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In the history of expensive software mistakes, Mariner 1 was probably the most notorious. The unmanned spacecraft was destroyed seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral in 1962 when it veered dangerously off-course due to a line of dodgy code. But nobody died and the only hits were to Nasa’s budget and pride. Imperial College’s modelling of non-pharmaceutical interventions for Covid-19 which helped persuade the UK and other countries to bring in draconian lockdowns will supersede the failed Venus space probe and could go down in history as the most devastating software mistake of all time, in terms of economic costs...

What is the difference between liberty and freedom in the eyes of many Americans? Absolutely nothing. And therein lies not only the problem driving the culture war around coronavirus shelter-in-place orders but also arguably the crux of all fronts of America's culture wars, from guns to religion to speech to - now, it seems - haircuts. It is a slippage skillfully leveraged by conservatives. This week in Michigan, armed protesters are heeding the call. But the petulant rallying cries echo across the United States. "Give me liberty or give me death!" - so goes the universal whine, lifted from Patrick...

On Monday, McConnell did an interview with Team Trump Online about recent remarks made by Obama on Trump's response to the coronavirus. McConnell said that he believed Obama should have "kept his mouth shut" rather than criticizing Trump. In response, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele trashed McConnell for condemning Obama. "I'm sure Mitch is aware that a grown ass black man who happens to be a former president has agency to speak his mind on how his successor is managing this crisis, especially since his successor has yet to keep 'his mouth shut' about him," Steele tweeted.

Ironically, LeBron James, a superstar basketball player, keeps getting "played." The Urban Dictionary defines "played" as "being made a fool of." LeBron James is once again the fool. After humiliating himself in his defense of China, James has rushed to judgment on the Georgia shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. "Can't even go for a damn jog...are you kidding me?" He tweeted, "We're literally hunted every day." I will refrain from commenting on the Arbery case until all the facts are known, but I can say with complete confidence that LeBron's generalization is incendiary and outrageous. For LeBron James, being played by...

If Belleville, New Jersey, Mayor Michael Melham had COVID-19 in November of 2019 and the only place he had recently traveled to was Atlantic City, approximately 125 miles south, would that absolve Wuhan, China, of being the center of origin of the coronavirus? The answer depends on the legitimacy of the facts surrounding his illness and if China is or is not propagandizing whatever ailment the mayor claims to have contracted. The best way to get to the bottom of such a dilemma starts with the known facts. Mayor Melham told Fox News on Thursday (May 7) that he fell...

Legendary NBA player and future Hall of Famer LeBron James says that the killing of the unarmed black jogger in Georgia that was released last week shows that white Americans are hunting down black Americans for literal sport. https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1258156220969398272

Simple arithmetic seems to be lost on the politicians, and that error is perpetuating a needless and counterproductive policy destroying our country. Politicians like Mitt Romney don’t seem to understand that the fact that there are so many infections actually makes the fatality rate of the virus remarkably low – a fact that should guide our policies going forward. The politicians keep referring to widespread outbreaks in prisons, meatpacking plants, and other semi- or fully confined areas with predominantly young populations. Then they refer to a relatively small number of fatalities anecdotally, as if this is the bubonic plague or...

President Trump: would-be dictator, or mental patient? Nice choice that Morning Joe offered us today! Scarborough opened the show by saying he and Mika "really differ" in their reactions to President Trump's statement yesterday that he had "total authority," superseding that of governors, to re-open the economy. Mika announced: "President Trump added another step yesterday in his march toward authoritarianism. He tried." Said Scarborough: "I know, we really differ here. You’re very, very concerned when he talks like that, about the Constitution and the country. I'm actually mainly concerned for his mental health." Get the rest of the story and...

The Washington Post was forced to issue a correction after columnist Jennifer Rubin attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for allegedly not rushing to pass financial aid during the national coronavirus emergency. In a column published Tuesday that trashed President Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the self-described "conservative blogger" took a swipe at McConnell, comparing him to a sloth for his inaction on a relief package. "Finally, the Republican-led Senate is fiddling while Rome burns. The failure to take an immediate vote on the House's relief package last week was emblematic of the sloth and irresponsibility of Senate...

Mitt Romney became persona non grata in certain parts of the conservative movement last month by becoming the first senator of a president’s own party to ever vote to remove them from office. Romney indicated Thursday that he is skeptical about the need for the Senate Homeland Security Committee to issue a subpoena related to Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company. “I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body,” Romney told The Post’s Mike DeBonis. “There’s no question the appearance is not good.” Republicans have a 8-to-6 majority, meaning Romney’s vote, when...

BREAKING: Chris Matthews, longtime MSNBC host, is leaving the network

The 'Hardball' host made the shock announcement on Monday night, after more than 20 years at the network. MSNBC host Chris Matthews announced his retirement from the network on Monday night after more than 20 years at the left-leaning cable channel. He will be replaced at 7 p.m. by a rotating group of hosts. While Matthews was expected to retire in the near future, the sudden announcement comes amid of a series of recent flaps and controversies. Last Monday, Matthews apologized to Bernie Sanders for comparing his rise in the 2020 campaign to the German invasion of France. "Let me...

Mitt Romney, who was the only Republican senator to break party lines and vote in favor of Donald Trump being impeached at his Senate trial earlier this month, is now attacking the president again. This time, the Utah senator is claiming that the Trump administration is totally unprepared for a potential coronavirus outbreak. As Trump tried to tamp concerns over the coronavirus in New Delhi, saying that the situation was “under control” and is a “problem that’s going to go away,” Romney was confronting officials in Washington D.C. at a private briefing on the virus. As a member of the...

Harrison Ford is dipping his toe into political waters, noting in a recent interview that talking about politics has become unavoidable. Days after the 77-year-old actor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and called President Donald Trump a “son of a b----,” he was asked about his recent forays into talking politics in an interview with CBS News. The star responded by noting that politics has become too divisive and called for a return to “the middle ground.” "I think it's come to the point where we gotta start talking politics," Ford said. "But we gotta talk about it in a...

"It's disappointing that Sen. Romney bought into all of [lead House impeachment manager] Adam Schiff's continued lies about the president," Bondi told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "No one else did. It wasn't even a close call. We shouldn't have even gotten here." Meanwhile, Bondi said Trump is "feeling great" after he was acquitted on both articles of impeachment, but the trial will "go down in history as a huge stain" on Congress, "I think, forever."

Democratic hopeful Joe Biden slammed conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as undeserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and criticized President Trump's motives for awarding it at the State of the Union on Tuesday night. Biden, speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper at a town hall event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, said Trump's decision to award the highest civilian honor in the nation to Limbaugh was "driven more by trying to maintain [his] right-wing political credentials than it is anything else." The award was bestowed on Limbaugh just hours after he announced he is battling stage 4 lung cancer,...

Justin Trudeau has today blamed the US 'escalation' in the Middle East for the Iranian shoot-down of a passenger jet in an extraordinary swipe at Donald Trump. Echoing what Iranian officials have said, Trudeau said the dozens of Canadian crash victims would be 'home with their families' but for the tensions started by the US killing of Qassem Soleimani. The Canadian PM said the international community had to 'manage the tensions in the region that are brought about by US actions'. After initially denying involvement, Iran admitted on Saturday that it had shot down the jet in error just hours...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden had “one of the best weeks of the campaign” and Biden’s confrontation with a voter in Iowa “showed vigor, showed toughness,” and gave Biden control of the news cycle. Brooks stated, “I do think Joe Biden had a — one of the best weeks of the campaign. He had an ad mocking…President Trump…and then he went after that voter. Which I think showed vigor, showed toughness, showed he’s doing well, and I think also allowed him to control the news...

In August 2018, Eminem announced the surprise release of his new album, Kamikaze, in a tweet, delighting his fans with 13 fiery new raps, just eight months after he dropped his last album, Revival. Kamikaze’s lead track, “The Ringer,” immediately attracted attention on social media due to lyrics in which Eminem, a fierce critic of President Donald Trump, claimed he was visited by the Secret Service: ‘Cause Agent Orange just sent the Secret Service To meet in person to see if I really think of hurtin’ him Or ask if I’m linked to terrorists I said, ‘Only when it comes...