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Thursday, July 20. 2017

How did dogs become our best friends? New evidence

´Let them eat food off the floor, play in the soil!´: It IS important to expose your children to germs to boost their immune system, expert urges

At age 111, America's oldest veteran is still smoking cigars, drinking whiskey and loving life

The Royal Family's dress code uncovered

Why Americans Are Having Less Sex

Perfect: Listen, Area Boss Gets It

USA Today: People Might Be Upset By Lack Of Women, Black People In ‘Dunkirk

Green Cronyism Gone Wild: It Looks Like The State Of California Is Bailing Out Tesla

What Facebook Can Learn From Company Towns - As the technology firm plans to build a village in Silicon Valley, history suggests what can sustain a company town long after its founders are gone.

No Justification for Importing More Low-skilled Labor, Study Claims

The Myth of Technological Unemployment - If the nightmare of technological unemployment were true, it would already have happened, repeatedly and massively.

The Mother of All Disruptions - Yes, robots are coming to the workplace, fast—and yes, America will change.

These Technologies Are Changing Farms in Some Surprising Ways - As agriculture adopts recent advances in automation and data science, farms will become super-efficient — and perhaps a bit lonely.

My University Treated Me Like a Criminal Over a Joke

Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence

The English Language Is Under Attack. We Must Defend It.

Contrarian:

Fifteen posts into this series -- and I certainly hope that you have read all of them -- perhaps there are still a few of you out there who continue to believe that this whole global average surface temperature (GAST), "hottest year ever," "record warming" thing can't really be completely fraudulent...

WaPo’s Latest Worries About How Somali Community Will React To Police Shooting

Epstein: The Single-Payer Siren

Ronald Reagan has the answer to GOP’s ObamaCare riddle

The Left’s ‘Hamburger Problem’ Is Not Going Away

Josh Barro is a recovering ex-Republican who is now a member of a niche political group: the non-crazy Democrats. He coined a cute phrase — “the hamburger problem” — to describe the relentless politicization of everything by progressives and Democrats. He writes, “Democrats’ problem isn’t that they’re on the wrong side of policy issues. It’s that they’re too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat.” He cites nonstop Democratic hectoring on, inter alia, the team name of the Washington Redskins, the way men sit on subway trains, and even some Americans’ choice not to abide by China’s one-child standard as the reasons why the party is today as electorally wobbly as Rocky Balboa in the 15th round. Yet the GOP’s success puzzles him still, because so many core Democratic cultural ideals (notably, gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization) poll more and more strongly.

...

When John Stuart Mill called the British conservatives “the stupidest party,” it stuck. Today the Democrats are the Annoying Party. The Left thinks Americans are picturing Mary Poppins when they talk about the nanny state; in truth, they’re thinking of Nurse Ratched. The prospect of a new set of nuisances being dreamed up and lashingly enforced by Hillary Clinton is what led voters to roll the dice with an Atlantic City grifter.

Elizabeth Warren Attends Martha’s Vineyard Fundraising Dinner Hosted By Big Bank Executive

About erasing history:

It would be far better to teach the vital lesson that good men, well-meaning men, brave men and women, can be dreadfully wrong by our current standards and understanding. Charlemagne’s world is not the post-modern European Union. Neither was that of Cortez and De Soto. We need to be studying these men and women in order to remember that they did great things in terrible ways, they did what we today consider heinous things in the name of what they believe to be a great good, that they were not perfect and neither are we. Napoleon was a great man. A great and terrible man, because the wars he unleashed on Europe and his exporting the ideas of the French Revolution led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, people left homeless, and sowed the seeds for troubles that were and are still bearing fruit. So do we erase Napoleon from European history? Or do we learn from all his complexity?

While Nation Is Focused On Healthcare, The WH Press Corps Continue To Push Russia Conspiracies

Taxing Hospitals Is a Lousy Way to Fix Health Care- Higher hospital profits were a feature of Obamacare, not a bug.

Fmr. U.N. Amb. Power Emerges As Central Figure In Obama Unmasking Investigation - Congress demands answers on why Obama officials demanded classified intel that harmed Trump

Pavlich: Clinton’s Russia dirt

Tucker Carlson Calls Out Dems For Double Standard On Russia

USPS broke law in allowing workers to boost Clinton campaign, watchdog says

New Documents Suggest “Puff Pieces” On Dem Sen. Kamala Harris Due to Major Spending With PR Firm

Palestinians: Another Lopsided Deal

Palestinian Authority’s 2017 Budget Shows ‘Huge Increase’ in Funding for Terror Payments

Mosul and Urban Warfare

The city is severely damaged, with neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Its people have endured sustained terror.

Blame ISIS for the terror and ruin. ISIS commanders relied on beheadings and torture to control the population. They obliterated numerous shrines and historic sites in the region, with the biblical city of Nimrud a special target. Why? Erasing history ISIS leaders deemed "un-Islamic" was a key political policy.

UNESCO is an Immoral, Anti-Semitic Organization - Decent Countries Should Leave

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:35 | Comments (38) | Trackbacks (0)

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The Myth of Technological Unemployment

"If the nightmare of technological unemployment were true, it would already have happened, repeatedly and massively."

Nero encapsulates my feelings nicely, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFUqVeQg-Yg

While the authors heart may have been in the right place, the basic premise of this article is founded on some perverse assertions and assumptions.

Factor in the lack of real work found in:
-- all unemployment (U3/U6),
-- an ever decreasing workforce participation rate,
-- government make work/no show bureaucratic jobs,
-- make work (lower and higher) education sector jobs,
-- corporate patronage jobs (ICU2 Chelsea Clinton),
-- and so on...

...and additional (massive) stressors on the workforce are bound to induce some profound "dislocations", especially for many people with very narrow skill sets and an inherent inability to improvise, adapt, and overcome (except, of course, on Facebook, Snapchat, and Tumblr).

Does anyone really ever wonder why we have an opioid addiction epidemic?

#1 Krusty on 2017-07-20 08:46 (Reply)

There is an opioid epidemic because the have a mass of population that has been conditioned into helplessness by the government school system then dumped out on the street because the jobs they were conditioned for no longer are in any great quantity.

18 long years of servitude do not prepare students to be innovative, creative or think for themselves. It is worse today as there are more A students than students who got Cs because they were thinking for themselves.

#1.1 JK Brown on 2017-07-20 12:37 (Reply)

"There is an opioid epidemic because" we have a massive welfare population with money and nothing productive to take up their time. If tomorrow welfare spending was slashed to zero 95% of drug pushers and smugglers would be out of business. Welfare is mostly spent on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

#1.1.1 OneGuy on 2017-07-20 14:03 (Reply)

Precisely.

Also,educators seem to have discovered that parents rarely complain when Johnie and Susie get good grades. Accordingly, they have the self-esteem of a straight A student, but the abilities and drive of someone much less able.

And it continues right on through college.

More than half of Harvard's most recent graduates had an A- GPA or better
http://www.businessinsider.com/more-than-half-of-harvards-most-recent-graduates-had-an-a-gpa-or-better-2015-5

#1.1.2 Krusty on 2017-07-20 14:09 (Reply)

QUOTE:

Contrarian: So 59 deg F was the "average global temperature" for the 30-year period 1950-1980.

The 59°F figure is only a broad estimate. Climate scientists use temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature, to reach their conclusions concerning a warming world.

Temperature stations are not uniformly distributed across the globe, and in geologically complex environments it is not possible to capture the absolute temperature even of a small region. On the other hand, if temperature stations in thousands of locations around the world are showing a statistically significant increase in temperature, a temperature anomaly, then we can surmise that global temperatures are increasing (absent some biasing factor).

QUOTE:

Contrarian: Since NOAA and NASA will not provide a remotely satisfactory explanation of what they are doing with the adjustments

Most research studies include how adjustments are made in the Methods section, and there are even entire studies on adjustments. Furthermore, independent statistical studies of raw temperature measurements have upheld the overall findings concerning a warming world.

#2 Zachriel on 2017-07-20 09:10 (Reply)

The main source for the CO2 "data" showing increases in CO2 emissions causing "global warming" comes from a NOAA/NASA observation station on the slopes of Mauna Loa on the Island of Hawaii. All of the air on the "Big Island" is often severely contaminated by "vog," or volcanic smog, caused by an eruption a Kilauea crater which has been going on continuously since the 1980s, which is coincidentally when this whole theory of "global warming" through increased CO2 started. Needless to say, this one volcano cranks out more air pollution every day than most spots in the world.

The vog pollution is so bad that it not only affects the Island of Hawaii but when the winds are still, spreads hundreds of miles to the other islands. I can show you pictures of Honolulu where the vog is so bad it looks worse than L.A. on a bad day. Hawaii has the nation's worst incidence of asthma, largely caused by the exposure of people to vog, and on a bad vog day you can see people hacking all over. For me, first my eyes begin to water, and then the cough starts.

This is what they use to measure CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Needless to say, all of this data is contaminated and must be "adjusted" to get what the "scientists" are telling us is the correct information. When your data is corrupted to start with, you are simply making assumptions as to what you think the amount of contamination is, and you can play with the data any way you want.

We here in Hawaii have known this for many years, but hey, we just laugh about people on the Mainland thinking they are all going to die because of our air quality here.

#2.1 Jim on 2017-07-20 13:55 (Reply)

Jim: The main source for the CO2 "data" showing increases in CO2 emissions causing "global warming" comes from a NOAA/NASA observation station on the slopes of Mauna Loa on the Island of Hawaii.

Atmospheric CO2 is measured at thousands of ground stations around the world, and they show that CO2 is a well-mixed gas, and that the levels are rising. CO2 is also measured by satellite, Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, and by ASCENDS CarbonHawk Experiment Simulator which measures CO2 by passing a laser through the atmosphere. You can even measure it yourself, which can be done chemically or with IR detectors.

#2.1.1 Zachriel on 2017-07-20 15:31 (Reply)

The science of measuring average temperature is inexact only when the data are relevant to showing that temperature have not changed markedly in recent decades. They become precise and persuasive--even incontrovertible--when they are relevant to showing that the earth is warming. The facility with which one slips from one argument to the other is the mark of a committed climate alarmist.

#2.1.1.1 Texan99 on 2017-07-21 10:46 (Reply)

Texan99: The science of measuring average temperature is inexact only when the data are relevant to showing that temperature have not changed markedly in recent decades.

Again, climate scientists work with temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. There is a statistically significant warming trend in the data.

1990-present (2σ level)
GISTEMP, 0.195 ±0.066 °C/decade

#2.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2017-07-21 13:46 (Reply)

Senior Democrats plus the donor class think that they can make Kamala Harris into the next Obama - like him she is mixed-race, attractive, and from a solidly blue state. These puff piece articles are just the beginning.

Unlike Obama, however, Kamala Harris has a lot of baggage (like getting her first professional breaks by being Willie Brown's mistress while he was Speaker of the California Assembly). To put it mildly, that's not a good look.

Can't erase all the news articles from the 1990s. People are going to find it.

#3 JM01 on 2017-07-20 10:07 (Reply)

None of that will make any difference. After all, Obama hobnobbed with a domestic terrorist, had a shady land deal with a shady guy, and attended a church run by an anti-American pastor and none of that hurt him.

#3.1 mudbug on 2017-07-20 10:41 (Reply)

"Can't erase all the news articles from the 1990s.".

It was done for Obama.

#3.2 LWS on 2017-07-20 11:28 (Reply)

ISIS lost Mosul but the shocking news is they weren’t the only perpetrators of crimes against civilians. Members of the U.S.-led coalition working to fight ISIS would launch airstrikes on ISIS-controlled areas of Mosul that were full of noncombatants, thanks to ISIS’s campaign to displace people from their villages.

According to the latest report ISIS fighters Aren’t The Only Ones Who Brutalized Mosul’s Civilians.

You can find the link right after my name. As I tried to post it here but it's not showing. Don't know the reason is.

#4 David (Link) on 2017-07-20 11:04 (Reply)

You can post a link by just typing it in (or copy and paste). You can also surround the text with the url tags (see the Quick reference guide below where you type your post).

Equating wanton killing with a collateral deaths in a military operation is dishonest.

#4.1 mudbug on 2017-07-20 11:39 (Reply)

Thank you @Mudbug for helping me. I tried to implement these tips [url] (web address) [/url]
but it's not working. Can you please help me with an example?

I would greatly appreciate it.

#4.1.1 David on 2017-07-20 12:42 (Reply)

By putting '[''url'']' (not quotes) before your link (http://viralvog.com/isis-are-not-behind-attacks-on-mosuls/) and putting '[''/''url'']' at the end, you get a link:
http://viralvog.com/isis-are-not-behind-attacks-on-mosuls/

If that doesn't work for you, you can just put the link in your post:

http://viralvog.com/isis-are-not-behind-attacks-on-mosuls/

and let the reader copy and paste in his browser.

#4.1.1.1 mudbug on 2017-07-20 12:55 (Reply)

Thank you but kindly check this placement. This is correct? And really sorry to disturb you again.

[url] (http://viralvog.com/) [/url]

#4.1.1.1.1 David on 2017-07-20 13:07 (Reply)

Hi David.

My experience is that you do NOT leave spaces between the brackets and the url address.

So take the parentheses out and type the whole thing together. No spaces. Try it and see if it works.

#4.1.1.1.1.1 feeblemind on 2017-07-20 13:55 (Reply)

Sorry, I should have said no '(', ')', or spaces.

#4.1.1.1.1.2 mudbug on 2017-07-20 14:14 (Reply)

Sorry, I'm totally confused now. Any way to contact you and will understand through screenshots. mail is davidcarnor60 at rate g mail com

#4.1.1.1.1.2.1 David on 2017-07-20 14:34 (Reply)

Finally, I got it. Thank you so much mudbug. It's because of space, Sometimes simple things take much time like today. I spent 1hour on this.
http://viralvog.com/

#4.1.1.1.1.2.2 David on 2017-07-20 14:41 (Reply)

Go to More tips here link at bottom of Comments section and look for Web Links. Copy and paste. Piece of cake.

#4.1.2 Gringo on 2017-07-20 14:04 (Reply)

QUOTE:

USA Today: People Might Be Upset By Lack Of Women, Black People In ‘Dunkirk

In fact, African troops in the French Army provided crucial cover for the British evacuation. There were also several companies of Indian troops in the British army who deported themselves especially well.

#5 Zachriel on 2017-07-20 12:08 (Reply)

"There were also several companies of Indian troops in the British army who deported themselves especially well."

Deporting themselves seems to imply they ran away. Do you mean comported?

The whole movies is about the British, French, etc. troops being deported by the German army.

#5.1 JK Brown on 2017-07-20 12:31 (Reply)

JK Brown: Do you mean comported?

Heh. Yes, comported.

#5.1.1 Zachriel on 2017-07-20 12:33 (Reply)

Actually, deported is also correct.

deported, to conduct oneself in a specified manner, in this case, exceptionally well.

#5.1.2 Zachriel on 2017-07-20 12:35 (Reply)

As best I can tell none of the reviewers complaining about the absence of minorities in 'Dunkirk' has raised your historical observation that there were non-white troops from the British and French colonies in action. I'm also quite willing to bet that if those units were depicted with historical accuracy there would have been complaints about the glorification of colonization or allusions to slavery.

#5.2 Christopher B on 2017-07-21 08:29 (Reply)

What gets me about the ex-Republican...he is relying on polling that I find suspect. Polling last year was so incredibly wrong. I just don't believe polling numbers about Democrat-pushed social policies. Sorry, I just don't.

Plus, the topic of 'gay marriage.' There was nothing stopping anyone from 'marrying' as a gay couple. The only thing they wanted was acknowledgment from the state.

Guess what? I would've STILL gotten married to my husband despite how the state would've treated our relationship. Because marriage is not about the state telling me: yep, you are officially now a married couple. No, it is about my religion and how I view marriage.

I do not remember anyone telling gay people 'you cannot get married.' The only thing that was being said was, 'the state does not acknowledge marriages between two people of the same sex, because that is not marriage.'

I wonder how happy all of these gay couples are now? They only will end up with a higher financial impact because they are married. Combined income as married people means higher tax brackets and more tax paid. If you apply for that financial aid for your kid, the FAFSA is not so kind to you anymore and your kid will have to cough up more of his own money to attend. Etc.

Anyway, I'm not buying the idea that leftist social ideas are growing in popularity. It's fake news.

#6 MissT on 2017-07-20 12:22 (Reply)

The only thing they wanted was acknowledgment from the state to get government and company benefits for their housemates.

FTFY

#6.1 BillH on 2017-07-20 12:36 (Reply)

Polling by professional pollers "could' be right or could be wrong. The two biggest problems for anyone today trying to take a poll of American opinions today are that few of us have home phones so any poll will exclude a lot of people for this reason AND that many people choose not to participate. When I had a home phone I would typically hang up on a poll taker or if I felt like it I would lie to them. This is the problem with honest polls.

However I believe that most polls are intentionally dishonest where the questions are worded to obtain the desired responses AND the poll takers seek out the population that will respond as desired. This is intended to create polling data that will encourage others, mostly the low information voters, to vote a certain way.

#6.2 IdahoBob on 2017-07-20 14:15 (Reply)

The Free Thoughts podcast from last Friday had some about this.

Ask people they support letting "kids" stay on their parent's healthcare plan until 26 and you get a big yes. Ask them is they support letting "kids" stay on their parent's healthcare plan if it would cost the respondent $1200 per year, and it flips. The $1200 per year is what economist have found it costs each purchaser of healthcare regardless of age or whether they have kids.

#6.2.1 JK Brown on 2017-07-20 18:00 (Reply)

The problem is the subsidies. If there were an 'option' to keep your child on your health insurance and by choosing that option you paid the cost that would be eminently fair and likely rarely chosen. Allow the insurance companies to create a menu of options for health care insurance and to charge accordingly and allow the citizens to chose what they want and pay for what they chose.

#6.2.1.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2017-07-21 10:41 (Reply)

The other problem with the "ex-Republican" is that he is described as a "non-crazy Democrat." Sorry, there is no such thing anymore, and there hasn't been since at least 2004.

#6.3 Kurt on 2017-07-21 00:26 (Reply)

MissT: Polling last year was so incredibly wrong.

National polling in the last few days before the election was reasonably close, within the margin of error.

IBD/TIPP Tracking, Clinton +1
Reuters/Ipsos, Clinton +4
McClatchy/Marist, Clinton +2

Actual result, Clinton +2

Individual state polling was less accurate, though. Analysis indicates that many undecideds in the battleground states only made their mind up the week before the election, and they trended towards Trump.

MissT: I would've STILL gotten married to my husband despite how the state would've treated our relationship. Because marriage is not about the state telling me: yep, you are officially now a married couple. No, it is about my religion and how I view marriage.

Let's guess that you still have a marriage license issued by the government.

MissT: I wonder how happy all of these gay couples are now?

Probably much like other married couples; great happiness followed by the realities of married life.

#6.4 Zachriel on 2017-07-21 07:30 (Reply)

Sorry to be off-topic but it has come to my attention that the Senior Lifetime Pass from the National Park service shall increase from $10 to $80 (!) on August 28, 2017. You may find out more: https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/senior-pass-changes.htm

#7 C. Allen on 2017-07-20 16:57 (Reply)

Punishing seniors for voting for Trump.

#7.1 L.B. on 2017-07-20 19:15 (Reply)

Actually this has been planned for years now. The various national parks have put off maintenance and improvements and various schemes have been proposed to find funding to take care of these problems including increased fees.

Some years back while visiting Yellowstone I discussed the sad state of the park with one of the rangers there and of course his view was lack of funding. This was right after the big fire at Yellowstone and I pointed out that a company in Wyoming had offered to harvest some of those fire killed trees and pay the park a million bucks for them. The park opted to let them rot standing up where they then would become a hazard for decades. I guess the idea of a million bucks just didn't appeal to them.

#7.1.1 IdahoBob on 2017-07-21 10:47 (Reply)

"The English Language Is Under Attack. We Must Defend It."

BlackPressUSA: No Access.

#8 JJM on 2017-07-22 17:20 (Reply)

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Thursday, July 20. 2017

Thursday morning links