SO IN TERMS OF FATNESS, how do American women stack up in the global test? Oh, wait, asking that question would be sexist.
Archive for 2013
October 16, 2013
WHAT DO LATINO VOTERS LOVE? Big Government.
UPDATE: Related item here. “In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition … one consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology.”
DAVID POST: Ominous Developments on the “Internet Governance” Front. “If ICANN gives these unhappy governments a home for their efforts to exert greater control over Internet communications — using, perhaps, the pretext that the US government has proven itself somehow unworthy of its outsized role in these matters — the Internet will become a much, much less vibrant place than it is now.”
Political elites don’t like free speech. Why would they? What’s in it for them?
ON CAMPUS, the rise of the libertarians. “Another issue driving libertarian activism is disenchantment with middle class entitlements. Programs like Social Security are beginning to run deficits, and demographic projections suggest that receiving a substantial payout upon retirement may not be an option for those just entering the program. In surveys, many millennials say they don’t think the program will exist by the time they’re supposed to receive benefits.”
THIS LOOKS LIKE a real-life sea serpent.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: NSA Agent’s son caught downloading kiddie porn on dad’s NSA laptop. Er, if you’ve got an NSA secure laptop, shouldn’t you keep that, you know, secure? Also, the story says that most of the kiddie porn was anime, but the Supreme Court has ruled that child porn laws can’t apply to porn without actual children. Not clear if that mattered in the case.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD ON EUROPE:
One of the reasons Europeans are so fearful of the Tea Party is that they assume that because it is right wing and populist it is like the National Front in France or Golden Dawn in Greece. Today’s small government American Tea Partiers are much farther from Huey Long and Father Coughlin in their political views than some European right wingers are from the darker demagogues of Europe’s bloody past, and until the European establishments understand this, they will likely continue to misjudge the state of American politics.
Of course, Father Coughlin and Huey Long were actually lefties, though they favored fascist-style politics — which were also lefty politics then, of course. And now?
But they’re probably also afraid that the Tea Party is about slashing elite privilege, of which Europe’s ruling class has even more than America’s.
SO FAR, smart watches are pretty dumb.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why Getting Married Doesn’t Mean You’re Done Having Fun. Nope.
PUSH TO SELL TESTOSTERONE GELS troubles doctors. Some people really benefit from these, but it’s also quite possible that the drop in testosterone with age is protective. It’s also the case that we don’t fully understand this stuff yet.
AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Electronics.
Plus, warehouse deals in Video Games.
And, today only: 55% Off “Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series” (Deluxe Edition).
SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION ADVICE FROM EMILY YOFFE: College Women: Stop Getting Drunk: It’s closely associated with sexual assault. And yet we’re reluctant to tell women to stop doing it. Of course, the men are often drunk, too. But when a drunk woman couples with a drunk man, the drunk man is somehow still responsible, while the woman is a victim, because she’s drunk. “Educating students about rape, teaching them that by definition a very drunk woman can’t consent to sex, is crucial.” Double standard much?
I do note that these college-alcohol problems seem to have gotten worse since the drinking age was boosted to 21, meaning that people went from drinking in bars, where there were non-drunk people around, to dorms and parties where everyone gets bombed.
OUT: BRIDES THROWING BOUQUETS. In: Brides Throwing Cats.
FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: I Hate it when My Husband Forces Our Son to Clean His Plate.
AT AMAZON, the Kindle Daily Deals.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: UCSD students test fire 3D-printed metal rocket engine.
WELL, YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH SCIENCE. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE A SCIENCE-DENIER. An unbiased economic scorecard shows that global warming provides a net 1.3% GDP gain so far. “It will come as a big surprise that climate change from 1900 to 2025 has mostly been a net benefit, rising to increase welfare about 1.5% of GDP per year. Why? Because global warming has mixed effects and for moderate warming, the benefits prevail. The increased level of CO₂ has boosted agriculture because it works as a fertilizer and makes up the biggest positive impact at 0.8% of GDP. Likewise, moderate warming avoids more cold deaths than it incurs extra heat deaths. It also reduces the demand for heating more than increases the costs of cooling, totaling about 0.4%.”
“SMART DIPLOMACY:” The Failure Of American Leadership.
IN THE MAIL: Originalism and the Good Constitution.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 160.
BOEHNER CAVES: Boehner to take vote on Senate compromise 1st, pass it with Dem votes. “This was inevitable after last night’s collapse of Republican unity in the House. According to most sources, Boehner can count on the majority of his caucus to support the move, but will get pilloried by the conservative wing of the caucus. That may mean that Boehner won’t be Speaker if Republicans retain the House after the 2014 elections, but at this point Boehner may not want the job at all.”
Boehner has never struck me as especially sharp, ever since Helen and I interviewed him for the late, lamented Glenn & Helen Show back in 2006, shortly before the GOP lost the House. But, to be fair, you can only do so much with control of half of one branch of the government. For more leverage, try taking the Senate in 2014.
Upside for the GOP: ObamaCare seems to be imploding on its own.