Archive for 2015
May 6, 2015
WHEN THE 21ST CENTURY TURNS CREEPY: Japan Engineers Design Robotic Bear to aid in Assisted Suicide. “The growing suicide rate, as well as the senior population is becoming an increasing concern. Hospital Staff, and Suicide Assistant Volunteers from the JSDD are required to help euthanize those who are unable to themselves due to physical, or psychological reasons. To aid these carers and volunteers, the JSDD-Orient Industry Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robotics Research in the Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo has designed an assisted suicide support robot with the face of an innocent, loveable cartoon-like bear to aid patients in self-euthanasia named SeppuKuma.”
UPDATE: Snopes says it’s a hoax. Is it just me, or is it getting harder to tell parody from reality these days?
95-YEAR-OLD VETERAN FIGHTS OFF ROBBER WITH CANE: ““He wasn’t very aggressive, but I was.”
Plus: “As for what he’ll do next time he’s out alone, the vet who lived through the invasion of Okinawa 70 years ago told WMUR, ‘My .357 Magnum will be with me all the time.'”
Good strategy. I’ve been thinking of learning about cane fighting in preparation for my old age. Or I guess I could just get a sword cane and give some young punk the surprise of his life. Though I suppose the .357 Magnum would do that, too.
JUDGING FROM WHAT I SAW ON TWITTER, FOX NEWS — AND SOME OF ITS STARS LIKE BILL O’REILLY AND MARTHA MACCALLUM — SERIOUSLY DAMAGED THEIR BRAND WITH THIS: Fox News personalities get behind ‘I support free speech, but…’
I guess if I wrote for the Daily Caller I wouldn’t be allowed to write this but . . what the hell, Fox?
UPDATE: Greta Van Susteren was so far off-base that she got chastised by the Washington Post. I wonder if her Scientology connections account for her performance on this issue?
HMM: Chlamydia Outbreak Hits Texas High School With No Sex Ed. So lack of sex ed leads to the spread of STDs, huh? And that it’s in Texas is a special bonus — it’s always fun to bash Texas!
But I guess this means they don’t have sex ed in Sweden, either. Sweden Is The STI Capital Of Europe. “Sweden has been named the sexually transmitted infection capital of Europe. Data from more than 3,500 STI consultations across Europe shows that Swedes seek the most advice for symptoms of STIs. . . . The data, from online clinic HealthExpress, also shows that there has been a significant rise in the number of reported cases of STIs across Europe in the last decade – Sweden experienced a 38 per cent rise in chlamydia and gonorrhoea cases in recent years.”
Stupid Swedes. Why don’t they get over their prudishness and educate themselves about sex? And what about those dumb Norwegians? Norway Is Europe’s ‘Herpes Hot Spot.’ Who knew that abstinence-only sex ed was so common?
WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST: It’s Time To Bring The Hammer Down On Hate Speech In The U.S. Personally, I think violent talk about the need to “smash patriarchy” is hate speech and should be brutally suppressed.
Related: Australia Must Have Zero Tolerance for Online Hatred. I agree. The term “White Privilege” is racist, and those who use it should be forcibly re-educated.
COULD CLINTON GO FURTHER ON EXECUTIVE AMNESTY?: Yes. She says so, and when a President makes up categories– out of thin air–of individuals who are entitled to stay (and obtain work authorization) in the name of “prosecutorial discretion,” the next President can just keep making new, additional categories. That’s why it’s lawless, and utterly unconstitutional. But unless Texas and the other 25 States succeed in their legal challenge to President Obama’s immigration actions, future Presidents will be able to do whatever they want.
Next question?
MEET THE VAGINA VOTERS: The women voting for Hillary because she’s a woman are setting feminism back a hundred years.
“I intend to vote with my vagina.”
Have you ever read a more squirm-inducing sentence than that? It appeared in a pro-Hillary piece in Dame magazine, written by a person with a vagina who intends to vote for Clinton because she also has a vagina.
Let’s leave aside the unfortunate image conjured up by that sentence (“You can hold a pencil with that thing?!”) The bigger problem with such unabashed declarations of “vagina voting” is that they confirm the descent of feminism into the cesspool of identity politics, even biologism, and its abandonment of the idea that women should be valued more for their minds than their anatomy.
Kate Harding, the vagina voter in question, isn’t only going to vote with her vag—she’s also going to tell everyone about it. “I intend to vote with my vagina. Unapologetically. Enthusiastically… And I intend to talk about it,” she wrote in Dame.
She thinks Hillary would be a great president because she “knows what it’s like to menstruate, be pregnant, [and] give birth.”
Well, okay then. You know, if you could show this kind of stuff to the suffragettes of a century ago, I wonder if they’d have just gone home and abandoned the 19th Amendment as a bad idea. I can’t imagine they’d be impressed.
CHANGE: New York to Adopt a Uniform Bar Exam Used in 15 Other States.
New York State will begin using a standard bar examination given in 15 other states next summer, making it the largest state so far to adopt what amounts to a national credential for lawyers, the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, announced on Tuesday.
While other states already use the test, the so-called Uniform Bar Examination, Judge Lippman said in an interview that he expected the move by New York to result in a “domino effect” with the remaining states, given New York’s prominence in the legal world.
Missouri, in 2011, was the first to offer the uniform test, but the nation’s most populous states — California, Texas and Florida — still run state-specific bar exams.
It’s going to be awfully hard to justify anything short of reciprocal recognition of legal credentials as this spreads. It may — and probably should — mean effective national licensing for attorneys.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law School Hunger Games? Profs Debate The Ethics Of Conditional Scholarships.
SO LONG AS THAT’S ALL IT HITS: The World’s First Self-Driving Semi-Truck Hits the Road. Truck drivers, you’re looking at a major job-hit starting in 10-15 years.
REMEMBER, SHE’S A RISING DEMOCRATIC STAR: L.A. Times: Aide to Kamala Harris, 2 others accused of running rogue police force. (Bumped, because this is too good to miss).
INSERT HILLARY EMAIL JOKE HERE: Two-dimensional material seems to disappear, but doesn’t. “When exposed to air, a luminescent 2D material called molybdenum telluride (MoTe2) appears to decompose within a couple days, losing its optical contrast and becoming virtually transparent. But when scientists probed further, they found that the disappearance is an illusion: the material remains structurally stable, and only its material properties change.”
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanothreads Formed From Smallest Possible Diamonds.
SOME MAY FIND THIS “PROVOCATIVE:” Kansas City Mosque That Wanted to Ban Free Speech Will Hold Funeral For TX Jihadist Nadir Soofi.
RICK PERRY FLIPS ON EX-IM BANK: In a Wall Street Journal oped today, former Texas Governor Rick Perry announces he has changed his position on the U.S. Export-Import Bank, now opposing its reauthorization:
Next month, the bank comes up for reauthorization again—but this time I can’t get on board. I have been deeply disturbed by recent revelations of corruption and bribery at the institution. On April 13 the Justice Department announced that a former Ex-Im loan officer, Johnny Gutierrez, had pleaded guilty to accepting bribes on 19 separate occasions from people with interests before the bank. Michael McCarthy, Ex-Im’s acting inspector general, has told Congress that there are 31 corruption and fraud investigations into the bank still pending.
Those at Ex-Im who have abused the public trust must be pursued to the full extent of the law. But it may be that the best way to mend Ex-Im is to end it.
Perry’s right: The Bank should be allowed to die. As George Will recently put it,
The bank, which exists to allocate credit by criteria other than the market’s preference for efficiency, mirrors the market-distorting policies of foreign governments. These policies favor those countries’ exports that compete with America’s. Much of what the bank does is supposedly to “level the playing field.”
Revelations about Ex-Im Bank officials’ receipt of kickbacks should be the nail in this New Deal vestige’s coffin. But Perry will take some political heat if/when he decides to announce his 2016 presidential bid. But Republican realization–at least the tea party wing of the GOP–that the Bank is just a form of progressive corporate welfare isn’t unique to Perry. Unfortunately, Republican establishment types such as House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have mouthed opposition but are being (typically) wishy-washy and proceeding to floor votes allowing reauthorization.
It just goes to show you: The “business community” is now addicted to corporate welfare and crony capitalism, and the Democrats (and their establishment Republican comrades) are enabling the addiction.
PERMISSIONLESS INNOVATION: So Far, Few Laws Against Autonomous Cars.
AT AMAZON: Outdoor Gear Deals.
I’D RATHER HAVE ROSIE THE ROBOT: Every Trash Can Needs a Dust-Sucking Vacuum on the Bottom: Burn your stupid dustpans.
PAUL RAHE: A Warning to Republicans Nationwide.
On Tuesday, as I reported, the voters in Michigan went to the polls to vote on a sales tax increase aimed in part – but only in part – at repairing the state’s disintegrating roads. The turnout was far larger than I expected. Something like one voter in four actually showed up – and the results were a sharp rebuke to Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican establishment in Michigan. Although the Republicans scheduled this vote at a time when only those guaranteed to profit from the measure were apt to be paying attention — and although the road-building lobby outspent the opposition by more than twelve-to-one — the voters rejected the initiative four-to-one. This was the most resounding defeat for a ballot initiative since the current Michigan constitution was adopted in 1963. If Snyder and his not-so-merry men were up for reelection tomorrow, they would be voted out in a landslide. That is what happens when a political party betrays its base.
Yes, that’s a warning for people smart enough to see it. Which may not include the Republican establishment.
IN A PROGRESSIVE STATE LIKE TENNESSEE, THIS WOULDN’T BE AN ISSUE: Cops, Prosecutors Disagree on Whether Freddie Gray’s Knife Was Legal. How was he supposed to know? Here in Tennessee, the answer is always, “it’s legal,” as automatic knives (switchblades), and fixed blades of any length, are legal to carry.
It’s not that way in states like Maryland, or New York, where convoluted laws are used disproportionately to target black people. Why do New York and Maryland lawmakers hate black people and want them imprisoned or killed?
HE’S A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER: Chris Cuomo’s Constitutional Ignorance Brings Together Left, Right In Contempt.
UPDATE: CNN Anchor Says Constitution Doesn’t Protect Hate Speech, Try Reading It. Okay, Let’s Do That. “Spoiler: Hate speech actually is protected.” Plus: “Chris Cuomo is co-host of CNN’s morning show. He’s also a former law and justice correspondent for ABC News. He has a law degree from Fordham University and is a licensed attorney. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is his brother.” Neither of them seems much of a friend to the Bill of Rights.
Question: Will any journos ask Andrew Cuomo if he shares Chris’s view of free speech?