I don’t have scientific expertise. I work with people who do. I trust their informed opinions on scientific matters far more than I trust my own ability to “do the research” in areas where they have far more expertise than I do. I would not expect a metallurgist to be able to fix my rusty…
Hard-hitting column from Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post. Baseball is facing a new crisis not even a week into its pandemic-delayed season. It’s an axiom in sports: Your results speak for themselves. The scoreboard says more than a dozen major league baseball players are sick after just five days of play, and the only…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break After a tight recap of Part 1, we pick up where we left off. The jerry-rigged deflector dish weapon unleashes all its sparkly-glowy MacGuffinality at the vessel containing the Borgified Picard, and — nothing. “Your resistance is hopeless, Number One,” Locutus intones, borrowing Picard’s nickname for Riker. Chills! On…
We understand many readers find the kraken’s point of view dangerous, but that is why we offered it for public scrutiny and debate. Though Trallonous’ position may have seemed clear from the moment he regurgitated thousands of sailor bones to block every exit out of town, it is always important to critically examine where the other side is coming from. Doing so allows us to better understand the sea demon’s perspective (we should be his food) as well as our own (no we shouldn’t).
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break The Enterprise-D finds a crater where a colony used to be, then apparently does nothing for a few days until a team from Starfleet Tactical arrives. Because it will soon be dark at the site, and tricorders apparently don’t work at night, Riker says they’ll wait until morning, and…
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After mounting a half-hearted defense of a woman who says masks don’t work, that there’s a cure for COVID-19, and that doctors make medicine from DNA from aliens and that experts are working on a vaccine that makes you immune from becoming religious, Trump ends a press conference by walking out of the room. Background…
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This article focuses on a police officer who had just completed training in how to de-escalate an encounter with a mentally ill citizen, and just three days later found himself face-to-face with a mentally ill woman with a gun (and her toddler with a sippy cup). De-escalation training gives cops better tools than AR-15s, and…
Configuring socially distanced seating and maintaining sanitation protocols in the rough-hewn, Civil War-era barn that houses the theater would be difficult, [executive artistic director Pat Beyer] said.
“I cannot see this structure being brought up to speed in today’s climate. They still haven’t worked out yet how theaters will operate,” she said. “If they can’t figure out what to do at Heinz Hall and the Benedum, how do they expect me to figure it out?”
German uses esse “to eat” for people, but frisse “to feed on” for animals. This is a bear, so “I am eating a potato” should naturally be “Ich frisse eine Kartoffel.” But it’s an anthropomorphized talking bear, which implies the self-awareness of “Ich esse eine Kartoffel.” But surely a bear that knows…
Powerful assessment of Donald Trump, written by Peter Wehner, a speechwriter who served Reagan and both Bushes. For context, here’s what Wehner writes about the conservative movement during the Reagan years: The conservative movement in the 1980s, although hardly flawless, was intellectually serious and politically optimistic. And Reagan himself was a man of personal decency,…
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Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance. First, here’s a report from the right-leaning Forbes, last week. One possible reason for Trump’s continued public embrace of Fauci–even as he shirks his advice behind the scenes–is Fauci’s popularity: an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday showed 55% of voters surveyed have a favorable view of Fauci…
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It seems that an unusually high percentage of links I posted to my website in July 2000 no longer work, but here are a few links that I could find via the Wayback Machine: The guy who invented the “pet rock” won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for really bad writing. Humorous courtroom transcripts Q: All…
In a shift in tone, and after weeks of focusing public events on other issues, Trump urged Americans to wear a mask. […] “We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask,” Trump said in perhaps his strongest urging to date on that issue. “Whether you…