AMELIA HAMILTON: Happy Valentine’s Day! Why Women Ruin Everything For Women.
Archive for 2013
February 14, 2013
A SHIP THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE SAILED: “When the Bounty went down during Hurricane Sandy, millions watched on TV as the Coast Guard rescued 14 survivors—but couldn’t save the captain and one of his crew. A huge question lingered in the aftermath: what was this vessel—a leaking replica built in 1960 for the film Mutiny on the Bounty—doing in the eye of the storm?”
CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT: It’s Time To Break The Code Of Silence At The Airport.
WELCOME TO the Malware-Industrial Complex. “The U.S. government is developing new computer weapons and driving a black market in ‘zero-day’ bugs. The result could be a more dangerous Web for everyone.”
BREAKING: Frank Lautenberg Won’t Seek Re-Election.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED . . . OH, HELL, YOU KNOW THE REST: Cornel West Calls Obama A War Criminal.
A WARNING FROM THE ASTEROID HUNTERS:
In the game of cosmic roulette that is our solar system, we just got lucky. Earth will get a very close shave on Friday, Feb. 15, when Asteroid 2012 DA14 passes just 17,000 miles from our planet. That is less than the distance from New York to Sydney and back, or the distance the Earth travels around the sun in 14 minutes. We are dodging a very large bullet.
The people of Earth also are getting a reminder that even in our modern society, our future is affected by the motion of astronomical bodies. The ancients were correct in their belief that the heavens affect life on Earth—just not in the way they imagined. Sometimes those heavenly bodies actually run into Earth. That is why we must make it our mission to find asteroids before they find us.
The last major asteroid impact on Earth was on June 30, 1908, when one about the size of an office building (140 feet across) slammed into Siberia with a destructive energy 700 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That asteroid devastated a region roughly the size of the San Francisco Bay area. Asteroid 2012 DA14, which will be passing over our heads on Friday, is about the same size as the asteroid that devastated Siberia’s Tunguska region. . . .
The chance of another Tunguska-size impact somewhere on Earth this century is about 30%. That isn’t the likelihood that you will be killed by an asteroid, but rather the odds that you will read a news headline about an asteroid impact of this size somewhere on Earth. Unfortunately, that headline could be about the destruction of a city, as opposed to an unpopulated region of Siberia. . . .
The chance in your lifetime of an even bigger asteroid impact on Earth—with explosive energy of 100 megatons of TNT—is about 1%. Such an impact would deliver many times the explosive energy of all the munitions used in World War II, including the atomic bombs.
Worth guarding against.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Think I Like Being Sexually Harassed?
TOMB WITH A VIEW: “It is dry and it is warm. I have some lamps and my personal possessions. It isn’t a palace but it is more comfortable than the street.”
ARMING A HOBBYIST DRONE with a paintball gun.
IN LOS ANGELES, GUN-PERMIT CRONYISM. This is why you need shall-issue — otherwise, this pretty much always happens.
SUMMER ROMANCES EXPLAINED: Warm Weather Makes It Hard To Think Straight.
RYAN CALO ON REGULATION: Code, Nudge, or Notice.
READER BOOK PLUG: Down Among The Dead Men, by David Lange.
SEARCHING FOR CONSCIOUSNESS IN AN INJURED BRAIN. “We began to see patients who looked like they were vegetative, but they weren’t. . . . They were beginning to show responsiveness, they were sort of breaking the rules.”
REPORT: Hagel Doesn’t Have 60 Votes. At this point he’s kinda damaged goods, isn’t he?
Meanwhile, Tom Maguire notes cabinet appointments blocked by Democrats under Bush and Reagan. Somehow missed by Media Matters.
STACY MCCAIN: Stormfront For Liberals: The New Republic. It is kinda “racially tinged.”
VINEGAR VALENTINES: When Valentines Were Really, Really Mean. “Among the many beautiful valentines from times past are some notable outliers. These ‘vinegar valentines,’ produced between the middle of the 19th century and middle of the 20th, are tart, sassy, vindictive, and just plain mean.”
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: America’s Bright Future.
THE WAGES OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Well, that worked out well: 92% of Pakistanis now dislike America. “That’s the lowest favorable rating Pakistan’s citizens have ever given their ostensible North American ally. . . . You may remember one foundation stone of Obama’s initial presidential campaign was the argument that because of the historical nature of his presidency and his upbringing in Indonesia, the globe’s most populous Muslim land, the world would feel more fondly toward America for a change. That doesn’t seem to be happening so far.”
EDUCATION: BOYS HELD BACK BY TEACHERS’ GENDER STEREOTYPES. “So boys are basically being graded on their behavior, not their merit. They have different styles of doing homework and don’t sit still in class. Teachers often hate this and reward girls for their conformity to their rules and penalize boys for their non-conformity and behavior.”
MARTIN PERETZ ON THE NEW NEW REPUBLIC: “The New Republic has abandoned its liberal but heterodox tradition and embraced a leftist outlook as predictable as that of Mother Jones or the Nation.”