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Nightshade: AI Scraping Arms Race Escalates

Nightshade: AI Scraping Arms Race Escalates

Jun 10 2025 | comment(s)

It's a good thing America is pivoting back to nuclear energy after a 30-year Clinton-induced hiatus because "AI" tools require a lot of energy, and a new tool to prevent scraping will make the cost for AI tools even higher.
Decline In Male Fertility Linked To Getting Paid Family Leave

Decline In Male Fertility Linked To Getting Paid Family Leave

Jun 06 2025 | comment(s)

After Spain instituted paternity leave reform on 2007 - what the Spanish needed to help their highest unemployment in Europe was even fewer people working - male fertility went down, according to an analysis of birth records before and after the switch.

This is in contrast to some claims that maternity leave can boost fertility. 

Uptake of the new paternity leave was very high among new dads. Then something strange happened. 
While Western Progressives Block Nuclear, China Builds 2 Coal Plants Per Week

While Western Progressives Block Nuclear, China Builds 2 Coal Plants Per Week

Jun 04 2025 | comment(s)

On this day in 1989, protesters learned what American sympathizers refuse to realize - a communist dictatorship is not just American politics in a different language. They do what they want and you will comply or else. Violently.

That is why China exempts itself from all climate treaties, claiming developing nation status, and western countries, and certainly the so-called United Nations, refuse to criticize them. 
MAHA Report Is A Bridge Too Far Against Farming

MAHA Report Is A Bridge Too Far Against Farming

May 23 2025 | comment(s)

Working people, and the poor, overwhelmingly voted for President Trump. Democrats seemed puzzled that The Deplorables they despise would vote for a candidate who offered lower costs of living. 'Red states use more government assistance' they jeered.

That's the problem. As a former poor person, an organic farmer living in poverty before President Clinton made it a government-endorsed grift as a gift for progressive elites, I know cost is everything. Progressives on Twitter think a dollar is only a dollar. To poor people, it matters. 
France Defies Trump By Accepting Science For The First Time This Century

France Defies Trump By Accepting Science For The First Time This Century

May 21 2025 | comment(s)

A whistleblower revealed a shocking document written by the French Ministry of Agriculture to the European Commission.

In response to America retaliating against Europe by placing tariffs on European goods the way European has them on American goods, the French government declared that for the first time this century they wanted 'access to innovation' - which means modern science and technology.

They want food sovereignty, and most bizarre of all from the French, fair competition. All things France has historically opposed in the name of the Green Deal and their Farm to Fork Idyll.
Calm Down Food Nanny, We've Been Eating Processed Foods For 14,000 Years

Calm Down Food Nanny, We've Been Eating Processed Foods For 14,000 Years

May 18 2025 | comment(s)

With a new president in the White House bringing in a former Natural Resources Defense Lawyer and long-time anti-science progressive, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., there is new concern about erosion of American leadership in science and health.

If leadership is just spending money on things like theater in foreign countries or paying yourself $100,000 to rewrite data from government surveys on why some people don't trust vaccines, we are not losing much.(1)

Hopefully with Republicans agreeing about some of the more ridiculous positions of the left - seed oils and vaccines are bad - acceptance of science will blossom among the nearly 90% of career government employees in Washington, D.C. who are Democrats.(2)
Global Warming Update: Your Virtual Climate Wealth Is At Risk

Global Warming Update: Your Virtual Climate Wealth Is At Risk

May 16 2025 | comment(s)

Want to lose 16% of your retirement just like that? Run a computer simulation where the worst thing you fear is true.

A new paper sounds the alarm over a crash in virtual climate wealth. It isn't science, it is just a computer simulation and therefore more like dystopian 1960s fiction than science. 
FDA Approves 3 New Food Colorings Using GRAS That Kennedy Wants Banned

FDA Approves 3 New Food Colorings Using GRAS That Kennedy Wants Banned

May 09 2025 | comment(s)

U.S. policy when it comes to science can be a little confusing. Over 20 years ago, one political party demanded that drugs and devices undergo far more testing before approval. It was a common belief among the more conspiracy-minded that FDA was colluding with right-wing corporations to get products passed.
Hawaiian Lawmakers Pass Another Tourism Tariff - Scientists Included

Hawaiian Lawmakers Pass Another Tourism Tariff - Scientists Included

May 09 2025 | comment(s)

Anecdotal stories claim U.S. tourism has plummeted due to Republican tariffs and enforcing immigration the way Europe and Asia do, and it will ruin the American economy. 

If that was true, lawmakers in America's most Democratic state, Hawaii, wouldn't have added another tariff. This one aimed solely at tourists. 

SB 1396 added a whopping 11% tariff for cruise ships that dock in a Hawaiian port and increased the hotel tariff to 19% of the room rate. The Governor has already said he would sign it once his supermajority passes it. Tourists also pay a 5% extra tariff on everything just for breathing Hawaiian are.

FDA Begins Inspecting Foreign Medical Manufacturing Imports

FDA Begins Inspecting Foreign Medical Manufacturing Imports

May 06 2025 | comment(s)

With retaliatory tariffs against the EU and countries like China and Brazil, there has been concern about how much medical commerce originates from overseas.

It certainly does, and safety has long been an overlooked concern. Organic food has gotten a free pass, but that is just a USDA marketing gimmick so if 25% of it is fraudulent, no one is harmed, but medicines and devices can risk lives. American companies are forced to undergo 12,000 surprise inspections to insure safety but countries exporting to the US have enjoyed a double-standard. They demanded and got only 3,000 scheduled inspections.


Mississippi and Louisiana Clobber California When It Comes To Educating Poor Kids

Mississippi and Louisiana Clobber California When It Comes To Educating Poor Kids

May 01 2025 | comment(s)

The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress report card saw a worrying trend that has existed since President Obama gutted the successful No Child Left Behind educational program (at the request of education unions) and replaced it with the ill-advised Common Core. Reading scores for kids remain really low for as much as we spend on education. Reading, the most basic thing we do.
America Has The Cleanest Mining On The Planet, So Deep Sea Tech Makes Sense

America Has The Cleanest Mining On The Planet, So Deep Sea Tech Makes Sense

Apr 25 2025 | comment(s)

America has the strongest environmental protection in the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and government scientists showed that the Keystone XL pipeline was much better for the environment than shipping by rail. Their data were sound. With 20,000 miles of pipeline zipping across the Ogalalla acquifier, leaks were rare and only a few gallons before they were fixed.(1)

Weird progressive rants about energy, vaccines and food aside, Americans know science is often right, and the science shows that American regulations keep the environment safe by a very conservative margin.
RIP To The Deniers For Hire Called Organic Consumers Association

RIP To The Deniers For Hire Called Organic Consumers Association

Apr 21 2025 | comment(s)

The Organic Consumers Association, the embarrassing stepchild of the organic industry founded by the late Ronnie Cummins in 1998, has a positive-sounding name but has been nothing except negative for science and the public. Though the United States Department of Agriculture calls them an "organic agricultural products marketing and trade resource" organization they have really just been fifth columnists against vaccines, affordable food, and everything else that helps the modern world.
Fish Is Healthy, Fishing Is Sustainable, So Activist Groups Opposing It Are Just Playing Politics

Fish Is Healthy, Fishing Is Sustainable, So Activist Groups Opposing It Are Just Playing Politics

Apr 19 2025 | comment(s)

Epidemiologist, nutritionists, and food fad profiteers love to talk about the benefits of fish, yet they weirdly believe only wild caught fish is nutritious. This sort of scientific confusion by people who don't know any science isn't really new, they also babble on about "antioxidants" when trying to claim high fructosr levels in honey are health food while high fructose levels in corn sugar will give your child autism.
UK Supreme Court Rules On Biological Sex - But The Debate Won't End There

UK Supreme Court Rules On Biological Sex - But The Debate Won't End There

Apr 17 2025 | comment(s)

Under the Equality Act of 2010, 'woman' refers to individuals based on their biological sex at birth, according to a unanimous ruling at the UK Supreme Court.


The case has been a David vs. Goliath story. Three Scottish women up against the Scottish government, which had made policy stating that a gender recognition certificate could go anywhere that those deemed biologically female at birth could go. What got it to the Supreme Court was a 2018 law mandating gender balance on public sector boards. Women noted that gender included the trans community and that created a 'shackled man' competition.

People Are Fine With AI But Rarely Fooled

People Are Fine With AI But Rarely Fooled

Apr 16 2025 | comment(s)

Due to anti-vaccine hype from 1998 to 2021 which then flipped to the other major US political party, there is recurring rending of garments about science literacy. Add in a 9% difference between the left and right in acceptance of evolution and beliefs that fructose in honey is health food while fructose in corn syrup is poison, PFAS, and that GMOs cause lower grades in school, it's easy to see that US adult science literacy is only about 30%.
Foot and Mouth Disease in Europe Will Show Them the Expensive World of Only Organic Food

Foot and Mouth Disease in Europe Will Show Them the Expensive World of Only Organic Food

Apr 16 2025 | comment(s)

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europeans claimed they were successfully moving away from modern agriculture and conventional energy thanks to the organic™ manufacturing process and solar power. 

What they left out was that the "organic" food they were buying was from Russia, where either Russia invented magic or they simply swapped fields to being called organic, or it was a lie.(1) The biggest hypocrisy of European culture is pretending that buying food through a European company that buys it from Russia is not giving money to Russia. They use the same trick to continue to be reliant on Russian energy
In A Rebuke To Activists, FDA Removes Animal Models From Drug Approval

In A Rebuke To Activists, FDA Removes Animal Models From Drug Approval

Apr 10 2025 | comment(s)

Among the 900 compounds that France's International Agency for Research on Cancer "suggests" are linked to cancer, nearly all have relied on studies in mice.

Scientists know mice are not little people but epidemiologists use animal models, very often at high doses, up to 10,000X realistic levels, to make their claims that everything causes cancer. Such abuse of animal models is why states like California, which abdicated science to IARC, has over 80,000 products with warnings about carcinogens yet no more or fewer cases of cancer.
Wild Caught Salmon: Elites Love Knowing Peasants Die To Catch Restaurant Food

Wild Caught Salmon: Elites Love Knowing Peasants Die To Catch Restaurant Food

Mar 19 2025 | comment(s)

If you insist you will only eat berries picked by hand near a stream, you are virtue signaling to other wealthy people that you have more money than than they do, while masking it in a halo of claiming to care about taste or renewability or other nature.

No one is fooled. That is why restaurants and consumers who fetish-ize wild caught fight while claiming it is more nutritious or tastes better are so cloying. Sure, there can be differences in taste, just like if you give a chicken different feed, but that is easily solvable, and has been, like in the chicken industry.