Kind of a mixed bag on articles this week. Quite a few articles on what I would call general interest, kind of interesting stories. An abused elephant tears his owner into two pieces. An article about a pod of penguins(?) save a swimmer from a shark? It is worth a read just to find out the author meant dolphins (which is in the text). Sad Good Byes Judith Durham obituary | Pop and rock | The Guardian, Garth Cartwright, As you age, you begin to...
Read More »Night time temperatures impacting rice yields
Doherty Labs out of North Carolina State University offers some insights: Research that addresses rice yield losses is important because rice is an essential crop for feeding hundreds of millions of people each year – and because a changing climate poses challenges for global food security. “Warmer nights throw the rice plant’s internal clock out of whack,” says Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina State...
Read More »“Letter to an American,” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This is a 100% copy and paste as taken from Steve Schmidt’s Substack “The Warning. “Friday reflections: ‘Letter to an American'” (substack.com) I thought you might enjoy a good read. Certain versions I have access to which I am allowed to share. ~~~~~~~~ I read this letter for the first time in the museum behind Utah Beach. Sometimes it helps to see the present by looking back. Americans should have extraordinary gratitude for the...
Read More »GAO: Government Losses on Federal Student Loan Programs?
As you “should” know by now, Alan Collinge is an activist and has organized the Student Loan Justice Org a number of years ago. The Organization attempts to represent those student loan borrowers who have no recourse for forgiveness or bankruptcy as every other person in the nation has when taking out a loan? Alan and his thousands of followers having gathered well over 1 million signatures on a petition seeking relief from these loans. The...
Read More »The Semiconductor Bill and Moderna Billionaires
A lot has been said about building semiconductor manufacturing plants in the US. One plant grows the silicon wafers and the other plant fabricates (fabs) the semiconductors. The manufacture of semiconductors is not labor intensive. Growing wafers is boring business as one engineer told me a decade back. The US did manufacture much of its need domestically at one time (see graph at the left). However, U.S. policymakers held tight to the belief...
Read More »Immigration, Population, Replacement, Politics and the Economy
Just some ramblings of mine after looking at numbers . . . . Immigration, Population Replacement, Politics, and the Economy are what comes together to ensure national growth. I am going to talk each in no particular order to answer my own questions that come up from time to time. Voting patterns continue to change. I started to track three states only because of 2016. I was nosey to see if they were radical in changes. They are not and the...
Read More »What Was in My In-Box
Both Dan and I put this assortment of articles from various sites showing up in our In-Box. Rearranged the articles according to subject. Hopefully, you find something of interest. Democracy “How to confront the growing threat to American democracy,” Tom Nichols – Niskanen Center, In September 1787, an onlooker is said to have asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government he and the other delegates to the Constitutional Convention in...
Read More »Blue dystopia
I read this over at Hullabaloo, “Blue dystopia” by Digby “The fantasy liberal hellholes red America loves to hate” “The Dystopian Myths of Red America,” New York Times, Paul Krugman Desensitization is an amazing thing. At this point most political observers simply accept it as a fact of life that an overwhelming majority of Republicans accept the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen — a claim with nothing to support it, not even plausible...
Read More »Veterans Returning to Homelessness
“Veterans Returning to Homelessness” – Public Health Post, Ann Elizabeth Montgomery | Dorota Szymkowiak | Jack Tsai | Thomas O’Toole Homelessness still occurring is depressing for me as a Vietnam era veteran. It is also not just veterans. I had my own issues taking a couple of years to resolve and I am still not one to be crossed. After fifty years, one might believe it should be gone by now. But then, I had enlisted in another service to a wife...
Read More »Older People now Outnumber Younger People With Student Loan Debt*
That coming from Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice Org. I have been writing about him, his supporters and followers, his Org. Student Loan Justice, and the government’s response to student loans for a decade now. This is news, facts, etc. about 45 million people in 2022 and not some anecdote. The post title comes from Alan Collinge’s* article in an email to me after I sent him this article, surprisingly originating in the New Yorker....
Read More »