Archive for 2015
December 14, 2015
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Elon Musk: We Need To Get To Mars Before World War III Kicks Off. But can we get there by summer?
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THE MORE WE LOOK, THE MORE WE FIND: Asteroid to pass Earth on Christmas Eve. And we’re not looking nearly as hard as we should be.
HARRISON FORD, OWNER OF ‘ENVIABLE COLLECTION OF AIRCRAFT,’ LECTURES WORLD ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.
Not to mix movie franchises, but when will John Kerry go full-Bane on Ford’s fleet of Gaia-destroying (and non-PETA-approved!) private aircraft; after all, “Public Shaming is ‘Most Powerful Weapon in Many Ways’ to Enforce World Climate Agreement.”
SOME WAYS TO COPE WITH GRIEF DURING THE HOLIDAYS:
So if you’re grieving this season, first I want to say I’m truly sorry for what you’re going through, whatever that may be, and I pray you are able to be open to feel and experience what this season of hope has for you. Whether it’s the bittersweet joy of remembering, or a desperately needed break just to laugh with your child, take it, enjoy it, and feel it.
Read the whole thing.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Are Women Ditching Their Bras? “As far as I can tell, the slight glimpse of a nipple appears far more, dare I say, elegant when peeping through my blouse than a bra does.”
A WARNING FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: Trump Is Going To Break Your Heart.
THE WASHINGTON POST CALLS “HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT” ONE OF THE BIGGEST LIES OF 2015: “This phrase became a rallying cry for protests after the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. Witness accounts spread after the shooting that Michael Brown had his hands raised in surrender, mouthing the words ‘Don’t shoot’ as his last words before being shot execution-style. Democratic lawmakers raised their hands in solidarity on the House floor. But various investigations concluded this did not happen — and that Wilson acted out of self-defense and was justified in killing Brown.”
BLOGGER’S CRITIQUE OF NEW YORK TIMES ON GUN CONTROL GETS REPRINTED IN NEW YORK TIMES:
It is easy to tout the success of gun control laws in the rest of the Western world and to say that “this just doesn’t happen in other countries” when you ignore : the 1996 massacre of 16 children at a Scottish primary school; the 2000 killing of eight kids in Japan; the 2002 deaths of eight people in Nanterre, France; the 2002 killing of 16 kids in Erfurt, Germany; the 2007 shootings to death of eight people in Tuusula, Finland; the killing of 10 people at a Finnish university less than a year later; the 2009 killing of 15 people in Winnenden, Germany; and, needless to say, Anders Breivik’s 2011 mass murder of 77 Norwegians, most of them teenagers.
Is it unrealistic to wonder whether the tolls would have been lesser had a few of the adults in each place — as well as in Paris’s Bataclan a couple of weeks ago — carried a weapon and tried to shoot back at the respective killers?
It’s not unrealistic at all, but it is politically unacceptable to the NYT folks, whose chief goal is ensuring that those nasty flyover people remain under control.
SHUT UP, YOU TWIT. THAT WASN’T EVEN YOUR LINE. Actor to Ted Cruz: Stop butchering the ‘Princess Bride.’ By “butchering,” he means “accurately quoting.”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Woman charged with ‘having sex with her nephew hundreds of times.’ “Although investigators have not released much information about the illicit affair, the victim appears to have moved from South Carolina to live with his uncle – who Phillips was married to at the time – in Pasadena during the summer of 2008.”
BLUE STATE IDIOCY: Stars of HGTV house-flipping series cancel events in Portland after angry residents claim seminars will only worsen the city’s ‘rental crisis.’
The reason why you idiots have a “rental crisis” is that you have regulated things to the point where it’s impossible to build economic housing. This is the same problem that the San Francisco Bay Area has. But you’re too stupid to figure that out, and so you have the “Community Alliance of Tenants” announcing a “Rental Emergency” and bullying TV hosts. You people deserve the problems you’re creating for yourselves.
UPDATE: This cartoon, which I just saw on Facebook, says it all:
ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE: John Kerry calls for “public shaming” of what the enviro-left calls “climate deniers,” and Power Line is on the case!
AL CAPONE, CALL YOUR OFFICE*: Chicago Magazine on “Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance. LAWBREAKERS, LAWMAKERS: In some parts of Chicago, violent street gangs and pols quietly trade money and favors for mutual gain. The thugs flourish, the elected officials thrive—and you lose. A special report.”
*You too, Pat Moynihan.
(Via SDA.)
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH: In “Trump’s Weimar America,” the New York Times’ Roger Cohen aims to attack The Donald, ends up hitting Obama much harder instead:
Welcome to Weimar America: It’s getting restive in the beer halls. People are sick of politics as usual. They want blunt talk. They want answers.
Welcome to an angry nation stung by two lost wars, its politics veering to the extremes, its mood vengeful, beset by decades of stagnant real wages for most people, tempted by a strongman who would keep all Muslims out and vows to restore American greatness.
“We’re going to be so tough and so mean and so nasty,” Donald Trump says in response to the San Bernardino massacre. People roar. He calls for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” People roar. “People want strength,” he says. People roar. His poll numbers go up. Pundits, even the longtime guru of Republican political branding, Karl Rove, shake their heads.
Trump is a clown. No, he is not. He is in earnest. And he’s onto something. It is foolish not to take him seriously.
A near perfect storm for his rabble-rousing is upon the United States. China is rising. American power is ebbing. The tectonic plates of global security are shifting. Afghanistan and Iraq have been the graveyards of glory. There is fear, after the killing in California inspired by the Islamic State, of an enemy within.
Over more than a decade, American blood and treasure have been expended, to little avail. President Obama claims his strategy against Islamist jihadist terrorism, which he often sugarcoats as “violent extremism,” is working. There is little or no evidence of that.
As Glenn has noted on numerous occasions, it was Obama who took credit for Bush’s success in Iraq, and then, as Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker wrote last year, Obama threw it all away by personally choosing not to maintain an American military presence there, in order to have bragging rights in the 2012 election. On the home front, the domestic conditions that Cohen describes are all a result of the economic and social policies which the Times have been championing for the last 15 years.
SINGULARITY GLAMOUR: Affectionately spoofed with a big dose of ’80s style, from Dorian Electra.
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THOSE OXO TONGS ARE GREAT: Megan McArdle’s invaluable annual guide to kitchen gifts. (No Amazon Affiliates links allowed on Bloomberg View, so if you see something you like consider coming back via one of Instapundit’s links.)
TOUGH QUESTION: Who’s having a worse year: VW or Chipotle?
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I CREDIT UBER: Fewer Young People Are Drinking And Driving.
WHEN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TRUMPS NATIONAL SECURITY: . . . you get a presidential election cycle such as 2016. Americans’ pushback against “political correctness gone wild” is manifesting itself in multiple ways this election cycle, including most notably issues relating to national security, such as immigration. The latest illustration is the Department of Homeland Security’s decision not to view visa applicants’ social media activity for fear of “bad public relations”:
“[I]mmigration officials were not allowed to use or view social media as part of the screening process,” John Cohen, a former under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis, told ABC News, where he now works as a national security consultant. . . .
According to Cohen, who left DHS in June 2014, officials with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pushed for a change to DHS’ social media policy but were met with resistance from top brass.
“Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement,” Cohen told ABC News during a segment on “Good Morning America.” . . .
According to Cohen, who left DHS in June 2014, officials with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pushed for a change to DHS’ social media policy but were met with resistance from top brass.
“Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement,” Cohen told ABC News during a segment on “Good Morning America.” . . .
“It was primarily a question of optics,” said Cohen. “There were concerns from a privacy and civil liberties perspective that while this was not illegal, that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly.”
Another former counter-terrorism official cosigned Cohen’s frustration.
“Why the State Department and Homeland Security Department have not leveraged the power of social media is beyond me.” . . .
The female San Bernardino terrorist, Tashfeen Malik apparently posted anti-American and pro-terrorism rants on her Facebook page. Her sister, Fehda Malik, has posted similar comments as well, but told the New York Slimes Times that her sister was not an extremist, was “very religious” and was a person who “knew what was right and what was wrong.” Um, yeah, right.
Americans are a tolerant and welcoming people, but they don’t lack commonsense. When P.C. goes wild–crossing the line from “I will go along because I don’t want to offend you” to “I will go along even if it endangers national security”–most Americans will demand change. It is the first (and really only) duty of government to keep us safe. Politicians who seem to understand this basic concept will continue to surge.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Octopodal nanoparticles combine catalytic, plasmonic functions.
AT AMAZON, deals in Calendars, Planners & Organizers.
IT’S KIND OF BEEN A RACE TO THE BOTTOM: The End Of Internet Advertising As We Know It.