THE ROLE OF “FAMILIAR STRANGERS.” “The researchers classified human relationships into four types: in-roles (who include colleagues, classmates, and others who we are acquainted with and see on a regular basis), friends (those who we are acquainted with, but do not see regularly), strangers (those who we are neither acquainted with nor see regularly), and familiar strangers (those who we see regularly but are not acquainted with). . . . They found that strangers made up the largest percentage of relationships, followed by familiar strangers. Both types of strangers greatly surpassed the percentage of social acquaintances, with in-roles being the third most common relationship type, followed by friends.”
Archive for 2016
December 10, 2016
BUT IT WAS NECESSARY TO DESTROY IT IN ORDER TO SAVE IT: ‘I Love the Senate’: Harry Reid Says Goodbye to Congress.
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BITE YOUR MAO TSE-TUNG! Marxist Vegan Cafe Closes After Bad Service Complaints.
“‘Good riddance,’ wrote Reddit user Bikemarrow after news of the closing on November 30. ‘The concept was terrible. Hours lousy. Service unacceptable.’” Do not miss the photo atop the article showing the Grand Rapids restaurant’s mural of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong. Wouldn’t the customers choosing to dine at such an establishment appreciate bad service and lousy hours as part of the whole Soviet experience?
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Noise-Limiting Headphones Can Still Damage Children’s Hearing. “Half of 30 sets of children’s headphones tested did not restrict volume to the promised limit. The worst headphones produced sound so loud that it could be hazardous to ears in minutes.”
THE FORMER OWNERS OF THE WASHINGTON POST MORPHED INTO THE MORAL MAJORITY SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED:
Shot:
In May 1981, however, affiliate managers from Salt Lake City, Utah; Biloxi, Mississippi; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Columbia, Missouri, told me they were not experiencing any upsurge of fundamentalist mail. Nevertheless, the networks were convinced the popular pendulum was swinging away not just on the matter of homosexuality, but from titillation shows featuring the female body. What the industry called the “jiggle” genre had been distinctly overexposed. On top of this, the Coalition was beating the drums, mobilizing a public mood— not the only public mood, but never mind that— and intimidating frightened advertisers. Norman Lear organized People for the American Way, to fight the New Right, but he along with other Hollywood liberals shared the Reverend Wildmon’s distaste for smarmy sex jokes, and Reverend Wildmon’s distaste for smarmy sex jokes, and what he called “reprehensible” jiggling. No prominent voice in the industry, except for the producers of shows like Three’s Company (who warned against another wave of Red Channels-style blacklisting), was prepared to stand up for T&A. The upshot was that by the fall of 1981, jiggle was conspicuous by its absence from the new schedule, and the half-draped, alluring male body was more evident than that of the female.
The “far righteous” had succeeded in their limited objectives…But the Bible Belt had already sent the networks a message guaranteed to reverberate through network corridors for a long time to come.
—Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 1983.
Chaser:
—Slate, the last Internet redoubt of the Graham family, which owned the Washington Post for decades, yesterday. As Iowahawk tweets in response, “remember: attractive women in bikinis = misogyny, Lena Dunham in bikini = brave & inspiring.”
To study — for purely educational reasons — to better understand the looming Red State menace, click here for numerous additional examples of gross disgusting misogyny approved by the incoming labor secretary.
OBAMA VOTER ANN ALTHOUSE NOT IMPRESSED WITH JIFFY-POP CIA REPORT ON RUSSIAN HACKING AND THE ELECTION:
How does that evidence support the finding that the Russians were trying to help Trump and hurt Hillary — as opposed to just hacking into everything they could? Are senior Obama administration officials reliable in making that leap or is this political junk?
There’s also the evidence that “it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public” (through Wikileaks). You have to interpret that evidence. Republicans say “their networks were not compromised, asserting that only the accounts of individual Republicans were attacked.” The NYT cites a “senior government official” corroborating that position.
The NYT also raises the theory that the Russians — like most people — assumed Hillary was going to win, and they weren’t trying to defeat her, but undercut her presidency. In this theory, they weren’t so concerned with hurting Trump because they didn’t think he’d win.
I’m reading these new conclusions as political junk.
Yep. But, you know, the past several decades haven’t been good ones for the “intelligence community.”
UPDATE: From the comments at Althouse: “During the 2012 campaign the left and media roundly mocked Romney for saying that Russia was our number one geopolitical foe. Now that they’ve lost this election, they’re suddenly finding Ivan behind every bush, tree and rock. Sad!”
Plus: “I can’t believe all these people who love Obama so much are falling for this! Surely Obama would not have let this happen!!!”‘
And: “Are our intelligence agencies so weak they can’t pick up on Russia interfering with our elections and then stop it? I’m impressed that the ‘deep dive’ ordered yesterday is already completed. Sounds legit.”
PAUL KRUGMAN MORPHED INTO JOE McCARTHY SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Acceptance? NEVER! Conspiracy-spotter Paul Krugman’s simmering election ‘rage’ is about to boil over.
To be fair, Krugman’s transitional period in 2009 as a Nixon worshipper with a strange UFO obsession may have been an early clue as to where his worldview was ultimately trending.
WELL, WE CAN HOPE: The Hard Left’s War Against Donald Trump Threatens To Terminally Damage The Left. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who were lukewarm on Trump, or even anti-Trump, who have swung his way because of the over-the-top attacks by the left since the election.
THIS TRAUMA CENTER THAT HELPS MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES ADJUST TO ADULT LIFE IS FASCINATING, HORRIFYING:
Thomas Szasz is not the hero we deserve, but the one we need right now.
That’s the implicit takeaway from Fusion‘s impressive profile of Yellowbrick, a mental health facility and trauma center for a certain kind of patient: relatively privileged millennials who can’t seem to adjust to the demands of adult life.
Based on my reading of the Fusion story, there doesn’t seem to be anything especially wrong with these people, in a medical sense—or, put another way, they’re suffering from the same kinds of fears, traumas, and stresses that plague practically everyone. But the patients have been convinced—scammed may be the better word—to believe that their struggles are diagnosable, treatable, and fixable. With the right therapy and medicine, and for the right price, 20-somethings who can’t hold jobs, finish school, or form lasting relationships will be transformed into fully functioning adults.
Did I mention that Yellowbrick costs $28,000 per month? There’s that. Patients must commit to stay at least 10 weeks, but many stay much longer—until their parents run out of money.
My father told me many tales of the Progressive transition center he attended as a young man in New Jersey, after a rather prominent Hawaiian safe space zone was rudely violated in December of 1941. The cost of tuition was much cheaper, its methods a bit rougher in those less enlightened days, but the end results were surprisingly impressive.
IN THE MAIL: From Larry Correia & John Ringo, Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Up to 60% Off Travelpro Luggage.
And, also today only: Save on BARSKA safes, optics, and more.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1311.
BURROWING IN: Obama Political Appointees to Continue as Career Employees Under Trump.
After President Barack Obama exits office, at least 88 of his political appointees will likely remain working in the federal government under a Donald Trump administration, according to numbers from the Office of Personnel Management.
From Jan. 1, 2010, through Sept. 30, 2016, federal agencies selected 112 political appointees for career civil service jobs. Of those, the Office of Personnel Management approved 88 and rejected 24.
Unlike political appointees, federal workers in the civil service system are hired through a merit system, are difficult to fire, and carry over during administration changes, Republican or Democrat.
Political appointees are allowed to transition to career federal jobs, but under the law, they are supposed to go through the same merit-based selection process as other applicants.
“Selecting civil servants based on ideology instead of qualifications results in a less effective, more politicized bureaucracy,” Henry Kerner, assistant vice president of Cause of Action Institute, said in an email to The Daily Signal Tuesday. “Burrowing also provides the outgoing presidential administration the ability to reward its allies by stacking agencies with politically-aligned people who will be less inclined to help implement the new administration’s priorities.”
The next Congress should turn its attention to reforming the civil service laws. What we have now is a politicized monoculture of Democrats anyway, so the notion of a “nonpartisan” civil service is a joke.
TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: Kellyanne Conway Says Kids Matter To Working Moms, Lefty Media Loses Its Mind.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: What Gun Groups Want From Trump.
MORE AMERICAN SPECIAL OPS TROOPS TO SYRIA: They’ll deploy for the assault on Raqqa.
The US is sending 200 more military personnel to help fight the Islamic State group in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, the US defence secretary says.
Speaking at talks on Middle East security, Ash Carter said the troops would include special forces trainers, advisers and bomb disposal teams.
They will join 300 US special forces who are already in Syria.
RELATED: Rebel apocalypse in Aleppo.
JON GABRIEL: How Anti-Trump Hysteria Is Actually Helping Trump.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Fate Of Arts Education In The Age Of The Microaggression.
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WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Subprime Lite. “We have characterized the revised rule as subprime lite. Whether the rule makes sense as public policy is debatable. On the one hand, loans can be made without the borrower’s having sufficient equity to provide an incentive against default. Borrowers may also find themselves with insufficient income to cover the monthly payment. On the other hand, the retained statutory provisions concerning negative amortization loans, interest only loans, balloon payment loans, etc. may prevent the worst excesses of the subprime period. That being said even lower lending standards may be quite possible in the future.”
LIST: The Ten Most Underrated Law Schools In America. Florida International University — the public law school in Miami — is on the list, and it’s a great place. Among other things, it’s where InstaPundit co-blogger Elizabeth Price Foley teaches!
ACCOUNTABILITY: Judge denies Mass AG Healey’s request to postpone court appearance.
Kinkeade has demanded that Healey appear in his courtroom Tuesday for a deposition about her investigation into Exxon Mobil aimed at determining whether the $171-billion Texas-based corporation has deceived consumers and investors about the potential environmental hazards of fossil fuel.
Exxon Mobil has accused her of moving on the probe for political reasons, and Healey, who has vowed to fight the order, filed a petition with the Fifth Circuit appellate court asking it to intervene and toss out Kinkeade’s demands for her to appear — which she’s slammed as an “abuse of discretion.”
The appellate court has yet to respond to her request.
She’s lucky she’s not being charged with civil rights conspiracy.