DOUGCO COUNTY COMMISSIONER LORA THOMAS IS ON TODAY And she's on because she's been put in a position to have to ask her fellow commissioners to stop the nonsense and get back to work. George Teal and Abe Laydon have wasted a ton of taxpayer dollars on two investigations in their zeal to unseat Thomas, who often is the lone dissenting vote on issues facing the county. Read more here but I think Lora is right and the way she's been treated is ridiculous. If you disagree politically, disagree, but the witch hunts have got to stop. And if George Teal spoke to me the way he has addressed Thomas I would be tempted to slap him across the face but that's why I'm not in politics.
BEING A PARENT ACTUALLY CHANGES YOUR BRAIN IF you are a parent I don't need to tell you it's changed you. Now we know from science that it actually remodels parts of the brain. The parts of the brain that work specifically to make a parent more attentive to the needs of their babies actually change during pregnancy for women. What about men? A new study has shown that men heavily involved in caregiving for an infant have the SAME changes in their brains. The secondary caregiver doesn't have the same changes to the same extent, so it definitely has to do with how much time you spend with your babies. I don't think this is a bad thing and it explains the differences I have seen in people who choose never to have children over those who do. We would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids.
GETTING OLDER? DON'T STRESS! This is a super cool twenty year study that measured daily stress. The surveyed people about daily stressors and how those stressors made them feel over that time, and researchers now know that getting older means far less stress than when you're younger. Stress bottoms out in the mid-50s and rises slightly after that but not much. Older people are less bothered by daily stressors than young people and are less likely to let those things stress them out. Read this cool bit:
“A lot of my prior work looked at these small, daily stressors — being late to a meeting, having an argument with a partner, caring for a sick child — and found that our emotional responses to these events are predictive of later health and well-being, including chronic conditions, mental health and even mortality. With this new research, it’s encouraging to see that as we age, we begin to deal with these stressors better. On average, the experience of daily stress won’t get worse, but in fact get better,” he concludes.
I have definitely found this out to be true as I've gotten older, though my life is definitely full of daily stressors. I just seem to care less, mostly because I know most of life's stressors don't mean anything long term. The perspective of time is important.
OUR DEMOCRATIC OVERLORDS DON'T LIKE NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE OUR MONEY And this is why I am relatively sure they are going to launch a full scale attack on the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) this legislative session. I expect them to place a ballot initiative that is ostensibly to save puppies and children (not babies, those you can kill whenever you want) that will gut or completely repeal TABOR. Don't be fooled, they are flush with our cash and the growth of government is just fine, thank you. Read more here.
ANOTHER TINA PETERS COHORT FLIPS AND PLEADS GUILTY Sandra Brown is the latest member of the Tina Peters team to make a deal with prosecutors that included her cooperation. Peters is still delusional and showed as much during a speech with a group that says the reason Republicans lost is they were too liberal. MMkay. I am very interested to see her go to trial and defend herself. If her attorney isn't telling her to take a plea he or she is not doing a good job.
IRANIANS ARE TRYING TO KILL OR KIDNAP IRANIANS AROUND THE WORLD The Iranian regime seems nice. JK, they are horrible. This article talks about how foreign governments are now warning some Iranians who live oversees that they are the target of the Iranian government and they should watch their backs. Seems the Iranians are not happy that some have escaped their totalitarian regime and talk about it, so they are hiring scumbags to kill or kidnap them. Luckily for some the scumbags don't follow through, but can you imagine escaping from somewhere only to have to look over your shoulder forever? Ask Salman Rushdie what that's like.
ARE THE FUTURE KING AND QUEEN RELEVANT IN THE US? William and Kate are in Boston promoting the Earthshot awards for people trying to do something about climate change and its impacts. They have not been well received in my view. They were booed at a Celtics game and a reverend tasked with giving an invocation took the opportunity to lecture the future King and Queen on colonialism and racism. As William's grandmother oversaw the liberation of much of the British Empire this seems misplaced by people gonna take the shot when they can. I think of the British Monarchy like a distant relative we all know but don't speak to much. We'll what more the woke Left can do before they leave Friday.
TAY THE VICTIM IS RUNNING AGAIN FOR SCHOOL BOARD And you have to see this absolutely preposterous launch announcement. Note in this he doesn't mention student achievement ONE TIME. Why? Because he can't because he knows it's not good. What a maroon. Denver if you vote him back in (which they will) you are voting for more strife, more nonsense, and more focus on things that do nothing to raise student achievement. I especially love the crowd shouting his name at the end. I'm surprised he didn't start it with him stepping down from the cross. Seriously. What a self aggrandizing fool this guy is.
THE UPCOMING GRAND EXPERIMENT ON HOMELESSNESS We will be able to see how two completely different approaches work out when Aurora builds a campus to help homeless people get off the streets and the help they need to get a civilized life back. Denver uses a "housing first" model that doesn't require anything of addicts and the mentally ill, while Aurora is going for what I like to think of as the Dignity First approach, which requires sobriety and a willingness to work before housing. This is a good article that fleshes out the differences. I'm betting on Aurora.
POLICE AREN'T REQUIRED TO INVESTIGATE THE THEFT OF PROPERTY This is another case that shows you need to be able to protect yourself and if you suffer a property crime in an area with a law enforcement shortage you shouldn't expect much action on your stolen goods. This case hinges on a stolen backpack, the owner of which sued when the police didn't really do anything to find it. The judge in the case essentially said sorry, the cops don't have a duty to protect or find your stuff. What do they have a duty to do? Just curious.
DOES THIS SEEM LIKE SHE GOT OFF EASY? A stupid young woman posted a video of herself hitting a golf ball into the Grand Canyon on social media and has now been fined for it. She was ordered to pay a $285 fine, which she did and will not show a conviction on her record. This doesn't seem like the way to stop someone else from doing something dumb like this.
WE WENT OVER 1 MILLION SAME SEX HOUSEHOLDS THIS YEAR And good for anyone in a steady, happy long term relationship. Read more here.
HAVE YOU EVER FOUND MUSIC LATE? Weird question, but this morning a listener sent me an email about a Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris song from an album they did in 2006 and it's incredible and I'm mad I just found out about it. What are some of your late-to-the-party discoveries? Now I want to know what else I've missed. Here's a video from that album.
WHO HAD METH MONKS IN 2022 ON THEIR NEWS BINGO CARD? Because I didn't. Five monks have been defrocked and their temple is temporarily empty because they all tested positive for methamphetamine. Higher power indeed.
NOW WE'RE MAKING MASTER VILLAIN AI AND I'M SURE THIS WILL GO WELL Meta has created Artificial Intelligence that is especially skilled in negotiation, forethought and trickery. The AI is especially good at a game called Diplomacy where one must create alliances to take over a Europe-like space online. Read this bit:
Cicero, released last week, was able to trick humans into thinking it was real, according to Meta, and can invite players to join alliances, craft invasion plans and negotiate peace deals when needed. The model’s mastery of language surprised some scientists and its creators, who thought this level of sophistication was years away.
But experts said its ability to withhold information, think multiple steps ahead of opponents and outsmart human competitors sparks broader concerns. This type of technology could be used to concoct smarter scams that extort people or create more convincing deep fakes.
“It’s a great example of just how much we can fool other human beings,” said Kentaro Toyama, a professor and artificial intelligence expert at the University of Michigan, who read Meta’s paper. “These things are super scary … [and] could be used for evil.”
Read the rest here but this seems like a bad idea to me.
THE HURRICANE SEASON ENDED WITH AN AVERAGE NUMBER OF STORMS Which is not what was predicted back in the Spring. We were told this would be above average season, but it wasn't. It is notable for the landing of three storms that caused a lot of damage.
WHY DOES EUROPE HATE FREE SPEECH SO MUCH? The reaction to Elon Musk allowing people on the right back on Twitter has been fascinating and has completely revealed the totalitarian instincts on the Left. Not only have lefties been shrieking about Twitter all over Twitter, they are demanding the app be removed from the app stores of Apple and Droid. Why is there such a panic about truly free speech? If you don't want anti-Semitic content don't follow Kanye West. If you see it, why not use the same platform to out it and argue against it? This is what happens when Progressives realize they have lost their iron grip on something. It's not enough that they just leave, it must be destroyed. Now the EU has warned Elon Musk that they are watching him and may ban the app in Europe if he gets too free speech-y for their taste. Look at their list of demands on the private company:
"There is still huge work ahead, as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising," according to a Commission readout of Breton's call with Musk. The French commissioner also said Twitter needed sufficient personal and technical capacity to comply with Europe's upcoming rules, adding he would be monitoring its progress.
Apparently they see no conflict between "reinforcing content moderation" and "protect freedom of speech" because they don't get the concept of what free speech is. Twitter has not responded.
CRYPTO LOSER SAM FRIEDMAN BANKS CLAIMS INCOMPETENCE And not fraud. Of course he does. While he says his bank account is empty and he's living off one credit card I don't think anyone believes him, including me. The biggest stumbling block to his "gee, I'm bad at business" take is that BILLIONS of dollars are still missing and no one seems to know what happened to them. Uh-huh, I'm sure he's just bad at business. Sure.
JOE OLTMANN IS BEING SUED FOR DEFAMATION And the journalist for an LGBT magazine has a case I think, although because she is a journalist she may have a hard time arguing she is not a public figure. Our defamation laws currently make it damn near impossible to sue someone if you are a public figure of any kind. Read more here, but I'll be watching this.
WATCH AN AMERICAN SOCCER PLAYER HANDLE HOSTILE QUESTIONS FROM IRAN LIKE A BOSS I'm not going to lie, this makes me want to call it Eye-ran from now on.
NOW I NEED A PORCUPINE Click here if it doesn't load. And who has a porcupine as a pet?
WANT A CAR YOU CAN DRIVE FOREVER? BUY A TOYOTA Look at this list of cars of cars with the longest potential lifespan measured in miles. Then look at how many of them are from Toyota. I had a Honda CRV that I drove for 250,000 miles and I'd still be driving it if Chuck hadn't demanded I get something with "safety features" when I had Q. I loved that car so much.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW'S BRAIN If you don't know anything about shrews, the little rodent with the pointy face, your mind is about to be blown. During the winter months when food is scarce, they actually shrink their own brains, and they REGROW it in the spring. Scientists are now trying to figure out how they do it in the hopes it can someday help humans who have suffered brain injuries.
A TOO QUICK JOB OFFER IS NEVER A GOOD SIGN This is 100% accurate on every level. Click here if it doesn't load.
WE'VE BEEN REDUCED TO COUNTING HEADS AT A BIRTHDAY PARTY, BRONCOS COUNTRY And this party was for "star" quarterback Russell Wilson, whose play has certainly not matched his insane salary. About "half" of the team showed up at his party this week. This season is going historically bad for the Broncos on every level. I keep thinking at least the only way is up, amiright?