Reading

Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 21:18
Evaluation research tends to be method-driven. Everything needs to be apportioned as an ‘input’ or ‘output’, so that the programme itself becomes a ‘variable’, and the chief research interest in it is to inspect the dosage in order to see that a good proper spoonful has been applied … The quasi-exprimental conception is again deficient. […]
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 20:46
An interesting paper: researchers inserted a gene for photosynthesis* into ordinary brewer’s yeast. It worked! The yeast began to photosynthesize, tapping energy from the sun. I’m not generally alarmist about this sort of thing. But this is… maybe very slightly alarming. Why? 1) Baker’s yeast is a single-celled fungus. A fungus, like a mushroom. You […]
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 20:30
When a care home for vulnerable children funded by billionaire West Ham United Chairman David Sullivan, and run by his OnlyFans model reality TV star partner Ampika Pickston, had its registration suspended over safeguarding issues, it led to a strange chain of events and legal threats to this newspaper
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 18:06
Fred Wright was a cartoonist for the United Electrical Workers of America (UE), from 1949 until 1984. Wright’s cartoons reflected the daily routines experienced by the working men and women: layoffs, discrimination, income inequality, industrial accidents, union-busting, etc. These realities of the class structure of capitalism were the basis for his artistic and activist work. […]
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 12:00
And 75% of GOP voters think Trump is just fine It’s the other 25% he needs to be concerned about… Former President Donald Trump‘s convincing victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses shows his continued strength among Republicans, and a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds once more that Trump is both viewed nationwide as the candidate whom Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would be most satisfied with as their 2024 nominee as well as the highest-rated contender across a range of other attributes. Three out of four Republican-leaning adults say they would be very or somewhat satisfied with Trump as the GOP’s presidential nominee, compared to 64% who say the same about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 50% for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s two remaining rivals in the nominating race. Trump’s advantage tracks closely with the findings about Republicans who were interviewed as part of a more extensive ABC News poll conducted the week before the Iowa caucuses.
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 11:00
Marjorie Taylor Green is a very stable genius: Sitting in here earlier, I was listening to the discussion on jobs and that the whole reason claimed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that they want to bring in as many illegal aliens as possible, give them amnesty so they can fill jobs in America,” Greene claimed. “And then they talked about that we have a population growth problem in the United States.” “Well, I think we can all say that if maybe, perhaps, 63 million people weren’t murdered in the womb, we wouldn’t have a population growth problem, would we?” she asked. “That’s not women’s reproductive rights. That’s called abortion. It’s called murder.” Greene blamed abortion rights for slowing population growth. Never say there is no plan: By the way, they are lowering the working age in red states. They’re getting prepared.
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 09:30
Keep this in mind when you hear that Trump has changed his spots and “won’t have time for retribution.” It’s what he lives for: Former President Donald Trump and people in his inner circle have told down-ballot Republican candidates not to hire Republican strategist Jeff Roe or his political consulting firm after Roe worked to elect Ron DeSantis, according to four people familiar with the conversations. The admonition against hiring Roe represents an attempt to choke off revenue for his consulting firm, Axiom, in an act of political retribution. Roe was a top strategist for the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down. Roe resigned in mid-December after the Washington Post published a story detailing backbiting at the super PAC. Candidates have been warned that hiring Roe could create a political problem for them with the Trump team. “It’s an open secret that candidates who want to stay on President Trump’s good side should not hire Axiom,” said one of the four people, an influential Republican strategist who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They are enemy No. 1.” He wants to be a dictator.
Created
Fri, 19/01/2024 - 09:30
And he may reward her with the big enchilada Is it possible Trump will actually choose Stefanik? I still doubt it. She’s not out of central casting after all, at least not in the way Trump thinks is important. But apparently he’s talked about it” During a candlelit dinner with Mar-a-Lago members in late December, former President Donald Trump walked around the table as the conversation turned to one of the biggest decisions he’d have to make should he become the Republican nominee: Whom should he pick to be his running mate?  That’s when Rep. Elise Stefanik, the hard-charging upstate New York Republican, came up, according to a person at the dinner table. Attendees around Trump raved about her viral moment just weeks before, when she grilled three university presidents at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus.  At the thought of Stefanik as a possible choice for vice president, Trump nodded approvingly.