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Until the last ten years it was widely believed that cultural evolution had taken over from genetic evolution in our species. When farming replaced hunting and gathering, something fundamentally changed in the relationship between us and our surroundings. We no longer had to change genetically to fit our environment. Instead, we could change our environment to make it fit us.

That view has been challenged by a research team led by anthropologist John Hawks. They found that genetic evolution actually speeded up 10,000 years ago, when hunting and gathering gave way to farming. In fact, it speeded up over a hundred-fold. Why? Humans were now adapting not only to slow-changing natural environments but also to faster-changing cultural environments, things like urban living, belief systems, and the State monopoly on violence. Far from slowing down, the pace of genetic change actually had to accelerate (Hawks et al. 2007).

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The central misconception is to think that one can claim the honorable title of “liberal” if one approves of one form of liberty, such as mutual consent in sexual partners or the ability to drill for oil where you wish, but excludes the other form.  Liberty is liberty, and is meaningless by parts. You are still a slave if only on odd days of the month.

…

Yes, the so-called New Liberalism was slow socialism, as was an American Progressivism recommending the sterilization of defectives to improve the Aryan race and a minimum wage to drive non-Aryan immigrants out of the labor force, not to speak of carrying a big stick and joining a war to end all wars.  The slow socialism took longer to implement than the fast versions in Bolshevism and Nazism. It was pushed along by the taking of powers by governments in the 20th-century wars, hot and cold.  Calling it “modern liberalism” has always been an abuse of language.  And it was an abuse of people to implement it.

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On August 11, 1777, John Adams, then a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in session in Philadelphia, wrote a letter to his ten-year-old son, John Quincy. In light of the ongoing War of Independence and with a mind to other wars and “Councils and Negotiations” that the future might hold for the boy, Adams urged him “to turn your Thoughts early to such Studies, as will afford you the most solid Instruction and Improvement for the Part which may be allotted you to act on the Stage of Life.” He gave one recommendation in particular: “There is no History, perhaps, better adapted to this usefull Purpose than that of Thucidides.” For Adams, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War contained within it insight of every possible “usefull” sort: “You will find it full of Instruction to the Orator, the Statesman, the General, as well as to the Historian and the Philosopher.”

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For a lot of guys, getting a girlfriend is all about one thing.

A new phone background.

So with Valentine’s coming I wanted to do something to help those without.

Very low maintenance. What’s not to like?

We have the technology.

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But you have to bear in mind that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just remember that.

Absolutely nothing.

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A nonprofit founded by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams was slapped with three different tax liens over the past year, bringing the organization’s known total to seven.

Third Sector Development, a nonprofit started by Abrams that focuses on registering black voters, was hit with three separate tax liens in the past year for failing to pay state unemployment tax, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday. The three tax liens, filed by Georgia state regulators, total roughly $3,500.

This isn’t the first time state regulators have targeted Abrams’ organization. The Georgia Department of Labor issued four tax liens worth $13,000 against Third Sector Development between 2014 and 2016, also citing unpaid employment contributions.

Hmmm. I guess only white people have to pay taxes.

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Because nothing says ‘independence’ like taking advice from lonesome losers.

The distinction between ‘women’ and ‘femmes’ is left as an exercise for the reader.

Steve Sailer takes a look.

This week witnessed two amusing Alliance of the Fringes circular firing squads.

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High speed rail may be proposed as a climate change panacea here and elsewhere, but the results on the ground are less than promising. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this week that the California high speed rail project would be scaled back to the route between Bakersfield and Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley (which the state has enough money for). In his “state of the state” speech the Governor said “…let’s be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency.” Thus the expensive hope of linking the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area with high speed rail, already substantively abandoned by the California High Speed Rail Authority, has finally been buried.

Britain’s proposed high-speed rail megaproject (HS2) may be joining California’s on the road to oblivion (Map: Figure 1). A senior government official told Channel 4’s Dispatches public affairs program (aired February 11): “The costs are spiraling so much we’ve been actively considering other scenarios, including scrapping the entire project”

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Is there a more What’s Happening Now headline than this one?

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An elegant solution that will never happen because it won’t guarantee the appropriate ‘diversity’.

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In a 2015 podcast conversation with American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, Vox’s Ezra Klein declared that “there’s nothing more dangerous than somebody who’s just taken their first economics class.” Often expressing a similar contempt for Econ 101 is University of Connecticut law professor James Kwak.

This expressed skepticism of Econ 101 comes across as wise and sophisticated — even hip — to many people who don’t grasp Econ 101. And it gives the mistaken impression that those who warn of the alleged folly of taking Econ 101 too seriously are expert not only in elementary economics but also in advanced economics.

Yet this contemptuous dismissal of the relevance of Econ 101 is foolish. Those who express it either really don’t know any economics whatsoever or mistakenly presume that the theoretical curiosities explored in Econ 999 are more relevant than is the reality revealed by Econ 101. But the truth is that Econ 101 taught well supplies ample, important, and timeless insights into the way the world works.

Even that doesn’t always work — Congresswoman Occasional-Cortex supposedly was an Econ major at a decent college. But it’s better than nothing.

If I had to design a school system, basic economics and basic statistics would be required subjects in high school.

‘Mom’ is a state of mind.

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I’ve had my suspicions….

You’ll notice that you never see her and Paul McCartney in the same place.

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Let’s be honest here, the way the Dems are going bat-excrement crazy right now is, I think, bearing this out. They’ll be up to 30 candidates before long, and each trying to out-Left and out-crazy and out-Communist the other. That sort of rage is frankly unsustainable, and really their entire platform is boiling down to “Not Trump.”

I want one.

Cass Sunstein, usually a dependable Voice of the Crust, suffers an attack of atavism.

Sunstein rightly points out that many vocal fans of socialism have no clue as to what it actually means. I’ll pace him by suggesting that many people who complain about ‘capitalism’ have no clue as to what that means, either, and just use ‘capitalism’ as a catch-all term for ‘not-socialism’ — which it isn’t. The problem is that we don’t have a clever one-word term for an economic system based on private property and free trade, so we’re forced to thrash around in a verbal swamp that helps nobody.

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My, what a surprise.

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Gotta love that Global Warming.

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Getting-off-fossil fuels would reverse much of the progress made over the last few centuries. Just a few of the thousands of products that we get from fossil fuels that would be eliminated from our society and lifestyles would be: Medications, Cosmetics, Plastics, Fertilizers, and Transportation fuels for planes, ships, trucks and automobiles.

Electricity alone, especially intermittent electricity from renewables, has not, and will not, run the economies of the world, as electricity alone is unable to support the energy demands of the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, and trucking infrastructures. Getting off fossil fuels would virtually negatively impact the following industries and infrastructures that are driven by the energy density of oil, coal, and natural gas:

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Because they’re disgusting? That’s just a guess….

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The real threat to Optum may be Amazon, which has already made some forays into the pharmacy business and is willing to sacrifice profits as it builds market share. Optum is vulnerable because its customers — particularly employers — have little insight into its businesses, which range from health data services to pharmacy benefits, said Michael Turpin, a former UnitedHealth executive who is an executive vice president at USI, an insurance brokerage.

“It is truly the most opaque of all black boxes in health care,” Mr. Turpin said. He added, “Amazon is lying in the grass and will someday pop up and do something disruptive around pharmacy.”

Scott Adams is one of the handful of people actually looking forward to the SOTU speech tonight.

No accounting for taste….

The Other McCain is on the case.

You should read the entire complaint online, as McGinnes’s legal team go point-by-point in explaining how the SPLC’s “hate” label is being used to silence conservative voices. When McGinnes started Proud Boys, it was basically a social thing — meet-ups for fans of his podcasts — but then the media started paying attention, Trump got elected, and “Antifa” started harassing the Proud Boys. Last year, SPLC evidently decided to target McInnes for destruction, and this lawsuit is about his refusal to be destroyed. Keep in mind, SPLC is also being sued by Baltimore attorney Glen Keith Allen, and many other organizations are said to be contemplating their own lawsuits. Whatever the ultimate outcome of these suits, they are valuable in that (a) the SPLC is forced onto the defensive, and (b) if the lawsuits get to the discovery phase, we could learn a lot about the internal workings of their billion-dollar smear machine. The fact that SPLC was willing to pay $3.3 million to Nawaz shows how much they fear what might be revealed in discovery.

About time somebody did something about these sleaze bags.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in this country?

Feel the Bern….

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I’m the little portrait with diamonds.

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Tired of falafel? This recipe will bring new flavours to the vegan fave.

Or you could just go have a hamburger. Your choice.

(Look at the picture and decide whether you really want to put that in your mouth.)

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Three people who operated multimillion-dollar birth-tourism businesses in Southern California were arrested Thursday in the biggest federal criminal probe ever to target the thriving industry, in which pregnant women come to the United States to give birth so their children will become American citizens.

The businesses coached their clients to deceive United States immigration officials and pay indigent rates at hospitals to deliver their babies, even though many of the clients were wealthy, investigators said. Some Chinese couples were charged as much as $100,000 for a birth-tourism package that included housing, nannies and shopping excursions to Gucci.

Actually, I don’t have a problem with the children of rich Chinese tourists becoming automatic American citizens. My problem is with the children of poor Mexican criminals becoming automatic American citizens.

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Believe me, you don’t have to be Chris Christie in order to despise John Kasich.

Ace of Spades is having some fun.

Actually, it’s sadder than that.

Because BuzzFeed’s director of quizzes was laid off on Friday.

No, that’s not the sad part. The sad part is why.

Yes, it’s sad that Buzzfeed had a “director of quizzes” in the first place. But even sadder is this: all of BuzzFeed’s most popular quizzes were being created, for free, by an overly energetic 19-year-old college student.

See, they laid the director of quizzes off when some Green Eyeshade Genius realized, “Why are we paying a director of quizzes when all the good quizzes are given to us for free by a 19 year old co-ed?”

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At the very least, it will agitate all of the people who really really need agitation.

At the very least, that will be entertaining.

Steve Sailer looks at political speciation.

For example, Lake Shasta in far northern California is the largest reservoir of the vast California aqueduct system. As the population of California grows and droughts seem more common, the idea of expanding the lake’s capacity by raising the 602? tall dam’s height by an additional 20 feet has been considered since the last century.

The Trump Administration is pretty positive about the plan, which has led to one salamander species suddenly being redefined as three salamander species. That might seem strange, but actually this kind of thing is a common occurrence whenever anybody wants to do anything with a dam, going back to the invention of the snail darter species in the 1970s.

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“Weathered.” “Despite the severe disruptions.” Really? What disruptions were those? Did they consider that a brief respite from a small portion of government heavy-handedness may have been irrelevant to job growth, or even a positive factor? Evidently not.

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I hope they demanded asylum.

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I smell another Hate Hoax aborning.

UPDATE: I Didn’t See This One Coming

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President Donald Trump has often noted that America’s rich and powerful choose to live behind large walls for protection, much like the wall he is trying to build across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nowhere has that thesis proven truer than in the posh neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Hollywood. The homes of the rich and famous, peppered throughout the area, are often gated and feature high walls that protect the homes from outsiders.

But what about the viscerally anti-Trump celebrities that reside in Hollywood and hate the idea of Trump’s border wall? Do these moguls, sports and film celebrities really live behind walls? The Daily Caller set out to find the truth in a series called “Walls Across America.”

UPDATE: Tucker Carlson Calls Out Celebrity Hypocrisy On Border Wall

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has infuriated colleagues by aligning with a progressive outside group that’s threatening to primary entrenched Democrats. Now some of those lawmakers are turning the tables on her and are discussing recruiting a primary challenger to run against the social media sensation.

At least one House Democrat has been privately urging members of the New York delegation to recruit a local politician from the Bronx or Queens to challenge Ocasio-Cortez.

From Congress to Saturday Night Live seems a very short step for some people….

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As it was meant to do. Bolton is a fast learner from Trump.

Aficionados of Terry Pratchett’s DiskWorld will recognize the velvet touch of Lord Vetinari.

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Uh, because that’s where the money is?

Welcome to hustle culture. It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and — once you notice it — impossible to escape. “Rise and Grind” is both the theme of a Nike ad campaign and the title of a book by a “Shark Tank” shark. New media upstarts like the Hustle, which produces a popular business newsletter and conference series, and One37pm, a content company created by the patron saint of hustling, Gary Vaynerchuk, glorify ambition not as a means to an end, but as a lifestyle.

Serve thee the Lord all of thy days … and nights….