World’s best university…

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… is in China.

By Erik Dolson

This is according to an article in The Economist: “In 2013-16 it produced more of the top 1% most highly cited papers in maths and computing, and more of the 10% most highly cited papers in stem, than any other university in the world … ” according to the article, which can be read here.

Democrats are screwed

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By Erik Dolson

Donald Trump won the midterm elections yesterday. Democrat victory in the House of Representatives gives Trump exactly what he needs for the next two years to win the presidency in the year 2020.

Trump said as much when he congratulated Nancy Pelosi, presumed to be the new Speaker of the House. Trump said that Pelosi deserved the Speakership, and added that he might give her a few Republican votes on key issues in the future.

Trump thus sets himself up as a dealmaker, ready and willing to cooperate with the other side. Trump … Read more… →

Bandit

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by Erik Dolson

Lars was leaning on the rail at the top of the ramp, gazing out at the water below. Bandit, a small and alert Australian Shepherd lay at his feet watching another dog approach from the parking lot above, a larger dog at the end of a leash held by a woman carrying groceries.

“You look like you’re trying to … Read more… →

Single handing

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By Erik Dolson

Ferry servicer between Anacortes and Sidney B.C. was shutting down until late the first week in November. The boat needed to be in Friday Harbor around the beginning of the month. Weather looked good for a passage down the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria. Time to go.

Engine checklist completed, I cranked over the engine. Oil pressure … Read more… →

Connie Chung’s remarkable letter

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by Erik Dolson

During the aftermath of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearing, retired newswoman Connie Chung wrote a remarkable letter to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford who had come forward to describe a decades old assault by Kavanaugh.

Chung empathized with Ford after Republican men on the committee, and the president, implied the assault could not have occurred as she remembered it, in effect saying: “This didn’t happen or you would have told someone at the time.”

In the letter, Chung revealed a painful truth: As a young woman, still a virgin and in college, she … Read more… →

A piggish man

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By Erik Dolson

Unbelievable.

The awful words; the sneers; the mocking of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford by the President of The United States. What an execrable little man.

That was obvious long ago, when he mocked a disabled reporter; by his use of disparaging nicknames; lying to the nation about affairs even as he was paying $130,000 to a woman he had sex with shortly after his wife gave birth to their son and he was bemoaning the impact of childbirth on her body.

Men, imagine your rape

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by Erik Dolson

Men should imagine themselves as victims of sexual aggression by other men. Go ahead, pull up that prison nightmare you’ve joked about for years, bar of soap included in the unlikely event your attacker wants to be gentle.

Feel the powerlessness? Experience the violation? How would you feel the next day? The year after that? What would you remember?

Imagine that if you report to the guards that you were raped, they won’t believe you, then ask if you encouraged the rape in any way or tried to avoid it, that they might simply laugh and say … Read more… →

Please withdraw, Kavanaugh

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by Erik Dolson

Brett Kavanaugh has shown the world that he is not a man of judicial temperament. He’s just a jerk of prep school privilege, enraged to the point of tears that his inherited entitlement is not making past bad actions disappear.

Those actions probably occurred under the influence of alcohol and youthful hormones. Is there proof? Yes, in his own hand on his high school yearbook page. His own calendar. Kavanaugh’s  explanations about what he wrote are laughable evasions.