Archive for 2015
October 11, 2015
THERE GOES OUR ONE CHANCE TO AVOID BERNIE VS TRUMP: Phew – Nasa says giant asteroid missed Earth in ‘near-miss’ – at a distance of 15m miles. On the serious side, given the things that can kill us and that we don’t see till very late, perhaps we should have A space program?
THREE MILE HILLARY: Clinton’s camp says she ‘could have a serious meltdown’.
I’M SURPRISED ISLAM ISN’T MORE SUCCESSFUL WITH YOUNG WESTERN MEN: How the Feminists’ “War against Boys” Paved the Way for Islam.
October 10, 2015
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Hong Kong artificial intelligence pioneer talks immortality, the age of robots and manufacturing evil.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Andrew Sullivan: Hillary A ‘Unbelievably Useless, Terrible Candidate,’ ‘Talent-Free Hack.’
UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 16 Signs That You’re Actually a 20 Something Grandma.
LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Reopening the Bank of Mom and Dad, to Help Adult Children.
AT AMAZON, This Week’s Featured .99 Songs.
HAVING MORE SEX boosts women’s immune systems.
BAN ALL THE THINGS! Road & Track proposes banning diesel cars and SUVs: “So let’s ban them. Let’s wipe the diesel-powered passenger car from the earth. Maybe we can’t do anything about diesel heavy-duty trucks, although the idea of creating a proper gasoline-powered Kenworth seems slightly less difficult than, say, landing a remote-controlled vehicle on Mars and having it live on distant sunlight. But we can absolutely put the kibosh on diesel cars and light trucks.”
Related: So, which diesel car companies ARE following European emissions laws?
(Via Tim Blair.)
HEATHER WILHELM: A WOMAN PRESIDENT? WHO CARES?
Here we are in 2015, with the world increasingly resembling a rabid goat rodeo hosted over a flaming pit of spikes and giant rattlesnakes, and yet, amazingly, the gender police soldier on. Last week, ABC’s Jordyn Phelps hilariously labeled Carly Fiorina as “the other woman” in the race, then offered this gem of a sentence: “And while Fiorina is quick to tell voters she is not asking for their support on the basis of her gender but her qualifications, her gender identity serves as a contrast with the only other woman in the race.”
Seriously, what does this even mean? I’ve read it four times, and I still don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t worry about it: After all, these days, isn’t gender supposed to be “fluid” and a “social construct”? Don’t we have gender-neutral bathrooms in the White House now? Also, who’s really a “woman,” anyway? Isn’t that kind of exclusive and hegemonic and patriarchal? Man, I’m so tired. Friends, aren’t you tired?
Ridiculousness aside, here’s the bottom line: I don’t care if there is ever a female president, and you shouldn’t either. What I would like is a president who:
1. Actually likes human beings
2. Does not constantly act all exhausted and frustrated with the yokel dummies out in the hinterlands—that’s you and me, of course—when problems arise in America
3. Does not claim to have the power to adjust sea levels
4. Does not have a name that rhymes with Schlonald Frump
5. Understands the value of limited government and the separation of powers
6. Maybe takes notice when rogue Russian agents are trying to sell nukes to ISIS
7. Is not a closeted socialist
8. Is not an actual socialistI could go on and on, but you get my point. By the way, if that person turns out to be a woman, great! If not? That’s great, too. I’m officially off the identity politics train—which, not coincidentally, runs on the exact same tracks as the crazy train.
Found via Betsy Newmark, who adds, “Preach it, sister!”
Related: Kyle Smith on “Hillary’s desperate pitch: Did I mention I’m a woman?”
Plus a sneak preview of Hillary’s next reboot, to help attract more of those hip younger generation voters, a la Bob Hope in a hippie wig.
STUDY: DEMOCRATIC POLARIZATION EXCEEDS REPUBLICAN POLARIZATION, FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH. “This is awkward for too many people, so it will be ignored.”
Read the whole thing.
WITH A FRICKIN’ LASER! BECAUSE THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY. Scientists Control a Fly’s Heart With a Laser.
AT AMAZON, deals galore at the Men’s Denim Store.
Plus, deals on Hunting & Tactical Knives.
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THE TRAGIC ENDING TO OBAMA’S BAY OF PIGS: CIA HANDS OVER SYRIA TO RUSSIA:
One week ago, when summarizing the current state of play in Syria, we said that for Obama, “this is shaping up to be the most spectacular US foreign policy debacle since Vietnam.” Yesterday, in tacit confirmation of this assessment, the Obama administration threw in the towel on one of the most contentious programs it has implemented in “fighting ISIS”, when the Defense Department announced it was abandoning the goal of a U.S.-trained Syrian force.
But this, so far, partial admission of failure only takes care of one part of Obama’s problem: there is the question of the “other” rebels supported by the US, those who are not part of the officially-disclosed public program with the fake goal of fighting ISIS; we are talking, of course, about the nearly 10,000 CIA-supported “other rebels”, or technically mercenaries, whose only task is to take down Assad.
The same “rebels” whose fate the AP profiles today when it writes that the CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear.
The effort was separate from the one run by the military, which trained militants willing to promise to take on IS exclusively. That program was widely considered a failure, and on Friday, the Defense Department announced it was abandoning the goal of a U.S.-trained Syrian force, instead opting to equip established groups to fight IS.
It is this effort, too, that in the span of just one month Vladimir Putin has managed to render utterly useless, as it is officially “off the books” and thus the US can’t formally support these thousands of “rebel-fighters” whose only real task was to repeat the “success” of Ukraine and overthrow Syria’s legitimate president: something which runs counter to the US image of a dignified democracy not still resorting to 1960s tactics of government overthrow. That, and coupled with Russia and Iran set to take strategic control of Syria in the coming months, the US simply has no toehold any more in the critical mid-eastern nation.
And so another sad chapter in the CIA’s book of failed government overthrows comes to a close, leaving the “rebels” that the CIA had supported for years, to fend for themselves.
But then, there are lots of people on the left who are quite happy with the way the Vietnam War ended, thought the good guys won, and wish to relive the glory days:
ARE FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS REALLY WORTH 78 PERCENT MORE THAN JOE BLOW WORKERS? Latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says total compensation of 2.1 million federal civil servants is $119K vs $67K for taxpayers employed by private companies. What’s wrong with this picture?
IT ISN’T JUST NEW JERSEY RESIDENTS WHO ARE FLEEING TO THE SOUTH: 1954 Frank Lloyd Wright House Is Rebuilt Anew, Piece by Piece, in Arkansas.
(H/T: Iowahawk.)
BECAUSE POLITICIANS LIE: Why Do Senators Keep Lying About What CISA Would Be Used For?
THE REAL OBAMA DOCTRINE: Niall Ferguson charts Mr. Obama’s disastrous foreign policy in the Wall Street Journal:
The same fuzzy thinking informed Mr. Obama’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly last week, in which he first said he wanted to “work with other nations under the mantle of international norms and principles and law,” but then added that, to sort out Syria, he was willing to work with Russia and Iran—neither famed for spending time under that particular mantle—so long as they accepted the ousting of yet another Middle Eastern dictator.
A fighting chance for a better future in the Middle East? Make that a better chance for a fighting future.
It is clear that the president’s strategy is failing disastrously. Since 2010, total fatalities from armed conflict in the world have increased by a factor of close to four, according to data from the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Total fatalities due to terrorism have risen nearly sixfold, based on the University of Maryland’s Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism database. Nearly all this violence is concentrated in a swath of territory stretching from North Africa through the Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And there is every reason to expect the violence to escalate as the Sunni powers of the region seek to prevent Iran from establishing itself as the post-American hegemon.
Today the U.S. faces three strategic challenges: the maelstrom in the Muslim world, the machinations of a weak but ruthless Russia, and the ambition of a still-growing China. The president’s responses to all three look woefully inadequate.
Those who know the Obama White House’s inner workings wonder why this president, who came into office with next to no experience of foreign policy, has made so little effort to hire strategic expertise.
That’s not much a head-scratcher, considering this well-known passage from Jodi Kantor’s 2012 book, The Obamas:
Obama had always had a high estimation of his ability to cast and run his operation. When David Plouffe, his campaign manager, first interviewed for a job with him in 2006, the senator gave him a warning: “I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to give up control when that’s all I’ve known.” Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
Presumably, Obama believes such boundless omniscience extends to foreign policy as well.
(And being too insular not to give a damn about the hash you’re making of the world helps, also.)
LOOKING FOR VICTIMHOOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES: Time Magazine Celebrates ‘How Che Guevara Didn’t Let Asthma Affect His Ambitions.’
I assume someone there is also hard at work on a piece celebrating how Hitler dramatically overcame bullying and microaggressions by snooty art teachers as a young man, and how Stalin overcame numerous health issues on the way to implementing his own “ambitions.”
Related:“The Rise of the Culture of Victimhood Explained,” by Reason’s Ronald Bailey.
FASTER, PLEASE: A New Way to Fight Aging in the Brain.
PROTECTOR: Witness reportedly says French train hero was protecting woman during stabbing. “U.S. airman Spencer Stone, hailed as a hero in the French train attack in August, was protecting a woman when he was stabbed during a street fight outside a California bar, a witness says. Eric Cain, a worker at A&P Liquors, told local TV in Sacramento Thursday that he saw a man and a woman fighting and then saw Stone intervene.”
It’s usually unwise to intervene in such affrays, unless things are looking especially deadly. Which, given that Stone was stabbed, may have been the case here.