I worked in Chad, Africa for a little over a year. N’Djamena to be specific. I worked on building a new Hilton Hotel. The first of its kind in this part of Africa. I thought I would finally post some of my pictures. It isn’t safari country so no lions or elephants. Mostly just life in and around Chad. Enjoy!.
Columnist David Marcus credits incoming Presidetn Trump with averting a government shutdown - while shedding 1,400 pages of wasteful pork from Congress's budget proposal. [...]
Your source for breaking news, news about New York, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, real estate, culture, fashion, and more. [...]
American confidence in the courts has hit a record low across party lines. This is worrying - if not surprising [...]
Public trust isn't just earned through the cases we choose to pursue, but it's also earned in the way we conduct ourselves and manage our offices. [...]
After Syria, Israel and the US fear Tehran will build an atomic bomb. Their threats may produce that very outcome [...]
When Donald Trump returns to the White House, you can be sure that RealClearPolitics will feature supporters of his agenda. And also critics. [...]
Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea early Sunday in "an apparent case of friendly fire," the US military said.Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said later on Sunday they had "targeted" the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman a day earlier in an operation that led to "shooting down an F-18 aircraft" and thwarting "American-British aggression" against Yemen.United States Central Command said late on Saturday that both US pilots were recovered alive but "initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries". [...]
Two weeks after seizing power in a sweeping offensive, Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has stepped up regional contacts, vowing in a meeting Sunday not to "negatively" interfere in neighbouring Lebanon.Sharaa also met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, video released by the Anadolu state news agency showed, after Ankara-backed rebels played a key role in supporting his Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized Damascus on December 8 and ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. [...]
Iran's supreme leader denied Sunday that militant groups around the region functioned as Tehran's proxies, warning that if his country chose to "take action", it would not need them anyway.The remarks came after a year in which Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza suffered heavy losses in wars with Israel, and two weeks after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who had been a key link in Tehran's so-called axis of resistance. [...]
Gaza's civil defence agency said on Sunday Israeli strikes killed at least 28 Palestinians, as the director of one of two hospitals still operating in the territory's north reported bombardment nearby.More than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, there was no let-up in the violence in the Gaza Strip even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever". [...]
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes overnight and early Sunday killed at least 28 Palestinians, including at one family's home and at a school building the military said was used by Hamas.There was no let-up in the violence in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever". [...]
The smell of dampness rises through the dust at a private club in central Baghdad, one of many shut in a crackdown on alcohol sales in Iraq."We appealed to all authorities in the country, but no one listened to us," said the owner, a Christian who asked not to be named.Although a law banning the sale and import of alcohol was passed in 2016 and came into force at the start of last year, its enforcement had been patchy.But conservative lawmakers have a majority in parliament, and have pushed for stronger action. [...]
School lessons ended in Syria's biggest Palestinian refugee camp on October 18, 2012, judging by the date still chalked up on the board more than a decade later."I am playing football"; "She is eating an apple"; "The boys are flying a kite" are written in English.Outside, the remaining children in the Damascus suburb of Yarmuk now play among the shattered ruins left by Syria's years of civil war. [...]
On a hillside in Tunisia's northwestern highlands, women scour a sun-scorched field for the wild herbs they rely on for their livelihoods, but droughts and rising temperatures are making it ever harder to find the precious plants.Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment, inflation and high living costs. [...]
Pope Francis on Saturday condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as "cruelty", sparking a sharp response from Israel which accused him of double standards.The pontiff made his remarks a day after the rescue agency in Gaza said an Israeli air strike had killed seven children from one family."Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised," the pope told members of the government of the Holy See."Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. "I want to say it because it touches my heart." [...]
At a Damascus intersection, young volunteers act as unofficial traffic cops after police assigned to the duty deserted their posts when president Bashar al-Assad fell to a rapid rebel advance.Some traffic officers abandoned their uniforms and motorbikes in the street on December 8, the day the rebels took Damascus.Traffic jams resulted, especially where signals weren't working or crowds gathered to mark the end to more than half a century of paranoid and brutal rule by the Assad clan. [...]
In the towns and villages of southern Syria that Israel has occupied since the overthrow of longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad, soldiers and residents size each other up from a distance.The main street of the village of Jabata al-Khashab is largely deserted as a foot patrol of Israeli troops passes through it.Most villagers have cloistered themselves inside their homes since the troops arrived. A few look on through windows and from rooftops. [...]
The suspected perpetrator of a deadly ramming at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday is a 50-year-old Saudi refugee from a Shiite family who declared himself an atheist and "anti-Islam".Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen had been living in Germany since 2006 and practised as a psychiatrist in the town of Bernburg, near Magdeburg. He had no known links to jihadists. [...]
The United States on Saturday said it struck targets in Yemen's rebel-held capital, hours after a Huthi rebel missile wounded people in Israel's commercial hub Tel Aviv.The missile, which wounded 16 people, was the second such attack in two days.Among the targets of US forces was a rebel missile storage centre and a "command-and-control facility," the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement. [...]
…with more to come for 2025. [...]
The Israeli military said its forces shot a protester during a demonstration against the army's activities in a village in southern Syria on Friday, injuring him in the leg.Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on December 8 Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military facilities in what it says is a bid to prevent them from falling into hostile hands. [...]
The Islamic Republic is facing questions about its regional strength, and ferocious criticism from its loyalists, as it rethinks a promised response to Israel's October missile attack amid massive defense setbacks and fears of a yet more devastating cycle of escalation. [...]
The Islamic Republic is facing questions about its regional strength, and ferocious criticism from its loyalists, as it rethinks a promised response to Israel's October missile attack amid massive defense setbacks and fears of a yet more devastating cycle of escalation. [...]
The Islamic Republic is facing questions about its regional strength, and ferocious criticism from its loyalists, as it rethinks a promised response to Israel's October missile attack amid massive defense setbacks and fears of a yet more devastating cycle of escalation. [...]
The Islamic Republic is facing questions about its regional strength, and ferocious criticism from its loyalists, as it rethinks a promised response to Israel's October missile attack amid massive defense setbacks and fears of a yet more devastating cycle of escalation. [...]
Tyson Fury weighed in at the heaviest of his career on Friday as he vowed to go to war with Oleksandr Usyk in their world title rematch.The Englishman, albeit fully clothed, tipped the scales at 281 pounds (127.4kg) -- 19lb heavier than when he lost to the Ukrainian in their unification bout in May.Usyk, also dressed against the winter chill at Riyadh's Wonder Garden amusement park, weighed 226lb, 2.5lb heavier than seven months ago. [...]
Elizabeth O'Brien, Barrons The market may be heading to a bumpy end in 2024 and it's causing some unease. [...]
John Tamny, RealClearMarkets If you want to age yourself, talk about how you used to stay up until 11:30 on Friday nights to watch NBA playoff games. This was in the early 1980s. Friday [...]
Sarah Eckhardt, Agglomerations There was no way to know, during the peak pandemic days of 2020, whether the observed spike in entrepreneurial activity that year was a real trend. [...]
Rob Smith, RealClearMarkets Recently, I sent out a number of distributions from various trusts. As trustee, I have discretion to do such things. I wanted [...]
Jeanna Smialek, NYT America's economy is far outstripping its peers, but there are serious risks, including from the president-elect. [...]
Mark Hulbert, Marketwatch Hopeful signs in the short term, but the longer-term picture for stocks is troubling [...]
Chris Bailey, RealClear The Trump administration's vaping policy offers a valuable lesson for today's lawmakers: balancing youth protection with [...]
Robin Wigglesworth, FT Alphaville The latest three-letter acronym to excite and alarm people [...]
Jack Newsham, BI Pop stars took advantage of the SVOG grant, using COVID relief funds for luxury spending. [...]
John Lloyd, Quillette European leaders are struggling to cope with the multiple crises now facing the beleaguered continent. [...]
Nia Warfield, Sherwood News Malls defined a generation. Those mallrats grew up. Guess what stocks they're buying? [...]
Roben Farzad, BusinessWeek September is that cruelest month for the stock market. It's the only month that has dropped on average since the Roaring Twenties. Come Monday night, when Wall [...]
Donald Lambro, Washington Times Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has to do two things really well at his convention: Lay out in dramatic terms how bad the Obama economy is and [...]
Carla Fried, CNNMoney Income-starved investors looking to amp up their portfolios have been turning to foreign bonds -- for obvious reasons. The 4.2% payout on the average foreign [...]
Ezra Klein, WonkBlog I see that the Republican convention will feature a debt clock ticking away behind the speakers. It will also, as I understand it, consist entirely of speakers who [...]
R. Ponnuru, Bloomberg While the Romney and Obama camps have made increasingly bitter accusations about each otherâ??s plans for Medicare, a bipartisan consensus on entitlements has emerged [...]
Rick Newman, US News By now, everybody knows what's wrong with the economy: There aren't enough jobs, Europe is stuck in a financial quagmire and Washington is playing chicken with tax and [...]
Doug Schoen, Forbes It's a testament to how bad the American employment market has gotten that the most recent jobs report was met with applause. The Labor Department's July jobs figures [...]
Jason Ma, IBD Corporations are scaling back investment, hiring and inventories ahead of steep year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, the most concrete sign to date that uncertainty over the [...]
If you’ll be flying around the holidays this year, you may well already be taking steps to prepare for the experience. Air travel can be a challenge at the best of times, and the holiday season can involve longer lines, crowded planes and a sense of chaos at the airport. So clearly, this week’s Saturday […] The post A Star-Studded “SNL” Sketch Took on Holiday Travel appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Predicting the near future is frequently challenging, but there’s one reasonably safe bet you can make for the years to come: we’ll probably see an uptick in movies and television shows with scenes set on location in U.S. national parks. As The Hollywood Reporter‘s Winston Cho writes, President Biden recently signed a new law that […] The post It’s About to Get Easier to Make Movies and TV Shows in National Parks appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It’s been a long time since drivers in the U.S. — or anywhere — have had the opportunity to buy a new Honda Prelude. The last year the Prelude was manufactured was 2001 — a point in the automotive world where electric vehicles were practically unheard of and trucks and SUVs were more reasonably sized. […] The post The Honda Prelude Is Returning to the US Market appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
There are some professional athletes who go about their careers with quiet efficiency. For others, larger-than-life feats in their chosen sport can only be echoed by a larger-than-life personality. Rickey Henderson, whose long career in baseball took him to many an MLB team. embodied the latter tendency. According to NBC Sports’ Ali Thanawalla, Henderson died […] The post Rickey Henderson, Baseball Hall of Famer, Dead at 65 appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It began with an unsettling example of bad timing: earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times held an event to celebrate the city’s best restaurants. It was intended to showcase culinary excellence; unfortunately, what several attendees might remember more is the 80 cases of food poisoning that developed in the wake of the event. As […] The post Norovirus-Related Oyster Recalls Are Affecting Diners Across the Nation appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
If you’ve been keeping an eye on coastal real estate in Florida, you’re probably well aware of the boom in luxury residences in the Miami metropolitan area. It’s led to a lot of recognizable names opening up architecturally distinctive towers — and a whole lot of interesting amenities. But a recent scientific study reveals that […] The post Some of Miami’s Most Notable Buildings Are Sinking appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
In the fall of 2023, new regulations went into effect in New York City that dramatically restricted the operation of short-term rental services like Airbnb and Vrbo within the city’s five boroughs. New York is far from the only city to crack down on such services, and there are a few reasons that have been […] The post Airbnb Is Pushing for a Return to New York City appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
When I originally came up with the idea for this column — spending 10 straight hours hanging out at Chicago’s famed East Bank Club — I thought I was being kind of silly. I honestly assumed that by hour three I’d be clawing at the rubber floor mats for something to do besides walking slowly on […] The post I Spent 10 Hours at Chicago’s 350,000-Square-Foot Health Club appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
There are two kinds of luxury hotels in Los Angeles — the central, ostentatious properties where guests stay when they want to be seen, and the tucked-away, hidden gems where visitors check-in when they want to experience luxury in private. In Beverly Hills, there are two distinct Four Seasons properties, one for each kind of […] The post Caviar-Stuffed Olives and a Cheeseburger Royale Rule This Beverly Hills Speakeasy appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Start in the lobby, and a host will guide you to a special elevator. From there, you’ll be ferreted through a kitchen and out a door, stopping in front of a bookcase. Enter the code into the keypad, and you’re in. No, you’re not being smuggled across borders or led into an illicit auction. That’s […] The post This Houston Speakeasy Hosts Pop-Ups With the World’s Best Bars appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The global automotive industry might soon have a new major player on its hands: a juggernaut formed from a combination of Honda and Nissan, with Mitsubishi potentially in the mix as well. What could prompt two historically independent companies to consider a merger? The short answer is the same one that’s seen Volkswagen and Rivian […] The post Honda and Nissan Are Considering an EV-Centric Merger appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
I’ve spent years of my life traveling the world to receive tattoos performed via traditional, local methodologies. In Cambodia, I received a sak yon, similar to neighboring Thailand’s more well-known sak yant, performed with a thick needle affixed to the end of a bamboo rod, shot into your flesh a la aiming a billiard cue. […] The post I Booked a Hotel Stay to Get a Tattoo appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Each week, our inbox runneth over with news of gear, apparel and tech releases from around the world. In this feature, we’ll parse through the best of it. Today: A JW Anderson collaboration with Uniqulo, comfy Tekla moon boots and a seasonally appropriate Jeep Wagoneer collection. We've put in the work researching, reviewing and rounding […] The post Products of the Week: A Uniqlo Collab, Moon Boots and Trainers appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Say what you want about 2024 in general, but as far as drinking goes, it was a great year! Lots of innovation in the booze space and some stellar new bottles. Choosing the best things we drank in the past 12 months was difficult (well, not too difficult). Consider this a knowledgeable but informal list […] The post The Best Things We Drank in 2024 appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
I’m sweaty and panting hard by the time I reach the small chalet perched high in the Swiss Alps. But when I pause to catch my breath, I hear the faint jangle of cowbells — and smell the nutty, rich, unmistakable aroma of cheese. Michael Schläppi, a third-generation farmer and cheesemaker wearing a long vinyl […] The post A Cheese Lover’s Guide to Switzerland appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Replacing a professional experience at home is rarely representative of the real thing. For most people, making your own drinks doesn’t taste the same as having them in a professional cocktail bar. The same goes for listening to vinyl. You can have a good set of speakers, but it’ll likely pale in comparison to that […] The post Dishonesty Listening Bar at Silver Lyan Is Like Home, but Better appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Alright, you guys. I wrote in this space a few weeks ago that all the “last-minute” gift guides that start popping up around mid-November make my blood boil, but we’re now officially reaching the point of holiday shopping season where you’re…kinda fucked. Sure, you still have a few days to spare if you’re willing to […] The post Skincare Stocking Stuffers for Women of Literally Every Age appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It was an especially hazy December day in San Francisco. Except this time, it wasn’t the usual layer of fog that was responsible for the murkiness, but rather a strange weather system that draped the city in a cloud of smog. When I got off the elevator that soared 69 stories with bullet train-like speed […] The post Checking Out the Views of SF From the Highest Art Gallery in the World appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Walking into Clemente Bar, perched discreetly above the iconic (and somewhat infamous) Eleven Madison Park, feels like discovering a secret you can’t wait to divulge. While it shares DNA with its Michelin-starred sibling downstairs, Clemente Bar is definitely its own thing. You’ll see what I mean. After checking my coat, I headed upstairs and down […] The post There’s a New Cocktail Bar Above Eleven Madison Park appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
“Do you mind if we go to your place instead of mine? My apartment looks like it belongs to a mental patient.” I was kidding — sort of — when I gave that excuse to a friend who was trying to coordinate plans last June. But when those words escaped my mouth, I was surprised […] The post To Improve My Physical Health, I Had to Address My Mental Health First appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
R. Douglas Fields, Scientific American The centennial of the discovery of brain waves in humans exposes a chilling tale involving Nazis, war between Russia and Ukraine, suicide and the [...]
A. H. Childs, History, Rinse, & Repeat "Everything old is new again" - this is perhaps not the phrase most people want to hear at Christmas, but it is certainly appropriate considering one [...]
Luke Diaz, Simple Flying These 5 historic US military helos reshaped strategy, tactics and air power to redefine the realm of vertical flight. [...]
Matt Weiner, Sports Illustrated The battle to be named the founders of the global game is fierce. Was it the Chinese, the Greeks or the English? [...]
Chitralekha Zutshi, Historytoday Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location - and its history - threaten to keep it [...]
Frank Gerits, Isonomia Quarterly by Frank GeritsClick here for a print version of this essay (PDF), and remember that paid subscribers get a year's worth of print editions of IQ! Federalism, a [...]
Liberty Nation Authors, Liberty Nation News This speech was delivered by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775. No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the [...]
Jordan Friedman, HISTORY Time zones set by the transcontinental railroad drove synchronization of clocks—and the start of celebrating at the stroke of midnight. [...]
Robert Frost, The Imaginative Conservative One aged man—one man—can't fill a house,/ A farm, a countryside, or if he can,/ It's thus he does it of a winter night. (poem by Robert Frost) [...]
David DesRosiers, Realclearpolitics When Donald Trump returns to the White House, you can be sure that RealClearPolitics will feature supporters of his agenda. And also critics. [...]
By Daisy Fried, The New York Times With "Context Collapse," Ryan Ruby aims to explain poetry's origins and its waves of innovation all the way to the present. [...]
Alexa Robles-Gil, Smithsonian Mag The frozen kitten, discovered in 2020, has stunned scientists with its remarkably well-preserved body. [...]
Michael Scanlon, SSRN This is a near-author's cut of an essay entitled "Odysseus Lost" that was published by Chronicles on January 26, 2024. The Chronicles version, which benefited f [...]
Andrew J. Bacevich, New York Times An implicit question haunts this illuminating and richly detailed memoir by Michael G. Vickers, the senior intelligence official at the center of [...]
Sean Durns, Washington Examiner "Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power," the American intellectual Henry Adams wrote in 1862, "and the human race commit suicide, [...]
Jonathan Jarry, McGill University Did Nazis love yoga? That is the provocative title of one chapter in the recently published book Conspirituality: How New Age [...]
Reuters History buffs will be able to stroll close to the spot where legend says Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome authorities open a new walkway on the ancient site on [...]
Hannah Osborne, Live Science A giant predator that lived 240 million years ago was decapitated with a single, brutal bite from a deadlier creature, scientists have said. [...]
Christine Chung, New York Times A submersible craft carrying five people in the area of the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic has been missing since Sunday, setting off a search and [...]
Agence France-Presse MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Uruguay will melt down a bronze eagle found on a sunken World War II-era German destroyer off its coast 13 years ago, and recast it as a dove [...]
“I am definitely not following the news anymore,” one patient told me when I asked about her political news consumption in the weeks before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This conversation happened around the time I talked with a local TV channel about why we saw fewer political yard signs during this year’s election season, compared with past ones.read more [...]
The Christmas period isn’t just for presents, sparkling lights and too much festive food – it’s also prime time for couples to get engaged. And for heterosexual couples, this is likely to happen in a specific way. The man will do the asking. Traditional views around marriage are changing. In 2021 in England and Wales, more babies were born to unmarried than married parents for the first time. And many women keep their own surname rather than changing it to their husband’s when they tie the knot. But wedding proposals are still considered a man’s job. read more [...]
A few years ago I noted that French motility was in freefall, down 30% in 30 years, and it was due in large part to the vast quantities of "organic" pesticides they consumed as the country switched to more organic food.read more [...]
Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift? Doctor Wilhelm Reich, who claimed to be the discoverer of orgone energy (e.g. what other hippies in eastern nations call "chi" and in western nations call "life energy") created the Orgone Accumulator, an alternating wood/metal layered hexagon that absorbed energy from the aether - basically The Force that Boomers like George Lucas still believed in when he was making the original "Star Wars" trilogy - and directed it at people inside.read more [...]
On this day in 1768, eight years before the Declaration of Independence, an anonymous article in the Boston Gazette protested the military presence in Boston as a violation of civil liberties.In 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued another "state of emergency", this time over bird flu...in Louisiana.read more [...]
Environmentalism is a $3 billion a year industry and the trial lawyers they help are orders of magnitude greater. What is the last public health win they gave us? Name a hysteria, from dying bees to BPA to DDT, and I can show you where actions were taken over the objections of scientists, not because science showed harm.read more [...]
Ebba Busch, Swedish Deputy PM&Minister for Energy, says they need to go back to conventional energy, especially if they're going to continue to carry countries like Germany, that closed their nuclear plants. Their decade-long focus on wind has caused prices to soar and reliability to decline, and even calls out Germany's Green Guru and Vice Chancellor, the philosopher Robert Habeck, PhD.Ebba Busch, Swedish Minister for Energy, Business and Industry and Deputy Prime Ministerread more [...]
I rarely win when it comes to cultural language stuff. Before 1999, an attractive older woman, for example, was to me a "Momshell" and no woman had any objection to a portmanteau of mom and bombshell (if they heard it - but a woman should not hear it, or your charm goes way down) yet after 1999's "American Pie" film the vulgar acronym "MILF" became the default. I have maintained for decades that we are worse off for it. If a young man used it in my presence where the woman could hear, I'd correct him. Not in a mean [...]
If you're an agenda-driven, lawyer-funded epidemiologist and really want to move the needle in media on scaring people, be so bad at math - literally the only thing an epidemiologist does - that you are off by an order of magnitude.Because if 60 x 7000 equals 42,000, you're either in third grade or you are an anti-science mullah like everyone at Toxic-Free Future, who know a journal they pay to publish in isn't doing any peer review, and know that media allies like the SEO tinkerers who rewrite press releases for LA Times and Salon will be excited about the [...]
The "drone panic" of 2024 easily claims the title of the most absurd astronomy and physics-related story of the year. At its core, 99.99% of this so-called crisis boils down to people mistaking planes for something extraordinary. The rest? It's people glancing up at the night sky, seeing stars, and failing to grasp the staggering distances that separate us from them. Remarkably, this edges out another perennial misunderstanding: those who genuinely believe that changing the clocks is the reason for shorter winter days, rather than the natural shift in sunlight reaching the northern hemisphere during the season.read more [...]
Over 50,000,000 Americans get subsidized or free health under the Affordable Care Act but that doesn't mean usage of preventive care increased across the board. Instead, a new analysis found that the inflationary spike which led to much higher costs for housing, food, and utilities are barriers.Data from 186 community-based health organizations in 13 states found that despite higher rates of primary care visits, patients experiencing social risks like concerns about food or rent were less likely to complete screenings when recommended by doctors.read more [...]
Nearly 50 years ago, Democrats wanted to ban recombinant DNA technology while scientists wanted to make insulin without needing a pancreas from a steer. Both sides won. Beef pancreas is no longer needed and the FDA still treats GMOs like they are a 'cure for cancer' claim in the 1970s while using high costs and bureaucracy to prevent small companies from getting into the insulin market.read more [...]
Friends of the Earth and other litigation groups opposed to science are cheering the closure of AquaBounty's AquAdvantage salmon - the poster-child (decades of regulatory roadblocks) for how the US regulatory system is manipulated by lawyers to hold back technology and medicine - but progress marches on despite the public relations campaign by Greenpeace, NRDC, and others who stand against it.Their persistent efforts to get pesticides either banned or regulated so tightly they act as bans have been wildly successful during the Biden years, but with Chevron Deference overturned at the Supreme Court political appointees can no longer get science [...]
Two Presidents ago, political appointees engaged in behavior that didn't make much sense(1) and had no benefit for public health. For example, they declared there was an epidemic of something they invented called "pre-diabetes" and insisted that smoking cessation tools that were twice as effective as gums and patches but were not controlled by Big Pharma, plus cigars and pipes that have never killed anyone, were an epidemic in kids.read more [...]
A few years ago, Nissan was the leader in electric cars. Now they may go bankrupt due to the electric car business. Some of it is that other companies are just smarter. An American company that sees Democrats are going to mandate and subsidize electric cars, dictating a percentage of cars sold, wisely fire employees and cut lines to be the most profitable in the pool of money that government mandates. And some cars are just better. read more [...]
"I feel your pain" is a common empathy cliché but we know the opposite is true in some, and it changes how they interact with the world. After Dutch film director Theo van Gogh put out "Submission: Part 1" , which criticized the treatment of women in Islam, he was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, who ranted about a "Jewish cabal" and later directed to van Gogh's mother, "I don't feel your pain, because I believe you're an infidel."Racism and intolerance take away empathy for others,(1) but so does alcohol.read more [...]
Vaping in kids had its day. While useful before and since for smoking cessation and harm reduction in cigarette smokers, vaping only became a fad in teens when, as predicted, social authoritarians in the Obama administration declared it an epidemic - if on a survey a young person claimed to have tried one in the previous year and began rolling out commercials of children filmed in black and white looking like zombies.(1) It was Reefer Madness for the 2010s and did the same thing Reefer Madness did; it caused teens to think it was cool to outrage their elders.read more [...]
The 'natural' movement is not evidence-based but the beliefs of progressives that modern science is killing us and ancient ways are more nutritious usually aren't harmful. Your risk of E. coli and higher levels of toxic pesticides from organic food is certainly greater, but in a relative risk sense all food is safe.Except raw milk. Like sushi when you are pregnant, the risks, in this case 700X the harmful outbreaks of pasteurized milk, are not worth it, and anyone who has seen a dairy farm and isn't selling raw milk to rich coastal elites knows it.read more [...]
If you read Twitter, and probably Bluesky, if anyone reads that, Republicans are in a War On Science and the proof is (1) being Republican and (2) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former darling of Democrats and once pushed to run EPA by President Obama, is in their camp.Except he didn't take his allies against science with him. They are still firmly anti-science progressives, which means they still vote Democrat, and they are still cheering every time science is suppressed.read more [...]
Electric cars and solar and wind energy alternative schemes have a few crippling limitations; low energy densities and unavailability when people need energy most. Batteries could help with that second one except current batteries are legacy technology that are held back by subsidies and mandates, not improved.read more [...]
