Natural Wonder Fellowship

George Wallace - 1960s Maybe we need a history refresher course. The Democratic Party of today is the result of the splintering off of those "southern democrats" and "dixiecrats" who moved to the "Republican" party late 1940s into the 1950s-1960s -- the civil rights movement and the Johnson administration. Have you heard of Strom Thurmond? After a southern Democrat (Truman) "introduced a pro-civil rights platform at the party’s 1948 convention, a faction walked out. These defectors, known as the 'Dixiecrats', held a separate convention in Birmingham, Alabama. There, they nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a staunch opposer [sic] of civil rights, to run for president on their 'States Rights' ticket."  How about George Wallace? He refused to join the Republicans -- to him in 1948, they weren't quite segregationist enough. There are dozens of articles about the "switching" of party platforms when in ...

Someone posts "Face Masks Don't Work" and pastes copy from a cited article. Within the copy, it is kinda clear they are talking about the influenza virus. The assertion is this is 'official' from the CDC as of May, and insinuates it's related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At least poster did provide a link [ https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article ]. Following that link, you find the quote is from a piece originally published February 6, 2020, included in the May 2020 magazine issue, talking about the H1N1 and H2N3 flu virus, based on metadata from studies conducted from 2005 through 2019. It has zero, zippo, nada to do with the new coronavirus. In February, few beyond official government channels were even aware of a threat from a new virus. Is the poster confused, or maybe just careless? Or is the poster deliberately trying to mislead the reader?  This kind of thing goes on daily, across social media platforms and private blogs. Why do conspiracy...

This is one of my favorite stories. I was going to quote it here, in full because I don't know how much longer it will be available on its host site ( https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/taxes/how-splitting-the-dinner-bill-relates-to-tax-cuts/article24441644/ ) I read this long ago; I think the post I cite (by a Canadian author) is a later copy of the one I originally read (yes, it was *that* long ago). I just found another version, still getting comments (in 2020):  http://www.jonasmaxwell.com/pages/index.cfm?pg=234&cat=5    So, the first four lunch mates are complaining because they got none of the discount (but 'forgot' they were paying none of the original cost) and the next few didn't get any but were no longer paying even the reduced amount they were paying, the next couple few didn't get as much in absolute rebate as the richest one. The same applies to say, primary home property taxes. We all pay the same rate. We'll ca...