Sustainable 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Re-post from 2017:

Lots of good things result from the success of the Harris farm . Will's decision to stop following the industrial farming model - and to start the sustainable grazing model - initiated ripples of improvement and prosperity beyond his family.

Originally a beef monoculture, the farm now additionally has goats, chickens, sheep, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, and more. Chickens graze a field after cattle move on, spreading manure and feeding on larvae breeding in it. Small ruminants also follow cattle. Will says the animals are healthier and happier every year.

Land that supported only cows years ago now now supports lots of diverse life - all of which make the land better. There's more microbial life in the soil, it absorbs much more water (instead of letting it run off), and more carbon is sequestered in it.

Animals, land, Harris family, 100+ employees, businesses they buy from - all benefit because the folks at White Oak Pastures create value. It all works because they serve a market niche that is willing to pay the price for these products.

Sustainable 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

Re-post from 2017:

McDonald's is looking for sustainable farmers. Here is the story of one.

Will Harris inherited the northern Georgia farm that his grandfather originally bought. It was profitable until the early 1990's, then it wasn't. That's when the land's productivity sank so low that farms couldn't be profitable anymore, and the little farming community died.

Will's dad started using ammonium nitrate fertilizer on his pasture back in 1946. What he didn't know was that, although the grass seemed to love it, that fertilizer was killing "the microbial life that fed the soil."

His "contained animal feeding operation" (CAFO) supported his family for about twenty years. Then came the dark days and he wound up borrowing $7 million to maintain his industrial farm. At the bottom of the barrel, he changed to a system like Joel Salatin's.

He calls himself a grass farmer now, just like Salatin does. His farm has grown from 700 cows in 1995 to 100,000 different animals - all on the same land. It seems like a miracle. They support their family and over one hundred employees.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sustainable 1

 Re-post from 2017:

Allan Savory has been speaking and training farmers for years. Joel Salatin has been speaking and writing books and training farmers for years. Both of them are passionate to spread the message that correctly raising pastured beef produces productive land & nutritious meat . . and takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. 

That huge global user of beef, i.e. McDonald's, may have been listening. 

photo: firstwefeast.com

"For more than four years, McDonald’s has been traversing a long and arduous path to produce "sustainable beef" in its sprawling global supply chain.

"The fast-food giant is embarking on a small but potentially significant project to measure and analyze the ability of cattle farming to sequester carbon in soil, using a style of grazing called adaptive multi-paddock — AMP, for short. If it works, it could transform the way McDonald’s ranchers raise cattle and produce beef — while avoiding the release of millions or even billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Not taking notes

Do we want students to pay attention to professors' lectures? Only if we want them to learn something from their expensive college experience.

Are they learning something? It's a serious question today. 

When you look at a class lecture and see the students with open laptops before them, you naturally suppose they're all taking notes. But, sadly, that's not the case. Many don't have the discipline to ignore the obvious distraction potential of an open laptop. As usual, the student who can discipline him/herself to focus will have the rewards.

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"College is an interactive place where kids need to focus for long periods of time in order to learn." 

San Fran Targets

Follow-up to this post

"We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all."

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Target, Inc. recently issued this statement, which must be self-evident to every one of us. If it's not safe to work/shop in a store, the store can't stay open. So three Targets are closing in San Francisco, California.

Retail stores come and go in different localities, so that's not unusual. But this is different because the reason being given is a lack of safety and security.

Sound familiar? "Security" is why Whole Foods left. Seven Starbucks are going to close in San Francisco this month.

Note to readers in other countries: rampant, business-destroying crime is new and  alarming here. The state of California seems uninterested in prosecuting it.

from MPR News

Speak up 2

Unlike the woman in yesterday's post, most of us will likely censor ourselves rather than speak up in public situations. We know we'll get opposition to our sincerely held convictions, because that's the cultural moment America is in. 

Fierce opposition is certain to be employed by the left against good and traditional American virtues. Issues of free speech and parental rights are landing in the court system because our constitution was designed and created to be the final, lawful defender of those rights. 

But maybe it doesn't have to go that far, maybe more people agree with these values than it seems. That's the view of this author, who thinks "a whopping 80% of Americans would find themselves nodding in agreement."

So let's try to engage, even with people we think may not agree with us. Keys to good conversations always apply: 1) listen to them, 2) try to understand their view, and 3) create a human connection. Some no-no's: don't shout them down or call them names.

Some people are open to civility.

Speak up 1

Last year a Christian mother of four children was elected to her Arizona school district's governing board. She started serving last January. She authentically brought her convictions with her to her new position in the community. When she spoke, she would read some verses from the Bible.

It shouldn't be forbidden to read a Bible verse. That should be obvious to any American, but the board barred her from it. She kept it up. The Freedom from Religion Foundation threatened "liability and financial strain" if the school board didn't find a way to stop her. She stopped reading verses.

It sounds like she was forcing the issue and it took courage. Her actions were called "unconstitutional." But that's just rhetoric without merit, because the constitution actually guarantees freedom to speak.

So she's going to sue the school district. It's sad that something like this has to end up in the court system. But the writers of the constitution put the principle of free speech in the Bill of Rights for this kind of situation. Read her lawyers' statement.

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from Life Site News

Men adrift 5

Follow-up to this post

Conventional wisdom says that men generally still achieve and succeed in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, math). But even that generality, which used to be true, is being challenged. The challenger is Lawrence Krauss himself, a very big name and authority in science.

In an article published last month, he says "Men are missing in academia." Decades of affirmative action programming and cultural shift have left men behind even in STEM, the subjects where they used to cluster and achieve. 

How did that happen? Krauss says DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) bears some blame. The "vast bureaucracy" of DEI resulted in disturbing new trends: "In a desire to include women and minorities, white males are often excluded . . ."

An unnatural absence of men in education has been noticed. The president of Purdue University says, "Where are all the men?" For asking this reasonable question, he got protests:

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Lifewise 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

In this day of opposition to the Bible, even to virtue, there's an organization that "provides Bible education for public school students during school hours." 

It used to be common that public school students could have "release time" to leave the school grounds and receive religious education for a couple of hours. That was a different time decades ago, a time when church attendance was very common. 

But students can still legally be taught the Bible. Lifewise Academy started up in 2019 and expects to operate in 300 schools this year. It must be privately funded, off school grounds, and students must have parents' permission. With anxiety and depression and suicide at high levels, some communities and schools welcome this opportunity to try for better outcomes for the kids. 

Lives have been changing. One school found that students involved with Lifewise were sent to the principal's office for discipline less often. It starts when people of the community ask for it in their schools.

Lifewise 1

Everyone knows that we in America are terribly divided and there are some forces, like CRT, determined to drive the division deeper and deeper. What do we as Christians still have in common with our neighbors and fellow citizens?

Thank God, there are some things that still unite most of us. Lifewise builds on those things. That's why the organization is flourishing, students are being reached, and both parents and school administrators like it. It seems like a miracle, so counter-cultural.

Watch their video:

(cont'd tomorrow)

Unit of life 7

(cont'd from this post)

Quick response is required in an emergency. If someone has a stroke and receives proper care within 90 minutes, the outcome can be good.

Your body has a number of quick emergency response systems, and your blood clotting system is one that could save your life.

Men adrift 4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Discrimination in favor of only one sex is illegal in education, right? Yes, since 1972 Title IX "protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance." It was enacted to protect women from discrimination and ensure a level playing field.

For fifty+ years the emphasis has been on elevating women's opportunities. Women have earned more bachelor's degrees than men every year since the mid-1980's. 

Would you be surprised, then, to find out that discrimination is back? That it happens commonly and frequently in higher education?

Lots of programs, scholarships, and awards are open to women . . but specifically closed to men. Economist Mark Perry "has filed a whopping 410 Title IX complaints against universities that offer programs or awards for women, but not men." Discrimination was wrong when it was used against women, and it's still wrong when it's used against men. "Many vulnerable boys are falling behind."

(Go here to see women's bachelor's degrees from 1971 to 2020.)

from Forbes

(cont'd tomorrow)

Men adrift 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A bit of a kerfuffle blew up along political party lines when Oliver Anthony released this song, "Rich Men North of Richmond." 

"Nine million views in five days"-- that tells you it went viral. Lots of people like it because it hits a nerve with them, i.e. they identify with its message. His video inspired this comment from a viewer: “And just like that you became the voice of 40 or 50 million working men” (this comment was liked by 11,000 other viewers).

If it weren't for this article, "Distress Music," I would have missed most of the meaning of the whole thing. The article says these men are no longer respected and paid well for the important physical work they do (the chart in yesterday's post shows some of these jobs). They feel ignored by the "rich men north of Richmond," that is, the powerful elite in Washington D.C..

It seems to these distressed men as though our culture is "structured in such a way that young men with strong backs find it hard to prosper by using their traditionally masculine attributes of strength and endurance."

It's one reason why so many men are adrift. But there's more.

from Salvo

(cont'd tomorrow)

Men adrift 2

(cont'd from this post)

Young, able men stay out of the job market today in high numbers. It's not good for them to be disconnected in this way and it's not good for the rest of us in this country. So we wonder, "what's going on with men and their jobs?"

Masculinity is involved. All sex/gender issues are up for grabs today if even a Supreme Court judge can't define what a woman is -- but, as that judge hinted, the definition of sex is a question for biology. So here's the biological answer: men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in their DNA. Masculine traits generally follow.

Guess which sex takes more life-threatening jobs:

image

(cont'd tomorrow)

Unit of life 6

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A bacterium is a one-cell organism, obviously lacking eyes and all other body parts that animals have, and even lacking a nucleus. Fifty of them lined up would cross the diameter of a human hair. 

But inside them are those complex molecular machines, and they do amazing things.

Picture the bacteria living in a small, weedy pond. There's too much oxygen at the surface, so they need to stay toward the bottom where there's less. Having no eyes, how do they know which direction is the bottom? 

Within these one-celled bacteria is a factory - yes, a factory - which manufactures magnetic crystals that are drawn toward earth's core. Watch the video to see how it works:

Unit of life 5

(cont'd from this post)

Biochemist Dr. Michael Behe begins #5 in his series on "Secrets of the Cell" by saying, "What was a mystery to Darwin is now well known. We know that the cell has codes and transmits information that regulates the size and shape of living things."

Complicated machines made of molecules do the individual cell's work. Many of these molecular machines are irreducibly complex. 

They could not have randomly evolved without direction or guidance. If a part of a molecular machine like the bacterial flagellum happened to evolve, it could not be selected by "natural selection" to survive and be passed on to the next generation . . because it would not give any survival advantage by itself--not until all the parts had evolved and were in place.

That's irreducible complexity.

"Natural selection" cannot work toward a future goal or target that doesn't exist yet. That's what a mind does.

Men adrift 1

A system of patriarchy was the arch-villain in the Barbie movie (or so I've heard), a system where men hold the positions of power and women are oppressed. It's a core belief of feminists that we live in such a system and that it ought to be "smashed." But some men take that notion way too far. They back down completely from power, from achievement, and even from supporting themselves.

Millions of young men have opted out of the labor force, seven million in the prime of life, who depend on someone else to support them. As a percentage of the whole number of able men who could work, it's as bad as the Depression years of the 1930's.

Even feminists who want to smash the patriarchy couldn't have had this end in mind. Idle and unmotivated men without purpose, without responsibility, without vision, should be nobody's ideal. 

Something awful - something no one wants - is going on with too many of our young men in this culture. They're getting a bad message. We'll pursue it in future posts.

from Labor Day Report (in the U.S. Senate)

Happiest

Neither having children nor not having them is the secret to happiness for women. Neither being married nor being single is the secret to happiness for women.

But the chance of happiness for a woman is significantly increased when the two factors are combined. (Ditto for men.) 

Combine marriage with children and with church attendance? Those three factors put together must make for a good chance of happiness.

from AEI

Resistance 1

In a (mostly minority) suburb of Los Angeles, parents resist the schools' telling students that they can/should change their sex -- they resist strongly, taking the fight to their local school boards: "How dare you teach these lies to our kids?!"

Los Angeles County, using federal government funds, builds "Wellbeing Centers" in schools where Planned Parenthood-trained staffers carry out PP agendas.

Skirmishes like this one take place all over the country. Parents used to trust their local schools to teach their local values. Then they found, to their horror, that something weird happened when they weren't looking. The people who run the schools at some point devolved into strangers with opposite values. And it seems those strangers don't respect parents' opinions.

As these parents take a stand, they have to call on their courage. They are often awkward in the spotlight. But they're determined to call a halt to the damage being done to children.

China owns

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges come to a total of 252 as of last January, as reported here, valued at $1+ trillion. A list of them is here.

Little-known Chinese investments in the U.S. include Forbes magazine, founded in 1917 by the grandfather of the current Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Steve Forbes. The family still owns 20%, but an investment group based in Hong Kong bought a majority share in 2014, with Steve keeping both of his titles. 

Real estate also seems to be China's target in addition to businesses. In 2021 they put $6 billion into U.S. housing, the most of any foreign country (Canada being second, India third). Mortgage rates are irrelevant, as most of these purchases are in cash. Land purchases have raised some alarms (here and here).

Why? It's suggested that China has a housing deficit, and that they need farmland for food production. But lawmakers wonder if this glut of investment in American property constitutes a potential national security threat.

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Start-ups→big

"Popsicle" started up back in 1922 with the idea from an eleven-year-old boy. He left a drink with a stick in it outside overnight in the winter, and you know what happened to the drink. As an adult, he started selling the product. Now everybody knows what a popsicle is.

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"7-11" was started by an average guy back in 1954. He named it for the hours they were open. Who hasn't been to a 7-11?

"Gerber" was started back in 1927, when an entrepreneur started selling the baby foods his wife was making. 

All American companies . . when they started. All three now belong to owners in other countries, and so do a lot of other well-known American brands including IBM, Holiday Inn, Ben & Jerry's.

China is a major factor in American business, owning part or all of these: General Motors, Starplex Cinema, Hilton Hotels, and lots more.

from Street Insider

A mom sues

Schools and levels of government in America, federal and local (examples here), have been denying the authority of parents. A mother in the state of Virginia is taking this issue to the courts. 

Her daughter's school encouraged the girl to use the boys' bathroom and other gender confusion. They kept the mother in the dark about the situation and how they were handling it. 

Michelle Blair makes the case that the school should have informed and involved her in the very serious, and dangerous, situation. Her daughter was bullied, abused, raped, and will have ongoing mental health issues.

Does the school district or the government own your kids? Whose legal responsibility is it to decide what is best for them? A showdown was inevitable. 

CNN baffled

"On Saturday, tennis phenom and devout Christian Coco Gauff won the U.S. Open, her first Grand Slam victory. Afterwards, she spun off her chair, got on her knees, brought her hands together and prayed."

But CNN can't or won't recognize what she's doing, so they said she's "soaking it all in." No doubt she is doing that as well, but it's hard to believe they couldn't identify the obvious posture of prayer. Babylon Bee calls it, here 😄

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Remember them

We who lived through that time will never forget the terrible attack on America on 9-11-2001 playing out in real time on our tv's. I remember a radio announcer saying, "We're in a war with somebody." At the time, no one knew who that was.

Families who lost somebody that day keep memories of their loved ones. A wife remembers that day in this post from 2018:

Deena Burnett said of her husband Tom, "He just felt that whatever God's plan was for him, it had something to do with the White House and was going to impact a lot of people."

On September 11, 2001, Tom was on Flight 93. He and three others determined to "do something" when terrorists took over the airplane to use it as a weapon against the United States. 

It is thought that the terrorists planned to crash the plane into the White House. Tom and the others formed a plan to gain control of the cockpit, but somehow the plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Tom's God-given destiny was to help save the White House from Islamic terror.

"Tom Burnett’s strength was problem solving: it was practically a job description for the COO of a medical technology firm. Working the problem is what he did best, his wife says... and that day was no exception:

"Deena Burnett: He was very busy. He was taking down information. He was planning what they were going to do. And he was not interested in reviewing his life or whispering sweet nothings into the telephone, I assure you. He was problem solving, and he was going to take care of it and come on home."

He grew up in Bloomington MN and is buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

Mammoth

By drilling into the tusks and remains of extinct mammoths, researchers managed to get their complete genetic code. So Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences wants to re-create them by 2028: 

"We have the DNA, the technology, and the leading experts in the field. Next, we will have the woolly mammoth. Alive again."

Protecting the environment where mammoths used to live seems to be the motive. They see the animal as a "vital defender of the earth."

image

Others have been working on the project for years, Harvard University being one example, and the method seems to be the same. It is to take bits of the DNA of ancient mammoth remains and add them to a modern elephant embryo's DNA. The baby will develop within its modern elephant mother.

"Colossal believes that bringing back mammoths could help restore the arctic tundra, preventing the thaw and release of stored greenhouse gasses."W HAVE THE DNA,THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE LEADING EERTS IN THE FIELD. NEXT, WE WILL HAVE THEWOOLLY MMOTH. ALIVGAIN.VE HNATHE TECHNOLOGY AND TLEADING EXPERTS IN THE FIELD. NEXT, WE WILL HAVE THE WOOLLY MAMMOTH. ALIVE AGAI

Drag principal

Some say that the LGBTQ movement is more than a civil rights matter, an effort to get fair treatment for the gay community. They say it's an aggressive movement to normalize gay behavior and specifically to bring children onboard at an early age. Where do they get this idea? 

It arises naturally from situations like this. An Oklahoma elementary school hired a well-known drag queen to be the school's principal in June. Not only that, but this man was arrested twenty-some years ago for child pornography and drugs. 

Is the school district superintendent massively foolish to place this person over an elementary school? Or does her choice serve the other goal? Will the parents of these young kids go along with it? If your children or grandchildren went to this school, would you be ok with it? 

I hesitate to put the photos in this post. You can see them here (at X, formerly called Twitter) and here.

from Allsides

Uber quits

Haven't seen much in the news about self-driving research lately. As the technology gets closer to the goal, it becomes more difficult. The closer they get to Level 5 (perfect performance, to the point that you can sleep while your car takes you somewhere), the harder it is to go further.

image

At some point in any pursuit, you have to evaluate whether the goal is still worth the resources you must pour into it. Uber, the ride-sharing company, did that and sold off their self-driving unit in December of 2020. 

Five hundred million dollars - $500,000,000 - was what the unit cost them every year. The total cost of their effort to achieve the goal of autonomous cars was about $2 billion, what some call a total waste of money.

The company has started to make an operating profit, at last.

from Mind Matters

Grounds

As a coffee drinker, I like to discover that there's something good about drinking it (put "coffee" in the search bar to see those things). But I never saw this coming - the grounds may be economically valuable.

Charred coffee grounds, when added to concrete, make it 30% stronger, according to researchers in Australia.

photo

Usually they're left in landfills to emit greenhouse gases. Using them in concrete will ease the global demand on sand for construction. If this discovery is used, it will benefit the environment. 

A previously (nearly) useless substance now valuable? That demonstrates the tremendous economic value of innovation. Knowledge/ideas/imagination create wealth.

from Science Alert

TERF 5

Follow-up to this post

So many give support to the trans-gender movement: school systems, corporations, athletic teams, etc. Who doesn't? Religious people, including Christians, are known for challenging this anti-science wave. But there are non-religious people, too, who believe in science and reality.

Atheist Peter Boghossian takes a firm stand, as does writer J. K. Rowland. Former tennis star Martina Navratilova, openly lesbian since 1981, also stands against the wave, especially with regard to women's sports competitions including "trans-gender women" (with male bodies).

photo

She expresses it on X (former Twitter):

"Come on USTA - women's tennis is not for failed male athletes- whatever age. This is not right and it is not fair." 

She's correct. It's manifestly unfair.

from MSN

Unit of life 4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Evolution, change over time in living organisms, is driven by random variation (random gene mutations) and "natural selection," meaning that good mutations spread when individuals with that mutation have a survival advantage. 

But gene mutations don't typically install new, beneficial features. Genetic mutations may help the species adapt to its environment, but not by giving it new updates--like a new generation phone with updated features.

"In short, helpful mutations don't install new features-- they are not a DNA upgrade." They don't add a new functions that create higher forms of life.