Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

Monist philosophy and quantum physics agree that all is one

Monist philosophy and quantum physics agree that all is one

Heinrich Päs writes: ‘From all things One and from One all things,’ wrote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. He was describing monism, the ancient idea that all is one – that, fundamentally, everything we see or experience is an aspect of one unified whole. Heraclitus wasn’t the first, nor the last, to advocate the idea. The ancient Egyptians believed in an all-encompassing but elusive unity symbolised by the goddess Isis, often portrayed with a veil and worshipped…

Read More Read More

Trump could definitely beat Biden

Trump could definitely beat Biden

Eric Levitz writes: Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 Republican primary is not certain. But it now looks more than merely likely. The former president boasts more than twice as much support as Ron DeSantis, leading the Florida governor by a 51-to-24 percent margin in FiveThirtyEight’s average of GOP primary polls. No other candidate is polling above 6 percent. And the gap between Trump and DeSantis has been growing steadily wider for weeks. Indeed, the Viktor Orbán of the Sunshine State appears to be wilting beneath the…

Read More Read More

This is what the right-wing takeover of a progressive college looks like

This is what the right-wing takeover of a progressive college looks like

Michelle Goldberg writes: When I first met Matthew Lepinski, the faculty chair of New College of Florida, he was willing to give the right-wingers sent to remake his embattled progressive public school a chance. This was in January, a few weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appointed six activist conservatives, including the culture war strategist Chris Rufo, to New College’s board of trustees. Rufo, the ideological entrepreneur who made critical race theory a Republican boogeyman, was open about his…

Read More Read More

Inside Russia’s environmental influence operation targeting the Baltic Sea

Inside Russia’s environmental influence operation targeting the Baltic Sea

Michael Weiss and Holger Roonemaa report: In the first few days of October 2022, a group of Russians and Belarusians gathered in the Kaliningrad resort town of Svetlogorsk. The politicians, academics and activists discussed how the two countries, “truly striving for stability across the planet,” might resist the suite of international sanctions hitting both Russia and Belarus after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. One of the Svetlogorsk event’s most authoritative speakers was Alexander Dynkin, president of the prestigious Primakov National Research…

Read More Read More

Russian pilots tried to ‘dogfight’ U.S. jets over Syria, U.S. Central Command says

Russian pilots tried to ‘dogfight’ U.S. jets over Syria, U.S. Central Command says

CNN reports: Russian pilots tried to “dogfight” US jets over Syria, according to a spokesman for US Central Command, part of a recent pattern of more aggressive behavior. The attempts have happened in several of the most recent instances of aggressive behavior from Russian pilots, Col. Joe Buccino said. The Russian pilots do not appear to be trying to shoot down American jets, a US official told CNN, but they may be trying to “provoke” the US and “draw us…

Read More Read More

Finding the origin of a pandemic is difficult. Preventing one shouldn’t be

Finding the origin of a pandemic is difficult. Preventing one shouldn’t be

W. Ian Lipkin writes: In 1999, the New York State Department of Health asked me to test ‌brain samples from‌‌ people in Queens experiencing encephalitis, or brain inflammation. Surprisingly, we found they were infected with West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne virus that had never been reported before in North America. How did a virus endemic in Africa and the Middle East end up in Queens? At the time, ‌scientists posited that there were stow‌away mosquitoes on a flight from Tel…

Read More Read More

Ancient-human genome count surpasses 10,000

Ancient-human genome count surpasses 10,000

Nature reports: In 2010, researchers published the first genome sequence from an ancient human, using tufts of hair from a man who lived around 4,000 years ago in Greenland. In the 13 years since, scientists have generated genome data from more than 10,000 ancient people — and there’s no sign of a slowdown. “I feel truly gobsmacked that we have gotten to this point,” says David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. His team maintains…

Read More Read More

Just like humans, other apes enjoy spinning

Just like humans, other apes enjoy spinning

The New York Times reports: In 2011, a gorilla named Zola gained internet fame when the Calgary Zoo posted a video that showed him spinning in circles on his knuckles and heels with what appeared to be a huge grin on his face. Zola, the so-called break-dancing gorilla, returned in 2017, this time in a video showing him whirling around a kiddie pool with a level of wild enthusiasm rivaling the most committed human dancer at an all-night rave. Humans’…

Read More Read More

Chief Justice’s wife, Jane Roberts, made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show

Chief Justice’s wife, Jane Roberts, made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show

Insider reports: Two years after John Roberts’ confirmation as the Supreme Court’s chief justice in 2005, his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, made a pivot. After a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, she refashioned herself as a legal recruiter, a matchmaker who pairs job-hunting lawyers up with corporations and firms. Roberts told a friend that the change was motivated by a desire to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, given that her husband was now the highest-ranking judge…

Read More Read More

Biden’s ‘freedom’ campaign taps into broad opposition to book banning

Biden’s ‘freedom’ campaign taps into broad opposition to book banning

Politico reports: Presidential campaigns often are waged on whether or not the country is ready to “turn the page.” President Joe Biden wants his reelection bid to hinge on whether or not there is a page to turn. The president’s team has made the issue of book banning a surprisingly central element of his campaign’s opening salvos. He referred to GOP efforts to restrict curriculum — Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” was the third most banned title in America last…

Read More Read More

In NH stop, Trump embraces woman convicted in Jan. 6 case

In NH stop, Trump embraces woman convicted in Jan. 6 case

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump on Thursday praised and embraced a woman convicted of defying police orders on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. “Listen, you just hang in there,” Trump told the woman, Micki Larson-Olson, who was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of resisting police efforts to clear the grounds after the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob. “You guys are gonna be okay.” Trump, who was campaigning here in New Hampshire, then agreed…

Read More Read More

Denied a gun license over school threat, accused leaker Jack Teixeira later got top-secret clearance

Denied a gun license over school threat, accused leaker Jack Teixeira later got top-secret clearance

The Wall Street Journal reports: As a high-school student, the Air National Guardsman charged with leaking classified intelligence documents admitted he made violent threats that prevented him from getting a firearms license. Two years later, however, he secured a top-secret security clearance. The episode, which was reported to local police, was one of several that Airman First Class Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard admitted had been problematic—to authorities weighing his application for a gun license, to investigators…

Read More Read More

A second firm hired by Trump campaign found no evidence of election fraud

A second firm hired by Trump campaign found no evidence of election fraud

The Washington Post reports: Former president Trump’s campaign quietly commissioned a second firm to study election fraud claims in the weeks after the 2020 election, and the founder of the firm was recently questioned by the Justice Department about his work disproving the claims. Ken Block, founder of the firm Simpatico Software Systems, studied more than a dozen voter fraud theories and allegations for Trump’s campaign in late 2020 and found they were “all false,” he said in an interview…

Read More Read More

Founder of the We Build The Wall group linked to Steve Bannon is sentenced to 4 years

Founder of the We Build The Wall group linked to Steve Bannon is sentenced to 4 years

NPR reports: The co-founder of a fundraising group linked to Steve Bannon that promised to help Donald Trump construct a wall along the southern U.S. border was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on Wednesday for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors. Brian Kolfage, a decorated Air Force veteran who lost both of his legs and an arm in the Iraq War, previously pleaded guilty for his role in siphoning donations from the We Build…

Read More Read More