Archive for 2010
December 16, 2010
CHANGE: Food Prices Rise Sharply — And There’s More To Come.
UPDATE: Prof. Stephen Clark emails with an upside: “Well, with the inflation of food prices well under way – with disproportionate effects on the poor – the First Lady may at last have her ‘cure’ for childhood obesity.” Hope and change!
IN LIGHT OF THE EARLIER COMMUNIST/NAZI DISCUSSION, I’d just like to say that I wish someone would actually make Total Eclipse.
Related thoughts here. And Michael Totten emails:
Robert Kaplan had a great quote about this in his book Balkan Ghosts.
“A thought then occurred to me: if Yugoslavia was the laboratory of Communism, then Communism would breathe its last dying breath here in Belgrade. And to judge by what [Slobodan] Milosevic was turning into by early 1989, Communism would exit the world stage revealed for what it truly was: fascism, without fascism’s ability to make the trains run on time.”
Fascism, with an incompetent face.
SOME RECOMMENDED HANDS-ON gifts for boys and teens ages 4-18.
AT AMAZON, gift recommendations in all sorts of categories.
FALSE RAPE REPORT: Meteorologist Heidi Jones Charged With Filing False Rape Report. “WABC’s Heidi Jones, who anchors the station’s weekend evening weather coverage and fills in on “Good Morning America,” was charged Monday with filing a false report, a Class A misdemeanor. If convicted, she could face up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Jones, 37, told cops she was jogging in the park the afternoon of Sept. 24 when a Hispanic man in his 30s or 40s grabbed her from behind, dragged her into a wooded area and attempted to rape her. . . . After being confronted with the discrepancies, Jones admitted that she pulled the story out of thin air, a source said. Jones said she concocted the tale in a plea for sympathy to counter some unknown setback she was experiencing in her personal life, the source added.” (Via Chris Kobus).
CAPITALISTS IN NAME ONLY: Obama Loves Big Business Almost As Much As He Loves Big Government.
CHANGE: Harry Reid pulls $1.1 trillion spending bill from floor. “Senate Democrats abruptly pulled down an omnibus spending bill after senior Republicans – caught with their hands in the cookie jar — deserted the measure in an effort to square themselves with tea party activists and conservatives in the party.” Thank you, Tea Party activists. Again. Plus this: “Democrats have only themselves to blame for failing to pass any of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the day-to-day operations of the government. At the same time, Republicans contributed mightily to this failure and are going through their own culture war — torn between the Senate’s old-bull pork-barrel ways and the more temperate fiscal gospel of their new tea party allies.” I’m happy the Tea Party folks are winning — but then, today was an auspicious day for that.
UPDATE: The Appropriators Buckle. “Tonight may indeed may be a ‘seminal moment,’ as McCain said. This was to be the appropriators’ last hurrah. In the end, they couldn’t see it through, and it’s not going to get any better for them next year. . . . Then, you had Mitch McConnell on the phone all day with Republican appropriators–Reid’s base of support on the bill–twisting their arms to come out against it. My understanding is that by the end he had all the appropriators committed against it, with the exception of two who were undecided. McConnell told the appropriators that passing this bill, and passing it this way, would represent a rejection of everything the mid-term election was about, and ultimately he prevailed.” Sometimes converts are the most fervent.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Brave Sir Harry Ran Away: “After exposing his party, the White House and himself to an avalanche of bad press and bipartisan criticism over the earmark-stuffed omnibus spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a sort of political Dunkirk moment, gave up and fled. . . . It is also a major win for the opponents of ObamaCare, who halted a billion dollars in funding for the legislation that they aim to repeal. It is also, of course, a defeat for the earmarkers, the business-as-usual crowd and Harry Reid.”
PROFESSOR JACOBSON: “It can’t last another decade. You are my witnesses.”
GHOST TOWN IN THE SKY: Satellite photos and a China real estate bubble.
IS DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO OBAMA ALSO RACIAL? Oh, absolutely. Racist, racist, racist. But I love this comment: “Calling Republicans ‘racist’ for opposing Democrats in general, or Obama specifically, is nothing more than a political tactic that we use to turn black people against Republicans. There’s nothing to be gained by using this tactic against Democrats.”
Remember, comrades: We must distinguish between mere bourgeois truth, which is concerned with sterile facts, and revolutionary truth, which is concerned with what will promote the revolution.
WHO NEEDS TECHNICAL LAW, when you can do “atmospheric law?”
FASTER, PLEASE: Cell-seeded Sutures To Repair The Heart. “Scientists from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts, have shown that cells derived from human bone marrow, known as mesenchymal stem cells, can survive on the threads and maintain their ability to differentiate into different cell types after being sewn through a collagen matrix that mimics tissue. Preliminary tests in rats suggest that the technology helps the cells survive in the heart.”
DATECHGUY: “Am I the only person watching Morning Joe today who notices the massive hypocrisy?” You may just be the only person watching Morning Joe today, full stop . . . . .
RICHARD VEDDER ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: What Happens When College Is Oversold. “The fact that a Pell Grant recipient with a 2.1 grade point average studying physical education for five years gets the same aid and sometimes more as a 3.9 point GPA physics, engineering or economics student who finishes in four years has caused a disaster, augmenting such modern problems as grade inflation.”
PETER WEHNER: THE EXTREMISM OF E.J. DIONNE, JR.
TODAY IN 1773, the Boston Tea Party.
JODY SAID IT’S MINE BUT YOU CAN HAVE IT FOR SEVENTEEN MILLION: Mexican unmanned drone crashes in backyard of El Paso home.
POPULAR MECHANICS’ PICKS for top movies of 2011.
TODAY-ONLY SALE: Seinfeld: The Complete Series.
KLAVAN ON THE CULTURE: Step Aside Julian Assange, KlaviLeaks Makes Andrew Klavan Public Enemy No. 1.
REASON TV: Who’s the biggest threat to free speech?
MEGAN MCARDLE: Where Freedom Goes To Die: The Center For Science In The Public Interest. “Monet Parham, by the way, seems to be an activist employed by the California government to advocate the ingestion of vegetables, though some pains seem to have been taken to obscure this connection. Our founding fathers are no doubt spinning in their graves fast enough to provide cheap, clean, renewable power to the entire Atlantic seaboard.”
SALLY PIPES: Avastin: The Fatal Move From The FDA. “On Dec. 17 the Food and Drug Administration is expected to take the radical step of revoking approval for an advanced drug in the treatment of one of the country’s most deadly diseases.” Because it’s too expensive.
Related: Death Panels Begin. “This was about cost-cutting, not medical efficacy as we’ve repeatedly shown. Ironically, at about the same time the FDA was making its decision, the EU ruled to continue recommending Avastin. So, for breast cancer patients, there is more choice in Europe than the US.”
UPDATE: Derek Lowe disagrees: “I think that the health care bill was a disastrous idea, myself, and at the same time I still think that Avastin doesn’t deserve approval for metastatic breast cancer. The best evidence we have is that Avastin doesn’t help these patients and may well even hurt them. That would be true even if it were free.” More here.