PEOPLE ARE PROGRESS: Why we should cheer that Earth’s population just passed 8 billion.
I’m going to write a “now it can be told” story on how Paul Ehrlich’s fearmongering bestseller, The Population Bomb, was actually a highly successful disinfo/psywar op. By convincing China to adopt the one-child policy, it crippled the country that was set to be a deadly rival in the 21st Century. Sure, there was some blowback, but . . .
WELL, THAT’S WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR LUCK STINKS: In a 1st, man catches ‘silver leaf,’ a tree fungus never before seen in humans.
MICROBIOME NEWS: Study finds evidence of no common blood microbes in healthy humans. “In recent decades this paradigm has been challenged by speculation that the blood could host a community of microbes. Here, we have confirmed this is not the case, as most people’s blood does not contain microbes, and the microbial species found in some people’s blood varied substantially between individuals. . . . After accounting for contamination that is rife in microbiome investigations, the team found that microbes were only rarely and sporadically detected in blood, instead of existing as stable communities. Among their sample of 9,770 people, 84% of people did not have any microbes in their blood sample, and less than 5% of people shared the same species. The scientists also found evidence that some bacteria in the blood of healthy individuals might be replicating and most of these bacteria are typically found in the human gut, oral, or skin microbiomes. Their findings suggest that microbes do occasionally enter the bloodstream from other body sites without causing disease, but there is no core set of species colonizing the blood of healthy individuals.”
HISTORY: FDR’s Other ‘Day of Infamy’: When the US Government Seized All Citizens’ Gold. “On this 90th anniversary of the seizure, it behooves us to recall the details of it, for multiple reasons: It ranks as one of the most notorious abuses of power in a decade when there were almost too many to count. It’s an example of bad policy imposed on the guiltless by the government that created the conditions it used to justify it. And the very fact of compliance, however minimal, is a scary testimony to how fragile freedom is in the middle of a crisis.”
IMAGINE THAT, SHIPS PROPELLED BY THE WIND. WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT? Sailing cargo ships can benefit from new aerodynamic tech.
DON’T HOLD BACK VARIETY, TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL: Don Lemon’s Misogyny at CNN, Exposed: Malicious Texts, Mocking Female Co-Workers and ‘Diva-Like Behavior.’
Back in 2008, Don Lemon was co-anchoring CNN’s “Live From” weekday show with Kyra Phillips, a gig that he landed after he arrived at the network two years prior from local news in Chicago. For months, tensions between the pair kept mounting. On more than one occasion, a “Live From” producer and a newsroom supervisor had to pull Lemon off the air during a commercial break because of the anchor’s provocative antics, not unlike his recent declaration that the 51-year-old Nikki Haley isn’t a viable presidential candidate because she “isn’t in her prime.” Amid the charged atmosphere, sources say Lemon disrespected colleague Nancy Grace on the air and Soledad O’Brien during an editorial meeting attended by roughly 30 staffers.
But his antipathy toward Phillips was particularly concerning and had many members of the close-knit Atlanta news team on edge. While Phillips was on assignment in Iraq — a high-profile gig that Lemon coveted — he vented his disappointment at being passed over by tearing up pictures and notes on top of and inside Phillips’ desk in the news pod they shared, according to two sources who worked there at the time. When she returned from Iraq, things only got weirder. One night while dining with members of the news team, she received the first of two threatening text messages from an unknown number on her flip phone that warned, “Now you’ve crossed the line, and you’re going to pay for it.” Phillips was visibly rattled and quickly enlisted CNN’s higher ups to identify the sender. Remarkably, the texts were traced back to Lemon, according to those same sources. A human resources investigation was launched, and while the findings were never disclosed to the growing pool of staffers who were aware of the situation, Lemon was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips and moved to the weekends. It was a demotion by any objective measure and understood to be some kind of disciplinary action. It appears to be the last time he was paired with a female anchor until his most recent assignment on “CNN This Morning With Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.”
As Ed Morrissey speculates, “if Variety is publishing this long record, maybe this week is when new CNN/Discovery management begin recalculating Lemon’s value.”
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: The Final Battle Is Upon Us.
READER FAVORITE: HOTO Electric Screwdriver. #CommissionEarned
WHY DID WE OUTSOURCE OUR PHARMACEUTICALS TO INDIA AND CHINA? Just How Dangerous Are India’s Generic Drugs? Very. The red flags have been there for years. The world deserves much better than contaminated medicine and children poisoned by cough syrup.
YOU GET A SUPERMAJORITY, AND YOU GET A SUPERMAJORITY, AND YOU GET A SUPERMAJORITY!
Democrats will "villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgement, has solutions," says North Carolina State Rep Tricia Cotham after switching parties.
"If you don't do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside." pic.twitter.com/Jhnn1TxXjK
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 5, 2023
Congratulations to Senator-elect @DanKnodlforWI on his resounding victory.
This win now solidifies a Republican supermajority in the state senate that will continue to work for hardworking Wisconsinites. pic.twitter.com/DHi1Jnme0f
— Republican State Leadership Committee (@RSLC) April 5, 2023
The Wisconsin Supreme Court defeat is a big loss for the Wisconsin GOP, but they did well elsewhere.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: You Won’t Believe the Most Outrageous Claim in the Trump Indictment. “The Donald Trump indictment is our Late Roman Republic cirque du jour, and until now I’ve recused myself from writing about it. I had to wait for that one tiny detail to emerge, that one giant tell, so absurd that it required the special attention of the man who invented drunkblogging.”
I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS, BUT…: A Repeating Alien Radio Signal Has Been Traced Back To A Potentially Habitable Rocky, Earth-Like Exoplanet. “YZ Ceti b is estimated to have a mass of 0.75 times that of Earth and a radius of 0.97 times that of Earth. It orbits very close to its star, completing one revolution in just 1.97 days. This means that it is likely tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet always faces the star and the other side is always in darkness. The surface temperature of YZ Ceti b is estimated to range from -40°C to 177°C depending on the location and the presence of an atmosphere.”
That’s quite a range.
J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Chicago School of Law: EXPOSED. “Hans von Spakovsky and I will march through the top ten rankings by U.S. News and World Report and share with you what is taking place inside these law schools. The militancy and uselessness of the curriculum may astound many of you.”
This is the third in a ten-part series.
WHEN YOU’RE AN ANTI-TRUMP D.A. AND YOU’VE LOST DAVID FRUM…: Wrong Indictment, Wrong Time. “Now we know what the Manhattan prosecutors have. It’s not enough.”
Ian Millhiser, et tu?
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Tennessee Republicans Looking to Expel 3 Democrats for Demonstrating on House Floor for Gun Control.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Pitt students draft demands for trans ‘medical leave,’ no police, and mandatory gender class.
“Demands.”
WITH CHICAGO HEADING TOWARDS THE ABYSS, VOTERS SAID, “PUNCH IT!”: Chicago elects far-left progressive Brandon Johnson as new mayor.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Trump ‘POTUS 47 Revenge Tour’ Just Kicked Off Early. “America’s banana republic malaise hit a new low with the indictment of former President Donald Trump for, well, nothing. Yesterday’s photo-op circus may have provided some red meat entertainment for the frothing Democrat hordes but people who aren’t blinded by a toxic combination of ignorance, hate, and daddy issues know it was a sad day for the Republic.”
FALLOUT: How Russia killed its tech industry.
Seven days after the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Belugin packed up his and his family’s belongings, canceled the lease on his apartment in Moscow, withdrew his kids from kindergarten, and started a new life outside of Russia. Not long after that, he resigned from his position as chief commercial officer for search at Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google and the country’s largest technology company. The war meant that everything would change in Russia, both for him and for his company, Belugin said from his new home in Cyprus: “You have to accept the new rules of having no rules at all in Russia.”
Belugin was far from the only tech worker to leave. In the months after the invasion began, Russia saw a mass exodus of IT workers. According to government figures, about 100,000 IT specialists left Russia in 2022, or some 10% of the tech workforce—a number that is likely an underestimate. Alongside those exits, more than 1,000 foreign firms curtailed their operations in the country, driven in part by the broadest sanctions ever to be imposed on a major economy.
It has now been over a year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, with more than 8,300 recorded civilian deaths and counting. The tech workers who left everything behind to flee Russia warn that the country is well on its way to becoming a village: cut off from the global tech industry, research, funding, scientific exchanges, and critical components.
The pity is that Russia has always produced such good engineers but Putin and the Soviets — or have I repeated myself? — treat them so poorly.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: MSU Warns Against Using Terms ‘Female,’ ‘America,’ ‘Christmas Trees’ In New ‘Inclusive’ Style Guide.
THEY’VE BEEN TOLD ORANGE MAN BAD ENOUGH TIMES FOR IT TO TAKE: CNN Poll Finds 60% Of Americans Support Trump Indictment Even Though They Have No Clue What’s In It.
Also, it’s a CNN poll.
DON SURBER: Republicans lay the groundwork for 2025 indictments: When they indict one of ours, we indict 7 of theirs.
All very late-Roman-Republic.
Can it survive if they don’t?
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