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Numerically, the fine-structure constant, denoted by the Greek letter ? (alpha), comes very close to the ratio 1/137. It commonly appears in formulas governing light and matter. “It’s like in architecture, there’s the golden ratio,” said Eric Cornell, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “In the physics of low-energy matter — atoms, molecules, chemistry, biology — there’s always a ratio” of bigger things to smaller things, he said. “Those ratios tend to be powers of the fine-structure constant.”

The constant is everywhere because it characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic force affecting charged particles such as electrons and protons. “In our everyday world, everything is either gravity or electromagnetism. And that’s why alpha is so important,” said Holger Müller, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. Because 1/137 is small, electromagnetism is weak; as a consequence, charged particles form airy atoms whose electrons orbit at a distance and easily hop away, enabling chemical bonds. On the other hand, the constant is also just big enough: Physicists have argued that if it were something like 1/138, stars would not be able to create carbon, and life as we know it wouldn’t exist.

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One of the dominant themes of the last few years is that nothing makes sense. Donald Trump is president, QAnon has mainstreamed fringe conspiracy theories, and hundreds of thousands are dead from a pandemic and climate change while many Americans do not believe that the pandemic or climate change are deadly. It’s incomprehensible.

I am here to tell you that the reason so much of the world seems incomprehensible is that it is incomprehensible. From social media to the global economy to supply chains, our lives rest precariously on systems that have become so complex, and we have yielded so much of it to technologies and autonomous actors that no one totally comprehends it all.

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Tell the truth: I’ll bet you didn’t even know that there was a ‘protein folding problem’.

UPDATE: Protein folding: Much more intricate than we thought

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Until recently, Antoine Ricardou was, in no way, a cheesemaker. An architect and co-founder of the branding and design firm Be-poles, Ricardou spent his days jetting between the firm’s Paris and New York City offices, overseeing projects for such clients as Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan and Les Roches Rouges on the Côte d’Azur.

…

Then, this past March—well, you know what happened this past March. So, the 47-year-old, along with his wife and their three children, left a pandemic-stricken Paris for the relative isolation of France’s Haute-Savoie region, where the family owns an early-1800s chalet. Ricardou, who chuckles at the word “chalet,” is quick to dispel any notions of grandeur: “It’s simple and traditional, and did not have heat or hot water when we bought it last year.”

CHEEEEEEESE!

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Apparently child care is ‘infrastructure’. Who knew?

UPDATE: 9 Things You Need to Know About Biden’s ‘Infrastructure’ Spending Plan

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Nothing says “anti-fascist” like taking George Soros’ money to work with people-traffickers and bring illegal immigrants across the Mediterranean to Europe.

ZMan peers behind the curtain.

When you stop and think about it, the way in which politics and the media are presented in movies and television is a masterful bit of propaganda. On the one hand, it fully acknowledges the corruption of all democratic politics. The people in the system are always bad people. On the other hand, the bad guys always lose to the good guys, the voters, so it is proof that the system works. In other words, political corruption is turned into proof that the system works. That is some real 4-D chess.

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And why not? Corporate taxes aren’t paid by corporations but merely passed on to their customers. And they’re taxed only on ‘profits’ which Bezos has carefully arranged Amazon to have little of.

Of course, it’s too much to expect dimwist like ‘journalists’ and politicians either to understand such things or to be able to explain them to others. So we get simpleton government.

UPDATE: Jeff Bezos supports US tax rise after not paying it for two years – and paying tiny amount in 2019

UPDATE: Amazon, Which Routinely Avoids Taxes, Supports Biden’s Corporate Tax Rate Hike  And why not? It’s not as if Amazon is going to pay any of it. And if they can raise taxes on their smaller competitors, who do need to make a (taxable) profit, they’re good with that.

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It doesn’t take a particularly impressive imagination to predict how the liberal media would cover one of Donald Trump’s sons if he had a major crack and alcohol addiction. Stories would begin with the notion that Trump was a terrible father, obviously too self-absorbed and absent to raise his children right.

CNN would certainly strike that pose. But on Sunday’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter was deeply impressed with the “extraordinary” and “breathtaking” Hunter Biden memoir. Stelter gleefully promoted every tabloidish Trump-trashing book — from Omarosa to Scaramucci — but he’s doing the exact opposite now.

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A proposed maglev line between Washington and Baltimore will disrupt 1,000 acres of “parks, recreational facilities and wetlands,” according to a recently released draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the project. That’s a lot of land considering that all but nine miles of the project would be underground. While 180 acres are for a maintenance facility, the remaining acres represent a right-of-way that is an average of 750 feet wide.

This potential disruption has raised the ire of the local chapter of the Audubon Society, which is opposing the plan. As the Antiplanner recently noted, such land disruptions will be an issue for all high-speed rail lines, and in that analysis I was clearly being conservative in assuming a mere 80-foot right-of-way. By contrast, airlines don’t need any right-of-way once they leave the airports.

The Guardian.

Demands by parents to remove books from library shelves addressing racism soared in the US in 2020, the American Library Association has revealed.

An annual list that is regularly dominated by titles covering LGBTQ+ issues, the ALA’s Top 10 most challenged books contains a number of anti-racism titles for the first time in 2020. Although the list was topped for the third year running by Alex Gino’s George, the story of a fourth-grade transgender girl, Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds’ Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a history of racism for children and teens, was the year’s second most challenged title. In their complaints, parents claimed that Stamped contained “selective storytelling incidents” and “does not encompass racism against all people”, said the ALA.

In response, Kendi, a historian of race, said that he was proud of the work he and Reynolds had done on the book, and “not at all surprised” to hear it made the Top 10.

SNL Criticized for Skit About Black Doctor Convincing Family Members to Get Vaccines

Chicago Shootings In March Top Four Year High As Mayor Lightfoot’s Plan To Combat Crime Fails  BRAAAAAAAINS!

The Radicalization of Black America

REPORT: Kodak Black Ambushed In Florida Pat Boone never had to worry about this sort of thing.

MLB Moves All-Star Game From Atlanta To One Of The Whitest Cities In America

Colbert Slimes Georgia Law: White People Are ‘Terrified of Stacey Abrams’

Baltimore’s Rogue Prosecutor Mosby Facing 3 Probes of Official Duties, Travel, Gifts

‘Gun Control Has Been Racist’: ‘Black Guns Matter’ Activist Explains Why There’s A Surge In Firearm Sales To Black Americans

Nation of Islam Calls Member Who Assaulted U.S. Capitol ‘Brother With Such Great Potential’

Mea Culpa: Oregon’s Largest Newspaper Admits Defunding Police Was A Terrible Idea As Homicides Skyrocket

Senate Parliamentarian Sets Dangerous Precedent, Grants Schumer Permission For Second Reconciliation Vote

Spending Free For All: Paid Family And Medical Leave Is Infrastructure According To House Democrats

MLB All-Star Game Reportedly Moved To Colorado, A State With Voter ID Laws Similar To Georgia  But it’s a safely Blue state, so that’s all right then.

In The Name Of Social Justice, MLB Moved All-Star Game From Mostly Black City To Mostly White City

Leaked Docs Show UK Government Has Planned For Vaccine Passports All Along

Portland, Oregon Police to City: We Quit

The IMF And World Bank, Who Pay No Taxes, Are About To Talk About Tax Hikes And Inequality

CBS WHORES Out for Crony Capitalism, Backs Biden Billions to Electric Cars in ‘Infrastructure’

North Las Vegas Mayor, Lifelong Democrat, Switches Parties, Citing ‘Socialist Takeover’ In Nevada

Biden Administration Told Senator To ‘Delete The Pictures’ From Border Visit

Key Democratic Vendors Still Doing Business with Lincoln Project After Sex Scandal

j‘Double mutant’ coronavirus variant surfaces in Bay Area. Here’s what we know

Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

New Zealand to open quarantine-free “travel bubble” with Australia

Why are we continuing to imprison our population at the say so of virological water diviners ?

‘I’m Not Really Quite Sure’: Fauci Can’t Explain Why Texas COVID Cases Are Dropping Despite The State Lifting All Restrictions

Dr. Fauci Predicts At Least 3 More COVID Variants May Be Required To Completely Break America’s Spirit  Babylon Bee.

Carnival: “We May Have No Choice” But To Move Cruise Ships Outside US To Resume Operations

Democrats Come to Defense of Gov. Rick DeSantis After ‘60 Minutes’ Segment on COVID-19 Vaccine

Fact check: Biden administration officials falsely describe infrastructure jobs estimate (CNN) Yeah, surprised me too.

Wall Street will leave NY if tax and spend continues: Steve Moore

Biden Said He Would ‘Strongly Support’ The MLB Boycott Of Georgia, What Is He Going To Do About The Beijing Olympics?

March Border Crossings Surge to 15-Year High: Report

Biden Admin Massively Overstated How Many Jobs His Infrastructure Plan Will Create — By Roughly 600%

Iran Claims Victory Over United States as New Nuke Talks Begin

2 Men on Terror Watchlist Caught Crossing Southern Border

Hunter Biden Admits His Name Was ‘Gold’ to Burisma

Nets Cheered ‘Important New Job’ for Kamala at Border, Crickets as She’s MIA Now

Biden Disapproval Soars As Over 170,000 Illegal Immigrants Flood The US In March, Most In A Decade

NY Times Laments Liberal BBC’s ‘War on Woke,’ Lets Far-Left Host Cry Racism

San Francisco School Board Set To Walk Back On Efforts To Change ‘Racist’ School Names

Google Removes Entire State Of Georgia From Google Maps  Babylon Bee.

‘What The Hell?’ New ‘Capt America’ Nazi Villain Modeled On Dr. Jordan Peterson?

Uh-Oh! Does New Platform’s Partnership with Left-Wing Stripe Signal Future Censorship?

MSNBC Hate Sermon: ReidOut Rages Against ‘Racist’ ‘Selfish’ Christian Right

Japan just recorded its earliest cherry blossom bloom in 1,200 years. Scientists warn it’s a symptom of the larger climate crisis (CNN)

Belong To The Climate Club Or Get Penalized: The EU’s New Trade Protectionism

Reforestation Is Great! But We’re Running Out of Seeds  Wired ‘Science’.

Dangerously Stupid Science: Solar Geoengineering Hey, a nuclear war would cool everything down. Guaranteed.

Steven Hayward at PowerLine.

If you have a Wall Street Journal subscription, don’t miss today’s Gerard Baker column, “The C-Suite Converts to the New Political Religion.” If you don’t have a subscription, here’s the key part:

The modern secularists who deride the hagridden mysticism of traditional religion are now the most devoted congregants in the First Church of Antiracism. Penitents line up to be shriven for their white privilege, bending the knee before the altar of justice and equity. They present pendants of the martyred St. George of Minneapolis for blessing from Hollywood prelates and Ivy League divines, solemnly chanting canticles from the Black Lives Matter breviary.

Read it.

Dr. Eleanor Adams made multiple trips to the homes of various Cuomo family members, including Cuomo’s brother CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s Hamptons home and his mother, Matilda Cuomo’s personal residence, according to the Post.

ZMan waxes philosophica.

In his essay Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ever since it has been a useful dismissal of the pedant, but it is also a useful way of understanding American politics. One side in the political fight spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies of the other side, while the winning side is happy to dismiss their own hypocrisies. As Emerson understood, it is the latter who always has the edge over the former.

It is the Right, of course, that spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies on the Left, while the Left just wins every fight. The American Left, unlike the European Left, grew out of that peculiar form of American Christianity that has informed its worldview since the 19th century. Filled with self-righteous fury over the inequity of the world, the righteous are free to do as they please to right the wrongs of the world. Even their own past statements are no impediment to them.

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Father P.J. Hughes is the parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Mullahoran, a township in rural County Cavan, Ireland. He recently earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first Irish priest for centuries to find himself on the wrong side of the law for saying Mass in public.

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Elections have consequences, and one consequence of the 2020 election will be a return to the foreign policy of the Obama era that seeks to punish Israel, isolate the Arabs, elevate Iran as a regional power, and assure friend and foe alike that tough talk from American leaders is just that: talk.

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A life-sized likeness of the Swedish climate-rescue maiden Greta Thunberg is coming to the University of Winchester in England. Despite severe economic hardship, a bronze simulacrum of Greta the Great that cost about $31,000 (£24,000) will be erected in front of the “climate-smart” West Downs Centre at the University.

John Hinderaker at PowerLine.

Wokery burst onto the scene much like covid or, more appropriately, the Black Death. Or World War II. Has so much stupidity been promulgated so quickly and so broadly at any time in human history? Maybe not. Previous stupid phenomena like the witchcraft scare and phrenology took longer to take root.

John Hinderaker at PowerLine.

It is remarkable that, nearly 17 years after Rathergate, 60 Minutes still exists and apparently has an audience. 60 Minutes has never been truthful or reliable. Not long before Rathergate, we wrote about another instance of blatant misuse of documents by that program to support a false narrative. It hasn’t gotten any better since then.

Last night, 60 Minutes contributed to the Democratic Party’s smear campaign against Governor Ron DeSantis by airing a heavily edited exchange between CBS “reporter” Sharyn Alfonsi and DeSantis. Alfonsi accused DeSantis of rewarding Publix, a contributor to his campaign, by giving Publix a role in covid vaccine distribution in Florida. DeSantis thoroughly rebutted Alfonsi’s accusation, so 60 Minutes simply deleted almost everything he said to make it look as though he had no real answer to Alfonsi.

Watched it once back in the day. Wasn’t impressed.

Read it.

A candidate in the special election for Texas’ 6th Congressional District filed a defamation lawsuit on Monday against a local newspaper.

Sery Kim, an official in both the Donald Trump and George W. Bush administrations, filed a lawsuit against the Texas Tribune over its characterization of comments she made at a March 31 candidate forum as “racist.” Kim, a Republican, is running to replace Republican Rep. Ron Wright, who died on Feb. 7 after battles with lung cancer and COVID-19.

The Texas Tribune is the Texas equivalent of The Guardian in Britain, a dependably left-wing publication that does it’s best attempting to turn Texas into California.

The New Pause lengthens by three months to 5 years 10 months

Evidence of Antarctic glacier’s tipping point confirmed for first time  Except that the article doesn’t say that, it says that it ‘could’ reach a tipping point.

Buccaneers Player Carlton Davis Tweets Racial Slur, Says ‘Gotta Stop Letting G**ks In Miami’

Police Data Shows Chicago Shootings For March At Highest Level In 4 Years

Black-Owned Businesses Bound To Take Major Hit From Biden’s MLB Pressure Campaign

30 Shots Fired At Park On Easter Leaves 1 Dead, 4 Injured

Prosecutors Ask Jurors To Dismiss George Floyd Autopsy Findings

DC Carjack Killers May Be Back On The Streets Within Years

Doesn’t Fit the Narrative: Morning Shows Omit Capitol Attacker Was a Farrakhan Follower

REPORT: Girls Accused Of Killing Uber Eats Driver Reach Plea Deal To Not Be Held Past 21 Years Old

Parents Outraged After Teacher Reportedly Instructed Students At Texas School To Watch Video Of George Floyd’s Death And Keep It Secret

Permanent Racism

You Knew We’d Get There! WashPost Hits Racist Appropriation of Phrase ‘Cancel Culture’

Charles Barkley To Undergo Racial Sensitivity Training To Be Less White  Babylon Bee.

‘Like Making El Chapo The Drug Czar’: Sen. John Kennedy Questions Choice Of Kamala Harris As Illegal Immigration Head

ANALYSIS: The Least Important Thing About Biden’s Federal Judges Is Apparently Their Most Important Quality

March Border Crossings Jump to 15-Year High

Biden’s Infrastructure Plan a Boon for Unions

Leaked Numbers on Illegal Immigration Called ‘Undeniable’ Proof That Biden Policies Sparked Border Crisis

The Swamp Desperately Fights For A Piece Of Biden’s $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan

Celebs Rant Against ‘Lying, Cheating,’ Vote-Suppressing GOP ‘Bullies’

Twitter Again Suspends Rep. Taylor Greene’s Account ‘In Error’

Sen. Warnock Deletes Easter Tweet Amid Cries of ‘Heresy’

Big Tech Exodus: Lara Trump Moves Show to CloutHub After Facebook Censors Interview

NASA Ends Mars Mission After Finding Out Planet Has No Early Voting  Babylon Bee.

CBS Teams Up With Atlanta Mayor to Blame GOP for Economic Damage of Left-Wing Georgia Boycotts

“It Was Intentionally False”: 60 Minutes Slammed For Fabricating “Pay-For-Play” Narrative Against Gov. DeSantis

Democratic Florida Mayor: 60 Minutes Hit On DeSantis ‘Not Just Based On Bad Information — It Was Intentionally False’

When Hyperbole Becomes Reality

US Grant To Wuhan Lab To Enhance Bat-Based Coronaviruses Was Never Scrutinized By HHS Review Board, NIH Says

Texas COVID Cases, Deaths Plummet After Gov. Abbott Repeals Mask Mandate  Isn’t that amazing.

Fauci Blames Coronavirus on Our Failure to Live in ‘Harmony With Nature’

A Bus Driver’s Life Is Worth $16,200

DeSantis: ’60 Minutes’ Report on Vaccine Rollout a ‘Fake Narrative’

‘Get Out! Get Out!’: Diners Heckle Health Inspectors Out Of Restaurant, City Vows Revenge

‘I’m Sorry If Politicians Are Scared Of Teacher’s Unions’: Joe Scarborough Goes Off On School Re-Opening Pushback

’60 Minutes’ Flamed Over ‘Hit Job’ Against Gov. DeSantis, Publix On Vaccine Distribution

CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Now Punch Unvaccinated People In The Face  Babylon Bee.

Candace Owens: Twitter ‘Sticking Bulls**t Labels on Tweets’ Won’t Make Me Get Vaccinated

‘We Have Lost Our Ever-Loving Minds’: Megyn Kelly Tweets About Family Kicked Off Plane Over Child Not Wearing Mask

Watch CNN’s Jim Acosta Justify $2 Trillion ‘Infrastructure’ Deal By Bellyaching About Wifi On His Trips Between DC And NYC

CNN’s Brown Frets Biden Not Moving Fast Enough on Gun Control

REPORT: Twitter Spins Sensitive Content Filter To Abuse Conservatives

‘I Guess I Am’: St. Louis Sheriff Responds As Inmates Trash City Jail And Reporters Ask ‘Who’s In Charge?’

DeSantis Smashes CBS Reporter’s Fake Vaccine Narrative, So CBS Takes Him Out of Context

NFL Writer Peter King Is Using His Weekly Column To Push For Gun Control

CASH DUMP! George Soros Pledges $20 Million to Push Biden’s Multitrillion-Dollar Spending Agenda

Hunter Biden Incident Shows That Gun Laws Are For The Little People

YouTube pulls Spectator editor interview with Trump lawyer John Eastman

As violence surges, some question Portland axing police unit

Murder up 35.7% YTD relative to 2019

All-Star Game Moved From Atlanta To Uyghur Prison Camp Yard  Babylon Bee.

The Left’s War on Free Speech

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Portland Public Schools’ Board of Education delayed a vote to approve an evergreen mascot over concerns that the symbol is connected to lynching and could be misperceived as “a tree of death.”

Students and faculty at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School overwhelmingly selected an evergreen tree to replace its former Trojans mascot in a recent survey. Board director Michelle DePass delayed the board’s approval vote on the mascot over concerns that evergreens could evoke ties to lynchings, the Portland Tribune reported.

Uh, guys? Nobody was ever lynched from an evergreen tree. The branches aren’t strong enough.

You’d think that somebody in Portland would know that.

Read it.

A recent poll made public Monday reveals that Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is facing a significant threat from a new Republican challenger.

The new Cygnal poll shows Murkowski trailing Republican Commissioner of Administration Kelly Tshibaka by 15 points in the 2022 all-party Alaska Senate primary. The poll found Murkowski to have just a 33% favorability rating among all Alaskans, compared to 63% unfavorable.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving RINO.

ZMan goes global.

A popular topic among Sinophiles since the installation of Joe Biden as president is the possibility of war with China over the status of Taiwan. The Chinese have been obsessed with Taiwan since Mao. With the American empire in sharp decline and the Biden regime unpopular at home and abroad, now could be the perfect time for the Chinese to make their move. As John Derbyshire is fond of pointing out, “Taiwan is like two feet from China … We are eight thousand miles away.”

…

Whether or not the US would actually go to war to defend Taiwan is debatable, but that is the official position. Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia are also technically committed to the defense of Taiwan. An all-out assault on Taiwan could very well result in attacks on Chinese infrastructure along the coast. It would most certainly result in massive economic retaliation. The Chinese regime would be forced to explain to her people why they are suddenly poor again.

Read it.

If you want to keep your job as a politically conservative public school teacher, you learn to keep your mouth shut, a Chicago area teacher told The Daily Signal.

Morgan Foster has taught English in middle school and, later, high school in Cook County, Illinois, for about 10 years.

Read it.

The headline of this Washington Post article is “How Joe Biden tamed the left — at least for now.” The authors show, in essence, that Biden tamed the left by giving leftists what they want. One might say the left tamed Biden.

Read it.

When you think about Hunter Biden, what is the first thing that comes to mind? And please don’t crack any jokes. Come on, pipe up. What do you associate Hunter Biden with? Laptops? Perhaps but it could be another L-word, namely locomotives.

Yes, did you now that Hunter Biden is a noted locomotive expert? You don’t believe me? Well, that is how Politico’s “Transition Playbook” described him on Friday in “How high speed trains got railroaded in Biden’s infrastructure plan.”

Read it.

The following article from the Netherlands is a lucid and succinct summary of the problems caused by the importation of Muslims into the West.

Read it.

Perhaps you are amazed at the millions of people who have bought into the idea that the gradually increasing level of a trace atmospheric gas (CO2, currently about 0.04% of the atmosphere) is going to bring about world climate doom a hundred or so years from now. You may be even more amazed at the similarly large numbers of people who seem to think that the salvation from this doom is to be found in bringing lawsuits against various companies that produce fossil fuels and getting some court somewhere to order that the companies do . . . what exactly? And that is going to avert the climate doom . . . how exactly?

I can’t answer those questions. But the posing of the questions has led me, as a service to readers, to try to follow some of these ridiculous lawsuits, which I have dubbed the “stupidest litigations” in the country.

So MLB Is Fine With Games In Cuba & Training In China, But Georgia Has A Human-Rights Problem?

‘We’re All Dealing With Post Trump Stress Disorder’: Jim Acosta Weighs In On Media Coverage After Trump

CBS News Deletes Tweet Linking To Article That Gave Companies Advice On Fighting ‘Georgia’s Restrictive New Voting Law’

Here are 7 necessary ways to tax the rich (Salon)

Trump’s Campaign Bilked His Fans Out of Millions Because of Course It Did (New York Magazine)

Do the Rich Support the Tax the Rich Campaign? (The New Yorker)

Shock: This CNN Host Exposes Liberal Lies Against Georgia Voting Law

CBS Yanks ‘Straight-News’ Article Advising Companies “How To Beat” Georgia Election-Integrity Laws

Charlotte Man Arrested After Trashing Asian-Owned Store With Signpost, Yelling Racial Slurs

Charles Barkley Says The ‘System’ And Politicians Want Black And White People To Hate Each Other

The Sewell report on racial disparity is an attempt to erase progress and sow division (The Guardian)

More suspects arrested for murdering Dallas woman on vacation, police say

Is Racism Making People Sick? (Vox)

Life in Vermont

Ahmaud Arbery: the Holiness of the Long Distance Jogger

The Black Muslim Capitol Cop Killer

Russia’s Lavrov Warns Of Surging Anti-White Racism In US

George Floyd and ‘The Riot Ideology’

PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor: Georgia Law and Chauvin Trial ‘Definitely Connected’ (by Racism)

“YPCCC Helps Facebook Debunk Climate Change Myths”

Environmental Justice campaign to replace New York City peaking power plants

Will John Kerry Sell Out Chinese Human Rights to Win a Global Climate Agreement?  I bet Yes.

Biden admits tax hike could hit people earning $200K

Who Is the Phoniest of Them All?

Biden Administration And Iran: Secret Deals And Appeasement Back On The Table?

Sen. John Barrasso: ‘The Easiest Way To Get Into The United States Today Is To Do It Illegally’

‘He Is Lying To Cause Racial Divisions’: Chris Christie Unloads On Joe Biden

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One of the most commonly heard debater’s challenges, online and in real life, is: “Are YOU an expert in (X)?” The obvious if generally unspoken corollary is: “If not, then shut up.” However, very often, you don’t need to. There is little evidence that a smart normal citizen, capable of effective analysis of empirical data, cannot criticize the work of academic or journalistic “experts” in most fields—or any reason that he or she should be intimidated by these title-holders.

Obviously, some professional background in a topic that one is discussing or researching is a good thing. However, no credential can substitute for a relatively unbiased and non-partisan approach to data, or for what can bluntly be called intelligence. Whether due to political motivation or plain incorrect statistical assumptions, credentialed experts have a long and entertaining history of wildly false predictions—like the recent predictions of between 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States before the end of 2020.1, 2 This sort of thing is likely to become even more common in the politicized academy of today, where essentially no statistical support appears to exist for theories of “white fragility” and univariate white privilege. When debating such questions as “How many human sexes are there?” a taxpayer who finds the experts arrayed against her need not feel a fool.