In the news, Monday, March 8, 2021

________

MAR 07      INDEX      MAR 09

________

________

from Forbes

Wind Turbines On Washington’s Horse Heaven Hills – How Not To Pursue A Green New Deal

A company out of Boulder, Colorado named Scout Clean Energy has applied for a permit to build a massive turbine wind farm in Washington State on the Horse Heaven Hills, extending from the town of Benton City, through the Tri-Cities, to the town of Finley (see figure above). The wind farm will have upwards of 250 turbines that are 500 feet tall and cover about 6,500 acres (over 10 square miles). But the Pacific Northwest is a lousy place to build wind turbines for two very good reasons. The power will not displace any fossil fuels but will only displace hydro, another renewable. And wind in this region just doesn’t produce much energy, only 30% of its total capacity. There is a growing opposition to this project in the region, just for these reasons.

________

from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 2

I argued in Part 1 of this essay that the modernization of American farming in the twentieth century helped alleviate multiple social ills. Powered tractors and harvesters reduced the physical burdens of most field work, but labor requirements were lessened by another innovation as well: the raising of farm animals like chickens, pigs, and dairy cows inside modern, biosecure automated barns.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Sunday, March 7, 2021

________

MAR 06      INDEX      MAR 08

________

________

from AIER | American Institute for Economic Research

Do We Still Have the Will To Continue as a Free Society?

To paraphrase the Soviet dissident and human rights activist, Natan Sharansky, what it meant to be a loyal Soviet citizen was to say what you’re supposed to say, to read what you’re permitted to read, and to vote the way you’re supposed to vote, and to know it was all a lie. That chilling sentiment contrasts sharply with what it means to be a citizen of the free world, be it in America, Europe, or our liberal democratic friends across the world. Sharansky’s line echoes the way in which the debate regarding Covid-19 and lockdowns has transpired primarily in the United States but certainly across the Western World.

________

from Axios
LEFT-CENTER BIAS,  HIGH,  news website

Graham deals with Trump "dark side" to "harness the magic"

Sen. Lindsey Graham told "Axios on HBO" that Donald Trump has a "dark side" but he tries to "harness the magic" because he succeeded where Republican candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney failed. The South Carolina Republican gyrates between support and criticism of the former president, even after Trump harshly criticized McCain — Graham's longtime friend — and helped spark the Capitol insurrection. "What I'm tryin' to do is just harness the magic," Graham told Axios' Jonathan Swan. "To me, Donald Trump is sort of a cross between Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan and P.T. Barnum." "He could make the Republican Party something that nobody else I know can make it. He can make it bigger. He can make it stronger. He can make it more diverse. And he also could destroy it," Graham said.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Group marches through downtown Spokane as trial nears for officer charged in George Floyd’s killing

A few dozen protesters gathered at the U.S. Pavilion at Riverfront Park on Saturday to mark the beginning of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with murder after kneeling on George Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis last May. From there, the group organized by the Human Rights Activist Coterie of Spokane began a relaxed march through Spokane’s sun-drenched downtown to the Black Lives Matter mural on Main Avenue, each letter painted by a different local artist.

________

In the news, Saturday, March 6, 2021

________

MAR 05      INDEX      MAR 07

________

________

from Rolling Stone

Senate Passes $1.9 Trillion Covid Relief Bill Without a Single Republican Vote

After more than 24 hours of debate, the Senate voted in favor of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid package. The bill, because of the Senate’s changes, will now head back to the House for final passage and then on to the president to sign. On Saturday, the bill passed along party lines 50-49. Not one Republican supported the legislation that will deliver $1,400 in direct payments to most Americans, extend $300 per week supplemental unemployment insurance, and help fund federal covid programs for testing and vaccine distribution. It also includes a $3,600 one-year child tax credit. The Senate made last-minute changes to the House bill to appease centrist Democrats, such as lowering the maximum income allowed to qualify for stimulus checks. Now the checks will be phased out for individuals making $80,000 and couples making $160,000 instead of the House’s proposed $100,000 limit for individuals and $200,000 for couples. That means 12 million fewer adults will receive a stimulus payment.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Civics lesson: 70 years ago, a new constitutional amendment created presidential term limits

Back in 1787, the framers at the Constitutional Convention debated for the first time officially what the office of the president would look like and how it would function. When the topic of term limits came up, it may be surprising to hear that some fathers of democracy like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison argued for lifetime tenure for presidents, a policy that George Mason derided as elective monarchy. An early draft of the Constitution limited the president to a single seven-year term, but this divisive issue, with framers lobbying for numerous other options, eventually came to a compromise. The president would serve a four-year term, but there was no limit on how many terms a president could serve.

________

from The Washington Times

News & Media Website in Washington, D.C.

Satanists sue for religious right to ritual abortions

The Satanic Temple of Texas files suit to defend its religious right to child sacrifice

The Dallas Observer reports as follows. “[On Feb. 23, 2021] The Satanic Temple [of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston] filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas alleging certain state-mandated abortion regulations violate the religious liberty of its members … [and] violate the temple’s religious teachings. The Satanic Temple … wants its followers to be exempt from such regulations. The temple has members across the country, including in Texas.” “It’s legal to get an abortion in Texas,” clarifies the Observer, “but the procedure is banned after 20 weeks unless a life-threatening medical condition is involved or the fetus has a severe abnormality. If a person is eligible, the state requires them to get a sonogram and receive paperwork about medical risks, adoption alternatives, and developmental stages of the fetus … The state then requires a woman to wait 24 hours after receiving the sonogram and paperwork before she can go through with the abortion …” The Observer continues, “But the temple’s members consider abortion a ritualistic practice according to co-founder and spokesperson Lucien Greaves … [who maintains the] state regulations disrupt this ritual.”

________

In the news, Friday, March 5, 2021

________

MAR 04      INDEX      MAR 06

________

________

from BBC News (UK)

Royal Family tree and line of succession

The Queen is the UK's longest-serving monarch, having reigned for almost 70 years. Born in 1926, Princess Elizabeth became queen on the death of her father, King George VI, in 1952. She married Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947 and the couple have four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. A former prince of Denmark and Greece, Prince Philip was born in 1921 and served in the British Royal Navy in World War Two. He is the longest-serving consort of any British monarch, and retired from royal duties in 2017 having completed more than 22,000 solo engagements.

________

from Daily Kos

Josh Hawley was right to worry, because the FBI really is reading his communications with insurgents

America watched the events of the January riot and insurgency occur in real time. They saw Trump supporters pushing down police lines to swarm the Capitol grounds. Then watched as those Trump supporters swarmed up the Capitol steps. Watched them smash through the doors and windows. Watched them surge into the halls of Congress carrying zip ties and weapons. Watched them raid congressional offices and stroll the floors of both House and Senate while calling for the murder of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. As more evidence about events of that day appears, what’s clear is that America didn’t come close to seeing all the violence and destruction brought on by those trying to roll back the revolution and crown Trump as America’s king. New testimony from those present on that day, video not previously seen by the public, and evidence developed by investigation is revealing a situation that was even more violent, more destructive, and more threatening to the nation than was obvious from the jaw-dropping scenes that appeared on television screens. And in addition to evidence of destructive violence, there is also increasing evidence of involvement from Republican officials. That includes both a State Department official now wanted for taking an active role in the violence, and increasing signs of coordination between those breaking into Congress and the Republican legislators inside.

________

from Forbes

Former Trump State Department Aide Arrested In Connection With Capitol Riot

A former State Department aide who had been appointed by former President Donald Trump was arrested Thursday in connection with the Capitol riot, Politico first reported and the FBI also later confirmed with The Hill, making him the first person who worked directly in the Trump Administration to face charges for playing a role in the attack. The FBI arrested Federico Klein in Virginia, a spokesperson at the FBI’s Washington Field Office told Politico, and was charged with unlawful entry, violent and disorderly conduct, obstructing Congress and law enforcement, and assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, the New York Times reported. Video from the riot shows Klein resisting and assaulting officers in and around the Capitol building, court documents say, including one where he is seen trying to take items from officers and attacking them with a riot shield.

________

from The Independent

LEFT BIAS, Media/News Company in London, UK

Senate rejects Bernie Sanders proposal for $15 minimum wage in coronavirus relief package

A proposal from Bernie Sanders to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $15 from its current $7.25 failed in the Senate after the senator sought to include the measure in a White House-backed coronavirus relief package. The House of Representatives included the wage hike in its version of its $1.9 trillion legislation, which includes unemployment relief, support for families with children, and funding for schools and vaccine distribution, among other initiatives critical to Joe Biden’s plan to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout a year after the outbreak. After the Senate rules-advising parliamentarian shot down the inclusion of a wage increase in the bill, Senator Sanders vowed to introduce an amendment to put it into the legislation. The proposal would gradually raise the minimum wage by $2.25 each year through 2025. On Friday all Senate Republicans, seven Democrats and one Independent senator rejected the amendment for a vote of 42-58 against. It needed 60 votes to pass.

________

from Rolling Stone

Pete Buttigieg Has Some Ideas for Overhauling How America Moves Around

The newly minted Cabinet secretary on the climate crisis, electric vehicles, and bringing sexy back to transportation policy

Pete Buttigieg, the man now responsible for managing the means by which Americans travel trillions of miles per year, can’t leave his house. Just days after he was confirmed as secretary of transportation, a member of his security detail tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the newly minted Cabinet member to start turning the wheels on his agenda from quarantine. “We’re trying to practice what we preach, right?” he says of the decision to stay home. He’s trying his best to hide his exasperation.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Nick Pitsilionis: Legislators: if you’re worried about my restaurant, pass a wealth tax on capital gains

The values that guided me in opening Black Cypress inform my support for raising a wealth tax on the capital gains profits of those who can most afford it: the wealthiest 1 percent of Washingtonians. To rebuild our economy and our communities, we must grow out of this crisis by investing in our economy and our communities. The proposal in Olympia – Senate Bill 5096 – would create a wealth tax on capital gains profits made from the sale of stocks and other lucrative assets.

________

from The Vancouver Sun

This Week in History: 1971: B.C.'s historic gold creeks and ghost towns find a champion

Bill Barlee was B.C.'s most beloved popular historian.

Bill Barlee started Canada West magazine in 1969 with seven subscribers, all friends. It was a labour of love. The Penticton history teacher was obsessed with B.C. history, and wanted to tell some of the stories he had learned about “gold creeks and ghosts towns.” Against all odds, it caught on. When Barry Broadfoot interviewed Barlee for the March 5, 1971, edition of The Vancouver Sun, Canada West had 2,000 subscribers, and was selling another 2,000 copies on newsstands. Not bad, considering that Barlee wrote, printed and distributed the magazines by himself, working out of the basement of his home in Summerland. It was not a slick publication. The stories looked like they had been written on a typewriter, then photocopied. Barlee did many illustrations himself, in a rudimentary style few newspapers or magazines would have ever published. But it suited stories like “Old Women’s Buffalo Jump,” the “Leech River Gold Rush,” and “The Lost Morgan Mine.” Canada West was a publication about the pioneer days that looked like it was from the pioneer days.

________

In the news, Thursday, March 4, 2021

________

MAR 03      INDEX      MAR 05

________

________

from Axios
LEFT-CENTER BIAS,  HIGH,  news website

Global freedom continues steady decline: report
Freedom in the World index, 2021

The global erosion of democracy has continued for a 15th consecutive year, according to an annual report from Freedom House. The report calls particular attention to India, which slipped from “free” to “partly free” due to the government's “scapegoating of Muslims” and “crackdown on critics.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, according to the report, “driving India itself toward authoritarianism.” Governments in several countries used the cover of the pandemic to consolidate control.

________

from BBC News (UK)

Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident

A "secret" medieval tunnel system has been discovered by electrical technicians in south Wales. A team working for Western Power Distribution made the discovery while moving an electrical pole near Tintern, in the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire. Western Power said the tunnels, near to 12th Century Tintern Abbey, were not shown on any Ordnance Survey map.

________

from CNN

World's first space hotel scheduled to open in 2027

Back in 2019, Californian company the Gateway Foundation released plans for a cruise ship-style hotel that could one day float above the Earth's atmosphere. Then called the Von Braun Station, this futuristic concept -- comprised of 24 modules connected by elevator shafts that make up a rotating wheel orbiting the Earth -- was scheduled to be fully operational by 2027. Fast forward a couple years and the hotel has a new name -- Voyager Station -- and it's set to be built by Orbital Assembly Corporation, a new construction company run by former pilot John Blincow, who also heads up the Gateway Foundation.

________

from Daily Kos

What Qanoners believe will make your skin crawl

In [a] segment from CNN Alyson Camerota interviews three former Qanon cult members and three people with relatives still in the cult.  What they say they believe is totally bonkers. 

If you think Jacob Chansley seems a little lost, just check out his mom

Jacob Chansley, who has the gall to call himself the QAnon Shaman, wants you to know that he was only doing his civic duty during the insurrection of Jan. 6. In fact, he was there to stop a more serious crime from happening: wanton theft of baked goods. More specifically, the howling, shirtless conspiracy theorist with the horns and face paint claims he protected muffins from his fellow violent insurrectionists.

________

from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Centers of Progress, Pt. 23: London (Emancipation)

Our twenty-third Center of Progress is London during the late 18th and early 19th century, when the city played host to debates on the nature of human rights that would change the world. Today, we take the norm that no person can buy or sell another human being for granted, but it took humanity a long time to arrive at that norm. Slavery was accepted and rarely questioned for millennia throughout the world, but today slavery is illegal in all countries. Legal battles fought in London and legislative actions taken in London helped to end the global slave trade and bring about the dramatic change in attitudes about slavery—an invaluable victory for human freedom.

________

from Rolling Stone

Democracy on the Brink

One party is racing to fix an ailing electoral system. The other is doing everything in its power to shut voters out of it

In the coming weeks, the battle over democracy’s future in America will hit a boil. On one side is a group that looks at the last election and sees a resilient but damaged system. A system that withstood — sometimes only barely — a raging pandemic, a conspiracy-theory-peddling president, a major political party all too eager to amplify that president’s lies, a wave of hail-mary lawsuits intended to overthrow the election result, and a violent insurrection in the halls of the U.S. Capitol. The other side of this battle sees that rickety system and wants to break it so badly the voters can never get in their way again.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lani Madsen: Our conversations about race are reminiscent of the 1960s, but much has changed

On Monday in Minneapolis, a trial starts. Barbed wire and barriers have gone up around the courthouse. Officer Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd last May. We are in a season of difficult conversations about race reminiscent of the 1960s, but the dominant cultural worldview has changed. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. along with other civil rights leaders knew their worth came from God not man. Rev. King walked peacefully in places where he was a target of hate, and survived with dignity because he knew his worth came from the God who created him. Critical race theory starts from the assumption that everyone belongs to a racial category, and your identity is your race. Judgment is based on the color of your skin and not the content of your character.

________

In the news, Wednesday, March 3, 2021

________

MAR 02      INDEX      MAR 04

________

________

from ABC News (& affiliates)

TV Network in New York, New York

Stockton's guaranteed income initiative resulted in full-time jobs and less depression

ABC10-KXTV Sacramento: People who were involved in Stockton's guaranteed income initiative transitioned to full-time jobs and better health, the report says. In February 2019, former Stockton Mayor Michael D. Tubbs launched the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), the country's first city-led guaranteed universal basic income experiment. It sent $500 a month for 24 months to 125 recipients with no strings attached. The program was funded from $3 million in private donations. To qualify, people had to have lived in a neighborhood of Stockton in which the median income was at or below $46,033.

________

from The Federalist

RIGHT BIAS, HIGH, online magazine

The Cancellation Of Dr. Seuss Should Disturb You, Because You’re Next

America is entering its very own Mao-like Cultural Revolution. The iconoclasm of the left’s culture war isn’t a side effect, it’s the point.

Dr. Seuss has been cancelled. Some of his work has been deemed racist, and we can’t have that. On Tuesday, the entity that oversees the estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel announced it would no longer publish six of Geisel’s books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

Among the works now deemed unfit for children are Geisel’s first book under the pen name Dr. Seuss, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” published in 1937, and the much-beloved, “If I Ran the Zoo,” published in 1950. The former depicts a “Chinaman” character and the latter shows two men from “the African island of Yerka” in native garb.

________

from Huffington Post

LEFT BIAS, MIXED, news and commentary site headquartered in New York City

Self-Proclaimed Billionaire Trump Now Begging Small-Dollar Donors For Money

The lies Trump told at CPAC about the election and his record were not new, but his request for supporters to give money to his new political committee was a first.

After years of claiming he was so rich he didn’t need anyone else’s money for his political campaigns, Donald Trump is officially asking small-dollar donors ― many of them lower income and older ― to send him cash, potentially hurting the Republican Party’s small-dollar program. The request was tucked in near the end of his first public appearance since leaving the presidency Jan. 20, a 90-minute speech Sunday that largely recycled his oft-repeated lies about the November election and his record in office. “There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts, to elect ‘America first’ Republican conservatives. And in turn, to make America great again. And that’s through Save America PAC and Donald J Trump dot com,” he told his Conservative Political Action Conference audience.

________

from NBC News (& affiliates)

LEFT-CENTER BIAS

Biden, Senate Democrats agree to limit eligibility for $1,400 checks

Senate Democrats plan to give $1,400 checks to fewer people under a deal struck with President Joe Biden, according to two sources familiar with it. Every American who filed individually and makes up to $75,000 will still get the full amount before it begins to reduce at incomes above that. But rather than zeroing out at $100,000 earnings, as the last Covid-19 relief bill does, the Senate bill will cut off payments at $80,000, the sources said.

The reckoning with Dr. Seuss' racist imagery has been years in the making

Critics are condemning a decision to stop publishing six Dr. Seuss books, as experts say a reckoning with his racist works is long overdue.

The business that preserves Dr. Seuss’ legacy announced Tuesday that six of the celebrated author’s books for children will stop being published because of racist imagery. The move has both sparked backlash from conservatives who call it another example of “cancel culture” and reignited debate over promoting classic but problematic books. The announcement came on Read Across America Day, an initiative to promote childhood reading, which falls on the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, known as Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss Enterprises admitted that the books — published in the 1930s to the late 1970s — “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” The decision may have prompted a renewed focus on the classic works, but conversations about racism and prejudice in the author’s books are hardly new.

________

from The New American Magazine

RIGHT BIAS: John Birch Society

A Voice From the Grave on Our Real Existential Threat

“Existential” has become a very popular word today, even among those who aren’t adherents of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. For example, people who want attention focused on some pet issue will often call it an “existential threat.” We’ve heard that climate change is an existential threat (not likely), that ISIS is an existential threat (not really), that “structural racism” is an existential threat (not exactly), and that China is an existential threat (you bet). But a true existential threat, and the greatest one we face, is rarely understood well or discussed. But a voice from beyond the grave warned of it Monday — issuing words to the wise. Yuri Bezmenov was a KGB asset from the Soviet Union who defected to Canada in 1970. From that point forward, he increasingly sounded the alarm about what he called “ideological subversion” in America. And it appears that now, 28 years after his death, more people may finally be heeding his warnings. This is both encouraging and alarming. Encouraging because it means more citizens are becoming aware of our truest existential threat; alarming because it means that this threat to our existence is beginning to materialize fully. Bezmenov was featured Monday by Newsmax’s Grant Stinchfield in a video titled “Americans Are Being Trained to Accept Socialism.” The host warned that this was the result of a “devious subversion” process that is “nearly complete.”

________

from NPR (& affiliates)

Nonprofit Broadcasting & Media Production Company

House Approves Police Reform Bill Named After George Floyd

House lawmakers on Wednesday passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a reform bill that would ban chokeholds and alter so-called qualified immunity for law enforcement, which would make it easier to pursue claims of police misconduct. The 220-212 vote, mostly along party lines, came nine months after Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed by Minneapolis police officers last spring. The wide-ranging legislation would also ban no-knock warrants in certain cases, mandate data collection on police encounters, prohibit racial and religious profiling and redirect funding to community-based policing programs.

________

from The Salt Lake Tribune

Utah prosecutors, public defenders denounce ‘bad faith repeal’ of bail reform

One opponent of bail reform repeal says it poses ‘an existential threat of going backwards’

As the clock ticks down the final hours of the Utah legislative session, a group of state prosecutors and public defenders came together Monday to call on lawmakers not to repeal a broadly supported bail reform package enacted last year. Proponents of the reforms — which aim to keep relatively low-risk defendants from sitting behind bars for weeks or months awaiting trial because they’re poor, while rich people can simply post bail and walk free — say the system now in place under HB206 is significantly better than the old one, which was based on cash bail. “A system that is based on cash bail impacts the poor, communities of color and the marginalized, disproportionately causing people to lose their jobs, lose their shelter, their homes [and] their apartments,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said at a news conference on Monday. “And [it] impacts in a disproportionate way the economic and the emotional well-being of their families.”

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

New website imagines the Snake River without dams

An advocacy group angling for a free-flowing Snake River has released a detailed multimedia website envisioning what the removal of four dams could mean for the region. “We’re hoping that interactive map is a tool to show people what was there,” said Sam Mace, the Inland Northwest Director of Save Our Wild Salmon.

________

In the news, Tuesday, March 2, 2021

________

MAR 01      INDEX      MAR 03

________

________

from The Rutherford Institute

Nonprofit Organization in Charlottesville, Virginia

Home Invasions: All the Ways the Government Can Lay Siege to Your Property

Americans are not safe in their homes. Not anymore, at least. This present menace comes from the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized mercenaries who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes. The weapons of this particular war on our personal security and our freedoms include an abundance of laws that criminalize almost everything we do, a government that views our private property as its own, militarized police who have been brainwashed into believing that they operate above the law, courts that insulate police from charges of wrongdoing, legislatures that legitimize the government’s usurpations of our rights, and a populace that is so ignorant of their rights and distracted by partisan politics as to be utterly incapable of standing up to the government’s overreaches, incursions and power grabs.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

from Yahoo Finance (Yahoo Money)

LEFT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, news website owned by Verizon Media

A better way to raise the minimum wage

Democrats are having a big fight among themselves about how to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 per hour since 2009. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and some other liberals want it raised to $15 per hour, but conservative Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) say that’s too high for rural areas and smaller cities. They might raise it to $11, which the Sanders camp considers dismissively low. Why not have it both ways? A 2019 Democratic proposal would establish five minimum-wage tiers for different areas of the country, based on regional living costs. Within five years, the minimum wage in the costliest cities would rise to around $15, which is Sanders’ goal. In medium-cost areas, it would rise to about $13, while in the lowest-cost places the minimum would hit $11.50.

________

from Vox

LEFT BIAS, HIGH, Media/News Company based in Washington, D.C. 

Why Fox News is having a day-long meltdown over Dr. Seuss

Biden didn’t mention Dr. Seuss in his Read Across America Day statement. All hell broke loose from there.

Conservative media turned 2021’s National Read Across America Day into an epic culture war meltdown. On Tuesday morning and into the afternoon, programming on Fox News and Fox Business ceaselessly harped upon the purported “cancellation” of legendary children’s author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, as the latest example of woke liberalism run amok — conveniently ignoring the fact that Dr. Seuss has not, in fact, been canceled.

________

In the news, Monday, March 1, 2021

________

FEB 28      INDEX      MAR 02

________

________

from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

My Ancestors Were Slaves. Here’s What I Think of Reparations.

The issue of reparations to black Americans as payment for damage done as a result of years of legal slavery and subsequent discrimination is back on the table. The House Judiciary Committee just held hearings on H.R. 40, which would establish a commission to look into ways in which African Americans could be compensated, including possible payments of trillions of dollars to individuals. ... If the ideal we seek is a free country with free citizens, then commissions such as that proposed in H.R. 40, which pretend to be about justice but are really about a left-wing agenda to put government in charge of our lives, are not the way to go.

________

from Scientific American

NASA Needs to Rename the James Webb Space Telescope

The successor to the Hubble honors a man who took part in the effort to purge LGBT people from the federal workforce

Because of its ability to see more deeply into spacetime than any instrument before it, the Hubble Space Telescope has completely transformed the way we see the universe and ourselves. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), often dubbed “the next Hubble,” promises to do the same. Slated to launch later this year, JWST will peer more deeply into the universe than any optical or infrared telescope before it, promising to show us a vision of galaxies in their infancy and probe potentially habitable worlds. Such data not only provide insight into the universe but also help us humans situate our concerns in context. It is therefore unfortunate that NASA’s current plan is to launch this incredible instrument into space carrying the name of a man whose legacy is at best complicated and, at worst, complicit.

________

from SFGate

This 'treasure' rewrote California history. It was an elaborate hoax.

The story of 'Drake's plate', the biggest hoax in Calif. history

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

As Democrats eye sweeping immigration reform, Newhouse says it could hurt bipartisan efforts more likely to help immigrants

The last time Congress passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill, Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Thirty-five years and several failed attempts later, President Joe Biden and his congressional allies are pushing a dramatic overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. But some reform advocates worry the sweeping proposal has virtually no chance of passing and could imperil other bills that already have bipartisan support and could deliver relief they say millions of immigrants urgently need.

University of Idaho glaciologists studying fast-moving glacier with hopes of improving sea-level rise predictions

A team of University of Idaho scientists is studying a fast-moving glacier in Alaska in hopes of developing better predictions on how quickly global sea levels will rise. “What sets the speed limit for how fast the glacier will go?” asked Tim Bartholomaus a University of Idaho glaciologist. “That’s why we’re going to Turner. We’re trying to figure out the glacier speed limit.” Bartholomaus, a professor in the Department of Geography and Geological Sciences, spent several weeks on Turner Glacier in Alaska’s southeastern tip near Disenchantment Bay. The glacier is unique because, unlike other glaciers, it surges every five to eight years.

________

from Technocracy News

Hohmann: Calls For Second Nuremberg Tribunal To Try Crimes Against Humanity

Should the technocrats who pushed governments to lockdown their citizens be tried for crimes against humanity? One prominent German lawyer, who is also licensed to practice law in America, thinks they should. And he is organizing a team of thousands of participating lawyers who want to prosecute a “second Nuremberg tribunal” against a cadre of international elites responsible for what he calls the “corona fraud scandal.” Targeting the Davos, Switzerland-based World Economic Forum and its devotees among global political leaders, attorney Reiner Fuellmich says they are guilty of crimes against humanity for their perpetration of COVID-response policies that led to forced shutdowns, destroyed businesses, impoverished families, broken lives and a spike in suicide rates.

________