Archive for 2013
July 19, 2013
FLASH MOB: “Let’s Go Mess Up Hollywood For Trayvon!” Ironic that it’s Hollywood types who’ve played such a major role in the race-baiting.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Strange Case of Mexican Emigration. “Mexico has zero tolerance for illegal immigrants who seek to work inside Mexico, happen to break Mexican law or go on public assistance — or any citizens who aid them. . . . If the United States were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that Mexico treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage. . . . In truth, many thousands of Mexicans flee northward not necessarily because there are no jobs, or because they are starving at home. America offers them far more upward mobility and social justice than does their own homeland. And for all the immigration rhetoric about race and class, millions of Mexicans vote with their feet to enjoy the far greater cultural tolerance found in the U.S. Indigenous people make up a large part of the most recent wave of Mexican arrivals. Those who leave provinces like Oaxaca or Chiapas apparently find the English-speaking, multiracial U.S. a fairer place than the hierarchical and often racially stratified society of Mexico.”
ED DRISCOLL: Liberals Are The New Puritans.
ONLY POLICE OFFICERS CAN BE TRUSTED WITH FIREARMS (CONT’D): Off-Duty Cop Fired After Being Caught on Surveillance Camera Pulling Gun on Gas Station Clerk.
July 18, 2013
MIT MAKES CLEAR THAT ITS COMMITMENT TO THE “HACKER ETHIC” HAS PASSED: MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File. “Lawyers representing MIT are filing a motion to intervene in my FOIA lawsuit over thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz. . . . I have never, in fifteen years of reporting, seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a Freedom of Information Act release of government documents.”
GENE HEALY: When Government Meets Organized Crime: Corrupt FBI let mobster Whitey Bulger keep killing—and it cost innocent lives. These scandals were a staple of early-days InstaPundit coverage. It’s nice they’re getting re-aired.
COMPARISON: George Zimmerman & Ted Kennedy. One of them killed an innocent.
AL QAEDA IS ALIVE, and Detroit is bankrupt.
Related: Flashback: Obama boasted in 2012: ‘We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Until after the election. . . .
STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Navy Unable to Repeat Unmanned X-47B Landing.
HAVE WOMEN GIVEN UP on love & marriage?
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Be A Good Wedding Guest.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on best-selling multitools.
TRANSPARENCY UPDATE: In response to my earlier post on license-plate tracking, Gary Hudson emails:
Since there is no expectation of privacy while in public, and it is obvious it is legal to record the police (and by extension all other government officials) I believe a proper citizen response to the license plate imbroglio would be to ask people to install private scanners, and upload info collected to a central database, where the movements of all manner of government vehicles may be permanently tracked, stored and downloaded to drivers. That way the location of every government-owned vehicle would be known, and in real time. This will no doubt reduce crime statistics, such as speeding, to which the authorities couldn’t object. We’d be able to quantify trips to Dunk’n Donuts or the local adult store. Let’s do it for the children!
Makes sense to me.
HOW THE CIVIL WAR IN SYRIA turned ordinary engineers into DIY weapons-makers.
The conflict in Aleppo, like the wider civil war in Syria, has been mired in stalemate for more than a year. The rebels moved into the country’s largest city in the late summer of 2012, seizing nearly two-thirds of it within a couple of weeks. Since then, though, regime and rebels have stayed locked in grinding urban warfare. The business of Aleppo’s inhabitants has become violence—and Abu Yassin has bent his unusual ingenuity to that task. A former network engineer, he has become one of Aleppo’s premier bomb makers, part of a burgeoning homemade-weapons industry that has sustained the Syrian revolution. Yassin’s factory inside the abandoned school churns out hundreds of pounds of explosives every day, and he is constantly seeking to innovate ways of killing people.
This will end well, I’m sure.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: If The Sun Went Out, How Long Could Life On Earth Survive?
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 15 Secrets to Cleaning Your Home in Half the Time. But here’s my microwave-cleaning advice, which differs from theirs: Spray the inside of the microwave with 409 or something similar. Run it on “high” for 15 seconds. Even the worst baked-on crud wipes right off. I learned this from a pro bono client, a maid, that I represented years ago. She offered the trick in lieu of a fee, and it’s a great one.
SAVING THE WORLD WITH intelligent software assistants?
AT AMAZON, College Textbooks to Buy, Rent or Sell. Hey school starts in a month.
THE REAL NEWS IS THAT THEY COULD FIND 6 sets of real breasts in Hollywood at all.
LONG AFTER HURRICANE SANDY, nonprofits still holding on to donations. The entire nonprofit sector is ripe for intensive scrutiny.
BUT THERE’S NOTHING TO HIDE: Congressman: Benghazi Survivors Forced To Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements.
Related: Despite Pentagon claims, Marine colonel sought in Benghazi investigation not yet retired. “Defense Department officials have told members of Congress that Bristol cannot be forced to testify because he retired after stepping down during a March change of command ceremony, according to several media reports. The Pentagon reinforced that point of view to Marine Corps Times on Tuesday. . . . That isn’t the case, however. While Bristol is preparing for retirement, he is on active duty through the end of July, said Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, on Wednesday. He will be placed on the inactive list on Aug. 1, she said. That contradicts statements that Pentagon officials have issued to both Congress and the media.” Kinda gives the impression they’re covering something up.