DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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Ever since the possibility of North Korea assisting Russia in its war effort emerged in the Summer of 2022, quantifying exactly what that would look like and its downstream effects have been challenging. Now, as indications point to North Korean troops wading into the direct fighting, one aspect of this major geopolitical shift beyond how it impacts Ukraine couldn’t be more clear — North Korea getting real-world combat experience on a modern battlefield alongside a well-versed ally is a very unwelcome development for South Korea and the United States.

The experience aspect of North Korea’s involvement in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is one we have stressed repeatedly, but it’s often overlooked, with the focus being more on the immediate impact an influx of troops could have for the Kremlin’s cause. This is understandable as Russia has experienced heavy losses and Ukraine has as well. Any major infusion of able bodies into the fighting from an external source could erode either side’s ability to compete on the battlefield.

Puerto Ricans in must-win Pennsylvania say Trump rally joke won’t be forgotten (BBC)

Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania (Politico)

Trump’s offensive Madison Square Garden rally triggers fears of an overshadowed message and fallout with Puerto Rican voters (CNN)

Anger grows over racist remarks about Puerto Ricans at Trump rally (The Guardian) Since when is ‘Puerto Rican’ a race?

Michelle Obama’s Brutal Takedown of Trump’s Mental State Shames Media (The New Republic)

Michelle Obama blasts Trump for ‘gross incompetence’ at Harris’s Michigan rally (The Guardian) Like being called ugly by a frog.

Michelle Obama’s message to men was a perfect rebuttal to Tucker Carlson (MSNBC) Uh, yeah, sure.

Trump rally comedian workshopped racist Puerto Rico line at NYC comedy club the night before (NBC News)

Trump advisers propose bypassing FBI background checks for appointees (The Guardian)

USA Today the Latest to Offer Up Excuse for Lack of Presidential Endorsement (Josh Fiallo/The Daily Beast)

Harris Aides Hopeful That Casting Trump as a Fascist Could Shift Election (New York Times)

The Smearing of Kamala Harris (Anita Hill/New York Times)

‘Floating pile of garbage’ comments follow Trump to his rally tomorrow (Holly Otterbein/Politico)  Which TRUMP never said. But that doesn’t matter.

NAACP poll: Trump’s support among young Black men decreasing (Brakkton Booker/Politico)

Trump: ‘I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi’ (Meridith McGraw/Politico)

‘Nobody Gets a Pass!’ Mika Goes on Wild Anti-Trump Rant on ‘The View’

Elon Musk’s America PAC uses crude, sexist attack against Harris in new ad (Brittany Gibson/Politico)

Archbishop of San Juan says Trump needs to ‘personally’ apologize (Mia McCarthy/Politico) For something he didn’t say, that everyone present knows was a joke.

Five ways a Trump presidency would be disastrous for the climate (Oliver Milman/The Guardian)

Regime Media Bask in Hope MSG Fallout Hurts Trump With Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania

Kamala Supporter Outlines ‘Survival Guide’ If Trump Wins

How Trump Goes to Prison (Jeff Wise/New York Magazine)

The obscene and absurd in MAGA Square Garden (Public Notice)

The most misogynistic ad in the history of politics (Judd Legum/Popular Information)

Playbook: Trump faces a P.R. disaster (Politico)

Joe Rogan Addresses YouTube Censorship Concerns, Says Harris Interview Still Possible 

Trump Betrayed America. My Fellow Republicans Must Put Country Above Party. (J. Michael Luttig/New York Times)

That Revolting Rally Was a Sign of Weakness (Jamelle Bouie/New York Times)

George W. Bush’s Daughter Barbara Breaks Silence on Election to Campaign for Kamala Harris (Exclusive) (Daniel S. Levine/People)

How Trump’s Business Could Create New Conflicts If He Is Re-Elected (New York Times)

‘Racist, sexist, crude’: Media outlets use strong language to describe Trump rally (Tom Jones/Poynter)  But they’d do that anyway.

Puerto Rico’s G.O.P. Chairman Demands Apology From Trump for Comic’s Remarks (Neil Vigdor/New York Times)  He is supposed to feel obliged to apologize for what someone else said. Welcome to the Cancel Culture.

Elon Musk’s “illegal” past doesn’t feel like hypocrisy to MAGA – Trump’s hate rally in NYC shows why (Amanda Marcotte/Salon)  Amanda Marcotte is a walking hate crime.

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for school shootings and measles (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

Don’t Fall For Trump’s Makeover. He’s an Anti-Muslim Bigot. (Will Saletan/The Bulwark)  As opposed to a pro-Muslim bigot, like will Saletan. Of the two, I know which one I’d pick.

The Memo: Trump campaign struggles to contain Puerto Rico October surprise (Niall Stanage/The Hill)

How Trump Is Using Truth Social to Concoct and Spread Conspiracy Theories (New York Times)

Poop artist strikes again with neo-Nazi tiki torch statue for Trump (Joe Heim/Washington Post)

Trump claims to ABC’s Scott he didn’t hear comedian’s Puerto Rico comment, doesn’t denounce it (ABC News)

Cooper, Stelter Impute Ill Motive to Bezos’ WashPost Endorsement Call, Suggest Compliance Ahead of Impending Autocracy

Whoopi Goldberg: Trump Will Break Up Interracial Marriages, Deport The Non-White Person

Trump identifies a scapegoat in case he loses (Sophia Cai/Axios)

Trump and his allies insist he’s ‘not a Nazi’ (Rebecca Shabad/NBC News)  And Harris and her allies insist that he is. Who to believe?

State Department Alerts Congress: Iranian Spy Teams Are Attempting To Assassinate Former Trump Officials

The stage is set for post-election tumult if Trump loses (Philip Bump/Washington Post)

Liberal Media Have Collective Amnesia About Their 2016 Election Denial

Facebook Is Auto-Generating Militia Group Pages as Extremists Continue to Organize in Plain Sight (Tess Owen/Wired)

Babylon Bee.

Satire — read quickly before it comes true.

Babylon Bee.

Satire — read quickly before it comes true.

The American Mind.

If Donald Trump wins the presidency for a second time, the number of things he could potentially focus on will vastly exceed the amount of time available. During a presidential term that will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—and hence of the United States of America—one obvious priority should be to ensure a spirited celebration of our glorious Founding, not a woke grievance session focused on claims of “systemic racism.” But beyond that, Trump will have to pick and choose among various competing priorities.

Of course, the primary responsibility of any president—and one that has often been neglected of late—is to execute the laws as written. The first line of Article II of the Constitution, after all, vests the president with the executive power. Simply fulfilling this basic constitutional requirement would reap huge dividends for the American citizenry, especially on the issue of immigration. Our current border crisis has been fueled—and deliberately so—by the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce federal immigration laws (specifically its failure to enforce the legal requirement that those seeking asylum be detained until their claims can be adjudicated).

Beyond faithfully enforcing the law (backed by a competent legal team that believes in that mission), Trump should quickly undo all of the damaging executive orders that President Biden has issued. Executive orders are supposed to be guidance to executive branch personnel about how to enforce the law. Biden’s orders and proclamations, however, have often veered into quasi-lawmaking, such as his kingly mask and vaccine decrees and his edict that student loan debt should be transferred from borrowers to taxpayers as a whole.

Reuters.

A teenager accused of murdering three young girls in a knife attack in northern England in July has been further charged with a terrorism offence and the production of deadly poison ricin, police and prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, is accused of killing the three young girls aged between six and nine at a Taylor Swift dance event in Southport, murders which shocked the nation and provoked days of rioting across the country.

Police said the incident was still not being treated as terrorist related but said after searches of his home, Rudakubana had now been charged with two further offences: production of a deadly biological toxin, ricin, and the possession of an al Qaeda training manual.

Here’s a picture of ‘UK teen’ Axel Rudakubana:

UPDATE: The Al Qaeda Manual and Ricin — Motive Unknown

Read it.

Those in power talk about inflation as if it’s a natural occurrence.

They’d have you believe that there’s no more sense in blaming government leaders for a bout of inflation than in blaming them for rainy weather on the weekend. This is nonsense.

The White House and Congress deserve to be blamed for inflation, because the amount of money the federal government spends determines the amount of money that the Federal Reserve creates, and that in turn determines how much inflation occurs.

The more money there is, the more inflation there will be.

When private individuals create money, they may face imprisonment for the crime of counterfeiting. Private counterfeiting is recognized as a form of theft: Counterfeit bills that are accepted and put into circulation increase the money supply and cause everyone’s dollars to be worth a little less.

When the government and the Federal Reserve expand the money supply, it has the same inflationary effect, only on a much larger scale and without the risk of imprisonment.

ZMan is not afraid to raise the hard questions.

For over a century, since Woodrow Wilson, America has been on a mission to heal the world. The ruling class has asked, often demanded, that the people put aside their regional and local concerns for the good of one great cause after another. It has become so ingrained in ruling class thinking that they seem incapable to thinking about the state of the country.

Strip away the panic, the hysteria and the outlandish claims and the coming election is about whether we care more about the fate of Mongolian transgender lesbians or the fentanyl epidemic in Appalachia. Do we care more about the abstract concept of climate change or addressing the slow collapse of our infrastructure? What counts for more as an American? The health of your neighbors or the plight of migrants? Will we sacrifice everything in a vain attempt to save the world?

All these questions stem from a growing doubt in this sense of American identity that has been with us since Gettysburg. Americans are increasingly wondering not only if the cost of saving the world is worth the effort, but if it makes any sense at all for us to stand astride the world, balances in our hand. Maybe the people who demand we do this do not have the right to judge the world. Maybe these people lack the moral standing to stand in judgement over us as well.

Read it.

New York Times reporters Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman, and Michael Gold were on the scene for the purported Trump hate-fest held at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. The resulting story featured what political polling guru (and Kamala Harris supporter) Nate Silver in his newsletter called “the sort of headline” the paper’s “liberal critics” have “been pining for”: “A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.”

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Batman is a hero for stopping the criminals threatening the people of Gotham City. Daniel Penny is on trial for stopping a criminal threatening the people of New York City. It doesn’t get much more backward than this.

Spiderman faced this problem all the time.

Read it.

A 23-year-old woman has been arrested after she posted on social media about having gotten away with ripping down Greek flags at a New Jersey restaurant that she believed were Israeli.

The incident at Efi’s Gyro in Montclair, New Jersey, occurred March 11, but it wasn’t until Amber Matthews posted the video to TikTok on Oct. 15 that police were able to identify her. She was arrested on Tuesday and charged with bias intimidation and harassment.

In the video, Matthews, who went by the name “Ambamelia” on her now-removed TikTok account, can be heard berating employees about the “genocide” in Gaza. She posted the video with the text “The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG.”

You’d think the big cross on the flag would have been a clue, but I guess the ignorance of her generation passes all previous records.

Read it.

Iran is likely still tallying the costs of the Israeli airstrikes launched on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran’s massive October 1 missile barrage on Israel. Among the targets that Israel appears to have gone after are Iran’s prized Russian-made S-300 air defense systems, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Putting the Iranian S-300s out of action leaves the door open to follow-up strikes by Israel, including larger-scale direct attacks. As we noted on Saturday, this serves as both a contingent opportunity for the Israel Defense Forces and a deterrent against a response from Iran.

Among the critical Iranian military infrastructure destroyed on Saturday were its three surviving S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems. This is the assessment of unnamed U.S. and Israeli officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal. Iran’s only other S-300 system was already hit by Israel earlier this year.

Told ya so.

Read it.

Chicago Police have charged a man with attempted murder after he allegedly shot an Orthodox Jew walking to synagogue on Saturday morning.

The victim, a 39-year-old man whose identity has not been released, was walking to Congregation K.I.N.S. in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood when a man approached from behind and fired multiple shots, striking the victim’s shoulder.

Police say the man, Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, then exchanged fire with law enforcement after police and paramedics arrived on the scene. Police shot Abdallahi, who was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. The victim was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon.

Imagine how peaceful the world would be if the Religion of Peace didn’t exist.

UPDATE: Chicago Police Don’t Charge Suspect With Hate Crime After He Shot Jewish Man and Reportedly Yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’

Watch it.

And read the comments — people are getting sick & tired of YouTube hiding and throttling content that doesn’t agree with their Woke agenda.

Read it.

HEN ELIZABETH FOX moved from Athabasca to the central Alberta hamlet of Elnora in 2013, finding a family doctor close to home was a breeze. “I was pregnant,” she says, “so they’ll all take you.”

But seven or eight years later, Fox’s clinic emailed her to say she was being de-rostered—removed from her doctor’s list of patients—and would have to find a new doctor. The doctor didn’t come in very much, and they needed her for other patients.

“Don’t you just shift your patients around?” Fox recalls asking. They didn’t, and it was up to her to find someone new. With three kids and a declining number of doctors accepting new patients, that proved easier said than done. Her family joined the 650,000 other Albertans who, according to the Alberta Medical Association, lack access to regular primary care.

Unspoken assumption: Canada has mandatory government-paid-for health care. Hence the talk of government mucking about with the fees. In effect, everybody in Canada is on Medicare.

Read it.

David French has offered a deeply pathetic NeverTrump manifesto just in time for the election. It rehashes French’s ongoing themes of (a) his morality superiority (b) the irrelevance or nonexistence of perfidy on the left and (c) the betrayal of all Republicans and evangelicals who do not think exactly as he does. Nothing you did not already know about the Gospel of St. David. I read it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

 

Watch it.

I can’t stop watching this.

Watch part 1.

Watch part 2.

It makes as much sense as any answer I’ve ever gotten from a teacher in school.

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Why is there almost nothing on the left hand side of the USA? Water scarcity!

We’re missing 300 million Americans. We’re missing 30 global cities west of 100 degrees longitude. We should do something about it!

The western US is a parched opportunity to create millions of acres of prime land for the next billion Americans to live on. Only one ingredient is missing – water.

Walz compares Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to 1939 pro-Nazi event (Tara Suter/The Hill)

Trump ad depicts country ‘gone to hell’ – during Trump’s presidency (Adam Wren/Politico)

Speakers at Trump MSG rally insult Dems, minorities (Meridith McGraw/Politico)

A Trump Rally Speaker Trashed Puerto Ricans. Harris Reached Out to Them. (Erica L. Green/New York Times)

Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks (Meridith McGraw/Politico)

Trump-supporting comedian opens MSG rally by calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” (Alex Galbraith/Salon)

Donald Trump’s Racist NYC Rally Was Vile. It Was Also Political Suicide (David Rothkopf/The Daily Beast)

Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism (New York Times)

By contrast: NYC Mayor Says Trump Not A Fascist, Urges Politicians To ‘Dial Down The Temperature’ Good luck with that.

Read it.

Rail transit officials in California’s Bay Area have been ordered to pay more than $7 million to transit workers who were fired because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine years ago.

On Oct. 23, a federal jury in the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California sided with six former San Francisco Bay Area Regional Transit (BART) workers who had refused to get the vaccine for religious purposes.

BART was ordered to pay the group more than $7.8 million, with each individual receiving between $1.2 million and $1.5 million, the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the transit workers in the trial, said in a statement on Oct. 24. The institute, a law firm representing the six former employees since 2022, said the eight-person jury deliberated for two days this week before returning the verdict that awarded the employees the compensation.

Read it.

Donald Trump was the hated “Islamophobe” in 2016, and now he’s the darling of the Michigan Ummah. What in the world is going on?

Barack Hussein Obama owned the Islamic vote during his two terms, and Kamala Harris has pandered to Muslims shamelessly, yet they’re abandoning the Democrats and flocking to the Evil Orange Man. Are we living in Bizarro World, or what?

I’ll give you my take on what’s going on. Back in 2001, Osama bin Laden famously said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Arabs are shrewd about power relationships, and I think they have sized up Donald Trump and decided that he is the strong horse. A lot of other Democrats have come to the same conclusion, and are demoralized by it, but Muslims are pragmatic. They don’t have any problem abandoning previous allies and switching sides whenever doing so will serve the cause of Islam.

Once Mr. Trump has been inaugurated, they’ll cozy up to him and try to manipulate him, hoping to induce him to support their interests. We’ll see how that works out.

Read it.

Following civil unrest after Welsh-born Rwandan, Axel Rudakubana, murdered three girls and injured ten at a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper promised Parliament that she would act on long-held concerns that “not enough is being done to counter extremism—including both Islamist extremism and far right extremism.” Condemning all demonstrations as “not about grievance [but] … thuggery, racism and crime,” Cooper announced she had ordered the Home Office to conduct a “rapid review” of the Prevent programme to combat “poisonous ideologies that corrode community cohesion and fray the fabric of our democracy.”

But both the priorities of the new Labour government and the conduct of the Home Office and College of Policing should cause concern. Those who value free speech, and want to ensure that the likes of the Southport massacre never happen again, will be targeted by hate crime and counter-terroism operations, all paid for by our own taxes. Here’s how the UK Home Office polices thought-crime in Britain.

Read it.

The study results indicated that gait parameters were not significantly affected by age (p?0.12), while knee and grip strength, along with several balance parameters, showed a significant decline with age. All individuals were able to maintain their bipedal balance, but their center of pressure movement increased significantly by age (p?0.028). Z-scores were calculated to compare significant age parameters. Unipedal stance time was found to be the most affected by age compared to other contributing factors (p?0.001). The duration of unipedal balance showed the most significant change per decade (non-dominant: -0.62 SDs; dominant: -0.53 SDs), while strength measures exhibited the lowest amount of change per decade (grip strength: -0.34 SDs; knee strength: -0.26 SDs). Sex differences were observed exclusively in strength parameters, with no discernible impact on the decline in balance parameters.

Most scientific studies are of one of two types: (a) studies that actually discover and exemplify the causal links between two conditions, and (b) studies that identify strong correlations between two conditions and think that this proves a causal connection.

The former is actual science, while the latter passes for science these days. The latter underlie most hand-wringing political fashions, such as racism, sexism, ‘white privilege’, and ‘climate change’, depending for their authority on ‘scientific consensus’ rather than actual I-can-point-to-it proof of causation.

Read it.

I had to work at it, and I’m the most educated person I know.

Expectations were higher then.

Wall Street Journal.

Another urgent conflict in the Middle East is playing out on the border between Syria and Jordan: a war against captagon, an amphetamine-like drug that’s taken off across the region.

The drug cuts across social class and borders. It’s used by taxi drivers handling late-night shifts, militia fighters looking to induce courage, students studying for exams, and high-powered executives wanting to work, or party, long hours.

It’s all added up to a multibillion-dollar drug trade that is fueling more conflict in the region. Money from drug smuggling has lined the pockets of Iran-backed militias, including Hezbollah, which has spent vast amounts of its proceeds on weapons to fight Israel. The drug props up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has become one of the world’s biggest drug syndicates, helping it offset years of punishing Western economic sanctions.

Read it.

Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced her official move to the Republican Party because of Donald Trump, and now even Democratic National Convention delegates are joining a burgeoning D-exit movement.

Read it.

The head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Michigan is incensed with The New York Times and with The Heritage Foundation (something that rarely happens simultaneously). The newspaper published an article making it clear that diversity, equity, and inclusion has been a flop at Ann Arbor, and it cited Heritage. That was enough for Tabbye Chavous to throw a fit.

Chavous, University of Michigan’s vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, excoriated the newspaper and the foundation in a letter posted on her LinkedIn page.

The article by the newspaper’s Nicholas Confessore speaks for itself, and I urge people to read it. However, the gist was hardly novel to DEI critics who have been spotlighting the flaws with this ideology for several years now.

Basically, because it is intrinsically divisive, DEI causes grievances and more division. It’s that simple.

It was important, however, that in this instance, it was The New York Times saying it.

UnHerd.

The meaning of the leaf is the leaf, as I once heard Roger Scruton say. Perhaps it was an original coinage from the Sage of Sundey Hill Farm, but it has the slight feel of a Zen koan: a seemingly inscrutable saying that can nonetheless help the listener achieve enlightenment. Scruton meant it as a reminder of the importance of focusing on the particular object or experience that you’re faced with at any given moment.

I had this aphorism in the back of my mind all through Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder, an argument for a more spiritually aware mode of living, and against the successful but ultimately incomplete materialism that dominates the modern world. “Enchantment” is the key word Dreher uses here. By this, he means preparing your mind to see beyond the everyday things presented to our eyes and ears, and to sense what Christians would regard as the underlying reality of existence: the grace and goodness of God, and the unity of creation.

Dreher is a devout and observant Orthodox Christian. This naturally gives him a certain appreciation of why modern life can feel so disenchanted. In his telling, the dovetailing of the everyday and the transcendent, so common in the high medieval imagination, was dealt successive blows. The first came from nominalism: the philosophical position which denied the existence of an underlying metaphysical unity behind the physical world. Then came the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution of the last few centuries.

Read it.

I gave up reading American literary fiction when its authors gave up writing it. The novel was born with its subject, the bourgeois individual. When it became uncool to be bourgeois and individual, literary novelists abandoned realism (the means of portraying society) and plotting (the ends of the individual’s story). What remained was character (subjective perceptions) and politics (the objective goal of social life). The vestiges of the Puritan personality disorder mean that character must always align with politics.

I exempt detective fiction and spy novels. These genres remain true to form and readership, so they retain a high degree of craft: plausible social detail, competent plotting, and coherent character motivation. Without these constraints, American literary fiction, which was world-class in the century between Mark Twain and Tom Wolfe, has devolved into pious, slackly written slop, a cynical mixture of self-help, affirmative action, and movie pitches.

Read it.

Califurnia doesn’t care; all their cars are electric.

‘Regulatory pressure’ is a great tool — rather than trying to outlaw something that it would be unconstitutional for them to outlaw, they just increase the ‘regulatory pressure’ until it’s impossible to comply without going broke, so the business closes down. It’s like a boss, rather than going through the hassle of firing you, makes your life at work miserable until you have to quit.

Read it.

Don’t you find it interesting that Trump is being accused of wanting to commit all kinds of abhorrent actions and behaviors that he has never demonstrated? That if you look at his first term, his policies were quite good? That he didn’t abuse his power or meddle with the powers of others? I continue to marvel at the number of people who are crying out about his “fascist” or “autocratic” nature.

Read it.

“If the British had not fought in 1940, Hitler would have been in London and if Democrats do not fight in 1968, Nixon will be in the White House,” Vice President Hubert Humphrey warned.

Chicago Mayor Daley had accused Nixon of “Hitler type” tactics.

Comparing any Republican presidential candidate to Hitler had been a standard Democratic political tactic for some time no matter how inappropriate it might be.

OffGuardian.

As it is, I am not allowed to be proud of my heterosexuality. In truth, it is not something to be proud of. But for the same reason, there is nothing to be proud of in being homosexual, or bi or trans, or any variety of sexual preference or orientation or identity. Nothing.

Well, a person can be proud of the advancements an identified group has accomplished (particularly if you are a member of that group). Considering the trials and tribulations gay people have faced over the centuries, the fortitude, effort, and sacrifice they have made to socially be where they are today is certainly something a person could be proud of. But that isn’t being proud of being gay. That is being proud of character, resilience, resolve and fortitude. Being gay may have been the impetus for those admirable attributes, but gayness itself is not.

Pride is actually one of the Seven Cardinal Sins. And there is good reason for it to be. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and all that. Of course, common sense would say that is not what gay pride is about. However, if we see that massive movement toward gay pride (or trans pride) as a product of the agenda, we can clearly see that it is intended to cause disruption. How so?

There is no justification for pride in a group to whose accomplishments one has made no contribution. This is why I have no interest in sportsball teams.

Keanu Reeves: ‘I want my shirts laundered the way they do it at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.’

Me, too.

Read it.

Few areas of research have captivated scientists more than the search for room-temperature superconductivity. Finding a way to reduce energy loss as electricity travels over transmission lines and across wires would profoundly change society. It would deliver nearly unlimited energy, turbocharge compute speeds, and introduce new and better ways to use computers and other electronics.

Yet assembling the right mix of materials to achieve room temperature superconductivity has eluded researchers for more than a century. Time and time again, physicists have announced breakthroughs that were later found to be irreproducible, in error, or even fraudulent. Consequently, the challenge—getting to superconductivity at temperatures above 0 degrees Kelvin (-273.15 degrees Celsius) at ambient pressure—remains a holy grail of physics and materials science.

The Register.

A group of researchers in the UK affiliated with the BSS published a paper this week calling for the permanent abolition of Daylight Saving Time (DST) and adherence to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in large part because modern evidence suggests having that extra hour of sunlight in the evenings is worse for our health than we thought back in the 1970s when the concept was all the rage in Europe.

Not only does GMT more closely align with the natural day/light cycle in the UK, the boffins assert, but decades of research into sleep and circadian rhythms have been produced since DST was enacted that have yet to be considered.

The human circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle our bodies go through, drives a lot about our health beyond sleep. It regulates hormone release, gene expression, metabolism, mood (who isn’t grumpier when waking up in January?), and the like. In short, it’s important. Messing with that rhythm by forcing ourselves out of bed earlier for several months out of the year can have lasting effects, the researchers said.

Speed the day.

Paul Graham.

I’m usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won’t be many people who can write.

And their vote will count equally to yours.

Read it.

It was announced today that the UK will transfer sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius. Assuming this happens before March, this means when the sun sets on the Pitcairn Islands (18:50 Local time: UTC-8, 02:50 London time: UTC), the sun will have set on all British territory for the first time in over 200 years.

Read it.

Six former Bay Area Rapid Transit District Employees who lost their jobs for refusing COVID-19 vaccinations will each receive more than $1 million after a federal jury sided with them in a discrimination lawsuit.

Read it.

In a surprising yet overdue move, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has released its Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the New York Bight. This document, despite its extensive layers of technical jargon and cautious language, marks a pivotal shift. It appears to be a rare admission from BOEM that offshore wind farms are indeed capable of causing harm—biologically, socioeconomically, physically, and culturally.

Read it.

This article recounts the history of the diet-heart hypothesis from the late 1950s up to the current day, with revelations that have never before been published in the scientific literature. Insights include the role of authorities in launching the diet-hypothesis, including a potential conflict of interest for the American Heart Association; a number of crucial details regarding studies considered influential to the hypothesis; irregularities in the scientific reviews on saturated fats, for both the 2015 and 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; and possible conflicts of interest on the relevant subcommittee reviewing saturated fats for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Information obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on emails from the 2015 process is published here for the first time. These findings are highly relevant to the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines process, now underway, which has plans for a new review on saturated fats.

A reminder, to those of us who would profit by it, that scientific consensus is no guarantee of truth.

Read it.

The Israeli ‘retaliation’ attack against Iran, which occurred in the overnight and early morning hours, appears to be complete, with Israel’s military (IDF) having declared the response “concluded” after locations in three provinces of the Islamic Republic were hit.

Some 100 Israeli warplanes were sent, primarily across Jordanian airspace, for the unprecedented attack which reportedly included strikes on key missile, drone, and other military sites – including air defense installations. However, Iranians are mocking it as if it didn’t even happen, and there’s an emerging consensus among Western pundits that this was remarkably limited in scale. The attack did not involve Iranian nuclear or oil sites, according to Israeli military officials.

This was obviously a practice run for the later strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This run allowed Israel to determine (a) what Jordan’s response (and Iraq’s response) would be to Israeli aircraft overflying their airspace, (b) where Iranian antiaircraft defenses were located, and (c) what the response times of those antiaircraft defenses would be. This is all vital intelligence.

Plus it allowed them to take out a lot of the trash.

Read it.

The Kamala Harris rally in Houston last night was billed as a Beyoncé concert. Everyone, including the media, believed the singer would perform after the announcement was made earlier in the week, but all she did was walk out and make a barely audible speech for a few minutes. Then the rally descended into complete chaos.

Bait-and-switch: Thy name is ‘Democrat’. (Hey, that’s how Kamala got the nomination in the first place….)

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Police in the 2024 battleground state of Pennsylvania are investigating some 2,500 voter registration forms that were submitted in two massive batches — and investigators say that 60% of the forms they’ve checked so far are fraudulent. All of the ballots were submitted in Lancaster County, but two other counties are scrutinizing similarly suspect batches. While officials say it’s the work of a “large-scale canvassing operation,” they’re not yet saying who’s behind it.

The roughly 2,500 applications landed at or near Pennsylvania’s Oct 21 registration deadline; some observers are speculating that the timing may have been tactical, with the intent of exploiting time-pressure administrators would be under ahead of the Nov. 5 Election Day. However, as they examined the massive heap of forms, application processors were immediately alarmed by what they saw:

• Multiple applications with the same handwriting and signatures

• Many forms filled out on the same day

• Applications for previously-registered voters whose signatures on the forms did not match the ones on file

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Shaquille O’Neal, commonly referred to as “Shaq” is among the greatest NBA players of all time, at least at the center position. During his playing days, Shaq was a force alongside Kobe Bryant, bringing home four championship titles in his 19-year career.

His list of accolades is as long as it is impressive. In addition to these four rings, Shaq was also put on the All-Star team 15 times and won three Finals MVP awards. His career was certainly very profitable, but as is a rarity in the world of professional sports, Shaq has actually made much more money off the court and invested the capital he did earn very well.

Let’s dive into Shaquille O’Neal’s business empire, much of which was built after his retirement in 2011, and what to make of this man’s success.