As Opinion Journal used to ask, "What would we ever do without experts?"
— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) April 20, 2022
Watters: Hard to trust the experts when they always get it wrong https://t.co/FEgWVfl0YA
UK Rail for Ukraine, a cross-industry initiative set up by volunteers in early February, has brought together the large quantities of humanitarian aid from across the country. A first aid train has left the UK on a special DB Cargo service bound for Ukraine, where it will be received by organisations working on the ground.The rail network was at the time that article appeared still robust enough for those loads to be delivered to Ukrainian destinations. A few portable industrial generators have also been shipped.
The service is carrying more than 1,500 tonnes consisting of a range of aid, including non-perishable food, hygiene and medical products, basic living equipment, and other much-needed supplies that have been donated from a wide range of businesses and organisations following requests for aid from the Ukrainian authorities. We would like to express our gratitude for local advice and information provided by both the Ukrainian Logistics Alliance and Department for International Trade in Warsaw.
Transported in 24 shipping containers over a 500-meter train, the aid transported by UK Rail for Ukraine has been labelled in all three languages to assist with distribution when it arrives at its destination.
The Western Environmental Law Center noted that "the communities most at risk from new fossil fuel extraction are primarily Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples, people of the global majority, and those on the frontlines of fossil fuel industry expansion. These are the same communities that turned out in record numbers to get Biden elected in 2020 and who have since been urging Biden to use his executive authority to fulfill his campaign promise and ban new federal fossil fuel projects."Shall we make the poverty of the "global majority" the norm everywhere? The problem in environmentalist wacko circles appears to be their opposition to the continued tenure of Democrats in office.
Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that "the Biden administration's claim that it must hold these lease sales is pure fiction and a reckless failure of climate leadership."
"It's as if they're ignoring the horror of firestorms, floods, and megadroughts, and accepting climate catastrophes as business as usual," she added. "These so-called reforms are 20 years too late and will only continue to fuel the climate emergency. These lease sales should be shelved and the climate-destroying federal fossil fuel programs brought to an end."
Collin Rees, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, asserted that "in the midst of a climate emergency and a fossil-fueled war that has exposed the dangers of fossil fuel dependency, President Biden's decision to double down on leasing new public lands for fossil fuel development is a disastrous choice."
Sunrise Movement's Prakash warned of electoral consequences for Biden's failure to fulfill his climate promises, which included a pledge that there would be "no more drilling on federal lands, period, period, period, period."Earth Day comes on Friday. I'm sure there will be more of this alarmist talk to come.
The president has already come under fire from climate and environmental campaigners for his plan to auction more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to fossil fuel companies—an effort that was blocked by a federal judge in January.
"This is why young people are doubting the political process altogether," she said. "If Biden wants to solve for voter turnout in 2022, he should actually deliver on the things he promised, not move farther away from them. On November 8, 2022 we don't want to hear anyone asking why young people didn't vote. Biden is actively turning voters away. If we're going to combat fascism and win in 2022, he must be a leader and course-correct. This election and our futures depend on it."
A governor should not be allowed to issue blanket orders for two years.That last sentence refers to the Grail Café, one of those fancy food startups in the South Loop. DeKalb doesn't have that sort of arch deluxe clientele, it's the convenience stores and some of the pizzerias and a pho restaurant that served generous portions that are among the casualties.
As we mark the second anniversary of the Illinois pandemic shutdown, we should take time to mourn. We lost more than 33,000 people we cared about. We lost more than 1.2 million total jobs. We lost control of our government. We lost butterfly tea.
The assault on funding and faculty hiring in Purdue University’s English department needs to stop. Now more than ever, a strong grounding in writing and speaking skills, in storytelling and poetry, in culture, should remain strong for a future that depends increasingly on sophisticated technology.I'd be more inclined to credit such arguments if I didn't have so much experience with the failure of the English department to develop those writing and speaking skills. Moreover, is this Sycamore Review just more wokery with big words? Do people confuse it with sports information at Indiana State?
As Inside Higher Ed has reported, recent moves to cut graduate student spots threaten the publication of the highly respected Sycamore Review, a student-run literary journal at Purdue. The department is facing a moratorium on graduate student admissions for the 2022–23 academic year. In recent years, about 20 faculty positions in English have been lost through attrition, and the number of graduate programs has been reduced from six to three.
Purdue is well-known for its engineering programs—the 153-year-old land-grant university is, after all, the home of the Boilermakers. But in a letter to the Purdue Exponent, electrical and computer engineering professor Avi Kak wrote that cuts to Purdue’s English department will impact the entire university, preventing the growth of writing and thinking skills so important to students in all disciplines.It's only going to get worse. It's not budget-conscious deanlets risking eroding those basic skills. The Distressed Material is going to show up at Purdue, thanks to the efforts of the teachers of those skills in the common schools.
Educators value the use of teaching and learning practices that help to identify and disrupt the inequalities of contemporary life, including structural racism, sexism, consumerism, and economic injustice. Critical pedagogies help learners see themselves as empowered change agents, able to imagine and build a better, more just world.That's a position statement from the National Council of Teachers of English. Whether it's incoherent jargon or question-begging or potted political economy is left for the reader as an exercise. I wonder if your typical English teacher can even compare and contrast the vanguardist from the evolutionary perspective on what structures a better world. The elaboration gets even weirder.
Young people encounter many types of media texts and use many different literacy practices throughout a given day. Everyone in our society now needs the ability to assess the widely varying quality of the information, entertainment, and persuasion that surrounds them, to evaluate the veracity and validity of claims, and to debunk misinformation when necessary. The broadening of the communication landscape opens greater opportunities for student voice and agency as they move from users and consumers to participators and creators. Through media education, students begin to deepen sociopolitical consciousness as they recognize how power relationships structure the narratives that surround us (Buckingham & Sefton-Green, 1993).A more superficial knowledge of a lot of stuff does nothing to develop the kind of deeper understanding that is essential to recognize when someone is talking rot, let alone whatever "deepen sociopolitical consciousness" is. Just for fun, toss "reality is socially conservative" or "reality constructs institutions" at some novice English teacher and see what happens. I predict a Kamala Harris-like intellectual shutdown.
The time has come to decenter book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education. Speaking and listening are increasingly valued as forms of expression that are vital to personal and professional success, and with the rise of digital media technologies, they now occur in both synchronous and asynchronous formats. The ability to represent one’s ideas using images and multimedia is now a valued competency in a wide variety of professional careers in the knowledge economy. It behooves our profession, as stewards of the communication arts, to confront and challenge the tacit and implicit ways in which print media is valorized above the full range of literacy competencies students should master.Division of labour is a thing. I have no problem with teachers of rhetoric or composition or drama tackling difficult topics. They ought leave the heavy political economy to philosophers, theologians, and economists.
Research evidence amply shows the need to move beyond the exclusive focus on traditional reading and writing competencies. For example, secondary school students lack critical reading comprehension skills that require them to distinguish between journalism and sponsored content, and they routinely ignore the source of a message when judging its accuracy (Breakstone et al., 2019). But when students are empowered to critically examine popular culture texts in the classroom, the process can productively disrupt classroom hierarchies as learners exercise the right to freedom of expression on issues that are perceived to have meaningful relevance to their identity and values (Cannon et al., 2020).
The catastrophic loss of the First World War led to the overthrow of the monarchy entirely. As [Russian dissident Boris] Kagarlitsky points out elsewhere in his essay, even if Russia prevails on the battlefield, there is no way Russian forces can successfully occupy a hostile Ukraine. I can see why the Hungarians and the Romanians I’ve been talking to are still very, very concerned about this war going wider. It’s not that they fear that Putin actually wants to take their territory. It’s fear that a cornered wolverine might do something insane.That is, if this episode of exporting Pan-Slavism doesn't turn out the way the 1905 Japan mission or the 1939 Finland missions do first.
Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow (Ukrainian: Ой у лузі червона калина - Oi u luzi chervona kalyna):
— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) April 13, 2022
pic.twitter.com/brJrqyreuA
As he started a nation-wide job hunt for a university position, a grad school friend once told me that he would never live in an area where he could not find arugula in the supermarket.It's not Mrs McKenna that's being the food snob here, burnt brisket ends being something you could just as well wash down with a Pepsi or pair with a proper bourbon. That is to say, there's more than one way to think about fine food, and at least she's not touting the headache in a glass that seems to be the thing in beer these days. (The less we say about rocket here, the better.) Even though the curators at Monticello seem incapable of telling Thomas Jefferson's story in an honest yet complete way, good food is in the eyes, and bellies, of the beholder.
Arugula, that bitter sharp lettuce, was Lawrence’s shorthand method for narrowing down his options for jobs. Any position must be located in areas with a sophisticated culture, liberal politics, and hopping community life to keep him amused when not in the classroom. His arugula method ruled [out?] about 3/4rd of America at that time; he ultimately landed in London.
Today, Lawrence would need some other shortcut to find a sophisticated, educated, progressive community. Because food is the rare thing in our culture that has not been politicized. Pretty much anywhere in this country, you can find a bearded, tattooed hipster, who will make you a cocktail involving rosemary, smoke, and small batch vodka distilled just a mile away at a shiny distillery in a former paper mill. There’s shaved brussel sprouts salads in the heart of West Virginia, and burnt brisket ends in a converted garage in upstate New York. For me, the ubiquitousness of fine food is a sign of hope, a rare sign of agreement in our polarized society.
But food is different. That’s why when I saw three beefy, good old boys going into a local BBQ spot, I knew we found a good spot. They looked like guys that knew stuff about beer and ribs. They probably voted for Trump and weren’t vaccinated, but I didn’t care. We were in solidarity about lunch, and in these polarized times, that’s a blessing.I'll be polite today and allow Virginians to have some understanding of beer. At Cold Spring Shops, beer is properly dark and to Reinheitsgebot standards.
I am not sure how we became a gerontocracy, but it needs to end. Term limits and age limits are problematic in various ways, but in any event they would require a constitutional amendment that isn’t going to happen. Clearing out the dead wood, in a democracy, is a task for the voters. If a few superannuated incumbents lose, maybe the parties and activists will become more realistic about nominating candidates who are capable of fulfilling the duties of their offices.That can't happen too soon, either.
It's not an accident that the two biggest spending programs for the 2022 fiscal year are Social Security ($1.196 trillion) and Medicare ($766 billion)—entitlements for seniors, both of which are on track to insolvency in the coming years. America's senior benefits are the biggest drivers of long-term debt.A lot of them never had any new ideas, it was all warmed over Herbert Croly and Harold Ickes, but they sure clung to them for a long time.
And then there's just the general lack of fresh thinking in politics. When someone has been in the same role for decades, they tend to fall back on old habits, and it shows. Biden first entered the Senate in 1973. Nancy Pelosi has been in Congress since 1987. There's a reason that American politics today feels so bereft of new ideas: Too many of the people at the top pretty clearly haven't had one in a very long time.
No matter what may occur tonight, or who wins the election, suffice to say this geriatric and outdated Commission on Presidential Debates is done. They have shown themselves to be partisan, unprepared, out of touch, and obsolete. John Danforth, one of those geriatric members of the Commission, and a Republican, took to print and the airwaves to rebuke Trump for his criticism of their methods, to emphasize how important this Commission is to the national conversation, and to let you know what an august and truly bipartisan body they are. Yeah… right.That was from October 2020, when the commission's selection of moderators and topics again made it clear that Washington process worship and insider priors were more important than a frank and open exchange of views. It is time for them to go, all of them!
A new way to pay for fixing your sidewalks, streetlights and roads. More than a dozen communities are considering treating streets like a utility and charging property owners a fee based on road usage, but the Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce is suing to stop this.They're actually getting off cheaply.
Money to fill potholes, fix uneven sidewalks and level bumpy roads like Main Street in Pewaukee.
The Village Board in February 2021 approved creating a transportation utility fee, and since the fall, it's on the same bill with sewer and water.
That’s quarterly for single-family homeowners about $30 a year in addition to property taxes.
"This concept is treating streets like a utility, so the infrastructure that the city is responsible for upkeep and maintaining, and the cost of that is shared by all the users," said Curt Witynski, League of Wisconsin Municipalities. "The more you use it, the more you pay."The billable hours those lawyers generate will surely help retire those outstanding student loans, won't they? As far as those road assessments going onward to shoppers, isn't that the benefit principle at work? Mightn't merchants consider alternative approaches such as having Pewaukee install parking meters along the streets in front of their shops, or, perhaps, establishing a joint venture paid parking lot? There is no such thing as free parking.
Businesses with lots of traffic would pay much more. The usage charge is based on the number of estimated vehicle trips the property generates. That's based on estimates from the Institute of Traffic Engineers.
"If a convenience store or a grocery store or a hardware store has to pay thousands of dollars additional taxes each year because of this illegal transportation utility, they are just going to pass those along to customers," said Scott Manley, WMC.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce sued the village saying municipalities can only impose taxes and fees if state law allows. They’re filing on behalf of two unnamed businesses. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities argues it’s legal and says it’s not a tax but a fee.
Who pays? All of us will be hit by even more inflation. House painters will spend more to fill up their vans and take home less. Baristas with master’s degrees in fine arts will escape the consequences of their folly.It used to be that politicians bought votes with sweetheart deals to local contractors, or perhaps with walking around money. These days, the corruption is more subtle.
Americans who borrowed as little as possible and paid it back will be chumps.
Student loan pauses and forgiveness are welfare for the middle and upper classes, writes Kristin Tate, a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Voice, in a Hill commentary. The latest pause is a pre-midterms giveaway to the Democrats’ voting base, young, liberal and college educated.And, of course, it's a regressive transfer. Follow the money. There are more middle-income and upper-income people than poor people, and the poor, deserving or otherwise, are the window dressing by which the rule-writers and future federal bench appointees of the administrative state, the public health doctors who keep us confined to quarters, and assorted deanlets, deanlings, and assistants-to wet their beaks in the public funds.
In women’s soccer, there has been an ongoing battle with USA athletics to get compensation for the women’s team equal to the men’s team. The demand has long been centered on the equal-pay-for-equal-work premise, despite the fact that the disparity is a result of unequal results. The reality is the women draw far less in attendance and ratings — a reality the women obviously do not want to address.Normals noticed.
Also hurting their cause was the very avowed activism, especially from star Megan Rapinoe. She has led the team with her pronounced kneeling during the national anthem, something that has both caused some discord on the roster and has blunted support for the team in general.
Going into the Tokyo Olympics, the women’s team appeared bent on diminishing any of its recently earned public support. They failed to show up for the opening ceremony, and the consistent kneeling before the Games even began led to a number of Americans rooting against the team, and taking pleasure in their missing the Gold Medal Game due to a loss.I didn't tell you, dear reader, about the cloying woke-fest that opened Senior Day at Northern Illinois. A local police color guard presented the flags, to the accompaniment of a recording, despite the band being present. Behind the color guard, along the foul line, several of the players did the knee thing, while a troupe of sign language interpreters signed the National Anthem. I don't know about you, but whenever I see a sign language interpreter at an official function, I associate it with the corona tyranny. Maybe the point is the conformity.
Women’s basketball has been just as divisive. Teams routinely leave the court during the national anthem, and there has actually been more of a controversy when select players chose to remain on the court and stand for the anthem. This is happening in a league that struggles for attention and remains afloat due to an infusion from the NBA.The timing of the professional season, which is in the off-season for the men (last year, with the Bucks winning the title in July, that really got weird) doesn't help with attracting eyeballs, but the performative anti-patriotism patriotism is an appeal to a demographic the league has already locked down.
Texans spent another weekend playing their least favorite game, the Texas Transportation Scramble.Texas has a large enough intrastate transportation demand that years ago Southwest Airlines served as one of two prototypes for airline deregulation (Pacific Southwest, in California was the other) because as an intrastate carrier it was not subject to the process-heavy cartel management of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Those cheap intrastate flights, plus generous speed limits on the expressways, drove the passenger railroads, which generally treated Texas cities as end-points for overnight trains out of New Orleans or St. Louis or Denver anyway, out of the regional rail business long before Amtrak showed up. The air carriers, however, have been converted by twenty years of security theater and two years of corona tyranny into unpleasant conveyances, and the reluctance of the freight railroads to go after the short-haul intermodal has turned the interstates into exercises in truck-dodging.
Contestants start by getting texts that their flights have been delayed or canceled. In trying to rearrange travel, contestants realize airline routes are scrambled, and they must each make a strategic decision: Go to the airport and try to maneuver onto another flight; rent a car; find a ride; stay another night.
Texans have played this game over and over during the pandemic, but it wasn’t unknown in the before times. Our airplanes and roads are full, thanks to growth in population, visitors and business. The lesson of the game: Texas needs to increase its transportation capacity among major cities.
Hopping in a car or even on a nice bus for city-to-city jaunts aren’t great options either. The same growth affecting airports is choking the freeways. Expanding to meet demand would cost taxpayers and travelers billions more.Presumably, if these are proper trains, the savvy traveller can purchase a pick-me-up and do some work without having to go into airplane mode on the train. That is, if the landed gentry lift their objections to these rail lines, which have been contemplated for nearly twenty years, being built.
In 2010, there were 21 million vehicles registered in Texas, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. At the end of 2020, that number had risen by 3 million.
Texas wisely built good roads and airports years ago and continues to expand and maintain them. But regular drivers on Interstate-35 or Interstate-45 can see that the constant construction hardly keeps up with population growth.
Texas Central anticipates its trains will carry 6 million passengers per year by 2029, if the state’s policymakers are wise enough to see the benefits.
Imagine removing millions of Dallas and Houston drivers off of the interstate and onto rail. Imagine arriving at the nearest big city airport for a trip, and there aren’t quite so many under-caffeinated cross-state commuters sighing when you take an extra 10 seconds to contemplate your Starbucks order.
A rising tide of transportation capacity can lift all of our spirits and keep our economic engine revving.
Father and daughter alumni Stan Valiulis and Lindsey Valiulis Fleischhauer received $100,000 for 25% equity on “Shark Tank” for their Totes Babies business. The two appeared in season 12, episode 17 for their Car Seat Carrier that attaches to shopping carts to make shopping easier for parents.Sometimes, it helps to understand what power tools the property masters are using.
Valiulis Fleischhauer graduated in 2004 with a degree in theater and Valiulis graduated in 1984 with a music degree.
Valiulis Fleischhauer said the Totes Babies Car Seat Carrier idea came from when her son was a baby and the cart had no room to fit his carrier and the groceries. She went to her dad in 2017 who then sketched out the idea and went to Home Depot to create the prototype.There are other products under development. Let's see if this enterprise does well enough that the entrepreneurs can become Shark Tank venture capitalists themselves some day.
“It was a curtain, adjustable curtain rod and drop cloth,” Valiulis said. “I made it using a stapler and scissors, so I had a functioning prototype and you (Valiulis Fleischhauer) still have it. It works great.”
Valiulis Fleischhauer decided they needed to make it a real product because moms would come up to her at grocery stores asking her about it. The product was launched in August 2018.
The goal of Totes Babies is to help parents shop easier and lower their anxiety levels.
“Parents can also put the toddlers in the front part too that opens up,” Valiulis Fleischhauer said. “So like for me when I had my second son, I’d put my toddler in the front and then the Totes Babies behind it (and) still get all my groceries.”
