Why flights actually take longer now than 50 years ago

We like to think that long distance travel times are getting shorter as modern technology enables planes to travel faster. But via Andrea James I came cross this fascinating video explanation put together by someone who looked at old flight schedules from fifty years ago and found that travel times are actually longer now than they were back then. Why is this? Part of the reason is that the increased congestion in the air and at airports means that there is longer time spent waiting for clearance and taxiing on the runways than was the case before.
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How the US almost went to war with Iran last month

In all the chasing after squirrels during the tumultuous first days of the Trump administration, Mehdi Hasan writes that one big story that has been largely ignored is how the US almost went to with Iran at the start of February by planning to board an Iranian vessel that was in international waters, a move that was averted at the last minute when news of the impending operation was leaked.
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The mainstream media is hopeless

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. The media’s obsession with Donald Trump’s ‘tone’ is ridiculous, and just because he was not as unhinged as usual when he spoke to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, they drooled over his speech as being ‘presidential’, even though he did not say anything that was concrete or praiseworthy, simply repeating empty promises of good times ahead and lying about the things he has supposedly achieved so far. Plus he added a truly nasty proposal to create an office to serve the victims of ‘immigrant crime’, even though the data shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than others. It was blatant pandering to his racist base and part of their push to demonize immigrants and make America white again.
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LUCA’s origins pushed back further in time

I wrote a month ago about the finding of 45 specimens of fossils of deuterostomes that date back to 540 millions years ago, the earliest from the Cambrian period. These form part of the fascinating search for LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor that we all share, even though the search might never actually yield it because when we go back far enough, the ‘tree of life’ that could point to a unique organism could become a ‘web of life’ where such an entity ceases to be identifiable.
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Once again, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins do NOT speak for the atheist movement

I have written before about how broad social, political, and religious movements on the edge of social acceptance should not be closely identified with a few individuals because those supposed spokespersons often have additional baggage that is harmful to those movements. Stephen LeDrew, author of The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement warns that some prominent atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens have, with their neoconservative political leanings, aided the rising intolerance represented by people like Donald Trump and that it is important that atheists not allow such people to be perceived as spokespersons for the broader atheist community.
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Sea lions playing volleyball

Via David Pescovitz I came across this video of sea lions playing volleyball. (I initially thought they were seals because I was not aware of the differences between seals and sea lions but this article explains it. One thing that puzzles me is that the article says that sea lions are brown but these appear to be black.) They show extremely impressive skills, even spiking the ball and using strategic placing. I was pretty bad at this sport, never quite getting the hang of how to use my hands clasped together to control the direction of the ball.
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Donald Trump gives another speech. Should we care?

Yesterday, Donald Trump gave a speech to a joint session of congress and the media today is full of analyses about what it all means. Should they bother? After all, we now know that he is a pathological liar so why should we take anything he says on major policy issues seriously? For those interested in what he said, here is an article that gives the highlights and fact-checks them. Is anyone surprised that the speech contained a lot of cherry-picked data, misleading information, and outright lies?
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Handle is an impressive robot

According to the information on the YouTube website that had the video below, this impressive robot was made by Boston Dynamics:

Handle is a research robot that stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4 feet vertically. It uses electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, with a range of about 15 miles on one battery charge. Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles found in the quadruped and biped robots we build, but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex. Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere: by combining wheels and legs Handle can have the best of both worlds.

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Jon Stewart tells journalists to take up a new hobby: journalism

He appears on his old friend Stephen Colbert’s show again and gets back in the groove and was in fine form, with he and Colbert doing some improvisational comedy along with the set bits. My favorite line was when he told the media that their hopes that Donald Trump would become more presidential after he was elected was absurd because “70-year old men don’t get less cranky or racist as time goes by”. I totally agree with him that the hostility between Trump and the media may be the best thing that happened to the latter.
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Trying to make America white again

In response to the harsh rhetoric against immigrants and the increased efforts to round up undocumented people and summarily ship them out, we have heard the increased use of the term ‘sanctuary’ as in ‘sanctuary cities’ and ‘sanctuary college campuses’. However, such places have no legal standing. Members of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) still have the legal authority to go anywhere and seize people they suspect of being undocumented. What the places that call themselves sanctuaries are doing is saying that they will not use their own police or other powers to cooperate with ICE in any way in identifying and rounding up potentially deportable people. In response, federal and state Republican governments are threatening to punish such sanctuaries financially for their defiance.
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