HE CHOSE POORLY: Obama’s Absence The Talk Of NAACP Convention. “The black leaders that attended the NAACP Convention here Thursday heaped praise on Vice President Joe Biden for a heated morning speech, but one question quietly pervaded the gathering: Where was President Obama? Obama’s decision to skip the annual convention in the heat of his re-election bid has been a point of of constant speculation here in recent days, providing a sort of microcosm for how the black community views the nation’s first African-American president as he nears the end of his first term.” Give him a break. He’s probably busy approving the bombing targets for Iran.
Archive for 2012
July 12, 2012
STUDY: Fracking Is Safe If You Do It Right. The science is settled. You don’t want to be a science-denier, do you?
STEPS TOWARD JURASSIC PARK: Scientists place 500-million-year-old gene in modern organism. “Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli(E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action.”
TEXAS: Full of Black Women With Guns. “Texas Department of Public Safety data show that the fastest-growing group of concealed handgun owners in the state has been, for at least five years, black women.”
Plus this: “For women, part of the tension around this topic is that women with guns are marginalized in a feminist culture that promotes unarmed resistance and ‘clean’ fighting techniques . . . . White Southern men, on the other hand, were the most likely to congratulate me on this life decision and follow up with advice on the best kind of firearm to buy.”
Amusing to see this in the lefty Utne Reader. This is what it looks like when you win a culture war. But read the whole thing. This bit is interesting: “In the black community, the social and economic tension between black men and women has made black women appear to have increasingly more in common with white men than black men. Black women, like white men, are often the heads of household, often the primary or sole breadwinners in their homes, and they are simultaneously admired and hated (often by black men) for their successes.”
TIM LYNCH appreciates Clarence Thomas.
SO IS THE NEW YORK TIMES doing product-placements now? “Salma Hayek! She has something to do with you working in an office. Buy this juice.” Well, they do need the money. . . .
I SUPPOSE IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE: “I accidentally sent my potential future boss a picture of Nic Cage rather than my cover letter + resume which was a zip file titled with a bunch of numbers like the JPG I accidentally attached oh my god.”
THE CAPTAIN’S JOURNAL: U.N. Arms Treaty: Dreams Of International Gun Control. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE IS BECOMING A CRISIS. “Some bacteria, such as those causing tuberculosis and gonorrhea, have become resistant to multiple antibiotics. In the past few years, researchers discovered a new enzyme known as NDM-1 that can confer resistance to antibiotics on bacteria and can easily jump among different species. As the first-line antibiotics are lost, the replacement treatments are often more expensive, and more toxic. Meanwhile, the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up.”
CRIME AND THE NUMBERS GAME: Stolen 1967 Austin-Healey Recovered After 42 Years, Despite Government Red Tape. “This is actually a terrific story to contribute to the growing archives of Internet lore … until you get to the part where it almost didn’t happen because of government bureacrats worried about crime statistics – over one long ago stolen car.”
THE MORE THEY SQUAWK ABOUT ROMNEY’S OLD TAX RETURNS, THE MORE THEY’RE GOING TO HEAR THIS QUESTION: Jay Carney sneers at reporter’s request for Obama’s college records.
FUNNY, MITT SEEMED TO DRAW A CROWD: Photo: Empty room minutes ahead of Biden’s NAACP speech.
CHANGE: Traditional Retailers Find Strategies to Combat “Showrooming.” “As online shopping has surged, traditional retailers have lost millions in sales to so-called showrooming — when shoppers check out products in stores that they then buy from websites like Amazon. It has gotten so bad that Best Buy even replaces standard bar codes with special Best Buy-only codes on big-ticket items so they cannot be scanned and compared online. Now some big retailers are taking a new approach to the dreaded showrooming by transforming their stores into extensions of their own online operations. Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Best Buy, Sears, the Container Store and other retailers are stepping up efforts to add Web return centers, pickup locations, free shipping outlets, payment booths and even drive-thru customer service centers for online sales to their brick-and-mortar buildings.”
IN CHINA, Call of Duty will be a free online game. A reader comments: “I know people who will actually be upset about this.”
CULTIVATING “MERRY MINDFULNESS” with Laughing Yoga. Does saying “heh” frequently count?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Accreditation Weapon.
As I’ve predicted in the past, we’ll see more use of accreditation in the defense of the status quo and as a means (ultimately, I think, unsuccessful) of limiting disruptive innovations.
IN THE MAIL: From Jude Hardin, Crosscut (A Nicholas Colt Thriller).
PATTERICO: A Condensed Version Of The Kimberlin Story.
UPDATE: Related thoughts from Lee Stranahan.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Brett Kimberlin: “I want to be left alone.”
If so, then he chose poorly.
HEH: “I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say, ‘You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank’.”
MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVERGENEROUS PUBLIC PENSIONS: Moody’s Triples Pension Debt Estimates.
As we follow the evolving story of collapsing public pensions, one of the trickiest issues is the lack of reliable estimates of future returns on investment. Many of the biggest offenders among pensions assume returns of 8 percent or higher. These numbers may seem reasonable by historical standards, but they’re hopelessly optimistic today. Even plans that have revised their estimates downward still project returns far above what most analysts expect. If these estimates don’t come through, taxpayers will be left holding the bag, and either pension payouts will have to shrink or other services, including education and law enforcement, will have to.
Unions have long claimed that these worries are mere alarmism, but now Wall Street is stepping in to say it, too: pension investment projections are far too high. A new estimate from Moody’s anticipates average pension returns of 5.5 percent rather than the traditional 7 or 8 percent investment projection. The result of this estimate is a tripling of national pension debt, from $766 billion to $2.2 trillion. This is a major increase, but many analysts believe that it is accurate, or at least more accurate than previous estimates.
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debts and obligations that can’t be paid, won’t be.
NICK GILLESPIE: The Real Class Warfare is Baby Boomers Vs. Younger Americans: Hey kids, Mom and Dad are screwing you.
You’re not getting screwed by billionaires and plutocrats. You’re getting screwed by Mom and Dad.
Systematically and in all sorts of ways. Old people are doing everything possible to rob you of your money, your future, your dignity, and your freedom.
Here’s the irony, too (in a sort of Alanis Morissette sense): You’re getting hosed by the very same group that 45 years ago was bitching and moaning about “the generation gap” and how their parents just didn’t understand what really mattered in life. . . .
So kiddos, you’re getting screwed by old people who expect you to maintain a system that benefits them at your expense, regardless of their needs or yours. Thanks, Mom and Dad! And we just might be in the early stages of a bring-back-the-draft-movement, where you would get to choose between painting military barracks for 18 months or sharpening a teacher’s pencils for two years.
Then chew on this: One of the primary ways that President Obama (born 1961) is making the so-called Affordable Care Act affordable is by having you foot more than your share of the bill.
Think it through for a moment, especially given that younger voters seem to really dig him.
Read the whole thing.
ED DRISCOLL REMINDS US WHY AMERICANS DON’T TRUST TV NEWS ANY MORE with a walk down memory lane. Short answer: They’ve been caught lying a lot.