AT HOT AIR: Film Review: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. “Andrew Breitbart famously said ‘politics is downstream of culture,’ which is the succinct answer to the not infrequent questions authors like myself get about why we’re taking up space on political news sites like Hot Air with posts about things like movies and video games. . . . Until this weekend, the story of the 2012 attack on our consulate in Benghazi has been almost exclusively in the hands of the Obama Administration (and the media, but I repeat myself), who have spun a yarn about faulty intelligence leading them to believe a Youtube video caused a spontaneous protest that turned violent and could not have been prevented or mitigated. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi now puts that story in the hands of Michael Bay. . . . Much to my surprise, Bay has instead delivered a poignant and harrowing view of the events of September 11, 2012 from the perspective of the people who were there in Benghazi as it unfolded.”
Archive for 2016
January 17, 2016
GERMANY CAN, BUT GERMANY’S CURRENT RULING POLITICAL CLASS CAN’T: Can Germany Be Honest About Its Refugee Problems?
HE SAID HE’D RESPECT YOU IN THE MORNING, BUT HE LIED: WaPo: Obama Prefers YouTube Stars To Actual Reporters.
THE ART OF THE DEAL: This is the single most stunning poll number on Donald Trump I have seen. “It’s hard to overstate how remarkable it is that the number of Republicans who could see themselves backing a Trump nomination rose 42 — FORTY TWO — percentage points in 10 months. It’s all the more remarkable when you consider that Trump was already totally known by the GOP electorate last spring, meaning that his gains since that time are almost entirely the result of him changing peoples’ minds. And it’s something else entirely when you consider how Trump got here — a mixture of bravado and anger sprinkled with a dose of controversial statements and seeming gaffes that would have felled lesser candidate many times over.”
IN THE MAIL: Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) (Silo series).
Plus, today only at Amazon: 55% off of this Rowenta 1800-Watt Steam Iron.
And, also today only: Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Harvest, $79.95 (50% off).
Plus: ProForm Pro 1000 Treadmill, $799.95 (60% off).
And: $1.99 Best-Selling Mystery & Thriller Series on Kindle.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 983.
I’M SO OLD, I REMEMBER WHEN LOW OIL PRICES WERE GOOD NEWS: Fund manager who’s been right on oil has a depressing new prediction: T. Rowe Price New Era’s Shawn Driscoll says the price for a barrel of oil could drop into the teens.
Why? Oil’s oversupply is profound and will last for at least two years, he said, and too many industry people still are in denial.
The oversupply, of course, stems from Saudi Arabia’s efforts to keep pumping to preserve market share from U.S. shale producers and other countries like Russia and Iran, which is chomping at the bit to free itself from international sanctions so it can pump oil again — at any price.
Given current demand — and without new Iranian production — “our model is saying we’re still oversupplied a million barrels a day in ’16,” said the manager of the $2.7 billion New Era mutual fund PRNEX -2.31% . “Our model for ’17 still shows oversupply with above-trend-line demand and without Iran.”
And the oversupply may be even worse than traders and investors acknowledge, because hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of new production are coming online in places like Brazil and Kazakhstan over the next couple of years.
Okay, if I were an oil investor this would be bad. And with the United States shifting from oil importer to oil exporter, our own incentives may change. But at present we’re starving a rogues’ gallery of countries that hate us — from Russia, to Saudi Arabia, to Iran — while getting cheap gas. I can live with that.
LIFE AMONG THE BARBARIANS: Bill banning child marriage fails in Pakistan after it’s deemed ‘un-Islamic.’
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OH, THOSE NEW YORK VALUES: Finally: A Public Masturbation Booth Just For Men!
LESSONS UNLEARNED:
Shot: “When South Vietnam fell…the North captured a treasure trove of American tanks, trucks and other equipment sitting in warehouses.”
—“Lessons of Vietnam — How to avoid a repeat, and why it’s crucial to do so,” Brendan Miniter, the Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2007
Chaser: “According to Reuters, the U.S.-made weaponry that fell into enemy hands including 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles, at least 40 M1A1 main battle tanks, 74,000 machine guns, and as many as 52 M198 howitzer mobile gun systems, plus small arms and ammunition.”
—“U.S. Shoots Itself In the Foot By Accidentally Arming ISIS,” the Fiscal Times, June 4th, 2015.
To be fair, “accidentally” is a perfectly cromulent substitute for the adverb “unexpectedly.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: University Of Louisville Law Professor: Law School ‘Veered to partisan agenda.’
I agree with the idea that compassion is a worthwhile and understandable objective. Indeed, it is an essential part of life. If the movement toward a “compassionate organization” were nothing more than that, who could object? However, to suggest that the law school has not adopted a partisan social agenda, and that it has not labeled non-liberals “outsiders,” is (at the very least) wrong and misleading.
There is ample evidence that the law school has veered to a partisan agenda. In a prior commentary, I discussed the diversity training conducted by the law school in collaboration with the Vice President for Diversity. At those events, faculty, staff and students were instructed to identify their religious beliefs, sexual orientation and disabilities, and attendees were ordered to clap enthusiastically (it was made quite clear that silence or even polite clapping was simply not acceptable).
Even more troubling, Professor Milligan is absolutely correct about the fact that a leftist agenda affects the classroom environment at the Brandeis School of Law. Deeply troubled by the liberal branding of the law school, and the adoption of the “social justice” mandate, a colleague had the temerity to make the following statement to his students on the final day of class last semester:
“Don’t let people here—students or faculty—pressure you to compromise your political, legal, social, or religious views. Many of our graduates look back and regret having been sheepish in expressing and developing their political views when they were at this law school. Conservative views have an equal place alongside liberal views at the Brandeis School of Law. I don’t care what the Dean says. I don’t care what your Con Law professors say. And on this point, neither should you. This is your education—not the Dean’s, not the faculty’s. Develop your political and legal views freely while you’re here. Take care. Good luck on the exam.”
What extraordinary ideas! Students should be encouraged to think for themselves. Not everyone need blindly adhere to the faculty’s (or the dean’s) liberal values.
Given the current repressive climate at the law school, perhaps the colleague should have anticipated a negative reaction to his statement. However, I doubt that he could have remotely imagined what actually happened. When the interim dean found out about the statement, she did not adopt a strong pro-free speech stance, or emphasize the importance of free speech and the exploration of ideas in a university environment. Nor did she, as one might also have expected, speak to the faculty member in order to ascertain the facts.
Heaven forbid that she follow Justice Brandeis’ admonition that “knowledge is essential to understanding and understanding should precede judging!” Instead, that very day, she marched over to file a complaint with university officials regarding the statement, and she then sent the faculty member an e-mail ordering him to schedule an appointment with the officials.
Read the whole thing.
THE EPA KNEW ABOUT FLINT MICHIGAN’S TOXIC WATER FOR MONTHS AND DIDN’T TELL ANYONE: “The EPA was looking into this almost a year ago but buried the topic in an internal food fight.” Naturally though, for the DNC-MSM, it’s still Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s fault.
SHRIMP ON A TREADMILL IS BACK AND YOU’RE STILL PAYING FOR IT: That little guy running on an underwater treadmill is a YouTube classic but the backstory is that he was part of a widely criticized research project funded by federal taxpayers. Well, he’s back and taxpayers are again funding his running in a $1.3 million National Science Foundation grant, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton. The bigger story is how NSF refuses to disclose even the most basic details about its grants. Why? Because federal laws like the FOIA are just for the little people, not federal bureaucrats.
UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY: “Let’s banish the term ‘gun control’: the better expression is ‘gun safety,'” claims the New York Times’ Nick Kristof in full Ministry of Truth mode.
I’m not sure which is crazier — reinventing the language, or “a moral sanction against gun metaphors similar to the ‘N’ word,” as one of Chris Matthews’ guests proposed immediately after Tucson.
IMPOSSIBLE. I REMEMBER OBAMA SAYING THAT RELIGIOUS TESTS WERE ALWAYS UNACCEPTABLE. Bill Maher: Is President Obama Not Coming on My Show Because I’m an Atheist?
On last night’s Real Time, Bill Maher delivered a short monologue about how President Obama has avoided coming on his show despite doing interviews with practically everyone else in the media.
Why was that? Maher wanted to know. For all the support he gave the President, it was only fair, right?
Was it because Maher was a pothead? Was it because of a lack of viewers? Was it the quality of his audience? Maher dismissed every one of those thoughts — but he also brought up the possibility that it was because he was an atheist. . . .Just to get an official response from the White House, Maher asked his viewers to sign an official White House petition to get Obama to appear on his show. If he can get 100,000 signatures in a month, the White House promises to respond.
Well, that should be amusing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Kerry: ‘Today Marks the First Day of a Safer World.’
WEE! Obama Cheers The Auto Industry Over A Cliff.
Because, really why should coal and heath insurance be the only industries he’s wrecked? (On the other hand, as with the insurance industry, the car manufacturers decided to get deeply in bed with the administration — what did they expect?)
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Scares Democrats Almost as Much as Republicans.
Republicans say publicly and privately that they’re worried that Trump will win their nomination and then get shellacked in the general election, robbing the party of necessary support in congressional races. The truth, I suspect, is they are also concerned about him winning the presidency, which would empower the tea party wing of the party and marginalize insiders.
It’s that latter scenario that suddenly has Democratic elites wringing their hands.
For a long time, they seemed content to watch Trump wreak havoc on the Republican primary field. Now, though, it’s clear they’re alarmed at the possibility he could win the presidency.
And why wouldn’t they be?
Trump’s more open to policies that appeal to Democratic voters than any of the other Republicans in the race. Though he tends not to emphasize them in the primary — for obvious reasons — he holds or has held un-Republican positions on the social safety net, taxes, campaign finance, gay rights and other issues.
That is, he would be more likely as president to find common ground with Democrats in Congress than any of the other Republican candidates, most of whom have gotten to where they are through careful attention to party orthodoxy.
While his un-Republican positions on these issues won’t win over Democratic activists who are repulsed by his rhetoric on immigration and his inarguably loutish behavior on the campaign trail, they could present a threat to the Democratic nominee holding less sticky Democrats in place. That is, he could fray the Democratic coalition in a general election.
The Cassandras in the Republican primary have been shouting into the wind that Trump isn’t really a conservative. This has also occurred to Democratic operatives.
“As offensive as Trump is, we underestimate his threat at our own peril,” veteran Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said. “I’ve heard too often about candidates who can’t win, who do. The country is divided and angry, and as bad as his ideas are, Trump will try to exploit this by appealing to those desperate for change.”
Well, the country is angry because we have the worst political class in our history. Thus, a “burn it all down” candidate is appealing to people in both parties.
FILE THIS AWAY FOR FUTURE REFERENCE:
Whoever the Republican candidate is, I hope he’s being awfully straight with his advisors over the skeletons in his closet, because it’s never too early to start wargaming responses to the inevitable October DNC-MSM “surprise.”
I’M SURE IT WILL BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS HIS OTHER INSURANCE-REFORM EFFORTS: Obama unveils plan to reform unemployment insurance.
President Obama on Saturday unveiled an unemployment insurance plan that he says will provide stability and opportunity to workers in a rapidly changing economy.
The president’s three-pronged plan includes wage insurance of up to $10,000 over two years, expanded unemployment insurance coverage and more opportunities for laid off workers to retrain and reenter the workforce.
“If a hardworking American loses her job, regardless of what state she lives in, we should make sure she can get unemployment insurance and some help to retrain for her next job,” Obama said in his weekly address.
Prediction: None of this will do much good, even if it’s enacted.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Changeling’s Island e-arc. Dave Freer is one of my oldest friends in the field, who in the dark days of 2003 talked me into staying in the game and writing more. He’s also one of the best and most offbeat writers of sf/f working today.