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The wife of White House communications chief Bill Shine has inaccurately claimed that diseases such as measles can “fight cancer.”

‘Inaccurately’? Better not tell CNN: Measles used to put cancer into remission – CNN

Breaking News: Measles Vaccine Cures Woman Of Cancer

Using Measles Virus To Treat Cancer – Business Insider

Mayo Clinic Research Shows Measles May Cure Cancer – Vaxxter

Measles Virus Put Woman’s Cancer into Remission – WebMD

Measels Vaccine Cures Cancer | Time

I guess The Independent doesn’t have access to Google. Pity.

Ace of Spades puts the boot in.

L. Lin Wood, an Atlanta-based attorney who specializes in aggressive defamation suits against the media, told LifeSiteNews on Friday that Nathan Phillips’ “lies and false accusations” against Sandmann and the other Covington students are “well documented” and he will be sued. He confirmed to PJ Media on Twitter Wednesday that he intends to sue Phillips.

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I find that comforting.

There is no plane of reality in which it is necessary for a Briton to know how to fold a tortilla.

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Well, I’ve never had a dog pick my pocket.

I’ve never had a dog call me a racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe.

I’ve never had a dog bitch me out because of my religion.

I’ve never had a dog try to use the men’s room in a store.

Makes you think.

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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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Another look at the California Rail Fail.

How did California’s dream of high-speed rail turn into the nightmare “train to nowhere?” Here are five big reasons the state’s high-speed rail project failed to pick up speed.

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Let us know how that works out for you.

Have you noticed how much of our public policy is run by children (or people who act like children)?

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And because it’s ‘described’ that way, that makes it true.

Uh, no.

Operation will see heavy metal waste dumped in fjords and put reindeer at risk.

If you believe the people who always oppose such operations, and they wouldn’t lie to you, would they? Or exaggerate?

Opponents fear it will lead to mining and drilling projects in other fragile ecosystems in the Arctic, which has become the latest frontier in the quest for rapidly depleting mineral and fossil fuel reserves.

No actual evidence of whether, or even if, that will happen — apparently ‘fear’ is good enough.

This ‘article’ tells you more about the political agenda of the author than it does any ‘news’.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

Think of it as evolution in action.

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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.

Joel Kotkin looks at the California rail fail.

Governor Gavin Newsom has canceled the bulk of the state’s long-proposed high-speed line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, leaving only a tail of the once-grand project—a connection between the Central Valley’s Merced and Bakersfield, not exactly major metropolitan areas. “Let’s be real,” Newsom said in his first State of the State address. “The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency.” The project’s cost, originally pegged at $33 billion, ballooned over the last decade to an estimated $77 billion (or maybe as high as $98 billion), with little reason to assume that the cost inflation would end there.

This effectively puts an end to former governor Jerry Brown’s “legacy” project, the lone tangible accomplishment for a second gubernatorial stint that had been far better at raising taxes and imposing draconian legislation than building things. Brown wanted to build his beloved train in a state with some of the nation’s worst roads (despite its second-highest gas taxes), a deteriorating water-delivery system, and massive pension debt. With Brown finally in retirement, Newsom took the opportunity to free up billions of dollars that his Democratic allies would like to spend in other ways.

Tyler Cowen, a Real Economist, does a look-see.

Every now and then, a few apparently random news events come together and influence how you see the world. My most recent lesson is that blackmail and blackmail risk are a lot more common than I had thought.

The first relevant news event is the allegation by Jeff Bezos that the National Enquirer has been blackmailing him with the threat to release photos of his private parts (there is much more detail to this story). Several other people have since alleged that the Enquirer has engaged in additional unscrupulous extortion tactics. This could be part of a broader pattern, involving other media and intelligence services.

Read it.

Democrats: Party of Fear – Party of Hate – Party of Death.

The Antiplanner is not afraid to ask an obvious question.

“Fire Damages Del Mar Mansion,” NBC San Diego News reported yesterday. The mansion in question, the story added, had three bedrooms, three baths, and 2,242 square feet.

Merriam-Webster defines “mansion” as “a large, imposing residence.” The Free Dictionary says it is “a large, stately house.” Call me old fashioned, but 2,242 square feet doesn’t seem that large, imposing, or stately to me. Maybe compared with tiny homes it is, but even in California, most people have not yet been squeezed into tiny homes.

You can bet money on the fact that if a newspaper doesn’t like you and you have a fence around your yard it will be described as a ‘compound’.

Read it.

Well, you know, we don’t really need to report on that, that’s old news anyway….

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As if the Occasional-Cortexites even care.

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And Albany will be only too happy to oblige.

Testifying on Tuesday at a state budget hearing, Mr. Pearl asked a bipartisan group of about half a dozen legislators to create a new “multimillionaire’s tax” on households earning more than $5 million a year in order to fund new affordable housing, infrastructure and schools.

“I’m a person of some means. I could live wherever I want,” said Mr. Pearl, a former managing director at BlackRock. “I could live in Kansas, if I wanted to live in a state with low taxes and low services. But I don’t.”

Things to notice:

1. This is a very small group of people, which the New York Times (as is its wont) pretends speaks for all ‘millionaires’ in New York.
2. There is nothing to prevent anybody, millionaire or otherwise, just writing a check to the State Treasury if they wanted to pay more tax; that doesn’t require ‘raising taxes’ for everybody.
3. What they really want is to raise taxes including the almost-rich people, so that these jumped-up proles don’t compete with the existing rich people for luxury goods and services. If the tax rate is 50%, then a guy with $10,000l,000 is left with $5,000,000, while a guy with $200,000 is left with $100,000. Go look up how far $100,000 will get you in New Yawk — it won’t be a dinner reservation at Per Se.

Read it.

Democrat logic.

Perhaps Muslim logic, too.

UPDATE: Ilhan Omar in action: A sickening disgrace

MECKLER: If Congress Can Demand Trump’s Tax Returns, Expect Them To Weaponize That Power

Maduro Calls Trump Administration An ‘Extremist Group’ Working In The Interests Of ‘The KKK’

WashPost Repeatedly Botches Fact Check of Trump’s State of the Union Address

Psychic? CNN’s Berman Slams President Trump’s ‘Flat Out Racist’ Tweet About Warren

‘Jesus Wept:’ Hollywood Implodes Over ‘Loser’ Trump’s ‘Belligerent’ Rally

Trump Trolls MSNBC with Video of Report on Senate Committee Finding No Collusion

Donald Trump Jr is slammed for saying ‘loser teachers’ are spreading socialism  Except that they are, and everyone knows it.

Don Jr. Gets An ‘F’ On Twitter After Slamming ‘Loser Teachers’ At Campaign Event  And people look to the Estrogen Post for their grades. I see.

Trump’s MAGA fans believe they’re fighting for an American revolution. That’s why we saw violence in El Paso  Well, actually, no. One guy got obstreperous and another Trump supporter restrained him. Compare with the AntiFa mobs that rage through Left Coast streets with barely a mention.

Joy Villa: Border wall Grammys dress made people angrier than ever before  Which was, of course, its intent.

When did Donald Trump’s tweets become so boring?  There’s no pleasing some people.

NBC Ignores Own Exclusive: Senate Probe Found No Evidence of Collusion

Harrison Ford takes thinly veiled swipe at Donald Trump over climate change  ‘Thinly veiled’ means he didn’t but we’re going to pretend he did because TRUMP.

Trump condemned by Iranian photographer for stealing her award-winning picture: ‘This image is for my people, not this man’  It’s called Fair Use, chick. You could look it up.

Wheels Come Off The Collusion Story, Democrats Hardest Hit

ABC Finally Reports on Senate Committee Finding No Collusion, Only to Hype Dem Contradiction

‘You Have Trafficked In Hate Your Whole Life’: Omar Responds To Trump Calling For Her To Resign  Uh, no, that would be you, Congresswoman.

Joe Scarborough Uses ‘The Simpsons’ To Mock Trump’s Shutdown Deal With Democrats Joe keeps getting more and more shallow. I expect him to turn sideways and disappear any day now.

CNN Spends Westminster Dog Show Comparing Trump to a Dog  It’s all they got.

Mitchell Scolds Pence: ‘Can You Understand’ You’re ‘Creating a Toxic Climate’ by Rebuking Omar’s Anti-Semitism?  Sorry, ‘toxic climate’ has arrived long since.

Wrong Again, Brian Williams: Trump Has Not Promised Wall ‘From Sea to Shining Sea’

Read it.

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.”

Read it.

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.

Read it.

The more accurately we can model chemical reactions, the better we can predict what combinations will do.

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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.

Read it.

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.

Read it.

Perhaps I should get him a subscription to ButcherBox.

(Have you ever seen a  picture of Spartacus Booker smiling? Have you ever seen a picture of him where his eyes aren’t bugged out? Ever?)

Read it.

Those of us who don’t have to pay California taxes are grateful that we don’t have to pay California 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.

Read it.

How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

Well, I don’t.

Steve Sailer takes a look.

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

Read it.

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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How very white of him.

(Have you ever seen a picture of Spartacus Booker smiling? Ever?)

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What goes around comes around.

Julia Beck, a lesbian activist kicked off a Baltimore LGBTQ Commission for using the “wrong” pronoun to refer to an alleged male rapist who considers himself a female, defended “biological reality” while lamenting the fact that, in today’s environment, men can easily “gain access to single-sex spaces” simply by calling themselves female.

Welcome to our world, sweetheart.

Read it.

I am so old, I can remember when liberals invented the term “fake news” to refer to pro-Trump commentary on Facebook. Those days are long gone, of course, and President Trump has made the phrase his own. “Fake news” now refers to the partisan falsehoods that dominate the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and many other news outlets.

Business Insider, despite its name, is a Voice of the Crust about two notches above the Estrogen Post and a bit below CNN in credibility.

Agriculture is another gas-producing culprit. Despite the pastoral image of cows grazing on rolling green hills, Gates noted that cattle “give off methane when they belch and pass gas.”

“A personal surprise for me: I never thought I’d be writing seriously about bovine flatulence,” he added.

Writing? Maybe. Seriously? Doubt it.

Read it.

But will they learn from this? Of course not.

Read it.

What goes around comes around.

UPDATE: Feminist Writer Sues Twitter Over Ban for Transgender Tweets

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I hope they enjoy watching their states’ economies tank.

ELLIS: India — Not So Different From Donald Trump’s America

Tapper on Donald Trump Jr.: That is blatant racism  Well, no, it really isn’t.

Why Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency freaks out Republicans

Democrats in 2020 are at risk of turning into Republicans in 2016  ‘Minus the racism’.

‘Heaven Has A Wall’ — Grocery Store Chain Ad Says The Afterlife Is On Trump’s Side

‘Opposite of Hate’ Author Sally Kohn Hates on Trump

Trump supporter ‘violently attacks’ BBC cameraman at rally after US president whips up anger over media  Perhaps they ought to ask themselves, ‘Why do they hate us?’

Trump claims Democrat wants to ‘execute a baby’ then lies about El Paso border wall in wild rally speech  They had to include ‘lies about’ in the headline so you wouldn’t mistake it for a news story.

Menendez Attacks Trump For Classifying Drunk Driving Illegals As ‘Criminal’  Which, of course, they are.

Morning Joe: Scarborough Compares Trump To Hitler, Says Republicans Are Hypocrites On Omar

Don’t let Donald Trump’s concern for unborn babies blind you to his real desire – to roll back women’s rights  I’ll bet you didn’t know that there were so many ‘journalists’ out there who have never met Trump and don’t know anything about him and yet can read his mind about his ‘real desire.’

Beto O’Rourke fact-checks Trump’s border lies at El Paso rally: ‘Walls do not save lives, walls end lives’  Well, that would account for why all prisons and jails have walls. Thanks, Bevo.

When Trump fans assault journalists, should the press reassess its abusive relationship with the president?  They should ask themselves ‘Why do they hate us?’.

REPORT: Senate Intel Democrats Find No Collusion Between Trump, Putin  Not that they’ll ever admit it.

Bob Menendez: Illegal Aliens Who Are Merely Arrested for Driving Under the Influence Should Not Be Considered “Criminals,” And Trump Is Destroying America By Treating Them as Criminals

The dogphobia of Donald Trump

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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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The problem with having only one health-care provider for everybody is that everybody suffers if a mistake is made.

How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

Think of the DMV or Post Office in charge of your health care. You want to know how ‘Medicare For All’ would work. look at the V.A. hospital system.

Read it.

We already have ‘gun control’. What he wants is ‘gun restriction’, but no newspaper will be honest about that.

If she had been a Republican, she would have been in no danger.He really ought to campaign for ‘Democrat control’.

Read it.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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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.

Read it.

Like cockroaches crawling out of the woodwork.

‘Mom’ is a state of mind.

Read it.

Those marijuana munchies will do it to you.

Police in Houston, Texas, said the “concerned citizen” contacted them after he found the overweight mammal crammed inside a tiny cage.

Officers initially assumed the caller had smoked too much cannabis and was hallucinating, but soon discovered his report was entirely grounded in reality.

Any police officer who thinks that weed is hallucinogenic needs to go for re-training.

“Finding a forever home for a tiger is not easy,” she said. “I tried to explain to people it’s a lot like having a child.”

Read it.

I love the idea of a ‘prosthetic limb’ on a plastic doll.

Victim Barbie?

Grievance Studies Barbie?