Later On

A blog written for those whose interests more or less match mine.

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Green Tobacco and Blue Tea

Today is sunny and clear, and I’m celebrating with the photo uplifted a bit. My RazoRock Keyhole brush made quite a nice lather from Tcheon Fung Sing’s Tabacco Verde shaving soap. I think “The first Hard Shaving Soap” must mean the first in Italy — TFS was founded immediately after the war, so perhaps the…

Sunday coffee is great

One advantage of having coffee only twice a week is that you really enjoy the taste and are conscious of it. Another advantage is that I believe the infrequency will forestall physical addiction. I have mastered the Clever Coffee dripper method: Fold over the crimped part of the paper filter, put it into the dripper, and…

Good idea that seems not so good until experienced

I wash dishes by hand, and I used Dawn 3X detergent for quite a while, and then when it became available 4X detergent because so little was needed. I would buy it at Costco, and then — it was gone! In its place was Dawn 5X — well and good, but it was in a spray…

Two slants, contrasted

My tiny tub of Nancy Boy Signature Shaving Cream is almost empty. I think I am going to replace it, even though I have a fair number of shaving soaps. The fragrance and performance of this shaving cream are really extraordinary, and if I had a full tub I would use it more frequently.  Given…

“A Virus Killed My Mom. It Took 30 Years. Nobody Knew What Was Wrong.”

CONTENT WARNING: This article is a brief memoir, and it’s grim. I found it worth reading, so I wanted to call your attention to it, but it’s tough. Jessica Wildfire writes at OK Doomer: It started sometime around my fourteenth birthday. My mom began acting stranger than usual. She said things that didn’t make sense. She…

To protect the children, let’s make churches adults-only venues

Guy Lancaster writes in the Arkansas Times: When Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R-Of Course) spoke up in committee on January 19 in defense of his bill, SB43, which would designate drag shows as “adult” venues, he quoted at length from an ostensible communique he received from a drag queen, begging him to protect Arkansas’s children and assuring him that “a lot…

Tempeh Spinach, a What-I-Have-On-Hand™ recipe

I have eaten through the dishes previously prepared, and so I looked around for what is possible with what I had on hand. I came up with this, for which I used my 4-qt sauté pan: Tempeh Spinach • extra-virgin olive oil• 10-12 oz diced tempeh (chickpea and rye)• 1 big red onion, chopped• 1…

RazoRock Superslant razors back in stock (for now — limited quantities)

Just to be clear: I get no kickback from Italian Barber, and this is not an affiliate link. But as a service to my readers, I wanted to let you know that the Superslant — one of the best slants I’ve used, both extremely comfortable and extremely efficient — is back in stock for now.…

A slant revisited: Phoenix Artisan’s Alpha Ecliptic

A new soap and razor today. The soap is Phoenix Artisan’s CK-6 Tombstone: “Gunpowder, Leather, Tobacco, Geranium, Bergamot, Lady Banksia White Rose [sourced from Tombstone, AZ].” The blend of fragrances — the rough-tough stough (gunpowder, leather, and tobacco) and the florals (geranium, bergamot, and white rose) — is an intriguing (and pleasant) scent, and the…

Antidepressants help bacteria resist antibiotics

Liam Drew writes in Nature: The emergence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is often attributed to the overuse of antibiotics in people and livestock. But researchers have homed in on another potential driver of resistance: antidepressants. By studying bacteria grown in the laboratory, a team has now tracked how antidepressants can trigger drug…

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think

Joanna Thompson writes in Quanta: People often think they know what causes chronic depression. Surveys indicate that more than 80% of the public blames a “chemical imbalance” in the brain. That idea is widespread in pop psychology and cited in research papers and medical textbooks. Listening to Prozac, a book that describes the life-changing value of treating depression…

Barr Pressed Durham to Find Flaws in the Russia Investigation. It Didn’t Go Well.

Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman and Katie Benner report in the NY Times (gift link, no paywall): WASHINGTON — It became a regular litany of grievances from President Donald J. Trump and his supporters: The investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia was a witch hunt, they maintained, that had been opened without any solid basis,…

The backstory of the Half Moon Bay mass shooting in California

Half Moon Bay is up the coast from where I live — back in the day and perhaps still, it had a terrific little cafe right next to the ocean that served superb seafood — so the shooting there caught my eye. The LA Times has a report by Alexandra E. Petri and Salvador Hernandez that sheds…

The Abortion Pill’s Secret Money Men

Hannah Levintova writes in Mother Jones: In 1993, a group of activists rented a warehouse in suburban Westchester County, New York. It was smaller than they’d hoped and had limited ventilation, but the two other locations they’d tried to rent belonged to universities and required jumping through too many bureaucratic hoops—the exact sort of paper trail this…

How the White Cube Came to Dominate the Art World

Abigail Cain writes at Artsy.net: In 1976, artist and critic Brian O’Doherty set the art world abuzz with a three-part essay published in Artforum. Titled “Inside the White Cube,” it gave a catchy new name to a mode of display that had long ago achieved dominance in museums and commercial galleries. As the story goes, copies of the…

NY Times invents a Biden scandal — and the public’s reaction

Jamison Foser writes at Finding Gravity: When New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker tweeted yesterday that the discovery of classified documents at Joe Biden’s personal office and home, though “markedly different” from Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, would nevertheless inoculate Trump from criticism, it wasn’t hard to spot the flaw in Baker’s reasoning. NYU…

BBS for a BBS result, and Hairy Crab Oolong for the tea

Today’s shaving soap, Extro 17 Stormo, has an interesting fragrance: “Woody, aromatic fragrance … with top notes of black pepper and with hints of heliotropes, resins, and coffee and with a background of incense, oud, amber, musk, and red pepper.” The soap is relatively soft and gray in color, and it makes an extremely nice…

Why I added baking soda when I cooked dried beans

In my guide to making your own tempeh, I include a warning on not adding any baking soda to the water when cooking dried beans: Rhizopus oligosporus, the fungus that turns beans (and grain) into tempeh, requires an acid environment and will not grow if the beans are alkaline. Someone in the Tempeh Makers group on…

I tried boiled mushrooms

I got some good mushrooms — domestic white, good-sized — and decided to try boiling them, much as described in the video at the link. The only change I made was to include alliums, which the video neglected to do: 1/4 large red onion, chopped, and 4 large Russian red garlic cloves, thinly sliced. I…

A Hollywood Armorer on the “Rust” Shooting Charges

In the Atlantic, Caroline Mimbs Nyce interviews a movie armorer on the fatal shooting on the set of Rust. The article begins: When someone is accidentally shot and killed on a film set, who is responsible: the actor holding the gun, the person who handed it to him, or the professional charged with managing the…

Court-watchers blocked

Government should be responsive to the public (presumably the group on whose behalf they work), and not focus so much on self-protection and secrecy. January 23, 2023 Fiona Apple Courtwatch PG Los Angeles California In favor of: H.B.133/S.B. 43 An Act Concerning Courts – Remote Public Access My name is Fiona Apple and although I…

I Coloniali and 4711

It’s too bad that I Coloniali shaving cream is now a thing of the past. I’m not sure what role rhubarb plays in its formulation, but it was an excellent shaving cream — and mine still is, as evidenced by the luscious lather created with my Simpson Emperor 2 Super shaving brush. The Holy Black’s…

Paul Krugman tells us not to feed the debt scolds

Paul Krugman writes in the NY Times: in March 2011 Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, chairs of a White House deficit-reduction commission, issued a frightening warning about U.S. government debt. Unless America took major steps to rein in future deficits, they warned, a fiscal crisis could be expected within around two years. Bowles described what he thought would…

Who hates inclusivity? The question answers itself.

Dan Froomkin’s column from last July is worth reading. It begins: There is no rational, acceptable reason to run an opinion column, nine days after the  Supreme Court’s devastating repeal of reproductive rights, arguing that the “far left” is denying women their humanity as much as the “far right” – based on the fact that a handful…

The story no one wants to touch: Why the Capitol Police enabled 1/6

Our news organizations have become complacent and focused on profit, with the desire to rock the boat much diminished. This does the public a disservice, but large corporations are much more attentive to their own profit than to the public interest. Dan Froomkin writes at Press Watch: The news media’s continuing failure to explore why the…

Good info on Paxlovid

Judith Graham writes in Medscape: A new coronavirus variant is circulating, the most transmissible one yet. Hospitalizations of infected patients are rising. And older adults represent nearly 90% of U.S. deaths from covid-19 in recent months, the largest portion since the start of the pandemic. What does that mean for people 65 and older catching covid for the…

Fine shave, mystery tea

The tube of Dr. Bronner’s Organic Shaving Soap, here in Lemongrass Lime fragrance, is a gift from The Eldest. It’s an interesting soap that does a good job. The ingredients are interesting: INGREDIENTS: Organic Sucrose, Organic White Grape Juice, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Palm Kernel Oil; Potassium Hydroxide, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Shikakai Powder, Organic…

Russia seems to have had quite a direct hand in the 2016 election

Dan Froomkin on Mastodon: Comey named McGonigal head of Counterintelligence of the NY FBI Field Office on October 4, 2016. Within weeks, Giuliani was dropping leak bombs on Fox News from the NY FBI field office—which turned out to be disinformation—but reopened the Clinton probe & tanked her shoo-in election. Here’s the announcement at the…

This is how fascism comes to America

Given the open and aggressive authoritarianism of the Republican party today — take a look at Kevin McCarthy kowtowing to Marjorie Taylor Greene, and at Ron DeSantis using government power to shut down libraries — it would be good to review this Washington Post column by Robert Kagan from May of 2016: The Republican Party’s attempt to…

New domestic tools/toys provide pleasure: Shark vacuum cleaner edition

For quite a while I’ve used a Fuller carpet sweeper to clean the apartment’s carpeted floor, and it doesn’t suck — a problem. I wanted a carpet cleaner that sucks, and that led me to Wirecutter and this review. Their pick — the Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 — a) sounded good and b) priced reasonably.…

Rocky Mountain Barbershop and Cherry Blossom

Rocky Mountain Barber Company is a Canadian company, and this morning I am trying their Barbershop shaving cream, thanks to a gift from The Eldest. It has a light fragrance and makes quite a good lather. I twirled the damp (well-shaken-out) shaving brush in the cream, which is somewhat stiff — to get a proper…

Masks and images

Masks are arrested expressions, and admirable echoes of feeling, at once faithful, discreet, and superlative. Living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle, and it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts; yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things, and with words for…

Learning from Disasters: Political Media Edition

James Fallows has an excellent column exploring why journalists (and their editors) do so poorly at learning from their mistakes and offers some lessons they might have learned. (In the case of the NY Times, it became clear from the responses journalists and editors made to the Public Editor, particularly Margaret Sullivan, that the problem…

Repeated Covid infections cripple your immune system

Here in Victoria, most people seem unconcerned about Covid, even though an extremely infectious variant is active: XBB.1.5. I wear an N95 mask when I am indoors in a public space (eg, grocery shopping), but most people do not. Local Facebooks are hostile to any mention of mask mandates. The provincial public health officials stay…

Layoffs don’t make sense, but most corporations are not learning organizations

Corporations generally will focus on technical improvements to their products and ignore improvements to their organization — their focus is to improve what they make, not what they are. Chrys Argyris devoted his career (and some very interesting books) to trying to figure out why organizations did not learn and develop ways that would enable…

Can Fermented Foods Boost Mental Health?

I eat fermented vegetables frequently. They’re delicious and they also have health benefits. I ferment my own (because a) it’s much less costly and b) I can make up my own combinations), but certainly there are some excellent fermented foods you can buy — like Wildbrine krauts. Drew Rams, MD, writes in Medscape (and there’s a…

10 things you may not know about carbs

The title is from the BBC article, and the first thing listed is indeed something I had not known: 1. The Cracker Test A quick and easy test to do at home to see how many carbs YOU should be eating. Geneticist, Dr. Sharon Moalem has come up with a really easy test you can…

Ousia, great razor, exceptional tea

The brush this morning is my Yaqi Cashmere, whose 19mm knot of very fine synthetic bristles does feel on my face a bit like cashmere. The soap is Grooming Dept Ousia: “Fennel, Crystallized Mandarin, Ginger, Immortelle, Tobacco, Vanilla, and Vetiver.” As the name suggests, it is a divine fragrance — and the lather is the…

A simple chili, the kind with asparagus and sweet vermouth

I was in a chili mood, so I got out my 4-qt All-Clad Stainless sauté pan and drizzled in: • about 1.5-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil And then I started prepping, adding to the skillet as I went: • 1 large red onion, chopped coarsely• 3 BBQ/spring onions, chopped (or use 1 bunch thick scallions)•…

ChatGPT comes for white-collar jobs

Annie Lowery has a sobering article in the Atlantic: In the next five years, it is likely that AI will begin to reduce employment for college-educated workers. As the technology continues to advance, it will be able to perform tasks that were previously thought to require a high level of education and skill. This could lead…

Republicans like for (other) people to suffer

Kevin Drum points out an unappealing characteristic of the Republican mindset: Sami Scheetz, a state representative in Iowa, tweets today about a bill introduced by state Republicans that restricts the kinds of food that can be purchased with SNAP (food stamps): It’s obvious that this is intended to make low-income workers on SNAP even more miserable…

Today is Grooming Dept day

In honor of Grooming Dept’s release of new products today (scroll down at link) — just now, in fact, and I placed my order already because they sell out quickly — I went with a Grooming Dept shave. I began today’s shave, as I begin every shave, by rubbing the tiniest possible amount of Grooming…

Playing games to help research

TAKE PART IN GAMIFIED RESEARCH Gamification motivates people to participate in experiments through competition, fun and the opportunity to learn about themselves. Here are some games to try out: Which English? A viral grammar test that tries to identify which “world English” someone speaks, as part of language research. Are you a Super-Listener? A citizen-science…

Four good pieces of advice

Oliver Burkeman at The Imperfectionist has four very good thoughts. Here’s one: “I’m fully committed.” This phrase, which comes via Jordan Raynor, may win the prize in the long-running quest to find the right form of words for saying no to a request for your time – without leaving any wiggle room, but also without being needlessly unpleasant to the…

Tiny bubbles, in the brine

After starting a vegetable ferment — like yesterday’s potato-carrot batch — it’s always a great pleasure the following morning to see the thread of tiny bubbles ascending when the jar is tilted. The little guys are alive and well and getting to work.

Grooming Dept will have new items for sale on Friday!

I like Grooming Dept products a lot — high-quality and also interesting — but they do tend to sell out quickly. He has a bunch of new things that will become available on Friday, January 20, at 11:00am PST. (I put a popup reminder in my calendar so I can order before things are sold…

More Wee Scot, with a shave stick

I used my pre-Vulfix Wee Scot this morning, along with a shave stick. I did use Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave. At first I avoided using it if I were going to use a shave stick, but with the current formulation one uses so little — plus there’s a quick rinse after applying — that I…

Here are 150+ Sources on Covid to Share with Everyone You Know

Jessica Wildfire of OK Doomer has a good reference list for those times when you are told that Covid’s over so no need to worry or take precautions. She writes: Two things seem clear at this point. First, the general public vastly underestimates the threat Covid poses to them, nor do they grasp the depth of the…

1st Prize Winner ECU Guitar Competition 2019

Oscar Somersalo, 1st prize winner of ECU GuitarCompetition 2019 Music: Variations on Carnival of Venice by Francisco Tárrega1st movement, Fandangos y Boleros from Sonata by Leo Brouwer Performed on July 16, 2019 Guitar: Gabriele Lodi

We’re Never Getting Back to Normal. You Don’t Have to Pretend Anymore.

Jessica Wildfire writes at OK Doomer: A woman walks down a road in China. She’s recording hundreds of dead crows on her phone. It looks like something out of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. The comments are worse. The conspiracy theorists are blaming 5G. Someone else says, “It was lightning.” If you say the obvious, that makes you…

Potato-carrot ferment

As I mentioned on Mastodon, I liked the previous raw-potato ferment so much, I decided to repeat it right away and get the next potato ferment underway. As I filled the two 1-liter jars (using them to measure how much to prepare, I realized I should have bought two more of those redskin potatoes. I…

How to give advice on the internet without being an utter menace

Some excellent advice by Another Angry Woman: f you don’t think you need to read this post because you’re always giving Good, Helpful Advice as a Good, Helpful Citizen, this one is for you. I’m sure you probably mean well, but it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that you’ve likely…

Black Beer No. 1 and Wee Scot: Endurance effort

I decided to try again to see how many passes I can get from the post-Vulfix Wee Scot. I chose another Meißner Tremonia alcohol-themed shaving soap, Black Beer No. 1, and loaded the brush well. The three shaving passes went very well. Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave is a miracle prep, and this is quite a…

The Deadbeat Limit — Understanding The Debt Ceiling

Jay Kuo has a good explainer at Second Nexus: There’s a lot of talk in Washington around the so-called “debt ceiling” which is a really unfortunate name. I prefer to call it the “deadbeat ceiling.” Why? A “debt” ceiling implies that what we’re talking about is like a credit card, as if Congress were voting whether…

Extremely Hardcore: Musk and Twitter

Zoë Schiffer, Casey Newton, and Alex Heath write in New York (no paywall): In April 2022, Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder, and was offered a seat on the board. Luke Simon, a senior engineering director at Twitter, was ecstatic. “Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer and scientist, and…

What the Jan. 6 probe found out about social media, but didn’t report

Cat Zakrzewski, Cristiano Lima, and Drew Harwell have an important report (no paywall) in the Washington Post: The Jan. 6 committee spent months gathering stunning new details on how social media companies failed to address the online extremism and calls for violence that preceded the Capitol riot. The evidence they collected was written up in a 122-page memo that was circulated among…

Twitter is being used by a billionaire to shift public opinion. Time to go elsewhere

“Eric Blair” (George Orwell’s real name) writes at Deep Narrative: “Nothing in the world is less surprising and easier to understand than a right-wing billionaire purchasing a media entity and immediately trying to use it to pursue his ideological agenda and class interests.” – Chris Hayes, talking about Twitter and Elon Musk. What is happening at Twitter?…

Covid is worse than many believe

I highly recommend reading this interesting thread on Mastodon. The first post in the thread: One thing I’m noticing is that most of my friends have this idea that a “typical” viral infection is something very transient, it self-resolves, and then you’re fine. It’s coming as a massive surprise to them that SARS-CoV-2 might linger…

Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health

I have de facto quit drinking — that is, I gradually became aware that I wasn’t drinking any alcohol (except at family celebrations like Christmas and Thanksgiving). I just drifted away from it without making any conscious decision (though I imagine my unconscious knew what it was doing). I’ve read that studies whose findings show better outcomes…

Uh-oh: AI writing tools and what they mean for journalism

Philip Moscovitch has an article in the Halifax Examiner whose implications go far beyond journalism. As he points out in the article, vendors — and their competitors — will soon be able to order up reader reviews by the square yard with whatever tilt they want. The sort of tabloid that views its content as mere…

Losing GOP candidate arrested in string of shootings at New Mexico Democrats’ homes

Dennis Romero has a news report for NBC News: A failed candidate for the New Mexico state House described by police as an “election denier” was arrested Monday in a string of shootings at the homes of state and local Democratic leaders. Republican Solomon Peña is accused of conspiring with and paying four men to carry out shootings at…

Wee Scot once more, with love

I wanted to take the Vulfix-era Wee Scot for another spin, and this morning I went with Meißner Tremonia’s Natural Bay Rum. I loaded the little brush well, and I noticed that it felt better on my face this morning without the side-by-side comparison with the pre-Vulfix Wee Scot. In fact, it felt not bad…

A strange golf story

Caleb Hanning’s 9-year-old article in Grantland is fascinating. It begins: Strange stories can find you at strange times. Like when you’re battling insomnia and looking for tips on your short game. It was well past midnight sometime last spring and I was still awake despite my best efforts. I hadn’t asked for those few extra hours…

The reality of climate change continues to emerge

The American Southwest has not seemed to really care about water — think of all the green lawns in Phoenix and the fountains splashing in Las Vegas — but the reality is hitting a bit harder now that the Colorado River’s water supply drops and drops. Joshua Partlow reports in the Washington Post (no paywall): SCOTTSDALE,…

What to Do if You Have COVID

Covid is still here, still spreading fast, and still doing great damage to people’s immune systems, cardiovascular systems, and bodies in general. Useful information from People’s CDC: A guide for preparing for illness, preventing spread to others, managing symptoms, and recovery Table of Contents Summary Layers of Protection Planning Ahead Preparing Your Home Preparing for…

Excellent 3-D models

Tilt, turn, rotate, zoom in/out — a great collection of a wide variety of models. Start here with some minerals, but do explore.

Two Wee Scots went to a shave…

Thanks to George P., who kindly lent me his Simpson Wee Scot, I can now directly compare the pre-Vulfix-acquisition Wee Scot (mine) with a post-Vulfix-acquisition Wee Scot (his). The two are shown side by side in the photo above, and someday I’ll tell you which is which. You can examine them more closely by clicking…

Lessons from long meditation

Cory Muscara meditated 15 hours a day for 6 months straight with one of the toughest Buddhist monks on the planet. He posted a Twitter thread about what he learned. Here’s the first post in the thread. Here are the lessons: This is Sayadaw U Pandita. He was notorious for his unwavering belief that enlightenment…

Potato ferment done (by fiat)

The potato ferment was started on January 7, and I’ve decided to end the ferment today, a week later. It hasn’t changed much in appearance from two days ago except that the water is more cloudy, and the original instructions call for just a two-day ferment (which seems way too short to me). The cubes…

Dr. Selby and Rejuvenating Serum

I had to return to Dr. Selby’s 3X Concentrated Shaving Cream after Peter Strand commented that about a week ago, Maggard Razors had “67 Dr Selby’s tubs on sale after restocking. This morning when I checked they had 36, and this evening they had 29.” Right now they have 23.  I am so pleased that…

“We Convinced Our School to Bring Back Masks”

The denial regarding Covid continues to astound me. In OK Boomer Jessica Wildfire writes about her own efforts to break through the denial around her: My 4-year-old started preschool last year. A few weeks later, they dropped their mask policy. It made me nervous, but my spouse said it would probably be okay. “They spend…

Hearing aids: Cost, OTC, benefits

Dr. Cliff’s videos on hearing aids are useful and interesting, particularly the reviews. In this video he takes a general look at the field and makes some good points. Full disclosure: I have hearing aids that I got from an audiologist and they made an enormous difference. I was putting off getting them, but I…

Unconditional Surrender: great fragrance

The thing that struck me most about the shave today was the wonderful fragrance: “amber, tonka bean, amyris, cedarwood, agarwood, vetiver, cigar tobacco, black tea, jasmine, and geranium.” This soap is the Bison formula, but the soap is now made in the Milksteak formula. (I was surprised this morning to see the amazing range of…

The potato ferment: Progress report after 5 days

I started this ferment of raw potatoes on December 7. If you click the link, you will see how much the vegetables have collapsed. I observed the same thing when I fermented giardiniera (and an earlier batch collapsed even more, but I failed to get a photo). I also saw the same sort of collapse…

Grit & Grace: The Fight for the American Dream

I learned about the 30-minute documentary included below from a post by James Fallows, a post very much worth reading: “Wins, Bravery, and a Loss: Stories about visionary leaders, effective institutions, the toll of struggles.”

Lather comparison surprise

I wanted to compare the lather from Declaration Grooming’s Milksteak formula (today) with their Bison formula (yesterday). I thus used the same brush, my Omega 20102 boar brush. To my surprise, this morning it seemed that yesterday’s lather was better. This is so unexpected that I will be repeating the experiment down the line. Both…

New Omicron Subvariant Is ‘Crazy Infectious,’ COVID Expert Warns

Ralph Ellis writes in Medscape: Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The newest subvariant of Omicron, XBB.1.5, is so transmissible that everybody is at risk of catching it, even if they’ve already been infected and are fully vaccinated, a health expert told  USA Today . “It’s crazy infectious,” said Paula Cannon, PhD.,…

M. Scott Peck’s “People of the Lie”

Some books change over time — or they seem to. It’s as when you are on a hike through a forest and view a mountain through the trees. As you continue your course, the next day you again glimpse that mountain, and its appearance has changed. The mountain, of course, has remained the same, but…

New study links inflammation to decreased cognitive functioning in those with depression and obesity

Laura Staloch writes in PsyPost: A new study from researchers in China attempts to understand the relationship between major depressive disorder, obesity, and cognitive functioning. Examining participant body mass, biological inflammation markers, major depressive disorder diagnosis, and processing speed revealed that the higher the body mass when diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD), the slower the…

Blockbuster NYTimes Story Accidentally Leaked Phone Numbers of Russian Soldiers Criticizing War

I noticed when Margaret Sullivan was Public Editor — the equivalent of ombudsman — of the NY Times, that neither editors nor reporters would admit they erred. Rarely there would be a single grudging admission, but mostly any criticism was brushed aside, even when the criticism pointed out a flagrant error. And the Times maintains that attitude.…

Tempeh Greens now made

A few days ago I posted a recipe that I intended to cook, and now I’ve cooked it. Above you see the ingredients listed below, with red beets (2) a new addition. I came across them while I was gathering the ingredients, and I thought, “Why not?” From the earlier post, with minor additions to…

Lead and cadmium in chocolate: A response to the report from Consumer Reports

WorldWideChocolate.com offers a rebuttal to the Consumer Reports article: In December 2022, Consumer Reports (CR) published an article indicating 28 chocolate bars were tested, and many had “high” levels of cadmium and/or lead. Some points to know, which will be covered in further detail below: CR is using California’s maximum allowable dose levels (MADL) as their…

Conservatives Clarify That They’re Pro-Boss, Not Pro-Market

Eric Levitz writes in Intelligencer in New York magazine: Progressives have long held that the right’s economic theories are just elaborate rationalizations for funneling money to the elite. The argument goes like this: In any capitalist society, business owners and senior managers will inevitably have economic interests that run contrary to those of ordinary workers. The less…

A possible solution to debt-ceiling hostage-taking

Kevin Drum offers a promising solution to the perennial effort by the GOP to hold the debt-ceiling hostage to force as ransom passing measures the US public strongly opposes. (The GOP usually gets away with this because the mainstream media refers to “Congress” (rather than “Republicans”) as not raising the debt ceiling.) From the post…

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Written by Leisureguy

25 May 2021 at 9:09 am