Archive for 2016
March 10, 2016
HE REALLY IS CANADA’S OBAMA: Justin Trudeau’s ‘foolish’ China remarks spark anger: ‘It seems to be that he’s not well-informed,’ Asian-Canadian says of Liberal leader. “The Liberal leader was asked which nation he admired most. He responded: ‘There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.'”
Not only is that reprehensible, it’s not even remotely true.
THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE:
Dos Equis, which is owned by Heineken, isn’t halting the campaign as much as ending the tenure of Jonathan Goldsmith, the man who has played the character since 2007.
“Fans can rest assured that Dos Equis will reveal a new Most Interesting Man in the World in 2016, as this is not the end of the campaign, but an evolution,” the company said in a statement.
The final ad for Goldsmith has “The Most Interesting Man” taking a one-way trip to Mars.
In the 60 second spot, the suave Dos Equis pitchman is bid a fond farewell from the likes of bikers, monks, beautiful women, and a grizzly bear.
“His only regret is not knowing what regret feels like,” says the ad’s narrator.
Heh, indeed.™
Goldsmith began his acting career as a blink-and-you’ll miss him red shirt performing maintenance on equipment in the corridor of the Enterprise in the first regular season episode of Star Trek to be filmed in 1966, so it’s rather fitting that he’s ending his tenure as Dos Equis’ pitchman with the Most Interesting Man in the World being dispatched to the red planet.
AND YET SCHOOLS SPEND THEIR TIME MAKING KIDS SIT STILL: Out of Shape at 18, at Risk for Future Diabetes. “Both low aerobic capacity and low muscle strength at 18 were associated with a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes; poor aerobic capacity was a slightly stronger risk factor. Having both weak muscles and low aerobic capacity more than tripled the risk for future diabetes. The effect was independent of other risk factors — body mass index, family history of diabetes, education and socioeconomic status.”
WHAT DIFFERENCE, AT THIS POINT, DOES IT MAKE? Ben Carson To Endorse Trump For President. Carson stayed in the race too long.
STEVE GREEN IS DRUNKBLOGGING TONIGHT’S GOP DEBATE; virtual refreshments for all courtesy of Trump Winery!™
MEH. IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE “HYGIENE HYPOTHESIS” THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD: Scientists: Beards Are Full Of Bacteria.
AT AMAZON, 50% or more off on Boots.
Plus, big savings on select Fishing Products.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Don’t underrate how far we’ve come.
MODEST PROGRESS, BUT PROGRESS: Georgia college students just got a little more due process.
Students attending schools that are part of the University System of Georgia will be better able to defend themselves from false accusations of sexual assault, thanks to new policies adopted by the system’s Board of Regents.
On Wednesday, the board voted to adopt new policies that would require all schools in the system to provide some due process to accused students, including the ability to have an adviser or attorney present at every stage of the investigation, hearing and appeal (accusers will also have this right). Accused students will now also receive “written notice of possible charges,” because previously they were just being made aware there was an accusation, and not the specific details thereof.
Accused students will also have the opportunity to “notify the investigator of relevant witnesses and evidence at the outset of the matter.” This sounds good in theory, but notice there is no requirement that investigators follow through with or include this information in their final report.
This lack of clarity allowed a judge to dismiss a student’s lawsuit claim that a school ignored the evidence he provided that proved his innocence (the judge in that case let many other claims stand, however). The judge ruled that the school was only required to collect the evidence and had no requirement to properly consider that evidence. The same explanation could be used to deny an accused student the ability to defend himself.
Accused students will also now have “the right to respond to the investigator’s final report in writing.” This is a good step, but one will need to see what impact such a response will have. Can the hearing panel just ignore that response? That will be the likely outcome, as these schools are still under pressure from the federal government to find accused students responsible.
Another “win” — you can sort of call it that — for accused students comes in the way the school will mete out punishment for alleged offenders. Georgia schools will have to adopt the low “preponderance of evidence” standard to determine responsibility, but if a student faces suspension or expulsion, then “substantial evidence” will need to be identified to support the finding.
Luckily for accused students in Georgia, State Rep. Earl Ehrhart is standing up for their rights and their futures. It was his intense pressure — and threat of a loss of state funding — that helped push the Board into adopting the new policies. This also means that if Georgia colleges and universities continue to deny fair investigations to accused students, one can bet Ehrhart will step in.
Good for him. This isn’t enough, but it’s progress.
THOSE DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS SHOULD BE DISCIPLINED, AND PERHAPS SUED: U of Texas Backs Professor in Dispute on Disrupted Event.
The University of Texas at Austin announced Wednesday that it found no wrongdoing by a professor in his actions in November when a lecture he organized was disrupted by pro-Palestinian students. The students interrupted the start of the lecture, which was on the Israeli military, with speeches of their own in which they criticized the Israeli military. The professor, Ami Pedahzur, then attempted to regain order and criticized the protesters, some of whom filed complaints accusing him of violating their rights and discriminating against them.
The university’s announcement Wednesday said that an investigation found the accusations against Pedahzur to be unsubstantiated. The university said policy bars it from releasing full reports on charges found to be unsubstantiated.
Protesting a speaker is fine. Stopping a speaker from speaking is disruption and should be punished. Abuse of process is wrongdoing and should be punished as well. And the off-campus organizations backing the students — and there absolutely are off-campus organizations backing the students — have deep enough pockets to be worth suing.
HMM: Claim: Hillary Grand Jury Called, FBI Looking Into Political Corruption. “Department of Justice officials have impaneled a federal grand jury in the Hillary Clinton email case and FBI agents have launched a second, separate investigation on political corruption involving the former secretary of state’s official activities and the Clinton Foundation, a former U.S. attorney told The Daily Caller News Foundation.”
I’d like it to be true, but although it’s a Richard Pollock story and he’s a decent guy, I think I’ll wait for confirmation.
WELL, THIS ISN’T GOOD: A mysterious infection may have killed 18 people in Wisconsin, and health officials aren’t sure why. “The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said that as of Wednesday, it had been informed of 48 people infected with a bacteria called Elizabethkingia since last November. Four of these infections were found in the last week.”
THIS IS WHY ALL PRESIDENTS SHOULD BE REPUBLICAN — BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES TO GET FOLKS AT THE ATLANTIC AND THE WASHINGTON POST WORRIED ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL POWER: The awesome destructive power of the next president.
See, when Obama was ramming through a complete overhaul of one of America’s biggest industries, or killing Americans with drones, or stiffing Chrysler bondholders, or implementing huge changes in college life by administrative “guidance,” it was all Ooh, Republicans are such obstructionists. But now that even the possibility of a Trump presidency looms, suddenly they’re worried.
IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? “Walmart’s customers are too broke to shop,” reads a snarky, virtue-signaling headline at Yahoo:
“Walmart is facing an almost perfect storm when it comes to top-line growth,” O’Shea wrote. “Until the health of the lower-to-middle-income consumer improves, Walmart will continue to face macroeconomic headwinds in the US.”
Walmart said last month that it’s expecting virtually no sales growth in the coming fiscal year. The company had previously projected growth of 3% to 4% for the year, but lowered its guidance last month citing the impact of the strengthening US dollar. The company’s share price has lost about 16% of its value over the last 12 months.
Despite its slowing revenue growth, Walmart continues to invest heavily in employee wages and e-commerce in an effort to stay competitive with Amazon.
Well, that’s one way to put it. As Twitchy noted in January, “’Raise the Wage’ activists last year protested Wal-Mart and demanded that the retail giant raise employee pay. Wal-Mart did raise its starting wage, but an ensuing cut in worker hours soon had progressives scratching their heads,” followed by Walmart announcing it was closing over 150 stores.
Which is reminder that even the Gods of the Copybook Headings shop at Walmart.
SO, BEER WITH LUNCH THEN? For Serious Training, Hold The Carbs At Dinnertime.
YEAH, THIS IS A LOAD OF CRAP: Trump campaign claims Michelle Fields is ‘attention seeking’ and her story ‘entirely false.’ Trump needs to fire Corey Lewandowski.
More here.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Don’t underrate how far we’ve come. Yeah, there’s actually a lot of good news out there.
I WOULD, IF THERE WERE SUFFICIENT NUMBERS OF DECENT NEW MOVIES TO WATCH: Would You Spend $50 to Watch New Movies at Home Instead of the Theater? A new startup company wants to give you the chance.
On the one hand, I like seeing a movie with an audience that’s in-tune with its atmosphere and pacing. Star Wars: The Force Awakens wouldn’t have been anywhere near as much fun without the audience cheering as each old friend first emerged on the screen. But watching a new movie at home would eliminate the downside of the movie experience these days, such as glowing – and ringing! — cell phones, and the growing number of emotional support service animals joining their owners inside the movie theater.
But is Hollywood really interested in the people in the theater anymore?
Every few decades, one medium or another decides that the audience is no longer required. After World War I, the art word tossed realism aside and lost the layman who wasn’t willing to learn the modernist codes behind what Tom Wolfe dubbed “The Painted Word.” After World War II, jazz went from swing bands playing relatively simple melodies for packed crowds across the country, to the complex harmonies and improvisations of bebop, and became an insular style for the cognoscenti – to the point where having a popular record is considered “selling out.” In journalism, once Obama was inaugurated, the news media decided it was basically “closed circuit TV for the ruling class,” as I wrote in October of 2010.
And now that Hollywood has gone full SJW, I’m pretty sure the audience is similarly optional. It certainly was based on the anemic ratings of the last Academy Awards presentation.
EVERGREEN HEADLINE: “Barack Obama is a graceless man,” Betsy Newmark writes:
He has never disguised his arrogant sense of moral superiority to those with whom he disagrees politically. And now he carries that arrogant gracelessness beyond the grave. First he skipped Justice Scalia’s funeral instead opting for a very brief drop-in at the viewing at the Court. And now he’s skipping Nancy Reagan’s funeral so he can go speak at a music festival. It’s as if he not only wants to snub the first lady of another party, but he just doesn’t like to be at an event where he is not the star. Even going to Nelson Mandela’s funeral became an occasion for a bored Obama to take selfies.
Plus this, as part of Betsy’s aggregation of today’s links: “for all their pearl-clutching at Donald Trump, Democrats have their own authoritarian impulse. They just think their motives are pure so it doesn’t matter what methods they use.”
Read the whole thing.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO STAB: Female NGO executive, 60, wanted after stabbing in Rosedale. “Police released a photo of Ellis Kirkland, 60, of Toronto, who is wanted in connection with the stabbing. Kirkland was educated at Harvard University and is a vice-president of a non-governmental organization.”
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Vote Trump, Get Dumped” — Grassroots Effort Underway to Withhold Sex From Trump Supporters:
In a statement to PJ Media, website founder and anxious wife Chandler Smith explained the effectiveness of this sexual protest:
This has a proven history of getting men’s attention when our intellectual, moral, and philosophical pleas fall on deaf (or dumb) ears. If [the website and petition] do well, Donald Trump will not be a candidate for president of the United States. Then we will go back to our normal, sexually active lives in the land by the people, for the people, and of the people.
The website references history, saying: “The Greeks did it. Women during the temperance movement did it. This is a tried and true method of getting men’s attention when they’re being dumb.”
I wonder if this latest effort will be as self-selecting as the women of the temperance movement?
COMIC BOOK DIPLOMACY: Obama elevates ISIS from ‘JV team’ to Joker from The Dark Knight.
Perhaps Obama should consult with Patrick Leahy (D-VT/Gotham City) to ascertain the best containment method.
HMM: 2017 Audi SQ7 TDI: The High-Voltage Diesel SUV. This electric-supercharger/turbocharger layering sounds a bit dubious to me. I’ll be interested to see how reliable it proves to be.
AT AMAZON, Deals Galore at Tax Central 2016.