I know it is Sunday but yesterday’s news about the Speaker race was too important to ignore….

It has returned!

I try to get away from the normal news that has put us all into a political coma.

My good news for 2023 is that my diabetes is now under control and my doctor has taken me off the injections…..blood is good, liver and kidney functions are good, heart is great and my cholesterol is really good  and BP as well.

A good start so far.

The most moronic conspiracy from last year….birds aren’t real….

The group “birds aren’t real”, who claim that birds are no longer real, have conducted a rally in the US, in the hope of converting others to their views.

For those uninitiated, the birds aren’t real movement claims that birds were once real but have now been replaced with drones by – you guessed it – none other than Barack Obama, back in 2001. The new robot birds are used to monitor Americans, according to the conspiracy theory.

“Where it all began. October 26th, 2001,” account Birdsarentreal wrote on Instagram, underneath the compelling evidence above. “The day the deceitful and wicked Patriot Act was passed by congress. I can’t watch these horrific videos in public, I tremble uncontrollably with rage. I sob. I can’t keep quiet.

“After the government killed off the last real bird in 2001, they released the beta versions of the first prototype bird drones, as shown in these tapes. WHAT A COINCIDENCE that on October 27th, 2001, PEARL HARBOR happened. Yet no one seems to draw the correlation. Sheep.

“Call me misinformed, call me stupid, call me under-educated, I don’t care. Just because I didn’t go to ‘high school’ doesn’t mean that I’m any less intelligent. I just haven’t been brainwashed and institutionalized like you all. I know that I am #WOKE and one day you all will see.”

https://www.iflscience.com/birds-aren-t-real-the-hot-conspiracy-theory-taking-america-by-storm-66795

I have been critical of the M-IC for many years and now even our advances in AI has its reservations….

In my eclectic reading, I came across a couple of references to ChatGPT, an experiment in artificial intelligence (AI). You ask the AI bot a question, or give it a task, and it spits out an answer, and I must say a pretty good one judging from the task I gave it.

My task to the AI bot: “Write a critical essay on the military-industrial complex.” Here’s what it generated:

The military-industrial complex refers to the relationship between a country’s military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. This relationship has been a source of concern for many people, who argue that it can lead to an unnecessary expansion of military budgets and an over-reliance on military solutions to problems.

One of the main criticisms of the military-industrial complex is that it can result in the waste of taxpayer money. Military contracts are often given to a select group of companies, which can result in overcharging for goods and services. Additionally, the military often purchases weapons and equipment that are unnecessary or not well-suited for the tasks at hand. This can lead to a tremendous amount of waste and inefficiency, as resources are poured into projects that do not provide much value.

Even AI Is Suspicious of the Military-Industrial Complex

Education really sucks in this country….there is a wide canyon between history and revision…..and the American people have seen this as well….

A new, nationwide poll revealed 71% of Americans believe their children are not receiving an honest picture of their country’s history through education, while only 13% believe they are and nearly 16% aren’t sure. The discontent is shared by various political parties and ethnicities, but it was particularly high among Asians; more than 91% said their children are not receiving an honest look at history.

The poll by the Trafalgar Group, commissioned by the Jack Miller Center, also found that more than 92% of Americans want their children to receive an honest education about the country’s historical figures, even if their views don’t align with modern day values. That includes learning about the figure’s achievements that helped shape America, despite mistakes they may have made, in what has been described as a “warts and all approach.”

The poll was released as many in American society are questioning how to teach, or whether to teach, about important figures in U.S. history. An opinion article in the Washington Post once called on George Washington University to change its name. The San Francisco School Board voted to remove the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from their namesake schools.

71% of Americans say schools are not giving children an honest view of history

Finally some possible good news for people with eye problems…..

Over a decade ago, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed a way to grow organized clusters of cells, called organoids, that resemble the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

They coaxed human skin cells reprogrammed to act as stem cells to develop into layers of several types of retinal cells that sense light and ultimately transmit what we see to the brain.

“We wanted to use the cells from those organoids as replacement parts for the same types of cells that have been lost in the course of retinal diseases,” says David Gamm, the UW-Madison ophthalmology professor and director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute whose lab developed the organoids.

“But after being grown in a laboratory dish for months as compact clusters, the question remained—will the cells behave appropriately after we tease them apart? Because that is key to introducing them into a patient’s eye.”

During 2022, Gamm and UW-Madison collaborators published studies showing that dish-grown retinal cells called photoreceptors respond like those in a healthy retina to different wavelengths and intensities of light, and that once they are separated from adjacent cells in their organoid, they can reach out toward new neighbors with characteristic biological cords called axons.

Lab-Grown Retinal Cells Open the Door to Treat Blindness and Degenerative Eye Diseases

I am sure that greed will make it’s way into this discovery and only certain people will have access to this procedure.

There you have the news that did not make the evening news programing…..

Have a great Sunday….Be well and be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”