HEALTH: India steps up TB fight as fears of drug-resistant strains mount. “Some 130 years after the discovery of the tuberculosis bacteria, and more than 60 years after the discovery of antibiotic treatment, ‘we have managed by a combination of complacency and incompetence to allow this bacillus to mutate into a virtually untreatable form.'”
We need new varieties of antibiotics — or, better still, new germ-killing drugs that work on an entirely different principle.
TOO DUMB TO SERVE: Dem rep. tells Colbert slavery persisted in Brooklyn until 1898. “Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) appeared to botch American and Brooklyn political history during an appearance on “The Colbert Report” that aired Tuesday night, saying that slavery in the United States persisted under the Dutch as late as 1898.”
Just remember, the more power you give government, the more power you give to people who thought that slavery in the United States persisted under the Dutch as late as 1898.
FEELING THE HOPE AND CHANGE: Financial crisis ushers in ‘The Age of Safety’ for investors. “Risk aversion is at unprecedented levels. Cash, which guarantees a return of 0%, is one of the new must-have investments. In contrast, investing in stocks — despite the fact that the market has doubled in value since March 2009, is trading at four-year highs and is up 11.7% this year — has fallen out of favor.”
Well, that’s because the market is still well below it’s highs of five years ago; that “doubling” consists entirely of making up some, but not all, of the losses in the great crash.
21ST CENTURY PARENTING: When Did Saying “Good Girl” Become So Bad? I’m pretty sure oikophobia is involved.
“DOING THE RIGHT THING” — BY STOPPING SOMEONE FROM VOTING REPUBLICAN:
Bonnie Pollak, a Democrat, weighed her options. Should she be loyal to her spouse, respect his legal right and mail the ballot? Or remain faithful to her deeply held beliefs and suppress his vote?
“It was a real dilemma,” says Ms. Pollak, 58 years old, a student in a doctoral program in social welfare who lives in Manhattan. “I decided to do the right thing.”
Ms. Pollak threw the ballot away.
Nice to know where her loyalties lie. Reader Tung Yin, who sent the link, comments: “I don’t think we should tar either party with the actions of clearly unethical individuals, but it is interesting that someone would not just throw away her spouse’s absentee ballot, but feel comfortable talking about it to the press! And to continue to believe that it was the ‘right thing’ to throw away the ballot.” It’s a religious thing with these people. In place of, you know, actual religion.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Worst Boyfriend Ever Pretends To Die In Order To Show Girlfriend What Life Would Be Like Without Him. “Alexey Bykov wanted to prove to his girlfriend how important he was to her. How romantic, right? So he contracted a stuntman, makeup artist, screenwriter and director to stage a fake car crash just so his girlfriend could watch him die. Only, of course, Bykov, 30, from Onsk, Russia, wasn’t actually dead. He had staged the whole thing so that he could propose. Yes, this makes no sense.”
THERE ARE BLACK MARKETS EVERYWHERE, APPARENTLY: A South Florida woman who is accused of injecting people with Fix-a-Flat and other substances in a black market buttock-enhancing business was released on bond Friday.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Who Should Be The Priority: Your Husband Or Your Child?
VIK RUBENFELD: How the Left Captured Academia, the Media, and Other Organizations. “Alinsky-style behavior in the workplace itself may have been the key.” This ties in with all the emailers who are afraid to have their names publicized.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Sens. Ron Wyden & Marco Rubio ask: What’s the Return On Investment For Higher Education?
ARE LEGOS SEXIST?
THIS USA TODAY EDITORIAL CHARGES OBAMA WITH Deficit-Attention Disorder. “Indeed, if there is a single area in which Obama deserves failing grades, it is his failure to demonstrate serious, sustained leadership on long-term fiscal issues. Call it deficit-attention disorder. In each year since Obama took office, the government has borrowed, or is projected to borrow, well over $1 trillion, pushing the government’s total debt to $16 trillion, or about $121,000 per household. . . . Obama has been a day late and a dollar short.” Well, more like several trillion dollars, but yeah.
SO WATERGATE WAS A “HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?” MOMENT, BUT IF THIS IS TRUE, THESE PEOPLE WILL BE HEROES TO A LOT OF DEMOCRATS: Claim: Anonymous group allegedly hacked Romney tax records via TN firm. Of course, how would you establish the authenticity of anything they released? It would be like Frank J. publishing Obama’s college transcripts. Which, by the way, seem to have remained sacrosanct somehow.
Say, remember the Palin email hacking? It’s like these independent-hacker people actually just work for the Democratic Party or something.
UPDATE: In the comments, a suggestion that this is just a cover story: “As many observers have noted, there’s little question the Obama campaign has Romney’s tax returns. That’s illegal, though–they had to have been obtained from the government, which indeed is Nixon territory–so there will have to be some cover story when they are inevitably leaked prior to the election. The Reid nonsense was a start, maybe this is the vehicle.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Quite a few commenters with tax experience say this is bogus. But reader Mark Jones writes:
It’s not just that the so-called hackers could provide cover for releasing Romney’s tax returns obtained (illegally) by the Obama administration. It’s that they could release PHONY returns showing blatantly illegal or unethical actions on Romney’s part and then, when Romney protests, demand that he prove it by releasing the real returns. The “hackers” provide plausible deniability on two levels: First, “We thought they were the real thing”, and second, “Of course we didn’t obtain his records unlawfully. We didn’t even get the real thing!”
Hmm.
MORE: Alex Bensky emails:
There is a point about the Palin e-mail hacking that seems to have escaped attention, even in the blogsphere.
The NY Times recruited something like a hundred volunteers to go over each and every one of the 13,000 e-mails. Some other legacy media also did something like that but I forget who.No need to say that if it had been Kathleen Sebelius or Jennifer Granholm the Times’s approach would have been to complain about the hacking.
If the Times reported the results it did so in a very obscure place and certainly none of the other msm did much to report them. The reason is that of all those e-mails, the worst they could come up with was that she had a hot tub installed in the governor’s residence. Otherwise–and remember she had no speechwriter or teleprompter–she came across as bright, knowledgeable, and articulate. She also showed a real sense of modesty and humility about herself, which is one way she distinguishes herself from President Obama. In other words, the e-mails showed her in a good light. If I were a cynic I’d say that is precisely why the Times didn’t make a big deal of what they found. Probably the reason was that the news columns were filled with more important stories such as why, such as a pronouncement on politics by Cher.
Indeed.
MORE STILL: Reader Brian Alleman offers a correction: “The MSM hired all of the extra people for when the state of Alaska released the email records from palin’s administration not the hack.”
KIDS NEED RECESS. BUT THERE’S A PROBLEM: How do you introduce recess to kids who have never left the classroom? “Despite the cognitive and social benefits of recess, principals still hate it: In the scholarship on recess, they inevitably describe their recess periods as total chaos. In Chicago, recess has been out of the schools so long that principals are nervous about having it back.”
MATT WELCH ON Deficit Denialist Democrats at the DNC. “In this idyllic landscape of Democratic magical thinking, there is no state and local budget crises, no unaffordable and underfunded defined-benefit public pension obligations, nothing at all standing in the way of ‘investing’ in our public safety, except (in ex-Republican Stern’s words) ‘right-wing extremists.’ Vallejo, California is not bankrupt because of public employee pensions, and the rest of the state is not following suit. It’s a hell of a place, this Democrat-land. Wish I could live there. . . . One of the great ironies of this convention already is that speaker after speaker denounces Republicans for being unable to tell the truth or get their facts straight. Meanwhile, one of the most important truths of modern governance—we are well and truly out of money—sits neglected in the corner.”
READER BOOK PLUG: An email from reader Anelise Newman:
My name is Anelise Newman. I am a 15 year old high school sophomore. My mother is an avid reader of Instapundit.com, and particularly enjoys your commentary on the higher education bubble. I have recently published my first fantasy novel entitled The Sun Dreamer, and I would greatly appreciate a plug on your site. It is for sale on Amazon.com and the link is as follows:
The Sun Dreamer
Thank you for your consideration.
You’re welcome.
WANT A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP? READ A BOOK. But not an iPad:
RPI found that looking at a backlit screen, like those on iPads and other tablets, can lead to sleeplessness.
“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent,” said Mariana Figueiro, the lead researcher. “Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime.”
If this rather small study holds up, I suppose the e-ink screens on traditional (non-Fire) Kindles will benefit.
#EMPTYSTADIUMDAY: A reader emails: “One poster at Free Republic (ken5050) suggested that the Tea Party rent out the Bank of America Stadium for tomorrow night and hold a rally. Do you have any thoughts about who could orchestrate this? Perhaps a post on Instapundit may bring this to reality.” That’s pretty short notice, and I bet the Dems kept the ability to block something like that. But I could be wrong!
UPDATE: Reader Walter Smith writes: “So, get Mike Huckabee, and have a Chick-Fil-a, Christian music festival at a nearby stadium… Doubt the Dems would release Bank of America to be embarrassed… Go to UNCC’s stadium?”
FIRE RELEASES ITS LIST OF The Seven Best Colleges For Free Speech, and I’m proud that the University of Tennessee is on the list. “The University of Tennessee – Knoxville is a model campus when it comes to student speech. Not only has the school maintained its green light rating for years now, it has acted quickly to address concerns about its policies and their impact on free expression. This responsiveness is a great demonstration of the university’s concern for the First Amendment rights of its students.”
INTRODUCING MARGINAL REVOLUTION UNIVERSITY. Deflating the higher education bubble just a little bit.
I CAN QUIT ANY TIME: Addicted to the internet? It could be all in your genes.
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