May We Never Stop
Being in Awe of Simone Biles
Posted By: StormCnter, 10/13/2019 5:38:32 AM
Normally, Simone Biles ends her floor exercise routine with her right hand on her chest, her left up in the air, as her music comes to a close. But during Thursday’s all-around competition, she changed it up. Instead of her normal pose, she dropped the mic to finish off her set. She didn’t need to wait for the score. Biles—and everyone else—knew that she had just locked in her fifth world all-around title, breaking records as she did it. Biles, who grew up in Spring, had won the title by just over two points, the highest margin of victory under the post-10 scoring system.
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The northern snakehead is a long, blotchy-patterned fish that can breathe on land and travel on the ground by wriggling its slippery body. But those might not be the species’ most nightmarish qualities. Snakeheads have a voracious appetit; they've been known to chow down not only on other fish, but also crustaceans, reptiles, mammals and small birds. They are invasive to the United States, threatening to displace native species and upset the balance of aquatic ecosystems. The fish have been reported in more than a dozen states across the nation and, as Christine Hauser reports for the New York Times, they have now been found
Given his low and static polling, it’s hard to tell what, exactly, Beto O’Rourke hopes to accomplish by staying in the presidential race. But while his actual goal seems a bit elusive, he is increasingly playing a very specific role: the human straw man, the embodiment of every seemingly irrational conservative fear about what the left really wants.
Consider O’Rourke’s appearance at Thursday’s CNN town hall on LGBTQ issues, at which he told moderator Don Lemon that churches and other nonprofits should lose their tax exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage, a position tantamount to declaring war on Catholic parishes and evangelical congregations across the country, not to mention
Normally, Simone Biles ends her floor exercise routine with her right hand on her chest, her left up in the air, as her music comes to a close. But during Thursday’s all-around competition, she changed it up. Instead of her normal pose, she dropped the mic to finish off her set.
She didn’t need to wait for the score. Biles—and everyone else—knew that she had just locked in her fifth world all-around title, breaking records as she did it. Biles, who grew up in Spring, had won the title by just over two points, the highest margin of victory under the post-10 scoring system.
Donald Trump has consistently supported Britain’s departure from the European Union. ‘Countries want their own identity,” the president has said, ‘and the UK wanted its own identity.’ Indeed, Trump has been such a forceful advocate of the Leave position that he has announced that he should be called ‘MR BREXIT’. (Snip)In the first major test of his loyalty to Britain, though, the president is failing, and his failure has unpleasant implications for supporters of Brexit. This August, 19-year-old Harry Dunn was driving on motorbike in the English county of Northamptonshire when he was struck by a car that was supposedly driving on the wrong side of the road.
The Washington Free Beacon recently learned that senior editor Bill Gertz entered into a previously undisclosed financial transaction with an individual or an affiliate of that individual whom Mr. Gertz had covered in some of his reporting.
Upon learning about this transaction, the Washington Free Beacon promptly asked Mr. Gertz for his resignation and that resignation was received and accepted. The Washington Free Beacon has appended this disclaimer to all of Mr. Gertz’s affected news stories.
There is no easier way to make the left mad than being a gay Republican. This time, it’s the Stonewall Democratic Club that’s up in arms.
Stonewall is a group of LGBT Democrats who purport to champion “equality for all.” You wouldn’t know this from their record.
Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) during his first term. These acts outlawed gay marriage and military service for openly LGBT soldiers, respectively. It took 20 years to undo that codified discrimination. But Stonewall endorsed Clinton for reelection in 1996 anyway.
It all started with a business deal gone bad. In 1963, Henry Ford II, "the Deuce," decided he wanted Ford Motor Company to go racing. The only problem: Ford didn't have a sports car in its portfolio.
The quickest way to acquire a sports car, the Deuce thought, was to buy Ferrari, then a race car company that only sold street-legal machines to fund its track exploits.
Ford sent an envoy to Modena, Italy, to hash out a deal with Enzo Ferrari. The Americans offered $10 million, but as the negotiations neared their conclusion, Ferrari balked at a clause in the contract that said Ford would control the budget
In advance of President Trump’s rally at Target Center in Minneapolis tonight, Esme Murphy invited MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to appear on her Sunday morning WCCO TV show and talk about his support of President Trump. Esme is a pillar of the liberal Minnesota media establishment. You can’t mistake where Murphy is coming from, but Lindell is able to make his case in this terrific segment.
Lindell prefaces the tale of his meeting 2016 meeting with Trump: “I didn’t know anything about politics. I was an ex-crack addict. I came out of a 25-year culture coma. I didn’t know a Republican from a Democrat, a liberal from a conservative.”
What If Yellowstone's
Supervolcano Erupted? 28 replies
Supervolcano Erupted? 28 replies
With its spouting geysers, majestic mountains, awe-inspiring waterfalls, and panoramic views, Yellowstone National Park has the undeniable power to uplift.
But it also has an unparalleled potential to destroy.
Concealed beneath the park rests the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano in North America. Each year, millions of visitors trek over a massive magma chamber that, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), stretches from 5 km to 17 km beneath the surface and is about 90 km long and about 40 km wide. A little deeper rests another chamber that's 4.5 times larger.
The Yellowstone supervolcano has unleashed three cataclysmic eruptions in the past 2.1 million years;
The first cold front of the year has arrived, bringing this brutally long summer to a merciful (if still largely symbolic) end. As you’d expect from any minor shift away from the Texas heat, this upending of the natural order comes accompanied by biblical plague: Hordes of crickets have once more descended on parts of the state like so many Californians, eliciting nearly as much panic across Reddit threads and social media feeds.
Crickets blanket the walls of our homes, our institutions of higher learning, our Targets. They loiter outside malls and gas stations like particularly obnoxious teenagers.
Chuck Todd received plaudits from his media peers for lambasting Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s investigation of the FBI as “Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff” during a hostile 10-minute “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday.
The Washington Post offered up a story headlined “‘Who leaked?’ An analysis of GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s conspiracy-minded defense of Trump.’” The Daily Beast declared, “GOP Sen. Ron Johnson Loses It on ‘Meet the Press.’” Business Insider went with “GOP Senator Ron Johnson had a 'Fox News conspiracy' meltdown.” Columbia Journalism Review covered the story under the banner “The Sunday shows turn on Trump’s enablers.”
Trio Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine
for Figuring Out 'One of Life's
Most Essential Adaptive Processes' 3 replies
for Figuring Out 'One of Life's
Most Essential Adaptive Processes' 3 replies
This year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded jointly to three scientists who figured out how cells sense and adapt to changes in levels of oxygen, the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karlinska Institute announced this morning (Oct. 7).
The three Nobel Laureates, William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza, identified the molecular machinery that turns the activity of genes up or down in response to varying levels of oxygen.
"The seminal discoveries by this year's Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life's most essential adaptive processes," according to the Nobel Prize organization.
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Joe Biden has called for a constitutional amendment to publicly finance elections as he unveils an ethics plan pointed at President Donald Trump. These proposals are to 'ensure that no future president can ever abuse the office for personal gain,' the Biden campaign told NBC News ahead of its formal announcement of reforms on Monday. The ban on private dollars, reminiscent of Biden's first days as a Senator nearly 50 years ago, comes as he has been lambasted by Democrat rivals for his leaning on lucrative fundraising events. The amendment would overturn Citizens United and mean public financing for all campaigns and Biden also proposes to provide
Hunter Biden will break his silence and appear on ABC's 'Good Morning America' Tuesday in an interview where 'no questions were off limits,' the network announced Monday morning. Biden, the youngest son of former Vice President Joe Biden, spoke with ABC's Amy Robach over the weekend at his home in Los Angeles, according to ABC. No details from the interview have been released but it is expected to cover a number of topics, including Hunter's work in the Ukraine and China that has become a controversy in the presidential campaign. It's Hunter Biden's first time speaking in public
Two years ago, Target said it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour by the end of 2020. The move won praise from labor advocates and put pressure on other companies to also move to $15. (Snip) "I got that dollar raise but I'm getting $200 less in my paycheck," said one, Heather, who started in November at a Florida store working around 40 hours a week. She's now below 20 some weeks, she said. "I have no idea how I'm going to pay rent or buy food." Hours for workers in retail are notoriously unpredictable and often
It was Russia. Ask Senate Republicans.
26 replies
A new report by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee reaffirms what the White House refuses to accept: Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help then-candidate Donald Trump and to hurt his presidential rivals. The findings are alarming for the breadth of Russia’s operation, the Kremlin’s direct involvement and the ongoing threat posed by foreign meddling to American democracy. But perhaps more than anything, the report amounts to a bipartisan rebuke of the White House’s own disinformation campaign to shift the blame away from Russia. The committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., released a second report this week that furthered the findings of America’s intelligence community
Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble faces pressure from environmentalists to clean up its act.
More than 150 groups are pushing the maker of Charmin toiler paper and Bounty paper towels to use recycled materials in its products. Currently, neither of those products uses recycled paper, and about one-third of it is sourced from Canada's boreal forest — a large swath of virgin forest that rings the Arctic Circle and acts as a critical check on climate change.
"It's just unacceptable that a company like P&G is making toilet paper, a product that is used for seconds and flushed, from virgin pulp,"
University researchers from institutions around the globe are working together to design “ethical” sex robots that have to consent before engaging in intercourse. They envision “consent modules” added to sex robots that humans would engage with before sexual relations.
Anco Peeters of Australia’s University of Wollongong and Pim Haselager, an associate professor at The Netherlands’ Radboud University, published a research article recently that made the case for “ethical” sex robots.
In the article, which was highlighted this week by The College Fix, Haselager and Peeters propose that sex robots should have to consent prior to intercourse with their owners.
A new report about the relationship between President Donald Trump and Fox News alleges that hosts Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum criticized and mocked Trump during a closed-door meeting last month.
Fox News hosts Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and Martha MacCallum attended an event in Manhattan to assure advertisers that “Trump doesn’t own” them, according to a piece published Sunday in the New York Times.
The Times report continues:
“‘Contrary to the opinion of some people, he’s not our boss,’ Ms. MacCallum said, marveling at Mr. Trump’s criticism of Fox News for airing interviews with Democratic presidential candidates.
News broke yesterday morning that Hunter Biden has officially stepped down from the board of directors of a Chinese-backed private equity company. Additionally, he made a public promise that if his father, Joe Biden, wins the presidency, he will "forego all foreign work."
Quite a lot to unpack here. Firstly, he's missing the point entirely. While President Trump's Ukraine phone call shined a bright light on Joe and Hunter Biden's corruption, the outrage was never about him working for a foreign company. It was about how he got those positions in the first place — with his father's power and status in the U.S. government.
The Syrian Kurds Are
Not America’s Problem 23 replies
Not America’s Problem 23 replies
All of Washington has been atwitter with the president’s recent decision to draw down American forces from their ongoing mission in Syria. The reason is the purported American abandonment — betrayal, in the eyes of many — of the Syrian Kurds. But the situation is more complicated than that. There has been much conflation of both the American mission in Syria and the disposition of America’s erstwhile Kurdish friends.
The fact is, despite being the world’s largest stateless ethnic population, sharing a contiguous landmass that cuts across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran — roughly a 500,000-square-kilometer area — the Kurds are by no means a monolithic entity.
Billionaires may have much more to fear from a Bernie Sanders presidency than they do from an Elizabeth Warren administration, according to two economists advising both candidates. That’s one of the conclusions of a new interactive website developed by University of California, Berkeley professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. If Sanders had his way, they calculate that the 400 richest Americans, on average, would have an effective tax rate of 97.5%. That includes not only their income, but also a wealth tax that whittles away at the family fortune. The 97.5% average effective tax rate under his plans compares with
Fat People Are Killing Us
22 replies
Last Friday was World Obesity Day, and I celebrated by continuing to stay in shape.
Every three years, excess body fat kills twice as many people than the Holocaust supposedly did in six years, so why aren’t donuts illegal?
Researchers estimate that in 2015, high body weight contributed to four million deaths globally.
That’s more than ten times as many people who were murdered worldwide in 2015.(Snip)Two out of every five adult Americans are not only overweight, they’re obese. That’s a massive army of nearly 100 million human hogs who are lowering life expectancy and driving healthcare costs through the roof.
Stop scapegoating Christopher Columbus
22 replies
Why are we so eager to search out scapegoats for the injustices of history? Whatever the reason, Christopher Columbus is now the fall guy for the sins of slavery, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, the rape of natural resources and most of the legal, financial and territorial abuses that followed the first European steps in the New World. His accusers want to eliminate Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day.
Columbus is a 15th-century man in a 21st-century court, and the jury is stacked with self-righteous, injured parties who have 20-20 hindsight. Vilifying him won’t change the unfairness of history, but it will delegitimize