BLACK-BLOC BROWNSHIRTS: Occupy anarcho-fascists post own video of themselves destroying SF neighborhood. In a real anarchy, these people would be killed, or enslaved until they paid for the damage.
Archive for 2012
May 23, 2012
ABC NEWS: In Memoriam: The Old Obama, Who Wanted to Bring People Together. “The 2004 version of Barack Obama, who captured the nation with a dazzling speech about unity and went on to win the presidency on a message of hope, died on Monday. He was 8 years old.” I don’t actually think he’s been a uniter since 2004. That was just schtick.
CLIMATE HYPOCRISY: Will.I.Am attends climate change talk in helicopter. I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis. Just sayin’ . . .
BLUE-ON-BLUE: Chicago Teachers Boo Rahm Emanuel.
PROF. JACOBSON: How do Zimmerman prosecutors prove case when key witnesses now have reasonable doubts? You know it’s a problem when MSNBC goes silent . . .
UPDATE: Reader Jerry Davis writes: “There never were any ‘key witnesses’ who supported the MSNBC version of events. Following aggressive ‘re-interviewing’ by the prosecution, some of the key witnesses have now stated they’re uncertain about some aspects of what they saw. On balance, though, their testimony hasn’t changed. The fact that’s being characterized as a weakening of the prosecution case makes it clear MSNBC’S narrative was a figment of their imagination and they’re now trying to find an excuse for their decision to distance themselves from it.”
BOY, WHO SAW THAT ONE COMING? WaPo says Obama’s massive primary fail is “racism.” And who knew that Democratic primary voters were such racists?
CONN CARROLL: The Top Ten Conservative Daily Show Segments. There are that many?
#NANNYFAIL: Why Johnny Can’t Ride. “Childhood obesity rates are soaring, youth participation in sports and other active pursuits is plummeting, and a generation is coming of age with little understanding of the joy and freedom of unsupervised play. There’s a simple solution—but all across the nation our schools earn a failing grade when it comes to letting kids ride their bikes.”
Related: “Could you be arrested for allowing your 5’th grade child to ride her bike one mile to school?”
Tar. Feathers.
WISCONSIN: Reason-Rupe Poll on Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42, Obama Leads Romney 46-36. That’s an interesting pair of results.
TEN OF THE biggest-bore weapons ever. I’ll settle for a .75 recoilless like “Slippery Jim” DiGriz.
SHOCKINGLY, A PLACE THAT SEEMS TO BE TURNING INTO AN ISLAMIST PESTHOLE HAS A TOURISM SHORTAGE:
Egypt has a problem with foreigners. More accurately, Egypt has a problem because there aren’t enough foreigners investing or traveling in Egypt anymore.
After the revolution began last year, foreign investment dried up, fast. Tourists disappeared and haven’t really come back. The two groups—investors and travelers—are extremely important sources of money for the Egyptian government and the entire economy itself. With elections this week, investors are waiting to see what kind of government begins to take shape in Cairo. All presidential candidates have said they favor free market-focused economic policies, and all of them understand the importance of foreign investors and tourists to the Egyptian economy.
Well, they’re going to have to do a lot better than they’ve done over the past year. Lara Logan was unavailable for comment. . . .
AT AMAZON, it’s the Cell Phone & Accessories Outlet.
MORE NONPROFIT SHENANIGANS: Was Jill Biden’s Charity Run Out of Joe Biden’s Senate Office?
BATTERY TEST: EV Pioneer Plans to Recreate Lindbergh’s Flight in Electric Airplane. “Electric vehicle pioneer Chip Yates is upping the ante in the world of electric airplanes. Today, the world-record holder for electric motorcycles announced plans for an all-electric recreation of Charles Lindbergh’s famous trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. And Yates isn’t content with just retracing the path across the Atlantic. He’s betting that like Lindbergh’s, his airplane will fly non-stop to Paris. Yates plans on flying at least as fast as Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, and for added challenge and recreation authenticity, he’ll fly relatively low to avoid getting an extra push from the jet stream.” I wish him luck.
HOW MEN AND WOMEN manage their social networks differently.
STACY MCCAIN will not be silenced.
FEED A FEVER, STARVE A CANCER? “The idea that lower infectious disease incidence is associated with higher rates of cancer is not new.”
AFRICA: The Next Asia? I have family in Nigeria, and it’s light-years beyond where it was in the ’90s. “The new mall culture in Zambia’s capital, which I’ve watched expand almost exponentially in visits over the last three years, is booming all over Africa, in places like Accra and Dakar, Windhoek and Gaborone, Nairobi and Maputo. Driving it are young people like Joshua and his friends, a generation that is growing up like none that preceded it: a bulging new cohort of young people with disposable income, however modest, a keen and up-to-the-minute sense of youth trends and of consumerism around the world, and, most importantly, the expectation that life that will continue to get better and richer and fuller of choices.”
AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Grocery & Personal Care.
JONATHAN ADLER: Property Rights And The Tragedy Of The Commons.
One thing that Hardin overlooked is that the political process often replicates the same economic dynamic that encourages the tragedy of the commons — a dynamic fostered by the ability to capture concentrated benefits while dispersing the costs. Like the herder who has an incentive to put out yet one more animal to graze, each interest group has every incentive to seek special benefits through the political process, while dispersing the costs of providing those benefits to the public at large. Just as no herder has adequate incentive to withhold from grazing one more animal, no interest group has adequate incentive to forego its turn to obtain concentrated benefits at public expense. No interest group has adequate incentive to put the interests of the whole ahead of the interests of the few. The logic of collective action discourages investments in sound public policy just as it discourages investments in sound ecological stewardship. This, in addition to the pervasiveness of special-interest rent seeking, explains many of the failings of centralized regulation. So despite the environmental gains of the past half-century, real challenges remain, and the tragedy of the commons is still with us.
Just look at the debt.
THE WORLD’S SMALLEST PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, carved into a coffee bean. “British micro-sculptor Willard Wigan created the commemorative tribute by slowing his heartbeat and working between beats to avoid hand tremors. He used tiny homemade tools and painted with a hair plucked from a housefly’s back to carve the microscopic figures.”
PAUL MIRENGOFF: Some Thoughts On Tom Cotton’s Victory.
EXPLORING AMERICA’S metrosexual revolution.
ANOTHER READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Markham Pyle requests a link for his When That Great Ship Went Down: The Legal and Political Repercussions of the Loss of RMS Titanic.