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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has apologized to the company's employees in an internal memo where he said he "strongly" opposes Joe Rogan's use of the 'n-word', but that "silencing Joe isn't the answer." Ek added in the memo to staff obtained by the Hollywood Reporter that "cancelling voices is a slippery slope", and clarified that Rogan himself had decided to delete the 70+ episodes removed from the streaming service on Friday due to the use of 'the n-word' or other offensive content. Many of the other episodes removed from Rogan's massive catalogue were taken down not long after Rogan signed...

Corporations have gone political and seek, or at least profess to seek, change in the world. There are at least three terms to describe the concept of stakeholder capitalism -- corporate wokeness, woke corporatism, and woke capitalism. The last of the three was coined in 2015 by Ross Douthat when writing a piece for the New York Times. He defined it as how companies signal their support for progressive causes in order to maintain their influence in society. Since then the concept has become very popular in the U.S. and worldwide, corporations have gone political and seek, or at least...

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards. ~ Theodore Zeldin, Oxford scholar & author Good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human. ~ Bryce Courtenay, novelist One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing. ~ Frank Sheed, Catholic apologist Conversation means being able to...

Online safety used to be focused on preventing actual criminal activity and violence. But when antitrust legislation is used by leftists to create “safe spaces,” we’ve got a problem. Big Tech censorship is back in the news over the demands that Spotify fire Joe Rogan for hosting guests who criticize establishment talking points. Everyone from the Biden Administration to Neil Young wants Rogan silenced. If Spotify refuses to get rid of Rogan, the pro-censorship crowd has other ideas about how to get rid of him. The New York Times’ staff editor Spencer Bokat-Lindell cited the ACLU to argue that the...

What got us here, to this sad and sorry state, is that we were polite for too long. In a misguided sense of misplaced kindness we failed to call it as we saw it. Stupid people, deluded people, and/or malicious people all confronted us with their stupid, deluded and/or malicious nonsense, and instead of telling them to cut the Schiff, we smiled and tolerated it. Now we got dudes setting records in women’s sports, roving bands of mouth thong vigilantes pestering those of us who exercise facial freedom, and communists who have decided that racism is cool as long as...

7 February 2022 Monday of week 5 in Ordinary Time the church of San Frediano in Lucca, Italy Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green.First reading1 Kings 8:1-7,9-13 ©The Ark of the Covenant is brought into the TempleSolomon called the elders of Israel together in Jerusalem to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the Citadel of David, which is Zion. All the men of Israel assembled round King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, at the time of the feast (that is, the seventh month), and the priests took up the ark and the Tent of Meeting...

Democrats and leftists are using propaganda and fear about COVID, climate change, cancel culture, crime, and color so effectively that many no longer need new laws, mandates, or threats to fall in line. They’re being trained like elephants and fleas to act like processionary caterpillars. Elephants can grow to 13 feet tall, weigh up to seven tons, and their trunks alone are packed with 40,000 muscles (the human body has 600). But if you train an elephant early enough, it can be conditioned to believe that a flimsy rope tied around its leg to a stake in the ground is...

A group of environmental economists in Germany is demanding that huge taxes be imposed on meat products to fight climate change, with calls for beef to be 56 per cent more expensive. Asserting that livestock is responsible for 13 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, researchers from TU Berlin’s Chair of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources are demanding limitations on meat consumption in order to “attain greenhouse gas neutrality.” “Livestock farming is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, soil and water pollution, and precious forests are being cleared for pastures and food crops,” said the leader of the group,...

The only bet more speculative than assessing personal motives might be a bet on conventional wisdom — issues like national security policy. Just to game the system for a moment, let's look at possible personal political motives vis-à-vis the current Ukraine kerfuffle. The big dogs in this cage match are Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. in one corner and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in the other. For Biden, Ukraine is a kind of desperate, or no-lose, gambit. If Moscow does little or nothing with those massed troops, then Biden can strut and claim that he bluffed the bear, and the beast caved....

China hid the outbreak of Covid-19 from the world for months[i]. Brave Chinese citizens had been sending out smoke signals, but governments did not take notice. Now, there is reason to suspect that some scientists in the U.S. were aware of (if not complicit in) a cover-up that began as soon as the pandemic started. It wasn’t until December 31, 2019, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acknowledged that a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had broken out in Hubei province, where the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is located. But Beck says there’s substantial evidence of it having begun much earlier. Let’s...

This is a video only. A group of international lawyers have convened to charge various people with crimes in regard to the covid response. Bill Gates, Tony Fauci, etc are being "charged." The video is 85 minutes long, but I encourage you to watch at least the first 5 minutes to see if you are interested in continuing the rest of it.Link to video

Last year, I had to replace a failing wallet. Transferring the contents from the old to the new included the Arizona Concealed Carry permit. A glance at the expiration date showed the transfer was serendipitous; the card was to expire within a month. Eventually, a helpful lady at the Department of Public Safety made arrangements for a renewal form to be sent, the necessary money order was obtained; and a renewal card received. All hinged on the happenstance of seeing the card was about to expire. No notice of the expiration was sent out by the Department of Public Safety.If...

The US Food and Drug Administration has an exhaustive process, “to evaluate new drugs before they can be sold.” Specifically, this involves the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). The rationale is sound and for the general good: The center's best-known job is to evaluate new drugs before they can be sold. CDER's evaluation not only prevents quackery, but also provides doctors and patients the information they need to use medicines wisely. The center ensures that drugs, both brand-name and generic, work correctly and that their health benefits outweigh their known risks.Note the goal is neither absolute safety nor...

Gov. Charlie Baker along with other moderate Republicans are blasting the leaders of their own party after a vote by the Republican National Committee declared the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, “legitimate political discourse.” “The Governor commends anyone who is willing to step forward and tell the truth, and disagrees with this vote. He has been clear that the January 6th riot was a violent insurrection and a sad day for democracy, ”Baker said through adviser Jim Conroy.

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A terrorist, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghan desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the mirage, only to find a very frail little old Jewish man standing at a small makeshift display rack - selling COVID protection masks. The Taliban terrorist asked, "Do you have water?" The Jewish man replied, "I have no water. Would you like to buy a mask? They are only $5." The Taliban shouted hysterically, "Idiot Infidel! I do not need such an over-priced western adornment. I spit on your masks. I need...

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Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai has denied she ever accused anyone of sexual assault, adding that she herself had deleted her social media post in November that had appeared to make such a claim. The well-being of Peng, a three-time Olympian, became a matter of global concern when she appeared to allege on social media that a former Chinese vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, had sexually assaulted her in the past. In an interview with French newspaper L'Equipe at a hotel in Beijing, Peng denied she had made such allegations.

I was doing some research into finding ideas to passively heat sidewalks, to help keep them free of snow and ice and reducing the amount of work to do it. I came across an article from MIT, that I can't find at the moment, but they took an aluminum mat and sprayed it thoroughly with the blackest paint they could buy and they found that everything under it heats up three times faster under it. So, I was thinking that you could probably do the same thing with your cement steps. Clean them thoroughly and then spray them down with...

A judge is scheduled Monday to consider former Chicago-area police sergeant Drew Peterson's motion to vacate his 2012 conviction in the murder of his third wife. Officials have said Peterson will not attend the hearing and it is not known if Will County Judge Edward Burmila will make an immediate decision on the motion. The judge has appointed an attorney and an investigator to assist Peterson and experts have said that such an investigation could take months to complete. Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2004 killing of Kathleen Savio and sentenced to 38 years in prison. He...