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MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry had harsh words for the 5 to 6 million Americans whose health insurance policies were cancelled because of Obamacare.

“Yeah, you can’t keep your crappy plans. Just deal with that!” Harris-Perry said Sunday.

Channeling Hillary Clinton….

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I trust I don’t have to say anything about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Jesse Walker hears his bullshit detector go off.

Today McCarthy has come to symbolize the entire postwar Red Scare, allowing the hearings to serve as a tidy end to a tidy story about a demagogue who attained outsized influence and then was cut down to size. But the crusade against Communist subversion that marked the late 1940s and the ’50s began before McCarthy seized the issue; and if his downfall was a sign that those fears were fading, it did not bring them to an end. The biggest myth of the McCarthy era is that it was a McCarthy era, rather than an episode in which McCarthy was merely one of the most noisy and irresponsible figures.

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Funded by UK chemicals company Thomas Swan, researchers from Trinity College Dublin were working on a way to produce graphene at industrial scale. As noted in Nature, the real work was done on an industrial blender, but the “will it blend?” question apparently intrigued researcher Jonathan Coleman, who set about reproducing the so-far-secret recipe in a 400W kitchen device.

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

I must confess to being the sort of person who would love to have a fine lawn and beautiful garden but who just isn’t willing to put in the work. So I find this prospect very attractive.

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Over the next five years, as the energy industry searches for new viable pillars of emerging clean technologies to fuel ever-growing demand for energy and efficiency, a tidal wave of thermoelectric power generation products is poised to flood the market. Thermoelectrics are semiconductor materials that turn heat directly into electricity, much like solar panels use light to do the same. The materials can be used in anything from appliances, to engines, to power plants, and really anywhere that waste heat is produced.

Breakthroughs in nanotechnology have brought the commercial viability of thermoelectric waste-heat recovery to a tipping point. The future of thermoelectrics is no longer a ”might be” or “could be”, but a “will be.”

Mark Steyn points and laughs.

Happy Earth Day! April 22nd is the day when President Obama and the rest of the gang demonstrate their commitment to saving the planet by flying in to plant a tree somewhere. And say what you like but, when you’re looking for fellows who know how to dig a huge hole, Obama and Harry Reid are pretty much at the top of the list. My township in New Hampshire is 90 per cent forested, but you can never have too many trees, so on Earth Day I always like to plant a couple more, get the tree cover in my town up to 97, 98 per cent, whatever it takes to send climate change into reverse. Of course, it’s always a big pain in the neck the morning after Earth Day, when the holiday’s over, and it’s time to take down the trees. So these days I generally just plant artificial trees with the nice silvery tinselly branches, and then you can just take them down and put ’em in the attic till next year’s Earth Day.

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A few recent articles reveal just how out-of-touch with reality planning advocates are today. In the New York Times, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti claims that “millions of Americans [are] gravitating toward cities,” so we need to subsidize them with “subways, great schools, innovative work spaces, affordable housing and high-speed rail.”

Thousands? Maybe. Millions? Hardly. Relying on actual data, rather than wishful thinking, demographer Wendell Cox shows that, between 2000 and 2010, only about 206,000 people moved to within two miles of city centers in the nation’s 60-plus metropolitan areas of one million or more people. But the area just a little further out–two to seven miles from downtowns–lost 272,000 people, for a net change of minus 66,000. That doesn’t sound like millions are “gravitating” to the cities.

John Hinderaker does the numbers.

So a majority of Americans will be in the top 10% of income at some time during their working lives. That makes a mockery of the Left’s portrayal of a rigid caste system that–somehow!–must be combated by ever-higher taxes and more government spending.

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The United States has spent much of the last 30 years subsidizing ethanol production under the pretense that it’s more environmentally friendly than gasoline. I say “pretense” because for years it’s been completely obvious that corn ethanol is actually worse for the environment, that the overall production cycle stokes global warming even more than typical fuel, and that, in addition, it drives up world food prices, contributing to global hunger problems in the process. Also, it makes your gasoline less efficient. And yet this is something that we’ve repeatedly mandated and paid for.

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The study, published in PLOS ONE, looks at data collected from 11 Oregon elementary schools where chocolate milk was banned from cafeteria sales. The idea behind these bans was to get kids to switch from chocolate milk to less sugary and more nutritious options, such as regular milk. Wanna guess how that turned out?

According to Cornell University researchers, the chocolate milk ban resulted in students buying 10 percent less milk overall and wasting 29 percent more of the milk they did purchase. At the same time, the school district saw a 7 percent decrease in overall lunch program participation, which may also be related to the chocolate milk ban.

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Hey, turn about is fair play.

Joel Kotkin hears his bullshit detector go off.

The ongoing trial involving journalist Mark Steyn – accused of defaming climate change theorist Michael Mann – reflects an increasingly dangerous tendency among our intellectual classes to embrace homogeneity of viewpoint. Steyn, whose column has appeared for years on these pages, may be alternatingly entertaining or over-the-top obnoxious, but the slander lawsuit against him marks a milestone in what has become a dangerously authoritarian worldview being adopted in academia, the media and large sections of the government bureaucracy.

…

These are the same people who historically have identified themselves with open-mindedness and the defense of free speech, while conservatives, with some justification, were associated more often with such traits as criminalizing unpopular views – as seen in the 1950s McCarthy era – and embracing canonical bans on all sorts of personal behavior, a tendency still more evident than necessary among some socially minded conservatives.

But when it comes to authoritarian expression of “true” beliefs, it’s the progressive Left that increasingly seeks to impose orthodoxy. In this rising intellectual order, those who dissent on everything from climate change, the causes of poverty and the definition of marriage, to opposition to abortion are increasingly marginalized and, in some cases, as in the Steyn trial, legally attacked.

The Other McCain is not impressed.

OK, here’s your first big clue: Tognotti’s complaint is not that he gets zero action, but rather that he can’t get any action from girls he actually finds attractive. His problem, therefore, is that he imagines himself entitled to be with good-looking women, rather than being forced to make do with the ordinary-looking women who are actually interested in him.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

It always comes as a shock to people that when you force up the price of something people buy less of it. Markets work, even when you don’t want them to.

John Hinderaker is not happy.

One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state is that there are so many laws and regulations that no one can possibly know what they are, let alone obey them. Thus everyone is a criminal, and only the despot’s discretion separates the solid citizen from the criminal. Unfortunately, the United States is rapidly approaching–if it has not already reached–this dystopian status.

Check it out.

I remember the days when we actually thought there would be space colonies. You know, before government decided to suck up all the money and use it to buy votes.

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The Other McCain pulls back the curtain.

It was Dick Gregory, I believe, who defined “integration” as the period of time between when the first black family moves into a neighborhood and the last white family moves out. The recent report that New York City’s schools are the most segregated in the country might be seen as confirmation of that cynical jest.

Are we to assume that the enlightened and sophisticated white liberals of New York are secretly more racist — “RAAAAACIST!” — than they would have us believe? Our suspicion of pharisaical hypocrisy on their part may explain why liberals are always able to hear those coded racist “dog whistles” that nobody else can hear. Perpetual outrage at the alleged racism of Republicans functions as a means by which white liberals soothe their guilty consciences and tune out the cognitive dissonance that results from the unbridgeable chasm between their professed egalitarian beliefs and their inevitably elitist lifestyles.

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The Osteoid, which won this year’s A’Design Award for 3D printed forms and products, is inspired by the spongy material that forms inside bones. Karasahin’s team writes that the lightweight concept would be tailor-made for patients in need, and can be designed with specific colors in mind. Most important, thought, is its complimentary ultrasound system. Low intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS ) systems have already been found to promote bone fracture healing and can reportedly increase healing rate in non-union break by 80 percent.

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Obama says it’s George W. Bush’s fault, and who can prove it isn’t?

Theodore Dalrymple has had enough.

I realized a long time ago that a very large number of people in a modern economy are paid to do things that not only fail to add to the economic product of the country, but on the contrary reduce it, insofar as they obstruct others from producing as much as they otherwise might.

There is, as every petty official knows, a great deal of pleasure to be had from the obstruction of others, especially if they appear to be more fortunate, better placed, richer, or more intelligent than oneself. There is a pleasure in naysaying, all the greater if the naysayer is able to disguise from the victim the fact that he is not only doing his duty but gratifying himself. Indeed, there are many jobs, meaningless in themselves, in which the power to say no is the only non-monetary reward.

More to be feared even than the secret sadist, however, is the person who genuinely believes in the intrinsic value and even indispensability of his absurd task. He is as dangerous as any true believer. In my hospital, I saw many such people, scurrying like the White Rabbit in Alice from one meeting to another—meetings which medical staff were required to attend, thus diverting them from the main purpose of having medical staff in the first place. A friend of mine who had waited all day for a minor but potentially life-preserving operation was told at the last minute that his operation had been postponed because the surgeon had been called to attend a meeting. Only a credible threat by my friend of dire consequences for the hospital if the operation were not performed as planned diverted the surgeon from his pseudo- to his real work.

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A group of scientists and food activists is launching a Thursday to change the rules that govern seeds. They’re releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new “open source pledge” that’s intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely.

A properly-ordered society would offer a bounty for every ‘food activist’ killed and used for compost.

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In its shipping form, a three-serving bag of Soylent clocks in at 2,010 kcal, with 630 kcal from fat—that’s with the combined package of canola and fish oil added into the mix. Altogether, a full day’s worth of Soylent 1.0 will give you 1,050 mg of sodium, 3,465 mg of potassium, 252 total grams of carbs (including 24 g dietary fiber and 6 g of sugars), and 114 g of protein. There’s no cholesterol in the dry ingredients; the oil mix adds about 15 percent of your daily recommended cholesterol intake (specific numbers on the oil aren’t included as part of the label).

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Yet another reason not to leave the house.

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Researchers have an idea for how future nuclear reactors can avoid the trauma that led to the 2011 disaster at Fukushima: by building new plants five to seven miles out into the ocean. “This affords some absolutely crucial advantages,” Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, which led the research, explains in a video presenting the idea. In particular, Buongiorno says that this distance into the ocean will remove the risk of tsunamis, which won’t throw big waves in such deep water, and of earthquakes, the seismic waves of which will be damped by the ocean.

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A story from Yale University shows that “Social Justice” should never be confused with the real thing.

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Last week, Scott Keyes, a senior reporter with the progressive news site ThinkProgress, reported on the idiotic outcome of one of the latest of such bans.

In that case, the city of Birmingham, Ala. has barred a local pastor from sharing food with the homeless from a church-owned vehicle because he doesn’t have… a food truck permit.

Seth Roberts turns over a rock.

I am somewhat embarrassed to remember this, but I used to say things like: “Universities are places where people can devote themselves to a life of study, investigation, and imagination. In exchange for a home like this, we provide society with ideas. And, of course, we teach.” I guess I thought that there should be a home for people who are capable and devoted to intellectual pursuits, a rather naive notion it seems.

I wanted a place where I would be judged primarily by my intellectual and creative ability. Instead I have been made keenly aware of the importance of networking, of doing favors for the right people, of who to cite, whose criticism to acknowledge and whose to ignore. I used to despise such things, now they’re second nature. The irony, that I now know far more about popularity than I did back in high school. One of the first things I learned is that it is imperative to do research that brings money and/or prestige. In other words: popular research. I didn’t know such a thing existed.

Gavin MacInnes lays down some inconvenient truth.

Modern feminism has become fascism and it’s making women miserable.

A smiley face mold for your morning egg. I am not making this up.

C-3PO Electric Guitar. For when your inner child just decides to take over.

Scrubba Portable Washing Machine.

Robot printer that crawls across the paper.

A Black Box for your suitcase.

Mouse Taxidermy Kit. Just in case.

Robot Golf Caddy.

Power Cord Winder.

Heated Lotion Dispenser.

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Obama’s controversial DOE green energy loan program sparked a firestorm when Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer revealed that 80% of all $20.5 billion in DOE loans were given to Obama’s top campaign donors. In his New York Times bestseller Throw Them All Out, Schweizer called the Obama green energy loan slush fund “the greatest–and most expensive–example of crony capitalism in American history.”

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

XKCD has it right.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Hotel executive and Democratic fundraiser Sant Singh Chatwal pleaded guilty on Thursday in New York to witness tampering and conspiracy to evade campaign finance laws, the Associated Press reports.

Democrats — the party of foreigners.

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In 2012 Breitbart News exhaustively documented the facts surrounding Senator Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry and demonstrated that no credible evidence exists to support those claims. But lack of genealogical evidence has never stopped Senator Warren from boldly asserting as fact something which is flatly not true.

Hey, it worked before.

When you’re the Crust
You’re the Crust all the way,
From your first funded trust
To your Fed job payday….

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Step back and note something obviously out of whack with this whole controversy.  It is said that college campuses are the prime venue of “rape culture.”  But most college campuses are run by liberals, and liberalism and its correlates—maximum individual liberation in all things sexual—is the dominant orthodoxy.  Why is this problem ostensibly most severe where liberalism reigns?  Perhaps for the same reason that poverty and social dysfunction are worst where liberalism reigns supreme (Detroit).  Hanlon notes a rising number of reported rapes at Dartmouth.  He should be embarrassed by this.  But he ought to ponder this question: is sexual assault a problem at conservative colleges like Hillsdale, Patrick Henry, Liberty University, or Regent University?  I wonder why not.  Actually I don’t.  Hillsdale and other conservative colleges actually take seriously their role as moral instructors of young adults, and extend this responsibility to enforcing the alcohol laws, basic behavior and manners, and even dress codes.  Liberal universities like Dartmouth might want to borrow a clue, but don’t hold your breath.

The New York Post is on the case.

Gold diggers are such a problem in NYC, one woman has set up an agency that proclaims it will weed them out.

Upper East Side matchmaker Janis Spindel founded Club J-Love in 1993 — and since then claims to have 1,008 marriages under her belt. Her specialty? Helping men like K.G. avoid heartbreak — and the loss of hard-earned money — by sussing out a woman’s true motives.

“I can smell a gold digger from a mile away,” says Spindel, who says she rejects about 10 percent of all those vying for a place in her 3,000-member stable of beauties. “It’s why [my clients] come to me — to protect them from bimbettes and gold diggers.”

According to Spindel, gold diggers are a growing problem, now that the city is awash in “more money” — from Wall Street to hedge funds to startups. And so she vets each woman in person, grilling each one with a series of pointed questions aimed at determining whether she’s a perfect 10 — or a 49er in disguise.

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A new study published in the Lancet shows that as many as one-third of vegetative patients are misdiagnosed.

Researchers used brain-imaging techniques and found minimal consciousness in 13 of 42 patients it studied.

The study revealed that those patients with minimal consciousness have emotions and may feel pain.

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The site is full of information about recent and past launches, old space programs, and much more, but it owes its unique charm to the drawings of spacecraft that appear on its pages. There’s something about their simplified lines and geometric orientations, reminiscent of a childhood textbook, that is perfect.

Unfortunately, it only covers stuff actually built by a government, not the even cooler stuff science fiction writers have created. But it’s still good.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Those who hate lobbyists and their influence ought to reflect on the fact that if they hadn’t given the government all of this power over the economy then nobody would be hiring lobbyists to get the government to exercise that power in the service of special interests. Own Damned Fault, as my wife likes to say.

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Wade Pulliam, manager of advanced concepts at Logos Technologies, told Defense Tech that the US military has a growing need “to operate small units far from logistical support.” So, he said, it will “increasingly rely on adaptable, efficient technologies like this hybrid-electric motorcycle.” Military officials have also enlisted a company called BRD Motorcycles to help build the bike, which will be used by special operations teams. There has been no announcement, however, about when the motorcycle will be completed — or where it will be deployed first.

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Although the concept of identitarian religion is relatively new in North America, it has gained some popularity in Europe.  One prefatory note I’d like to make is that identitarian religion can be pagan or Christian.  (Some critics seem to assume that all identitarian religion is pagan.)

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What’s the point of the Department of Commerce? If not for the Census and the Patent Office, the department would function as little more than a one-stop shop for special interests. Don’t believe me? Look at its record.

Sarah Hoyt turns over a rock.

One of my friends posted a result of a Facebook quiz about “your privilege.” He did it with acerbic comments – even though he’s a much nicer person than I – because he’s not stupid or a pudding head and the quiz made him almost as foamy at the mouth as I got.

…

For instance, I’m fairly sure when she (okay, might be an he, but if I had to bet. And I hate “they” as a singular pronoun. Yes, I know Elizabethans used it, but NOT for politically correct reasons) wrote the test and asked “Have you ever been derided and called names for your religion” what she was thinking of was some poor huddled Muslim female being called names by stereotypical white menTM, not an European high school student in the magnet school and the selective “advanced” form being called things because she refused to say she didn’t believe in G-d. Or, when she said “Did you ever have to hide your orientation” she probably didn’t mean at the Broad Universe tea at a convention. Or when she said “did you ever get called names because of your sexual orientation” she probably wasn’t thinking of “Breeder!” hurled from passing car as I pushed a baby carriage down the road. Nor… and this I’m absolutely sure of, did this precious flower ever think that “Did you ever have to hide who you are” could refer to my ten years of hiding my political beliefs, so I could earn a living in a liberal-dominated field.

In fact, what this very bizarre “quiz” revealed more than anything else was the quiz writers assumptions. I have no idea how someone could come by such an odd set of them, except that I think it’s a group thing – I think where she lives everyone repeats this, so, “if everyone believes it must be right.” And also, I think this person has never looked outside her position of extreme privilege, and therefore thinks that everyone’s lives must be BETTER than hers, because, surely, she can’t be privileged. I mean, she’s female. (And possibly gay or of color.)

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Following an ex vivo prototyping phase, we successfully used the DNA origami robots in living cockroaches (Blaberus discoidalis) to control a molecule that targets their cells.

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Since they lose pretty much every argument, the global warming fraudsters try to tell us that the science is settled, and we should all just shut up. In fact, however, debates over various aspects of climate science are constantly raging. This one is a great example: “Major Errors Apparent in Climate Model Evaporation Estimates.”

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Most studies of aging concentrate on the deterioration of those more than 50 years old, and paint a woeful portrait of life in decline once people are past their breeding years.

So it’s only fair that two researchers at Canada’s Simon Fraser University have chosen a different group: people aged 16 to 44.

And they’ve determined that somewhere around age 24, these people too suffer a decline in “cognitive motor performance.”

Translated, that means they start slowing down.

And a good thing, too.

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Obama once publicly stated, “we’re gonna punish our enemies and … reward our friends.”  Executive Branch action on the Comcast/Time Warner deal will demonstrate if this caveat applies to merger policy.  A number of Congressional Committees will review the merger, including a Senate Judiciary hearing on April 9.

In addition to analyzing financial details of this merger, Administration history of crony capitalism screams for Congressional inquiry to determine if the Executive gives preferential treatment to corporations with friendly donors.   Merger approval or denial should be based on objective analysis, not which political party enjoyed the loudest clink in its campaign jar.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Yeah, but it’s still Domino’s pizza….

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Be the first on your block….

Hm. I’m really hankering for some extra-crispy — time to go visit the Colonel.