Dentist Warns Adults Sucking On Pacifiers Is Really Bad For Their Teeth

Wait, what?

from the article

This trend might come back to bite you.

Dentists are gritting their teeth over a bizarre new fad that has adults popping pacifiers like babies, as the self-soothing practice popular in China begins to take hold in the US.

“There is a reason we don’t drink out of baby bottles or suck on pacifiers as adults,” Dr. Ben Winters, an orthodontist and creator of Something Nice oral care brand, told The Post. “It wreaks havoc on swallow and bite patterns.”

But what’s got grown-ups going ga-ga over beefed-up binkies anyway?

The silicone soothers are being pitched as sleep aids and stress relievers — and they’re flying off the shelves.

Some online sellers reportedly move thousands of adult pacifiers every month, with prices ranging from a bargain 10 yuan ($1.40) to a jaw-dropping 500 yuan ($70), according to the South China Morning Post.

The youts really aren’t alright

“When I am under pressure at work, I suck on the dummy. I feel I am indulged in a sense of safety from childhood,” one user told the outlet.

Others swear the pacifiers have helped ease ADHD symptoms, support weight loss and even curb the urge to smoke.

“It gives me psychological comfort and makes me not so fidgety during my smoke cessation periods,” another buyer told the SCMP.

And while it’s super popular in China and South Korea, it is gaining steam in the U.S., because of course it is with TikTok idiotness. Forget the teeth and swallowing problems: these are adults, or, at least supposed to be.

Read: Dentist Warns Adults Sucking On Pacifiers Is Really Bad For Their Teeth »

If All You See…

…is a wonderful low carbon bike, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bunkerville, with a post on the Muslim Marxist running for mayor in Minneapolis.

Read: If All You See… »

Democrats Still Whining About Blocked ICE Facility Visits

These wackos spend more time attempting to visit detained illegal aliens than (for photo ops) than talking to their own constituents, as well as visiting disaster areas

Democrats say Trump is illegally blocking them from visiting Ice detention: ‘The goal is to bully us’

In May, the Arizona representative Yassamin Ansari toured a detention facility where immigrants rounded up as part of the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportation were being housed. She described what she saw inside as “sickening” and “worse than prison” – immigrant detainees were held in overcrowded, moldy cells and many reported that they did not have reliable access to food, water or medical care.

Two months later, Ansari returned to the remote desert complex to conduct another congressional oversight visit. This time, she was denied entry.

It wasn’t an isolated incident. From New York to California, Democratic members of Congress have been repeatedly blocked from entering Ice detention facilities where thousands of noncitizens – many with no criminal convictions – are being held.

Democratic officials’ legislative checks – a legal right for members of Congress – have consistently confirmed reports that immigrant detainees are being kept in “filthy” and “inhumane” conditions with little regard for due process. Now, the facilities have become a battleground in the intensifying standoff between the Trump administration and Democratic lawmakers over the president’s supercharged immigration agenda.

“The administration’s goal is to intimidate us and bully us, bully us out of doing our jobs for sure,” Representative LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who has been accused of assaulting federal agents during a confrontation at the Delaney Hall detention center, told the Guardian. “If they can get away with doing this to me, they can get away with doing it to anyone. But more importantly, imagine what they’re doing in the dark to others who are not of an elected status, who are not in public eye view.”

ICE has a message back

(Denver7) ICE on Tuesday pushed back on those claims in a statement to Denver7 political reporter Brandon Richard.

“To be honest, we could have written the congressional delegation’s press statements well in advance of the tour, given this tired tactic from the open borders Democrats – tour a facility, make up lies about it after,” ICE Assistant Director of Public Affairs Emily Covington said. “Accusations that ICE is denying access or hiding conditions at our detention centers [are] completely absurd, and we have the receipts to prove it.”

“Further, these members should know that demanding special treatment that breaks long-standing policies, and jeopardizes privacy, security and safety will not be considered.”

ICE’s statement claimed the lawmakers were 10 minutes late for the tour, and that they protested the facility’s cell phone policy the lawmakers were made aware of six days prior. The agency shared with Denver7 a screengrab of what appears to be an email dated Aug. 5 that outlines the rules of the tour, including the cell phone policy.

First, there’s a whole process to visit ICE facilities, and Democrats have been often blowing that off, and just showing up, rather than going through channels to set up the visit, which is what was always done and the rules to visit a detention facility (which they didn’t bother with during Biden’s term). Then they try and play games, like mentioned above, and like the time which ended with Excitable Monica getting charged with “assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering” with federal officers.

Read: Democrats Still Whining About Blocked ICE Facility Visits »

What Could Go Wrong: Warmists Try Experiment To Change The Oceans

The road to Hell is paved with Warmist intentions

Can we alter the ocean to counter climate change faster? This experiment aims to find out

Later this summer, a fluorescent reddish-pink spiral will bloom across the Wilkinson Basin in the Gulf of Maine, about 40 miles northeast of Cape Cod. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will release the nontoxic water tracer dye behind their research vessel, where it will unfurl into a half-mile wide temporary plume, bright enough to catch the attention of passing boats and even satellites.

As it spreads, the researchers will track its movement to monitor a tightly controlled, federally approved experiment testing whether the ocean can be engineered to absorb more carbon, and in turn, help combat the climate crisis.

As the world struggles to stay below the 1.5-degree Celsius global warming threshold—a goal set out in the Paris Agreement to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change—experts agree that reducing greenhouse gas emissions won’t be enough to avoid overshooting this target. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published in 2023, emphasizes the urgent need to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere, too.

“If we really want to have a shot at mitigating the worst effects of climate change, carbon removal needs to start scaling to the point where it can supplement large-scale emissions reductions,” said Adam Subhas, an associate scientist in marine chemistry and geochemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who will oversee the week-long experiment.

Well, if every Warmist gave up their own use of fossil fuels we’d be in Shangrila, right? Per their dogma

The test is part of the LOC-NESS project—short for Locking away Ocean Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope—which Subhas has been leading since 2023. The ongoing research initiative is evaluating the effectiveness and environmental impact of a marine carbon dioxide removal approach called ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE).

This method of marine carbon dioxide removal involves adding alkaline substances to the ocean to boost its natural ability to neutralize acids produced by greenhouse gases. It’s promising, Subhas said, because it has the potential to lock away carbon permanently.

See, once they start talking about carbon instead of Carbon Dioxide, they’re into cult land, not science. And this is another bad idea, which will hopefully be shut down.

Read: What Could Go Wrong: Warmists Try Experiment To Change The Oceans »

Will Democrats Fall Into The Crime Trap?

Most of the highest crime cities are run by Democrats. Boston, NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, SF, LA, Seattle, Portland (it wasn’t that long ago that Seattle and Portland were pretty decent. Pre-COVID they were around a 28, meaning safer than 28% of cities, at worst. Now it’s a 1 for both). They’re horrible policies led to the crime explosion. In some cases they’ve tried to get a bit tougher, like, say, San Francisco, but, it’s a little late, so, crime still flourishes. Until there’s a serious crackdown, nothing changes. So

Trump’s DC move forces Democrats to again grapple with crime

President Trump’s use of federal resources to combat crime in the nation’s capital is forcing Democrats to once again address the issue of law and order, something that has been a vulnerability for them in recent elections.

Democrats were quick to note — following Trump’s announcement Monday that he would federalize the city’s police force and deploy the National Guard — that violent crime in Washington, D.C., is down.

However, Republicans see the message as a winning one as signs suggest voters are concerned about crime regardless, leading some Democrats to warn their party against falling into the same political trap some see as having damaged them in the past.

“My advice to Democrats is don’t take the bait,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Nellis noted that voters could still feel strongly about crime even as statistics show improvement in metropolitan areas like D.C., thereby opening Democrats up to easy attacks from the GOP.

Too late! Democrats are already trying to die on the hill of “yeah, crime is still really high, but, it’s down!”

Polls show Republicans have the upper hand on the crime issue. According to a CNN survey released in June, 40 percent of voters said the GOP’s views on crime are closer to their own, while 27 percent said the same about Democrats.

“It’s obviously a winning an argument for Republicans, especially anytime we’re talking about crime in Democrat-run cities,” the national Republican operative said.

OK, this goes on in political calculations for a bit, but, here’s what Democrats do not get: we would rather not let it be a political issue, we just want to reduce crime to acceptable levels, and punish those who commit crimes. I’m sure most Democrats would like crime reduced, as well. They want to feel safe walking down the streets, in their homes, in their cars. But, if Democrats want to be super soft on criminals, then it becomes a political issue, and the GOP will bludgeon them with it.

Read: Will Democrats Fall Into The Crime Trap? »

Bummer: EPA Ends Contract With Unionized Employees

Good. For the most part these white collar federal employees should not have a union. What are they being protected from? Oh, right, it’s about government negotiating with government to give more taxpayer money to government employees

Trump’s environment agency terminates contract with unionized employees

electric vehicleThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved to end its contract with unionized employees, according to the union’s president, the latest action in President Donald Trump’s push to weaken collective bargaining across the federal government.

The union, which represents 8,000 EPA employees, is planning a legal response to the decision, said Justin Chen, president of the agency’s chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a statement on Friday.

The decision gets Trump closer to his goal to strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of the ability to collectively bargain with U.S. agencies. Eliminating union deals would allow agencies to more easily fire or discipline employees, according to attorneys representing federal workers.

“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s Executive Orders with respect to AFGE, including ‘Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs’, in compliance with the law,” an EPA spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the executive order Trump issued in March.

The order involves removing collective bargaining rights at more than 30 federal agencies, including the EPA, and is currently being challenged in court by unions who say it violates free speech and obligations to bargain with workers.

These are public employees. There is no right to bargain. They work at the mercy of the taxpayers. They should earn raises based on performance. If they do not like this, go work in the private sector.

Read: Bummer: EPA Ends Contract With Unionized Employees »

If All You See…

…is grass dying due to too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is No Tricks Zone, with a post on Pacific typhoons dropping.

Read: If All You See… »

Media Laments Businesses Devoid Of Illegal Alien Workers

What this tells me is that there are lots of companies who need to be fined, at a minimum, for employing illegal aliens

Factories from GE to Kraft Heinz lose immigrant workers, stressing those who remain

Jaelin Carpenter was stressed. Four people on her team of 26 at GE Appliances had learned that their immigration status had changed.

Under former President Biden, they’d been allowed to stay and work in the U.S. for two years, protected by a program set up to help people fleeing humanitarian crises back home. But the Trump administration abruptly canceled that program, revoking their legal status and their authorization to work. Carpenter fielded call after call from her panicked co-workers.

“They were calling me asking me if they’re on the run. ‘Does this mean I’m getting deported today?'” she recalls them asking. (snip)

In recent months, immigrants working in manufacturing, food production and other industries have lost their jobs due to President Trump’s immigration policies — not as a result of immigration raids, but because Trump ended Biden-era programs that had provided them temporary permission to remain in the U.S. and get jobs.

Those affected include more than a half-million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who had been granted humanitarian parole for two years through a program known as CHNV — an acronym for the countries it covered. The changes also affect close to 1 million immigrants who were allowed into the U.S. after securing appointments at the U.S.-Mexico border via a U.S. government app.

Yeah, well, Temporary Protected Status programs are meant to end, not continue on and on and on. And all those for those folks were scheduled to end soon anyhow. There are plenty of people on welfare who are eligible to actually work the jobs. Oh, and all those federal workers can find jobs.

Fear of immigration raids turns California community into ghost town

Huntington Park, California, a working-class community of more than 50,000 people, has recently felt like it has a bullseye on its back because of ramped-up raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The town is 95.6% Latino, and as many as 45% of the residents are undocumented, according to the city.

Whoa, hold up: 45%? If the news knows this then ICE knows this. In case CBS News is unaware, it is against the law to be in the U.S. unlawfully.

Over 60,000 Are in Immigration Detention, a Modern High, Records Show

The number of people in immigration detention reached a new high of more than 60,000 on Monday, breaking a modern record set during the first Trump administration, according to internal records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The number of detained people has jumped since January, when about 39,000 people were in immigration detention, reflecting efforts by the Trump administration to quickly ramp up arrests and deportations. According to ICE records obtained by The New York Times, more than 1,100 people had been detained since Friday, about 380 people a day.

The capacity for immigration officers to detain people has grown rapidly since ICE was formed in 2003. Twenty years ago, the average daily population of detained immigrants was approximately 7,000, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The previous peak since the government’s current method of counting began was 55,654 in August 2019, during the first Trump administration.

It would be a lot lower if Democrats stopped trying to keep people unlawfully present in the U.S.

Read: Media Laments Businesses Devoid Of Illegal Alien Workers »

An Interesting Thing Happened While Dems Protested Trump’s DC Takeover

I mean, seriously, protesting against reducing crime in the nation’s capitol is a hell of a hill to die on, and then

Read: An Interesting Thing Happened While Dems Protested Trump’s DC Takeover »

Warmists Taking The Recent ICJ Ruling Farther Than Expected

Of course, none of the Warmists want to make their own lives carbon neutral

New global ruling says sovereign states are legally responsible for tackling climate change

Sovereign states are not only responsible for tackling fossil fuel damage, they have to make redress, according to a recent ground-breaking ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ruling makes clear that the court believes states must actively prevent harm to the world’s climate system. States that fail to act accordingly may have to pay compensation, restore damaged ecosystems, rebuild infrastructure or face further legal challenges.

The ruling came in the form of an advisory opinion, which is a legal interpretation provided by a high-level court or tribunal with a special mandate, in response to a specific question of law. Simply put, an advisory opinion is not legally binding in the way a court judgment between two nations would be.

However, as an expert in international relations, I believe the consequences of this ruling are significant, both legally and politically.

Politically, states are now in the firing line as the main agents of harm. States and the public and private sector energy companies that states contract, license or subsidize are now more visible in terms of the kind of climate harm they permit.

Well, if you other countries want to give up their money, have at it. How about you Warmists give up your own and redistribute it?

What the ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change means for military emissions

Despite the density of the document, the ICJ did not address everything. Some authors have already identified missed or intentionally avoided opportunities, such as guidance on the legal rights of nature, or deeper engagement with the rights of future generations. Also, the judges themselves have criticised the panel for an overly cautious approach.

The military’s impact on the climate is one such elusive topic. The court did hear about military and conflict emissions in Palestine’s oral statement to the court. That included the emissions caused by the conflict and expected by post-conflict reconstruction, as well as the barriers that occupation can place on climate adaptation and mitigation. (snip)

In defining the duties of states towards their climate obligations, the court indirectly addressed military emissions reporting and decarbonisation measures. While reporting of peacetime military emissions is currently voluntary, keeping at or below 1.5 degrees inevitably demands that military emissions are properly accounted for in national inventories and NDCs, and mitigated. A complete and undistorted picture of the climate crisis requires that states treat their militaries like other high-emitting sectors.

Bugger off. Maybe talk to your Palestinian terrorist pals about not starting wars they keep losing.

Read: Warmists Taking The Recent ICJ Ruling Farther Than Expected »

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