EXPLAINING HOW THE INTERNET WORKS: “I’m tempted to remark on the wisdom in general of taking human rights lessons from professors steeped in European and United Nations law, but I’m more interesting in a shorter question: What can Karin Calvo-Goller possibly be thinking? Already, a search of her name on Google yields in third place an entry linking ‘Calvo-Goller’ to the phrase ‘an idiot and a fascist jerk.'”
Should’ve read this first.
INTRODUCING THE NEW MONEY. Well, the old stuff has had its problems.
STEAMPUNK BEFORE STEAMPUNK WAS COOL: A steam-powered motorized trike from the 1960s.
JENNIFER RUBIN educates Young Ezra Klein.
REPORT: Khaddafy Flees Tripoli.
READY TO FLY is a documentary film about women’s ski-jumping. Women ski-jumpers are still trying to get the International Olympic Committee to let them in. (Bumped).
OBVIOUSLY, PEOPLE HAVE STARTED TO PAY ATTENTION: Voters lack confidence politicos in either party will make needed spending cuts.
OF COURSE THEY DO: Top Dems want Social Security off the table in spending battle. But that’s self-serving and dishonest. Since they’ve been robbing the “Trust Fund” all along, it’s part of the general problem, and needs to be part of the solution.
WHAT IT MEANS WHEN an hour’s work yields a week’s food. Well, for some.
AT AMAZON, Top Deals in Home Entertainment.
WORDS YOU CAN’T SAY at the Pentagon. “You don’t rise in the armed forces if you can’t read your superiors. And the rising officers who met Hasan knew what their superiors wanted without having to be told. Islam was a religion of peace, and Muslims in the Army were a welcome sign of diversity. Treating Hasan as a dangerous Islamist would put those messages at risk.”
PAUL HSIEH: The Wisconsin Protests And The New Medical Ethics. “During the recent Wisconsin protests pitting the public-sector teachers’ union against a governor attempting to rein in their overly generous benefits, several doctors were caught on camera apparently handing out fake work excuses to the protesters. Although this might seem an outrageous breach of professional ethics, it is actually entirely consistent with the new brand of ‘progressive’ medical ethics currently taught to medical students. And these apparent breaches of professional ethics displayed in Wisconsin may be an ominous foretaste of future problems Americans can expect under ObamaCare. . . . Medical school ethics courses are thus increasingly emphasizing ‘social justice’ over traditional notions of ethics — or the individual patient’s welfare. But ‘social justice’ is frequently just a euphemism for a socialist political agenda of leftist politics, redistribution of wealth, and heavy state controls over the marketplace.”
NIALL FERGUSON: U.S. Needs To Start Selling Off Assets. Now that the country’s broke from the “stimulus,” I’m sure George Soros and GE will be interested in buying up all sorts of stuff at distress-sale prices.
CHANGE: Same-Sex Couples in CA, NV & WA Reap Big Federal Tax Bonuses: “Thanks to a 1996 federal law aimed at preserving traditional marriage, thousands of same-sex couples in California, Nevada, and Washington state could get big tax bonuses on their federal returns starting this year. The bonuses are off-limits to heterosexual married couples—a sharp reminder of the ‘marriage penalty’ that often dings two-earner couples.” Sounds like somebody in Congress, or the Clinton Administration, should have thought that whole “Defense of Marriage Act” thing through a bit more.
REP. PAUL RYAN ON FACE THE NATION: “Uncontrolled Debt Means Job Creation Goes Away Today.”
RICK SANTELLI: Budget Crisis is a financial 9/11.
SCIENTISTS WARN OF $2 TRILLION “SOLAR KATRINA:”
The sun is waking up from a long quiet spell. Last week it sent out the strongest flare for four years – and scientists are warning that earth should prepare for an intense electromagnetic storm that, in the worst case, could be a “global Katrina” costing the world economy $2,000bn.
Senior officials responsible for policy on solar storms – also known as space weather – in the US, UK and Sweden urged more preparedness at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington. . . .
The most intense solar storm on record, which ruined much of the world’s newly installed telegraph network in 1859, took place during an otherwise weak cycle. An 1859-type storm today could knock out the world’s information, communications and electricity distribution systems, at a cost estimated by the US government at $2,000bn.
In terms of terrestrial vulnerability, the biggest change since the 2000 peak is that the world has become more dependent on global positioning system satellites – and not just for navigation. The world’s mobile phone networks depend on ultra-precise GPS time signals for their co-ordination.
Read the whole thing. One problem with our fiscal profligacy is that it makes us less able to prepare for, or recover from, major disasters.
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: Doing even worse than you thought.
YALEGLOBAL: The Looming Food Crisis. And yet our policy will be to burn more ethanol!
MARK HEMINGWAY: After Wisconsin, How Do Dems Argue Against A GOP Government Shutdown? Well, “shamelessly” would be my guess.
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