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Jeremy Yoder

Local and Popular Weatherperson Cliff Mass Says: The March for Science, which happened this Saturday, and drew thousands of scientists and their supporters to the National Mall in D.C. and other locations around the world, including Seattle, and was clearly aimed at President Donald Trump and his brazen anti-science policies, was a bad idea. In his thinking, scientific research shouldn't be politicized, and the GOP are really not against science, and climate science is not all that. He also thinks Dems are just as bad as the GOP when it comes to abusing scientific facts. The Dems want to do something about global warming, but that kind of talk is just the hot air of politics and not the spearmint-fresh breath of science. According to him, no hard evidence connects the record-breaking floods and fires of recent years to anthropogenic climate change. And so it is better not to be alarmed or make alarming statements.

As I said almost a year ago, Mass is a very dangerous public figure. First he says climate change will hit rich people harder than poor people. Then he says Seattle's traffic is caused by not giving more room, more freedom to cars—a major contributor in the carbon liberation army. Now he is saying science is not political.

What does all of this add up to? The man lives in a society that's very unlike the one we see all around us and acts on our senses every day. In his society—the one where science is in its natural state: free and pure—there are no corporations or equity markets or bond markets or buybacks or the billionaire class. Science, in his nice-nice land, which has his skull as its sky, just does its own thing in the absence of the medium of so much social and political power, money. The two have very little to do with each other. There is no entanglement. There is no pulling and pushing. This lovely little land is not like my land or your land; it's Masslandia.

Mass is also really scared of Trump:

I have just finished reading my third book on Donald Trump. One thing is clear: he tends to act very aggressively against those who cross him, and particularly those that attack his public image. Do science supporters really want to provoke him unnecessarily and to little advantage?
Here Mass brings to mind the excuses made by Nazi scientists at the end of the Second World War. What were they supposed to do? They feared for their very lives. They had to work for Hitler or face the absolute master, death. They trembled like wet dogs caught in a great storm.

For a more reasoned take on the march (its strengthens and weaknesses), read "The March for Science Shows How Bad Scientists Are At Politics"
by Jeremy Yoder.

Seattle Is One of the Most Expensive Cities In the World: Better believe there's more at work here than tech money. The world has millions of people with millions upon millions of dollars that are desperate for investment opportunities. It would be nothing but amazing that this hot money somehow missed or did not recognize one of the hottest real estate markets in the whole world...


Local Conservative Commentator Jason Rantz Appalled that Seattle's Leaders Have Said Nothing About the Cops Who Were Injured During Downtown Shooting on Thursday: For him, the "silence is shocking and deafening." What he is really saying is that if this were a Black Lives Matter kind of situation, we would have heard plenty from the City Hall. But because it's not; because it's a Blue Lives Matter kind of situation, the City Hall is
yawning. But here is the thing: being a cop is not the same as being a hero. Seriously, it's just a job that's risky because of our weak gun laws. We pay cops to fly to, not from, danger. This is why they wear armor and are armed. If that kind of thing is not your thing (and for many of us, it's not), then you should not be a police officer in gun-crazy USA. The logic of conservatives and Second Amendment freaks is to name something ("this a camel"), and then go around saying that this thing is indeed what they named it ("see, a camel"). But the knowledge gained from this kind of reasoning is nothing to write home about. I really want Rantz and his kind to give that some thought.

What Was Allegedly Stolen by the Teens on Thursday: "A 12 pack of Heineken, a bag of Chester’s Fries chips, a tube of BBQ Pringles, a box of chocolate donuts, and a bottled Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino. A total of $28.42 worth of snacks." This information was provided by KIRO 7.


Car Hits Bus On Rainier Avenue South: The accident happened near South Brandon Street a little before 3 p.m. on Sunday. The Route 7 bus was barely damaged. The car, however, was totaled, and its driver's life was cut out of the wreckage and transported to Harborview Medical Center. There is no other information.

Fascist Marine Le Pen Made It Into the Second Round of the Presidential Election: She will face the young and pro-EU Emmanuel Macron on 7 May, 2017. The important thing to keep in mind to is that Le Pen performed as expected. She has gained ground since the 2012 presidential race, when in the first round she won third place with nearly 18 percent of the vote. This time she got 21 percent. None of this is a surprise; but her beating Macron would be the mother of all surprises. What really impressed many in this election was the total collapse of the Socialist Party. Those on the progressive side of left abandoned it for France's Bernie Sanders, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who performed really well (he won 19 percent of the vote). The mainstream socialists only got 6 percent of the vote. If the progressive and mainstream socialists had not split, Le Pen and fascism would still be on the sidelines.