Link assortment

I've been negligent lately posting and blogging.  Here are an assortment of links for your consideration:

A Minnesota philosophy professor writes that immigrants have low IQs and refugees are part of "religious-political cult." He's wrong of course, but Reaction is intense from the usual suspects.

Could a Single Marine Unit Destroy the Roman Empire? It was a hypothetical question that became a long online discussion and now a movie in development: Could a small group of heavily armed modern-day Marines take down the Roman Empire at its height?

Phil McKenna at New Scientist "dams may be among the riskier power sources in the world". It turns out that nuclear power is much safer than either dams or coal as energy sources.

This article claims that the women's march was a failure, largely because nobody know what it was about I kind of thought the same thing. When it was forming up, I went to their web site to see what they wanted. It was an unstructured rant and the only thing that stood out was abortion. In fact, a pro-life group wasn't allowed in the march, even though they were women.

I have always thought that the war on second-hand smoke lacked credibility. It's unpleasant of course, but the reaction has been overblown.  This article agrees with me, says it's "fake science". Here's a follow-up article

The press doesn't just have Trump Derangement Syndrome. They now have full-blown Trump Psychosis. And like most people with serious disorders, they are teetering close to the brink of self-immolation.

Remember Obama's stimulus? California spent their funds on a dam that was in pretty good shape instead of Oroville Dam that actually needed some work

Mike Flynn lost his job as a result of the nation's spooks. Here the details  And here's a good follow-up about putting the pieces together

More on fake news: how the media messed up the story about the Olympian who was detained by Homeland Security because of Trump's Muslim ban.

More on Muslim honor killings "Mob Kills Eloped Lovers After Storming Afghan Police Station"

A comprehensive article about Neil Gorsuch, nominee for Supreme Court Justice. Worth reading.

Is the military ready to fight? Most of the Navy's strike fighters are gounded

Sometimes there's good news from the Middle East. The Hamas explosives chief accidentally blows himself up  I particularly enjoys this part:

The report quoted medical sources who said the Hamas commander had been brought to the hospital with his arms and legs blown off.

Academics write scholarly articles. They have to publish of course in their quest for tenure. No surprise that nobody reads them  at least those in the social sciences, which don't even say anything, but that the "research" often isn't repeatable.