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I guess Black Lives Matter … except to black people.

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The U.S. is openly criticizing Moslem nations in the Middle East for saying they are eager to help destroy ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) but do little about it. Too many of these “allies” are much talk and little action. Then there is the delicate subject of Turkey and some Gulf Arab states quietly supporting al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorist rebels in Syria because they consider the Iran backed Syrian government more of a threat than al Qaeda. Turkey and these Arab states also see al Qaeda as much preferable to ISIL.

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But that’s okay because Climate Change. You can’t save the planet without breaking a few kids.

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As so many times happens, the ‘green’ solution is worse for the environment than the ‘problem’.

I am entertained, however, by various flavors of eco-nazi going after each other like Sunnis and Shi’ites.

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

Obamacare: The gift that keeps on shivving.

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Beautifully produced by New York Review Books in a new translation, by Damion Searls, with an illuminating introduction, Anti-Education consists of five lectures Nietzsche gave at the Basel city museum in 1872. (A sixth lecture was planned, but never delivered; portions of the series were used in his book Untimely Meditations.) Presenting his critique in the form of a series of dialogues between an old philosopher and a student companion, Nietzsche argues that education (he uses the German word Bildung, a term with multiple senses but that broadly means the formation of culture and individual character) has been degraded by being subordinated to other goals. Both the German gymnasium – the secondary school that prepared students for university – and universities themselves had forfeited their true vocation, which was to “inculcate serious and unrelenting critical habits and opinions”. Instruction in independent thinking had been renounced in favour of “the ubiquitous encouragement of everyone’s so-called ‘individual personality’” – a trend Nietzsche viewed as “a mark of barbarity”. As a result, education was dominated by two tendencies, “apparently opposed but equally ruinous in effect and eventually converging in their end results. The first is the drive for the greatest possible expansion and dissemination of education; the other is the drive for the narrowing and weakening of education.” The first extends education too widely and imposes it on a population that may not want or need it, while the second expects education to surrender any claim to autonomy and submit to the imperatives of the state.

And, indeed, we appear to see that happening right before our very eyes.

Read it.

Having a bunch of people scared shitless of being accused of ‘profiling’ probably doesn’t help.

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We the People [not ALL the people] of the United States [U.S.-centric!] in Order to form a more perfect Union [singles’ therapy and anatomy-neutral gingerbread persons available to uncoupled undergrads] establish Justice [students unfairly punished for “wrong” answers on organic-chemistry exam should join the Tweet for A’s study group], insure domestic Tranquility [teaching assistants who are married but still exploring their socio-sexual identities advised to stop reading now], provide for the common defence [those who have ever felt intimidated by campus security, please gather in the cafeteria, Thursday at 2 P.M., for Stoning ‘n Donuts] promote the general Welfare [warning: could cause distress to anyone not happy all the time], and secure the Blessings [anti-atheistic] of Liberty [full disclosure: I’m going outside now to dumpster-dive for lunch and do community service—it’s a beautiful day, though I mustn’t forget that the fine weather is a serious indicator of global warming] to ourselves [the Committee of Apologies feels shame that the Founding Parents used such a possessive, exclusive, and egomaniacal pronoun] and . . . [The length of this Preamble, which consists entirely of one complex sentence, is discriminatory to those suffering from A.D.D., as well as other learning issues, so we are skipping ahead to Article I, Section 1; not that we’re implying that there’s anything wrong with a disorder, or even learning, as long as it is consensual.]

Read it.

Throughout the fall of 2012, Marie-Sarah Adenis and Thomas Landrain toiled in La Paillasse biohacker space and their apartment on the outskirts Paris, trying to coax bacteria to bleed blue. They scoured more than 200 research papers and spent days growing colonies in their home incubator.

Shortly before Christmas, they settled on a Streptomyces soil bacteria originally discovered in 1908 on a potato plug that has become famous for its antibiotic properties. The bacteria also produces a beautiful, deep blue. Before long, Adenis, a designer, and Landrain, a biologist, had siphoned off their first drop of bacterial ink.

Read it. And watch the video.

The world has generally viewed Genghis Khan as a barbaric conqueror whose troops raped and murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people and pillaged and often destroyed villages, towns, and cities throughout Asia and Europe. However, several popular writers have recently portrayed him as an advocate of democracy, international law, and women’s rights. Morris Rossabi, Senior Research Scholar, Queens College, Columbia University, offers this illustrated lecture, which seeks to provide a balanced depiction of Genghis Khan and to explain the reasons for the myths that have developed about the man and the Mongolian people who established the largest contiguous land empire in world history.

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Somehow, when the Founders were setting up the country, I suspect that having the Federal government dictate to a local city how much they pay their police was not the sort of role they had in mind.

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In 1906, the Royal Navy rendered all other battleships obsolete when it unveiled the HMS Dreadnought: a steam-powered fighting vessel with 12-inch guns and cement-reinforced armor. This past summer, British naval engineers revealed a vision of its successor, the Dreadnought 2050.

The stealthy, semisubmersible ship is designed to move agilely around a battle zone and remain flexible in any type of mission, says Mark Steel, a manager of the Combat Systems Team at BMT Defence Services, a naval design firm involved in the project.

The battleship could function with a crew as small as 50, as opposed to the usual 200. It would serve as a mobile command center, unleashing and directing armies of drones, missiles, and rovers. “Robotics allows us to operate the ship at range to keep people out of harm’s way,” Steel says.

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I guess that’s why Arab soldier are so smart.

(Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?)

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And here I thought he was the President of the United States. Good to know for whom he’s actually working.

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Oklahoma faces a $900 million overspending problem, and that number could reach as high as $1 billion with falling gas prices and lower tax collections in December. Gov. Mary Fallin’s solution is $910 million in “recurring revenue,” an evasive term for tax hikes.

Pledge, schmedge — when money runs short, a politician will always pick raising taxes over cutting spending.

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And it is what all the angry brouhaha about Citizens United is about: Politicians trying to limit the circumstances under which Americans can band together in certain legal structures and say bad things about them. That is the principle that Clinton and her fans cheer: that government should have more power to make it illegal to criticize politicians.

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In Syria Lebanese Hezbollah fighters have been seen using the Iranian Toophan ATGM (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles). This is an Iranian copy of the American TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) that entered service in 1970. When the Iranian monarchy was overthrown in 1979 the rebels found themselves in possession of lots of modern American weapons, including plenty of TOW systems. By the 1990s Iran had managed to copy the TOW as the Toophan. By 2000 they upgraded it and are now supplying Hezbollah with dozens of systems. Iran probably noted that in early 2015 Kurdish forces fighting in Iraq and Syria were using the Chinese HJ-8 ATGMs, which is the Chinese version of the TOW.

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In late December 2015, Rwandan President Paul Kagame confirmed that he will seek a third presidential term. In doing so, Kagame became the latest member of sub-Saharan Africa’s “Third Term President Club.”

If this notional “club” sounds like a joke, it is not. The “Club” represents the near-permanent retention of personal and near-authoritarian political power.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where tribal rivalries can quickly escalate into savage civil wars, the club is a threat to peace. The Great Congo War (1998-2003) killed somewhere between three and five million people. If Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila seeks a third term, that horror may well reignite. Unfortunately, it appears Kabila is dead set on seeking a constitution breaking third term.

You’d think they’d just cut to the chase and establish a monarchy.

Kagame has the woof and warp of a president for life. In several hard corners on our planet, presidents who are not term-limited have a tendency to remain presidents for life, which is another way of saying dictator. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is an example.

Burundi, bordering on Rwanda and Congo, may be providing a bloody sneak preview of Congo’s club-caused collapse.

In April 2015, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term. His decision violated the 2005 Arusha peace agreement that ended Burundi’s 12-year long civil war — a war that resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths. A substantial plurality of Burundi’s citizens erupted in anger. But last July, Nkurunziza held a referendum ratifying a constitutional amendment allowing him to seek and hold a third term.

However, turmoil and violence continue to afflict Burundi.

Funny how that works.

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President Obama has unveiled his last budget proposal, which calls for $4.1 trillion in spending for FY 2017. In the final year of his presidency Obama is by definition a lame duck. With Republicans in control of Congress–even though it doesn’t always seem like it–he is the lamest possible duck. As always, Obama’s final budget purports to cover the next ten years. But since Obama will be gone in a mere eleven months, why should anyone care what he wants ten years from now?

Investor’s Business Daily points out that 70% of Obama’s budget consists of writing checks to individuals. It’s a sign of the times: the principal purpose of the federal government is one not found in the Constitution, redistributing wealth, most often from the young and middle-aged to the elderly.

Obama’s budget is a fantasy in several respects. It calls for programs that have no chance of being enacted. It relies on economic growth projections that will not be realized. It proclaims goals–stop the Earth’s climate from changing, as it has been doing for millions of years!–that cannot be achieved by any federal action. In one respect, however, it is not a fantasy: it would transfer trillions of dollars from those who earned the money to Democratic Party constituencies, like “green” energy scammers. At bottom, Democratic Party policies are motivated by a cold, hard realism.

And the chattering classes wonder why people are voting for Trump.

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The taxpayers of Barre Town, Vermont, just spent $83,750 settling a lawsuit that should never have happened. The money is going to one mother who was banned from her child’s school last year. Her offense? An off-handed comment she made about a 2006 school shooting.

Katie Sherman had been fighting with the school district already, asking them to give her special-needs son the accommodations his Individualized Education Plan (IEP) requires. According to The Barre Montpeliar Times Argus, the dispute goes back to November 2014, when the school first issued the IEP. Sherman expressed concerns and then filed an official complaint in January 2015.

She enlisted the help of advocacy group Vermont Family Network (VFN) and later commented to VFN’s Martha Frank that she could understand how Christopher Williams, an Essex, Vermont, man convicted of killing two elementary school teachers, had been “pushed to the edge.”

Little did Sherman know the Supervisory Union would use that comment as justification to issue a no-trespass order, which kept her from going to meetings to complain about the IEP problem. The order also prevented her from voting in elections, since her son’s school is also her polling place. In July, Sherman sued, claiming the order violated her constitutional right to vote as well as her right to participate in public meetings.

There must be a special stupidity test that prospective government employees, especially school administrators, have to fail before they’re hired on.

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What happened when new research undercut the prevailing justification for the public panic about serial rapists on college campuses? Psychologists deeply invested in their discredited theory launched a crusade of retaliation against the people who proved them wrong.

“There’s been a scientific misconduct case filed against us,” Mary Koss, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona and a critic of the serial predator assumption, told Reason. “It’s frustrating.”

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

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles—Phase 2.”

The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles, it is clear that vehicles built or modified for racing, and not used on the streets, are not the “motor vehicles” that Congress intended to regulate.

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But that trick never works….

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Of course. We can’t have all those businesses growing and creating value; why, they might even create jobs, and where would Democrats be without their dependent underclass?

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This past weekend, a group of about 100 members of the Free State Project (FSP) gathered for one of their regular meetings in Manchester, New Hampshire. But this particular confab was different, because it was held just days after FSP hit its more-than-a-decade-in-the-making target to get 20,000 liberty-inclined citizens to pledge to move to New Hampshire in the hopes of creating a significant political force in the Live Free or Die State. While over 2,000 Free Staters have already moved to New Hampshire, the rest of the signers will begin migrating over the next few years.

I’d do it myself but my wife is more Texan that I am and won’t move to the Colder Latitudes.

As Brian Doherty noted after the milestone was reached last week, FSP already has a long list of accomplishments in the state, including “getting 15 of their brethren in the state House, challenging anti-ridehail laws, fighting in court for outre religious liberty, winning legal battles over taping cops, being mocked by Colbert for heroically paying off people’s parking meters, hosting cool anything goes festivals for libertarians, nullifying pot juries, and inducing occasional pants-wetting absurd paranoia in local statists.”

Freeberg points to some inconvenient truth.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but 01/08 was when Obama took office.

Read it.

Cranfield University is developing the Nano Membrane Toilet, designed for single-household use (equivalent to ten people). The toilet is designed to accept urine and faeces as a mixture. The toilet flush uses a unique rotating mechanism to transport the mixture into the toilet without demanding water whilst simultaneously blocking odour and the user’s view of the waste.

Solids separation (faeces) is principally accomplished through sedimentation. Loosely bound water (mostly from urine) is separated using low glass transition temperature hollow-fibre membranes. The unique nanostructured membrane wall facilitates water transport in the vapour state rather than as a liquid state which yields high rejection of pathogens and some odorous volatile compounds. A novel nano-coated bead enables water vapour recovery through encouraging the formation of water droplets at the nanobead surface. Once the droplets form a critical size, the water drains into a collection vessel for reuse at the household level in washing or irrigation applications.

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One of the biggest victories of the copyright maximalists was the successful adoption of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, implemented by the DMCA in the US, and the Copyright Directive in the EU. Its key innovation was to criminalize the circumvention of copyright protection mechanisms. That strengthens copyright enormously by introducing yet another level of legal lockdown, and thus yet another powerful weapon for copyright holders to wield against their customers. But as Techdirt has reported, the anti-circumvention laws are now being used to prevent people from exploring or modifying physical objects that they own.

The DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules not only strengthen an old monopoly — copyright — they create a new one. Because it is forbidden to circumvent protection measures, only the original manufacturer or approved agents can legally repair a device that employs such technologies. Motherboard has an interesting profile of efforts by the wider repair industry to dismantle that new monopoly before it spreads further and becomes accepted as the norm.

This may seem obscure but it’s not — these sorts of monopolies are how governments stifle individual freedom, not to mention technical innovation and economic progress. For an example, read Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have to Fix Copyright Law.

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In recent months we have featured prominently the immigration-critical statements of Central European prime ministers and heads of state, including former Czech President Václav Klaus, Czech President Miloš Zeman, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. These men speak out against Islamization, standing in sharp contrast to the cowardly milquetoasts who are passed off as political leaders in Western Europe and North America.

To that list of courageous truth-tellers must be added Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, who recently gave a surprising realistic speech assessing the dangers of the European “refugee” crisis. As reported by Tundra Tabloids, Yle — the Finnish state broadcaster — cut the most “xenophobic” minute out of the president’s speech when they aired it. Shades of Al Jazeera!

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Obamacare: The gift that keeps on shivving.

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Yet another major U.S. company is “renouncing its corporate citizenship,” said Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times. Auto parts supplier Johnson Controls announced last month it is merging with Ireland-based Tyco International to take advantage of Dublin’s lower corporate tax rate. The fact that Johnson Controls is joining a “tidal wave of corporate migrants” is all the more galling because the company has been on the receiving end of plenty of U.S. largesse, including at least $149 million in tax breaks between 1992 and 2009 from Michigan alone — and, indirectly, the $80 billion auto bailout. Given that history, it’s tempting “to cue the national anthem and argue about the need for corporate patriotism,” but shaming companies into staying isn’t going to be effective. At least a dozen other so-called inversion deals are currently in the works. It’s high time we figured out how to make it “more attractive for American companies to be American companies.”

“The solution isn’t complicated,” said Ike Brannon in Real Clear? Markets. Our corporate tax rate is among the highest in the world — nearly 40 percent when state and local taxes are included. And unlike most other countries, the U.S. taxes every dollar earned, whether the profits are made at home or overseas. So, if a firm earns money in, say, Germany, it has to pay German taxes, and then U.S. taxes when it brings that cash home, a double penalty that makes U.S. businesses less competitive. To avoid this double whammy, American companies are sitting on $2 trillion in profits earned overseas — money that could be invested in the U.S.

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The University of California (UC) announced Thursday in a press release that it has officially allotted the first $5 million in loans for distribution to illegal immigrant students through the California DREAM Act.

Approximately 3,500 illegal students in the UC system will be granted financial aid this year though the 2014 bill, which will serve students at all nine UC campuses.

My, how special.

UC president Janet Napolitano called the DREAM program an investment for the students, the state, and nation as a whole. Students residing in the U.S. illegally in California are eligible for state and UC aid, but not federal aid.

A name famed in song and story.

Alexis Moran, a third-year Hispanic student at UCLA, told Campus Reformthat by being exclusively available to illegal immigrants, these resources would not only hurt “law abiding citizens who are of all ethnicities including Hispanic, but they are also promoting and sponsoring people who are breaking the laws of our state and country.”

As if the Crust gave a shit about law abiding citizens.

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Tommy Robinson, one of the leaders of the newly-launched PEGIDA UK, was interviewed last weekend by Al Jazeera TV from Qatar. As insurance against having his responses tendentiously edited, Tommy used his cell phone to record his end of the interview, and made all of the footage available later.

A wise move when dealing with Muslims.

First the interviewer tried to trick him by reading from the Old Testament, with a deliberate attempt at misdirection to make him think the source was the Koran. Notice the sly way the fellow, without actually telling a lie, made it seem as if he were describing the text of the Koran. It didn’t work — Tommy sussed him out immediately.

Obviously an experienced ‘journalist’.

Next Tommy discussed Mohammed’s marriage to Aisha when she was just six years old, and the prophet’s deflowering of her when she was nine. That was too much for Al Jiz — they cut that segment out completely. But the clip below shows the missing section, as recorded by Tommy’s cell phone.

Hey, they’re there to hit, not to be hit.

In order to make it difficult for Al Jazeera and other dishonest media outlets to manipulate their audience with selectively edited footage, please publicize this clip as much as you can. If it goes viral, their efforts will have been in vain:

And, to support the cause, support Gates of Vienna.

Don Boudreaux, a Real Economist, looks at the bottom-feeders in his own field.

(5) the idea that government-subsidized health care will lower the cost of health care;

(4) the notion that government must have monopoly control over the money supply in order to ensure sound performance of the economy;

(3) the belief that large differences among people in monetary incomes or monetary wealth reflect some market failure that ought to be ‘addressed’ by the state;

(2) the blind faith that government officials in democratic societies can be trusted to exercise power over people who economists do not trust to make choices for themselves;

(1b) the notion that welfare payments (other than EITC) subsidize employers by pushing workers’ wages lower, and

(1a) the notion that the minimum wage is, or can practically be, a boon to all low-skilled workers.

Read it.

Last fall, the Colorado School of Mines believed it would run afoul of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause after a donor to its athletic complex wanted a nameplate with a — gasp! — Bible reference on it.

As a result, it refused the reference. The donor, Michael Lucas, responded by filing a lawsuit.

The school has now countered — by deciding to remove all nameplates from its football locker room.

Not only that, but CSM has terminated the nameplate fundraising program entirely, and as such puts the kibosh on the lawsuit brought forth by Lucas.

Read it.

The matter came up at both of the two most recent presidential debates. It’s in the news not only because of the scandal over long wait times for care at Veterans Administration hospitals and the cover-up of the same scandal, but because the differences between Republicans and Democrats on the issue illuminate a stark ideological divide.

…

The difference between Republicans and Democrats on this issue might indeed have something to do with interest group politics. Non-government doctors, health insurance companies, and for-profit hospitals — often, though not exclusively, aligned with Republicans — would surely like a piece of the roughly $60 billion a year that the federal government spends providing veterans health care through dedicated, government owned and operated Veterans Administration health care facilities.

On the Democratic side, the American Federation of Government Employees, a reliable Democratic interest group, represents 220,000 employees at the Veterans Administration. The union doesn’t want those employees to lose their jobs to non-union private sector competitors.

Note that only the Republicans focus on what’s more convenient for the veterans; Democrats are more interested in preserving government power. Sure, they want to ‘fix’ it, but using the same people and structures that broke it in the first place. Winning strategy? I think not.

Veterans health care is not the only issue where Democrats want a service provided by unionized government employees, while Republicans want to give individuals a choice. The same pattern shows up in education, where most Democrats favor traditional public schools while most Republicans are more open to private school vouchers.

Yup, same pattern: Republicans want to allow the consumers to choose, the Democrats want to keep the existing failing government monopoly.

Read it.

And it’s really, really important to know that.

A new study on the Amboseli baboons of East Africa shows that there is a “sweet spot,” or optimal group size, that is largely a factor of competition for resources and the need for protection from predators.

And that’s just so totally counter-intuitive.

(Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.)

No indication of who paid for all of this, but I suspect that taxpayers footed a large part of the bill.

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The number of people renouncing their U.S. citizenship or abandoning green cards has soared to record levels for the third consecutive year, US Treasury Department data reveal.

The surge is likely the result of stringent U.S. tax policy, officials told the Wall Street Journal.

‘Cause I’m the tax-man, ooooo, I’m the tax-man, yeah…..

The underlying cause behind the massive increase in renunciations is believed to be the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which came into force in 2010. The law imposes harsh penalties for non-compliance, even if people aren’t dodging it on purpose, Andrew Mitchel, an international lawyer who analyzes IRS data, told the Wall Street Journal.

“An increasing number of Americans appear to believe that having a U.S. passport or long-term residency isn’t worth the hassle and cost of complying with U.S. tax laws,” he said.

Some of us here at home are thinking the same thing.

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Imagine you run a barbershop and you learn that someone is planning to open a rival business down the street. What do you do?

One option, of course, would be to compete the old-fashioned way by offering lower prices or better service. But the old-fashioned way is hard! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could keep your competitor from setting up shop in the first place? There’s evidence that a growing number of businesses in the U.S. are trying to do exactly that. And while that may be good for them, it’s bad for entrepreneurs, workers and the economy as a whole.

On Tuesday, a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on “occupational licensing” laws, which require government-issued licenses to perform certain types of work. Such laws have long existed for doctors, lawyers and others in highly skilled professions, but they are increasingly spreading to low- and mid-skill jobs as well. A White House report last summer found that occupational licensing requirements have increased fivefold since the 1950s, covering more than a quarter of all workers in 2008. Cosmetologists, tree trimmers and even interior designers need licenses in some states.

The only way to prevent competition is via government action, and that is the major source of (a) special interest legislation and (b) corruption in government, not just in America but around the world.

Read it.

My question is, what business is it of a professor what terms students use, so long as they accurately express the meaning the students intend?

In the syllabus for her “Creativity In Context” class — a required course for any student pursuing a minor in Innovation — UF professor Jennifer Lee informs students of her four paragraph long classroom “communications policy” that she says will enforce “ethical conduct” in the classroom.

There appears to be something in the bottled water supplied to Florida colleges these days.

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Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

McAuliffe was referring to a scandal known as Plamegate. The backstory is complicated, but it boils down to this: During the run-up to the Iraq War, a fellow named Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times undermining a key administration claim about Iraq’s quest for weapons of mass destruction. This made the administration most unhappy. Not long afterward, someone told columnist Robert Novak and a few other members of the media that Wilson was married to one Valerie Plame, a CIA employee.

…

When he was asked if Karl Rove “is guilty of treason,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said, “Yes, I think so.” Rachel Maddow and others agreed. The word got tossed around so much Plamegate was sometimes referred to as “Treasongate.”

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton.

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No mention of how much it paid for this, and how the price compares to more conventional power supplies.

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Yesterday, a team of researchers from MIT introduced a new computer chip optimized for deep-learning, an approach to artificial intelligence that is gaining popularity. The chip, dubbed “Eyeriss” could allow mobile devices to perform tasks like natural language processing and facial recognition without being connected to the internet. It’s the latest attempt to make the complex operations of machine learning more portable. That means that our smartphones, wearables, robots, self-driving cars, and other IoT devices could begin performing complex deep learning processes locally — something that until now has been very difficult to do.

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Ségolène Royal, France’s minister of ecology and energy, has said that the government intends to pave 1,000km of road with photovoltaic panels in the next five years, supplying power to millions of people.

Ah, but at what cost? Government never takes that into account.

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University of South Australia associate professor Drew Evans has created proof-of-concept work that could in the future lead to computerised contact lenses.

The conducting polymer lens is an early step into what could lead to circuitry being etched into contact lenses.

Read it.

The former president appeared angry as he poured scorn on his wife’s opponent, portraying the Sanders campaign as dishonest and his healthcare proposals as unrealistic.

Being called dishonest by Bill Clinton is like being called ugly by a frog.

Mark Steyn scratches his head.

Aside from the Marco Rubot malfunction, the most dismal aspect of Saturday’s Republican debate was the sight of supposed conservatives competing in their enthusiasm for making women sign up for “selective service”. For non-Americans, I should explain that registering for “selective service” – as in military service – is something all young men have to do upon turning 18, so, in the event that the draft is ever reinstated, they’ll have everybody’s name in the big database. As with many aspects of the vast bloated federal bureaucracy, it seems a largely redundant exercise: I mean, between Social Security numbers, the IRS and the US Census, don’t they have every 18-year-old male in the database already?

Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark. When will you ever learn? The purpose of government isn’t to provide a service efficiently; it’s to hire and pay government workers. And if that means paying more than once for the same thing, they’re okay with that.

Be that as it may, there’s now a proposal to make the young ladies register for selective service, too. And naturally the Republican candidates were falling all over each other to say how hot they were for the idea. For my own part, I’d like to go back to the days – barely within living memory now – when America won wars, rather than figure out ways to lose them more diversely. But, as usual with Republican pandering, it seemed to me a bit behind the curve.

Indeed. Time to Get With The Program.