Set theory and its representation by Venn Diagrams have been around long before I was a boy in 6th grade math class, and we spent probably a month on this discipline that was considered very important at the time.
For some reason, I’ve haven’t come across this lately; I can’t remember ever tutoring a kid on this subject. Was it a fad?
Virtually no response to the epidemic of school shootings, exposure to disease, greatly restricted methods of teaching and discipline, narrowed curricula, book bans, forced unpaid overtime, as well as lousy pay, have all teamed up to create a huge teacher shortage.
Who could have possibly seen that coming?
The result? Our kids are getting rotten educations, and are falling further and further behind the rest of the developed world.
The rich are getting richer at the expense of the common American.
We need to keep in mind that Reality Winner isn’t beloved by tens of millions of Americans. Trump leads a large group of hateful morons who will go bananas if the justice system treats their hero the same way it would deal with any other citizen who had committed a long string of felonies.
Some of these memes that allude to OJ Simpson’s drive down the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles are better than others. This is a good one; I especially like “karma” in the back. (more…)
The international community looks on with a mixture of pity and contempt as the United States wrestles with fascism. Will Trump, still supported by tens of millions of voters and a large contingent in Congress, successfully stave off our justice system?
As a fellow from Sweden told me when I asked about his country’s opinion of Trump a few years ago, “He probably has 8% – 10% support. The rest of us simply feel sorry for you. We just never imagined that this could happen in America, the country that used to be the most admired nation on Earth.”
When it comes to the transmissions in their cars, almost all Americans prefer automatics, and increasingly few of our millennials even know how to drive standard (manual) transmissions. (more…)
Here’s an article on EVs that explores the topic in the title above. The fellow admits that he’s not an engineer or a physicist but observes, correctly, that attaching a wind turbine to the top of an EV and using it to charge the battery cannot possibly have a net positive effect, due to the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
I’m reminded of a guy who contacted me with an idea that was rooted in hydrokinetics, but from what I could gather over the phone, it sounded like it was entirely self-contained. “Where does the energy come from that makes the water move?” I asked. “Think of it as a river in a box,” he replied.
I resisted the urge to laugh, and explained why that was impossible. “Oh, it works, he insisted.”
I told him I had something burning in the kitchen, and had to go.
A reader asked me what I thought about the Justice Department’s pursuit of Donald Trump, and how comfortable I was personally, knowing that anyone, even I myself, could be accused by the DoJ of a crime, then convicted and sent to prison. My response: I’m fine with that, because I didn’t steal classified, top secret documents, nor did I try to overthrow the U.S. government. (more…)
Most Americans trust the Justice Department to act fairly in this matter, but in our hearts, we understand that the question of motive is far from being resolved, and that it’s possible that it will forever remain a mystery.
A fairly benign reason for his actions is suggested in the cartoon here.
Of course, we certainly are seeing a great deal of use of the word “espionage,” implying that the actual motive was to harm the United States, the crime for which the Rosenbergs were electrocuted in 1953.
Let’s not forget that the criminal case against Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg is just one more iron in the fire when it comes to sending the former president to prison.
A New York State judge ruled Friday that a criminal fraud and tax evasion prosecution against the Trump Organization and its former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, can proceed.
Weisselberg and the company asked a judge in February to dismiss all 15 counts charged against them. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed one of several tax fraud counts against the Trump Organization, but allowed all others to remain.
I don’t know the first thing about Weisselberg, other than that the sheer scope of the charges he’s facing will, if he’s convicted, send him away for several decades, which, one would think, would be a powerful incentive to “flip” on his former boss.
I’ll admit that there is very little “sexy” about fraud, and even less about tax evasion. It’s clear from what we already know that Trump committed treason, by sending a mob he knew to be armed to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” Finding Trump guilty here would be much more satisfying to all Americans who care about justice.