Archive for 2015
September 12, 2015
MESSING WITH THE FABRIC OF TIME: If you’re into DIY music recording, I have a review of Eventide’s H3000 Factory Harmonizer plugin at the PJ Lifestyle blog.
AND NOW REUTERS DELIVERS THE REST OF THE STORY ON THAT SYRIAN TEAR-JERKER: Syrian toddler Aylan’s father drove capsized boat, other passengers say.
The father of drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi was working with smugglers and driving the flimsy boat that capsized trying to reach Greece, other passengers on board said, in an account that disputes the version he gave last week.
Ahmed Hadi Jawwad and his wife, Iraqis who lost their 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son in the crossing, told Reuters that Abdullah Kurdi panicked and accelerated when a wave hit the boat, raising questions about his claim that somebody else was driving the boat.
A third passenger confirmed their version of events, which Reuters could not independently verify.
“The story that (Aylan’s father) told is untrue. I don’t know what made him lie, maybe fear,” Jawwad said in Baghdad at his in-laws’ house on Friday. “He was the driver from the very beginning until the boat sank.”
He said Kurdi swam to them and begged them to cover up his true role in the incident. His wife confirmed the details.
Jawwad said his point of contact with the smugglers was called Abu Hussein. “Abu Hussein told me that he (Kurdi) was the one who organized this trip,” he said.
So at least as much of a perpetrator as a victim.
WELL, MAYBE JUST WITH A CLOTH: Tech company: No indication that Clinton’s e-mail server was ‘wiped.’
BACK TO THE FUTURE! “So your roleplaying game campaign is in flames,” Moe Lane writes at the PJ Lifestyle blog. “Is it time for a retcon?”
Hey, if Democrats can go back to the future with retread politicians like Hillary, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders, why not RPGs?
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: 13-year-old boy kissed 14-year-old girl on a dare. Now he faces assault charges.
SO THE INSTA-WIFE AND I MOVED A SOFA TODAY, and there was a nasty coffee stain under it. The Bissell Spot Cleaner removed it completely. That thing has paid for itself many times over. Together with the Barkeeper’s Friend and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, it’s part of my hypermasculine cleaning arsenal.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Bidding My College-Bound Son Good Riddance: I have raised a sweet, thoughtful, environmentally conscious monster—and soon I will be free. Your son sounds like an idiot. I hope he grows out of it.
HMM: Oxygen on exoplanets isn’t proof of life.
The Earth’s atmosphere contains oxygen because plants continuously produce it through photosynthesis. This abundant supply of oxygen allows life forms like animals to flourish. Therefore, oxygen had been thought to be an essential biomarker for life on extrasolar planets.
But now, a research assistant professor Norio Narita of the Astrobiology Center of National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), which was founded in April 2015, and an associate professor Shigeyuki Masaoka, of the Institute of Molecular Science of NINS, have presented a novel hypothesis that it could be possible for planets to have large quantities of abiotic (non-biologically produced) oxygen. This study is a good example of interdisciplinary studies that combine knowledge from different fields of science to promote astrobiology in the search for life on extrasolar planets. The study is published in Scientific Reports on Sept. 10, 2015.
Until now, it had been thought that if a planet has oxygen, that must mean that some form of plants are producing it through photosynthesis. Therefore, it had been assumed that when searching for signs of life on habitable extrasolar planets, the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere could be considered a definitive biomarker.
However, non-biological chemical reactions can also affect atmospheric compositions of extrasolar planets. Now, the research team led by Dr. Narita has shown that abiotic oxygen produced by the photocatalytic reaction of titanium oxide, which is known to be abundant on the surfaces of terrestrial planets, meteorolites, and the moon in the solar system, cannot be discounted.
For a planet with an environment similar to the sun-Earth system, continuous photocatalytic reaction of titanium oxide on about 0.05 % of the planetary surface could produce the amount of oxygen found in the current Earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the team estimated the amount of possible oxygen production for habitable planets around other types of host stars with various masses and temperatures.
So we have abiotic hydrocarbons on Titan, and we can have abiotic oxygen on other planets. This doesn’t precisely support the theory that oil on earth comes from abiotic processes, but. . . .
BRENDAN O’NEILL: A compliment isn’t misogynistic. Why can’t feminists understand this? “What must the veiled, subjugated women of genuinely patriarchal societies in the East and South think when they see a free, well-connected woman in the West scream ‘misogyny!’ over a compliment? They must feel pretty lonely, knowing they’re unlikely ever to win solidarity from such sorry, self-obsessed excuses for feminists.”
If you understand that feminism is, in part, a leveling mechanism used by less-attractive women against more-attractive women, it will make sense.
LEFT BEHIND: Thinking of Mom every day, not just Sept. 11.
FALSE AND DEFAMATORY: Daily Kos Founder Claims Contributor at Daily Kos Is a ‘Breitbart Writer Arrested for Terrorism.’ “He linked to an article that made no mention of Breitbart. But it did list the publications that this terrorist troll, Joshua Goldberg, wrote for, including… the Daily Kos. . . . Moulitsas then, bizarrely, went on to claim that ‘trying to incite terrorism’ was ‘a conservative thing.’”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Another female coach with a female student. “I want you to 50 Shades me.”
Remember, male teachers are rare because people fear they might be sexual predators.
LOONY LEFTIST ELECTED LEADER OF UK’S LABOR PARTY: Rick Moran writes that “a little known, back bencher, an avowed socialist named Jeremy Corbyn…wants to return his party to the Disco era.”
I doubt there’s another Thatcher waiting on the other side this time, though.
WHY IS MODERN ART SO BAD? “Something happened on the way to the 20th century,” artist Robert Florczak deadpans at Prager University. “As with most revolutions, the first generation or so produced work of genuine merit.” Yes, modern art – and pop art, including music – only works when it has a traditional culture not only to push against, but to draw technique and style from. Once you banish the past, where do you go for inspiration?
(Via Gerard Van der Leun.)
IT’S COME TO THIS: Salman Rushdie: Trump Should Be “Eradicated.”
So Is Rushdie proposing a fatwah on a best-selling author, bon vivant and media figure for his impure thoughts?
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Peering Into Nanoparticles One at a Time Reveals Hidden World.
IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING? Americans Swore They Would ‘Never Forget 9-11.’ But College Students Asked Why It Happened Have No Idea:
And speaking of forgetting history that the world promised it would “Never Forget:”
But hey, history is so problematic anyhow — we wouldn’t want to trigger any ill-feelings amongst our delicate young students.
UNIVERSITIES RECOGNIZE RIGHTS TO EVERYTHING, NOWADAYS, EXCEPT FREE THOUGHT: University of California considering recognizing a “right” to be “free from … expressions of intolerance.”
PREDICTABLE: Obamacare Enrollment Tumbles as Huge Price Hike Looms.
In its latest enrollment report, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says 9.9 million were still enrolled in ObamaCare exchange plans.
That’s almost 2 million fewer than the administration claimed in the spring, when it bragged that 11.7 million had signed up, and way below the Congressional Budget Office’s earlier forecast of 13 million.
And if this year is anything like last year, that 9.9 million will dwindle further as the year goes on. . . .
Earlier this year, insurers started putting in rate requests for 2016, and in many cases they were gut-wrenchingly high — with some above 50%. Obama told the public not to worry, that state insurance regulators would knock them down to size.
But like every other promise he’s made about his namesake law, this one was phony.
In state after state, insurance commissioners are approving huge rate hikes, based on the fact that the people who’ve signed up for ObamaCare are older and sicker than insurers hoped.
By one estimate, the average rate hike in Oregon — a state that eagerly embraced ObamaCare — is above 24%. Average approved rates are 20% or higher in Alaska, Idaho, Iowa and Kansas.
An analysis by Agile Health Insurance found almost a third of all plans being sold through the federal Healthcare.gov exchange — which covers 36 states — had double-digit rate hikes.
This is why we passed a partisan law and divided the country– a mere increase in 9.9 million new private insurance enrollees, who are forced–at the pain of a mandatory tax–to buy increasingly expensive insurance? It’s not even close to the “universal” coverage the Democrats touted.
If this is President Obama’s “legacy”–combined with the so-called Iran “deal”–this is pitiful.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “U.S. universities have grown increasingly reliant on rapid, double-percentage-point-per-annum growth in the number of students from China, who now account for 31 percent of international students in American higher education.” Plus: “I think there is a sense in the U.S. that universities have taken the Chinese student enrollment levels for granted, that they’re able to charge significant tuition and somehow this growth will continue into the future unimpeded. I just don’t believe that.”
Well, you know what they say: Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.
MICHAEL BARONE: In praise of monarchy.