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Martin Luther King, Jr., was the very model of a modern American patriot.

The Reverend’s devotion to fighting the injustice of segregation and discrimination ignited the American spirit of fraternity and reminded us of our higher purpose.

Dr. King's dream is my dream. It is the American Dream. It's the promise stitched into the fabric of our Nation, etched into the hearts of our people, and written into the soul of humankind. AMERICA FIRST! 45.wh.gov/NhJy55

Mike does another good job explaining why dark matter hand waving is not needed when you have science.

http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.ca

Wow, this Christmas season was crazy. They always are for me, but this one was particularly stressful.

My parents are divorced, so any event (Christmas, birthdays, Easter, etc) has to be done twice. Typically, for Christmas, that means having Christmas Eve at my Mom's, then Christmas day at my Dad's. This year my brother couldn't make it into town until boxing day so everything was delayed a couple days. It becomes a challenge to choose days that work for everyone and that causes me stress. Anyways, we got things mostly sorted out.

One of the days I headed over to my Dad's for our Christmas dinner, mashed potatoes in hand. Just as we are arriving, my dad is leaving. He tells us that he just got a call from 'The Home' and that they said that Gramps was on his last legs. It was time for the family to say our final goodbyes. We all head down to The Home and say goodbye. He was in a coma or something. Not conscious, but seemed to be quite peaceful. I said my goodbye, conscious of the rest of the family watching me.

I'm not really good with death. The rest of my family was pretty upset (Gramps was the patriarch of the family), but I never really feel anything. It's kind of uncomfortable because I feel like I should feel sad or something, but I felt nothing. Gramps was an old man. He was almost 100 years old and lived a good life. So, I'm there with the rest of my family who are crying and hugging and all that, feeling like I should be feeling something.

Gramps died the next day. That turned an already stressful time into an extra stressful time for me. Now, in addition to multiple Christmas dinners, I had a family pub night, prayer ceremony, funeral, reception, burial, and family skating party. Oh, and also my daughter's first birthday. Being that busy really stresses me out, as do changes to plans.

The day after Gramps dies, my wife and daughter got a stomach bug and were puking. The first night, my daughter puked in the bed 5 times. I was mentally exhausted, and now physically exhausted too. My poor wife felt horrid, so I did what I could. Mostly changing sheets and getting drinks. Just as they start feeling better, it was my turn to get the bug. It's been a while since I have puked and I had forgotten how unpleasant it was.

We had planned to have a party for my daughter's first birthday. The poor girl was sick on the day we had planned, so we rescheduled it. The day we rescheduled it to was the day I was sick, so we just ended up cancelling her birthday. (We did get her a cupcake from Crave and put a sparker in it for a mini family ceremony).

After that we did the funeral circuit, then back to work. My wife is also back at work part time now. We have each Grandma take our little girl for one day per week and I have her alone on Sundays. So far it's been going pretty well.

We've also made a change to the sleeping arrangement. My daughter has been waking up like 5 times per night to nurse. As mentioned previously, we all sleep together in one bed. We think that a big reason why she wakes up is because my wife's boob is right there. We decided to have my wife sleep in the other bedroom for a while and I sleep in the bed alone with my daughter. That way someone will be there to comfort her when she wakes, but there is no boob for her to actually feed on. Eventually, she will realize there is no reason to wake up, and we'll all have a wonderful sleep. That's the plan anyways.

I've done 3 nights alone so far. The first 2 went really well. She would wake up as normal (about 5 times), but I could just rub her back or squeeze her foot and she would go back to sleep in a couple minutes. Last night also went pretty well, but around 6:00am she wouldn't stop crying and my wife came in from the other room to take over and nurse.

I'm feeling a little tired from the night duty, but it's not too bad. It seems like a pretty good plan to me, so I hope it works out for us. Between the night duty and daddy-daughter Sundays, I can definitely feel a stronger bond between my daughter and I. It feels really good.

On the dating front, I mentioned in my last entry that I had placed that on hold for a bit. It is still on hold. I just don't have the energy for it right now. I don't think I have the time for it either, although maybe I could make things work. I need to get used to our new schedule now that my wife is back at work and reassess. My wife and I are both pretty tired from the day-to-day and because of that, our sex life is not that great. It's not quite dead bedroom levels, but it would be within spitting distance. It's not my wife's fault. I'm tired too. Most nights I just don't have the energy and I would prefer to spend an hour just sitting on the couch.

Because of the missing intimacy, I really want to start dating again. I would love to have someone that I can spend a few hours with here and there and just be an adult. No baby talk. No baby monitor. No toys strewn all over the floor. I crave the excitement that comes with someone new. That being said, I think I need to improve things between my wife and I first. She's still my best friend, and we are very much in love but since the birth of the baby, the romance part of the relationship has taken a big hit. It feels like my daughter takes everything out of me and at the end of the day, there is nothing left for my wife. I think my wife feels the same. We are just tired. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the romance in a relationship with a baby?

All in all, the Snow family is doing pretty good. I'm really happy that Christmas is over and we are back on a normal schedule. My daughter is growing up and I'm finally feeling a strong connection with her, and aside from the sex/romance life, my wife and I are great.

-- Snow

Good news for #MLK fans -- yesterday, it was my great honor to proclaim January 15, 2018, as Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Holiday. That's right, I proclaimed a holiday just for him! Because I think he was a great guy, a great American hero. We have some fine people from Norway, but Martin was one of our own. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service activities in honor of Dr. King's EXTRAORDINARY life and his great legacy. pic.twitter.com/samlJsz1Nt

And on Monday it was my great pleasure & honor to sign H.R. 267, the "Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park Act," which redesignates the Martin Luther King, Junior, National Historic Site in the State of Georgia as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. 45.wh.gov/T5ByM5 pic.twitter.com/QTgaqTawPT

God bless you all and God bless America!

NASA, Partners Discuss Power for Future Space Exploration

NASA and its partners will host a news conference at noon EST (9 a.m. PST) Thursday, Jan. 18, at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, to discuss a recent experiment involving a new power source that could provide the safe, efficient and plentiful energy needed for future robotic and human space exploration missions.

Audio of the news conference and presentation slides will stream live on NASA’s website.

Representatives from NASA, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Los Alamos National Laboratory and Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) will discuss and take questions on the Kilopower project, which aims to demonstrate space fission power systems technology that has the potential to enable future crewed surface missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Testing began in November 2017 and is expected to continue through March.

Previously: NASA's Kilopower Project Testing a Nuclear Stirling Engine

Folks, President Obama is a big believer in global warming. So he told his people, "look for the global warming, tell everyone about the global warming." And every year they said "last year was the warmest year ever, this is going to be even warmer." But I'm open-minded. I got rid of a lot of Obama FLUNKIES & FLOOZIES. And the folks that are left, I said to them, "global warming is a hoax, maybe, probably, it's a hoax, just tell us about the weather!" So we have a beautiful weather report from my people at NOAA. We had some amazing weather last year in the great states of Florida, Texas, California, Montana, North and South Dakota. Erie, Pennsylvania. And Puerto Rico, which isn't a state. It's an island.

But guess what, it wasn't the warmest year. 2017 wasn't the warmest year ever. Because 2012 and 2014 -- when Obama was in office -- were warmer. I'll tell you, I never promised to end global warming. But I did it. And I did it while I BROUGHT BACK THE JOBS in our terrific coal, oil & gas industries. Like I promised.

And now that we've taken care of global warming, we're going to repeal Obama's Clean Power Plan. Because our power is clean enough. If we make it any cleaner, we'll kill our electric. Our Christmas trees will go dark. And our chandeliers. It won't be pretty, folks. In Africa they like it dark, they can stay in the dark. We're not doing that. We're doing a REPEAL. Administrator Pruitt, very smart guy, is doing the paperwork for that. To Make America Great Again.

And if we get a little global warming, we can use it. We could really use it. Our East, our South and our Central USA were cold as hell last week. Pipes freezing & bursting in Jackson, Mississippi and in Atlanta! And a lot of people freezing to death. We could use some goddamned global warming!

In rural China, calling someone a 'witch' has serious social consequences

Population structured by witchcraft beliefs (DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0271-6) (DX)

Anthropologists have long argued that fear of victimization through witchcraft accusations promotes cooperation in small-scale societies. Others have argued that witchcraft beliefs undermine trust and therefore reduce social cohesion. However, there are very few, if any, quantified empirical examples demonstrating how witchcraft labels can structure cooperation in real human communities. Here we show a case from a farming community in China where people labelled zhu were thought capable of supernatural activity, particularly poisoning food. The label was usually applied to adult women heads of household and often inherited down the female line. We found that those in zhu households were less likely to give or receive gifts or farm help to or from non-zhu households; nor did they have sexual partnerships or children with those in non-zhu households. However, those in zhu households did preferentially help and reproduce with each other. Although the tag is common knowledge to other villagers and used in cooperative and reproductive partner choice, we found no evidence that this assortment was based on cooperativeness or quality. We favour the explanation that stigmatization originally arose as a mechanism to harm female competitors. Once established, fear that the trait is transmissible may help explain the persistence of this deep-rooted cultural belief.

How 'wi-fi' connects human brains and explains why people have 'gut feelings'

vs.

What Is A Coffee Enema? Goop Is Facing Backlash For Linking To This Potentially Dangerous Cleanse

Folks, we're saying "Merry Christmas" again. To our wonderful Orthodox Christians, it's Christmas now. Or around now. Sunday. Let's celebrate the miracle of Christmas again! Let's remember the story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that began more than 2,000 years ago. As the book of Isaiah tells us, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. This good news is the greatest Christmas gift of all, the reason for our joy and the true source of our hope. I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Also, our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Prophet Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His message was one of optimism, forgiveness, and faith. pic.twitter.com/0VjzLEeHTl

Fire at home of Moore accuser being investigated for arson

Roy Moore accuser's Gadsden home burns; arson investigation underway

Tina Johnson.