Finally, Some Social Justice for Green Activists

From ArtNews: A Vatican court convicted two environmental activists of aggravated damage for gluing their hands to an ancient statue in a Vatican museum during a climate change protest last August. They were ordered to pay more than $30,000 in restitution.

Read the whole story here.

Five Musicians John Lennon Hated 

Click here for a short essay from Far Out Magazine about five of John Lennon’s musical peers that he lambasted at one time or another. It’s a short piece, worth five minutes of your time if you’re interested in John Lennon.

I’m dubious about the practicality of the death penalty, but… 

… I’d make an exception for this guy. Click here.

Is it Just Me, or Is the Cold War Getting Warmer? 

Am I the only one that fears the US is getting closer to a nuclear war with Russia? Or could it be that everyone else in America believes that a nuclear war is one that we can survive? Or even win?

In some circles, it feels like Americans are looking forward to more hostility. Meanwhile, it seems like every week there is some disturbing new event or announcement that moves us closer to direct conflict.

For example, just last week I read that US intelligence believes that Iran is sending Russia materials to build a drone manufacturing facility east of Moscow, which could be fully operational by next year. They believe the facility will likely be used to build drones for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Also: Vladimir Putin announced on television last week that Russia will be deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus in July. Belarus, a close ally of Russia, neighbors Ukraine to the north. (They  share a 700-mile border.) Russian forces have used Belarus as a staging ground since the beginning of the war.

A 400-Year Prison Sentence for What? 

This exoneration story is outrageous in at least three important ways:

1. Other than a dubious witness identification (notoriously unreliable), there was no evidence connecting this man to the robbery he was accused of committing, and good evidence that he was not even at the scene of the crime.
2. Even if he was the getaway driver for a robbery, how could he have received a 400-year prison sentence for that?
3. In this case, it wasn’t the Innocence Project (which I’ve written about many times) that proved the innocence of the accused, but a conviction review office of the state attorney’s office. That, in my experience of reading about false convictions, is very, very rare.

Read the story here.

More ABCs on EVs 

There’s a big investment play on this verboten fact. Click here.

Are “Karens” a thing of the past? 

Judge for yourself. Click here.

Beat This!

I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in February 2010. (I’ve written about that ordeal several times.) After a four-day slog, our little group was finally at 19,000 feet, just a few hours away from reaching the apex, and feeling pretty good about our accomplishment, when we were passed by a man with crutches and prosthetic legs…

That was Kilimanjaro. The following story is about another man that did the same thing – but on Mount Everest, which is, at 29,000 feet, 9,000 feet higher than Kilimanjaro!

Click here.

Don’t Judge Them! And Don’t Call Them Pedophiles!

Have you heard about the new class of oppressed and marginalized people? Unrecognized (until now) victims of societal prejudice?

They call themselves MAPs. An acronym for “Minor-Attracted Persons.”

Yes, we used to call such people pedophiles. But that is pedophiliaphobic. And pedophiliaphobia is, like transphobia, an evil outcome of White privilege and the male hierarchy.

Think I’m kidding?

In less than a half-hour, I found more than 20 stories of people – academics and psychologists, mostly – making the argument that, as one said, “They are one of the most misunderstood and vilified groups of people in America today.”

Here’s a study on the “myths” lay people have about pedophilia.

Here’s one from the National Library of Medicine.

Here, a prison psychiatrist tries to persuade inmates to be more sympathetic to pedophiles.

And, finally, there’s this from my favorite commonsense commentators on YouTube.

Don’t Store Your Moolah in Venmo! 

Obed, my computer guy, sent me this link that explains that any money stored with Venmo, PayPal, and CashApp does not necessarily have FDIC protection against bank failure.

Check it out here.

Justice in Trudeau’s Canada Is Simple – It’s Either Black or White 

The US justice system has a concept called “extenuating circumstances.”

Extenuating circumstances are mitigating facts or details that are important for fully understanding the circumstances that may have contributed to a criminal action. Thus, if the person that bumped into you and knocked you down turns out to be blind, it might change your (or a jury’s) opinion about the severity of their action.

Under Trudeau’s administration, Canada has taken this idea a big step farther. A new law requires that, in criminal cases, judges must consider the extenuating circumstances that “institutional racism” may have had on convicted criminals of color.

Here’s how it works: When White people and “people of color” commit the same crime – the exact same crime – and all the circumstances are the same, the judge is required to consider giving the person of color a more lenient sentence (more lenient than he would give the White person) because… well, because he or she is a “person of color.”

You can read about it here.

By the way, in researching this story, I didn’t think to find out what “person of color means” in terms of the new law. I’m guessing it would apply to Native Americans and perhaps to Hispanic people, but somehow not to Asians. Actually, maybe it does include Asians. They commit so few crimes, it almost doesn’t count.

In any case, I’ll track it down and get back to you.

The Earliest Christians Lived Where? 

Two of the chief complaints coming from Woke universities across the globe are about the cruelty of colonialism and the arrogant tendency of colonialists – i.e., all White people – to “appropriate” the cultures of the populations they colonize.

This is why, it is said, White people shouldn’t be allowed to wear dreadlocks. Or why, when Number Three Son got married several years ago, two of his cousins objected to the “tequila donkey” we rented because it was wearing a sombrero.

In the clip below, you can see a group of college students arguing that Christianity itself was a blight on indigenous cultures because it was carried (in Bible form) from the all-White colonial powers and forced on the colonized people of power.

While there’s no doubt that Christian missionaries are, and have always been, all over the third world proselytizing and brandishing Bibles, White colonialists did not introduce Christianity to Africa. The Bible was a holy book in Africa before the continent was colonized, as this African student points out.

Click here.

More on Statins 

I continue to research the effectiveness of statin drugs in reducing my chances of having another stroke. As I’ve mentioned previously, I haven’t found any data that supports the idea that taking statins will extend my life. And my cardiologist confirmed that this true. But he also said that statins would reduce the likelihood that I will spend my final time on earth paralyzed from a stroke.

I’m looking into it now. As part of this effort, I came across the following video by Dr. “Boz” (Annette Bosworth), an internal medicine specialist, that goes deeply into the relationship between arterial and cardiac disease and cholesterol. A lot of what she says was new information for me. I had to listen to it twice before it started to make sense. But it was worth the effort. Spend a half-hour with this video and you’ll know more about cholesterol than almost anyone you know. Possibly including your doctor!

Click here.

The Digital Dollar Is Getting Nearer

The federal government’s plans to replace the paper dollar with a digital one continues apace. Recently, Biden and his appointees have been talking up the CBDC (central bank digital currency).

As I predicted, they are touting it as something that will reduce crime, reduce tax cheating, and make business transactions safer and easier. But some states, like Florida, are pushing back. Click here for Ron DeSantis, in Taki’s Magazine, talking about Florida’s new legislation to preserve the paper dollar.

Bad Science 

Don’t spend too much time reading this. I’m recommending it as an example of how easy it is for scientists, presumably well-intentioned scientists, to screw up “scientific” studies.

We have to be very careful about taking any scientific “fact” derived from a single test or study as gospel. In fact, we would be wiser to assume the conclusion is invalid until we’ve looked at a half-dozen related studies with differing conclusions.

Click here.

Don’t You Touch My Cell Phone! 

I don’t know if this is an official “thing” yet, but reports are surfacing about young people getting very upset when they are told to desist from using their iPhones. Some have suggested it’s a post-lockdown effect of spending two years with phones 24/7. Others are arguing that it’s bad parenting.

Here’s one example.

“I Want You to Call Me Loretta!” 

Fifty years ago, I saw this Monty Python skit and thought it was hysterical and absurd.

It’s still very funny, but not quite so absurd. Click here.

When I think about racism in the US… 

I don’t think about incarceration data, SAT results, or other “systemic” issues…

I think about this.

And this.

A Modern-Day Witch Trial 

There are many good people working in and around the challenge of autism. But somehow, somewhere along the way, an industry for treating it arose. And the people that came to control the industry, the people with money and the people with connections, came to definitive views about what causes autism. Like anything related to COVID and vaccines, in the past decade, it has become verboten to postulate certain theories. Click here for a chilling account of how that came about.

Our Government at Work 

Josh Hawley questioning Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm… doing what senators are supposed to do. Click here.

The Most Unbelievable Crime Stat Ever! 

What happens when your local DA reduces shoplifting to a misdemeanor…

Click here.

Why You Can’t Trust Science Anymore

If you know how to search Google reasonably well, you can find studies to support just about any idea you favor. And some of those studies will be convincing. The problem is: Convincing does not = valid or true. So much has to do with how you connect the facts to the anecdotes and the correlations.

I learned this in college when I was able to pay for my tuition by writing essays for other students on any subject for $100 apiece ($200 “If you want a guaranteed B+). I was able to do that because I knew how to use the library.

This is also true for professional and scientific research, as is clear from the diversity of conclusions that come from “scientific” studies about any controversial subject, including everything that involves health and well-being. Peter Attia gives a good example of how that works here.

Show Me the Money! 

In America today, we are beset by millions of virtue vampires that don’t spend five minutes honestly considering whether their causes makes any sense at all. The objective is to be seen as a “good person” – even if all they give their causes is lip service.

Click here.

Like America 60 Years Ago… 

Many, if not most, Americans like to think that the US is the best country in the world. I get that. But if you look at the facts, verifiable facts, it’s obvious that the only activity the US leads the world in is mass shootings.

Take a look at this Barron’s article about San Juan del Sur, a little seaside city about an hour’s drive from Rancho Santana. If you are looking for a great place to raise a family, it’s not in New Jersey or California. It’s more likely to be in a small Central American town like San Juan del Sur. Kid safe and inexpensive – like it was in America 60 years ago.

By the way, San Juan del Sur is just one of many places you will want to explore during a visit to Rancho Santana. For information or to book a stay at the Ranch, click here.

China Is Winning This Battle, Too! 

As you might remember, I lived for two years in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. My assignment was teaching literature at the University of Chad. As a college teacher in the capital city, I had many opportunities to hang out at the US embassy. One of the things they sometimes talked about was the way China integrated itself in Chadian affairs. From what I could gather, Chinese diplomats promoted their political and economic agendas – i.e., communism – very gently and indirectly. They sponsored public health and safety projects and built roads.

Indoctrinating the locals in Marxism was not a priority for them. The battle for the hearts and minds of the Chadian people took place in the projects and programs financed and supervised by the US and Russia.

Twenty years later, when my partners and I began investing seriously in Nicaragua, I was able to observe, once again, how US, Russian, and Chinese economic and cultural diplomacy operated. By that time, China’s investment in Nicaragua had increased greatly. It was as large as, even larger than, the investments made by the US or Russia. The Chinese had programs all over Central and South America. And their style was still less political and more pragmatic. Everything I could see that they were doing was in projects that improved agricultural yields, improved basic infrastructure, and provided work for the poor. If there were quid pro quos involved, it was not apparent.

I am not naïve. I don’t think the Chinese are any more altruistic than we are. But I do think their approach to diplomacy is more centralized and their thinking is more long-term. And that has given them a distinct edge over the US and Russia. They are in it for the long view. They don’t need to see pro-China communism become an instant hit in Nicaragua. They are content to take a slower but surer path. And the results of that approach are already paying off in big and obvious ways.

The Chinese approach is basically the same as it was 40 years ago. But the US strategy has changed considerably. Whereas we used to promote the old-fashioned values of free markets and free speech, in the last five to ten years, we have switched our priorities to promoting inclusion and equity, and particularly as they pertain to racism, sexism, identity politics, and transphobia.

On this subject, AM sent me this video, saying, “Listen to what this African has to say about America vs. China.

In Ending Nuclear Energy, Are Germans Killing Ukrainians? 

Germany’s green movement has always been one of the strongest in the world. Their latest “triumph” is getting the country’s last two active nuclear power plants to fire its employees and shut down. In the link below, Joe Nocera of The Free Press explains why he believes that is a terrible idea. Click here.

France as It Was Supposed to Be in the Year 2000 

In 1899, a group of French artists portrayed their ideas of what the world would look like in the year 2000 on a series of 87 cards.

Check out the results. So many of their “predictions” came true! Click here.

Is AI the End of the World? Or the Dawn of a New One?

Freddie DeBoer believes this “either/or” question, posed by Bari Weiss in The Free Press, is hype, meant to sell you on the idea that AI is something to wholeheartedly embrace:

“The very notion that the world is going to mostly go on the way that it has, always the best bet you can make, has been written out of the conversation,” he wrote in his blog. “It’s unthinkable that we might all be forced to continue to stumble along in the same mundane world, caught up in the same hazy fog we’ve all been caught in for so long.”

I get what he’s saying, but I think he’s wrong. I’m sticking with my lord and savior Elon on this: We shouldn’t take AI lightly.

Freddie’s remarks were made in response to an interview with Sam Altman, the man behind ChatGPT. Click here to read the interview.

And speaking of ChatGPT… here’s a good tutorial on how to use it.

A Skirt, a Wig, and a Glock-19 

Jewish American families have the lowest rate of gun ownership of any religious group. But that’s starting to change. And it’s not just the dads that are strapping on the weapons. Click here.

Yes, Orthodox Jewish women are packing heat… and Black women are doing it, too. Click here.

Are Harvard Students Smarter Than 5th Graders? 

This bit is fun to watch – a takeoff on a gimmick invented by one of the late-night hosts many years ago. In this case, it is especially interesting because (1) the people attempting to answer the questions are Harvard students, (2) the prize is a thousand in cash, and (3) all but one of the winners was a person of color.

Note: It was pitched as questions that a 5th grader could answer. I thought the questions were harder than that. But they weren’t all that hard. (I was able to answer all but one: “Who was the first US president to reside in the White House?”)

Click here.