WANT A HEALTHIER BABY? Get A Dog Or Cat. “Infants who repeatedly come into contact with dogs and cats during the first year of their life are less likely to suffer from respiratory tract symptoms or infections, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics on July 9. The research suggests pet owners are more likely to have healthy children than non-pet owners, because the children of pet owners are exposed to communities of useful bacteria which pets carry and which help children develop their own important microbiologic cultures.”
Archive for 2012
July 14, 2012
READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Michael Lonie writes: “Prof. Reynolds, You are frequently plugging books which the authors ask you to plug. Would you please plug a book by a friend of mine? It’s a sort of fantasy/crime thriller novel called Kassandra’s Song by Bruce Bretthauer. Thanks.”
Done!
WOMEN AND MOTORCYCLES: RIDERSHIP IS ON THE RISE.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: “Why do moms in my generation regress, whether by drugging, cheating, or going out too late and too often? Because everything our children thrive on—stability, routine, lack of flux, love, well-paired parents—feels like death to those entrusted with their care. . . . These women are the men their mothers divorced.”
SO I MET JACK MCCALL FOR DRINKS YESTERDAY, and we talked about his new book, Pacific Time on Target: Memoirs of a Marine Artillery Officer, 1943-1945. But he pointed out that he just edited the book, which was written by Christopher Donner — who he calls “the thinking man’s James Bond” — as soon as he returned from the war. Donner, a trained historian, kept detailed notes of his experiences during the battle for Okinawa and elsewhere. He was also a very early adopter of scuba diving and trained Underwater Demolition Team operators after the war.
COMPARE WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS: Heavily armed and bikini-clad female Israeli soldiers ‘mingle’ with beachgoers. “Women make up almost one-third of the IDF and 50% of its officers.”
PLEASE LET THIS BE TRUE: A reboot of Firefly? But I’ll believe it when I see it.
ANN ALTHOUSE busts Matt Taibbi for racial dishonesty.
UPDATE: From the comments:
Taibbi has a two-page play book. Page 1 is “It’s Racism ” and Page 2is “It’s corporate greed & corruption”.
Someone please tell him we have a black president who got a boatload of support from Wall Street.
Heh. Indeed we do.
At first glance, today’s Wall Street Journal piece on teachers donating vast sums of money to outside political groups hardly comes as a surprise. Unions in both the public and private sectors are well known for organizing and donating money to favored candidates and political groups.
Yet some of these donations appear to go beyond what would be expected from a union’s lobbying arm. In addition to the expected donations to Democratic politicians and labor groups in which the unions have a clear interest, union money is also going to groups with more of a social agenda, including gay rights activists and other civil-rights organizations.
It’s like it’s all just one big political machine or something. “The Walker reforms in Wisconsin are a direct threat to this powerful machine. That is why they were so strongly resisted. . . . The fight over the future of public sector unions may be the most important political battle in the United States today.”
IS THE NEW YORK TIMES THE PLACE TO DEBATE THIS QUESTION? Are modern men manly enough?
UPDATE: Reader Trevor Dahl writes: “It’s amusing to see all the hand-wringing in pop culture today over what constitutes manliness. I’ve lived in urban areas so I’m aware and even have friends who fit the profile of the effete, borderline-metrosexual male. Currently, I’m working for a land company in the Bakken oil field of eastern Montana and I can tell you that most men here wouldn’t even be aware that men in Manhattan sit around contemplate what it means to be manly. The unemployment rate is basically zero due to oil activity and related services. Men are so busy producing goods and services here they don’t even have to time to reflect on what it means to be a ‘man’, I’d say that’s the definition of manliness.”
HYPOCRITE: Over 30% of President Obama’s 2009-2011 Gross Income Came From Foreign Sources.
And that’s not counting all those unverified credit-card donations to his campaign.
LIVING THE CRUNCHY-CON LIFESTYLE.
JOEL KOTKIN: How Fossil-Fuel Democrats Became An Endangered Species. “President Obama’s heavy-handed regulation of the booming old-energy economy—the moratorium on offshore drilling following the BP spoil, the decision to block the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the prospect of a fracking ban—and his embrace of green-energy policies has played well in the solidly Democratic post-industrial coastal economies that he also depends on for fund-raising. But it’s left him with few friends in the energy belt that spans the Great Plains, the Gulf Coast, Appalachia and now some parts of the old rustbelt, despite his election-year claims of an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy. It’s a far cry from Bill Clinton, whose close ties with Great Plains and Gulf Coast Democrats and energy producers there helped him twice carry Louisiana, Kentucky and West Virginia—all states that appear to be solidly behind Romney this year. . . . Nowhere is the element of choice inherent in energy policy more evident than in California, home to five of the nation’s twelve largest oil fields and energy reserves equal to those of Nigeria, the world’s tenth-largest producer. As high-paying energy jobs swell payrolls in the Great Plains, the Intermountain West and parts of the Gulf, the Golden State has double-digit unemployment, a collapsed inland economy and a series of bankrupt municipalities. Amidst a great national energy boom, California’s energy production has remained stunted even as the state’s draconian “renewable” energy mandates are slated to drive up its already high electricity rates. The state’s high cost of energy has impacted industry: despite its vast human and natural resources, the Golden State, with 12 percent of the nation’s population received barely 2 percent of the country’s manufacturing expansions last year.”
Key bit: “As economic forecaster Bill Watkins recently told an audience in hard-hit Santa Maria: ‘If you were in Texas, you’d be rich.’”
AT AMAZON, Recommended Beach Reading. I suspect most InstaPundit readers will want to scroll past the first few entries on the list. But hey, I could be wrong!
Also, today only: Stamina InMotion Elliptical Trainer, $64.99. For your chair or desk. Is sitting really the new smoking?
NOW ON YOUTUBE: My interview with Roger Kimball, where we discuss his new book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGE STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): More Homes Entered Foreclosure Process in June. “Banks are increasingly placing homes with unpaid mortgages on a countdown that could deliver a swell of new foreclosed properties onto the market by early next year, potentially weighing further on home values. June provided the latest evidence of this trend, as the number of U.S. homes entering the foreclosure process for the first time increased on an annual basis for the second month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. California in particular saw a big spike in foreclosure starts, or homes placed on the foreclosure path for the first time. They increased 18 percent versus June last year, the firm said.”
“I SUPPORT FAKES AND I VOTE.” At first, I thought it was about boobs. And then I realized, it was.
SOUNDING RETREAT: Closing nine border patrol stations.
DAVID BROOKS: Why Our Elites Stink.
Through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Protestant Establishment sat atop the American power structure. A relatively small network of white Protestant men dominated the universities, the world of finance, the local country clubs and even high government service.
Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.
Yet, as this meritocratic elite has taken over institutions, trust in them has plummeted. It’s not even clear that the brainy elite is doing a better job of running them than the old boys’ network. Would we say that Wall Street is working better now than it did 60 years ago? Or government? The system is more just, but the outcomes are mixed. The meritocracy has not fulfilled its promise.
Is it really a Bratocracy?
HOLY TAXATION, BATMAN! H&R Block Messes Up Bruce Wayne’s Taxes.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Troy teen calls acquittal in gun case ‘the right verdict.’
A recent Troy High School graduate was acquitted Thursday of all charges in his arrest for carrying a rifle through downtown Birmingham.
A jury in 48th District Court found Sean M. Combs, 18, not guilty of brandishing a firearm and disturbing the peace. Wednesday, Judge Marc Barron issued a directed verdict dismissing a charge of resisting and obstructing a police officer after Combs’ attorney, James Makowski, argued that city attorney Mary Kucharek had not proven that offense.
“I think they came up with the right verdict,” Combs said after his acquittal. “It took them a while, but at the end of the day, I think it was the right decision.” . . .
Combs, the son of a retired Ferndale police officer, said he and a girlfriend had gone to Birmingham to see a movie and had some spare time, so he decided to walk around the business district with the rifle to exercise his open carry rights under Michigan law.
He said he was walking to a parking lot to return the rifle to his car when he was confronted by officers Rebekah Springer and Gina Potts, who demanded to see his identification.
He drew a crowd of teenagers when he refused, prompting the officers to call in another officer, who subsequently arrested Combs.
“It was about freedom of speech and freedom of expression,” Combs said as to why he was carrying the rifle around. “It’s my way of saying what I believe in.”
I hope he’ll follow it up with a lawsuit, and demand proper training on gun rights for the police officers.