I have had some down-time over Thanksgiving and decided to update my web page. It was a shock to realize that other than some videos and a lot of shares of posts by others, I hadn’t posted anything personal since 2017. I...
Read MoreOn August 8, 2020 Melissa Berger and I departed on another of backpacking trips into the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. The trip is broken into 3 videos. This is part 2 of the trilogy. The video takes us from Cook Lakes, where...
Read MoreOn August 8th 2020, Melissa Berger and I embarked on another of our trips into the wilderness of the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. This video is Day 1 of that 7-day trip, taking us from Elkhart Park Trailhead 14-1/2 miles to...
Read MoreDay 4 of our trek to Everest Base Camp. It had begun raining earlier in the morning. As we approached Tengboche it began to snow. Next thing you know we were in a full blown snow storm.
Read MoreIn April of 2019 Melissa Berger and Keith Lamparter went to Nepal and attempted the trek to Everest Base Camp. The trek is captured and documented in this video.
Read More
Why should a judge of all people obstruct federal agents and the enforcement of immigration law when the facts in the case seem so clear-cut? [...]
If I've said it once, I've said it-well, two or three other times, at least: Democrats have found themselves in a content-creation war with the Trumpian right. And this pitched battle isn't being fought on your grandfather's media landscape. There's no more publishing a white paper or a New York Times op-ed and hoping for the best. Today's information environment favors brawlers, cheap-shot artists, and the commitment to creating conflict and controversy around any issues that can possibly be politicized. [...]
James Piereson on constitutionality & the DNC's delegate-selection rules. [...]
The party's left turn in reaction to Trump's rise since 2016 has been a fiasco. [...]
Is the second Trump administration pursuing populism or tech-forward libertarianism? The preferred answer among its intelligent spokesmen and defenders is: Yes. That is, the Trumpians believe they can and must have the backing of America's most innovative sectors - especially tech - as they attempt to rejig the global economy to benefit the working-class Americans who twice elected Donald Trump. [...]
It started with Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre, who destroyed accountability in Ottawa. [...]
After global panic over the president's trade proposals, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is downplaying his boss's bluster. [...]
Opponents of tariffs who dogmatically object to any strategic trade policy cannot be taken seriously anymore as critics. [...]
The COVID era collided with cancel culture to create a uniquely poisonous herd mentality that pushed the worst pandemic abuses. [...]
The government wants to encourage Americans to have more babies. An eclectic male-dominated coalition has some ideas about how. Can they succeed? [...]
If you follow a certain kind of account on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), you've likely seen the posts. [...]
He captured the zeitgeist of New York a generation ago-and he's still at it. [...]
Time to take stock of the very odd relationship between members of the media who cover the White House and the President's press shop [...]
Syria's Kurdish parties on Saturday adopted a joint political vision calling for a "decentralised democratic" state in Syria with guarantees for Kurdish rights.Their statement came at the end of a conference held in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, where a top Kurdish official disputed suggestions that the meeting sought division following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.Syria's new Islamist-led rulers seek to establish government control over the entire country since they ousted Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war. [...]
A powerful explosion ripped through a key port in southern Iran on Saturday, killing four people and injuring more than 500, state media said.Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the port's customs office said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.State media reported a "massive explosion" at Shahid Rajaee, the country's largest commercial port, located in Hormozgan province on the southern coast. [...]
Hamas is open to an agreement to end the war in Gaza that would see all hostages released and secure a five-year truce, an official said Saturday ahead of talks with mediators.A Hamas delegation was in Cairo to discuss with Egyptian mediators ways out of the 18-month war, while, on the ground, rescuers said an Israeli strike on a family home in Gaza City killed at least 10 people with more feared buried under the rubble. [...]
The United States and Iran went into detail about a potential nuclear deal Saturday at their third consecutive round of talks, hoping to strike an accord that would ease regional tensions.US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again led the talks, which this time included a technical-level meeting between experts from both sides.The discussions via mediators in Muscat, the Omani capital, lasted more than seven hours, according to Iranian officials and state media. [...]
Turkey’s softened stance signals a strategic shift in its approach to Syria’s Kurds and the PKK. [...]
As Iran and the United States are set to kick off a third round of their nuclear negotiations, Tehran is grappling with mounting confusion about Washington's stance while reaffirming that its right to enrich uranium is not up for debate. [...]
As Iran and the United States are set to kick off a third round of their nuclear negotiations, Tehran is grappling with mounting confusion about Washington's stance while reaffirming that its right to enrich uranium is not up for debate. [...]
As Iran and the United States are set to kick off a third round of their nuclear negotiations, Tehran is grappling with mounting confusion about Washington's stance while reaffirming that its right to enrich uranium is not up for debate. [...]
As Iran and the United States are set to kick off a third round of their nuclear negotiations, Tehran is grappling with mounting confusion about Washington's stance while reaffirming that its right to enrich uranium is not up for debate. [...]
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi prepared for fresh nuclear talks with the United States in Oman on Friday after apparent progress in previous rounds.Araghchi flew into Muscat ahead of Saturday's meeting with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, their third encounter in as many weeks.Araghchi will lead Iran's delegation of diplomats and technical experts in indirect discussions with the US side, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X. [...]
Syria's foreign minister on Friday raised his country's new flag at UN headquarters in New York, hailing the move as a "proclamation of a new existence" after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.Asaad al-Shaibani raised the three-starred flag, officially adopted after Assad's December ouster, and later spoke to the Security Council, where he urged a lifting of international sanctions and for Israel to be pressured to leave Syrian territory."This flag is not a mere symbol, but rather a proclamation of a new existence," he said in his first United Nations speech. [...]
The UN's World Food Programme said Friday it had depleted its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza, where Israel has blocked all aid for more than seven weeks.After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza "is probably the worst" it has been, the UN's humanitarian office has said, with the head of the world body's Palestinian refugee agency decrying the aid stoppage on Friday as "politically motivated starvation". [...]
Lebanon is sending President Joseph Aoun to Rome for the funeral, with Turkey, Iran and other states also dispatching officials. [...]
Lebanon is sending President Joseph Aoun to Rome for the funeral, with Turkey, Iran and other states also dispatching officials. [...]
Lebanon is sending President Joseph Aoun to Rome for the funeral, with Turkey, Iran and other states also dispatching officials. [...]
Lebanon is sending President Joseph Aoun to Rome for the funeral, with Turkey, Iran and other states also dispatching officials. [...]
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad is in Moscow this week, meeting with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev on Friday. [...]
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad is in Moscow this week, meeting with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev on Friday. [...]
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad is in Moscow this week, meeting with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev on Friday. [...]
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad is in Moscow this week, meeting with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev on Friday. [...]
Ian Smith, FT Recent turbulence was partly the result of trading strategies using derivatives. But the same investors are increasingly important buyers of US government debt [...]
Ilya Somin, Lawfare A new lawsuit challenges Trump's tariffs as a blatantly illegal usurpation of legislative power. [...]
Kyle Moran, RealClearMarkets With Congress [...]
Audrey Wilson, Foreign Policy Ten thinkers on what to make of the opening salvo of the president's second term. [...]
John Tamny, RCM There are no sacred cows in Las Vegas. That's the source of the city's immense prosperity. The past and present are relentlessly pushed aside to make room for the [...]
Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism I'm writing this in a Parisian cafe in the year 2050. [...]
Alina Selyukh, NPR A rural Minnesota town is home to the biggest tech giant you've never heard of. Now it's riding out an unprecedented kind of storm. [...]
Daniel Fang, Enterprising Investor History, valuation metrics, and macro conditions point to an approaching comeback for small-cap stocks. [...]
Veronique de Rugy, Reason History may not perfectly repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Two protectionist episodes—the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 and the Trump-era [...]
Susan Pulliam & Corrie Driebusch, WSJ Lucrative stock deals have allowed SpaceX to avoid public scrutiny even as it has grown into one of the largest companies in the US. [...]
Austin O'Connell, Quillette The neoliberal turn was a pragmatic response to failed economic intervention and yielded broadly positive results. [...]
Mitch Moxley, New York Times How luxury cars, $500,000 bar tabs and a mysterious kidnapping attempt helped investigators unravel the heist of a lifetime. [...]
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 [...]
Normally, watching an episode of Real Time With Bill Maher usually benefits from a familiarity with the pressing national issues of the moment. This month, things have been a little different — largely due to the response to Maher’s own visit to the White House. This week’s episode featured some political heavyweights, including a sitting […] The post Al Gore Stopped by This Week’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Television shows gaining a substantial audience outside of their country of origin is far from rare in 2025. Perhaps the biggest success story in this realm has been K-dramas, but “slow TV” has also drawn a growing number of admirers. Writing in The New Yorker in 2014, Nathan Heller explained its appeal. “A slow-TV program […] The post Sweden’s Hottest Television Show Is About Migrating Moose appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
In writing about a certain beloved establishment in Amsterday, Condé Nast Traveler observed that “[y]ou could write a short novel about this hotel (maybe someone has),” including stints as a convent and government building before being converted into its current use as a hotel. The hotel in question is Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam — […] The post One Amsterdam Hotel’s Renovation Balances Luxury and History appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
If I were ever to be rendered as a cartoon character, I feel like there’s a pretty good chance I’d be wearing jeans, a brown pair of boots, some sort of chore coat and, at the center of it all, a blue Oxford cloth button-down. I’ve owned dozens of them over the years. I stuck […] The post From Our EIC: This Is My New Favorite Shirt appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
While some of the big players in the world of self-driving vehicles are technology companies, established ride-share firms are also making their mark in the market. Last month, Lyft announced the expansion of its autonomous vehicle options to Atlanta, and they aren’t the only company to do so. This week, Uber announced a wide-ranging partnership […] The post Uber Announces Ambitious Robotaxi Partnership With Volkswagen appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
People like yourself might not have all day to online shop…which is why we’re committed to doing it for you every week. No need to thank us or anything. From discounts on Red Wing boots to the best hairdryer we’ve ever used, these are the best deals we’ve found on the internet this week. The […] The post From Red Wing Boots to Dyson Hairdryers: The Best Deals on the Internet This Week appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Growing up, I never really knew what to make of swimmers. They seemed a wacky bunch: clannish with chlorine-streaked hair, always boarding buses at the crack of dawn for aquatic centers around the county. From the outside, I guess, the whole thing just looked like a giant hassle — a difficult sport with tricky logistics. […] The post It’s Never Too Late to Start Swimming. Here’s How. 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 Taylor Stitch x New Balance collection drops, denim running gear from Ciele is released and a special bottle of free whiskey from Compass Box goes […] The post Products of the Week: Denim Shorts, Free Whiskey and Loafers appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Scroll through TikTok these days and you’ll be bombarded with weight-loss tips. I constantly swipe past users hawking dubious solutions, from “appetite suppressant” gummies to something called cortisol lemonade that’s supposed to curb your sweet cravings. The phrase “nature’s Ozempic” is also thrown around quite a lot. If I wanted to shed a few pounds, […] The post The Kit: What CC Sabathia Uses to Train, Fuel and Recover appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Like most of its European peers, SkiWelt comes with all of the amenities you’d expect from a world-class ski destination: 90 lifts, 80 mountain huts and nearly 175 miles of groomed slopes. What makes it unique, though, is all the blood, sweat and money the ski resort has invested into sustainability over the last 20 years, […] The post We Paid a Visit to the World’s Most Sustainable Ski Resort appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
There’s nothing subtle about the scent perfuming the reception at SB Winemaker’s House. Sun-warmed leather. Green citrus. Sandalwood. Uninhibited white flowers. The bouquet evokes the DNA of Mendoza, Argentina’s largest wine region, where lavish gated gardens and photogenic vineyards root in a rugged frontier of high-desert plains. Ana Lovaglio runs the stylish seven-suite inn with […] The post Strong Scents of Place: How Hospitality Brands Are Utilizing Fragrance appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
This time of year, pleasantries ushered in by spring — greenery, longer days, warmer weather — are only outdone by one thing: the glorious return of golf season. It’s finally time to dust off the clubs and return to the links for some rounds of good ol’ golf (and probably some brews, too). A prerequisite […] The post It’s Official: Paul Stuart Perfected the Golf Polo appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
With dozens, if not hundreds of new collections appearing every single week from our favorite brands, we’ve done the hard work and rounded up the need-to-know style, watch and grooming drops that you simply can’t afford to miss. No need to thank us or anything. This week: J.Crew and Sperry tag-team a suede boat shoe, […] The post All the Style Drops You Should Care About This Week appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
It’s difficult to overstate the impact that Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet has had upon horology. Inventor of the tourbillon, proponent of the souscription (“subscription”) model of patronage and payment and designer of some of the most striking dials ever crafted, he was a singular force who has known few equals in the annals of watchmaking. […] The post Breguet Is Celebrating Its 250th Anniversary with a Historically Inspired Watch appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
The psychic divide between the U.S. and Mexico may be at peak pandemonium. Cross-border politics are at a fever pitch. But how much has changed about literal cross-border adventure? As I found out on a recent two-wheeled jaunt to Baja California and back again, that turbulence has added a new intensity to the proceedings, but […] The post The Best Way to Test Kawasaki’s New Sport Tourer? On a Ride Into Mexico. appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Jewelry can be a hard thing to gift, especially if the person you’re getting it for does not have a regimented ring/necklace/earring repertoire. But high-quality, understated pieces often stay tried and true — and those are Mejuri’s bread and butter. The female-founded brand had its first drop in 2015 and has since become the place […] The post Jewelry Gifts Are on Sale at Mejuri appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
We recently discovered that men don’t know where to buy pants — or button-ups, or jackets. Or clothes in general. This is confounding to us, as we’ve been preaching the good word of Todd for going on a decade now, and the Americana GOAT continues to deliver all of the menswear upgrades a bewildered shopper […] The post Spring Suiting Awaits at the Todd Snyder Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
We’re heading into one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, and whether that means your Euro summer is afoot or you’re making that annual family vacation, you’re probably due for a luggage refresh. By happenstance, one of IH’s favorite luggage brands, Solgaard, is having a huge warehouse sale. We love Solgaard because their […] The post Our Favorite Luggage Brand Is Having a Sale appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Bespoke Post’s curation is top-tier. After all, the retailer has made a name for itself on the strength of its excellent, highly unique subscription service, stocking each box with heady stock from a killer brand roster that includes Taylor Stitch, Novesta and Houseplant. Bespoke Post is bringing this same level of taste and sensibility to […] The post Bespoke Post Is Getting Its Own Archival-Inspired Timex Collab appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
At a glance, the male sex toy landscape is scarce. A motorized cock ring here, a pocket pussy there and you’ve essentially covered half the category. If you’re a modern man undeterred by toxic masculinity, you might even indulge in some anal sex toys and experience the male equivalent of a G-spot orgasm. But while […] The post The Complete Field Guide to Male Sex Toys appeared first on InsideHook. [...]
Melissa Sartore, NatGeo Pope Francis has died after serving as pope since March 2013. [...]
Nige Tassell, HistoryExtra What comes after a pope dies? Step through the doors of Vatican into the conclave - the secretive, ritualistic and sometimes scandalous process that turns a [...]
Christopher M. Bellitto, Time Since the church began selecting popes in a secret conclave, the choice has rarely come from the rumored frontrunners. [...]
Dave Roos, HISTORY The ancient office of the pope is rich in symbols and insignia. [...]
John C. Pinheiro, Law & Liberty The 1790s debate shows that, even when they aim at moral goods, tariffs abet cronyism and corruption. [...]
Daniel Yergin, AMERICAN HERITAGE The presidency of Jimmy Carter was both shaped and bracketed by energy. [...]
Howell Keiser, RealClearHistory The judicial branch serves as a vital check on executive and legislative authority. This instrumental role has come into sharp focus during Donald Trump's [...]
Ellen Wexler, Smithsonian Mag Revere, who was later immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, was one of many riders who rode through the countryside, spreading the alarm on [...]
Eric Niderost, Warfare History Network Pensacola, Florida, with its sheltered harbor and busy naval yard, was a prize target for Southern secessionists. All that stood in their way was [...]
Nicole Hemmer, Vox Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video [...]
Mark Price, Military.com A World War II bomber has been discovered 3 miles deep in the Pacific Ocean, and it's still fully armed with an 83-year-old bomb fixed to the wing, NOAA Ocean [...]
Myles Burke, BBC In April 1983, a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, claimed to be printing an extraordinary historical document. In fact, the forged diaries were an extraordinary hoax. [...]
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 [...]
Trial lawyers hate when scientists note that animals are not tiny people, so their claims PFAS which harms animals in high doses does not mean it impacts humans at all. That animals are not little people are why drugs and medical devices must survive human clinical trials. There would be 10,000 cures for cancer being sold if effectiveness in a mouse was enough.Animal activists also hate animal trials. They will be happy about bioprinting organic tissue models that function like living organs. read more [...]
America has the strongest environmental protection in the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and government scientists showed that the Keystone XL pipeline was much better for the environment than shipping by rail. Their data were sound. With 20,000 miles of pipeline zipping across the Ogalalla acquifier, leaks were rare and only a few gallons before they were fixed.(1)Weird progressive rants about energy, vaccines and food aside, Americans know science is often right, and the science shows that American regulations keep the environment safe by a very conservative margin.read more [...]
An algorithm that maps individual brain activity can reveal a “neural fingerprint” of transient brain states during social interactions. The authors of the new paper believe their work demonstrates that individuals whose neural fingerprints are more aligned tend to more readily enter a shared state of deep focus—commonly known as team flow—which has profound implications for enhancing teamwork and performance across various high-stakes environments.read more [...]
On this day, April 25, in 1929, the world learned how astronomer Edwin Hubble had discovered that the universe was much larger than we had believed. On this day in 2025, you can preorder a book and on the 29th learn about this and four other Astrophysics discoveries that changed how we see the universe - and ourselves - in The Story of Astrophysics in Five Revolutions.By Ersilia Vaudo, translated by Vanessa Di Stefano. If you use this link we get a penny or something.read more [...]
The Organic Consumers Association, the embarrassing stepchild of the organic industry founded by the late Ronnie Cummins in 1998, has a positive-sounding name but has been nothing except negative for science and the public. Though the United States Department of Agriculture calls them an "organic agricultural products marketing and trade resource" organization they have really just been fifth columnists against vaccines, affordable food, and everything else that helps the modern world.read more [...]
Epidemiologist, nutritionists, and food fad profiteers love to talk about the benefits of fish, yet they weirdly believe only wild caught fish is nutritious. This sort of scientific confusion by people who don't know any science isn't really new, they also babble on about "antioxidants" when trying to claim high fructosr levels in honey are health food while high fructose levels in corn sugar will give your child autism.read more [...]
I get pitches for stories every day and sometimes I want to see if the world that opposes science has made any progress now that a member of a Republican administration who was formerly one of their own, former Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is being helped by their rhetoric.So when I got a message from a PR rep for the Real Organic Project™ about their client, I wanted to know if they still oppose hydroponic food. Hydroponic food uses no soil, which means in a controlled environment it needs no pesticides. The public loves that idea. [...]
The cochlear implant has helped many regain hearing functionality and a new study shows a potential roadmap for those whose cochlear nerve is too damaged; the auditory brainstem implant.The current auditory brainstem implant and its rigid structure does not allow for good tissue contact, which means a majority of the electrodes must be switched off due to unwanted side effects such as dizziness or facial twitching. A soft, thin-film version with electrodes embedded in silicone leads to a pliable array less than a millimeter thick.Superior conformity means patients will no longer get vague sounds and little speech intelligibility - and fewer [...]
K2-18b, detected in 2015, orbits a star 124 light years away. Though it is over 800% as large as Earth, its space in the habitable zone of its star, like where we are, means the possibiliy that liquid water could exist on its surface.The science community calls it The Goldilocks Zone. Like the character in the children's story who wanted porridge neither too hot nor too cold, a Goldilocks planet that might have life we could recognize would need to be in a similar narrow band.read more [...]
Under the Equality Act of 2010, 'woman' refers to individuals based on their biological sex at birth, according to a unanimous ruling at the UK Supreme Court.The case has been a David vs. Goliath story. Three Scottish women up against the Scottish government, which had made policy stating that a gender recognition certificate could go anywhere that those deemed biologically female at birth could go. What got it to the Supreme Court was a 2018 law mandating gender balance on public sector boards. Women noted that gender included the trans community and that created a 'shackled man' competition.read more [...]
What? Another boring chess game?Buzz off, this is my blog, and if I feel like posting a chess game, that's what is going to happen. But if you like the game, stay here - this is a nice game.Again played after hiours today, and again on a 5' online blitz server (chess.com). What amazes me is that these days I seem to have a sort of touch for nice attacks and brilliant combinations. Let me show you why I am saying this.The starting position arose after the following opening sequence:tommasodorigo - UTOPII841, chess.com April 16 2025read more [...]
Due to anti-vaccine hype from 1998 to 2021 which then flipped to the other major US political party, there is recurring rending of garments about science literacy. Add in a 9% difference between the left and right in acceptance of evolution and beliefs that fructose in honey is health food while fructose in corn syrup is poison, PFAS, and that GMOs cause lower grades in school, it's easy to see that US adult science literacy is only about 30%.read more [...]
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europeans claimed they were successfully moving away from modern agriculture and conventional energy thanks to the organic™ manufacturing process and solar power. What they left out was that the "organic" food they were buying was from Russia, where either Russia invented magic or they simply swapped fields to being called organic, or it was a lie.(1) The biggest hypocrisy of European culture is pretending that buying food through a European company that buys it from Russia is not giving money to Russia. They use the same trick to continue to be reliant on Russian [...]
In a bizarre experiment, scholars declared that survivors of one of California's annual wildfires instead suffered PTSD due to climate change.It was a small group, 27 who had been near a fire in 2018, 21 who had seen smoke, and 27 in the control group. Participants had EEG brain scans taken while they engaged in behavior which could provide monetary rewards. The scholars also subjectively scored their Win-Stay behavior, basically how often they sought the highest long-term rewards.read more [...]
After a very intense day at work, I sought some relaxation in online blitz chess today. And the game gave me the kick I was hoping I'd get. After a quick Alapin Sicilian opening, we reached the following position (diagram 1):As you can see, black is threatening a checkmate with Qxg2++. However, the last move was a serious error, as it neglected the intrinsic power of my open files and diagonals against the black king. Can you find the sequence with which I quickly destroyed my opponent's position?1. Qc2! read more [...]
Recently there are appeared a paper showing how Physics - Iron–Helium Compounds Form Under Pressure. which suggests that there might be helium from the original nebula from which the Sun and solar system formed still locked up in the Earth’s core. This association of helium with iron might be connected with this item from Minnesota: UPDATE | High helium concentration buried deep in Iron Range - YouTube which opens the prospect of the USA being less dependent on other countries for its supply of helium, which is most often encountered in toy balloons but is essential in its liquid form for many [...]
Among the 900 compounds that France's International Agency for Research on Cancer "suggests" are linked to cancer, nearly all have relied on studies in mice.Scientists know mice are not little people but epidemiologists use animal models, very often at high doses, up to 10,000X realistic levels, to make their claims that everything causes cancer. Such abuse of animal models is why states like California, which abdicated science to IARC, has over 80,000 products with warnings about carcinogens yet no more or fewer cases of cancer.read more [...]
The highest-mass subnuclear particle ever observed used to the the top quark. Measured for the first time by the CDF experiment in 1994, and subsequently confirmed by CDF and D0 in 1995, the top quark is the heaviest elementary particle we know of, and it is a wonderful physical system per se, which has been studied with momentum in the past thirty years at the Tevatron and at the LHC colliders. The top quarkread more [...]
President Donald Trump is about to sign an executive order restarting coal leasing on federal lands while classifying coal as a critical mineral. Social media critics, and academics being quoted in media, are declaring the end of the world due to American pollution. Are they correct?read more [...]
When the Proposition 65 referendum, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, was being debated, concerns about abuse and high cost were dismissed by the lawyers behind it with the assurance that lawyers wouldn't decide what products would be deemed carcinogens, the state would abdicate that to France's International Agency for Research on Cancer.read more [...]
