#DumbAssQuoteOfTheWeek

"Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated"

El donaldo makes my head hurt.

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain - child prodigy wants to become doctor and researcher

Tanishq is an Indian American who graduated from college at 11, and is now pursuing an advanced degree. He's wicked smart, and we should all be following his success. Why watch some lame TV show about a wanna-be-celebrity when you can follow this bright youngster!

Read about him here -
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/tanishq-abraham-twelve-year-old-indian-american-boy-eyes-to-become-doctor-at-18-2814871/

And check out more videos here -

https://www.videosh.net/tag/tanishq-abraham

I am not a crook

In these rather odd times with El donaldo, we've heard his "scandal" is like watergate. And he tries to twist it so that he's the victim of watergate, rather than Nixon.

I think it's clear he's a clueless buffoon, and he is Nixon in this case. He profited.  He didn't pay taxes. Perhaps he doesn't have any direct intelligence on his rivals through recordings, but those close to him very well may.

Read for yourself....

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/nov-17-1973-nixon-declares-i-am-not-a-crook/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nixon-tells-editors-im-not-a-crook/2012/06/04/gJQA1RK6IV_story.html?utm_term=.d2a866997264

Stuff that makes me crazy

Some "Christian" minister is proposing a boycott of Disney over the rumor that LeFou in the remake of Beauty and the Beast is gay.

We don't know, of course, how this will be portrayed, but in keeping with disneys traditional work on social issues, it will probably be subtle.

But they're portraying him as gay! The horror! Boycott Disney!

Never mind that Aladdin had a character in Jafar that many argue was an alduterer! No the problem with that movie focused in it being about a story from the Middle East.

And never mind that Mufassa is killed by Scar. Who cares about a pesky storyline about killing a brother when the word "sex" appears in the stars!

I mean, it's absurd that there's outcry about trivial things, yet nothing about story points that violate what god handed down as law in the 10 commandments.

This is what's wrong with religion. People focus on the wrong aspects. How about following the principles and doing good to your fellow man?

Can you imagine if it was Hillary, rather than Trump?

It's amazing to me that her emails were such a concern. Even though they were thoroughly investigated. That Benghazi was an issue as much as it was.

And meanwhile, he has at least 4 people who had direct ties to Russia, his VP used a private email server that was hacked (and had sensitive information on it), he has an AG who lied under oath, and he has several ongoing scandals - not the least of which are that he got a soldier killed for no real reason, and he has likely violate the emoluments clause for his conflicts of interest.

And yet congress, which has the duty to investigate any and all of these, has decided to simply ignore all of it.

Can you imagine if she had been elected? (oh who am I kidding, that wasn't going to happen! The Russians made sure of that). And had been implicated in any portion of this?

The committees, investigations, and talks of impeachment would have been incessant.

Talk about your double standard.

All I'm asking is that he and his posse be investigated, thoroughly, openly, and without delay. It's time to unravel and undo this. All of it.

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain Exoplanet discovery: What does Nasa's announcement mean - and should we be excited about TRAPPIST-1?

This is totally cool. NASA found a series of planets outside of our solar system that revolve around a sun, and perhaps some of them could harbor life. This article parses the discovery and announcement.

Watch the video to see more. I love, love, love scientific discovery!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/23/seven-earth-sized-exoplanets-discovered-does-nasa-announcement/

Here's the thing: science edition

Here's my issue with the government decision to allow for pollution and increase coal production, coupled with a decision to deny science.

And I can assure you this is not going where you think it is.

I'll look at coal first. The coal industry is dying. While it's nice to say that you want to bring back jobs the reality is that companies in the US have moved on from coal into other things. While you could make a case for it being environmental, it was economics.

Companies - bigger ones that might burn coal - invested in more efficient and less costly items. To go backward to coal would be costly and it's unlikely they will.

Second is the demand for coal from other countries, namely china. Sure you can sell them coal for now. But they announced their plans to move on from coal within the next decade or so, so any gains made in the sale of coal there will be short-lived. Plus, undoubtedly there would be some trade negotiation that would have to happen to make it worthwhile for either side.

And third is that while there may be a demand for coal, the ability to extract it has seen some technological enhancements that require less labor than in years past. And thinking about trade negotiations, supposing a Chinese company bought some mines; would they be content to hire US labor or would they try to outsource it?

And now let's turn to science. Our government has decided science isn't so important. I could go on here and talk about environmental science, but I won't. Instead, I want to talk about the broader sense of science. For some reason, our government doesn't feel science is important on pretty much any level.

It's basic science here. If we are a nation that truly wants to prosper, we should embrace science, scientific evidence, and really promote its growth. Don't muzzle places like the CDC, NASA, and others simply because you don't like some of what they say.

Our prosperity. Our future. Those should hinge on science and evidence based findings. We can ignore them at our peril.

So here's what's likely to happen in the next decade: the US will be backward and uneducated. While other countries that invested in science will prosper. We will be playing catchup to the world - all while having a very short term prosperous moment, because we chose to invest in coal.

No. I say don't muzzle scientists of any sort. Encourage them. Back them. Support them. Let their findings help us develop our future. I don't care if it's climate science or technological advances.

Suppose the next great scientist who revolutionized the world comes from somewhere else? Wouldn't that suck because we're not the greatest? How can we take that chance?