NEWS FROM THE ART WORLD: Naked men turn out to see…”Naked Men.” “The exhibit in Vienna’s Leopold Museum is entitled ‘Naked Men,’ so a group of nudists and naturalists took the curators at their word and showed up to see it on Monday in the buff.”
Archive for 2013
March 1, 2013
AT AMAZON, MP3 Albums for $2.99 each.
APPROACHING THE SINGULARITY: Brain-to-Brain Interface: In Scientific First, Researchers Link Two Rats’ Brains via Computer. “The study, published Thursday morning in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, appears to be the first to allow animals to communicate via a brain-to-brain computer interface. The researchers, led by neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke, say the feedback actually went both ways: When the second rat chose the correct lever, the first rat got an additional reward, which apparently encouraged it to send a clearer and stronger brain signal the next time. If that’s true, it would amount to not only communication, but a form of cooperation.”
GOVERNMENT: How “White Flight” Was The Result of FHA Rules.
I BELIEVE IT: Bad Sleep “Dramatically” Alters The Body. Luckily, I sleep like a baby because my conscience is clean.
MICHAEL WALSH: The Battle of Bob Woodward.
UPDATE: Reporter To Obama: It Sounds Like You Are Ducking Responsibility.
And I love this image out of the press conference: I am not a crook! dictator!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Obama’s Authoritarian Fantasies:
It is hardly the first time Obama has felt it necessary to remind the American people, or has lamented the fact, that he is not a more authoritarian type of ruler. A few examples:
King: “My cabinet has been working very hard on trying to get it done, but ultimately, I think somebody said the other day, I am president, I am not king,” Obama told Univision in October 2010, when asked why he had yet to achieve comprehensive immigration reform. “I can’t do these things just by myself.” He reiterated that sentiment in a February 2013 interview with Telemundo. “I’m not a king,” he said.
President of China: “Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China,” the New York Times reported in March 2011.
Emperor of the United States: “This is something I’ve struggled with throughout my presidency,” Obama said during a Google hangout event in February. “The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”
Sigh.
IN THE WAPO, A SHOCKING DISCOVERY: For some, lessons of boyhood include learning to shoot and hunt.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: New U.S. Law Includes Sexual Assault Provisions for Colleges. It’s pretty much a certainty that these will be implemented in ways that are effectively anti-male, making college even less appealing to male students.
FOLLOWING JOE BIDEN’S ADVICE ON PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING IS NEGLIGENCE PER SE: Virginia Man Arrested After Following Biden’s Shotgun Advice.
MORE SMART DIPLOMACY: Walter Russell Mead: The Unpivot To Asia?
Though the Chinese may be misunderstanding Secretary Kerry somewhat—he seems to have been been offering his assessment that our current force posture in the Pacific is adequate for the task at hand—there is an unmistakeable change of tone in his remarks.
Three possible things could be going on; one is excellent, one is OK but could bring trouble down the road, and one is catastrophic. Let’s start with the rosy scenario: the Obama administration hasn’t changed its Asia policy beyond changing the mood music and China, aware that it can’t change America’s basic approach to the region and lacks the strength to challenge us, has decided not to make a fuss about something it can’t change. It is taking the change in American tone as an opportunity to back down from a confrontation it can’t win without losing face.
That would be smart on China’s part: whining ineffectively about how much you hate something you can’t do anything about is an excellent way to look like a weakling and a fool (sort of like complaining about how much you hate Butcher Assad without doing anything about it).
If that’s what’s happening, look for things to quiet down in Asia.
Another, less hopeful possibility is that while US policy hasn’t changed in Asia, China thinks that it has. It has mistaken Secretary Kerry’s softer tone for a softer policy and is being nice because it thinks it has won the showdown. Chinese resolve and America’s Middle East and budget troubles have convinced the Americans that they can’t sustain the pivot, China thinks. In that case, we should expect some problems down the road as Chinese assertiveness runs into American resistance.
The third and worst possibility is that the Chinese are right and the Obama administration is ratting out on its own pivot and getting ready to betray our Asian allies who trusted the promises the administration made in its first term. . . . It would be a tragic mistake for the Obama administration to shortchange the pivot by failing to devote the adequate amount of resources to the region—an enormous folly that would permanently undermine American credibility around the world. If your goal was to weaken the United States and alienate Washington’s closest allies, announcing a pivot to Asia with great fanfare and boldness, lots of parades and marches, and then slink ingloriously away would be about the best possible way to do it.
Hmm. I know which one seems likeliest to me, based on past performance. . . . .
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): US Household Income Drops Most in 20 Years, And It Had Nothing to do With the Sequester.
DOUBLE STANDARDS: Guys give fake names to members of the opposite sex behind their backs just like girls do—and often get in more trouble for it. “Somehow, nicknames derived from appearances, behaviors, sexual habits, and personal characteristics seem more offensive when they’re invented by men to talk about women. And therein lies a big, weird rub.”
AT AMAZON, markdowns on bestselling cookware sets.
Also, today only: Sony MDR-XB600 Extra Bass Headphones, $39.99 (60% off).
THIS IS THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF ANDREW BREITBART’S DEATH. He is missed.
If you miss him, there’s only one thing to do: Be Breitbart. And I still think someone should plaster D.C. with these posters, especially around the various Palace Guard Media offices.
THIS SOUNDS UNSUSTAINABLE: Consumer spending up, but income posts largest drop in 20 years. “With income dropping sharply and spending rising, the saving rate – the percentage of disposable income households are socking away – fell to 2.4 percent, the lowest level since November 2007. The rate had jumped to 6.4 percent in December. Savings were the smallest since December 2007.”
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: The Problem of Males on the Feminized Campus.
CAN’T WE SEQUESTER THEM? FOIA finds two NLRB lawyers making way over $100k, not doing any government work.
Among much else, the ALG found, according to its NetRightDaily web site, two NLRB attorneys making far in excess of $100,000. But they aren’t working for the NLRB, they are working on “official time” for the federal employee union that represents the board’s workers.
“These are employees whose official job is to handle internal NLRB union activities exclusively, rather than carrying out any of the NLRB’s official responsibilities,” NetRightDaily’s Brad Tidwell.
“Bert Pearlston, General Attorney (Labor) for the NLRB, made $141,726.00 per year, and Steven Sloper, Labor Management Relations Examiner made $116,240.00. With the national median salary at $40,300 and unemployment of 7.9%, jobs like these would be highly sought in the private sector,” Tidwell said.
Other NLRB employees are also paid official time for part-time work on union matters, for an amount totalling in excess of $510,000, according to Tidwell, who also found that NLRB is the federal agency with the highest per-capita use of official time among all federal departments and agencies.
Color me unsurprised.
ROLL CALL: Has Power Tipped in Favor of High Court?
“The court takes note of Congress and its dysfunction the same way everyone else does,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at University of California, Irvine. . . .
In the Voting Rights Act case, justices are weighing the constitutionality of part of the law Congress reauthorized in 2006 that requires areas with a history of racial discrimination to submit any proposed voting changes to the Department of Justice or a court for approval. A decision is expected before the court recesses at the end of June.
Hasen, in a soon-to-be-published law review article, examines how political polarization in Congress has changed the traditional back-and-forth between the legislative and judicial branches and notes how the balance of power has tipped in favor of the court.
Read the whole thing. The Voting Rights Act was an extraordinary remedy, occasioned by extraordinary circumstances. Those circumstances no longer exist, making the remedy’s existence questionable, too.
SMART DIPLOMACY: Irked lawmakers say Kerry left them in the dark on Syria aid. “The leaders of the panels that cover foreign policy told The Hill they weren’t briefed ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement Thursday that America would be sending $60 million worth of food and medicine directly to the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Long-time escort confirms Sen. Bob Menendez paid her for sex. I mean, if he were to become a Republican at some point, this would be big news.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, WE’D HAVE A PRESIDENCY THE BRITS WOULD MOCK. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Nile Gardiner: A nasty, brutish, imperial presidency.
The threats being dished out to Woodward, Davis and others are extremely disturbing in a free society, and are a reflection of an imperial presidency that acts with impunity and is highly intolerant of dissent. The heavy-arm tactics that Obama’s team have deployed for years against conservatives are now being increasingly implemented as well against liberals questioning the president’s record.
Leading US political analyst Michael Barone predicted all this in a piece for National Review Online back in October 2008, when he wrote about “The Coming Obama Thugocracy.” It is an article that is strikingly accurate in its predictions.
The signs were there, for those who could see.
MICKEY KAUS: Obama’s losing? Help!
I’m worried that Obama is losing the sequester fight. Polls show voters agree with him, but don’t seem to care much about the whole alleged spending cut apocalypse. Meanwhile the White House’s amped-up application of Firemen First principles is so clumsy it’s backfiring. Even a slanted NBC/WSJ poll–offering voters the alluring option of “working together” to avoid the sequester cuts–showed 46% effectively saying, “Screw ‘working together’! Give us the cuts.”
My sentiments exactly.