AN ORGANIZATION THIS POWERFUL, ALREADY TALKING ABOUT INTERFERING IN ELECTIONS, OBVIOUSLY NEEDS TO BE REGULATED. PERHAPS SOME SORT OF . . . FAIRNESS DOCTRINE IS CALLED FOR. Internal poll at Facebook: “What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?” “Note that it’s a question about asking a question, not statement that there is a responsibility to stop Trump, but it’s significant that the question was posed that way — what responsibility is there. For one thing, there’s an unexamined premise that everyone already shares a political position — Trump shouldn’t win — and that speaks of a lack of political diversity and pressure on dissenters within the organization to keep silent. For another thing, it omits any thought of a counter-responsibility to keep neutral politically, the idea that the highest duty is to the freedom of speech of those who use Facebook.”
Archive for 2016
April 16, 2016
THE GOP CONTROLS THE HOUSE AND SENATE, SO THIS SHOULD BE EASY, RIGHT? Conservatives Renew Campaign to Impeach IRS Commissioner.
A NOT-SO-GREAT SOCIETY: James Piereson takes stock of the failure, and success, of Lyndon B. Johnson, at the Weekly Standard.
PERHAPS SOMETIME IN DECEMBER, OR IN 2025: Sen. Gillibrand Says Clinton Should & Will Release Wall Street Speech Transcripts.
COVER UP: PARENTS, STUDENT CONFIRM REFUGEE CHILDREN CHOKE, SLAP CANADIAN KIDS.
I’d say that Canada’s best response at this point would be to take their cue from Angela Merkel and start investigating anti-Muslim comedians, but sadly, “tolerant” Canada is way ahead of Germany in this department.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH: “Perhaps the worst thing about the new war on the internet is how Orwellian it is. The main argument made by the Guardian and other anti-troll warriors, and echoed by Maria Miller, is that if we allow people to spout whatever they want, then this will scare other people off the web, meaning, in Miller’s words, that foul online commentary can ‘actually stifle debate, lead to censorship’. So having unfettered free speech gives rise to censorship. And we need new laws that clamp down on abusive commentary in order to facilitate greater free speech. The slipperiness is astonishing. In their twisted world, free speech is censorship, and censorship is free speech.”
TRAIN WRECK UPDATE: Insurers warn losses from ObamaCare are unsustainable.
Health insurance companies are amplifying their warnings about the financial sustainability of the ObamaCare marketplaces as they seek approval for premium increases next year.
Insurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether.
“Something has to give,” said Larry Levitt, an expert on the health law at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Either insurers will drop out or insurers will raise premiums.”
While analysts expect the market to stabilize once premiums rise and more young, healthy people sign up, some observers have not ruled out the possibility of a collapse of the market, known in insurance parlance as a “death spiral.”
In the short term, there is a growing likelihood that insurers will push for substantial premium increases, creating a political problem for Democrats in an election year.
They should, since ObamaCare was always meant to collapse the private insurance industry and pave the way for single-payer. Their short-term greed caused them to back it anyway, which was stupid.
VIDEO OF THE DAY: THIS IS HOW TO CONFRONT CAMPUS CRYBABIES. “We’re all Buckeye fans now — at least until football season.”
IRS COMMISSIONER: FLAT TAX WOULD BE SIMPLER, SAVE AGENCY A LOT OF MONEY.
But of course, “Koskinen urged lawmakers to approve more funds for the IRS.”
AND SOME PEOPLE SLEEP THROUGH THEIRS: Consciousness occurs in ‘time slices’ lasting only milliseconds, study suggests.
REALITY IS THAT WHICH DOESN’T GO AWAY WHEN YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO IT. AND REALITY ALWAYS WINS: Brazil Too Distracted by Internal Problems, to Ratify the Paris Climate Agreement?
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: FIRE Aims to Challenge Legality of Federal Sexual Misconduct Mandate.
IF CHINA TURNS TO PRIVATE SPACE, WE MIGHT YET LOSE THE RACE: Visionary billionaires are leading the new space race.
WE USED TO HAVE THINGS CALLED SCHOOLS* THAT TAUGHT YOU OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCE, SO YOU DIDN’T NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL:A Hippie Discovers Economics, And You’ll Never Guess What Happens Next!
* Though the name persists in today’s indoctrination centers, it doesn’t mean the same thing at all.
THEY LOOK COOL, BUT IF THEY’RE THE FUTURE ONLY TIME WILL TELL: Is Amazon’s Dome Headquarters The Workspace Of The Future?
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS: Clinton Vows to Put Coal Miners “Out of Business”.
April 15, 2016
OOPS: Man accidentally ‘deletes his entire company’ with one line of bad code. Even the backups were deleted, though if things had been properly set up that wouldn’t have happened.
WELL, MAYBE I WILL: Wine: fancy a crisp, dry white? Then give albariño a try.
“RACIST OVERTONES” JUST MEANS “DEMOCRATS ARE UNHAPPY.” Slate says there are ‘racist overtones’ to a Senate bill that bans abortion motivated by the sex of the fetus. What’s racist about opposing sexism?
AT AMAZON, Dockers for Men.
WELL, OF COURSE: Zika Virus Can Be Transmitted Through Anal Sex, C.D.C. Says.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Vaginas Get Blue Balls Too, Trust Me.
MODERN COCKTAIL CULTURE: This Vodka’s 200 Times Hotter Than Sriracha, And It’s Only Getting Hotter.
The 500,000 Scovilles bottle of Naga Chili Vodka is nearly as strong as the weakest pepper spray on the market, which is still ridiculously painful. Still think you can handle it? Yeah, everyone does.
If you order a bottle from the Masters of Malt and have an interesting, sad or crazy story to go along with it, let me know! Also, don’t be a hero.
If anyone offers you a Dirty Bomb Martini, take a pass.