The Hill.

What if they offered public education and no one came?

…

This month, Florida is moving to allow all residents the choice to go to private or public schools. Other states like Utah are moving toward a similar alternative with school vouchers. I oppose such moves away from public schools, but I have lost faith in the willingness of most schools to restore educational priorities and standards.

Faced with school boards and teacher unions resisting parental objections to school policies over curriculum and social issues, states are on the brink of a transformative change. For years, boards and teacher unions have treated parents as unwelcome interlopers in their children’s education.

That view was captured this week in the comment of Iowa school board member Rachel Wall, who said: “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”

CNN.

If you drive down a busy suburban strip mall or walk down a street in a major city, chances are you won’t go long without spotting a Concentra, MedExpress, CityMD or another urgent care center.

Demand at urgent care sites surged during the Covid-19 pandemic as people searched for tests and treatments. Patient volume has jumped 60% since 2019, according to the Urgent Care Association, an industry trade group.

That has fueled growth for new urgent care centers. A record 11,150 urgent care centers have popped up around the United States and they are growing at 7% a year, the trade group says. (This does not include clinics inside retail stores like CVS’ MinuteClinic or freestanding emergency departments.)

Read it.

For airliners, cargo ships, nuclear power plants and other critical technologies, strength and durability are essential. This is why many contain a remarkably strong and corrosion-resistant alloy called 17-4 precipitation hardening (PH) stainless steel. Now, for the first time ever, 17-4 PH steel can be consistently 3D-printed while retaining its favorable characteristics.

A team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Argonne National Laboratory has identified particular 17-4 steel compositions that, when printed, match the properties of the conventionally manufactured version. The researchers’ strategy, described in the journal Additive Manufacturing, is based on high-speed data about the printing process they obtained using high-energy X-rays from a particle accelerator.

Read it.

Learning is intertwined with memory to the extent that they are almost the same thing. Learning cannot happen without a change to your memory. Everything we know about learning efficiently is directly related to memory – “good” teachers, “good” explanations, images, diagrams, maths problems, essays, practical assignments all are good for learning because they help move things into your long-term memory.

Read it.

Henrich advances the argument that brain-power alone is not enough to explain why humans are such a successful species. Humans, he argues, are not nearly as intelligent as we think they are. Remove them from the culture and environment they have learned to operate in and they fail quickly. His favorite example of this are European explorers who die in the middle of deserts, jungles, or arctic wastes even though thousands of generations of hunter-gatherers were able to survive and thrive in these same environments. If human success was due to our ability to problem solve, analyze, and rationally develop novel solutions to novel challenges, the explorers should have been fine. Their ghastly fates suggest that rationality may not be the key to human survival.

If rational thought is not the key to our success, what is?

To answer that, Henrich says, we should look at the cassava plant. Cassava, or manioc, is one of the most popular staple foods in the world. But there is a catch: if not prepared correctly, cassava will slowly poison you. Yet some populations eat it without a problem. How does this work?

As their debt ceiling scheme advances, the GOP still has no plan (MSNBC)

Myth America review: superb group history of the lies that built a nation (The Guardian)

Historians take on misinformation in U.S. history (Axios)

Mike Lindell Swore He’d Win the RNC Chair Race. He Got Smothered. (Daily Beast)

Cops Can’t Be Allowed to Just Make Up Reasons for Pulling People Over (Daily Beast) They aren’t., leftist fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding.

Critics say Florida aims to rewrite history by rejecting African American studies (NPR)

Critics accuse DeSantis of erasing ‘all of Black history,’ harming students by blocking AP course (Fox)

Fact Check: Is ‘Assault Pistol’ a Real Type of Gun? (Newsweek)

Justice Department asks FEC to stand down as prosecutors probe Santos (Washington Post) Santos, not Schiff: Some liars are more equal than others.

George Santos’ Campaign Might Face a New Criminal Probe (Daily Beast)

Former Arizona State Student Appeals Conviction for Distributing Constitution Copies

We Tried to Call the Top Donors To George Santos’ 2020 Campaign. Many Don’t Seem To Exist. (Mother Jones)

Paul Pelosi Will Probably Have to Wait on That Apology From the Right-Wing Media (Vanity Fair) Just deduct it from the mountain of apologies the Narrative Media owe people on the right.

Peltola misses vote to limit Biden’s access to Strategic Petroleum Reserve that she says she would have supported (Anchorage Daily News)

Over 70 Democrats send letter to Biden criticizing immigration policies (MSNBC)

25 States Sue Biden Admin Over Rule Allowing 401(k) Managers to Put Savings Into ESG Funds (Epoch Times)

GOP-led states sue Biden administration to block ESG investment rule (CNN)

JESSE WATTERS: The Bidens are all over FBI wiretaps talking to China (Fox)

America First Legal: Gov’t Agencies, White House Used Foreign Intel Methods to Censor Americans

Biden’s notebooks among items seized by FBI in Delaware home search (NBC)

The Biden Autocracy

Pro-Life Activists Face Prison Time As DOJ Increases FACE Act Prosecutions

Trump: Every Day Under Biden Is Like ‘April Fool’s Day’

sThunberg, UN urge quick action on climate migration (The Hill)

We need native seeds in order to respond to climate change, but there aren’t enough (NPR)

Why desalination won’t save states dependent on Colorado River water (CNBC)

Study: Enough rare earth minerals to fuel green energy shift (Associated Press)

Norway’s fossil fuel bonanza stokes impassioned debate about how best to spend its ‘war profits’ (CNBC)

It’s possible to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Here’s how (Science News)

How California’s ambitious new climate plan could help speed energy transformation around the world (The Conversation)

JFK Airport is getting 13,000 solar panels, but they won’t power the community due to local law (Gothamist)

Norway just greenlit this vertical-axis floating wind turbine (Electrek)

Google let Daily Wire advertise on ‘climate change is a hoax’ searches (The Guardian)

India’s Low Coal Stocks Threaten Electricity Supply

Sunshine Might Be Free But Solar Power Is Not Cheap

Intersectional Climate Scientist Goes on Rant Against ‘White Men’

Maher Skewers Private Jet-Flying Environmentalists, ‘It’s Like Heroin’

Guardian: Google Are Not Trying Hard Enough to Demonetise Climate Deniers

Why EVs Aren’t a Climate Change Panacea

sdCDC urges people with weak immune systems to take extra precautions after Covid subvariants knock out Evusheld (CNBC)

FDA revokes authorization for key anti-COVID drug, a blow for vulnerable Americans (L.A. Times)

UK not banning COVID-19 vaccines for people under 50 (Associated Press)

Federal judge blocks California COVID-19 misinformation law (KCRA)

What’s CH.1.1? Meet ‘Orthrus,’ a new wildcard Omicron strain with a concerning Delta mutation (Fortune)

Omicron sub-variant XBB.1.5 accounts for 61.3% of U.S. COVID cases – CDC (Reuters)

Pfizer Responds After Director Says Company Is Developing Ways To Mutate COVID-19

How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System

Parents say ‘dream’ school district has become a ‘woke’ nightmare: ‘The joke’s on us’ (Fox)

Randi Weingarten flamed for tweet claiming most parents don’t like ‘school culture wars’: ‘You started this’ (Fox)

Idaho governor wins lawsuit against illegal encampment outside Capitol: ‘We are not Portland’ (Fox)

Federal judge blocks California misinformation law (The Hill)

It will take more than wealth taxes to tackle this gross inequality (The Guardian)

Kennedy on GOP wanting to cut Social Security: ‘Not even George Santos would make up a whopper like that’ (The Hill)

Alliance of Big Tech, Dark Money Groups Partners With Counties in State That Bans ‘Zuckerbucks’ for Elections

Democrats Hate Being Held To Their Own Standards: Committee Assignments Edition

Dem-Controlled Michigan Senate Changes ’24 Presidential Primary Date

Canada’s Bill C-26: Yet Another Government Power Grab

“Tragedy… Might Be Triggering”: British Universities Add Warnings For Greek And Shakespearean Plays

FLASHBACK: The Media Lovefest That Kicked Off Hillary’s 2016 Campaign

Federal Food Stamps Program Hits Record Costs In 2022

‘Twitter Files’ 15: MSM’s Partitioning of Political Discourse

Latest Dispatch from the Cesspool that Is Seattle

Trump lawyer John Eastman should be disbarred, California State Bar says (N.Y. Post)

List of Trump criminal investigations gets unexpectedly longer (MSNBC)

Trump’s pending return to Facebook is more about cash than speech (MSNBC)

Trump Savages Female Fox News Host Over ‘Unendurable’ Voice (Daily Beast)

Donald Trump Rages Against ‘Grating and Unendurable’ Fox News Host (Newsweek)

Nikki Haley’s Campaign-in-Waiting Starts Its Engines (The Dispatch) The Goldberg Group can apparently read minds as well as the Kristol Krew.

Trump Tries a New Campaign Tack: Small-Scale (N.Y. Times)

Trump’s Evolution in Social-Media Exile: More QAnon, More Extremes (N.Y. Times) Don’t you wish you knew what this “QAnon” thing was that the Narrative Media keep obsessing over? I know I do.

New ‘Latino’ and ‘Middle Eastern or North African’ checkboxes proposed for U.S. forms (NPR)

Lightfoot lets loose on Vallas, Garcia at spirited forum of mayoral front-runners (Chicago Sun-Times)

In effort to ban caste discrimination, Seattle councilmember cites system’s link to tech industry (GeekWire)

Sawant pushes anti-caste discrimination law in Seattle (Seattle Times)

The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black. But they might still have been driven by racism (CNN) Van Jones drifts off into left field.

Van Jones Claims Black Police Officers Are Still Motivated By Racism

NYT: Black Cops Beat Black Man to Death, White Privilege to Blame

Would a Middle Eastern and North African Census Category be Good for the Jews?

Black Cops Screw Up More

The Diversity of ‘White Supremacy’

New Atlas.

These strangely-shaped twisted-toroid propellers look like a revolutionary (sorry) advance for the aviation and marine sectors. Radically quieter than traditional propellers in both air and water, they’re also showing some huge efficiency gains.

Read it.

Last Wednesday a Moroccan culture-enricher launched a jihad killing spree with a machete (or knife, depending on the report) in the Spanish city of Algeciras, killing one person and gravely wounding another. There’s no doubt whatsoever that his rampage was motivated by zeal for Islam, because he expressed his devotion vociferously. However, I’m sure it will eventually be revealed that he has “a history of psychological problems”, like all the rest.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.

Read it.

The online dating app Tinder was launched more than a decade ago. Just hearing that makes some of us feel old. But over a decade of people swiping their way to love and sex — there have been horror stories along the way. One poll found an increasing number of people are running background checks on their dates.

Welcome to 2023, and dating has never been easier as Tinder’s algorithm, or any other dating app, supplies the user with compatible matches based on profile and geographical area. The app allows users to instantly communicate and coordinate a first date at a restaurant, bar, and or event, though horror stories have emerged over the years of some users getting scammed, sexually assaulted, and/or having their life threatened.

I would certainly seriously consider it.

Read it.

The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It “seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible.”[1] The index compares the relative price worldwide to purchase the Big Mac, a hamburger sold at McDonald’s restaurants.

 

Read  it.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were not, as the title of a recent documentary would have us believe, the last movie stars. Nor are movie stars — as Jennifer Aniston suggests in a November Variety profile — extinct. As long as there are big screens, stars will occur, perhaps only accidentally. The reality, though, is that the business may no longer need them.

Before Hollywood figured out how to sell you a movie you didn’t want to see, way back in the old studio days when advertising a movie was as easy-breezy as sticking up a poster and few lobby cards at your local theater, you didn’t need to be sold a movie to take an interest. You just needed to be told it was coming. Because if it had a star you liked, you’d go.

That’s what a star was: a means to sell you a ticket.

I will go to see any film with Tom Hanks,  Meg Ryan, Robert Downey, or Scarlett Johansson in it.

Read it.

Walls work, if enforced. Just as Israel.

Read it.

Searching for sympathetic coverage from the New York Times? Here’s a hack: Earn an advanced degree, then commit a violent crime in the service of your radical politics.

We have closely followed the cases of Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, the New York City attorneys who tossed a Molotov cocktail into a police cruiser in May of 2020. Or, as the New York Times put it, their legal careers were sidetracked when “a Molotov cocktail ignited the center console of an empty police car during a Black Lives Matter protest.” Rotten luck!

Rahman went to Fordham. Mattis went to Princeton and NYU. They are precisely the sort of well-resourced and well-connected people that the New York Times is always telling us the criminal justice system favors—unjustifiably.

Read it.

A Big Tech-aligned group funded through liberal dark money is moving to expand “nationwide,” even though about half the states have banned using private money to run elections.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life launched the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence in partnership with organizations funded by the liberal Arabella Advisors and Democracy Fund, as The Daily Signal previously reported. The tech center is the same group that distributed $350 million in election-administration grants in 2020 from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.

Read it.

Gov­. Gavin New­som and his cli­mate regu­lators at the Cali­fornia Air Resources Board, or CARB, have prom­ised to phase out all gas-pow­ered cars and force automakers to sell 100% elec­tric vehicles by 2035.

CARB’s pur­pose is not really to improve local air quality in any part of Cali­fornia but rather to fight the specter of global climate change by using the coer­cive power of one big state to achieve a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion of the U.S. auto industry.

CARB has issued regu­la­tory edicts to do just that: the so-called “green­house gas emis­sion stan­dards” in CARB’s Advanced Clean Car rules and its “zero-emission vehicle sales man­date.”

CARB is able to pur­sue this trans­forma­tional agenda only because the Biden admin­istra­tion has rein­stated an extra­ordi­nary waiver of fed­eral law—a waiver avail­able to Cali­fornia and no other state.

Read it.

Researchers have developed a possible way to keep colonies of Staphylococcus aureus — the bacteria behind MRSA — in check without doing damage to the beneficial microbes living in our gut microbiome. Such a therapy could help reduce the risk of infection while maintaining the delicate ecosystem inside our digestive tract.

Their technique uses a digested probiotic of Bacillus subtilis, a beneficial bacteria. When taken orally, the B. subtilis successfully and safely reduced S. aureus colonies in both the gut and nose in a phase 2 clinical trial.

“The probiotic we use does not ‘kill’ S. aureus, but it specifically and strongly diminishes its capacity to colonize,” Michael Otto, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) who led the study, said.

“We think we can target the ‘bad’ S. aureus while leaving the composition of the microbiota [the organisms living in the microbiome] intact.”

Trump Demands DirecTV Drop CNN, MSNBC in Rant Against Newsmax Removal (Newsweek)

Facebook’s Big Announcement on Trump’s Account Is ‘Encouraging,’ But There’s a Catch, Expert Says

Mostly Non-American Meta Oversight Board Weighs in on Trump Reinstatement

Trump unveils new education policy loaded with culture war proposals (Politico)

Morning Joe Ties Trumpism To Auschwitz & JFK, MLK Assassinations

New MAGA Push: Defund the Government, It’s Too Woke (Rolling Stone)

Federal prosecutors discussed charging Trump in Stormy Daniels case when he left office, book says (CNN)

Revealed: Trump secretly donated $1m to discredited Arizona election ‘audit’ (The Guardian) Secretly! Discredited! Scare quotes!

Trump’s Killing Spree: The Inside Story of His Race to Execute Every Prisoner He Could (Rolling Stone)

On Trump’s Social Network: Ads for Miracle Cures, Scams and Fake Merchandise (N.Y. Times)

Watch: Leftist Talking Heads Claim Letting Trump Back On Facebook Will “Destroy Democracy”

House to vote on bill offsetting Biden’s SPR drawdown with more oil and gas production (Fox)

House GOP seeks new restrictions on use of US oil stockpile (The Hill)

An EV in Every Driveway Is an Environmental Disaster (Curbed)

Biden FCC Nominee Part of Nonprofit That Backs Online ‘Sex Work’

Obama’s DHS Secretary Admits ‘Immigration Problem’ Is ‘Much Bigger’ Under Biden

MSNBC’s Hayes: Biden Economic Recovery Most Remarkable in U.S. History

Biden Court Nominee Falls Mute on Constitution Questions

House Prepares First Hearing on Biden’s COVID-19 Response

Biden repeatedly calls Dem Rep. Don Beyer by wrong name in echo of ‘Where’s Jackie?’ gaffe (N.Y. Post)

Biden Jokes About People Thinking He’s “Stupid” Then Makes Another Stupid Verbal Gaffe

‘Fact-Checkers’ Not Interested in Tracking Hunter Biden’s Aid to Other Dissolute Bidens

Biden Says US Will Compete With China on Strategic Minerals. He Just Kneecapped Our Ability To Do So.

Here’s How the Federal Government Is Funding Antisemitism With Your Tax Dollars

Obama-era DHS Chief: Border Crisis Under Biden ‘Much Bigger’

WATCH: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 27)

AOC mocked for saying she’s ‘here in NY’ — while speaking in front of US Capitol (N.Y. Post)

NYC parents give Mayor Eric Adams an ‘F’ for handling of new charter schools (N.Y. Post)

Video Report: Rep. Rashida Tlaib Flies Palestinian Flag at Capitol

Chinese Communist Party Targets American Kids by Infiltrating K-12 Schools

House Dems Push For Taxpayer Funded Abortions

House Democrats Move to Force Pro-Life Taxpayers to Fund Abortions

In Victory for Religious Freedom, Student Will Be Allowed to Wear ‘Jesus Loves Me’ Mask at School

Ivy League Lawyer Who Firebombed Cop Car Will Spend a Year and a Day in Prison

PBS NewsHour Frets Second Amendment Prevents More Gun Control in California

The Daily Chart: Harvard’s Lack of Diversity

NBA’s Bucks Mark ‘Pride Night’ With Halftime Drag Show

CNN Declares Banning Critical Race Theory Isn’t Conservative  And of course CNN is the expert on what is and is not conservative.

New technique from U.S. national lab promises to strip carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and factories at record-low cost (CNBC)

10 Mystifying Rainforest Mysteries That Baffle Scientists

Human activity and drought ‘degrading more than a third of Amazon rainforest’ (The Guardian)

New York City will replace its largest fossil fuel plant with wind power, in a US first (Electrek)

New York Showdown Imminent as Big Names Submit Their Offshore Wind Bids (Offshore Wind)

This city shouldn’t be here (Politico)

China’s Rampant Illegal Fishing Is Endangering the Environment and the Global Economy (Newsweek)

Environmentalists are making headway against the ‘menace’ that is the albizia tree (Hawaii News)

A fridge too far? Living sustainably in NYC by unplugging (Associated Press)

RIP Washington’s Hinman Glacier, gone after thousands of years (NPR)

‘Climate deniers are victims not villains’: A psychologist’s guide to winning them over (EuroNews)

Texas environmentalists push the EPA to crack down on methane emissions, saying state agencies have “failed us” (Texas Tribune)

Renewable Power Projects Slow In US Over High Costs And Community Opposition

In Unexpected Swing, Germany’s Public Now Favors Nuclear Power

Letting China Off the Hook

Gas-Fired Power Is Now Cheaper Than Offshore Wind Again

Europe’s Energy Crisis Leaves Almost All Of Pakistan Without Power

NJ Democrat rips return of indoor smoking to House (The Hill) Glad he’s got nothing more vital to worry about.

What ‘The Sneetches’ can teach us about the battle against wokeness (The Hill)

Health Care — FDA committee votes to change vaccine strategy (The Hill)

Behar: Gun Owners Have a ‘Mental Illness’ That Must ‘Be Stopped’

As Santos digs in, both parties ramp up campaign plans for his demise (Politico) How silly would they all look if he did a good job and got re-elected?

Unlike Trump Appointees, Biden Officials Are In Big Demand In the Private Sector  Mammon of Iniquity, here they come.

Scoop: GOP considers copying powerful Dem donor tactic (Axios)

What Mike Pompeo Leaves Out (The Bulwark) The Kristol Krew continues to punch right.

‘I have no enemies, at least’: Where Santos really stands in the House GOP (Politico)

Pompeo Accuses Schiff of Leaking Classified Info From Intel Committee

Tucker Carlson Talks Nonsense About U.S. Invading Canada To Remove Trudeau (Huffington Post) And if you believe that one, he’ll tell you another one.

Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage? (N.Y. Times) Paul Krugman, The Man Who Is Always Wrong, indulges in a little fantasy.

Late Night, Daily Show Decry ‘Orwellian’ GOP Education Laws  Liberal Projection Syndrome strikes again.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Is Trying to Open a Gun Range That Serves Alcohol (Jezebel)

Behar Claims GOP Wants to Ban Holocaust from History Classes

Soros-Funded Fake News Operation Pushes Facebook to Reinstate Trump Ban

As another Black man dies at the hands of the police, a lesson in whom the system stands up for (Philadelphia Inquirer) Perhaps if he hadn’t tried to run away from a police stop….  Here are the cops in question:

Obviously white supremacists all.

Reporter who’s suing Lori Lightfoot vows to get answers on Chicago ‘destruction’: I will ask her ‘under oath’ (Fox) BRAAAAAAAINS!

Lightfoot rival torches mayor over crime ahead of election: ‘People keep dying’ (Fox)

Oil refineries release lots of water pollution near communities of color, data show (NPR)

How Government Race Preferences Discriminate Against Interracial Couples, Business Partners

Cop-Hater Kaepernick’s Documentary Takes Aim At CA Police

Lemon MELTS DOWN Over ‘Outrageous’ DeSantis, Claims He Wants Children ‘Ignorant’

Pfizer Introduces New Mascot ‘Clotty’ (Babylon Bee)

We are all playing Covid roulette. Without clean air, the next infection could permanently disable you (The Guardian) George Monbiot loses his shit.

FDA withdraws Covid antibody treatment Evusheld because it’s not effective against 93% of subvariants (CNBC)

Federal Investigators Issue ‘Damning’ Report Over Fauci’s Lax Oversight of Wuhan Coronavirus Research

Satire Or Serious: “Why Didn’t The Unvaccinated Do More To Warn Us?”

Rand Paul, GOP Senators Push Bill To Reinstate Service Members Fired For Refusing COVID Vaccines

Judge Blocks California’s COVID-19 Misinformation Law

House Prepares First Hearing on Biden’s COVID-19 Response

ZMan looks at the Uniparty.

The mainstream media has always been biased, but it was never monolithic, as part of the claim of objectivity was to include alternative opinion. The main newspapers during the Cold War made sure to include critics of American Cold War policy along with conservative critics of progressive social policy. The television chat shows made sure to have at least one conservative on the panel. There was always a bias and a lack of balance, but alternative voices did have a place.

Somewhere after the Cold War this ended. It is hard to pinpoint the exact date, but pretty much every terrible media trend started with the Clinton Crime Family blowing into town, so that is a good bet. In the first Gulf War, CNN worked hard to be a legitimate news organization. A few years later they converted themselves into the Clinton News Network and they have never recovered. Outside of staged debates, the mainstream media is a monolith now.

Read it.

A Colorado Court of Appeals judge ruled against Christian baker Jack Phillips Thursday after he appealed an earlier court decision requiring him to bake a cake for an individual’s gender transition.

Phillips won a previous case at the Supreme Court in 2018 after he declined to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, but was sued again in March 2021 after a transgender individual wanted Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop, to make a cake that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside.

Read it.

A middle-age software developer worth nine figures says he spends around $2 million each year to bio-hack his body into regaining its youth.

Bryan Johnson, 45, who made his fortune in his 30s when he sold his payment processing company Braintree Payment Solutions to EBay for $800 million in cash, is touting a daily routine that he says has given him the heart of a 37-year-old, the skin of a 28-year-old, and the lung capacity and fitness of an 18-year-old.

Johnson has a team of 30 doctors and regenerative health experts overseeing his regimen, he told Bloomberg News.

His goal is to eventually have all of his major organs — including his brain, liver, kidneys, teeth, skin, hair, penis and rectum — functioning as they were in his late teens, Johnson said.

I’m not sure I buy that. Telomeres don’t respond to exercise.

The initiative, known as Project Blueprint, requires Johnson to abide by a strict vegan diet amounting to 1,977 calories per day, a daily exercise regimen that lasts an hour, high-intensity exercise three times a week, and going to bed every night at the same time.

I think I’d rather get old.

Ann Coulter.

Lots of politicians have been caught burnishing their resumes, but recently, one of our elected representatives has come under fire for telling some real whoppers. And no, I’m not talking about George Santos.

In a space of three days last fall, President Joe Biden claimed to be Puerto Rican, practice Judaism and to have lost his house in a natural disaster.

Celebrating the Jewish New Year at the White House on Sept. 30, he told Jewish leaders, “I probably went to shul more than many of you did. You all think I’m kidding.” No, he said, “I’d go to services on Saturday and on Sunday,” adding, “You all think I’m kidding. I’m not.”

Visiting hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico the following week, he said, “I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home.”

Read it.

In general, the war in Ukraine is being approached by Western public opinion from a humanitarian perspective that sympathizes with the enormous suffering of the Ukrainian people while at the same time morally denouncing the aggressor: Putin. All this, though undoubtedly a just analysis that gives an accurate account of the culprits and victims, nevertheless brings with it at least two problems.

Firstly, the humanitarian focus gets in the way of hard geopolitical analysis, which is more important than the former both because of what is at stake and because statecraft, as opposed to humane sympathy, acts as the driving force on the global chessboard. But not only does a purely humanitarian focus conceal such important considerations; worst still, those who dare to engage in unsentimental geopolitical discourse outside of military and intelligence circles are automatically condemned by the media and the political class, and then ostracized. Geopolitics, it seems, is a mode of analysis not sanctioned by the court of political correctness.

Secondly, the humanitarian perspective with which the war in Ukraine is being judged greatly simplifies the complexity of actors and interests, attributing quasi-messianic qualities to Zelensky with which to confront his nemesis, Putin, and reducing to one dimension a conflict that in fact comprises many, both complementary and at odds with each other.

One of the most relevant of these aspects is the role that BlackRock—the world’s leading hedge-fund, boasting assets valued at more than $10 trillion—is playing in the Ukrainian war.

WH suggests reporters have access to Biden because they can ‘shout’ questions at him

Rep. Fallon: House Must Impeach Mayorkas Now

Hawley Introduces ‘PELOSI Act’ To Stop Insider Trading In Congress

BIZARRE: African Reporter Demands Gun Control to KJP Amid More Docs Hardballs

Oversight Republicans Demand Details on Hunter Biden’s Art Sales

Seattle Medical Examiner Running Out Of Space To Store Bodies Due To Fentanyl Overdoses: Official

Inside the Ring: Ukraine war scuttles Biden arms control agenda

Mayor Adams: NYC Right-To-Shelter Law Not for Asylum-Seekers

Hogan’s Office ‘Surprised,’ ‘Disappointed’ by Lack of DOJ ‘Urgency’ in Protecting Justices

20 Red States Sue Biden Admin Over Migrant Parole Program

New booster works against dominant Covid strain (Politico)

Updated boosters are cutting the risk of getting sick from Covid-19 by about half (CNN)

I finally got COVID. Here’s why I threw my Paxlovid pills in the garbage (S.F. Chronicle)

COVID in California: Growing number of Californians are dying at home (S.F. Chronicle)

COVID in California: Pandemic stigma cost Asian restaurants billions, study says (S.F. Chronicle)

New COVID-19 variant becomes dominant strain in U.S. (KOLN)

New Study Claims COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Events Are Underreported

Gov. Hochul Weighing Options After NY Court Blocks Last Vax Mandate

House Committee Chair Calls For Probe Into ‘$60 Billion’ In Fake COVID-19 Unemployment Claims

CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails

That’s Science? Congress Must Probe The Rationale For COVID Mask Mandates

“Directed Evolution”? Pfizer R&D Exec Says Covid-19 Created In Wuhan, Is ‘Cash Cow’ For Company

MSNBC: GOP, the Party of Tax Cheats, Cares About COVID’s Origin?

CNN Backtracks After Calling COVID Death Inflation a ‘Conspiracy Theory’

Justin Trudeau Called A Tyrant As He Is Swarmed By Angry Mandate Protesters

‘Unconstitutionally Vague’: Judge Blocks California’s COVID ‘Misinformation’ Law

New CDC Data Signals Potential Stroke Risk From Pfizer Bivalent COVID Shot

Long Covid Is Keeping Significant Numbers of People Out of Work

Carbon offsets are a licence to pollute (The Guardian) Well, duh.

Regulators nix proposal on California’s last nuclear plant (Associated Press)

Yes, you can have kids and fight climate change at the same time (Vox)

‘Environmental nightmare’: French authorities hunt for source of plastic pellet spill (EuroNews)

Wave of plastic pellets washed ashore in France an ‘irreversible’ problem, says activist (CBC)

Are You Really Against Fossil Fuels? Read This Before You Answer (Real Clear Energy)

Do fossil fuels have a place in responsible investments? (The Globe and Mail) Yup. USOI. 40% dividend yield.

How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change (NPR)

Wind Turbines Are Burning, Collapsing in Green Energy Setback

Researchers Propose Compulsory Climate Change Teaching in Core Law Curriculum

Backlash grows against DeSantis decision to block AP African American studies class (Washington Post) Get AP credit for being a Woke Negro! Who wouldn’t want that?

‘Traumatized’ tamale vendors told to go cashless by Lori Lightfoot, some paying gangs for protection BRAAAAAINS!

Professor argues math education is White and cisheteropatriarchal space, ‘limits’ queer and students of color  (Fox) The professor in question is, of course, white.

Florida is offering an advanced lesson in anti-Blackness (Washington Post)

Move Over Moses and Zoroaster: Manhattan Has a New Female Lawgiver (N.Y. Times) Be sure not to cross the streams.

Biden admin is proposing to allow people to choose Hispanic or Latino as a race

George Santos’ drag days are an asinine smokescreen (CNN)

Serial liar George Santos fits right in with the modern GOP (CNN) Apparently Santos is the only liar ever elected to Congress. (Adam Schiff, call your office.) Somebody better tell the Congressional Black Caucus.

‘You Asked For It’: Stephen Colbert Gets ‘Mean’ In Scathing Reply To George Santos (Huffington Post) Scathing! (Santos might even notice.)

More than 100 Students Walk Out of Embattled Harvard Professor Comaroff’s First Class of Semester (Harvard Crimson)

Harvard Students Walk Out to Protest Professor John Comaroff (Teen Vogue)

Georgia Police Officer Resigns After Being Put on Leave for Facebook Post on Traditional Marriage

‘I felt like we were in “Goodfellas’’’: How George Santos wooed investors for alleged Ponzi scheme (Washington P0st) The witch-hunt continues.

Daily Show Spreads Fake News About Pro-Lifers Banning Contraception

Antifa Members Charged in Vandalism of Florida Pro-Life Clinics But, remember, only Republicans indulge in political violence.

The MyPillow Guy’s Fake Campaign For RNC Chair Is a Real Disaster (Vice)

It Came From the Basement (Mother Jones)

Ron DeSantis’ Secret Twitter Army of Far-Right Influencers (Daily Beast) Well, if the Daily Beast knows about it, it can’t be much of a secret.

National Archives silent as disparity between its handling of Biden, Trump documents fuels questions

Vimeo Removes ‘Dead Name’ Documentary About Parents of ‘Transgender’ Kids for ‘Hateful Conduct’

Democrats urge House Speaker McCarthy to deny GOP Rep. George Santos access to classified information (CNBC)

The ‘lying congressman’ and his crewnecks (Washington Post) SCRAAAAAAAPE that barrel….

Democrats have a two-part plan to use the debt ceiling against Republicans (Washington Post) And Jennifer Rubin, mind-reader extraordinary, is privy to all Republican plans.

G.O.P. State Lawmakers Push a Growing Wave of Anti-Transgender Bills (N.Y. Times)

McCarthy might have a math problem in blocking Omar from panel (The Hill)

Inside the George Santos Campaign Report Blame Game (Daily Beast)

The Democratic Party’s Political Gift to Ron DeSantis (The New Yorker)

Obama Warns About the ‘Raw Sewage’ of Disinformation — Ignores Democrats’ Own Garbage

Aussie Basketball Team Rejects Pride Logo, Reaps Barrage Of Abuse

Dem Rep. Payne Hits GOP Over Indoor Smoking

To Jog the Media’s Memory, Here’s a Supercut of Congressman Adam Schiff Lying to Them

Hillary Clinton Boasts Of Having No Classified Documents From Her Time As President (Babylon Bee)

Bringing in the big guns? NRA, lawyers who helped win U.S. Supreme Court case train sights on Illinois’ assault weapons ban (Chicago Sun-Times)

‘You will create chaos’ – GOP reps blast Kathy Hochul plan for suburban housing (N.Y. Post)

Lightfoot to back effective ban on natural gas in new buildings (Chicago Business) BRAAAAAINS!

This migrant mess is ruining NYC’s Midtown (N.Y. Post)

Americans are invited to play a direct role in helping stem the refugee crisis (NPR)

Chicago mayor candidate reveals tax-the-rich plan that will make the suburbs ‘pay their fair share’ (Fox)

Brooklyn soup kitchen overwhelmed by ‘heartbreaking’ influx of migrants (N.Y. Post)

Anti-Israeli Bias Continues Unabated in UN Agencies

Ruhle Mourns Resignation of New Zealand’s ‘Legit Badass’ Left-Wing PM

Newsom Smiles at Shooting News While CNN Anchors Endorse His Anti-Gun Takes

At NPR, Republicans Are All ‘Hard’ or ‘Far’ Right, but No Democrats Are ‘Hard’ or ‘Far’ Left

Video Report: Lutheran Church Ordains First Female Arab Pastor

Convenient Timing: Pelosi Sold $3 Million of Google Stock Weeks Before DOJ Launched Antitrust Probe

Hilarious: Andrea Mitchell Claims Liar Adam Schiff Isn’t a Liar

Only 14% Of Americans Agree With Amnesty For Illegals; New Poll Finds

ANALYSIS: We Need a Total and Complete Shutdown of Rich White Liberals Having Children

Don Lemon Spurs Giggles: Our Oh-So-Fair ‘Fact Checker’ Watches All People in Power

FACT CHECK: Jon Tester Says Citizens United Is the ‘Worst Decision the Supreme Court Has Ever Made’

ABC Praises History-Breaking 1619 Project in ‘Groundbreaking’ Hulu Series

MSNBC’s Hayes: Conservative Censorship Claims ‘Never Made Much Sense’

New Documentary Exposes Disney’s Pro-Sexualization, Anti-Nuclear Family Agenda

McCarthy may regret kicking Schiff off House Intelligence Committee (Washington Post)

‘D***head,’ ‘Demon,’ The Worst Moments From 20 Years Of Jimmy Kimmel

Daycare Training Session Uses ‘Non-Binary’ Doll to Indoctrinate Preschoolers

On PBS, Historian/Biden Helper Jon Meacham Compares Liz Cheney, Bush Sr. to Lincoln

Trump attorney threatens to sue former prosecutor who wrote “People vs. Donald Trump” book about Manhattan D.A.’s investigation (CBS)

Woman Pleads Guilty After Sending Ricin to Then-President Donald Trump (Daily Beast)

Jimmy Kimmel Busts Trump For Cheating At His Own Golf Tournament (Huffington Post) SCRAAAAAAAPE that barrel….

Biden’s devious plan to break the MAGA fever just might work (Washington Post) Greg Sargent is back at his day job bashing Trump.

OMG. Trump Has Started Texting. (N.Y. Times)

The private angst over Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Elaine Chao goes public (Politico)

Trump Has Completely Lost His Grip on Reality (National Review)

Facebook Reinstates Trump After Two Years With “New Guardrails In Place”

An R.N.C. Remade by Trump Backs Away From His 2024 Campaign (N.Y. Times) They would rather lose with a Romney than win with a Trump.

New Hampshire Republicans are not yet ready to go for Trump: ‘He’s going to have to earn it’ (NBC)

New York Times.

In December, as many as 500 patients per week were dying in Britain because of E.R. waits, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, a figure rivaling (and perhaps surpassing) the death toll from Covid-19. On average, English ambulances were taking an hour and a half to respond to stroke and heart-attack calls, compared with a target time of 18 minutes; nationwide, 10 times as many patients spent more than four hours waiting in emergency rooms as did in 2011. The waiting list for scheduled treatments recently passed seven million — more than 10 percent of the country — prompting nurses to strike. The National Health Service has been in crisis for years, but over the holidays, as wait times spiked, the crisis moved to the very center of a narrative of national decline.

How about that government-provided ‘free’ health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.? (We do–it’s called the V.A. Ask veterans how that works out for them.)

Read it.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from making anything other than gold or silver legal tender. I guess civics isn’t taught in high school any more.

Read it.

The Biden administration’s newly released regulations regarding “pistol-stabilizing braces” will instantly turn tens of thousands of law-abiding Americans into felons and create a national rifle registry. But the Biden administration and the media exaggerate the costs and ignore the benefits these braces produce.

Few seem to realize that stabilizing braces for pistols were originally designed to allow wounded and disabled veterans who may have lost the use of part of their hand to hold handguns. They are essentially a strap attached to the gun. Disabled individuals are often viewed as easy targets by criminals, and stabilizers make it easier to defend themselves. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives originally approved pistol braces during the Obama administration.

There are plenty of statements from disabled veterans, such as Rick Cicero, who lost his right arm in an explosion in Afghanistan and can still use a gun today because of the pistol-stabilizing brace. But outside of a brief mention in a Fox News story, news articles on the new regulations never mention that these braces help the disabled and make it possible for them to defend themselves.

Read it.

A Florida woman was pulled from a storm drain for the third time in two years last week.

The Delray Beach Police Department said officers and firefighters responded to a report of a woman possibly in distress while swimming in a canal near the 500 block of Lindell Boulevard around noon on Wednesday. The department said officers located the woman, identified as Lyndsey Jane Kennedy, and asked if she needed help.

Read it.

This study presents a class of magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM). MPTMs exhibit a combination of high mechanical strength, high load capacity, fast locomotion, excellent controllability, and robust morphological adaptability. This unique combination of properties is enabled by the reversible transition of MPTMs between rigid and fluidic states through alternating magnetic field heating and ambient cooling. To illustrate the unique capabilities of MPTMs, we demonstrate smart soldering machines to manipulate and solder electronic components to create a functional circuit. We also use MPTMs as universal screws to assemble parts in hard-to-reach space and as a capsule machine for removing foreign objects or delivering drugs in a model stomach. MPTMs are promising for future applications in flexible electronics, healthcare, and robotics that depend on dynamic shape reconfigurability and repair.

“In general terms, I am a friend to all the creatures of the earth, when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.”

— John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise