Maggie's Farm

 Polar bears and coral reefs are doing just fine

 "The WPATH Files prove that gender medicine is comprised of unregulated and pseudoscientific experiments on children, adolescents, and vulnerable adults. It will go down as one of the worst medical scandals in history."

 AI is poised to destroy and replace search as Google defined it more than 20 years ago. 

 English Is Still The World's Most-Spoken Language

 John Stossel Calls the Southern Poverty Law Center a ‘Scam’. “Looking at their map of hate groups, you’d think hate groups were everywhere.”

 Was it a Mistake to Mandate COVID Vaccines? What seemed obvious at the time might have caused greater harm in the long run

 Giving DEI the Pink Slip - Major institutions have started rolling back their diversity bureaucracies.

Stuart's  Wednesday Potpourri

 How to Save Our Cities - Lessons from a previous American tumble

 Brown University Returns to the Use of Standardized Testing for Admissions

What is misinformation? 

Why Is It So Hard to Build an Airport?

 How universities killed the academic - Flamboyant brilliance has been purged

 Renault Award: Plastic Makers Lied About Recycling for Decades

 Electric cars release MORE toxic emissions than gas-powered vehicles and are worse for the environment

 AI model distinguishes male and female brains with over 90% accuracy

California: It is hard to understand how there can be a political movement in favor of more crime, but there you have it

 WaPo Writer Makes It Official: Shoplifting Is Just Reparations

 Mayorkas Accused Gov. Abbott Of ‘Trying To Wreak Havoc’

 Justice Barrett Explains the Message Americans Should Take Away From the Trump Ballot Ruling

 Democrats Jump at Chance to 'Revive Legislation' to Kick Trump Off of the Ballot

 Gearing Up for ‘Biden’ Versus Trump: Not If, But When and How to Replace Biden

 How Abortion Became ‘the Defund the Police of the GOP’

Dune Part 2: An Epic Story -- And Cinematic Experience

Mrs. BD loved it. I felt it was a little tedious 

"... the endless diabolical sadness that is pants?" 

 Hooking Up

 In Praise of Divorce

Frailty and loneliness 

 Abigail Shrier breaks down America’s teenage mental health crisis

 The ‘feelings economy’ to engulf US workforce as universities fail students, business owners

Is that a school's job? 

 Google's Brave New Woke-AF World - When DEI merges with AI, the post-truth dystopia will become impossible to escape.

 CDC Says You Can Treat COVID Like Any Other Respiratory Virus, Ends Five-Day Isolation Suggestion

 'Very Bizarre': Scientists Expose Major Problems With Climate Change Data

 For Socialists, It Doesn't Matter if Socialism "Works" - What Matters Is Power

 The Backlash in Deep-Blue America ‘Why am I running as a Republican? Because I’ve seen up close the hypocrisy of the left and it’s unfathomable.’

 Austin ‘at the brink of disaster’ as police staffing shortages set city back over 15 years

Preparing Canada’s Future as North Korea

 More than 8 MILLION asylum seekers will soon live in the US - a 167% increase in five years as Biden's lax policies continue to allow flood of migrants across southern border

Why do Nigerians kill Christians? 

I guess songs can be written about anything. 

I love my Merlin app. It's free, too.

I stuck my phone on the porch early this morning, and what it heard in 30 mins is below the fold - 

We like our inboard Yanmar diesel, but outboards have become the thing these days. Multiple outboards, in fact. Three or four 200 hp outboards cost a lot more than a diesel engine.

I kinda like the diesel rumble, like a commercial fishing boat, but it is loud. Unlike a commercial boat, we are improving the engine sound insulation on ours right now.

Here's the Anatomy of the Outboard Engine 

Sure can, if you wash them first. I've seen people eat an orange like an apple. I've done that on hikes. I like lemon slices with the peel.

Tastier when they have soaked a bit in a cocktail like the orange peel in a Negroni. That is a treat.

Thinking about Marshall McLuhan 

 CDC Downgrades COVID to Same Severity as the Flu… But Says You Must Keep Having Vaccines

 More Evidence That COVID School Closures Wrecked Student Performance. California's poorly served public school students need more than a few more dollars diverted to tutoring programs. They need an escape hatch.

Scott Adams claims that there is no reality accessible to humans. It's all narrative. 

OK, it is hyperbole but I am sympathetic to his point, being a pathological skeptic. Scott also likes to imagine that we live in a simulation, which is an interesting narrative.

Since my father-in-law died on Sunday, I keep getting these things: 

What the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral? One less drunk at the funeral.

Irish cop lies dying, and says "If you don't sing Danny Boy, I'll get out of my coffin and walk out of my funeral."

 Police Warn Women Not To Jog Within 2,000 Miles Of An Open Border

 Bumble to lay off 30% of its workforce after failing to entice Gen Z users - as study shows eight in ten college students NEVER use apps and prefer to meet partners the traditional way

I never needed them, but I think dating sites are great 

 Determining who gets blamed when cars hit pedestrians

 The “Disney adult” industrial complex

Sheesh 

What American state has largest population growth? 

You guessed wrong

 Columbia University Hospital DEI Chief Is Serial Plagiarist, Complaint Alleges Alade McKen plagiarized pages of material from Wikipedia

From Wikipedia? Gotta be kidding. That is so high-school. 

 Universities Are Making Us Dumber. Lifting the Iron Curtain from academia won’t be easy. Then again, we have no choice.

 TGIF: Bad Things Happened. Marc Benioff has your number. The Communists are rebranding. No one at the Times ever said ‘Chick-fil-A.’ Plus: Hunter goes on the record, and much more.

VDH:  American Paralysis and Decline - Societies do not always collapse from a lack of wealth, invasion, or natural catastrophes. But they are so paralyzed by their fear that the road to salvation becomes too painful to even contemplate.

 A woke struggle session at the New York Times - Adam Rubenstein has exposed the mindless intolerance that now governs the liberal newsroom.

 The Financial World Is Starting To Understand Bitcoin

 Rediscovering the Meaning of Diversity: Lessons from Generation X - Gen X is young enough to take civil rights and integration for granted—but old enough to appreciate how much progress America has made

 Some Parts of America Still Work - Hint: They're not in the government or academic worlds.

Dershowitz:  Is Trump's Mega-Fine Unconstitutional?

 Elon Musk Hits OpenAI With "Breach Of Contract" Lawsuit For Abandoning Foundational Mission

Obama’s CIA Had Foreign Intel Spying On Trump Campaign (Bumped)

 Tea and Flop Sweat: Dems Fret About a Kennedy Wrecking Ball

 Ben Bergquam Reports from Darién Gap That US is Funding Processing Centers in South America and Flying Illegals into America BEFORE They Reach The Border

What the heck is going on? 

 Israel On Deadly Gaza Aid Stampede: “No IDF strike was conducted toward the aid convoy” - Times of Israel: “Gunmen…opened fire in the area as they looted the supplies.”

 Javier Milei’s Shock Therapy in Argentina Is a Big Gamble. Javier Milei needs to show Argentinians a real economic turnaround before patience runs out. He risks being thrown out of office early.

Argentina and Hayek 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_River

My closest encounter with a B-52 was during a hike in Montana. That airplane was doing a low-altitude run right over our heads. As I recall, we were near a cliff where the Indians ran bison off. Sheesh. Why a low-altitude run?

It's complicated. "Scampi" means a large prawn-thing in Italian, so the American menu item "Shrimp Scampi" sort of means "Shrimp Shrimp."

I've had scampi in Italy. They are not really a large shrimp, but more like a crayfish. They will put one on top of a seafood risotto as a garnish. You only eat the little tail but it is almost impossible to get it out so I tend to give up on that.

Shrimp Scampi is an American menu item, not Italian. It means Shrimp cooked the way Italians cook their crayfish-things - butter, oil, garlic, alone on a plate with parsley on top. In the US, it's typically served made with American shrimp on a pile of pasta as a main course. I know that I am annoying about these things, but that ain't Italian. Not too bad though. Italians do not make pasta as a main course. Italians tend to be skinny. 

Yeah, their lunch is our dinner. Their evening meal is spartan, like some soup. True, they often nap after their midday meal and close up shop for a couple of hours. 

The best real Italian meals I've had were in Volterra. We have not been to Bologna yet, though. The big tourist places tend to make stuff that Americans and Asians think is Italian - like red sauce. Wrong.

And, because of my mood today, I'll be more annoying: Pizza in Italy is awful. For good pizza, go to NYC or New Haven. Yeah, it's junk food but fun with beer. I have a favorite pizza + beer joint in NYC, near the High Line in Chelsea. It's called Artichoke.

 ‘Shrimp scampi’ doesn’t mean what you think it means

I just caught up on his Sunday episode, having been occupied with a dying relative. Anyway, Scott has gotten woke. It's taken a while. Here's the youtube of his brief, brilliant Sunday episode. 

A few quotes, more or less accurate:

Of course scientists lie.

Who believes you can take the temperature of the earth with a thermometer? Nobody.

Trump = dark, chaos, extreme.

Does anybody still think that the news is real? 

Ukraine vs Russia is a fist fight between two gas stations. 

When did the news become complete bs propaganda? 

There are now 12 Trump/Russia hoaxes 

The Democrat party is run by batshit crazy women 

Getting cancelled opened his eyes, I think. Luckily for him, he can afford free speech. Can you?

Actually, it is just Tuesday Bob. I've never heard Taylor Swift but I am male and a bit over age 14. Few can recall, but it was the same with the early Beatles.

 How a Special Diet Kept the Knights Templar Fighting Fit - Silent meals, a buddy system, and wine “in moderation.

Yeah but those life span stats are deceptive. There was huge child mortality in the past 

 Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them

Hmmm. Don't worry, be happy 

 Update On The Good And The Bad Settler Colonialists

Democrats Don’t Want Parents Involved In Childhood Education

A sociopathic therapist talks 

Is there a therapy culture? 

 Antidepressant prescription rate among children aged 12-17 soared by 64% during pandemic - and more than DOUBLED among teen girls, data shows

 Gen Z more likely to ditch work for a ‘mental health’ day — here’s why that concerns job experts

 How Bad Therapy Hijacked Our Nation’s Schools - Forget the Pledge of Allegiance. Today’s teachers are more likely to start the school day with an ‘emotions check-in.’

 Female Genital Mutilation Is Also A European Issue

The cult at The New York Times 

Make Sure You're Not a 'Christian Nationalist'

Stuart on Christian Nationalism 

 Jordan Peterson, God, And Christianity

 Former Boeing Employee Won't Fly on 737 Max Planes

Don't worry, be happy 

  Joe Biden’s welcome mat is out, and everyone is here to stay–especially those who will degrade our country.

I want legal immigrants. I know several. They have gratitude. 

 The Republican establishment begins to understand that lawfare endangers them, too

 CIA Built "12 Secret Spy Bases" In Ukraine & Waged Shadow War For Last Decade, Bombshell NYT Report Confirms

No surprise 

 EUROPEAN FARMERS REVOLT: Tractors Break Through Barriers in Brussels – Agricultural Workers Surround EU Headquarters, Spray Liquid Manure at Police in Major Show of Force

The peasants are revolting 

A giant Thank You for all of the good, caring, and careful work you do. Not just for the ailing person, but for the family. My lad, who knows about these things, half-jokes that hospice care is the best medical care in the US, and morphine is still medicine's greatest gift besides antibiotics. Morphius - the Greek god of dreams and sleep.

We lost my shanachie father-in-law this weekend after his long, cheerful, often joyful life, and the hospice people have been amazing. Never in a hurry either. A blessing.

Fortunately for our family, there is one new child waiting to be born to carry on, to carry on.