Archive for 2013
June 1, 2013
EVERY STEP YOU TAKE, OBAMA’LL BE WATCHING YOU: US judge orders Google to turn over data to FBI.
PENSION REFORM IN ILLINOIS: On The Back Burner.
TIME: Oprah as Harvard’s Commencement Speaker Is an Endorsement of Phony Science. “Oprah’s passionate advocacy extends, unfortunately, to a hearty embrace of phony science. Critics have taken Oprah to task for years for her energetic shilling on behalf of peddlers of quack medicine. Most notoriously, Oprah’s validation of Jenny McCarthy’s discredited claim that vaccines cause autism has no doubt contributed to much harm through the foolish avoidance of vaccines.”
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: Holder Becomes A Family Liability. “It is a frightening thing to realize that your top law enforcement officer, the Attorney General of the United States, is a little bit of a Fredo. But that’s what we’re faced with as America discovers that Eric Holder either flat-out lied to Congress, or he’s too damn stupid to be the AG.”
AN INTERVIEW WITH the Anchoress.
PATTERICO: A Call to Any Tennessee Readers: Attend the Meeting on How the Feds Might Prosecute Those Who Post “Inflammatory Documents” About Muslims. Alas, I’m travelling that day and can’t go.
UPDATE: More from Byron Tau at Politico.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Eugene Volokh has some observations on this, but warns: “My one reservation is that it’s hard from the newspaper article to tell precisely what U.S. Attorney Killian said; misparaphrases sometimes happen, even more commonly than misquotes. If his claims about the civil rights laws was limited to specific true threats of violence against particular people or particular institutions, such speech may indeed be punishable under the “true threats” exception to the First Amendment. But indeed “inflammatory documents targeted at Muslims” generally are constitutionally protected, so if Mr. Killian indeed used those words or ones that are fairly paraphrased as those words (or suggested that the ‘How to Wink’ posting was actually illegal rather than just wrong), then Floyd Abrams’ criticism is entirely apt.”
KINDA LATE HERE, AREN’T THEY? The French Finally Invent A Word For “French Kissing.”
IMAGING BREAKTHROUGH: See Atomic Bonds Before and After Molecular Reaction.
AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on Father’s Day gifts in Tools & Home Improvement. Of course, you still get the discount if you just buy stuff for yourself . . . .
HANS VON SPAKOVSKY: More Justice Department Chicanery: Thomas Perez and ‘Disparate Impact.’
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Canadian relief for Moore tornado victims denied at border. “A Canadian shipment of relief goods bound for storm-ravaged Oklahoma has been stopped at the Canada-U.S. border in Windsor, Ont. American officials will not allow the 20,000 kilograms of food, blankets and diapers into the country until every item on board is itemized in alphabetical order and has the country of origin of every product noted.”
VOYAGER 1 discovers a new boundary region.
BEER HISTORY: Getting Drunk Like The Ancients Did.
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN’T BUY ON AMAZON? Reader Danielle Ivey writes:
Just bought my daughter – the Psychology Grad Student – a copy of the Insta-Wife’s new book for a bit of summer reading!
and then I find this page!
3D Printers & Supplies.I would definitely promote that page as “gifts for grads”…. if your grad is an engineering major!
Heh.
THE DESCRIPTION IS SO ELOQUENT, it almost makes me want to smell this. Almost.
WHY HIGH-SPEED POLICE CHASES ARE GOING AWAY.
TENNESSEE ON LIST OF most efficient law schools.
AN INDEPTH LOOK AT the Justice Department’s jiggery-pokery in the Rosen case. We don’t actually think he was a co-conspirator, we just called him one so the judge would give us the warrant! “If they did not believe Rosen was committing a crime, they shouldn’t have been invoking that part of the PPA. Either they were really accusing him of a crime or they weren’t. I mean, you can’t have it both ways. It’s very troubling.”
IN THE MAIL: From Steve White, Wolf Among the Stars.