American kleptocracy

In addition to benefiting the wealthy in general, the Republican tax proposal that passed today in the House of Representatives by a margin of 227-203 and will be passed by the senate later today personally enriches Donald Trump and legislators who voted for it. The graphic below (via Karoli Kuns) shows how a last minute provision will personally benefit 14 Republican senators, the biggest beneficiary being Bob Corker who switched to voting in favor of the bill after this provision was inserted.
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How children learn science

One of the things that any teacher soon realizes is that students come into your class with all manner of theoretical structures in their minds, even if they have never formally studied that topic or even consciously thought about it. People create these structures in order to successfully navigate the world and as long as it works to answer their immediate problems, the fact that it is wildly off from what the scientific community believes is not a hindrance to their adoption.
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Young Earth creationist argumentative strategy

I came across this interesting blog post by someone named Jaybird (whose gender is not specified and I will refer to as a ‘he’) who had been a young-Earth creationist. He was taught that it was vitally important to defend the idea of a young Earth because that was based on a biblical chronology and if that was taken as metaphorical, then that would open the floodgates for thinking that everything, even the resurrection of Jesus, as metaphorical, and that would be the end of everything. He describes the rhetorical tricks that he was taught to enable people like him to defend that position and get the better of their more-scientifically-minded critics.
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Incompetent Trump nominee withdraws

Recall Matthew Petersen, nominated by Donald Trump for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge who at a hearing last week was unable to answer a single question about the law that was posed to him by Louisiana senator John Kennedy, a very conservative Republican. Well, it appears that after being at the receiving end of a storm of ridicule, he has withdrawn his name from consideration.
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Stealing a car that has wireless entry

I have not quite understood what the benefits are of wireless car entry and ignition. You still have to carry the key with you to enable the system to work, so the only advantage seems to be that you do not have to take it out of your pocket, which seems like a very minor benefit. However, I had a female friend who said she really liked it because she uses a handbag and finding and fishing a key out of it is not as simple as with a trouser pocket.
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Sex abuse report released in Australia

The royal commission in Australia charged by the government with investigating how institutions (religious, federal and state governments) have responded to child sex abuse allegations has, after five years issued a 17-volume report containing 400 recommendations, of which 189 are new. Such commissions usually issue fairly mild recommendations but these were quite sweeping. Naturally, the report looked at the Catholic church, one of the worst perpetrators of child sexual abuse, and suggested two major changes: ending celibacy for priests and requiring priests to report to the authorities anyone who in confessions to priests said that they had abused children.
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Keeping the focus on Trump’s abuse allegations

New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been out in front on the sexual abuse issue and called for Donald Trump to resign because of the charges that sixteen women have leveled against his disgusting behavior. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii then came out with an even stronger statement, saying “The only way to stop this president who has a narcissistic need for attention, he’s a misogynist and admitted sexual predator and a liar. The only thing that will stop him from attacking us—because nobody is safe—is his resignation.”
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Brace yourself for renewed UFO mania

The New York Times has an interview with two former US navy pilots who reported seeing a UFO in 2004. It appears that there was a secret multimillion dollar Pentagon program to investigate such sightings and keep a record of them. The program ended in 2012 but monitoring still goes on. The interview article describes in some detail how the two navy pilots pursued the object and its strange behavior, and there is a brief video of the object.
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Hopeful and warning signs from Alabama

As I said, it is unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from the shocking win by Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore in the senate race in the deep red state of Alabama. It may well be that that election was sui generis because of the extreme views of Moore and the sexual abuse allegations against him and the revelations of his creepy obsession with teenage girls..
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