Archive for March, 2020
10th March 2020
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On Tuesday, the hosts of CBS This Morning warned viewers that common words and phrases with no racial context whatsoever were now somehow examples of “racism” in everyday life. It was all part of a segment designed to promote a “new book teaching kids the roots of racism.”
“Many headlines referred to the stock market plunge yesterday as ‘Black Monday,’ and that is just one of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that racism has been braided into our everyday culture,” co-host Tony Dokoupil lectured at the top of the 8:30 a.m. ET half hour segment. He then touted a new children’s version of the book, Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by CBS News contributor Ibram X. Kendi and co-author Jason Reynolds.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on CBS Warns Common Words & Phrases Are Now Racist
10th March 2020
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I hope it lasts long enough for him to get primaried in four years.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Mitt Romney Is Now More Liked by Democrats Than Republicans
10th March 2020
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Because it’s MSNBC, everything is about racism. And that’s certainly true of Chris Hayes. The liberal co-host on Friday insisted that the Republican Party is not an option to African Americans because of “structural white supremacy.” The fact that the Democratic Party was the party of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation didn’t seem to occur to him.
Somebody needs to tell Senator Tim Scott.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on MSNBC’s Hayes: African Americans Barred From GOP By ‘Structural White Supremacy’
10th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
10th March 2020
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Persons of Color behaving badly — what are the odds?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Caught on Video: Australian Women Brawl Over Roll of Toilet Paper
10th March 2020
John Hinderaker at Power Line reminds us of some pretty important truths.
Many are freaking out over the steep decline in financial markets over the last couple of weeks. Not me: I haven’t lost a nickel. Why not? I haven’t sold anything.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Is the Stock Market Crazy?
10th March 2020
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Funny how these ‘hate crimes’ all seem to occur in Blue States.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on First Virus-Related Hate Crime? Man Wearing Surgical Mask Stabs Asian in NYC
10th March 2020
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The combined $39.7 million in contracts are from “Project Pele,” a project run through the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), located within the department’s research and engineering side. The prototype is looking at a 1-5 megawatt (MWe) power range. The Department of Energy has been supporting the project at its Idaho National Laboratory.
Pele “involves the development of a safe, mobile and advanced nuclear microreactor to support a variety of Department of Defense missions such as generating power for remote operating bases,” said Lt. Col. Robert Carver, a department spokesman. “After a two-year design-maturation period, one of the companies funded to begin design work may be selected to build and demonstrate a prototype.”
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Pentagon Awards Contracts to Design Mobile Nuclear Reactor
10th March 2020
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Small-scale nuclear reactors are starting to be developed around the world. Proponents say they are a safer and cheaper form of nuclear power. But will they keep up with renewables?
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on The Countries Building Miniature Nuclear Reactors
9th March 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
9th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
9th March 2020
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Pennsylvania’s largest public employee union needs to stop evading a landmark Supreme Court ruling, an art teacher argues in a lawsuit that could undo key provisions of state labor laws.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association continues to negotiate provisions to give it “fair share fees” in collective bargaining agreements, despite the fact that the highest court in the land ruled those fees unconstitutional, a lawyer who represents the art teacher told The Daily Signal in an interview.
‘We don’t obey the law. Only the little people obey the law.’
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Teacher Takes Union to Court for Ignoring Supreme Court Ruling on Dues
9th March 2020
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Haters gotta H8.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Yet Another Hate Hoax: Black Woman Carves “White Pride” Into Sidewalk Outside Black-Owned Gym
9th March 2020
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Rahm Emmanual famously said, ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’. Let’s hope the Administration takes that advice to heart and uses this latest hair-on-fire exercise to make some progress on the Wall.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Pentagon Deploys Troops to California Border to Block Surge of Possibly Infected Migrants
9th March 2020
This blog stays on Nature’s Time all year ’round.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Reminder: Lock the Clock
9th March 2020
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This will not eld well.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Virginia Lawmakers Pass Bill Giving Driving Privilege Cards to Illegal Aliens
9th March 2020
Since I am in an ‘at-risk group’ (curmudgeonly geezers), I intend to self-quarantine for, oh, let’s be on the safe side, the next twenty years.
‘But Tim’, I hear you say, ‘you don’t leave the house anyway. What changes?’
Well, I’ll tell you: I get Pokemon Victim Points for Good Intentions; and, as we all know, Good Intentions solve all difficulties and erase all bad stuff. (And those points can be traded for valuable prizes later, and the way the markets are doing, I’m depending on them for my retirement.)
So if you should see me in public, be advised that it’s not me, and you should believe me rather than your lying eyes. Yeah.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on On Self-Quarantine
9th March 2020
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God alone knows why — I mean, any liquid you need to load up with cream and sugar to make it drinkable has something wrong with it.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on The Biology of Coffee, One of the World’s Most Popular Drinks
9th March 2020
Michael Fumento.
China is the origin of the virus and still accounts for over 80 percent of cases and deaths. But its cases peaked and began declining more than a month ago, according to data presented by the Canadian epidemiologist who spearheaded the World Health Organization’s coronavirus mission to China. Fewer than 200 new cases are reported daily, down from a peak of 4,000.
Subsequent countries will follow this same pattern, in what’s called Farr’s Law. First formulated in 1840 and ignored in every epidemic hysteria since, the law states that epidemics tend to rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern or bell-shaped curve. AIDS, SARS, Ebola — they all followed that pattern. So does seasonal flu each year.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Coronavirus Going to Hit Its Peak and Start Falling Sooner Than You Think
9th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
9th March 2020
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Grab any random bottle of honey from your kitchen, coffee shop, or restaurant: According to a number of honey experts who spoke with VICE, the odds are high that your honey isn’t what it claims to be. Honey imported from overseas is often adulterated—either by having sugars added to it or by being cleaned, heated, or filtered—and then is blended with small amounts of true honey until the sticky substance is uniform.
World to end – film at 11. Women and minorities (and bees!) hardest hit.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Your Fancy Honey Might Not Actually Be Honey
9th March 2020
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You have a choice. You can be a specialist, or a generalist. Which route should you choose?
My question is: Which pays more?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on On Being a Generalist
9th March 2020
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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.
Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on How to Prepare Now for the Complete End of the World
9th March 2020
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pioneer of synthetic biology at the University of California, San Diego, Jeff Hasty has spent his 20-year career designing strategies to make genetic circuits in engineered bacteria work together. But several years ago, Hasty had to admit that even he couldn’t outfox the humble bacterium Escherichia coli.
Hasty didn’t have a problem engineering useful, tightly regulated new genetic traits or getting them to work in cells. That was the easy part. What’s harder, he discovered, is maintaining those traits. If a cell needs to divert some of its resources to make a desired protein, it becomes marginally less fit than cells that don’t synthesize it. Inevitably, cells acquire mutations deactivating the introduced genetic circuitry, and the mutants quickly replace the original cells. As a result, the desired characteristic disappears, often within 36 hours.
Natural selection works, even when you don’t want it to.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Biodiversity May Thrive Through Games of Rock-Paper-Scissors
9th March 2020
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Cropster started as a tool to lift coffee producers out of poverty. Now it has a bigger mission: to save the entire global food supply.
No pressure, but….
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on The Crop Software Behind Your Daily Cup of Coffee
9th March 2020
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Assuming, of course, that’s what you want to do.
Somebody tell Joe Biden.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Study: Low Carb Diet May Prevent, Reverse Age-Related Effects Within the Brain
9th March 2020
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Most of us know the stories of medieval monks toiling in their scriptoria, diligently copying other manuscripts, either for their own or other monastery libraries, or perhaps as a private commission for the Duke of Thusandsuch, who had his own collection, and enough money for the purpose, and who wanted to show off his erudition and wealth. The end result, whether or not it was the tactical objective at the time, was the preservation of the wisdom of the ancients, and there’s nothing not to like about that.
But what was involved in getting a manuscript together? And suppose I wanted to duplicate the process today. What would it actually take to do that?
If, of course, that’s what you want to do.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Write Stuff
8th March 2020
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This is, technically, an act of war. War between Turkey and Greece is not out of the question.
This might prove an excellent excuse to kick Turkey out of NATO once and for all.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on EU Chaos: Watch as Turkish Armored Vehicle Pulls Down Border Fence for Migrants
8th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
8th March 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
8th March 2020
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How likely do you think it is that ‘the author of national pandemic strategy’ will say ‘Nah, it’s nothing to worry about’?
This is why I am skeptical of most ‘experts’.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on “This Is The Most Frightening Disease I’ve Ever Encountered In My Career” Says Architect Of National Pandemic Strategy
8th March 2020
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Yet another in a long series of ‘journalism’ that starts out by insulting its readers. Gets tiring after a while.
In a recent study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, we compared the complete genomes of over 100 organisms (mostly animals), to study how the animal kingdom has evolved at the genetic level. Our results show that the origins of major groups of animals, such as the one comprising humans, are linked not to the addition of new genes but to massive gene losses.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on What You Think You Know About Human Evolution Is Wrong
8th March 2020
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No, not Warren.
To find out, we spoke with industry experts, chefs, and buffet owners. As it turns out, it’s harder to “beat” the buffet than you might think.
Well, shucks.
I ate from all-you-can-eat buffets for six years — we called them ‘mess halls’, and, boy, they were.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Economics of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets
8th March 2020
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Levine reported on Maza’s big family connections, which include multiple mega-mansions in Florida, a multi-million dollar apartment on the Upper West Side and a fancy yacht. This news, which broke Saturday evening, comes after Maza spent years slamming the wealthy.
Included in Levine’s article is a photo from a public realtor website showing the outside of one of Maza’s family homes in Florida. The mansion boasts a waterfront view.
Levine also tweeted out images of the family’s multi-million dollar pad in Manhattan. It is not immediately clear why Levine was locked out of his Twitter following the report, as the images are publicly available.
How is this news? Most people who ‘attack the rich’ are pretty much rich themselves.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on REPORT: NY Post Reporter Locked Out of Twitter for Exposing Socialist YouTuber Carlos Maza as Coming From Elite Wealth
8th March 2020
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In the campaign to do away with biannual resetting of clocks in America, health experts point to studies showing heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents are more prevalent shortly after a time change.
And yet we continue to do it. Why?
What if everybody just said, ‘No, I’m staying on the same time all year around.’
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on LOCK THE CLOCK: Why Experts Warn Against Daylight Savings Time
8th March 2020
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In the wake of Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the presidential race on Thursday night, NPR’s All Things Considered only the considered “opinion writers” who were feminist Democrats. The question from anchor Audie Cornish was “what did this primary season teach us about the state of things for women seeking the highest office?” Not considered: Shouldn’t angry feminists actually endorse a woman for president before they complain about everyone else?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on NPR Turns to Angry Feminists as Warren Dropped Out — But Wait, Neither Endorsed Her!
8th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
8th March 2020
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Until now, archaeozoologists have been unable to reconstruct the earliest stages of domestication: the process of placing wild animals in captivity remained beyond their methodological reach.1
Using the wild boar as an experimental model, a multidisciplinary team made up of scientists from the CNRS and the French National Museum of Natural History 2 have shown that a life spent in captivity has an identifiable effect on the shape of the calcaneus, a tarsal bone that plays a propulsive role in locomotion.
Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know….
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Archaeologists Discover Clues to Early Domestication in Wild Boars
8th March 2020
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People have different ways of reacting to the coronavirus or Covid-19 situation. I have identified at least eight of them, all starting with the letter “P,” in a taxonomy that I hope is at least somewhat useful in making sense of a somewhat unusual situation.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Eight Ps of Coronavirus Reaction
8th March 2020
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I’m waiting to see how ‘facial recognition tech’ fights back.
Funny how ‘artists’ never fight anything that might get them hurt, like crime or disease.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on With Painted Faces, Artists Fight Facial Recognition Tech
8th March 2020
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Results are the reason that while I thought Trump a con-artist in 2016, I will now vote for him in 2020. I strongly mistrusted his character, personality, and intentions. Yet he has delivered on the promises he made in 2016. The economy is stronger, the judiciary is better, taxes and regulations are lower, the United States is safer, and our enemies are weaker. Do I like the man? No. Do I like the results he has delivered? Yes.
Give me good results over good intentions every time.
Preach it, brother.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Intentions and Results
7th March 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
7th March 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
7th March 2020
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Not to mention grocery store parking lot spaces.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on SUVs and Pickup Trucks Are Now Too Big for Our Already Gigantic Garages
7th March 2020
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World about to end. Film at 11. Women and minorities hardest hit.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on What the Death of the Apostrophe Protection Society Means for Grammarians
7th March 2020
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Good luck with that.
Democrats will die in the last ditch to defend their principles — unless it gets in the way.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Tulsi Gabbard Challenges Sanders and Biden to Stand On Principle and Demand DNC Let Her Debate
7th March 2020
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Since the 16th century, Cremona’s luthiers—including Stradivari himself—have been using an unusually resonant wood from Paneveggio, known as Italy’s “violin forest,” to handcraft the world’s finest string instruments. Then a 2018 storm decimated the forest. A band of experts in Cremona is now rallying to save this iconic tradition.
Since we know you don’t have anything more important to worry about.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Italy’s Endangered Violin Forest
7th March 2020
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… the “objective” media is falling all over itself to explain Elizabeth Warren’s collapse as the result of sexism, despite the mountain of evidence that voters (including women voters in her home state) just don’t like her. Reminds me of the old story about the dog food company that spent millions hiring marketing consultants to determine why their dog food wasn’t selling, and after a lot of elaborate theories, someone came up with a clear explanation: dogs didn’t like the food.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Another Question the Media Won’t Ask
7th March 2020
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that the Obama administration’s Acting Homeland Security Inspector General and his former subordinate were indicted on 16 counts of theft and fraud.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Obama-Era Inspector General Indicted on 16 Counts of Theft and Fraud
7th March 2020
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An associate professor and researcher at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has been arrested for allegedly concealing ties to a Chinese university while receiving federal funding, according to a recent Justice Department press release.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Yet Another Professor Indicted Over Alleged Secret Ties To China