PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Forum on civil rights sparks protest rally for free speech. As a great man said, get in their face.
Archive for 2013
June 4, 2013
DONALD KAGAN ON the future of liberal education. “It was once common to think of the medieval university as very different, as a place that focused on learning for its own sake. But the medieval universities, whatever their commitment to learning for its own sake, were institutions that trained their students for professional careers.”
WHEN SINGLE DADS face sexist stereotypes.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: 2010 IRS conference featured ‘happiness expert,’ $17K art session. “One of the speakers received a $25,000 fee in addition to a $2,500 first-class airline ticket to fly the speaker to the conference, according to the report. The contracts for the presenters were awarded as sole source contracts, meaning no competition occurred, and taxpayers cannot be assured to have received the best price for the speakers.”
Zero out their conference budget. Make them feel the pain.
YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK: Please Explain The Activities At Your Prayer Meetings.
THAT’S PRETTY MUCH PAR FOR THE COURSE: UN Expert Worries About Killer Robots, Ignores The Ones That Already Exist.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: OPEC Sweats: How Low Can Oil Prices Go? “Petro-states’ breakeven prices reflect how much governments are spending. In the 1990s, the price of oil collapsed, and countries tightened their belts to get breakeven prices close to that level. But oil prices have ballooned in recent years, reaching a high of $148 per barrel in 2008. That provided governments with a flood of cash to spend, just in time for the Arab Spring, when many Middle Eastern countries ramped up government spending to placate their suddenly restive populations. But the price of oil has receded from that 2008 high, now resting around $102 per barrel. That’s largely due to the US shale boom, which has brought millions of barrels of new oil to market and brought prices down with it. As the above chart shows, that means trouble for many of these states that have come to rely on high oil prices to help them prop up their regimes.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of autocrats.
BLOWBACK: American Gets Targeted by Digital Spy Tool Sold to Foreign Governments.
The email appeared to come from a trusted colleague at a renowned academic institution and referenced a subject that was a hot-button issue for the recipient, including a link to a website where she could obtain more information about it.
But when the recipient looked closely at the sender’s email address, a tell-tale misspelling gave the phishing attempt away — the email purported to come from a professor at Harvard University, but instead of harvard.edu, the email address read “hardward.edu”.
Not exactly a professional con-job from nation-state hackers, but that’s exactly who may have sent the email to an American woman, who believes she was targeted by forces in Turkey connected to or sympathetic to the powerful Gülen Movement, which has infiltrated parts of the Turkish government.
The email contained a link to a web site in Turkey, where a malicious downloader file was waiting to install on her computer — a downloader that has been connected in the past to a spy tool purportedly sold exclusively to law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she’s concerned about retaliation, sensed the email was a fraud and did not follow the link. Instead, the email was passed to researchers at digital forensics firm Arsenal Consulting, who set up a honeypot to visit the Turkish web site and obtained the downloader.
Hmm.
THE SPIRIT THAT WASHINGTON FEARS AND DESPISES: “I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy.”
SHOCKING NEWS ABOUT MARRIAGE: Most married couples with children are satisfied with their relationships.
SOON TO BE USEFUL IN MEASURING THE NATIONAL DEBT: A Brief History Of Infinities.
AT AMAZON, Today’s Deals In Electronics.
VIA ANA MARIE COX, some techno mixes from John Ramonas.
WALTER OLSON ON DNA TESTING: Big Brother Invades Your Genes.
ARE DEMOCRATS OVERPLAYING THEIR HAND DEFENDING THE IRS? Crowd Erupts in Thunderous Applause When Leno Says Obama Should Close IRS Instead of Gitmo.
UPDATE: Reader Danielle Ivey writes: “Can you imagine where Leno’s ratings would have been if he hadn’t pulled his punches from 2009 – 2011…. and called Obama out on the Special Olympics ‘foot in mouth’ moment on the spot.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stan Absher writes: “Interesting dynamics around the IRS scandal, including crowd dynamics for Leno and at the hearings today. For the moment at least, the energy continues to build towards a category 3 or 4 storm. The Democrats defending the IRS may have found another Katrina at last, and they are it.”
WHY ARE MEN OBSESSED WITH TOOLS? It’s evolution.
READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Thomas Neven asks me to plug his book, Sir, the Private Don’t Know: Sixteen Weeks of Hell on Parris Island. He calls it “an account of Marine boot camp as it existed 40 years ago. It was a much different place then from now.”
COULD STORM CHASERS BE REPLACED by drones?
YEAH, BUT LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO ANDREW SULLIVAN: Men’s Use of Testosterone on the Rise. “The number of middle-aged men with prescriptions for testosterone is climbing rapidly, raising concerns that increasing numbers of men are abusing the powerful hormone to boost their libidos and feel younger, researchers reported on Monday. Testosterone replacement therapy is approved specifically for the treatment of abnormally low testosterone levels, a condition called hypogonadism. The hormone helps build muscle, reduce body fat and improve sex drive. But a study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that many men who get prescriptions for the hormone have no evidence of a deficiency at all.”
On the other hand, it could have been the weed.
UPDATE: Reader Steve Barns writes: “What exactly is the problem with a boosted libido and feeling younger? Women get hormone replacement therapy all the time and insurance pays for it without batting an eye.” Yes, but testosterone is evil.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Rippetoe emails: “I’d like to see a study that compares the effects of testosterone replacement therapy with Prozac. It has been my experience that TRT has at least as much psychological benefit as it does physical, and very few humans have ever actually suffered from low serum SSRI levels.”
MORE: A reader emails:
I’ve been on a testosterone prescription for about two years now. It has literally saved my life. For some to suggest that testosterone is simply some trivial indulgence for a mid-life crisis, trivializes a debilitating condition. When my testosterone levels bottomed out to zero, I was literally not myself anymore. Testosterone isn’t just about sexual desire, it literally makes men who they are. I felt like I was a stranger in my own body. The lack of sexual desire is alarming, but less so than the personality changes. Then of course, there is the niggling little problem of increased body fat, insulin resistance, increased blood cholesterol levels and the attendant risks of diabetes and peripheral artery disease.
Ugh.
THE ANCHORESS REVIEWS THE INSTA-WIFE’S NEW BOOK, Men On Strike. “Men on Strike is something for which the mothers of sons, and the socially-interested, should be grateful because it is an argument for men, made by a woman and offering men a chance to speak out without risk of ridicule or retribution.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Slathering on Sunscreen Shows Results, Researchers Find. “People who diligently use sunscreen every day can slow or even prevent for a time the development of wrinkles and sagging skin, a new study found. Although dermatologists have long told people to use sunscreen to prevent aging, this is the first research to show an actual effect on the appearance of skin, researchers said.”
Of course, if you short yourself on Vitamin D, that can have more serious, non-cosmetic effects.
MAYBE THEY FEEL THAT UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION, JUST EARNING A LIVING IS RISKY ENOUGH: Points And Figures: Do Americans Take Risk Anymore?