Why would anyone need 22,000 rounds of ammunition?

We have yet another mass shooting in the US, this time of nine people in California. These mass shooting are becoming so frequent that they hardly raise much of a ripple in the media unless the numbers of the dead are large (as in this case) or the shooter had some sort of ideological grudge that can form the basis of media speculation tying it to larger national political issues. In this case, the victims were co-workers of the alleged shooter so it seems like it was workplace motivated.
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Satanic panic and other dangerous beliefs

While I am an atheist, I can understand the appeal that the idea of a god has for some people, since I was a believer myself at one time. But even during my most religious phase, I never gave much thought to the devil or Satan, as he was sometimes called. It just seemed such a silly idea and the various depictions one saw of a red-faced guy with wings and horns seemed ridiculous. He also seemed superfluous. Since god was omnipotent and it was he who consigned you to hell to suffer interminable torments for one’s transgressions, what was the point of Satan, other than to serve as some kind of doorman to the gates of hell?
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The next fight: Vaccine passports

As vaccination numbers grow, it is increasingly likely that at least some places are going to ask for proof of covid-19 vaccination to enter their spaces and that some businesses may require their employees to be vaccinated if they are to return to offices. Given how some people became absolutely freaked out by the minimal requirement to weak masks, losing their minds to the extent of comparing it to Jews being forced by to wear the Star of David during the period of the Holocaust, one can only imagine how apoplectic they are going to get over this issue.

The most likely place where this requirement will begin to be imposed is in international travel, where the idea of people having digital vaccination certificates is gaining ground.
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The flap over critical race theory

Once again we see efforts to avoid discussing seriously the issue of race in the US. This time it consists of attacks on teaching critical race theory in schools. What is this theory?

Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.
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Anti-vaccine myths keep growing

We are reaching the stage in the US where people who have been vaccinated are being told that they pose little or no risk to themselves or others and can thus go about their daily activities without wearing masks. But it appears that the anti-vaxxers have also upped their game. Not being content with posing a health risk to others, they are now claiming that vaccinated people are a danger to them.

As reported by NBC News, the owner of a butcher shop in Ontario, Canada, banned all people who were vaccinated from COVID-19 to protect unvaccinated female customers.

“We have decided that since the majority of our customers are women and since women are most at risk for these side effects, we ask that if you’ve been vaccinated to please order for curbside pickup or delivery for 28 days after being vaccinated,” the post read on Instagram.

A separate store in Canada banned vaccinated customers for a fear of vaccinated people “shedding” the coronavirus to its unvaccinated customers. In the U.S., a private school in Miami barred vaccinated teachers from coming into contact with students. The same school threatened the employment of its vaccinated teachers.

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Mnemonics

In the comments to the post about the cartoon with the cosine pun, many people recalled the mnemonics that they were taught to remember how sine, cosine, and tangent were defined. In the comments, Rob Grigjanis mentioned the mnemonic he learned for the color spectrum as “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” and that reminded me of this story that I have written about earlier that happened when my older daughter was in third grade.

She came home from school one day and told me excitedly how the teacher had explained how white light was made up of different colors. The teacher had also told her that the great scientist who discovered this was Roy G. Biv! To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. I tried to gently correct her about who the scientist was without seeming to disparage her teacher, but my daughter was skeptical about what I was telling her. Who was she more likely to believe: her teacher, a fount of authoritative knowledge, or her dopey old father, often prone to making jokes? She was too young to appreciate the implausibility argument that it was highly improbable that the scientist who discovered the color spectrum just happened to have a name that matched the initial letters of the colors in the right order.
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Add “The mob made me do it” to the “Trump made me do it” excuse

Some of the people arrested in the January 6th insurrection are pleading that it was the mob that made them invade the Capitol building that day.

Christopher Grider said he came to Washington on Jan. 6 with no intention of rioting. But he got caught up in the mob of angry supporters of then-President Donald Trump as they surged into the U.S. Capitol, breaking through police barriers and smashing through doors.

It wasn’t his fault, he said, that he ended up inside the building with a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag around his neck as lawmakers ran for their lives.
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Selling snake oil as news

I long ago stopped watching TV news and talk shows, either on local stations or on the national networks. They never said anything that I did not hear about elsewhere and instead spent a lot of time on mindless blather that was truly irritating. And of course there were the numerous commercial breaks.

But sometimes you cannot avoid them, such as when the TV is on in a doctor’s waiting room or in the boarding areas for flights and then you would often see segments where the host would interview people who were talking about some new product that supposedly has beneficial effects on health.

On his show Last Week Tonight on Sunday, John Oliver dissected such segments, showing how often they were what are called ‘sponsored content’, i.e. essentially advertisements paid for by the manufacturer of the product that the ‘news’ shows presented without clearly disclosing this key fact.

Towards the end of the segment, Oliver’s team pulls off one of the pranks they are famous for and that is worth watching. They clearly plan these shows well in advance of airing.

Judge strikes down anti-BDS law

Part of the strategy of the Israel lobby in the US to suppress the growing criticisms of the Israeli government’s behavior is to get state legislatures to pass laws that punish people for doing so. One approach is to define anti-Semitism so broadly that pretty much anything you say that is critical of Israel would fall under that umbrella. Another is to essentially mandate loyalty oaths to Israel if you want to do any business with state government.

One form that the latter approach takes is that you have to disavow any support fo the BDS movement if you want to engage in any form with a state institution. These laws have been challenged as infringements on the right to free speech and a federal judge in Georgia just struck down such a state law.
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