The Post-Partisan Emporium

All in Our Genes A discussion with Robert Plomin Richard Hanania I had a fascinating conversation with Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at King’s College London, for the  CSPI podcast.  He is also the author of  Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are . We discuss topics such as how we know genes are important, consumer genomics, what is happening on this front in other countries, including the UK and China, and the  p  factor of mental illness. In addition to the audio, there is a transcript below, lightly edited for clarity. During the interview, I realized that Plomin and I had both been blown away by the massive effect sizes we saw in the behavioral genetics literature. As I told him, I don’t believe that you can look clearly at the science and not have it fundamentally shape your views on politics, society, and ethics. And then in our intro to political psychology course, we had a few weeks on genetics out of 10 weeks we had with the quarter system at ...

Bavaria Update: Exploding Cases and Containment Theatre The more they vaccinate, the worse it will get, but vaccinating is all they want to do. eugyppius Almost 70% of adults in Germany are fully vaccinated. The rate in the most vulnerable 60+ age bracket is about 85%. Where has that gotten us? Well, as of yesterday, in Bavaria, it has gotten us to 590 Corona-positive ICU patients across the entire state. On the same day last year, with 0% of anybody vaccinated, that number was 362. Here’s the chart of Corona ICU occupancy: According to the latest RKI report , 60.5% of symptomatic cases from 4 to 25 October in the 60+ crowd were fully vaccinated, as were 44.9% of hospitalisations. Vaccines, it is clear, increase transmission, and then slowly withdraw their protection against severe outcomes. The August waves in Israel and the southern United States have foretold our future well, so far. The 7-day case incidence , broken down by federal states, confirms that ICU admissions – a lagging i...

After Friday night's 11th-hour vote in the House resulted in the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill - thanks to 13 uniparty Republicans who joined the Congressional Black Caucus in short-sheeting House Progressives - the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have published refreshers of what what America is supposedly getting out of the largest investment in infrastructure in more than a decade. From 10,000 feet, investments span refurbishing aging roads, bridges and ports, replacing lead pipes, upgrading and hardening the nation's power grid, and of course - a healthy investment in 'infrastructure' to battle the ever-looming man-made climate change disaster that we're told will turn coastal cities into a modern Atlantis. To help pay for the roughly $550 billion in new spending (nearly half is previously approved funding), more than $200 billion in unused coronavirus relief funds will be repurposed, along with $50 billion from a Trump-era rule on Medicare r...

FBI Raids Project Veritas Writers . . . Over A Missing Biden Diary? There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as “Gonzo” or “guerilla” journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden’s daughter Ashley. [Update: The FBI  reportedly  also raided O’Keefe’s home] The  New York Times  reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the “stolen” diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O’Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid. O’Keefe says that the organization actually received a tip that the diary was ...

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