7th October 2023
Read it.
No need to sit in an exam hall, no fear of plagiarism accusations or concerns with students submitting essays generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Integrity is 100% assured, in a fair, reliable and authentic manner that can also be easily used to assess multiple individual or group assignments.
As services like ChatGPT continue to grow in terms of both its capabilities and usage – including in education and academia – is it high time for universities to revert to the time-tested oral exam?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Why Universities Should Return To Oral Exams In the AI and ChatGPT Era
7th October 2023
Read it.
Pieces of salmon are spiced and wrapped tightly in at least two layers of aluminum foil and put in a dishwasher. The dishwasher is set to perform a full regular cycle, possibly with the addition of a heated dry cycle. The salmon is broiled, steamed, and baked. An advantage of the method is that cooking is odorless. There is nothing preventing one from washing the dishes at the same time, provided that the package is tight enough.
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Dishwasher Salmon
7th October 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
6th October 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
6th October 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
6th October 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
6th October 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
6th October 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
6th October 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
6th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
6th October 2023
Read it.
“For the first time, we can show that mitochondria, the vital energy producers within brain cells, particularly neurons, undergo damage, leading to disruptions in mitochondrial DNA[LP1] . This initiates and spreads the disease like a wildfire through the brain,” says Shohreh Issazadeh-Navikas and adds:
“Our findings establish that the spread of the damaged genetic material, the mitochondrial DNA, causes the symptoms reminiscent of Parkinson’s disease and its progression to dementia.”
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Researchers Find a Cause of Parkinson’s Disease
6th October 2023
NewsBusters.
Independent journalist Tucker Carlson took a deep dive into how genital mutilation and chemical castration became a lucrative industry.
During the October 4th edition of his show, Carlson brought on “investment banker and policy guy” Chris Moritz to discuss who benefits from something as “unnatural and prima-facie demented” as transgenderism. Moritz discussed how companies such as Pfizer profit off of puberty blockers, testosterone and estrogen, while making some disturbing comments about the incentivization of harmful drugs and surgeries. It seems that X (formerly Twitter) categorized the video as what X CEO Linda Yaccarino calls “lawful but awful” as the platform appears to have demonetized the video.
Elon Musk shared the video encouraging his followers to “Follow the money.” However, X demonetized the post, according to Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik. Raichik suggested that the platform may have taken action against the video for using the words “genital mutilation” in the post accompanying the video.
In the video, Moritz explained why the health industry has been so quick to accept transgender ideology.”There are very perverse incentives for health systems to go full on board with this, this line of service and this line of products,” he said. Leftist groups like Human Rights Campaign, Mortiz added, “have established what is essentially ESG for trans. They call it HEI — Health, Equity, Inclusion.” Moritz noted that like ESG, or Environmental, Social and Governance standards, HEI scores entities based on their adherence to woke ideology and pressures them into supporting a leftist agenda. “Human Rights Campaign, about fifteen years ago, established this national benchmarking tool, and it effectively is a equity and inclusion gauge for health systems. And it is used coercively,” said Moritz.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Guess What Happened After Tucker Carlson Exposed ‘Trans, Inc’ on Twitter
6th October 2023
The American Mind.
Since at least the publication of Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in 2006, the ruling class has used the term as a club to bludgeon evangelicals—especially in the wake of their prodigious support for Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Christian nationalists, the mainstream press tells us, are racist, QAnon-addled election deniers. They want to Make America Puritan Again (in the modern, badly misunderstood meaning of that word). And they believe that the Constitution should be set aside for a Christian divine-right king who will oversee forced religious conversions and impose draconian moral codes upon an unwilling populous.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin has called Christian nationalism “an authoritarian, racist, dogmatic message donning the cloak of Christianity,” asserting that the GOP is “dedicated to imposing White Christian nationalism” on the country. A coterie of chin-stroking panels hosted by D.C. think tanks, “democracy” experts and sociologists, and (former) Republican members of Congress have condemned it in the strongest possible terms.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | Comments Off on What Is Christian Nationalism?
6th October 2023
Read it.
Net worth before his term as president and after.
- Trump—3B to 2.3B, loss of 700 million
- Obama—1.3M to 70M, gain of 68.7 million
- Bush—20M to 40M, gain of 20 million
- Clinton—1.3M to 241.5M, gain of 240.2 million
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Net Worth
6th October 2023
Read it.
For a box a square meter in size it can produce 5 liters of drinkable water per hour. The system can also last for several years. Perhaps more importantly, the total price for the water is less than the average price for tap water in the US. The system should also be scalable.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Passive Solar Water Desalination
6th October 2023
ZMan’s weekly podcast–highly recommended.
The ouster of Kevin McCarthy is one of those things that quickly gets internalized, despite its novelty, because the media machine operates like a hype man for a professional wrestling operation. It turns everything into trashy daytime drama, so even an important thing becomes just another poo-flinging contest between professional media partisans. As a result, it loses all meaning.
In the fullness of time, we may look back at it as one of those cracks that appeared in a system that was about to collapse. Think back to the downfall of Speaker Jim Wright in the late 1980’s and what followed. Like McCarthy, Wright was not very popular, but he was a system man who would not rock the boat. The trouble was the old system was no longer sustainable as the world outside was changing.
In the case of Wright, there was a new generation coming along and there was the final leg of the political realignment that started in the 1970’s. In the case of McCarthy there is a generational change and the radicalization of politics. The days of playing the old Republican Party tricks are coming to an end. McCarthy’s “say one thing and do another” approach is no longer going to work for the GOP.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Let’s Talk About Politics
6th October 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
6th October 2023
NewsBusters.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley got to the heart of the government shutdown fireworks in her appearance on Fox News Sunday.
“Let’s be clear what the Freedom Caucus is really trying to do; they are trying to cut spending.”
That’s of course correct. One would be hard-pressed to find any Republican, Freedom Caucus member or not, who does not understand the gravity of the state of our federal budget and spending.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Entitlements, Spending Are the Real Problem (Not Kevin McCarthy)
6th October 2023
The Foundry.
There is no worse example of a biased, tendentious mainstream media with ulterior motives than the castigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during the past half year.
The latest example stems from flyspecking Thomas’ amended financial disclosure reports, repeating what has never been disputed and attempting to cast a dark shadow on otherwise innocent, normal conduct—that the man has affluent friends and these friends engage in activities with their friends, which is typical of those with wealth.
Apart from the shameless and intentional misinterpretation of this reality, what is omitted from the reporting truly speaks volumes. There are neither accusations nor even circumstantial evidence that the 700-plus opinions Thomas has written over his career, the 2,800-plus cases he has voted on, and the millions of words he has authored have been compromised in any way to benefit his friends.
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Justice Thomas and the Uneven Scales of Scrutiny
6th October 2023
Computer World.
Forced back into the office, many employees have admitted to showing up for just a few hours — enough time to swipe in with their employee badge, have a cup of coffee, and be seen in the workplace — then heading back home to do their work, according to a new study.
Coined as “coffee badging,” the trend showed up on a new survey of 2,000 full-time US workers conducted by videoconferencing tech vendor Owl Labs.
Owl Labs said its seventh annual State of Hybrid Work report revealed that more than half (58%) of hybrid workers said they are coffee badging to meet the minimum in-office requirement each week. Another 8% of respondents said they haven’t been coffee badging but would like to try it.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Faced With Back-to-Office Mandates, Employees Are ‘Coffee Badging’ Office Visits
5th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch, Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
5th October 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
5th October 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
5th October 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
5th October 2023
Read it.
We have the technology.
Takes care of the tailgater problem.
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Ron Patrick’s Street-Legal Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle
5th October 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
5th October 2023
Read it.
The Guardia Civil, Spain’s national police force, has arrested nine illegal immigrants who stand accused of threatening at knife-point sailors of a Dutch tugboat who had just rescued them from two boats in the Atlantic, forcing them to change course for the Spanish Canary Islands, sources from the interior ministry said.
The nine mutinous migrants had been a part of a larger group of 78 people who on the morning of Monday, October 2nd, departed from the North African coast in two separate boats in an attempt to reach the Canary Islands. The incident began after the Dutch ship “Vose Pace”—after realizing the precariousness of the two ships—rescued both, only to have some of those on board the second one threatening them with deadly weapons, El Debate reports.
The threat of violence came, apparently, because the Dutch ship, having rescued the two boats in waters under Moroccan rescue responsibility, received directions from Rabat to return the boats to the southern Moroccan port of Tan-Tan.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Spain: Illegal Migrants Arrested for Piracy
5th October 2023
Read it.
Teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten, who presided over a disastrous nationwide shutdown of schools during the coronavirus pandemic, is joining the board of one of the country’s most prominent anti-Israel groups.
J Street, a far-left group that works to undermine the Jewish state, announced on Wednesday that Weingarten will join its board of directors.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Fear--Party of Hate--Party of Death | Comments Off on Randi Weingarten Joins J Street Board
4th October 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
4th October 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
4th October 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
4th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
4th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch, The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
4th October 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
4th October 2023
The New Neo.
As part of the discussion of Gaetz’s move yesterday, commenter “Sharon W” wrote (I’m pretty sure sarcastically):
Maybe Art Deco can enunciate for us all the gains conservatives experienced when the House, Senate and Presidency were in Republican hands.
Most people on the right – and I include myself – share some of that bitterness and frustration about how little was ever accomplished when “the House, Senate, and presidency were in Republican hands.” The anger is understandable, and it’s a large part of what is behind much of the support for Gaetz’s move.
But I think it’s also instructive to look back at the actual figures about Republican control, something I did in this post I wrote shortly before Trump – and a Republican Congress – took office. Please take a look. You may be surprised at how seldom since the days of Coolidge and Hoover that such a situation – the GOP controlling both houses and the presidency – existed.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on About the History of Party Control of Congress and the Presidency
4th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
4th October 2023
“Imagine the people of Portland taking over the whole country and that was Russia after the revolution.” — ZMan
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Quotation of the Day
4th October 2023
Read it.
Though there’s a long history of scandal in the olive oil world, the problem in the U.S. for consumers is less about oil that isn’t made from olives, and more about olive oil that doesn’t meet the quality standards declared on its label. But since most people in the U.S. can’t tell fusty and musty from pungent and fruity, low-quality olive oil masquerading as extra virgin is a hard problem to fix.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Most of Us Are Blissfully Ignorant About How Much Rancid Olive Oil We Use
4th October 2023
Read it.
Some of the policies and actions that make the Republic of Turkey different from other nations are not only its proud and aggressive denial of the many crimes it has committed over the decades, but also its physical and verbal attacks—on an international scale—against the descendants of the survivors of those crimes.
These attacks include vandalism against genocide memorials outside of Turkey, diplomatic pressure on governments that recognize the genocide, as well as on those who erect monuments to commemorate the victims and carry out other commemorative activities.
The Turkish nation’s greatest crime is the 1913-1923 genocide committed against Assyrian, Armenian, and Greek Christians in Ottoman Turkey. Approximately 3.5 million Christians were killed in this ‘jihad genocide,’ which targeted them because of their religion and ethnicity in an attempt to create “Turkey for the Turks.”
Posted in Living with Islam. | Comments Off on Turkey’s Denial of Christian Genocide
4th October 2023
ZMan turns over a rock.
Charles Haywood of Worthy House has a post up explaining and defending his concept of “No Enemies On The Right”, which he originally formulated as “No Enemies To The Right” last December. He used that original phrase when discussing the jihad led by Rod Dreher against a schoolteacher who was accused of heresy. Dreher was doing his Christian piety act to both attack someone who could not defend himself and to curry favor with the people he pretends to oppose.
Dreher panicked when Haywood used the phrase “No Enemies To The Right” because it would be very bad for business if people embraced it. Like everyone in for-hire conservative politics, Dreher exists to attack people to his right. That is his reason to exist and why rich people fund his operations. What we insist on calling the Right in America is primarily a policing operation. They impose the morality of the Left on the rabble that the Right is charged with keeping at bay.
Over the last year, Haywood has defended his original argument, refining it as necessary, in response to criticism. Haywood has no interest in becoming the Emily Post of right-wing politics, but his continuing work on this concept is producing something like a rulebook of right-wing etiquette. His ten-point outline for what he means by “No Enemies On The Right” should be viewed as a useful guide for discourse between the various groups in dissident politics.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on No Enemies On The Right
4th October 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
4th October 2023
Read it.
A Chinese nuclear submarine crew is believed to be dead after its vessel was ensnared in a trap in the Yellow Sea that was reportedly intended for British sub-surface vessels.
Citing a highly-classified United Kingdom report, the Daily Mail reported that the death of the 55 Chinese sailors was the result of a catastrophic failure of the submarine’s oxygen systems.
“Intelligence reports that on 21st of August there was an onboard accident whilst carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea,” the U.K. report reads, according to the Mail. “Incident happened at 08.12 local resulting in the death of 55 crew members: 22 officers, 7 officer cadets, 9 petty officers, 17 sailors. Dead include the captain Colonel Xue Yong-Peng.”
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Chinese Nuclear Sub Crew Feared Dead After Equipment Failure
4th October 2023
BBC.
Nomad Cruise is the first mobile conference for digital nomads. It combines skill-sharing, networking and celebration while travelling through breathtaking corners of the globe. And German-born Voelkner, 40, says it’s achieving his aim.
“Once we arrive at the new destination, many people end up travelling together, and we organize reunions in beautiful destinations to build and foster this community,” he says. Tickets for the company’s upcoming 12th sailing – a 10-day transatlantic crossing from Spain to Brazil in December – start at around €1,000 ($1,073; £860). To date, upwards of 2,500 remote professionals from more than 80 countries have joined Nomad Cruise for work and wanderlust.
Beyond solving a problem, Voelkner is making money. His revenue comes from negotiating deals with cruise companies and adding travel experiences and onboard programming for new and established remote workers. A record 600 participants are expected on the upcoming transatlantic cruise, and his revenue to date nears €2m ($2.13m; £1.72m).
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Digital Nomads Have Billions to Spend. Entrepreneurs Are Cashing In.
3rd October 2023
Steve Graham has an Adventure in Modern America.
In the past, you could call the UPS number and yell “AGENT!” over and over until the phone tree wilted and gave you a person. Now you go to the site, get a bunch of prompts that don’t apply to your situation, and then receive instructions to get lost. If you call and yell “AGENT!”, the system tells you you can’t have one, and it hangs up.
None of the web prompts matched my problem, and that was deliberate on the part of UPS. I had a driver who would not put boxes where they were supposed to be, and probably three million people had the same problem today, so obviously, they do not want people with poorly-placed boxes calling them. They would be inundated.
You can’t just go to the local UPS hub and ask for help, because they will shoot you when you try to scale the fence. UPS doesn’t like riff raff any more than I do. Okay, perhaps they won’t shoot you, but you can’t complain in person. That’s my point.
I tried to use the site in spite of the lack of relevant options. I picked a prompt which was not very appropriate, figuring some human being might read it and decide to do something even though I had responded to the wrong prompt. Unbelievably, UPS contacted me. A guy named Bill at the local hub seemed to be very upset that my boxes were being rained on, and I think he really tried to help.
He thought I hadn’t entered my code on their site. I told him I had. He said he couldn’t see it, and that meant his drivers couldn’t see it. He was convinced this was the issue. He gave me a number for UPS tech support.
I called and got one of the Indian guys.
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on The Gate of Heck
3rd October 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic