1 sentence that sums up Joe Biden’s mounting political problems (CNN) “Let’s go, Brandon!”

Not Going Away: NY Post’s Nelson Irks Psaki by Daring to Ask About Corrupt Hunter Biden

White House Says Biden ‘Proud of His Son’ for Art Sales  I have no doubt.

Watch: $100 Million Border Wall Discarded In Field While Biden Still Pays Contractors To Not Build It  Want to know where your tax money goes? Voila!

Get curious with the Shamala video

The case of Hunter Biden

Emails Reveal Hunter Biden’s Relationship With Shadowy Chinese Tycoon

Docs Show Biden Admin Opening Border, Handing Out Work Permits

Joe And Hunter Biden Shared Bank Accounts, Paid Each Other’s Bills

Now A US Govt Official Is Telling Us That Supply Chain Nightmares Could Potentially Last For “Years”  Duh – when you shut down the supply chain with lockdown mandates, this is what happens.

Vaccine Mandates Aren’t Biden’s Only Job-Killing Scheme

COVID-Ravaged Mom of Newborn Denied Lung Transplant: ‘How Cruel Is That?’ (Daily Beast)

Australia Building Quarantine Camps For “Ongoing Operations”

Military Archbishop: OK for Catholic Troops to Refuse COVID Vaccines

Federal Judge Blocks United From Putting Vaccine-Exempt Workers on Unpaid Leave

Kyrie Irving Takes A Stand Against Vax Mandates, Gets Suspended Indefinitely

‘I hope you die’: how the Covid pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists

Judge Orders United Airlines Not To Put Workers Seeking Vaccine Mandate Exception On Leave

FDA Hints J&J Booster Jab May Be Beneficial, But Remains Mum On Approval Odds

Go Fund Me Takes Down Fundraising Campaign For Litigation Over Vaccine Mandate

Federal Judge Rules New York Must Provide Religious Exemptions to Vaccine Mandate

Texas Anti-Vaxxer Charged With Threatening Prominent Doctor

Over Half-Million Healthcare Works Quit Jobs in August  Your tax dollars at work.

“Which Hospital do you Want to Shut?”: Climate Policy Debate Rages in Australia’s Ruling Coalition

Trump to Skip 2024 Campaign and Go Straight to Claiming He Won (The New Yorker)

Black flag: Understanding the Trumpists’ latest threatening symbol (Salon) All Trump! All the time!

Someone needs to remind Greg Abbott he is a conservative (CNN) And Chris Cillizza is that guy? Uh, I don’t think so….

Democrats don’t have to save themselves. Donald Trump is still here to help (Salon) All Trump! All the time!

Cancel culture backfires as thousands of students sign up for professor’s Princeton lecture

Geophysicist ‘Canceled’ by MIT Honored With Award While Thousands Register for His Lecture

CNN Hypocrites Rip Abbott Limiting Business ‘Freedom,’ Ignore Newsom’s Gender-Neutral Law

Peter Ridd Case: Academic Freedom Just Died in Australia

Gruden Removed From Buccaneers’ Ring of Honor

Raiders Fire Gruden for Comments … Made 10 Years Ago?  It’s never too late to get cancelled.

“Racist Botanist” Linnaeus Is Cancelled. How Long Left for Darwin?

Facebook Has A Blacklist Of ‘Dangerous’ People and Orgs: Report

FBI Assures Nation They Will Get Back To Figuring Out Why That Guy Shot 400 People In Vegas After They’re Done Investigating Parent-Teacher Meetings  Babylon Bee.

Australian Filmmaker Topher Field Arrested on Charges of ‘Incitement’

US Judge Holds DC Jail Officials In Contempt Over Mistreatment Of Capitol Riot Defendant

Katie Couric Edited RBG Interview to ‘Protect’ Her

Looney Tunes Joy Reid Goes All Out With Dangerous Rhetoric Against Conservatives  As she does.

Federal Judge Calls for DOJ Probe Into Treatment of Jan. 6 Detainees

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The United States needs to invest more heavily in Central America if it hopes to slow record levels of northbound migration, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Wednesday.

Record numbers of migrants have passed through Mexico this year toward the United States, driven by economic downturns stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and drawn by the hope of more welcoming immigration policies under U.S. President Joe Biden.

There ought to be serious economic sanctions on Mexico for facilitating this invasion. They need us more than we need them.

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By uprooting carbon trapped in soil, wild pigs are releasing around 4.9 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually across the globe, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars.

An international team led by researchers from The University of Queensland and The University of Canterbury have used predictive population models, coupled with advanced mapping techniques to pinpoint the climate damage wild pigs are causing across five continents.

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We’re living in a really remarkable economic time. There appear to be more jobs than workers. Yet the number of homeless-populated tent cities seem to be increasing. Despite the rise in the minimum wage, about 37 million people still exist below the poverty line. What’s really going on? Surely, as Joseph Sunde has written, these strange incongruities predate COVID. Is there a more, I don’t know, human element at play that macroeconomics can’t detect, but a little empathy and less blame-gaming could?

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I trust billionaires before I trust government. Just sayin’.

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If you’ve thought about Yemen lately, you’re one in a thousand, or maybe a million, but it’s a place worth thinking about. Occupying the eastern shore of the strait between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, it is an excellent position from which to interdict shipping between Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. It is also mired in a long-running civil war pitting proxies for Saudi Arabia (the post-Arab Spring government that was forced to flee the capital in 2015) against proxies for Iran (the Islamofascist Ansar Allah, commonly called the “Houthis”). This combination of geopolitical position and international conflict makes the country strategically important.

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

Incentives never work as well as motivation.

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It’s in the blood of any decent charlatan to solve problems that don’t exist, rather than face the full horror of their in-tray. Sadiq Khan (no stranger to blood) wants to outlaw misogyny – wolf-whistling you understand, not FGM, Sharia courts or segregation. Health secretary Sajid Javid, wants blood donations to be more inclusive (because worrying about HIV is just silly). Keir Starmer meanwhile, is prepared to ‘Sweat blood to win voters’ respect’ just as soon as he’s finished playing hunt the cervix.

When it comes to non-issues however, my personal preference remains the LGBTQwerty attack, aka ‘the world is not gay enough’ (and if that’s not the title of the next James Bond film, there’s no justice in the world). Indeed the ostensive lack of gayness is a conundrum worth pondering as you mince across London’s permanent gay crossings, sip your Starbuck’s gay coffee, or get run over by the Old Bill, too focused on painting their nails in their gay ‘hate crime cars’.

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Refuses to Resign Over LGBT ‘Filth’ Comment

Woke Backfire: Thousands Register for Geophysicist’s Lecture at Princeton After MIT Cancels

Popovich Appalled At Celebration Of Columbus, Compares Him To Hitler

Irony Is Dead: CNN Urges Viewers to Cancel Netflix Amid Chappelle Show

Leaked Docs: Prestigious DC School Poised To Crack Down on ‘Harmful’ Humor

Fox on ABC Accusing Sinema of ‘Hard Turn to the Right’

‘Debate’? CNN Sides with CRT Activist to Bully Conservative Mom

YouTube Permanently Bans Conservative Think Tank Without Explanation

STUDY: Big Tech Censors GOP Congressmen By 54-1 More than Democrats

University of Michigan Professor Pushed Out of Teaching Course for Screening Blackface ‘Othello’

The New Victim of Cancel Culture: Science

Trump NY Art Exhibition Closed Due to Threats

NPR Helps Adam Schiff Sell New Book on His Tear-Filled Trump Impeachment

State School Board Groups Disavow National Entity’s Call for DOJ to Investigate Parents

FDA Responds To Nordic Countries Suspending Moderna COVID Vaccine Usage

Allen West Taking Ivermectin for COVID-19 Treatment

The COVID Mask Slips

Media Now Claims That “Double Jabbed” Brits Who Have Bad Colds Are Actually Suffering From COVID

Brooklyn Nets Ban Kyrie Irving From Playing Until He Gets Covid-19 Vaccine

NY Judge Grants Injunction Against COVID Vaccine Mandate for Healthcare Workers

911 System In Jeopardy As First Responders Reject Jab

South Carolina Sports Radio Host Fired After Refusing COVID Vaccine

Covid scam arbitrage

FDA Staff: Moderna Did Not Meet All Criteria for COVID-19 Boosters

Florida County Fined $3.5M for Vaccine Mandate  Which will not be paid by the elected officials but rather by the taxpayers.

Large Canadian Town Bars Unvaccinated Couples From Getting Married  Time to leave.

Judge Overrules NY Governor – Says Employers Must Grant Religious Exemptions To Healthcare Workers

NYC’s Unvaccinated Teachers Must Waive Right To Sue If They Want To Keep Health Benefits

Scientists discover a highly potent antibody against SARS-CoV-2

Oregon Senators Call For Investigation Into Alleged COVID-19 Statistical Manipulation

World Health Organization Forming New COVID Origin Study Group

Hunter Biden Activities Spark Questions About White House Anti-Corruption Push

It’s All Fake: Kamala Harris Used Child Actors Who Had To Audition For Weird NASA Promo

Mayorkas Declares War on Immigration Enforcement

Lawsuit Alleges Cronyism at Biden EPA to ‘Rubber-Stamp’ Green Agenda

Kids, Here Are 10 Signs Your Parents Might Be Domestic Terrorists

NFL Coach Jon Gruden Calls Biden an Expletive in Emails

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Dozens of viruses don’t use the same four nucleotide bases found in all other life. New work shows how this is possible—and perhaps more common than we think.

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Ancient philosophers did not analyse political systems in terms of individual rights, distribution of powers, and legitimacy. Instead, they focused upon the kind of citizen that a specific regime-type produces, the virtues it inculcates, and the values it promotes. In the Republic, Plato speaks of “Democratic Man,” “Aristocratic Man,” and “Timocratic Man.” The very word “regime” is an English translation of politeia, a term that Plato uses to convey both a system of government and the way of life of a political community. On this view, far from a matter of procedure, politics becomes a way to shape the hearts, minds, and souls of citizens. In this sense, the ancient city-state constitutes a tutelary community that enshrines a definition of the good life, a pantheon of heroes, and a panoply of virtues. For centuries, this type of regime-analysis dominated political thought. From Polybius to Montesquieu, theorists would treat the political sphere as a nexus of laws and institutions, but also customs, habits, manners, and—most importantly—ways of life.

This kind of regime-analysis disappeared with the rise of classical liberalism, which supplied an altogether different language of politics. As an intellectual reaction against an oppressive order, classical liberalism is first and foremost a negative ideal. Most liberal theorists know what they do not want—domination, illegitimate hierarchies, dogma—but they do not know what they do want, insofar as they do not tie their political philosophy to a precise definition of the good life. Once liberated, individuals must build their sense of selfhood by and for themselves. The liberal state provides liberty and rights, not meaning and purpose.

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Several weeks ago a young woman was sexually assaulted by “youths” in Tarragona, a province of Catalonia. The culture-enrichers introduced her to the time-honored Arab custom of taharrush, in which men surround and subdue young women and then subject them to various forms of sexual abuse. The proximate cause for their unwanted attention was the fact that she wore a t-shirt for the anti-immigration party Vox.

The video below shows a brief encounter between reporters and Minister of Equality Irene Montero. When asked whether she would condemn the rape of a Vox supporter in Tarragona, the most the minister could manage was to condemn “fascism”.

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Mollie Hemingway applies her talent—rigorous and thoughtful old-school journalism—to documenting the 2020 assault against America perpetrated by the evil alliance of the progressive movement, the entrenched bureaucracy, modern “journalism”, and big technology firms. Yes, the election was rigged. But the core of Rigged is the story of years of lawfare, private takeovers of election boards by well-funded progressives, ill-considered and/or uncontested consent agreements, the flouting of long-standing election law, and the shielding thereof by a twisted judiciary.

This book does not lay out specific proof that Trump won on November 3, 2020. It does show how the unprecedented surge in mail-in voting, and the suppression of the anti-fraud measures that are supposed to accompany it, made 2020 a perfect storm for untraceable fraud.

Read it.

The father of a student at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, Virginia, told The Daily Wire the local school system attempted to cover up his daughter’s assault by another student in the school.

She was allegedly assaulted in the girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt.

Scott Smith told the Daily Wire his daughter was assaulted by another student in the school bathroom last May, by a boy wearing a skirt. But when he was told by the school at the time they would handle the incident in-house, school administrators eventually called the local sheriff’s office after Smith, in his own words, “went nuts” and insulted the principal.

“Six cop cars showed up like a f***ing SWAT team” to respond to the school’s complaint about an assertive parent, he said.

“Thank God that I drew enough attention to it, without getting arrested, that we got an escort to the hospital and they administered a rape kit that night,” Smith said.

The Daily Wire notes the kit results were favorable to the prosecution’s case.

The Other McCain rides the wave.

Everybody knows what it means.

ZMan does some analysis.

Like most things in the current age, professional sport has become a degenerate mockery of itself. The presentation is a high-tech vaudeville act that is now mostly advertisements and propaganda. The people in charge of the various sports are the worst this age can muster. The participants are vulgar carnies. Despite the best efforts of this age, however, sport continues to provide an insight into our times. It is a microcosm of the larger society in which it operates.

For example, football was always the second sport in America, up until the explosion of mass media in the 1980’s. In fact, football was probably behind sports like boxing and horse racing, not just baseball. The explosion of television rocketed football to the top of sport entertainment because it was a natural for the medium. It provides a stage that fits the screen, has breaks for ad space and is a weekly happening. The NFL quickly became a lightly scripted television sports drama.

Scott Johnson at Power Line.

I took a look at the Biden fakery, most recently, here over the weekend. Vice President Kamala Harris takes fakery to a new level. She is such a synthetic character she might have been created in a laboratory as a joke, perhaps by Dr. Frankenstein high on drugs. You can make this stuff up, but it defies credulity.

It turns out that the entire cast of Harris’s weird space video was made up of actors pretending to be students interested in Harris’s meditations. The Examiner has a good story on the video production, noting that “[t]he actors flew to Washington during the second week of August, filming Wednesday through Friday. At the time, the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan was in collapse, with Washington’s withdrawal from the two-decade conflict…”

UPDATE: Shamala: The real thing

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Attention has always been a commodity, though not in the same way it is now. Where paying attention was once something that afforded farmers a plentiful harvest, now our attention is increasingly something to be captured and capitalized upon by others. Our attention spans are often described as “scarce.” Some scholars have even started referring to advertising as “attention harvesting.” An almanac is, of course, a product (and it does sell other products in its advertisements), but it more frequently turns readers’ attention to things that cannot be bought or sold, to remarkable phenomena that can only be found in the natural world: bird migration, meteor showers, eclipses.

…

Almanacs force the kind of surrender that comes naturally to a child in the woods. Paging through the almanac, readers must accept things as they come. The reward is a wonderfully freeing randomness: in this year’s almanac, I read about how to plant trees from clippings; learned that Duluth, Minnesota, is famous for “hawk watches”; and prepared for the “full flower moon.” Even the advertisements delight me: at what other one-stop shop could I purchase artisanal sausages, collectors’ nickels from 1935, and a product called “chicken soup for the soil”? I float along the pages, learning things I’ll likely never use — or things that are so obvious as to be useless. This year’s Old Farmer’s Almanac spent an entire section breaking down the pros and cons of owning different species of pets (in case you didn’t know, dogs are friendly but chew shoes sometimes, and cats are cute but independent). That’s part of the charm, too: the almanac doesn’t take itself too seriously. As its five-page article on choosing a pet says: “[D]on’t intellectualize dog love.”

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Today, breathwork is the new yoga. It can be found everywhere from therapy sessions to gym classes, but, while it’s currently in vogue, it’s far from new. It’s hard to pinpoint the first moment when humans decided to use breathing intentionally, but you can find early indications of conscious breathing in Hindu scriptures dating back hundreds of years, for instance in the Bhagavadgita, composed sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE.

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Mozambique is a small coastal nation in southeast Africa, north of South Africa and south of Tanzania that has become the most recent scene of Islamic terrorism developing and disrupting both the local economy and massive foreign investments to build a lucrative natural gas industry to supply local and export customers. In less than two years the violence has increased to the point where most of the foreign natural gas operations have been shut down and neighboring countries have organized a peacekeeping force to restore order until local security forces are reformed and upgraded to do it themselves.

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The news site Axios in July hosted an event with Rep. Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.), a member of a House subcommittee on health and the sponsor of legislation that would provide federal funding that allows companies to sell knockoff drugs virtually identical to those that originated with their competitors.

The event was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Viatris, which spent $3.6 million lobbying in favor of the drugs, known as biosimilars, and has contributed to Schrader’s campaigns.

The Axios event—”A Conversation on biosimilars and drug development”—featured the organization’s reporters, who touted biosimilars as an innovative approach to “lowering the cost of treatment in the U.S.,” alongside Schrader, who lauded pharmaceutical companies for their willingness to “be part of the solution.” The event was followed by a tweet from Axios‘s account, which boasts nearly 600,000 followers, that broadcast Schrader’s support for biosimilars and noted the Viatris sponsorship.

The best Congressmen that money can buy.

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In a disturbing video posted on Twitter a week ago, migrant activist and leader of the massive 80,000-person caravan heading to the U.S.-Mexico border, Irineo Mujica declared that they were “ready for war” with the National Guard if they would not let them through regardless if they had the proper documentation or not. And equally disturbing, at no point in the last seven days had the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, or NBC) shared this very clear threat with their viewers.

Despite the story circulating for a week, Fox News Channel was the only major television outlet to give it considerable airtime with multiple segments throughout the weekend. And by Monday, they were still at it while ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News were gushing about Paul McCartney blaming John Lennon for the Beatles breaking up.

Joel Kotkin.

A former Facebook employee hailed by the media as a whistleblower testified this week on Capitol Hill about the social media giant’s algorithm, and how it harms children and democracy. Frances Haugen told the the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security that Facebook routinely chooses profit over safety, creating an addictive product that puts children—and American democracy—at risk by failing to adequately police its product.

But though Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is no doubt embarrassed by the brouhaha, he and his fellow big tech founders ultimately may have very little to worry about. At the end of the day, Haugen’s testimony was less an exposé and more a distraction from the far more urgent issue of big tech’s expanding monopolistic reach, and its growing political and cultural power. The real question when it comes to big tech is not the one posed by Haugen’s testimony—whether Facebook and the other tech platforms allow “misinformation” or “hate speech” on their platforms; her testimony instead conveniently missed the real problem: that a handful of mega-firms are now controlling content for much of the population.

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On Monday, NBC’s Today went hard after the sport of NASCAR and its millions of fans as they teed up new race team co-owner Michael Jordan to lament that the sport has represented “the teeth of racism” with his driver Bubba Wallace facing — as per their insinuations — a racist double standard because he faces boos when introduced to crowds.

And then hours later on MSNBC, sportswriter Bill Rhoden boasted that Jordan’s 23XI Racing was part of the NBA legend’s “war on racism” against “one of the most institutionalized racist sports organizations in America.”

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Microsoft announced Monday a group of Iranian hackers were “password spraying” or password-guessing against Office 365 accounts tied to defense companies.

Microsoft wrote in their blog, the hackers, who they believe are operating out of Iran, are targeting “defense companies that support United States, European Union, and Israeli government partners producing military-grade radars, drone technology, satellite systems, and emergency response communication systems.”

15 Shot in St. Paul: An Interesting Test of Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings

3 Dead, 39 Wounded in Another Weekend of Chicago Gun Violence

Herschel Walker Nets $3.7M in Contributions Since Announcing Senate Bid

NY Times Page One Hails BLM Educator, Defends CRT From Racist White Parents

Brian Williams Blames Biden Poll Plunge on ‘Really Crappy Reporting’

MSNBC’s Witt Frets Texas GOP Targeting Two ‘Outstanding’ House Democrats

California Orders Big Box Stores To Create ‘Gender-Neutral’ Section For Kids Products  Time to leave.

Chicago Business Leaders Concerned Crime May Drive Away Companies

Docs: Nebraska Agency Secretly Tapped Planned Parenthood Ally To Shape Radical Sex Ed Curriculum

Judge Orders Philadelphia To Remove Plywood Box Covering Columbus Statue

CNN, MSNBC Let Same Pro-Abort Guest Trash Texas Heartbeat Law

Philadelphia Fed Promotes Soros-Funded Group That Targeted Christopher Rufo

California first state to require ethnic studies for high school graduation

Net Zero California Governor Just Banned Backup Generators and Fire Pumps

Georgia County Fires Two Who Allegedly Shredded Voter Registrations

Bogus De-Oxygenation Crisis

Climate change: Prince of Wales sympathetic to protesters’ anger (BBC)

England’s coastline shifting rapidly due to climate crisis (CNN)

The most alarming Trump rally yet (CNN) Alarming!

“Absolutely false”: Fox News brutally fact checks Mike Pence after he whitewashes the Capitol riot (Salon) Fact check! Whitewash!

Trump Wanted to ‘Stay in Power Forever’ Like Putin, Says His Ex-National Security Adviser (Newsweek)

Fiona Hill says January 6 was a “dress rehearsal” for future political violence (CBS News)

‘Civil War’ Trends on Twitter After Iowa Trump Rally Attendee’s Remarks Go Viral (Newsweek)

America is shorthanded in foreign affairs. Thanks, Ted Cruz. (Washington Post)

Supreme court, Facebook, Fed: three horsemen of democracy’s apocalypse (The Guardian) Robert Reich pushes the Narrative.

This Anti-Masker Thinks God Wants Her to Terrorize Children (Daily Beast)

“I need my next meal”: Lindsey Graham responds to charges he’s freeloading off Trump (Salon) English is apparently not the first language at Salon.

Family of trans comedian defends Dave Chappelle over his ‘transphobic’ comments of the community (Daily Mail)

Bar complaints, the left’s latest tactic for silencing opponents

Left-Wing Democrats Target Sen. Sinema

Capitol Police Whistleblower Calls Out Jan. 6 Leadership Failures, Lies

‘View’ Brings on 2016 Election Conspiracist Hillary Clinton to Trash Trump over 2020 Election

Taliban Says US Will Provide Humanitarian Aid to Afghanistan

Kamala Harris mocked over science video for kids

“It’s A Big Day For Our State” – Sydney Lockdown Finally Ends After 106 Days

ESPN: Vaccinations ‘Social Justice’ Issue – Like Fighting Police Brutality

Federal Judge Denies Request to Block Vaccine Mandate on Natural Immunity Basis

Why high dose vitamin D supplements could cause side effects (Insider)

COVID-Infected Allen West Goes on Unhinged Anti-Vax Rant—From Hospital (Daily Beast) Unhinged!

NYT Forced to Fix Claim 900,000 Kids Have Been Hospitalized with COVID

Compulsory Vax in France?

Doctor Says Physicians Are Being “Hunted” For Speaking Out By Press & Medical Boards

Merck Asks FDA For Emergency Approval Of New COVID Drug Despite Safety Concerns

Sen. Cruz Blames Canceled Southwest Flights on Biden Vaccine Mandate

Federal Judge Rules Against Natural Immunity Claim Challenging COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

How the Regime Wrecked the Vaccine Rollout

Terrifying New Halloween Mask Depicts A Human Face Not Wearing A Mask  Babylon Bee.

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Progressive guilt and racial grievance mongering were the order of the day for Monday in New England. And, oh, yes, the Boston Marathon took place there, too. USA Today’s left-wing sports columnist Nancy Armour and the Boston Athletic Association asserted the sport of distance running is far too white and has erased indigenous people for far too long.

Armour’s race piece began with a focus on Verna Volker, a Navajo distance runner who’s frustrated that running magazines have featured blonde women, instead of indigenous women like herself. They don’t have stories like hers either. Volker rarely sees Native runners at the races, so that must surely imply racism is in play.

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They’d be fools not to.

Scott Alexaner.

I actually disagree with Scott on this one. People who buy the Climate Change flim-flam are prima facie stupid and ought to be encouraged not to reproduce. Think of it as evolution in action.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

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A new congressional report on the U.S. Navy “found that a staggering 94% of sailors interviewed believe that the surface Navy suffers from a crisis of leadership and culture.”

Increased administrative burdens (750 annual reports per ship, most of them useless) and training not related to combat have eaten into the time American sailors are able to devote to honing mission-critical skills.

“The noncombat curricula consume Navy resources, clog inboxes, create administrative quagmires, and monopolize precious training time,” the report warns. The report highlights America’s glaring unpreparedness at a time when America’s primary strategic competitor, China, is beefing up its navy, threatening U.S. allies and interests around the world.

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Able to leap tall metaphors with a single bound….

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The researchers also have shown that transplanting dysbiotic gut microbiota from a hypertensive animal into a normotensive (having a healthy blood pressure) one results in the recipient developing high blood pressure.

“This result told us that gut dysbiosis is not just a consequence of hypertension, but is actually involved in causing it,” Durgan said. “This ground work led to the current study in which we proposed to answer two questions. First, can we manipulate the dysbiotic microbiota to either prevent or relieve hypertension? Second, how are the gut microbes influencing the animal’s blood pressure?”

The sad fact is that most people would rather be fat than hungry.

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Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a troubling exposé on the crushing debt burdens that students accumulate while pursuing master’s degrees at elite universities in fields like drama and film, where the job prospects are limited and the chances of making enough to repay their debt are slim. Because it focused on MFA programs at Ivy League schools—one subject accumulated around $300,000 in loans pursuing screenwriting—the article rocketed around the creative class on Twitter. But it also pointed to a more fundamental, troubling development in the world of higher education: For colleges and universities, master’s degrees have essentially become an enormous moneymaking scheme, wherein the line between for-profit and nonprofit education has been utterly blurred. There are, of course, good programs as well as bad ones, but when you scope out, there is clearly a systemic problem.

Tom Veal does a deep dive.

Part I of this series looked at the original, pejorative meaning of the term “meritocracy” and the criticism directed at it by the term’s coiner, the English Baron Young of Dartington. What he meant by “meritocracy” might have been better labeled “sapientocracy”, rule by individuals of high natural intelligence. Part II examined the more recent, broader attack on a somewhat different notion of “meritocracy”. Progressive anti-meritocrats reject merit itself. It is unfair, they contend, to reward people for being “better on the merits” than others, because those merits ultimately derive from external circumstances, most notably the genes, upbringing and education passed on by successful fathers and mothers to their offspring. Worse yet, when preference is given to merit, competition ensues, blighting the lives of the competitors.

Merrick Garland’s Problems With His Son-In Law Just Got Worse

DHS Cancels More Border Wall Contracts as Crossings Surge

Unvaxxed Allen West Has COVID, Pneumonia, and Low Oxygen (Daily Beast) And they’re happy about that.

Johnson: Hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients ‘doesn’t mean there’s some massive crisis’ (NPR) Overwhelmed!

Brits May Be Forced To Take COVID Tests On Camera To Prove To “Health Advisers” They’re Not Lying

Small Businesses Navigate Ever-Changing COVID-19 Reality

871 Firefighters File Intent To Sue Over LA’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

CDC Head Says She “Can’t Predict” When COVID Will End; Blames Unvaccinated

Sickout? Southwest Airlines Cancels 1,000 More Flights As Disruptions Increase

Military Struggles With Varying Vaccination Rates as Deadlines Loom

COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Plummet In Southern US, Rise In Northern States

Bill Maher: ’10 Years Ago … the Left Did Not Have a Crazy Section’  Now it’s nothing but.

Watch: Aussie Police Interrogate Citizen On His Doorstep Over 6-Month Old Anti-Lockdown Facebook Posts

Staggering Number Of US Troops Remain Unvaccinated As Deadlines Approach