Archive for 2014
October 13, 2014
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): When Women Sexually Assault Men. “Women do sexually assault men on college campuses, on a regular basis. Each year, according to an estimate in a literature review, roughly 19 to 31 percent of male college students experience some kind of unwanted sexual contact, and researchers say the vast majority of that is perpetrated by women.”
SCIENCE: Republicans More Informed Than Democrats, According to Pew Research. To be fair, if I were a Democrat these days I’d be trying to avoid the news as much as possible. . . .
Invoked constantly in the streets and on social media, “689” is the protesters’ preferred nickname for Hong Kong’s leader. Both off-color and packed with political meaning, it explains why Hong Kongers are rising up—and why the government is unlikely to satisfy their demands.
At its most straightforward, the nickname refers to how Leung Chun-ying became Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2012—by winning 689 of 1,200 votes cast by a committee of local elites loyal to China’s Communist government and unaccountable to Hong Kong’s 7.2 million people. This undemocratic system is at the heart of protesters’ frustrations, so they use “689” as an insult that underscores Mr. Leung’s illegitimacy. When they chant “689, step down!” they indict Mr. Leung along with the whole Beijing-backed political structure threatening their city’s autonomy and freedoms.
A poignant coincidence makes the nickname especially potent. The number 689 evokes the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, and Hong Kong—a city built by refugees fleeing Communist China’s depredations—is the world’s center of Tiananmen remembrance. This is the only part of China where it is legal to memorialize the massacre’s thousands of victims publicly. More than a million Hong Kongers rallied in solidarity with the students of Tiananmen in June 1989, as hundreds of thousands have continued to do in recent years.
You’d think that as long as Beijing loyalists were controlling elections in Hong Kong, they’d avoid vote counts that evoke the darkest episode in recent Chinese history. Yet there it is, Mr. Leung’s supposed mandate of 689 votes.
The China of June 1989 is what Hong Kong’s protesters are trying to keep at bay. They want local democracy so they can preserve their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rule of law and independent courts.
Hell, we’d like to preserve those things here.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: DNA nanotechnology and the atoms-to-micrometer nanofabrication gap.
WENDY DAVIS TRIPLES DOWN ON ‘EMPTY WHEELCHAIR’ ATTACK AD, thus violating the first law of holes.
A DEVELOPMENT OF SNOWDEN-LIKE IMPORTANCE: Chief engineer at Ferrari defects to BMW.
CDC DIRECTOR SAYS EBOLA PROTOCOL WAS ‘BREACHED,’ BUT DOESN’T KNOW HOW: The country’s in the best of hands.
THIS DOESN’T STRIKE ME AS NEWS: NSA May Have Undercover Operatives in Foreign Companies.
AT AMAZON, fall deals on Men’s Clothing.
Plus, bestsellers in Grocery. Stock up!
AMERICANS SHORT ON REASONS TO TRUST: “There’s a connection between the Secret Service’s Colombian hooker scandal and Americans’ increased worry about Ebola. Both have to do with trust,” as I write in my latest USA Today column.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Congress to Investigate Environmental Group’s Influence on Carbon Rule.
TEST-DRIVING the new aluminum-bodied Ford F-150.
ADDRESSING THE IMPORTANT TOPICS: The Science of Why Beer Is So Delicious.
PAUL RAHE: The CDC Loses Its Grip.
I have lived long enough, now, to have seen it again and again. Something goes badly wrong involving a corporation, a university, a religious denomination, or a branch of government, and the executive in charge or a designated minion goes before the press to engage in what is euphemistically called “damage control.” The spokesman does not level with the public. He or she tries to be reassuring and — more often than not — by lying, succeeds in undermining confidence in the institution he or she represents.
This is what is now going on with the Centers for Disease Control. In recent years, this well-respected outfit has branched out, opining in a politically correct manner on one issue after another outside its proper remit. Now it is faced with a matter absolutely central to its responsibilities — actual disease control — and it flips and flops and flounders because the ultimate boss, the President of the United States, cannot bring himself to put limits on contacts between Americans and the citizens of the countries in Africa where there is an Ebola epidemic.
If a problem can’t be solved by blaming Republicans, Obama can’t solve it.
IN THE MAIL: From Philip K. Howard, The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Waste King L-8000 Legend Series Continuous-Feed Garbage Disposal.
And, also today only: Up to 71% Off “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.”
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 522.
NICK GILLESPIE: A PROBLEM WITH THE DEMOCRATS’ EFFORT TO BLAME REPUBLICANS FOR EBOLA:
The report notes that “Pandemic Preparedness funding through the GHP account totaled $50 million, a decrease of $22.5 million (-31%) below FY14.” Let’s stipulate two things. First, $50 million is both a lot of money and not a lot of money in terms of federal spending. I doubt anyone seriously thinks that spending more in the year to come would have stopped Ebola outbreaks that began in fiscal 2014.
Second, the requested decrease is in President Obama’s budget. Is he a Republican now?
If that’s what it takes to win, sure. Plus:
You can argue that the United States needs to be constantly and massively increasing its spending on everything and that every time spending doesn’t go up in a lockstep fashion (and faster than inflation, as it did throughout the Bush years) that you’re killing people. You can also argue that the topline budget figures for various agencies don’t matter, but then you’re really talking about the ways in which bureaucracies, especially in the budget sector, misallocate resources. The one thing you really can’t do is say that the federal government, which is not actually controlled by the Republicans (just saying), has been slashing its spending on anything.
Indeed. But if I were a House budgeteer, I’d take the CDC/NIH folks at their — conveniently coordinated with Democratic groups — word and shift funding from all the nanny-state diet/obesity/smoking programs over into infectious diseases. And dare them to complain.
And, finally:
If we were living on such thin ice that the difference between sequestration (the president’s idea, just saying) and non-sequestration is the difference between life and death or Ebola and health, we’re screwed anyway.
I can understand why Democrats are trying to turn the Ebola outbreak here and abroad into a campaign issue. But that sort of gambit is more likely to draw attention to the failure and incompetency of public health bureaucrats here and abroad. That’s probably not good for Democrats, given that they run the White House and the agencies in question.
Yeah, its funny that the GOP controls one half of one third of the government, but somehow everything bad is their fault.
SHOULDN’T THEY HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS EARLIER? Health officials are intensifying the monitoring of hospital workers who provided care to the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. after one of them was infected with the virus despite wearing protective gear.
Related: CDC training questioned after director blames nurse’s Ebola infection on ‘protocol breach.’
ROGER WALDINGER: The massive and still accelerating cross-border movement of people across the globe might be the most portentous development of our times.
Put in historical perspective, it is safe to say that more people, and people from a greater variety of nations, are crossing national borders today than at any time since the modern state system came into being, and that still more would do so if they could. The cumulative implications for global economy and comity are as enormous as they are generally underappreciated.
In restricting migration, governments of course do what their people want. Public opposition to open borders is near-universal; majorities want tougher, not looser, controls on the border in virtually all economically advanced countries, and even in many that are not as wealthy.
Politicians, however, are generally dissatisfied with the voters they have, and inclined to import those who might be more pliable.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Ebola airport checks: ‘A net with very wide holes.’
THE NEW REPUBLIC: Accused College Rapists Have Rights, Too; The victims deserve justice. The men deserve due process.
Of course, failing to recognize that accusers aren’t the same as “victims,” and that perpetrators aren’t always “men,” is sexist too. The tendency to accuse men, but give women a pass, is a legacy of a time when the definition of rape was based on physical force. Now that the definition of rape has broadened, women are just as likely to be guilty as men. The fact that comparatively few women are charged in college sexual assault is itself evidence of institutional sexism that creates a hostile environment for men.