3rd June 2023
Read it.
How many scientific papers have you read in full over the past year? Presumably, none or very few, unless you belong to a small number of specific professionals, like researchers or science communicators. Even if you do read papers as part of your job, you probably haven’t read many of them beyond the title and abstract, especially if they lie outside your field of expertise.
There are several reasons for this, including the difficulty of accessing papers that lie behind the paywalls of large publishing companies and the extreme specialization of most academic articles, which limits their appeal. Also, scientific topics are often complex, and it’s generally not worth spending time and energy to understand a technical argument unless it’s particularly germane to your work.
But compounding these issues is a simple truth that has made science less impactful than it could otherwise be: Scientific papers are poorly written. And they’ve been getting worse.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Elements of Scientific Style
3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
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3rd June 2023
Niskanen Center.
The number of practicing physicians per person in the United States is lower than in just about any other developed country. Yet from 1980 to the early 2000s, the prevailing wisdom was that the number of physicians within the United States ought to be reduced. During this period, a series of ill-judged reports by the federal government warned of an impending physician surplus. These reports ushered in a period in which both private and public actors took actions to constrain the supply of U.S. physicians, the most significant of which was the medical school moratorium. The resulting dearth of physicians had the effect of making U.S. health care more intensive and less accessible than it otherwise would have been.
Listening to ‘experts’ always puts you in a worse place than you otherwise would be.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Planning of U.S. Physician Shortages
3rd June 2023
CalTech.
A space solar power prototype that was launched into orbit in January is operational and has demonstrated its ability to wirelessly transmit power in space and to beam detectable power to Earth for the first time.
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3rd June 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
The most obvious response to school shootings is to allow teachers and other employees who are licensed to carry firearms to do so. Would-be mass murderers are drawn to schools largely because they are usually “gun-free zones,” which means the shooter’s gun will be the only one on the scene. But some have questioned whether many teachers would actually be willing to arm themselves, so as to make this a practical solution.
The Rand Corporation conducted a nationwide survey of nearly 1,000 teachers, which is reported on by Catrin Wigfall. Most teachers are liberals these days–no surprise, given the far-left orientation of universities’ education programs and the teachers’ unions. So 54% of Rand’s respondents said they thought arming teachers would make schools less safe.
More to the point, however, 19% of those surveyed said that if they were authorized to bear arms at their school they would do so.
History teaches us that the solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, be it a police officer or a public-spirited citizen. All of the handwavium in the Narrative media can’t obscure that simple truth.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Is Arming Teachers Practical?
3rd June 2023
The American Mind.
To many on the Left, the group known as “Patriot Front”—known for its surprise marches while wearing a uniform of khaki pants, blue t-shirts, and white balaclavas, displaying American flags and banners reading “Reclaim America” or similar sentiments—is a terrifying example of how rapidly fascism is metastasizing across American conservatism. Miles of column inches have been written about the group, both by professional “hate-watchers” such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and by various fear mongering journalists at Slate, Daily Beast, and the like, nearly all of whom exclusively cite and quote these so-called experts.
Meanwhile to the Right, given that Patriot Front dresses like cannon fodder for COBRA—the eternal (and always incompetent) enemy in the cartoon TV series G.I. Joe—the group is regarded as an FBI office costume party. Patriot Front, from this perspective, is a thinly-disguised “op” to trap foolish right wingers into supporting a criminal conspiracy in order to meet the Bureau’s statistical need for white supremacist terrorist arrests. According to FBI whistleblowers, special agents can receive substantial cash bonuses for hitting white supremacist arrest targets, so official perfidy seems plausible.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on So Many Ways to Glow
3rd June 2023
Read it.
One of the most common strategies used by the political left to attack 2nd Amendment supporters is to ramp up the anti-gun hype every time a crime involving a gun is committed. They don’t care much about the tragedy itself, they only care about how they can use it for political gain. However, it’s very important to understand that this is not only about removing gun rights for leftists – It’s also about creating a false association in the public consciousness that guns = crime.
That is to say, they want to condition people to believe that once guns are gone, crime and murder will be gone also. But, firearms have been an integral part of American society for hundreds of years, and gun ownership has been present through times of relative peace as well as times of increased violence.
In the case of countries like the UK with incredibly strict gun laws, muggings, rape and homicides have been rising with knife attacks in particular increasing by 80%. While it is technically more difficult to murder a person with a knife, it’s also a lot easier for larger, stronger assailants and gangs to succeed in harming people when those people have no equalizer. Disarmament makes life EASIER for criminals, not harder.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on How to Solve Violence in the us? End Democrat-Run Cities and Bring Back Asylums
3rd June 2023
As a wise old Gunnery Sergeant once told me: “If they can’t find you, they can’t hurt you.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
3rd June 2023
Read it.
Launch of service for Amtrak’s next-generation Acela trainsets has been pushed back into 2024, the Washington Post reports, as testing and computer simulations continue to find problems, most recently with the train’s wheelsets.
That means the new trains will enter service at least three years late, placing increasing pressure on the existing Acela fleet that dates to 2000. Trains News Wire has learned that four of the 20 first-generation Acela sets have been withdrawn from service. Two New York-Washington Acela round trips were dropped from the schedule as of May 8; an Amtrak spokesman said this was “due to a need to perform additional maintenance on Acela equipment.”
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3rd June 2023
The Daily Signal.
Footage shows a Capitol Police officer directing someone to interrupt a children’s choir singing the national anthem in the U.S. Capitol, yet the police claimed that they did not stop the singing.
The man who conducted the choir that day tells The Daily Signal that the Capitol Police’s claim is an outright lie.
“I was shocked, I was dismayed, I was stunned,” David Rasbach, the founder and director of the Rushingbrook Children’s Choir, told The Daily Signal of the incident, which took place on Friday, May 26. “I couldn’t believe that was happening, that they would stop the national anthem of all songs.”
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2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
Republicans love to make up fake crises. Here are five of the biggest (The Guardian) Let’s see … nope, no mention of ‘climate change’, ‘structural racism’, ‘white supremacy’, ‘Christian nationalism’, or ‘fascism’. Republicans are pikers compared to Democrats–not that Robert Reich would know.
Christopher Rufo Launched the Critical Race Theory Panic. He Isn’t Done. (Mother Jones)
Jen Psaki Claims Many Republicans Are ‘Comfortable’ with Biden Because ‘He’s a White Man Who’s Older’ (MEDIAite) Jen Psaki loves to make up claims about Republicans. It’s what she’s paid to do.
Elon Musk’s new Twitter pronoun rule invites bullying, LGBTQ groups say (NBC News) As opposed to, say, the bullying that LGBTQ groups do every day.
Team DeSantis Goes Full Anti-Vaxx to Attack Trump After He Spars With Angry Voter (MEDIAite)
Michigan Economics Professor: Boycotting Target Is “Literal Terrorism” It’s literally not.
NBC Worries That Some Companies Are Backtracking on LGBTQ Agenda
Confront thieves, get fired: welcome to retail in America’s cities
How a Staunchly Blue State Let MAGA Seep In (Politico) Governing like Democrats is usually good enough. (MAGA Is The New Nigger)
For Pride Month, CNN Accuses Florida of ‘Shoving’ People ‘Back Into Darkness’
US Army renames Fort Bragg as Fort Liberty (CNN)
Scoop: YouTube reverses misinformation policy to allow U.S. election denialism (Axios)
Librarians Sue Over Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Book Ban for Kids (Daily Beast) It is not, of course, a ban; it is merely making inappropriate material available in schools.
MSNBC Ties GOP To Slavery When Seeking To Explain Gun Violence Sorry, slavery was a Democrat thing.
MSNBC Agrees DeSantis Is ‘Literally’ a ’21st Century George Wallace’ No, he literally isn’t.
Elon Musk Personally Elevates Transphobic Video Originally Flagged as Hate Speech (The New Republic)
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2nd June 2023
Trump Admits Republicans Don’t Even Know What ‘Woke’ Means (Rolling Stone) Rolling Stone admits that it has no clue what Republicans know or don’t know, so it just makes shit up.
What Trump’s Recording Could Reveal (The Atlantic) Lazy ‘journalists’ love to make stuff up about what ‘might’ or ‘could’ happen as if it were a fact.
Recording of Trump Underscores Growing Evidence in Documents Case (N.Y. Times) If we push this molehill hard enough, we can surely make a mountain out of it.
How The FBI Lost, Found, And Rewarded The Alleged Russian Spy Pivotal To Surveilling Trump
A Peek Behind the MAGA Curtain (N.Y. Times) David French is apparently enjoying his job as the left’s poodle.
Did Trump declassify documents? Criminal indictment of former president has no legitimate basis (Washington Times)
Georgia probe of Trump broadens to activities in other states (Washington Post) Hunt that witch! Hunt that witch!
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2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
Read it.
Lightfoot spent the end of her term managing the migrant crisis and criticizing Republicans who sent migrants to her city, which she advertised as a “sanctuary city.”
She also saw the homicide rate skyrocket nearly 40 percent since entering office in 2019, watchdog Wirepoints reported.
“I’ll share specifics about the way we managed the COVID-19 public health crisis,” Lightfoot said of her Harvard course. She faced immense criticism as mayor for her lockdowns and treatment of the pandemic.
Posted in Full Frontal Stupidity | Comments Off on Ousted Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Has a New Job
2nd June 2023
The Guardian.
Archaeology is facing a time crunch. Thousands of years of human history risk imminent erasure, from tiny hamlets to entire cities – temples, walls and roads under grave threat of destruction. Urban sprawl and industrial agriculture are but two culprits, smothering ancient settlements beneath car parks and cattle pastures. International conflict and climate change are also damaging vulnerable sites, with warfare and water shortages destroying pockets of history across the world.
The endless excavations of yesteryear are no longer the best solution. Big digs aren’t the big idea they once were: mapping the human archaeological record is now moving upward, into the sky.
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2nd June 2023
Cambridge University Press.
Abstract
Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.
I am not making this up.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit
2nd June 2023
NewsMax.
The King James Bible is being removed from elementary and middle school libraries in Davis County, Utah, after a complaint that it contained passages describing sex and violence.
For once, the Left has no complaint to make. Children with the Bible in their homes, of course, may consult it freely.
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2nd June 2023
Read it.
In the latest ambitious project to use solar energy in space for powering the earth, a public-private Japanese partnership plans to test as soon as in 2025 if solar power generated in space can be beamed to the earth and converted into electricity.
This was one of Jerry Pournelle’s perennial projects.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Race for Solar Power From Space Is On
2nd June 2023
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2nd June 2023
The Other McCain.
Where this anti-white “diversity” mania began, of course, is in higher education, where discrimination against white males has been more or less overt for the past 25 years. The admissions data that came out of the lawsuit Harvard showed that, year after year, 14% of the freshman class was black — demonstrating that a de facto numerical quota was in effect, otherwise some variation in the percentage would have been expected. Asian students sued because, it was equally obvious, no matter how clearly their superior academic aptitude was demonstrated by GPA and SAT scores, the number of Asian students admitted to Harvard was artificially “capped” at around 20% of the freshman class total. Expert testimony showed that an Asian student whose GPA/SAT gave him a 25% chance of being admitted to Harvard would have had a 95% chance, if he had been black. In other words, being black was worth at least four times as much as academic aptitude. And this type of blatant bias is now being replicated in corporate America (see “Google Lawsuit Exposes Stalinist Climate Protecting Anti-White, Anti-Male Bias,” Jan. 10, 2018).
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on What ‘Diversity’ Really Means
1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
CNN.
Thursday’s sanctions target Mohammad Reza Ansari, an official with a unit of the IRGC-Qods Force “tasked with undertaking covert operations abroad, including planning and conducting intelligence and lethal operations against Iranian dissidents and other non-Iranian nationals in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa,” according to a release from the US Treasury Department.
“Ansari, with the support of Shahram Poursafi (Poursafi), an Iranian national, planned and attempted to assassinate two former U.S. government officials,” the Treasury Department said.
The US Justice Department announced criminal charges last August against Poursafi for allegedly trying to orchestrate the assassination of Bolton, who served in senior national security positions during the Trump and Bush administrations, likely in retaliation for the killing of IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani.
Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.
Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on US Sanctions Iranian Officials Accused of Plotting Assassinations Abroad Including Against Bolton and Pompeo
1st June 2023
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1st June 2023
Read it.
Q: What’s the difference between Hunter Biden, Konstantin Kisin and you?
A: Access to banks
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Banks and You
1st June 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
Do liberal women like to be victimized by the feral predators that haunt America’s cities? No. No, they don’t. This is why a crowd turned out for a city council meeting in Oakland, California, perhaps the most liberal city in the U.S., to protest the city’s soft-on-crime policies
…
The interesting question is, will citizen uprisings in liberal cities like Oakland bring about any significant change? I think the answer is No. The Democratic Party is pro-crime, and I think that commitment is unshakable. To bring meaningful change, residents would have to be willing to vote Republican. And even if they were willing, there is hardly any Republican infrastructure in cities like Oakland. I am not sure there are any serious Republicans to vote for, or an organization to get them elected. So basically, it is either put up with increasingly horrific violence and disorder, or move. This is a principal reason why California is hemorrhaging residents.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | Comments Off on Even Liberals Hate Crime
1st June 2023
Gates of Vienna.
A culture-enriching teenager in northern Italy was planning some boisterous activities in association with the civic group known as the Islamic State, but had the misfortune to be detained by the police. I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding, and the unfortunate lad will soon be released.
Actually, there’s no indication in the report as to the specific age of the young feller, who may in fact not even be a teenager yet. He might be one of those prepubescent ISIS “cubs” who spend a lot of time in training camps being tutored in special skills by the older mujahideen.
Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.
Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on The ISIS Junior Varsity
1st June 2023
Read it.
Bloomberg said a 535-mile rail line used to haul iron ore and manganese from Kumba Iron Ore Ltd.’s giant Sishen mine in the Northern Cape province to west coast ports was paralyzed on Tuesday after criminal organized gangs stole power cables used to power electric locomotives.
Boy, ending apartheid and putting indigenous Africans in charge really made the country explode with prosperity, didn’t it?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Second Major Railway Grinds to Halt In South Africa
1st June 2023
The Foundry.
As Congress debates a deal to increase the debt limit, here are four things Americans should know.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on 4 Things to Know About Debt Limit Debate
1st June 2023
Tampa Bay Times.
Tell the truth: We’ve all wanted to do that.
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