LOOKING AT PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM: “It has been the experience of REACTS that many people express some of the preliminary symptoms of ARS (Acute Radiation Syndome) — particularly nausea — due to their anxiety. It is important that responders and medical care providers are able to recognize the difference between real victims and those who are simply afraid.”
And don’t forget to Duck And Cover!
AT AMAZON, new book releases in History.
DOES AMERICA HAVE A LAWYER PROBLEM, OR A LAW PROBLEM? My Sunday Washington Examiner column is up.
UPDATE: Reader Karl Keller emails:
Your column today about the law being the problem, and not the lawyers, brought to mind one of the key points made in Federalist #62 — in my view, among the greatest of the papers. There Madison wrote:
Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.
In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.
Alas, our Founders were wise, and Madison among the wisest. Too bad much of our political class fails to understand them.
Or maybe it understands them all too well.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Obama Preaches the False Religion of Corporate Social Responsibility. “Wrong. The social obligation of business is to sustainably maximize long-term profits for shareholders. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I JUST HOPE THERE’S NOT A “BLUE HADES” COLONY DOWN THERE OR SOMETHING: Scientists Race To Breach Antarctica’s Lake Vostok. “Russian scientists are set to pierce through Antarctica’s frozen surface to reveal the secrets of an icebound lake that has been sealed deep there for the past 15 million years.” Admit it, it sounds just like a thousand horror-movie setups.
UPDATE: Reader Russ Hochstetler writes: “Let’s hope this isn’t the start of ‘A Colder War’.” Yeah, I was kinda feeling a Stross vibe in that news story.
TYPOGRAPHY FOR LAWYERS.
MORE ON COMMON CAUSE, FROM DON SURBER: What is unforgivable is the outright hypocrisy over the filibuster by this faux-nonpartisan group of lefties.
Plus this: “By the way, hate speech is protected — as is corporate speech, even from those corporations who pay no taxes at all — such as Common Cause.”
UPDATE: Reader Robert Schenck writes: “I think when they start calling for the lynching of Clarence Thomas you’re allowed to spell it ‘Kommon Kause’.” Korrect.
CHANGE: Ahmadiyya Muslim community launches ‘Muslims for Loyalty’ campaign. “The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA is spreading the word that, despite all the bad press — by way of terrorist attacks, honor killings, and the like — Muslims have a duty to be peaceful and loyal to the United States.” What’s sad is that this is newsworthy, at this late date.
MORE ON THE FAILURE OF STATE MULTICULTURALISM. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are basically unemployable in productive fields have chosen it as their rice bowl.
But Nick Cohen writes in The Guardian that appeasement may be over. “I am not sure the prime minister understands that he is taking on a sensibility as much as a political platform. Because Britain was never invaded by the Nazis, and never suffered from any of the other versions of 20th-century tyranny, there is an unforgivable frivolity about our dealings with totalitarianism. Dilettante bureaucrats, journalists and intellectuals play with extremists and their ideas with the insouciance of men and women who know that they will never have to suffer the consequences of coping with extremists in power. The best gift the British can give the world in this moment of crisis is to imitate the crowds in North Africa and say enough of all of that. It is time to break away from a shameful past.”
EGYPT: A LETTER FROM SALIM MANSUR. “I am more convinced now, as I wasn’t when Paul Kennedy wrote about the rise and fall of great powers, that the West has gone over the tipping point in its terminal decline. That intelligent people, or people who claim to be intelligent, (I have in mind the talking heads in the U.S. media such as Chris Matthews or Fareed Zakaria) cannot make the difference between the sham of the Muslim Brotherhood talking about freedom and democracy and the generic thirst in man to be free. These are the people who have like the Bourbons learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They are glibly about to put the Lenins of our time into trains heading for Moscows of our time, they find nothing odd that they are pushing for the Muslim Brotherhood to be taken into governing when everything needs to be done to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out.”
EXPLOSIVE ARCHAEOLOGY: Chinese find caucasian mummy too hot to handle.
Shades of Kennewick Man. Science must not be allowed to overturn the favored narrative.
A ROUNDUP OF Valentine’s Day gift ideas and markdowns.
CHART: The GOP Galaxy. This chart could also make for a good game of Crisco Twister. Not that I’ve every played that game or anything. No sir.
PALIN VISIT CANCELED OVER THREATS, ATTACKS.
GETTING A JOB AFTER 50? Good luck. Obviously we need more Age Discrimination suits, and affirmative action for older job applicants.
UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown writes: “That kind of puts a damper on the whole raise the retirement age plan of action. Or do we want a bunch of 50 yr olds starving in their upper middle age?” I believe you mean “late youth.”
And reader Greg Joyce emails: “I’m guessing your tongue is in cheek when you say more age discrimination suits are needed to help the unemployed over 50. I’m on the wrong side of 50 and was recently laid off when our hi-tech company closed shop. If someone doesn’t want to hire me because of my age, that should be their right. Whatever, I started my own company. Job security is a myth anyway.”
PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH EXPLAINS WHAT ISN’T WORTH YOUR TIME. My days of not taking Yglesias seriously have certainly come to a middle.
HOPE AND CHANGE: ST. LOUIS SOUP LINE PROTEST Forms at Claire McCaskill’s Delmar Office.
Photos and video at the link. Also, more video here, and more photos here.