Are Universities Causing Brain Damage?
November 14th, 2016I did my university time in the 1990s and I don’t remember anything as nuts as this.
WTF happened to these people? Is this the result of too much GMO soy food and NPR? Is this part of some concerted effort to destroy the left? An open air MKULTRA experiment?
What is going on here?
Via: New York Post:
The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them. (Are its students in college or kindergarten?)
The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.
Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide “cry-in,” with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.
Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions. (OK, not kindergarten — more like summer camp.)
At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams — either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach.
After Trump Win, Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Dead
November 13th, 2016Via: Guardian:
White House officials conceded on Friday that the president’s hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on 20 January.
Anger Grows in India as Banks Struggle to Swap Banned Notes
November 12th, 2016Via: Reuters:
Anger intensified in India on Saturday as banks struggled to dispense cash following the government’s decision to withdraw large denomination notes in an attempt to uncover billions of dollars in undeclared wealth.
Tempers frayed as hundreds of thousands of people queued for hours outside banks for a third day to swap 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes after the notes were abolished earlier in the week.
The banned bills made up more than 80 percent of the currency in circulation, leaving millions of people without cash and threatening to bring much of the cash-driven economy to a halt.
“There’s chaos everywhere,” said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a rival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing the premier of wreaking havoc on poor and working Indians while the wealthy found ways to skirt the new rules.
Automakers to Trump: Don’t Force Us to Build Electric Vehicles
November 12th, 2016Ok, Trump should also get rid of the fossil fuel subsidies.
Via: Electrek:
Not even two days after Donald Trump’s election, automakers have started their lobbying effort to weaken the requirements for fuel consumption reduction. The current goal is for a fleet average of more than 50 mpg by 2025, which would require automakers to produce more electric vehicles in their fleet to compensate for popular gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs.
In a letter sent to Trump’s transition team yesterday, a powerful automaker lobbying group claims automakers cannot produce zero-emission cars at a competitive price and asks to lower the requirements for them to comply.
The group in question, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, represents almost every major automaker with US operations except Tesla.
Dozens Arrested, Police Cars Damaged in Second Night of Anti-Trump Protests in California
November 10th, 2016Soros, is that you?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Dozens of demonstrators were arrested during a second day of protests in California on Thursday as demonstrators from the Bay Area to Los Angeles took to the streets forcefully denouncing President-elect Donald Trump.
In Los Angeles, 29 people were arrested overnight for impeding traffic when hundreds of protesters poured onto the 101 Freeway downtown, LAPD officials said.
In the loud and aggressive demonstration, many chanted, “Not my president,” and “Respect all women.” The mostly young crowd marched through the city before heading onto the freeway near Alameda Street.
The pack of hundreds — many screaming against both Trump and law enforcement, others riding skateboards on the freeway — caused a traffic backup that extended for miles.
The freeway was cleared and all lanes were reopened by 4 a.m. Thursday, the California Highway Patrol said.
In Santa Ana, an estimated 650 demonstrators marched to Bristol Street and McFadden Avenue, where they squared off with police. A brick was thrown into a police cruiser, two other vehicles were damaged and two businesses were vandalized, said Santa Ana police Cmdr. Phil Craft.
Officers fired bean bags to disperse the crowd, and 10 people were arrested, he said. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department assisted police with the crowd, officials said.
Trump Won: How Long Will the Media’s Infantile Tantrum Persist?
November 9th, 2016Have you ever seen anything like the media’s hysteria in the wake of the Trump victory?
I didn’t want Clinton and I didn’t want Trump, but seeing that Washington Post shit the bed so spectacularly is, I have to admit, massively satisfying!
I can’t ever recall experiencing schadenfreude to this extent.
Open Thread: President Elect Trump
November 9th, 2016Well, I got that totally wrong.
I very honestly believed that Hillary Clinton was going to preside over the next phase of the collapse of the U.S.
I struggle for words to express how badly I was dreading another Clinton regime. That bitch (and the scum around her) would have very definitely continued to implode the U.S.
While I’m very happy that she lost, I’m definitely not celebrating the Trump win.
At least the situation is far more interesting now!
The thing about Trump that scares the crap out of me the most is his pledge to round up people who are in the U.S. illegally. I’m very much for securing the border. I’m not for mass arrests. Danger. Danger. Red flag.
What’s he going to do? Deploy the U.S. Marines to places like Santa Ana and wide swaths of Los Angeles County?
Good luck with that.
Is this an improvement over Clinton’s apparent desire to start a war with the Russia, which could ultimately result in mushroom clouds?
See these stories:
Could Hillary Clinton Start a World War? Sure as Hell She Could – and Here’s How
and
The Lethal Lie of Hillary Clinton: Saving Lives with a No-Fly Zone in Syria
Anyway, I’ve been mumbling to myself for the past couple of hours, trying to understand how this Trump victory could have happened.
Did Trump win it fair and square? (From what we know about the lack of security with the electronic voting systems, I’d treat any result as arbitrary.)
Did Trump have help from Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik’s “counter coup” elements in the intelligence world?
A Cryptogon reader suggested that Trump could be installed so that the elite could collapse the system and then blame it all on Trump and the people who voted for him. Just like that, *poof*, the disastrous last few decades of Bush regimes (which include Reagan, Clinton and Obama) are transmuted into a vague stew of amnesia and hate for Trump. Is this in play?
Is there some other explanation?
Tesla Buys Grohmann Engineering
November 8th, 2016Via: Tesla:
After increasing our output target to 500,000 cars per year by 2018, we began searching for the best engineering talent in automated manufacturing systems. Today, we are excited to announce that Tesla has entered into an agreement to acquire Grohmann Engineering, a world-renowned engineering company in Prüm, Germany, which will become Tesla Grohmann Automation.
Led by founder and CEO Klaus Grohmann, Grohmann Engineering is one of the world leaders in highly automated methods of manufacturing. This transaction will bring Mr. Grohmann’s leadership, a world-class team and unique expertise in-house. Moreover, it will serve as the initial base for Tesla Advanced Automation Germany headquarters, with other locations to follow. We expect to add over 1,000 advanced engineering and skilled technician jobs in Germany over the next two years.
Under the continued leadership of Mr. Grohmann, several critical elements of Tesla’s automated manufacturing systems will be designed and produced in Prüm to help make our factories the most advanced in the world.
Related: Gigafactory 2 in Europe Will Produce Batteries and Complete Cars
U.S. Military Successfully Tests Electrical Brain Stimulation to Enhance Staff Skills
November 8th, 2016Via: Guardian:
US military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces’ most demanding roles.
The successful tests of the devices pave the way for servicemen and women to be wired up at critical times of duty, so that electrical pulses can be beamed into their brains to improve their effectiveness in high pressure situations.
The brain stimulation kits use five electrodes to send weak electric currents through the skull and into specific parts of the cortex. Previous studies have found evidence that by helping neurons to fire, these minor brain zaps can boost cognitive ability.
The technology is seen as a safer alternative to prescription drugs, such as modafinil and ritalin, both of which have been used off-label as performance enhancing drugs in the armed forces.
But while electrical brain stimulation appears to have no harmful side effects, some experts say its long-term safety is unknown, and raise concerns about staff being forced to use the equipment if it is approved for military operations.
Others are worried about the broader implications of the science on the general workforce because of the advance of an unregulated technology.
In a new report, scientists at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio describe how the performance of military personnel can slump soon after they start work if the demands of the job become too intense.
“Within the air force, various operations such as remotely piloted and manned aircraft operations require a human operator to monitor and respond to multiple events simultaneously over a long period of time,” they write. “With the monotonous nature of these tasks, the operator’s performance may decline shortly after their work shift commences.”
But in a series of experiments at the air force base, the researchers found that electrical brain stimulation can improve people’s multitasking skills and stave off the drop in performance that comes with information overload. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, they say that the technology, known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), has a “profound effect”.
Research Credit: Jb
Toyota To Sell Battery Powered EVs by 2020 After Finally Realizing Fuel Cell Program Was a Disaster
November 7th, 2016Well, better to have just one lost decade than two lost decades.
Good job, Toyota.
Via: Electrek:
The news comes as Toyota is having difficulties selling the Mirai, its hydrogen cars, in the US. Despite cutting the price on several occasions, with now a lease at only $350 (down from $500) in California, the Japanese automaker can’t find a market for the vehicle and only delivered 782 units since it started deliveries last year – and that’s including the state buying dozens of them for their own fleets to justify the millions of dollars spent on refuelling infrastructure.
Several industry watchers predicted that Toyota would eventually turn to batteries in its effort to deliver zero-emission vehicles – it was more a question of when they would make the transition. Now a new report this morning coming from Japan’s Nikkei (via Reuters) claims that Toyota is planning to invest in a team in early 2017 to develop an electric car with a range of “more than 300 km (186 miles) on a single charge” and ready to hit the market by 2020.
