MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TOMORROW: Penalties for politicians: We entrust an inordinate amount of power to people who don’t feel any pain when we fall down.
Archive for 2013
May 27, 2013
IT’S AS LIKELY AS WOMEN GIVING UP HYPERGAMY — BUT AS FANTASIES GO, IT’S MORE POLITICALLY CORRECT: What If Men Stopped Chasing Much-Younger Women? Of course, pushing this kind of thing in liberal publications is just another form of male mating display . . . .
UPDATE: Yeah, maybe you don’t want to take relationship advice from this guy. Scratch an “Uncle Tim,” find a manipulative predator?
AT AMAZON, Father’s Day gift ideas and markdowns.
WHY A MEDIA “SHIELD LAW” IS A BAD IDEA: Durbin not sure if bloggers should be ‘entitled to constitutional protection.’ “But here is the bottom line — the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it’s someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision that was written over 200 years ago.”
We need protections for journalism, not journalists.
AT AMAZON, up to 75% off on clothing. For men, women, and children.
#WARONWOMEN: Subjecting strippers to a “pole tax.”
SO YESTERDAY’S POST ON ESCAPING FROM A SUBMERGED CAR produced some email. Reader Wolf Prudek emails:
Glen, please mention the Standers Handibar also. Designed to help handicapped persons get in and out of a vehicle, it also breaks glass and cuts through a seatbelt.
Another reader recommends the Columbia River CRKT ExiTool.
TEST DRIVE: The 2014 Bentley Flying Spur. “The Flying Spur is an impressive vehicle. It also costs as much as a house.”
DAN MITCHELL: The Tax Foundation 1 – New York Times 0. “Unfortunately, the New York Times either is short of fact checkers or has very sloppy editors.” Or both!
A CALL FOR PROTECTIONISM: The Open U.S. Economy Is ‘A Naked Woman,’ Says Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell.
SEARCHING SPACE FOR Alien Megastructures. “Vast structures, constructed on astronomical scales by advanced civilisations, is what the field of astroengineering is all about. This, admittedly, sounds audacious – and for the human race right now, it is. For us, astroengineering is still very much the realm of thought experiments, theoretical calculations, and science fiction. So it may be surprising to know that certain astronomers have made some quite serious attempts to look for astroengineered artifacts around other stars. With telescopes becoming ever more sensitive, and images being taken of exoplanets, the idea is starting to captivate imaginations once more.”
OVER AT CAPTAIN CAPITALISM, a blog-review of the Insta-Wife’s new book, Men On Strike. Buy two copies — one for you, one for your local library!
DEMOCRACY, MULTICULTURALISM, OPEN IMMIGRATION: Pick Any Two.
Plus, some background on the UK’s immigration scandal. “It was alleged that the document showed that Labour had overseen a deliberate open-door policy on immigration to boost multi-culturalism. Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour.”
MORE ON NASA’S ASTEROID CAPTURE PLAN. Faster, please.
UNEXCITED? THERE MAY BE A PILL FOR THAT. Researching sex-enhancing drugs for women. There are evolutionary-psychology angles that are not addressed in this piece, though. I’m guessing that the Pickup Artist Community might have some thoughts.
Meanwhile, the traditional response to wives losing desire was husbands taking mistresses or visiting brothels. So I guess a pill represents progress.
IN THE MAIL: Why Marx Was Wrong.
TAXPROF: IRS Scandal Roundup, Day 18.
“SMART DIPLOMACY” UPDATE: As the US Naps, China Doubles Down on Caribbean Policy.
China is beefing up its presence in the Caribbean and making it clear that the region is a strategic priority going forward. Over the past few months, Beijing has begun investing hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investment in countries very much in need of that money, still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. And in addition to the monetary aid, President Xi Jinping will be visiting Trinidad and Tobago next week as part of a tour of the Caribbean and Latin America. That visit will mark the first time a Chinese president will have toured an English-speaking Caribbean country.
The US, meanwhile has become largely disengaged from the region as its focus turns farther afield to places like Syria and Iran. This is a significant reversal for a region that for obvious reasons has traditionally had much closer relations with the US than with China. . . . China isn’t matching its funding with political demands yet, but it isn’t hard to imagine this influx of money swaying the minds of Caribbean people frustrated with a lack of US engagement. Greasing the struggling economies of the region is a quick way to build up Beijing’s soft power there. This is significant because, in addition to increasing China’s global clout, having friends in the Caribbean is useful in international organizations. Like states in the US Senate, countries in the UN get a vote no matter how large or small their size.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
ALYSSIA FINLEY: In California, A Farmers’ Rebellion Lifts The GOP. This would seem a good time for anti-fatcat populism:
Mr. Vidak’s campaign theme was the bifurcation of California: the coastal liberal elites versus the Valley folks. “We’re getting left behind here,” he says. “They don’t view us as important.”
Case in point: The unemployment rate in Mr. Vidak’s district is about 15%—two to three times as high as in the Bay Area—and exceeds 30% in some communities. The culprit? “Our water has been cut off by the far left,” he says.
Call it the Hunger Games strategy. It just might work.
AT AMAZON, The Blu-Ray Deal of the Week: Die Hard 25th Anniversary Collection, $24.99. All the movies on 5 disks.
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ROGER SIMON: Global Cooling On Memorial Day? “This strange freezing weather is oddly symbolic on this Memorial Day for the situation of liberalism in general right now, which is being exposed as phony and venal across the board from Benghazi to the IRS to the surveillance of the press — an ideology cracking like thin ice on a winter’s day.”
NICK GILLESPIE: Rand Paul’s Hipster Outreach Mofo Party Plan.