ANALYSIS: TRUE.
Archive for 2016
January 25, 2016
PERHAPS IT’S OUR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO ARE “SHOVEL READY.” The Flint Water Crisis Is the Result of a Stimulus Project Gone Wrong: The new water system was never a cost-cutting measure. It was an expensive jobs project.
SO IT’S KIND OF LIKE BEING A BERNIE VOTER, THEN: As Freezing Persons Recollect the Snow—First Chill—Then Stupor—Then the Letting Go.
ADVICE FROM KURT SCHLICHTER: “Buy Ammo.”
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Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. There will be more storms.
THIS WOULD REMOVE MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR MISCHIEF: Rep. Mia Love wants to limit congressional bills to one subject at a time.
Rep. Mia Love wants to crack down on Congress dumping controversial legislation into unrelated, must-pass bills in the middle of the night.
The Utah Republican has introduced a measure to limit bills in Congress to one subject at a time. It would prevent lawmakers from bundling things together or folding legislation into large appropriations bills. Each bill would rise and fall on its own merits.
“Members of both parties have made a habit of passing complex, thousand-page bills without hearings, amendments or debate,” Love said. “That process and the collusion that goes with it are why we are $18 trillion in debt and why the American people have lost trust in elected officials.”
Love’s proposal takes a page out of the Utah Constitution, which requires the Legislature pass bills containing only one subject and that is clearly expressed in the title.
The Tennessee Constitution does this too, and Tennessee courts will strike down an otherwise-constitutional bill if it violates the rule. Brannon Denning and Brooks Smith have proposed a federal Truth In Legislation Amendment along similar lines.
BURGERS AND FRIES: BEST THING FOR YOU! CDC: Listeria in Dole Salad Mixes Killed 1, Hospitalized 12.
UNTIL WE HAVE HYDROGEN FROM NUCLEAR POWER OR ORBITAL SOLAR, HYDROGEN CARS ARE PRETTY MUCH A CROCK: The High Price of Hydrogen: Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Will Sticker for Nearly $60K. Hydrogen now is made typically via steam reformation of natural gas, which is (maybe) cleaner than petroleum fuel but not by a lot. On the other hand, thanks to fracking, natural gas is plentiful and cheap. On the gripping hand, so is gasoline.
UPS AND DOWNS: So when we were in LA earlier this month, I rented a car from Sixt. The deal was a BMW 5-series “or equivalent” for 42 bucks a day. When the “equivalent” turned out to be a Cadillac CTS, I was a bit miffed, but it was actually a very pleasant car to drive — quick, taut, with comfy/sporty seats and a good nav system. It actually had a German feel to it, not the mushiness I associate with Cadillacs. On the other hand, when we drove the Insta-Daughter to the airport, it started bucking, the check engine light started flashing, and it informed me that the “Stabilitrack” traction-control was shot. After limping to the terminal to drop her off for her flight, I returned it to the Sixt place at the airport and they very quickly gave me a new one. You can’t draw a conclusion about reliability from a single incident, but this didn’t inspire confidence.
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SPANKING VS. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Why Did Born-Again Christians Lose Fight to Become Foster Parents? “Gregory and Melanie Magazu have decided they can’t afford to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, even if they wanted to. The born-again Christian couple is going to have to set aside the dream of opening their home in Fitchburg, Mass., to foster kids because they were honest enough to admit they spank their own children.”
STUDY: GARLIC EXTRACT CUTS SOFT PLAQUE IN ARTERIES. Catch: “The research was funded by a garlic extract maker.” Plus: “My advice: fix your diet first. Cut out sugar and refined foods. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods. Maybe garlic extract helps. But it is not a substitute for healthy eating. Also, do weight lifting. More muscle mass will raise the rate at which you burn calories even when sitting still. Pumping iron provides other benefits too. Pills aren’t a substitute for a healthy lifestyle.”
Well, not yet, anyway. I recommend following Taubes and Rippetoe in the interim.
UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!
SCIENCE: Chocolate is better for your cough than codeine:
According to Professor Alyn Morice, head of cardiovascular and respiratory studies at the University of Hull, chocolate is actually a more effective method for relieving a tickle (or hacking cough) than other over-the-counter drugs.
The prof–and resident cough expert–references a recent study where patients who took a new medicine containing cocoa (versus cough syrup) saw a significant improvement in their cough within two days. Another study, performed at the Imperial College of London, further explains: There’s an alkaloid in cocoa that is better at suppressing the urge to cough than codeine. Codeine.
It makes sense: Chocolate’s texture is stickier than regular cough medicines, which means it’s better equipped to coat your throat and protect the nerve endings that trigger the coughing sensation.
I say, Why take chances? Have a Ghirardelli square and a swig off the codeine cough syrup bottle at bedtime tonight.
FASTER, PLEASE: Wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis patients able to walk again after stem-cell therapy. “The treatment is being carried out at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield and Kings College Hospital, London and involves use a high dose of chemotherapy to knock out the immune system before rebuilding it with stem cells taken from the patient’s own blood. . . . ‘This is not a word I would use lightly, but we have seen profound neurological improvements.'”
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WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT CHRONIC RED EYES: “He recommends against over-the-counter eye drops designed to relieve redness. These will constrict the blood vessels and reduce redness temporarily, but the blood vessels will dilate after the effect of the drops wears off. If used chronically, these drops may cause more of a ‘rebound’ redness because of the constant constricting and dilating of the vessels.” Like nose sprays, these are best reserved for emergency situations, not regular use.
ANDREW MCCARTHY: Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal Appears Gravely Criminal. “Mind you, even the reckless mishandling of classified information is a serious crime. But all indications are that Mrs. Clinton was not grossly negligent. This was a thought-out, quite intentional violation of law.”
UPDATE: From the comments: “Mrs. Clinton could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and order somebody to stand down and she wouldn’t lose any voters.”
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: 17-year-old Indian boy burned alive for crime of being Hindu.
That’s Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln looking on in disbelief at the mess Trump is making of the American presidential election. It’s pretty funny, at first glance, but the problem with this cover is that the only thing many of those ex-presidents would find confusing about Trump is the television he’s on.
Where to start? Teddy Roosevelt backed a racist imperial war and said white women using birth control were committing “race suicide” by turning their country over to less-fair-skinned hordes. FDR, the architect of Japanese internment, actually did the thing that people are calling Trump a fascist for defending—and kept the internment camps open long after they’d been deemed unnecessary in order to win a presidential election. I don’t know what else to say about JFK other than that his personal life makes Trump look like Ned Flanders, and he started a land war in Asia we’re still recovering from. George Washington owned people and bought an election by getting people drunk. All four were born into privilege. And Abe Lincoln—okay, let’s not speak ill of the dead; that man slayed vampires.
The point here is that what is distasteful about Trump is not that he offends old-fashioned American values; Trump is distasteful because he taps into certain old-fashioned American values—nativism, brash tough talk, slow-burning authoritarianism; family dynasties—that have played a not-inconsequential role throughout our history.
And that’s without even bringing in Woodrow Wilson.
JOHN MOSES BROWNING’S BIRTHDAY WAS SATURDAY, and Tam remembers him: “We’re talking about the dude who patented the concept of the SLIDE on autoloading pistols. The guy who pretty much invented gas-operated automatic weapons. The man who made the first practical and commercially successful self-loading shotgun. The way a Glock works? Browning patented that. You don’t like old-fashioned hammer-fired guns? Browning’s first commercially successful pistol, the FN Model 1899, was striker-fired. Other than the nameless individual who first stuffed fireworks powder into a metal pot and used it to launch a ball, there’s probably no other single individual who had such an influence on firearms as we know them today.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, ACCOUNTABILITY EDITION: Mizzou Prof. Melissa Click Charged With Assault. “Melissa Click, the University of Missouri communications professor who garnered widespread scorn for trying to physically remove a student reporter from a campus protest, was formally charged with assault Monday morning. A spokeswoman for the Columbia Prosecutor’s Office said Click was being charged with third degree assault, a class C misdemeanor that carries a possible 15-day jail sentence.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Brendan O’Neill: The Violence Of The Safe Space.
The most striking thing about Safe Spaces on campus is how unsafe they are. How hostile and even violent they are towards anyone who has unpopular views, or who simply believes people should have the right to express unpopular views.
Safe Spaces are spreading across campuses in the US and the UK. They’re presented as happy-clappy therapeutic zones in which students, especially minority students, should not be subjected to gruff words or prejudicial ideas.
As one student union in Britain puts it, they’re spaces in which students must be “free from intimidation or judgement” and should always “feel comfortable”. These spaces are justified in inoffensive, Oprah-like language: it’s all about providing a space in which people can be themselves without fear of ridicule.
But in practice, Safe Spaces are ugly, authoritarian places. They’re propped up by menace. They’re fortified by a simmering threat of force against any transgressors of the new cult of psychic safety and moral conformism.
Analysis: True.