READER BOOK PLUG: From Jason Anderson, Zero-Budget Christmas: The Almost Entirely True Story of Our Quest to Do Our Christmas Shopping Without Spending Any Money. 99 cents on Kindle.
Archive for 2013
October 24, 2013
HOW TO CORRECT YOUR PHONE’S AUTOCORRECT.
TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: NYT: Obamacare Disproportionately Hurts Poor, Rural Americans.
VIDEO: Charles Robertson: Africa Is About To Boom. Based on what I hear from the Nigerian branch of my family, I think that’s right.
OUT: PLANKING. In: Mamming. “Simply take your breasts and rest them on an inanimate object, just like you would if you went to the doctor for a breast screen. Then take a photo.”
But post-ObamaCare, this is probably as close as you’ll get to an actual mammogram. . . .
AT LEAST HE DIDN’T SAY “RE-EDUCATED.” Orrin Hatch: Tea Party Republicans Need To Be ‘Rehabilitated.’ Actually, though, I think the Tea Party movement was an effort to rehabilitate the Republican party. In Hatch’s case, it didn’t succeed. But yeah, that whole idea of delaying ObamaCare implementation was crazy, right? Last week, anyway.
SMART DIPLOMACY: The American-Saudi alliance is in danger of collapsing. “The Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis is by far the largest threat to both Saudi and American interests in the Middle East now, yet the Obama administration is buddying up with Vladimir Putin on Syria and allowing itself to be suckered by the Iranian regime’s new president Hassan Rouhani.”
UPDATE: Quietly, Israel and the Gulf States Draw Closer Together. “Seeing a hopelessly naive America, Jews and Arabs are finding common ground to face the Iranian menace.” They told me Obama would bring Jews and Arabs together via his unique approach to diplomacy. And they were right!
A SUCCESS FOR OBAMA’S SPACE POLICY: Space “Program” Increasingly In Private Control. And no, that’s not ironic. Obama’s space policy really is a success. I wish he’d take the same approach elsewhere. . . .
MATT LEWIS: Is Technology Replacing Sex?
SOMEHOW, I NEGLECTED TO MENTION BILL WHITTLE’S NEW SITE, BillWhittle.com. Check it out.
IN THE MAIL: From Philip J. Eveland, Distorted Landscape: A Critique of Leftist Narratives in Media and Politics.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 168.
AND JUST LAST WEEK HE WAS ALL SURRENDER, DOROTHY! Daniel Henninger: Obama’s Credibility Is Melting:
All of a sudden, from Washington to Riyadh, Barack Obama’s credibility is melting.
Amid the predictable collapse the past week of HealthCare.gov’s too-complex technology, not enough notice was given to Sen. Marco Rubio’s statement that the chances for success on immigration reform are about dead. Why? Because, said Sen. Rubio, there is “a lack of trust” in the president’s commitments. . . .
When belief in the average politician’s word diminishes, the political world marks him down and moves away. With the president of the United States, especially one in his second term, the costs of the credibility markdown become immeasurably greater. Ask the Saudis.
Last weekend the diplomatic world was agog at the refusal of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to accept a seat on the U.N. Security Council. Global disbelief gave way fast to clear understanding: The Saudis have decided that the United States is no longer a reliable partner in Middle Eastern affairs. . . .
Bluntly, Mr. Obama’s partners are concluding that they cannot do business with him. They don’t trust him. Whether it’s the Saudis, the Syrian rebels, the French, the Iraqis, the unpivoted Asians or the congressional Republicans, they’ve all had their fill of coming up on the short end with so mercurial a U.S. president. And when that happens, the world’s important business doesn’t get done. It sits in a dangerous and volatile vacuum.
Yeah, but Mitt Romney once put a dog carrier on top of his car.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Moldova Looks To Europe As Russian Influence Declines Throughout Region.
Add Moldova to the list of countries shunning Russian attempts to establish a customs union to rival Europe’s. And Moscow, appearing increasingly weak in its near-abroad, is furious.
Larger and more prosperous countries like Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Belarus are well on their way to choosing Europe over Russia, despite relentless Russian strong-arming. Armenia looked set to join them last month before its president abruptly gave in to Russian pressure and joined the Moscow-sponsored Eurasian Customs Union over the EU’s Eastern Partnership program.
Now it’s Moldova’s turn to choose. After decades of dependence on Russia and the Soviet Union before it, the tiny republic, by far the poorest on the continent, seems to be heading Europe’s way. Its move westward has provoked the usual warnings and threats from Russian leaders. “We hope that you will not freeze,” Russia’s deputy prime minister said, suggesting Moscow would shut down the pipelines that send Russian gas to the energy-starved country. Not long after that, Russian officials, citing vague health concerns, stopped imports of Moldovan wine, which make up a huge percentage of the country’s exports. There have also been warnings that the tens of thousands of Moldovans working in Russia would be expelled.
“Rather than intimidating leaders of the country’s fragile coalition government, however, Russia’s tactics have only cemented their resolve to complete the political and free trade agreements with the European Union,” the New York Times reported today. “The signing of these agreements,” said the Moldovan president, “is the only chance that Moldova has in order to develop itself as a European country and in the European spirit.”
Hey, just because Vlad was able to roll Barry on Syria doesn’t mean he’s winning everywhere.
ED MORRISSEY: Obama and Sebelius: “The Dog Ate My Homework.”
AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, liveblogging the ObamaCare debacle hearings.
TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Inspector General: Hundreds of Employees of IRS Contractors Owe Millions in Taxes.
AT AMAZON, new Fall Toys.
Also, the Fall Rug Sale.
And, today only: Camp Chef OS132 Super Outdoor/Indoor Movie Screen, 52% off.
HARDLY AT ALL: Roll Call: Just How Responsive Is the Obama Administration to Oversight Questions? “The deeply troubled Obamacare rollout has renewed the debate over just how responsive — or unresponsive — the administration has been to congressional oversight, with Republicans complaining of a litany of stonewalling prior to the Oct. 1 opening of the health care exchanges.”
BUT OF COURSE: House Dems press GOP for immigration vote this year. And the attacks on the Tea Party, as I’ve mentioned, are battlespace preparation.
VIRGINIA POSTREL ON HOW THE OBAMACARE DEBACLE WAS DRIVEN BY GLAMOUR: Obamacare’s Virtual Fantasy Couldn’t Handle Messy Reality.
So why didn’t the administration realize that integrating a bunch of incompatible government databases into a seamless system with an interface just about anyone could understand was a really, really hard problem? Why was even the president seemingly taken by surprise when the system didn’t work like it might in the movies?
We have become seduced by computer glamour.
Whether it’s a television detective instantly checking a database of fingerprints or the ease of Amazon.com’s “1-Click” button, we imagine that software is a kind of magic — all the more so if it’s software we’ve never actually experienced. We expect it to be effortless. We don’t think about how it got there or what its limitations might be. Instead of imagining future technologies as works in progress, improving over time, we picture them as perfect from day one.
If you’ve ever worked on a tech project, you know better.
“FERTILITY SHAMING” AND THE TERRORS OF THE MINIVAN: Why Popular Culture Wages War Against Large Families. “The minivan symbolizes a family too large to fit into a sedan, and that means more than two children. Large families are ridiculed in our society, made the object of punch-lines and stereotypes, and sometimes that ridicule spills over into malevolence and hatred. Don’t think so? Let’s take a look.”
I’ve written on this topic myself. But just remember — nowadays, having lots of kids is a way to be daring and transgressive.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Net Prices Are Still Rising. “Even though colleges have slowed the rate at which they raise tuition, the total grant aid available to students has not been able to keep pace with tuition growth, according to two reports released Wednesday by the College Board. . . . At public universities, the College Board estimates, students will pay net tuition and fees this year of $3,120 (up from $3,050 this year). In inflation-adjusted dollars, that’s nearly two-thirds higher than it was a decade ago. Similarly, the net price at private, nonprofit colleges is expected to jump by 4.4 percent this year to $12,460.”