Perpetually offended
To the perpetually offended, I say, "Get a life!" There is a wonderful world out here that you're missing because of the limitations you've chosen through your negativity.
Do constant annoyances (and that's what they really are) exist? Let me count the ways.
But you're doing yourselves a serious disservice by subscribing to positions which should have never become issues in a truly progressive world.
JAMES DAUGHERTY
Sherwood
Variables in equation
The Grand Equation is probably not perfect yet but probably close. If computers can beat humans on the chessboard, you can be sure various countries' computers are playing each other on the world stage. Super computers have hugely increased the accuracy of weather prediction by crunching huge amounts of gathered data to calibrate the Weather Equation.
I believe the Grand Equation connects all the world's variables so that as one thing changes, a predicted change will occur in all the other variables. I am not talking just about the variables used for prediction in macroeconomic models like gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates. I am saying all the world variables like weather, carbon emissions, climate changes, education levels, forced migration, military powers, various religious beliefs, all forms of government, world tax rates, and hundreds more variables are all connected by the Grand Equation that models the world.
So when a Republican Party position or a Democrat Party position or a foreign power position says a certain thing will happen if a certain thing is done, don't believe that it will not change many others things as well.
I believe we live in a tribal world of country tribes. For example, true free trade would benefit all the trading tribes. Unfair trade penalizes some tribes and benefits others.
Interestingly, just one small variable in the Grand Equation, the tariff variable, can do two things with one change. Not only can it change the balance of trade with China, Canada, and Mexico, it can also control migration through Mexico.
So, due to politics alone, no matter how badly our elected representatives on both sides of the aisle refuse to act in the best interest of our tribe and our nation, at least we have the equation weapon and someone who knows how to use it.
MAC FAULKNER
Little Rock
Get them out of there
I think the citizens of the United States of America in 2020 should soundly, leaving absolutely no doubt, impeach Congress. Other than sound supporters of President Trump should be sent packing, R or D matters not.
Our nation is at stake and anyone who actually believes casting a vote for a Democrat is a good idea gives me cold chills. Any of the old "cross the aisle, shake a hand," big-money Republicans should be removed. These two groups don't give a thought for anyone but their selfish, self-centered selves. I believe they are responsible for all bad things at our border, and around the earth.
FLOYD HOPSON
Hazen
Fine meatless burger
One of the pitfalls suffered by vegetarians is you just couldn't get a good hamburger. The food industry came up with the first-generation veggie burgers, and they just didn't taste good. Now there is the second-generation meatless burger that tastes, well, fantastic and just like a beef-derived hamburger.
Imitation meats are made in labs by Beyond Meats and Impossible Foods. Turns out the missing ingredient in the first-generation burger was the distinctive meat flavor that comes from a protein in the muscle of meat called myoglobin which binds to heme (an iron-containing molecule). To address this, Impossible Foods found that a soy-derived leghemoglobin protein would yield the same taste as in meat. To accomplish this they took the leghemoglobin gene and genetically modified it into yeast. Now they can grow huge amounts of the genetically modified yeast and purify out the leghemoglobin protein to add to the bean/mushroom veggie burgers, and it tastes fantastic.
The caveat is that if you are an anti-GMOer you might want to think twice about eating those fantastic-tasting second-generation meatless burgers and other meatless products that are all the rage in your markets and restaurants.
JIM LITE
White Hall
Need to rest after that
It was an eventful week: Trump welcomed opposition intel from foreign governments, including Russia and China, to get himself get re-elected. Sarah Huckabee Sanders quit (couldn't she figure out how to lie her way out of this last pile of Oval Office offal?). The Federal Election Commission advised Trump that soliciting or accepting dirt from a foreign country on political opponents is a felony. Trump then claimed he would, of course, turn such intel over to "somebody" in the Justice Department, but not before "looking at it" (and benefiting from its contents--still a felony).
In the meantime, the Special Counsel's Office recommended firing Kellyanne Conway for using her office to electioneer for Republican candidates, which violates the Hatch Act. Trump refused to enforce the latter law, while advertising to all foreign takers that he's willing to break the former (Oh, wait, he's already been down that road--"Russia, if you're listening ...").
What to do? Well, a nice war would be just the thing to rally the base, silence all the critics and get re-elected. Unpatriotic to attack a "war president," don't you see? And if stepping up the pressure on Iran doesn't cause the ayatollahs to do something rash, one can always fabricate an incident (Gulf of Tonkin) or declare an imminent danger (weapons of mass destruction). Lies are the new truth, after all--an alternate reality, crafted daily by our Supreme Leader. And real wars, like trade wars, are easy to win, right? Just need a catchy name. Operation Iranian Freedom, anyone?
ALEX MIRONOFF
Fayetteville
Editorial on 06/18/2019