at it with paints that were used at the time for psychedelic posters, and summoned the dragon.

Page later left the guitar behind at his home in England on an early U.S. tour with Led Zeppelin in 1969. He’d come to regret it.

When he returned, exhausted and abuzz, he found that a ceramicist friend who had been serving as his house-sitter had painted over the dragon in his own mosaic style as a “gift” for Page.

“It was a disaster,” he said.

Page angrily stripped off all the paint and he placed it in storage, where it sat for decades.

Flash forward 50 years. Page was assembling a book for the band’s anniversary, and the dragon guitar kept popping up in pictures.

Page felt that maybe it was time to bring the old beast back to life. He worked with a graphic artist who helped illustrate the book, using photos to repaint the guitar, and recreate its old look. 

He loved the result so much that he approached Fender, and the guitar maker happily signed on to make an anniversary rendition for the public. The design will be unveiled in January.

“It’s absolutely identical,” Page said. “You wouldn’t see any difference. If anything, the colors were just slightly richer.”

Four different versions of the guitar will be released next year.

Along with the book, the instruments are a tribute to the band’s 50-year legacy.

Asked what kind of gift one might get for his bandmates for such a milestone, Page said, “I might give them a paintbrush, and the body of a guitar, and see if they can do something with it.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Gab, a social networking site often accused of being a haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups, went offline Monday after being refused by several web hosting providers following revelations that Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers used the platform to threaten Jews.

“Gab isn’t going anywhere,” said Andrew Torba, chief executive officer and creator of Gab.com. “We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

Founded two years ago as an alternative to mainstream social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Torba billed Gab as a haven for free speech. The site soon began attracting online members of the alt-right and other extremist ideologies unwelcome on other platforms.

“What makes the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly qualified to tell us what is ‘news’ and what is ‘trending’ and to define what “harassment” means?” Torba wrote in a 2016 email to Buzzfeed News.

The tide swiftly turned against Gab after Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday morning with an assault rifle and several handguns, killing 11 and wounding six.

It came to light that Bowers had made several anti-Semitic posts on the site, including one the morning of the shooting that read “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) helps refugees resettle in the United States.

Following Bowers’ posts being picked up by national media, PayPal and payment processor Stripe announced that they would be ending their relationship with Gab. Hosting providers followed soon after, and the website was nonfunctional by Monday morning.

In an interview with NPR aired Monday, Torba defended leaving up Bowers’ post from the morning of the shooting.

“Do you see a direct threat in there?” Torba said. “Because I don’t. What would you expect us to do with a post like that? You want us to just censor anybody who says the phrase ‘I’m going in’? Because that’s just absurd.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Gab, a social networking site often accused of being a haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups, went offline Monday after being refused by several web hosting providers following revelations that Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers used the platform to threaten Jews.

“Gab isn’t going anywhere,” said Andrew Torba, chief executive officer and creator of Gab.com. “We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

Founded two years ago as an alternative to mainstream social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Torba billed Gab as a haven for free speech. The site soon began attracting online members of the alt-right and other extremist ideologies unwelcome on other platforms.

“What makes the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly qualified to tell us what is ‘news’ and what is ‘trending’ and to define what “harassment” means?” Torba wrote in a 2016 email to Buzzfeed News.

The tide swiftly turned against Gab after Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday morning with an assault rifle and several handguns, killing 11 and wounding six.

It came to light that Bowers had made several anti-Semitic posts on the site, including one the morning of the shooting that read “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) helps refugees resettle in the United States.

Following Bowers’ posts being picked up by national media, PayPal and payment processor Stripe announced that they would be ending their relationship with Gab. Hosting providers followed soon after, and the website was nonfunctional by Monday morning.

In an interview with NPR aired Monday, Torba defended leaving up Bowers’ post from the morning of the shooting.

“Do you see a direct threat in there?” Torba said. “Because I don’t. What would you expect us to do with a post like that? You want us to just censor anybody who says the phrase ‘I’m going in’? Because that’s just absurd.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Gab, a social networking site often accused of being a haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups, went offline Monday after being refused by several web hosting providers following revelations that Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers used the platform to threaten Jews.

“Gab isn’t going anywhere,” said Andrew Torba, chief executive officer and creator of Gab.com. “We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

Founded two years ago as an alternative to mainstream social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Torba billed Gab as a haven for free speech. The site soon began attracting online members of the alt-right and other extremist ideologies unwelcome on other platforms.

“What makes the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly qualified to tell us what is ‘news’ and what is ‘trending’ and to define what “harassment” means?” Torba wrote in a 2016 email to Buzzfeed News.

The tide swiftly turned against Gab after Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday morning with an assault rifle and several handguns, killing 11 and wounding six.

It came to light that Bowers had made several anti-Semitic posts on the site, including one the morning of the shooting that read “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) helps refugees resettle in the United States.

Following Bowers’ posts being picked up by national media, PayPal and payment processor Stripe announced that they would be ending their relationship with Gab. Hosting providers followed soon after, and the website was nonfunctional by Monday morning.

In an interview with NPR aired Monday, Torba defended leaving up Bowers’ post from the morning of the shooting.

“Do you see a direct threat in there?” Torba said. “Because I don’t. What would you expect us to do with a post like that? You want us to just censor anybody who says the phrase ‘I’m going in’? Because that’s just absurd.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Gab, a social networking site often accused of being a haven for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups, went offline Monday after being refused by several web hosting providers following revelations that Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers used the platform to threaten Jews.

“Gab isn’t going anywhere,” said Andrew Torba, chief executive officer and creator of Gab.com. “We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.

Founded two years ago as an alternative to mainstream social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Torba billed Gab as a haven for free speech. The site soon began attracting online members of the alt-right and other extremist ideologies unwelcome on other platforms.

“What makes the entirely left-leaning Big Social monopoly qualified to tell us what is ‘news’ and what is ‘trending’ and to define what “harassment” means?” Torba wrote in a 2016 email to Buzzfeed News.

The tide swiftly turned against Gab after Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday morning with an assault rifle and several handguns, killing 11 and wounding six.

It came to light that Bowers had made several anti-Semitic posts on the site, including one the morning of the shooting that read “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) helps refugees resettle in the United States.

Following Bowers’ posts being picked up by national media, PayPal and payment processor Stripe announced that they would be ending their relationship with Gab. Hosting providers followed soon after, and the website was nonfunctional by Monday morning.

In an interview with NPR aired Monday, Torba defended leaving up Bowers’ post from the morning of the shooting.

“Do you see a direct threat in there?” Torba said. “Because I don’t. What would you expect us to do with a post like that? You want us to just censor anybody who says the phrase ‘I’m going in’? Because that’s just absurd.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

At this time of the year, people in many parts of the world observe holidays honoring the dead. In some countries the focus is on celebrating ancestors, in others the end of the harvest and beginning of the darker portion of the year. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports most of these holidays have roots in ancient folk traditions.
…

From: MeNeedIt

At this time of the year, people in many parts of the world observe holidays honoring the dead. In some countries the focus is on celebrating ancestors, in others the end of the harvest and beginning of the darker portion of the year. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports most of these holidays have roots in ancient folk traditions.
…

From: MeNeedIt