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62.48 spot silver.

In a brazen move that reeks of authoritarian control, the UK government is pushing plans to seize influence over YouTube's recommendation system. Their goal is to prioritise content from the BBC, and other state backed propaganda machines, while burying independent journalists and creators who dare challenge the official narrative.

Anyone know non toxic tips to keep or getting rid of fleas? I’ve listened a few things I did hopefully it helps. I’m open to suggestions. I don’t have an infestation. Want to avoid that, been there done that. We took my daughter’s dog over a year ago because she had a toddler and was pregnant. I already kept him when she worked so he was already half ours. He’s been having seizures several years and has bad anxiety. Now he’s on seizure meds and I didn’t want to do frontline. My husband sprays our yard regularly for all bugs especially fire ants. We haven’t had flea issues in years and stopped frontline. Well our little dachshund isn’t happy with me today. I found a couple fleas this morning on him and me. He got a bath, ears cleaned, sprayed with a lavender hydrosol (water that’s leftover after making essential oil). Now I’ve sprayed our chairs and the floor with a water based hydrosol, vinegar, cedarwood & lavender essential oils. I haven’t restocked essential oils in a long time and those were the only ones that are dog safe and fleas hate. Now I’m doing laundry of anything that might be an issue.

Guaranteed pick-me-up for those feeling a little blue after the Fourth of July festivities. Even though this hymn has to do with Christmas, every time I hear it [and play the scene on YouTube], it grounds me. Some of Bach's cantatas do the same thing. Anyway, look up "Oh Sing To God [Your Hymns of Gladness]" and feel your worries lift away.

If you're looking for a fun movie this month. Go see The Sheep Detectives. Similar to Babe but slightly darker with a fun ending..

how is this possible?

I have been wearing prescription glasses for almost a decade. the last year my vision in my good eye has been getting worse.

last week I close my eyes and started to make my good eye flex.. I don't know how to exactly say it but we have a muscle in our eyes and I would close my eyes and concentrate and essentially zoom in and zoom out.. would do the same with my eye open.

the next day my eye is swollen and my temple is but I can see like I did 20 years ago with my good eye and it has stuck for a few days now.

it seemed like I popped a zit so to speak and my eye lid is still swollen a bit.

my goodness I was tired the next day and wore out.

been to 2 eye doctors in the past few years because the 1st prescribed me some type of eye glasses I refused to wear and the 2nd prescribed me more normal type of glasses.

with glasses I was seeing fine but my issue is going from the screen and to do something physical and back to the screen. the eye would seem to be stuck like I had a stigmatism. One doctor said I had a rare sort of what I call reverse stigmatism.

I do not know if it will stick to being good again but I have no needed to put glasses on at all and I can even read the little letters on cd cases and focus on the letters from close to far again.

do not want to do what I did again because it was like running a marathon. it wore me out for the whole rest of the day and the next day. Considering trying to do with my bad eye that I have always had 20/200 vision with... maybe my eye shape needs recalibrated or something . haha

QUESTION @EVERYONE:

Have you ever had a dream about your phone?

Just curious...

a frog wrote this:

The golden age looks like shit.

other frog:

Why are you on this board? You obviously don’t believe that there is a plan in place so why bother?

First frog:

Because I used to believe and now I'm pissed.

his comments got more upvotes than you'd expect.

Anyway, my response to him. I dunno, but to me, this makes sense:

While your response and reaction is understandable, its not necessary or advisable. There are two points that have to be taken into account when engaging with the Great Awakening phenomena.

The first one is the ability to self-reflect. In other words, there is no external great awakening (society, the nation, the population) without an internal great awakening (one's self). In other words, to keep up and move forward, one MUST have an element of self-reflection, checking one's own thinking, one's attitudes, one's biases, and one's flaws.

Without this, you simply cannot progress or keep up. And, the people who are keeping up, who offer the best analysis and 40,000 ft views, are the one's who do this consistently, on a regular basis.

Examining how humans deal with beliefs, and what happens when their beliefs are broken, it becomes clear that broken belief is almost always tied to misplaced beliefs, beliefs embraced but with an almost blind eye to one's deeper motives and needs.

Pivotal example is Karl Marx. You can see his beliefs going sour from an early age, until eventually, he completely rejected God and embraced disbelief as his external ethos. And, he ended up embracing and believing in something, but that something was completely negative and destructive.

Investing belief is so important to our growth, but when disappointment and dismay arise, what';s needed is to self-check and go inward, to find answers. Why did I believe [x]? What was my real motive? Why am I disappointed/dismayed/choosing disbelief?

Belief has to grow, but that growth is a process of moving from child-like belief (unquestioning), to adolescent belief (asking, poking, prodding, questioning one's accepted beliefs) and if you can pass through this stage, with faith, to arrive at adult (mature) belief, which is belief with knowing, belief in which reason, facts, experience actually enforce the (newly developed or matured) beliefs.

Ultimately, belief has to do with focus. Where do you focus? Some people are looking at everything that has been happening the past decade, the past 17 months, and have never been more optimistic because of WHAT THEY SEE. Others look at and focus on certain other things, and end up being completely discouraged, disbelieving, and angry/upset.

The difference here is choice. And the choice is primarily determined by that critical, necessary, internal 'great awakening' (which by the way has to be an ongoing process).

Do you know when the United States truly was born? It wasn't in 1776. In wasn't in 1774, when the first continental congress took place. The vision, the ideal, the entire concept of the United States first began to emerge in the first Great Awakening, in the 1730s and 1740s, when a new spirit began to emerge in the American population. At first, just a whisper, but which eventually grew into a raging hurricane that forged a completely unprecedented of human experience and governance in the face of the mightiest empire the world knew at that time.

The second point is rigorous attention to facts, events, aka 'the dots', and an evidence based approach to the information war, not simply raw belief or optimism.

Suggestion: revisit your preconceptions about what it is that Q was talking about, and why, and what the objectives are, and revisit your perspective on what has been happening since, especially since Trump 2.0. Done well, that will guide you to look further down the line to see where things are (or can be) headed, instead of simply all the chaos and trouble you see in front of you.

Well, its just a suggestion.

Personally, I've had to revisit (and revise) my understanding of Q many times, my understanding of the real problem (the forces arrayed against freedom) many times, and work on expanding my vision many times.

Things have never been darker, this is true, but the old saying that its darkest before the dawn is also true. The problem for some is, they get absorbed by the darkness before the arrival of the light, or before they perceive the light. Hence, faith. Not blind faith, but informed, reasoned, tested faith, that focuses on where the light is, rather than the darkness....

Good luck.

Addendum: here's the thing. When you take this 2-point approach, even if you are wrong, what you have is resilience, forward vision and hope. Because, if you are right - and nothing is going to happen, no arrests, no golden age, etc, - then you're screwed anyway, and you are going to need strong faith to weather what is coming.

Not taking this approach, the temptation of despair inflamed by emotions creeps closer and closer, and that only leads to one place. Ask Karl Marx.

https://greatawakening.win/p/1ATBlwI0W9/the-golden-age-is-here-/c/

Psalm 48:5 - As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. https://www.bible.com/bible/59/PSA.48.5.ESV

u/#ridetofreedom

Fireworks. Natural, then manmade. Let there be light.

Molluscan Methuselahs: Fossil Crassostrea Oysters BY JAKE HEBERT, PH.D. * | TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2026

https://www.icr.org/article/15

Both before and after the global Flood in the days of Noah, people routinely lived for centuries (Genesis 5 and 11). Research at ICR is finding that this extreme longevity likely characterized animals, too. For example, both fossil and modern Crassostrea oysters have been the subject of growth and longevity studies in part because Crassostrea oysters are important to the commercial seafood industry (Figure 1). And through these studies, researchers have found strong evidence of greater past longevity for these oysters. Some of this evidence has been previously discussed, but it is so remarkable that it deserves a more in-depth treatment here.1 First, I’ll address why animals living before and shortly after the Genesis Flood likely had longer lifespans. Then I’ll present the clues for greater longevity that we can expect to see in fossil remains. And finally, I’ll describe how fossil Crassostrea oysters do indeed show the expected direct and indirect evidence for very long lifespans.

Before and After the Flood, Animals Likely Had Long Lives

Figure 1. The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica Image credit: Eric A. Lazo-Wasem, Yale Peabody Museum. CC BY 1.0, Public Domain The Bible gives no indication that the remarkable human longevity recorded in Genesis was in any way miraculous. It could have been due to biologic or environmental factors or a combination of the two. Since the first people and animals were created perfect by God, they had no genetic mistakes in their DNA. Their human and animal descendants at the time of the Flood would have had very few mistakes in their genomes. Right now, though, no one can give a definitive biological mechanism explaining the longer lifespans. Also, humans and animals were living in essentially the same pre-Flood environment, although in different ecosystems. Whether the amazing longevity was due to biologic or environmental causes or a combination of the two, it likely characterized both people and animals, including oysters.

We also know from Genesis 11 that people still had very long lifespans even after the Flood. It makes sense, then, for one to expect the same to be true of animals living shortly after the Flood.

What does this mean for people studying fossils? Nearly all the world’s fossils are the remains of creatures that were buried in mud during the Genesis Flood. But the Flood then provided ideal conditions to trigger an immediate Ice Age.2 Catastrophic Ice Age flooding, resulting from heavy rainfall and melting ice sheets, also buried and fossilized some creatures. So, one can expect both Flood and Ice Age fossils to show evidence of greater past animal longevity. There would also probably be a decline in longevity in the more recent Ice Age fossils, which are usually designated as Upper Pleistocene or Late Pleistocene by conventional scientists.3,4

Figure 2. An Eocene (Flood) Crassostrea gigantissima fossil from Texas Image credit: Wilson44691, CC BY-SA 3.0 Longevity, Body Size, and Maturation Times

Longevity studies in living animals show that the ones that take a long time to mature usually live longer than those that mature more quickly.5 Likewise, we know from general experience that large animals usually live longer than small animals. We see evidence of both delayed maturation and larger body sizes in fossil Crassostrea oysters. Crassostrea virginica, also known as the eastern oyster, is prized as a seafood. It is often about 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) long (Figure 1). Yet fossil Crassostrea oysters, such as C. titan and C. gigantissima (Figure 2), were twice that long.

Fossil and Modern: Same Genesis Kind?

Modern humans are the direct descendants of Noah and his family members, who had much longer lifespans than we do. Yet both we and they belong to mankind, the human “kind” or baramin (Genesis 1:20–25). In a similar way, we want to compare the lifespans of modern Crassostrea oysters to those of their direct ancestors to be able to make an accurate comparison. But not all oysters necessarily belong to the same baramin, and different oyster kinds might have different potential lifespans. Can we be reasonably sure that modern and fossil Crassostrea oysters belong to the same baramin for us to do an apples-to-apples lifespan comparison?

It complicates things that biologists and paleontologists often place very similar creatures in different taxonomic categories, even when those creatures likely belonged to the same Genesis kind. In terms of the Linnean classification system, most creationists think baramin is equivalent to either the family taxonomic level or to the level just below it, that of genus. The fact that paleontologists, despite their tendency to place similar creatures in different categories, have assigned both fossil and modern Crassostrea oysters to not just the same family but to the same genus suggests that fossil and modern Crassostrea oysters are very similar and likely really do belong to the same Genesis kind.

In fact, conventional paleontologists have explicitly stated that modern Crassostrea oysters are very likely the direct descendants of fossil Crassostrea oysters. A 1964 United States government report stated, “the [Crassostrea fossil] lineage continues, however, with little basic modification, through the Cenozoic [uppermost rocks], being represented in the Eocene by C. gigantissima (French) and probably, in modern times, by C. virginica (Gmelin).”6 The author of a 1991 paper wrote that C. gigantissima “is most certainly the direct ancestor of C. virginica.”7 Since modern and fossil Crassostrea oysters likely belong to the same baramin, it is legitimate to compare their lifespans, just as we can compare the lifespans of modern humans to those of Noah’s family.

Modern and Fossil Growth Curves

Scientists count growth bands in both living and fossil oysters and use these counts to make graphs of body size versus age. These plots show the average growth pattern for a particular oyster. These curves usually show rapid juvenile growth that gradually slows down as the creature matures. In some cases, the growth curve levels off completely, showing the age at which an oyster reaches full adult size.

It is important to consider when comparing oyster longevity, though, that bivalve lifespans can be affected by factors like water temperature and food availability.5 Bivalves living in cold water tend to live longer than bivalves living in warmer water. Limited food intake (or caloric restriction) may also increase lifespan. For this reason, when comparing fossil and modern Crassostrea lifespans, one should take care to ensure, if possible, that the fossil and modern versions lived under similar conditions, especially similar water temperatures. This again ensures an apples-to-apples comparison. In the examples described below, we can be reasonably confident that the longer lifespans of the fossil oysters were not the result of colder waters or a limited food supply.

Figure 3. Average Crassostrea oyster growth curves for modern North Carolina (solid black line), Late Pleistocene (Ice Age) Virginia (solid gray line), and Miocene (Flood) California (black dashed lines). Each growth curve stops at the age of the oldest specimen in the group. Image credit: Reconstructed from Figure 3B in Kirby8 The average growth pattern and adult body size of modern C. virginica oysters from North Carolina are shown by the solid black line in Figure 3.8 Other Crassostrea studies from the United States Eastern Seaboard, as well as studies from Bangladesh and Mexico, show that modern Crassostrea lifespans of 5 to 10 years are typical, although some sources say they can live as long as 20 years in uncrowded environments.9–11

The average growth curve for Upper Pleistocene (likely Ice Age) oysters from Virginia is shown by the gray line in Figure 3.8 The Miocene (Flood) California C. titan fossil oysters (dashed black lines in Figure 3) apparently lived in pre-Flood reef environments. These California Flood oysters were twice as long, took longer to mature, and lived longer than their more recent descendants.5,8

These East and West Coast oysters came from a narrow band of about 2° latitude. At this latitude today, Pacific California coastal waters are considerably cooler than waters off the United States Eastern Seaboard. Could the great longevity of the California Miocene oysters be due to cold water? No. Conventional scientists think California coastal waters during the Miocene were considerably warmer than today. And many creationists think that pre-Flood oceans were warm compared to today’s oceans. So neither creationists nor evolutionists would likely attribute the great longevity of these California Miocene oysters to cold water.5 Likewise, the large sizes of these Miocene oysters suggest they were well-fed, thus ruling out caloric restriction as a cause for their long ages. There was a statistically significant difference between the Miocene and more recent lifespans.8

Moreover, the apparent lifespans of 20 and 23 years for these fossil Crassostrea oysters are almost certainly underestimates. Remember, these Miocene Crassostrea oysters were killed in the Flood. They might have lived even longer had the Flood not occurred. And at least one of the California Miocene fossil assemblages was “densely crowded.”8 Today, uncrowded Crassostrea oysters tend to live longer than crowded ones.9–11 So these pre-Flood oysters might have lived even longer in an uncrowded environment!

Interestingly, the maximum lifespan for Late Pleistocene (probably Ice Age) oysters (solid gray line in Figure 3) is nine years, suggesting that Crassostrea lifespans have declined since the post-Flood Ice Age, just like human lifespans shortened (Genesis 11).

More Evidence of Declining Body Size and Longevity

Another study of more than a thousand Crassostrea oysters from Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina shows a general trend of decreasing longevity and shell size over time (Tables 1 and 2).10

Finally, scientists performed a study of 542 fossil and modern juvenile Crassostrea oysters from the tropical Americas. These included Pliocene and Miocene C. cahobasensis oysters, modern and Pleistocene C. columbiensis and C. virginica specimens, and an unidentified Pliocene oyster similar to C. virginica that was designated C. aff. C. virginica.

Figure 4. Estimated juvenile shell masses for Crassostrea oysters from the tropical Americas. Juvenile Flood (Pliocene and Miocene) C. cahobasensis oysters had larger shell masses at all ages than recent and Pleistocene C. columbiensis and C. virginica specimens. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Image credit: Figure 3A from Kirby and Jackson.12 Fair Use Application, used by general permission of the Geological Society of America. The juvenile C. cahobasensis (Miocene and Pliocene) oysters dating from the Flood were much larger and heavier at all ages than the modern and Pleistocene C. virginica and C. columbiensis juveniles (Figure 4).12 The Pliocene C. aff. C. virginica oysters might have been slightly larger than the more recent oysters, but it is difficult to tell from Figure 4. Naturally, one would expect larger juvenile body sizes to ultimately result in larger adult body sizes. So, the trend of giantism in pre-Flood Crassostrea oysters seems to have been widespread. Remember that larger animals tend to live longer than smaller animals, so this is more indirect evidence of great longevity in fossil Crassostrea oysters.

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