How Math Can Kill You
Posted By: Mercedes44, 3/29/2026 5:00:33 AM
Math ruins some really enchanting ideas. Things like fossil-free energy and open borders, combined with generous social welfare. This week, governments that ignored the basics are seeing serious consequences for fantastical thinking. By the same token, however, properly applied math can dispel doomster thinking. Pollster Mark Penn presents a “math camp” this week. It’s a refreshing response to offset the hysteria about the economic disruption of Iran’s “global terror network.” We use 20 million barrels of oil a day. So if oil prices increased during the war to $110 a barrel that is an extra $1 billion a day in costs.
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Mercedes44"
commentator in (mirabile dictu) The Washington Post made an excellent point about how the war in Iran is being understood. “We are living through the first alt-war,” the Tel Aviv University scholar Jen Brick Murtazashvili wrote. On the one hand, we have the war as it is fought online. On the other, we have the war as it is fought in reality, on the ground. The two “have diverged so completely,” Murtazashvili noted, “that they might as well be happening on different planets. It’s not that people lack information; it’s more that they are constructing an entirely different alternate reality—one that confirms what they already believe.”
How Math Can Kill You
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Math ruins some really enchanting ideas. Things like fossil-free energy and open borders, combined with generous social welfare. This week, governments that ignored the basics are seeing serious consequences for fantastical thinking. By the same token, however, properly applied math can dispel doomster thinking.
Pollster Mark Penn presents a “math camp” this week. It’s a refreshing response to offset the hysteria about the economic disruption of Iran’s “global terror network.”
We use 20 million barrels of oil a day. So if oil prices increased during the war to $110 a barrel that is an extra $1 billion a day in costs.
Seven years. That's how long Republicans in North Carolina waited for a federal court to do the right thing. On Thursday, they finally got their answer — and it came from the last place anyone expected. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs, an Obama appointee, upheld North Carolina's photo voter ID law in a sweeping 134-page ruling. She found that liberal voting rights groups, including the state NAACP, failed to prove the 2018 law violated the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, or the Voting Rights Act. The ruling keeps the law firmly in place heading into the 2026 midterms — and hands Republicans a significant win on election integrity.
The Trump administration is putting $250 million into a new Pax Silica fund aimed at critical minerals, energy infrastructure, and semiconductor supply chains.
The State Department said the funding will support extraction, processing, and manufacturing tied to secure chip supply chains while helping pull in larger pools of private and allied capital. It also said the fund is intended to “catalyze trusted capital” from sovereign wealth and institutional investors backing supply chain security. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said the U.S. would administer the consortium,
The Senate wanted to go home, so it passed a bill late at night that funded most of the Department of Homeland Security, but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol. The situation is complicated, but the Republicans 'won' this round, as Democrats wanted judicial warrants and masks for ICE agents, but they didn't get either. Still, House Republicans are upset about splitting the funding and annoyed that Senate Republicans procedurally put them in a difficult position. Members of the upper chamber also headed for the weekend, which doesn't look good.
The Department of Justice has confirmed that Iran-linked hackers breached the personal email account of FBI Director Kash Patel and leaked personal photos along with other documents online.
The hacking group known as the “Handala Hack Team” claimed responsibility, posting the materials to its website and Telegram channel.
“Soon you’ll realize the FBI’s security was nothing more than a joke,” the group wrote on Telegram, along with photos from Patel’s account. The group stated that Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.”
A DOJ official told Reuters that the materials posted online “appeared to be authentic.”
Consultant cardiologist Dr Dean Patterson has not been involved in patient care with the group since February 2025 and, after an investigation, the [Medical Specialist Group (MSG)] announced that Dr Patterson has been dismissed.
The MSG has not made the reason for this decision public but says: “Following the conclusion of our internal processes, we can confirm that as of March 19th 2026, Dr Dean Patterson is no longer a partner at the Medical Specialist Group.”
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said he wanted to open a debate about a possible link between increased cases of myocarditis – inflammation of the heart – following the vaccination rollout.
Powerful Missouri Republican who leads
House transportation committee joins wave
of retirements 3 replies
House transportation committee joins wave
of retirements 3 replies
Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced Friday that he won’t seek reelection, joining a wave of retirements ahead of the midterm elections.
Graves, 62, has represented a solidly GOP and rural northern part of Missouri since 2001. Just last month, he filed for reelection in what would have been a campaign for a 14th term. But he said in a social media post Friday that he’s “making room for the next generation.”
So far, 58 House members are stepping down or running for some other office, putting Congress on track for record turnover.
House Ethics panel finds Dem Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick
guilty of campaign finance violations 10 replies
guilty of campaign finance violations 10 replies
The House Ethics Committee on Friday found Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick guilty of campaign finance violations, following the panel's first public “trial” in nearly 16 years.
Cherfilus-McCormick illicitly funneled millions of dollars to her campaign and committed various campaign finance infractions, according to a House Ethics subcommittee, POLITICO reported. The panel could recommend that she be expelled from Congress.
The panel’s adjudicatory subcommittee deliberated well past midnight after an hours-long hearing. The subcommittee found “clear and convincing” evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick was guilty of all but two of the 27 counts that had been brought against her.
Trump says he will sign executive order
for Homeland Security to 'immediately'
pay TSA workers 7 replies
for Homeland Security to 'immediately'
pay TSA workers 7 replies
President Donald Trump said Thursday night that he will sign an executive order directing new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay Transportation Security Administration workers, following a partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14 and has since left them without paychecks.
The president did not indicate how Mullin would be able to pay the employees, who work within the Homeland Security Department, which has been shuttered as a result of a Congress stalemate on funding he agency.
U.S. House lawmakers Thursday discussed a proposed framework for reducing federal deficits and slowing the growth of the national debt.
The federal debt surpassed $39 trillion on March 17 and continues to climb. Over the past year, it has grown by an average of more than $7 billion per day or over $5 million per minute, and budget deficits are the primary driver of its staggering rise. Budget deficits occur when Congress authorizes spending that exceeds what the government brings in through taxes, fees and other revenue streams.
Earlier this week, a federal appeals court held that the Department of Homeland Security could detain an illegal alien without bond pending his removal proceedings after he was arrested in Minneapolis in 2025. In journeyman fashion, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted the applicable immigration laws as written and applied common sense to reach its decision.
That law, 8 U.S.C. § 1225, a nearly three-decade-old statute, requires detention without bond for “an alien who is an applicant for admission if … an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted.”
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The Venezuelan illegal immigrant accused of murdering Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman is missing a part of his brain and has the "development of a child," his lawyer said in court Friday. Jose Medina-Medina was held without bail by Chicago Judge D'Anthony Thedford (snip.) Medina-Medina was shot in the head during a robbery when he was living with his mom in Colombia (snip.) He's being treated at the health facility inside the Cook County Jail, where his lawyer asked he remain so that immigration officials don't arrest and deport him.
What do you call it when a politician tells you to put elections “back on a level playing field” by voting for a redistricting map gerrymandered to give Democrats 10 seats to Republicans’ one?
“Lying” doesn’t quite foot the bill. “Rank deception” is closer, but I think this kind of rhetoric calls for the big guns.
I’ll settle on “shameless Orwellian gaslighting,” because supporting the Virginia redistricting push in the name of “fairness” involves redefining basic words in the same manner as the oppressive government in George Orwell’s “1984,” and this rhetorical strategy seems designed to make people with rational concerns about the ballot initiative question their sanity. This particular shameless Orwellian
Sharks in the Bahamas have tested positive for cocaine, a new study concludes.
Researchers from the Bahamas, Brazil, and Chile also found traces of caffeine and painkillers in the sharks. This isn't a shift in lifestyle from the animals, but rather something that's being forced upon them, as marine pollution becomes ever more pervasive.
Finding traces of these substances in a tropical place widely seen as idyllic and pristine is concerning – it seems there are vanishingly few spots on Earth where wildlife can escape our influence.
"Pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs are increasingly recognized as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in marine environments, particularly in areas undergoing rapid urbanization and tourism-driven development,"
Vice President JD Vance said Friday that Rep. Ilhan Omar defrauded the US by allegedly marrying her brother to help him remain legally in the country. “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America,” Vance told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on the latest episode of his show.
“This is rich coming from someone who literally said they were willing to ‘create stories’ to redirect the media,” said Omar’s chief of staff Connor McNutt. “This is a ridiculous lie and desperate attempt to distract from the pedophile protection party’s unpopular war of choice, increasing gas prices, and rapidly dropping polling numbers.”
500 groups with $3B in revenues are behind
the #NoKings protests and communist call
for 'revolution' 11 replies
the #NoKings protests and communist call
for 'revolution' 11 replies
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A network of about 500 groups with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenues is behind the coordinated nationwide "No Kings" protest Saturday, including communist groups who are using the day to call for a "revolution," according to a Fox Digital News investigation.
According to a copy of the permit for the "flagship" march in St. Paul, Minn., Indivisible, a national well-heeled Democratic political advocacy organization funded by billionaire George Soros, is the lead coordinator for the protest.
But Fox News Digital has also identified key participation by a network of radical socialist and communist organizations funded by Neville Roy Singham,
No Bosses
10 replies
Bruce Springsteen is the headliner at the flagshiip No Kings rally at the state Capitol in Saint Paul this afternoon. Joan Baez, Jane Fonda, and Bernie Sanders are also primed to appear. Truth in advertising would require the rally to be redesignated Gimme That Old Time Religion or In Search of Lost Time. As the Rolling Stones once trilled, “What a drag it is getting old.”
Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, and Ilhan Omar will also be there. They wouldn’t want to miss the chance to rag on the King. Opposing the King has become the lodestone of their careers. Contrary to the theme of the proceedings, it comes at no cost
The EV Bubble Is About to Burst
10 replies
When did getting from point A to point B get so complicated? When the government decided which cars Americans should buy. With the economic and scientific premises behind electric vehicle (EV) mandates collapsing, the EV bubble may burst completely. There is one mandate left to burst: California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) regulation, which requires all new vehicles to be 100 percent electric by 2035, or else automakers get penalized.
With the federal repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Endangerment Finding in February, the government’s formal scientific basis for EV mandates is gone. State governments no longer have a rational scientific basis for requiring EV sales.
Progressive Congresswoman and member of The Squad, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), called for “some form of reparation” to be paid to illegal immigrants for the alleged “trauma” inflicted by ICE agents during President Trump’s nationwide deportation campaign.
It remains astonishing that Democrats label funding the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies as a waste of taxpayer dollars, yet have no issue using public funds to provide reparations to individuals who broke the law by entering the country illegally. (X) "We need real accountability, because at the end of the day, the people that have been inflicting this harm need to be prosecuted," Jayapal said. "They need to be brought
Month Two Begins
8 replies
~As Month Two begins, the war continues to widen:
Many dissatisfied Steyn Club members have accused me of fighting the last war. (Snip}Yesterday, for example, another dozen US servicemen were wounded and multiple refuelling aircraft were crippled at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. America's military bases in the Gulf are some of the most expensive on the planet, and yet, as with the killing fields of eastern Ukraine, they're highly vulnerable to drones that cost a few thousand bucks. Result?
"Iran's Attacks Force U.S. Troops to Work Remotely"
Immigration hard-liners are taking aim at rules that protect foreign-born U.S. citizens from deportation even if they become terrorists.
Naturalized citizens committed three suspected terrorist attacks in Texas, Michigan and Virginia in a two-week timeframe after the U.S. went to war with Iran’s Islamic regime in February. Other naturalized citizens caught plotting terrorist attacks have been released or are due for release back onto America’s streets, according to Department of Justice (DOJ), court and prison records.
Despite the jihadists’ crimes and increasing calls to expand denaturalizations, shredding their coveted status as American citizens is easier said than done; the system is unlikely to change without Congress passing contentious GOP-backed legislation.
Ilhan Omar married her brother
8 replies
Everyone knows this. From the New York Post,
VP Vance claims Rep. Ilhan Omar ‘definitely committed immigration fraud’ by allegedly marrying brother.
In February 2009, the future Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar married a man named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. It was her first legal marriage. The marriage ceremony was conducted by a Christian ministesr. There is no dispute about these facts, which are recounted by the Post.
All available evidence points to Elmi being Omar’s biological brother. No evidence points away from this fact.
But I have never understood the fixation on motivation. As with my “motive unclear” series, the alleged inability to confirm a motive does not erase the underlying act.
Perhaps immigration fraud
The Senate wanted to go home, so it passed a bill late at night that funded most of the Department of Homeland Security, but not Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol. The situation is complicated, but the Republicans 'won' this round, as Democrats wanted judicial warrants and masks for ICE agents, but they didn't get either. Still, House Republicans are upset about splitting the funding and annoyed that Senate Republicans procedurally put them in a difficult position. Members of the upper chamber also headed for the weekend, which doesn't look good.