MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY: House Democrats angry over Obama’s classified trade meeting. “House Democrats are criticizing President Obama’s administration for holding a classified briefing on trade with top administration officials, saying it’s an attempt to push a trade program in secret.”
Archive for 2015
March 16, 2015
I THINK HE’LL BE ACQUITTED: Meet the Lexus Executive Charged with Injecting Passion into Its Cars.
JONATHAN ADLER: Yes, Gov. Whitman, states may choose which federal laws to implement: Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman appears to understand neither the Clean Air Act nor the U.S. Constitution. “Christine Todd Whitman served as the governor of New Jersey and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She is now an energy and environmental policy consultant. Given Whitman’s experience, you might think she is an expert in environmental law and the relationship between the federal and state governments. Judging by Whitman’s latest op-ed in Politico, if you thought that, you would be wrong.”
To be fair, most of our ruling class seems similarly ignorant — or indifferent — regarding the Constitution.
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THANKS FOR THAT IMAGE, ED: ‘David Brock Slinks Out of His Leather Onesie.’
FASTER, PLEASE: Successful in vivo test of breakthrough Staphylococcus aureus vaccine. “One of the largest problems in clinical medicine is the growing prevalence of multidrug-resistant, disease-causing strains of Staphylococcus aureus. Penicillin resistance is now extremely common across a spectrum of staph strains, and although a few new antibiotic approaches show promise, the general availability of these new drugs still lies years in the future. . . . Recently, a collaborative of researchers from the Novartis Vaccines Research Center in Sienna, Italy and the University of Chicago have demonstrated a highly efficacious vaccine for epidemiologically relevant S. aureus strains that combines five conserved antigens known to play different roles in S. aureus pathogenesis.” Good.
SO I GUESS ALL THE TALK ABOUT TOM COTTON BEING A TRAITOR IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE: Democrats prepared to buck White House on Iran nuclear deal.
Related: More Democrats are going their own way, and that’s away from Obama.
SOMEWHERE, NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS IS CHORTLING: The dawn of the anti-robot movement is upon us.
And how big a robophobe is Yglesias? He blocked me on Twitter after I retweeeted something comparing his loud sportcoat to Tron. That’s how big.
I thought it was funny! But I refuse to associate with anti-robot bigots anyway, so that’s okay. And I’ll bet Matt already has paid-up robot insurance.
UPDATE: From the comments: “So instead of a Butlerian jihad, we’re going to have an Yglesian one? Yay.”
Well, Matt’s been preparing for that one for a while.
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: With Absolutely No Legal Basis To Do So, University Counsel Demands Yik Yak Take Down Posts, Turn Over User Info.
It’s all about control.
I’M NOT SURE ANYONE CAN REPLACE HILLARY, WHOSE COMBINATION OF CONDESCENSION, EVASIVENESS, AND FAUX-POPULISM IS UNIQUE: 21 Democrats who could (maybe) take Hillary Clinton’s place in 2016.
SO THE WHITE HOUSE IS PLUGGING LYFT, which I guess means that Uber didn’t get its money’s worth for hiring David Plouffe.
STEVEN HAYWARD: In The Matter Of Sweetbriar College. I think he’s right that this offers a real opportunity for a right-leaning educational entrepreneur who’d like to emulate Hillsdale. “Meanwhile, the Sweet Briar campus is spectacular, and raises the obvious idea: why not form a consortium of conservative philanthropists to buy Sweet Briar and reopen it as a self-consciously conservative college—possibly coed? I’m sure there’s room for another Hillsdale. There are plenty of excellent conservative faculty available. In fact, there’s a buyers market for good conservative faculty: ask any of the few conservative deans scattered here and there, and they’ll tell you that the ideological discrimination against conservatives in higher ed has enabled them to get first rate people at market rates.”
UPDATE: From the comments: “From the What Could Have Been Department: if only the Koch donation of $25-million to the United Negro College Fund which was so churlishly disdained had been used for good instead….”
IT’S COME TO THIS: Chuck Norris Does A Bibi Netanyahu Campaign Ad. Video at the link.
WELL, THEY TRIED TO KEEP IT SECRET, but I found out. And I still don’t want to hear another goddamn word about my carbon footprint.
WILL EQUAL-PAY DEMANDS backfire on women? “Most dire of all: Even women judged other women badly for trying to negotiate. Daring to ask for more money, in particular, was taboo.”
CLAIM: Self-Driving Cars Will Make Us Want Fewer Cars. If you believe the Uber/Zipcar models will dominate, that’s probably true.
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TO BE FAIR, IF YOU SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN CLOSE QUARTERS WITH OBAMA, KNOWING IT WAS YOUR JOB TO TAKE A BULLET FOR HIM, YOU’D DRINK TOO: Hi. I’m the Secret Service. And I’m an Alcoholic.
THE GOOD NEWS IS, THEY SHOULD BE AROUND BY THE TIME I’M TOO OLD TO DRIVE MYSELF: Carlos Ghosn On Phases Of Autonomous Vehicles.
NEWS MEDIA HORRIFIED AS ELITE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TAKE UP SHOOTING: “If there was ever a story that spoke to the division of the cultural weaklings in the media and the rest of us, this is it.”
TELL IT TO DAVID BOREN AND THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: “[I]f our educational system does not honestly and explicitly promote the central tenet of science—that nothing is sacred—then we encourage myth and prejudice to endure.”
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: I Reprogrammed A Lifeform In Someone’s Kitchen While Drinking A Beer.