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Archive for 2013
April 18, 2013
IT’S ALL A CLEVER PLAN FOR 2016, TO MAKE HILLARY LOOK GOOD BY COMPARISON: “Secretary of State John Kerry seems to be terribly confused.”
COMPARING THE LAW SCHOOLS of the South. I’m happy to say that Tennessee comes in 4th overall, just behind Vanderbilt (Virginia is #1) and Tennessee is #1 in “clinical and practical training,” which seems about right.
CHANGE: Nike’s Big Gay-Marketing Coup. “Any major athlete who comes out of the closet may have a starting position on Nike’s (NKE) team of sponsored athletes. . . . The prospect of Nike producing a big, gay ad campaign should surprise exactly nobody who pays attention to sports or marketing.”
DISASTER RESPONSE: Once-doubted tourniquet seen as Boston lifesaver. Plus, the importance of training: “My worst fear was that I could have lost my wife. Other than that it was autopilot, adrenaline, chaos. There was a lot of just ‘not-even-thinking,’ sort of animalistic, you know, thought. What needs to be done, you do it.”
TYLENOL AND ANXIETY: “New research suggests acetaminophen (Tylenol) may help individuals overcome non-specific fear and anxiety brought about by thinking about death or the human condition. According to lead researcher Daniel Randles and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, the new findings suggest that Tylenol may have more profound psychological effects than previously understood.”
MICKEY KAUS: Krauthammer Got Played.
TOM MAGUIRE helps David Sirota with the math.
ANN ALTHOUSE: It’s been a bad first quarter of the second term for President Obama. A roundup of problems, with this observation: “The media’s attempts to help are getting really embarrassing. He’s not leading, but, see, that’s a good thing.”
UPDATE: Related: Don’t say “there is a piece of Boston in me” when orating about a bombing in Boston that put shrapnel in many victims. It’s just a figure of speech.
HEY, MAYBE WE CAN BUILD AN ANSIBLE: ‘Spooky’ Quantum Entanglement May be Tested on International Space Station Over Longest Distance Yet.
HOWIE CARR: On Boston Bombing, Media Outlets Can’t Get Their Stories Straight.
Well, the press certainly hasn’t covered itself with glory, and the authorities don’t look so great either. But I will note that the FBI’s crowdsourcing approach looks a lot more like what I recommended in 2002 than the response to the D.C. Sniper did. Ron Coleman emailed me last night, saying “It really is all as you have foreseen isn’t it? Everyone analyzing these pictures on the Internet… even a kind of Singularity-like feel to it.” Yes. Which doesn’t guarantee success, but we’re early in the process yet.
Related: Boston Bombings: Speculation, Spin, and Shamelessness.
A NEW PROJECT FROM THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY: Executive Branch Review.
HENRY MILLER: Beware The High Priests of Locavorism. There’s a lot of folderol in the locavore movement, but from a disaster-prep standpoint it’s not so bad to have food production more dispersed.
IN THE MAIL: Payback: The Case for Revenge.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Exploiting Families Of Sandy Hook Victims Backfires.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Venezuela’s Election Turns Bloody: Can the Chavista Movement Survive?
Seven people were killed and more than sixty injured during sporadic riots over the past couple days, following the controversial election of Hugo Chavez’s chosen heir, Nicolas Maduro, to the Venezuelan presidency. Already faced with allegations of vote rigging and the surprisingly narrow margin with which he won office, Maduro turned to a tactic from page one of his predecessor’s playbook: blame the United States.
“The (U.S.) embassy has financed and led all these violent acts,” Maduro said on Venezuelan television. He also called Henrique Capriles, the challenger, a “murderer” and coup plotter (which would put him in some familiar company). Reports have emerged that pro-government and opposition thugs alike have rampaged through parts of the country, firebombing political offices and beating up rivals, jailing journalists, and fighting on the streets.
The question now, amidst this chaos: what will happen to the Chavista movement? Without the charismatic Chavez, can it survive? Capriles won a respectable 44 percent of the votes when he faced off against Chavez in elections in February; a few months later, after Chavez’s death, he garnered over 49 percent against Maduro, suggesting that at least some Chavistas don’t think Maduro is quite up to the job, even though he promised to carry on many of the pro-poor policies that Chavez was famous for.
But it’s unlikely that on its own the Venezuelan opposition can take or hold power. With lots of advice from helpful Cubans, the Chavistas have built a political machinery that is determined to hold power no matter what.
Indeed they have.
GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA: Kermit Gosnell And Intelligence Failures.
Related: Abortion Trial Raises Uncomfortable Questions. To be fair, this is a murder trial. Gosnell induced labor in late-term women, delivered live babies, and then killed them.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Foreclosure Settlement Checks Bounce In Latest Setback For Troubled Program. “On Tuesday, some of the first people to receive payouts under the $9.2 billion deal between federal regulators and the mortgage industry called into a government hotline to report that their bank would not cash their check.” Problem fixed now, but as the article notes, this doesn’t inspire confidence.
AT AMAZON, Top Deals On Musical Instruments And Gear.
Also, today only: Makita 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless 4-Piece Combo Kit, $199.97 (72% off).
UPDATE: The Makita outfit is sold out, but they’re offering steep markdowns on those superbright LifeGear tactical flashlights. I’ve got the 1000 lumen model, but I paid double what they’re asking.
INSTAVISION: Reexamining the Bush Legacy: Should The GOP Distance Itself from George W. Bush? I talk with Walter Russell Mead.
ANGER HAS BEEN THEIR HALLMARK THROUGHOUT: Liberals Lash Out at Gun-Rights Democrats. “On every defeated gun amendment today, more Democrats voted on the gun-rights side than Republicans crossed to the gun-control side. Fifteen Dems voted against Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assault weapons ban. Ten voted against an amendment to limit the size of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. Liberal ire was particularly strong against the four Democrats who voted against the Toomey-Manchin background check compromise: Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), and Mark Pryor (Ark.).”
THIS, SADLY, IS TURNING OUT TO BE EVERY BIT AS BAD AS IT LOOKED LAST NIGHT: Up to 15 dead, at least 160 injured in Texas plant blast.
UPDATE: Yeah, it is getting a lot of coverage for a local news story.