Author: nick

Massachusetts’s Gov. Maura Healey on August 10 signed a new law giving doctors the prerogative to perform late-term abortions based on their own medical judgment in the Bay State, where previously abortion had been limited to the 24th week of pregnancy barring medical exceptions explicit in the statute. The usual suspects (shirts) hailed this measure as a blow for freedom, health, human empowerment, The Cause of Women, and all that jazz. The usual suspects (skins) denounced it as an assault on the dignity of the person, an attack on society’s most vulnerable, and so on. It’s a little difficult to…

Photograph Source: Southdevonian – Public Domain The outlines of the career and tragic suicide of Jason Arday, a distinguished professor at the University of Cambridge, have been much publicized. These headline-grabbing accounts are not, of course, intended to delve into the deeper and more complex considerations underlying this tragedy. Such considerations may become apparent with the passage of time, awaiting the day when the current media hysteria surrounding Arday has dissipated, as it inevitably will. This media torrent converges on a simple theme. Arday, it is said, took alleged advantage of the “woke” provisions afforded by DEI (diversity, equity, and…

Allard Lowenstein at congressional race fundraiser, August 29, 1976 – Public Domain Few people would associate Allard Lowenstein with Roy Cohn. Lowenstein tried to influence politics while avoiding the problems of dirty hands. Cohn was the ultimate insider, one who gloried in all the underhanded tricks that soil politics, “the master of situational immorality,” and the man who taught Donald Trump how braggadocio and underhandedness were the secrets to success. And yet they both had something in common: they both attended the Horace Mann School in New York City, my alma mater. I have often thought of them as two…

Ro Khanna Gets a Wealth Tax Education Source link

How Data Centers Can Stanch the Political Bleeding Source link

Odysseus, the Navigator. Happy is he who, like Odysseus, made a beautiful journey, (…)And then returned, full of experience and wisdomTo live among his relatives for the rest of his life! – French Renaissance poet Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560) [1] The Odyssey is a Greek epic poem describing the decade-long peregrinations of one of the Greek heroes of the Trojan War, Odysseus, on his way back to his home on the island of Ithaca. Its twin opus is the Iliad, which focuses on the story of that war, a conflict involving the siege and eventual destruction by the Greeks of…

California's Wealth Tax Is Already Failing Source link

IARPA, the US spy tech agency, is working on how to diagnose various  neurological conditions by analyzing video clips of how people move.  Intelligence& Counterterrorism Last April, the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) announced the launch of its Movement Observation and Video-based Evaluation System (MOVES) program aimed at diagnosing neurological  health conditions from open source video clips. These neurological conditions include: Parkinson’s Disease Huntington’s Disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Cerebellar Ataxia Essential Tremor Dystonia Shakes, tics, tremors, gaits, jerks, imbalances, and difficulties in walking, talking, swallowing, and breathing are all to be analyzed and diagnosed from video clips that may not have great angles or resolution. And…

Lawmakers have indicated they’ll be looking into Trump’s actions since returning to office. Source link

Photograph by Loai Ridi I had already been following the siege of Qusra before Loai Ridi’s name entered the story. Two days ago I woke up to it again in my phone’s newsfeed — La Repubblica, one of several Italian outlets that have covered the village closely. Toledo, my hometown, was already on my mind. Lucas County — where Toledo is the largest city — after more than a year of pressure from the local Palestinian solidarity movement, had just recently decided not to renew its five-million-dollar Israeli bond, another victory for the BDS, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. I…