This is a blurb I saw on someone's collection being stolen out of a storage unit...I didn't reproduce the entire article here, just the first 3 sentences or so, but I thought it was a reminder to the rest of us to be careful in letting others know of what you may have in the way of collections. Be careful!! You never know who exactly you're talking to (or those who know about the collection go talking to others you don't even know about. so sad. SWBTATTReg
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Over $100K in Comic Books Stolen From Storage Unit
By NICOLE DRUM - December 29, 2018

For one Las Vegas man, super villains don't just exist on the pages of comic books. They exist in real life as well and one is responsible for the theft of $100,000 worth of comic books. According to News 3 Las Vegas, two suspects broke into Daniel Ballard's Life Storage unit on Thursday, December 27 and stole 12 boxes of comic books totaling around 3000 individual books, including several valuable issues.

The crown jewel of it was the Amazing Spider-Man," Ballard said. "I had the entire run, 1-170, volume one and two. I had a lot of other issues. The first appearance of Venom, Death of Captain Stacy, and the first appearance of the Punisher."

etc.

Opps, missed original posting. Here's the DU address of first posting on DU..

https://www.democraticunderground.com/11951890

I thought that this article in Sky News today regarding trader behavior regarding the buying of financial instruments on the housing market properties in 2008, leading up to the housing market crash as well as the stock market crash, was disgusting...

One big reason why I don't trust anyone in the financial markets at all (bankers, stock market, etc.)...and also why I don't understand why more of these persons (not just the companies) haven't been prosecuted...this post is just FYI, since I know quite a few of us went through quite a bit w/ the crisis of 2007-2008.

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Here's original link:

Royal Bank of Scotland Bankers Joked About Ruining US Housing Market," Sky News, Aug. 15, 2018.
https://news.sky.com/story/royal-bank-of-scotland-bankers-joked-about-ruining-us-housing-market-11473390

Royal Bank of Scotland bankers 'joked about ruining US housing market'
A US justice department report lays bare bankers and traders' disregard over their alleged misconduct that led to the 2008 crash. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) traders compared their behaviour to gangsters in "Goodfellas" and joked about ruining the US housing market in the run up to the financial crisis, it has been claimed.
A US Department of Justice report into the mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 banking collapse details bankers and traders' apparent disregard over their contribution to the global monetary meltdown.

It was published alongside the announcement that RBS had agreed to pay $4.9bn (£3.6bn) to settle the DoJ's probe. 15:54, UK, Wednesday 15 August 2018
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rest of article continues...

that since plants and the like use carbon dioxide (like we humans do w/ oxygen), and back 200 million years or so (I'm being approximate here in time spans, so I may be off) oxygen levels (% of) was much higher than the 21% or so then (and trees / ferns / etc. covered the entire globe).

With the increase in CO2 levels today, are we (1) seeing higher or more vigorous plant growth, and also in conjunction at the same time, slowly increasing levels of oxygen due to the increase in plant growth?

I was curious if anyone has done a study in the relationship between plant growth and oxygen/co2 levels.

Thanks!

I promise, this is my last of my opening posts in science today (god, I love it). I enjoyed the posts on star formations (when and why etc.), but I had another 'gee whiz' ? about black holes.

First of all, they seem fantastic that they exist, despite being in Albert E's equations and he didn't even think that they (black holes) would actually exist. But they do (exist). Also, a greater and faster expansion of the universe continues today. Unexpected and surprising to those in the know about these things.


So, if (1) universe is expanding (most noticeable in-between the galaxies) and (2) there are greater and greater in numbers of black holes being created since day 1 AND according to Hawkings, black holes exist for a very long time but will eventually dissipate over perhaps trillions of years, that the ...


increasing number of black holes in the universe on a daily basis power the faster expansion of the universe (e.g. they both seem to increase in step w/ each other).


Physics break down within black holes (unable to adequate express equation wise, events within black holes). Could some facet of the already identified dimensions (26 (I think) was the last number of dimensions speculated about by those in the know here) be interacting in some way unknown to us to loop about and feed the ever increasing expansion of the universe?

That's my ? in a nutshell. I hope I wasn't rambling on, but this has been in my mind for a long time, and I was curious what you all think.

A question that perhaps someone can answer for me. I do read quite a bit and so forth, but 1 thing still escapes me. We all (most of us) know that stars form by hydrogen / helium gases (in clouds scattered throughout the universe) collapsing under the weight of so much gas, and eventually, after a certain point, enough gases and pressure has built up that nuclear fusion starts, and you have 'liftoff' or a brand new star.

I am assuming that this process occurs once a certain threshold of gases and pressure is achieved.

However, there are massive stars that from 10 to a 1000 times the size of our sun.

Why didn't these massive stars start burning as stars when they already had enough pressure and material after 1 solar mass of material available, e.g., like our own sun? Or put in another way, how did these super-sized stars manage to gather so much material before igniting into a star? If it ignited at 1 solar mass (like our own sun), then all other incoming gases etc. would have been pushed away by the solar winds.

So, how does a star gather up so much more material than our own sun before igniting?

Thanks for any thoughts and light you may shed on this (pun was not intended, purely accidental)!?

Several years back, there was an outcry when some of the homeless being discovered in downtown St. Louis City were dumped by outlying suburban police departments. Have anyone noticed this practice too? I remembered this when articles on 'Hospitals dumping patients' started coming out...

Is this a common occurrence? Just curious if this practice happens elsewhere...