A pandemic is a terrible time to lose health insurance coverage. Yet, for a segment of the 23 million workers who suddenly lost jobs in spring of 2020, that was a fear-inducing possibility. New data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (PDF), among others, show that these fears… Continue reading Temporary Safety-Net Policies Prevented Mass Insurance Loss During the Pandemic
Greenwald Exposes The Real Disinformation Agents
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com, The war on “disinformation” is now one of the highest priorities of the political and media establishment. It has become the foundational justification for imposing a regime of online censorship. Around the world, new laws are being enacted in its name to empower the state to regulate discourse. Exploiting… Continue reading Greenwald Exposes The Real Disinformation Agents
The Baptism of the Lord
On Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ baptism. In Catholicism, the liturgical season of “Christmas” does not even kick off until Christmas Eve, and then continues long after the world has moved on to marketing promotions for Super Bowl snacks, Valentine gifts, and TurboTax. I remember Father Jack, throughout my adolescent and teen years, quizzing the congregation,… Continue reading The Baptism of the Lord
What Does It Mean for AI to Understand?
Remember IBM’s Watson, the AI Jeopardy! champion? A 2010 promotion proclaimed, “Watson understands natural language with all its ambiguity and complexity.” However, as we saw when Watson subsequently failed spectacularly in its quest to “revolutionize medicine with artificial intelligence,” a veneer of linguistic facility is not the same as actually comprehending human language. Natural language… Continue reading What Does It Mean for AI to Understand?
The Future of REF: Driving a Culture to Maximise High-Quality Research and Impact
A real-time evaluation of views on Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 shows that the assessment exercise is a driver of researcher behaviour—so why not use that to improve research culture? Since the late 1980s, the United Kingdom has conducted a regular quality exercise assessing research in higher education institutions (HEIs). The results guide the allocation… Continue reading The Future of REF: Driving a Culture to Maximise High-Quality Research and Impact
NYT Reveals How Ashley Biden’s ‘Inappropriate Showers With Joe’ Diary Made Its Way To Project Veritas
Ashley Biden’s diary – over which Project Veritas was raided by the FBI last month – made its way to the whistleblower organization after Ms. Biden left her belongings at a friend’s house, where she was staying after completing a rehab program for addiction, according to the New York Times. via National File In the… Continue reading NYT Reveals How Ashley Biden’s ‘Inappropriate Showers With Joe’ Diary Made Its Way To Project Veritas
Top Metaverse Stocks To Watch [2022]
There is a new buzzword on Wall Street: metaverse stocks. The metaverse has been a hot topic in recent months. And as stock prices of some companies linked to the metaverse continue to move higher, some already believe that we may be experiencing a bitcoin craze again. Metaverse stocks are a new trend but… Continue reading Top Metaverse Stocks To Watch [2022]
It’s Always Demons? (Testing the Spirits)
Podcast: Download MYS188: When unexplained phenomena arise, many Christians often leap to the explanation of demons being responsible or they warn that certain activities can open you up to demons. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss the accuracy of these claims, how we can really find out when demons are involved, and what can go… Continue reading It’s Always Demons? (Testing the Spirits)
A Wrinkle in Nature Could Lead to Alien Life – Issue 111: Spotlight
I grew up in a small village in a very rural part of England. It was a landscape capped with the huge skies of a low-lying coastal zone. Gently rolling fields, long hedgerows, and a lot of farms. Some of the people running those farms came from so many generations that they could point to… Continue reading A Wrinkle in Nature Could Lead to Alien Life – Issue 111: Spotlight
Deterring Putin in Eastern Europe
Russian President Putin may believe the time is right to invade Ukraine if NATO refuses to meet his demands. Reports indicate that he sees the Biden administration as weak after the pullout from Afghanistan, and in 2014, Russia felt sufficiently confident of success to annex Crimea and impose unappealing terms (PDF) on Ukraine. Massing 170,000… Continue reading Deterring Putin in Eastern Europe