No Character Limit

In this episode we explore what it is like to be a part of Buffalo and Western New York culture especially when compared to the far more popular New York City and feature one of Buffalo's most prominent national leaders: journalist Tim Russert. We also explore the new Buffalo Bills stadium and the country-club-ification of sports venues and how they are requiring more and more tax money while at the same time hoarding more wealth than ever. This is even more prominent with data centers, with Western New York slated to build a $19B center with over $1B in taxpayer subsidies for less than 100 jobs. Lastly we discuss the historic rise - and fall - of Western New York on the national stage.

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This is a new series on No Character Limit called The Western New York Files: Corruption, Crime, and Conspiracy in and around Buffalo, NY. In this episode of the Western New York files I explore the history of the Buffalo Bills and the controversial calls that has led people to question the authenticity of NFL officiating. From multiple calls against Buffalo that have led to full league changes to stunning defeats in key moments I explore the question of whether or not the Buffalo Bills are cursed.

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We can be so focused on the details of the battle over science that sometimes we forget to pull back and look at the story that it has really painted for us. In this last episode of the Hiding From Ourselves series we take an honest look at what the scientific evidence is showing us about our impact on the world - and this goes far beyond mere climate change. The main source used for this episode is the book The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert where she truly took the time to listen to experts from a variety of areas to paint a picture on the true impact of humans on the planet. In this episode we explore the Earth's five previous mass extinctions and compare the current 6th mass extinction and look at what makes them similar and different. The purpose of this episode is to acknowledge a reality that is so often avoided, downplayed, and obscured that many people don't even realize how far we've already changed the planet.

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In this third episode on exploring how to determine what is quality information we continue explore the climate change debate and the origins of why such a seemingly lopsided debate never won in favor of the fact-finders. How long have we known about climate change really? How far back was it known to be a problem? Were climate scientists really believing there was going to be "global cooling" in the past or is that mostly a made-up story? How can we prove that humans are the cause of it really? How did we end up with the International Panel on Climate Change? Were accusations that it was corrupt founded or was the corruption that of those making the accusations? Just as in the last episode, we will be using the book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway to help guide us through where the climate debate came from and why we are here today.

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In this second episode on exploring how to determine what is quality information we continue following the ongoing debate on the purpose of science in a post-nuclear era into the 1980s. Do scientists have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect the planet or should they remain amoral stewards of policy-makers, leaving moral judgment to them? Legacy scientists from the Manhattan project, as well as popular astronomers Carl Sagan and Robert Jastrow, finally come to a head over what would happen if a nuclear war were to occur by using climate modeling. As a large bloc of America's most important scientists take a stand against further nuclear escalation a small handful of powerful and well-connected scientists begin to attack not only climate models for the first time, but all of science itself. Just as in the last episode, we will be using the book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway to help guide us through this cultural shift in the American psyche away from scientific guidance and towards an ideological one.

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How do we know what information to trust and what to stay away from? Whether you find yourself wanting to question the science or prove the skeptics wrong, this episode is for you. In this episode you can find multiple stories where experts were proven wrong by those outside of their field, where once established fact was upended forever, as well as plenty of individuals, scientists, and industries that prey upon the uninformed solely for personal profit. Who to trust and how do we know? Today, there is no greater place to explore this idea than with the topic of climate science and in this episode we begin to explore that story with the help of the book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. But before we get to how to know who to trust with climate science we need to dive in to the story of the top secret Manhattan Project, the Cold War's impact on the American psyche, the tobacco industry's research funding, and the infamous Love Canal - America's first superfund site.

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In this long awaited first bonus episode dedicated to Ultima Thule we take a look at some associated documentaries, research findings, and related information that has come up since Ultima Thule was first written in 2022. Consider the motivations of a Nazi that wanted to send people into space, learn about the long-lost sibling of the Sun, whether dark energy is speeding up or slowing down, and what the most recent missions to asteroids has revealed about our solar system. Come and listen to a celebration of space and time as well as the science that got us there and continues to uncover Ultima Thule today.

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In this final episode of Ultima Thule we return to ancient Greece, where the term Thule first originated, and learn about their origin story of the Universe and how it compares to what we know about the Universe today. We then consider the concept of Ultima Thule through time and how people viewed the existence of the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars from ancient Egypt to the Catholic Church. We make sure to pay homage to quality science and how it helped us reach our modern view of the Universe and give a final warning of the pseudoscience constantly attempting to creep in around the edges. What do we do with the knowledge that we have now that we are sitting upon the shoulders of giants upon giants? What if we don't like what we know? How do we try and grapple with what the science implies about the future of the Universe? I end this book with a little-known quote from The Christian Remembrancer about time and space.(29/29)

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We have finally reached the final chapter of Ultima Thule: Unraveling the Unknown. In the penultimate episode we see how humans have come to view Earth by looking back at it from space, known as the overview effect. But the primary focus of this episode is to try and understand what is both the most abundant and vacant thing in the universe - empty space. We look at first-hand accounts of what space is like from the likes of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, as well as those who have flown to the other side of the Moon and lost sight of Earth all together. We also explore the substance of space - what is the vacuum comprised of? Does it have a smell? What does physics say is happening in any given square meter of empty space? Can any life survive in it? If so, for how long? How deep can we peer into it? What is dark matter and dark energy? How did the Universe begin? What does the future of the Universe look like based on current knowledge? (28/29)

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In this final episode of the largest meteorites to have ever hit Earth we focus on the most famous impact of them all - the Chicxulub impact that killed the dinosaurs. We explore what living at the time of impact must have been like and learn about the science behind how we know that it happened. Despite the most accepted theory by mainstream science we also learn about how the story of Walter and Luis Alvarez demonstrates that different branches of science can come in to conflict with one another. What other theories for the mass extinction of life 66 million years ago are out there and how valid are they? (27/29)

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