CLAUDIA ROSETT: Saving Syria From Kofi Annan.
Archive for 2012
June 28, 2012
BECAUSE IT COMES FROM JIMMY CARTER, WOULD BE MY GUESS. Why Is Nobody Listening To Jimmy Carter’s Searing Critique of America?
Also, because our current President is a Democrat. “Searing critiques of America” are only in demand when the White House is occupied by a Republican.
JAMES TARANTO: The Sky Isn’t Falling! And Regulators Are Worried. “The benefits of aviation rules are calculated primarily on how many deaths they may prevent, so the safest decade in modern airline history is making it harder to justify the cost of new requirements.”
MEGAN MCARDLE: Liberals Shouldn’t Defend FDR’s Attacks On The Court. “Maybe you like precious schoolchildren lisping loyalty oaths to government programs more than I do. But even so, not this program. The NIRA was based on a lunatic confusion of cause with effect. President Roosevelt had noticed, along with everyone else, that prices were falling and people were being thrown out of work. So he decided that if businesses would just stop lowering those darn prices, everything would be okay. . . . This is like thinking that the way to deal with your drinking problem is to just stop vomiting and blacking out so much. Prices were falling because the banking system had collapsed, which was sucking the money out of the economy like a gigantic national vacuum. Even if the cartels managed to keep prices from falling, people still weren’t going to have enough money to buy the goods they wanted, because their savings accounts were shut down and they couldn’t roll their loans over, and neither could the people who bought their merchandise or wrote their paychecks. With too little money in circulation, fixing prices artificially high would just mean that even more people would be going without necessities. . . . I’m not trying to get liberals to concede that 80 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence were all a hideous mistake. But thinking that the healthcare law should be allowed to stand does not require romanticizing FDR’s conflict with the court, which mostly used bad methods to defend bad laws.”
SCIENCE: REMOVING ESTROGEN FROM DRINKING WATER.
The birth control pill is a widespread contraception method. However, large amounts of these modified estrogens leave the body again in urine. The conventional methods in sewage treatment plants are unable to treat this waste water sufficiently because the most frequently used estrogen ethinylestradiol is very difficult to break down. As a result, the hormone finds its way into rivers and lakes and also accumulates in drinking water with serious consequences for fish and other aquatic life. These range from reproductive and severe developmental disorders to the formation of female sexual characteristics in males. The long-term consequences of increasing estrogen pollution for human beings are still largely unknown. Nonetheless, declining sperm counts and thereby increasing infertility in men living in industrial nations may well relate to this hormonal pollution. In addition, testicular and prostate cancers as well as osteoporosis (a reduction in bone density) could be a consequence of overly high concentrations of estrogen in the human body.
The goal of the Bielefeld iGEM team is to develop a biological filter in which certain enzymes (so-called laccases) break down the estrogen.
I wonder why the EPA hasn’t looked into this?
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: More Job Market Data Showing A Structural Shift.
DEMOCRATIC LEADERS TO SUPREME COURT: If You Don’t Vote Our Way, You’re Being Political.
Really, this is just sad.
FILLING IN PESKY CRACKS with an automated road-repair system: “Repaving roads with fresh tarmac is an expensive, time-consuming task that’s always inconvenient to any driver who has come upon a blocked off highway lane. Researchers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) believe that they can extend the lifespan of a road’s pavement by simply repairing cracks as they appear using an automated system. Jonathan Holmes and his fellow colleagues at GTRI developed an automated road repair system that can detect and fill in any cracks in the asphalt. The system could potentially replace a multi-man road crew with a single robot hitched to a truck, all while doing the job faster and more safely.”
Good. The robotic crack-filler will mean smoother rides for our driverless cars. . . .
THEY TOLD IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN THIS WOULD HAPPEN. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! US beaches laden with sewage, bacteria: study.
TIM CAVANAUGH ROUNDS UP Obamacarians’ Pregame Rationalizations: Doesn’t Matter; Good for O; All Scalia’s Fault, and More!
Related: Ilya Somin: Final Thoughts on the Eve of the Individual Mandate Decision.
UPDATE: More here. “Personally, I suspect that progressives will stop attacking the court pretty soon. I have been much amused watching people try to simultaneously defend the fruits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s outrageous court-bullying, while also indignantly claiming that it would be abusive, infamous, fundamentally illegitimate and also, downright mean, for conservative justices to even think about overturning long-standing precedent. Suddenly, the internet is full of Latter Day Originalists who think that the constitution was handed down by God on stone tablets—in January 1936.”
HERE’S MEGAN MCARDLE’S NEW BLOG. She’ll be all over the ObamaCare decision tomorrow.
AN IP ADDRESS IS NOT AN ACTUAL ADDRESS OR A PERSONAL IDENTIFIER: SWAT tries to take down Internet meanie; raids grandma instead.
Also, judges know this. Well, the smarter ones, anyway.
THE GAPED CRUSADER.
JEFF GOLDSTEIN NOT IMPRESSED WITH THE ANTI-TEA-PARTY SPIN ON HATCH’S PRIMARY VICTORY:
First, let me say this: Liljenquist, with his talk of “revenue enhancements” and his prior political record, didn’t strike me — or a number of other conservatives / classical liberals — as a particularly spectacular candidate (unlike, say, a Ted Cruz in Texas). Second, Hatch had the support not only of the Romney camp, but also of people like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity, who were openly advocating for him. And finally — and this is key – a number of TEA Party groups supported Hatch, including the TEA Party Express.
So while FreedomWorks supported Liljenquist, it simply isn’t true that the TEA Party was defeated here — and I suspect the reporter know this.
Which raises the question: why is this story written in such a way that it suggests more of a TEA Party defeat than a Hatch victory?
And the answer, of course, is that the media — even if it is putatively “conservative” — is largely invested in beating back TEA Party influence.
Well, yes. It threatens the whole feedlot.
THE WEEK: Three Reasons The Democratic Convention Could Be A Disaster.
Actually, there’s just one reason.
ACE NOT TOO IMPRESSED with the state of nutrition advice. “So, for 50 years now, the medical establishment and the government have been telling fat people to do the exact opposite thing they should be doing.”
At the very least, they should be reading Gary Taubes.
And don’t get me started on the dermatologists.
UPDATE: Reader Matt Howell writes:
Since you’re on the subject of Gary Taubes today:
On your recommendation, I read Why We Get Fat last month and on June 3rd, I started following the no-sugar, no-starch diet.
I’ve lost 14.2 pounds since then. I’m averaging a little over a half a pound a day so far, and the trend hasn’t shown any signs of leveling off yet. I feel great, I have a lot more energy than I did just 3-4 weeks ago, and I actually feel like my brain is working faster. I’m probably luckier and better-looking now, too. Something.
I’ve been recommending WWGF since I started reading it. It’s one of most clearly-communicated, straightforward book I’ve read on the subject, and its credibility is only bolstered by the critical-thinking approach with which Taubes takes on the material. So refreshing to read something that isn’t full of EXCLAMATION POINTS!! and platitudes about willpower. You’re doing a real service to your readership by promoting him.
Well, I don’t think that any diet is a panacea, but his approach seems to work for a lot of people, including me.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Farley writes:
Six weeks ago, I was diagnosed with Diabetes. I immediately went Paleo-ish. I just cut out wheat, rice, potatoes and corn. My blood sugars now hover around 100 and I’ve lost 30 pounds. I DO NOT exercise, because I can’t – crippled, long story.
I don’t even cut them 100%. I’ll eat Chinese with a little breading on the meat. I’ll have a tortilla with my fajitas. I just stay under 30 carbs per day. This diet is stupid easy – even a cave man could do it!
I went off my low-carb diet for a week earlier this month. The main thing I noticed was that all of a sudden I was constantly starving. Went back on it and the hunger went away. And my low-carb diet isn’t all that low-carb — I keep my carbs under about 50. But when they go up above that, it has an effect.
MORE: Physician-reader Dale Russell writes:
My internist is a lipid fanatic and has whipped my lipid panel into shape. I saw him two weeks ago and he mentioned that he was impressed by Taubes presentation at The National Lipid Association’s Annual Meeting. See agenda, Saturday, noon presentation:
Special Public Interest Session – “Why We Get Fat in the US?” Gary Taubes
He is making an impression on the establishment.
Well, good.
RACISTS: Black lawmakers plan walkout during contempt vote. I mean, would they do this if Holder were white?
IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Coffee Cuts Risk Of Heart Failure. “Once again, a study points to coffee as cardioprotection, at least when it’s consumed in moderation.”
BEACH READING: At Amazon, bestsellers in Mystery, Thrillers & Suspense.
SOME AWFULLY BAD NEWS for blogger Ric Locke, who’s also the author of Temporary Duty. I hit his tip jar. You might want to as well. There’s no PayPal logo — it’s in the upper left and just says “donations.” That’s the PayPal link. (Bumped).
WELL, I WAS ON MSNBC YESTERDAY, TOO, but my appearance was much less eventful than this one.
JUST A REMINDER THAT the Kindle version of my The Higher Education Bubble is now out. The iPad version of Higher Ed Bubble is also available on the iBooks store. In case you prefer that to the Kindle app.