This 19 second video does a wonderful job of explaining this country’s political divide
This was filmed at a library at the University of Washington. The guy at the end is my hero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhy2Gk_xik
These drones with super bright lights could easily be mistaken for UFOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhOeky8yEow
Michelle Obama chose a racist artist to paint her official portrait
Michelle Obama chose an artist named Amy Sherald to paint her official portrait.
The New York Times writes of Sherald:
Ms. Sherald only paints African-Americans.
I can’t wait for all the social justice warriors who want the government to force bakers to bake cakes for gay weddings, to use the exact same logic to try to get the government to force Sherald to paint portraits of white customers.
Just kidding. We all know those hypocrites are never going to do that.
The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is getting bigger, but I don’t expect most environmentalists to celebrate
On the one hand, this report from phys.org is good news for anyone who has been truly worried that the land area of the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu was getting smaller due to the rising sea level caused by global warming. Although the sea level is indeed rising due to global warming, wave patterns and sediment dumped by storms have actually caused the land area to get bigger. The study was conducted by the University of Auckland.
On the other hand, for environmentalists who have been using this island’s alleged shrinking as an excuse to promote a political agenda, this is bad news, not good news. They will not celebrate this news. Instead, they will ignore this news, and they will get mad at anyone who does bring this news to their attention.
Based on past experience, I think that most environmentalists will fall into the later group. I say this, based on the following three things:
1) Most environmentalists ignore the fact that so many of their past predictions of doom have failed to come true.
2) Most environmentalists show zero intellectual curiosity as to why their past predictions of doom failed to come true. (By comparison, real scientists are always curious to know why their past predictions failed to come true.)
3) Most environmentalists actually get mad at me whenever I bring up the fact that their past predictions of doom have failed to come true.
Anyway, here are some predictions of doom from the first Earth Day in 1970 that failed to come true. Most environmentalists absolutely hate it when I point out these predictions. Try showing this list to any environmentalists that you know, and see how they react:
* Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for the first Earth Day, wrote, “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
* Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, stated, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
* Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, stated, “… by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions… By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
* Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, predicted that between 1980 and 1989, 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would starve to death.
* Life Magazine wrote, “… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
* Ecologist Kenneth Watt stated, “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
* Watt also stated, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil.”
George Washington University launches “investigation” into “harmful” photograph of student holding banana peel
A student at George Washington University recently posted the following photograph on the student’s own Snapchat account. The student is holding up a banana peel, and the caption says “I’m 1/16 black.”
On a racial offensiveness scale of 0 to 10, I’d rate this as a 1. Others here may disagree. But if you do disagree, then please cite something else which is less racially offensive, but which is not a 0. Because I really do think that this is about the least racially offensive thing (other than a 0) that someone could do.
Well, of course, the social justice warriors have gone way overboard. The student’s sorority issued a statement apologizing to “those who have been harmed.”
“Harmed” by this photo?
Seriously?
And even worse, the school is launching an “investigation.”
An investigation? Because of a stupid picture, with a stupid caption, on someone’e own personal webpage, which does not threaten any physical harm to anyone, and which is not breaking any laws?
That’s going way, way overboard.
How about the school just do nothing?
Or better yet, how about the school issue a statement that says freedom of speech applies to everyone, and that the photo was on a personal webpage which has nothing to do with the school, and that anyone who is genuinely traumatized should seek counseling – not because of the image itself, but instead, because of their irrational overreaction to the image?
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 