PROGRESS: Researchers send ‘wireless’ message using neutrinos. “A group of scientists led by researchers from the University of Rochester and North Carolina State University have for the first time sent a message using a beam of neutrinos – nearly massless particles that travel at almost the speed of light. The message was sent through 240 meters of stone and said simply, ‘Neutrino.'” Not quite “what hath God wrought?” but cool.
Archive for 2012
March 15, 2012
PHIL HAMBURGER: Unconstitutional Conditions: The Irrelevance of Consent. “The Article concludes that private or state consent cannot justify the federal government in going beyond its legal limits. The Constitution’s limits on the government are legal limits imposed with the consent of the people. Therefore, neither private nor state consent can alter these limits or otherwise enlarge the federal government’s constitutional power.” With obvious implications for the ObamaCare debate.
IN THE MAIL: From Tobias Buckell, Arctic Rising.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Does the Anglosphere Still Rule? “In addition to noting the economic and cultural advantages the Anglosphere still enjoys, perhaps the most interesting part of their article is their discussion on demographics. Much has been said about the huge population of China and how they will dwarf anything the Anglos can produce. But often overlooked is how rapidly China will age. ‘China now has a fertility rate of 1.6, even lower than that of Western Europe.’ The graying of society will be a huge economic issue in the 21st century, and how countries deal with that will decide their success or failure. Bolstered by immigration, Anglo countries like the United States and Australia will be able to avoid the age-related issues that closed societies like China and Japan face.”
DONALD SENSING ON The Democrats’ Sexual Objectification of Women. There’s more to a woman than her vagina.
A CONTRAST ON TWO ROBOCALL SCANDALS: RoboGate:Bush DOJ Prosecuted GOP Official for Illegal Robocalls, Will Holder?
JOHN HAWKINS interviews Thomas Sowell about the new edition of his Intellectuals and Society.
FRENCH PARENTING NOT SO HOT AS CLAIMED BY TRENDY HIPSTERS: “The way French education works, and I don’t know if I could put it in a more charitable way, is that it seeks to mercilessly beat any shred of nonconformity out of children (the beating is now done mostly psychologically) so that they may be slotted into a society that, itself, treats nonconformity the way the immune system treats foreign elements. . . . It’s telling that the only place I can remember encountering children ‘better behaved’ than French children was in the Soviet Union, where my parents briefly worked and lived when I was a child.”
UPDATE: Reader Kent Peterson writes: “As a child of a French parent myself, I must insist that parenting and the educational system are not at all the same thing, be it in France or elsewhere, and that what may work extremely well in one context has little bearing on the other.”
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Scarce Oil? U.S. Has 60 Times More Than Obama Claims.
MASSACHUSETTS: Dems Panicking Over Faltering Elizabeth Warren Campaign.
IN 2008 THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN MOCKED MCCAIN AS A CLUELESS GEEZER WHO COULDN’T USE EMAIL until it turned out that he had trouble with a keyboard because of war injuries. (More on that here).
Turns out karma struck: Email breakdowns plagued White House during Obama’s first 40 days in office: “The White House’s email was down 23 percent of the time in President Obama’s first 40 days in office, according to a new interview.”
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE SWEATSHOPS EXPLOITING WORKING WOMEN — AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Former Intern at ‘Charlie Rose’ Sues, Alleging Wage Law Violations. “In a lawsuit brought in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the former intern, Lucy Bickerton, complained that she was not paid at all when she worked 25 hours a week for Mr. Rose’s show from June through August 2007.” I guess there really is a “war against women.”
IF YOU MISSED IT LAST NIGHT, here’s my interview of Tea Party congressional candidate Mia Love.
And here’s my interview of Utah Tea Party founder David Kirkham, who’s running for Governor. If you’re in Utah, and attending the caucuses tonight, I think you’re unlikely to do better than either of these folks.
“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Taliban suspends peace talks with U.S. as Panetta concludes Karzai visit. “The Afghan Taliban has suspended preliminary peace talks with the United States and will forgo opening a political office in Doha due to Washington’s ‘alternating and ever changing position,’ the group said in a statement on Thursday.”
AN EMAIL LEAK for Bashar Al-Assad.
BOYCOTTING THE HARVARD LAW REVIEW: “The point, if I may mimic the language of some famous Harvard professors, is that the law review has chosen to reinforce status hierarchies, and yet expects those disadvantaged by those hierarchies to be complicit in their perpetuation, while not even recognizing their own abnegation and exploitation.”
JAMES TARANTO: Why Charles Murray May Be Too Optimistic.
ED MORRISSEY: Steven Chu’s Performance Review: Way Below Expectations. By almost any measure.
#JERRYBROWNFAIL: Exodus: California Tax Revenue Plunges by 22%.
ED DRISCOLL JOHN BOOT: Murder, Inc.: Bruce Springsteen Goes All-In with OWS. “The Springsteen album released March 6th contains some of the most inflammatory and inexcusable rhetoric ever heard in a major pop star’s work. Even the 1960s upheavalists were rarely this reprehensible.”