JOURNALISM: “I don’t think the press — with respect to the Trump administration — represents the people. I think the statement ‘They are the opposition party’ is much more accurate. Too bad they did that to themselves. We could use a vigorous, professional press.” We could, if such existed.

I EXPECT NOTORIOUS ROBOPHOBE MATTHEW YGLESIAS WILL APPROVE: Europe calls for mandatory ‘kill switches’ on robots.

AS ALWAYS, LIFE IN THE 21st CENTURY IMITATES ARTHUR C. CLARKE:

One aspect of the movies that won’t change in the next century is subject matter. There is no reason to believe that the traditional film genres won’t be as popular forty years from now as they were in the 1930s and 1940s. Love stories, science fiction, teenage comedies, war films, sweeping adventures, and rugged Westerns will be among the most successful movies of 2019. [On this, Clarke was slightly off; if only today’s Hollywood proffered that much variety. — Ed]

However, new technologies will make possible a different approach to the traditional themes. Computer-graphic techniques will enable producers to re-create electronically the voices and physical appearances of great movie stars from the past A new movie featuring a cast of Hollywood hall-of-famers — Jimmy Stewart, Greta Garbo, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe — isn’t just possible, it is probable once computer synthesis techniques are perfected.

Computer graphics hold myriad implications for the movies of the twenty-first century It will be more practical and cost effective to design sets and synthesize almost any location on Earth or off using computers. Special effects that now require models and miniatures can be replaced by digital picture-making. Animation, once the most visually exciting area of film, today has, except for an occasional Disney film, almost vanished. Computer graphics will cut the cost of animation in the next century, and cartoons featuring solid-looking, three-dimensional characters will breathe new life into this art form.

—An excerpt from the chapter in Clarke’s 1986 book Arthur C. Clarke’s July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century titled “A Night at the Movies,” quoted at Ed Driscoll.com in 2015, when the makers of Fast & Furious 7 digitally recreated franchise co-star Paul Walker, who had died (grimly enough) in a car crash midway through that film’s production.

We’re told that we can judge a society by how it treats its animals, and its prisoners, but what if we can judge it, too, by how it treats its celebrities (who are, in some respects, a hybrid of both)? The modern famous are, paradoxically, rare and ubiquitous. There has only been and ever will be one Sinatra, one Marilyn—and yet there they are, too, over on that shower curtain, and this cookie jar, revered banalities.

To staunch this eventuality, some celebrities have wisely arranged their estates to prevent posthumous commodification and “cyberslavery”; Robin Williams thought to block “anyone from digitally inserting him into a movie or TV scene or using a hologram, as was done with rapper Tupac Shakur at Southern California’s Coachella music festival in 2012—16 years after his murder.”

Would that others had done likewise. (I’m looking at you, Joe Strummer—but note: A mere 10 years ago, this sick campaign cost Saatchi its Doc Martens account, and they weren’t even legally in the wrong. Would the same happen today?)

But it’s disconcerting that human beings have to undertake such rearguard measures at all.

—“No Peace in the Uncanny Valley”, Kathy Shaidle, Taki’s Magazine, January 10th, 2017.

This ABC News clip – really an infomercial for Disney’s latest product, as the newsreader explains at the end of the segment – explains how the Rogue One producers digitally recreated the late Peter Cushing, and created the visage of Carrie Fisher in 1977:

As Clarke predicted three decades ago, expect much more of this technique in the years to come.

And presumably, in the music business as well.

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DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Roger Kimball on How to Deal with Trump Derangement Syndrome on Campus.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

“Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment?

That’s right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques. But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party. Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of McCain as an independent-thinking maverick had become — and called on the media and independent voters to snap out of their 2000 reverie and see the 2008 McCain for what he has turned into: a Rove-embracing Bush clone, willing to jettison his principles in his hunger for the presidency.

And now comes this latest unconscionable capitulation, which should drive a stake through the heart of the McCain-as-straight-talker meme once and for all.

McCain the maverick had been unequivocal in his condemnation of torture, and eloquent in expressing why. “We’ve sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists,” he said at an Oval Office appearance in December 2005, after he had forced the president to endorse an earlier torture ban McCain had authored and pushed through (a ban the president quickly subverted with a signing statement). “What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror.” He made a similar case on the campaign trail in Iowa in October 2007: “When I was imprisoned, I took heart from the fact that I knew my North Vietnamese captors would never be treated like I was treated by them. There are much better and more effective ways to get information. You torture someone long enough, he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to know.”

And there was this pithy and powerful summation of why torture should never be an option: “It’s not about who they are, it’s about who we are.”

Of course, all that was before he put his conscience in leg irons — and before caving to the would-be Torquemadas on the Right became his campaign strategy.”

—Rosie O’Donnell on John McCain, February 17, 2008.

[Sen. John McCain] “FOR EMERGENCY INTERIM PRESIDENT – ONE MONTH INAUGURATION PAUSE – ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENTS SHOULD NOT BE SWORN – GOD DAMN IT.”

— Rosie O’Donnell on John McCain, today. All-caps in original tweet.

Of course, this past week, as Twitchy noted, “No biggie, but Rosie O’Donnell is cool with imposing martial law to keep Trump from being inaugurated.”

Perhaps her “EMERGENCY INTERIM PRESIDENT” gambit is Rosie in a more thoughtful, introspective, nuanced, all-caps frame of mind.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Old white dons ‘unable to teach black students.’

Black students’ progress is being stalled by university tutors who are “60-year-old white men” and “potentially racist”, according to students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London.

In a report called Degrees of Racism, the student union demands that “all academics must be prepared to acknowledge that they are capable of racism”. . . .

It quotes black undergraduates who say their academic progress is being hampered by older white professors who cannot relate to them. “Both of my tutors are white men. How can I have a rapport and feel comfortable talking to a 60-year-old white man?” asks one.

Worried about racism? Try looking in the mirror, kids.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Emory College professor is calling for “abandonment of the term ‘microaggression’” and “a moratorium on microaggression training programs” in a new research study.

Faster, please.

SO A FATAL COFFEE SPILL killed the Apple “Magic” Keyboard that came with my iMac. I wasn’t too broken up about that because I never liked that keyboard. I tried substituting an old (ca. 2005) Apple USB keyboard, but it kinda sucked too. I’m not sure why exactly, but my typing was bad, and the feel was unsatisfactory. I wound up getting this Azio mechanical keyboard and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s not as good as my old IBM AT keyboard was, but it’s better than any keyboard I’ve used from Apple. The backlighting is a nice touch, and the clatter of the keys makes me feel more productive somehow.

WHAT HATH MERKEL WROUGHT? Lack of Jobs in Africa Could Spark Massive Migration to Europe.

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THE SHAUN KING OF THE NORTH: A Voice for Indigenous Canadians Defends His Claim to Be One. He looks about as Inuit as I do. But I don’t get this: “Native people should have the right to determine who should be a member of our communities.” I mean, straight white men don’t get to choose who counts as a straight white man — it’s all about how people self-identify, right?

BUT THAT WON’T STOP YOU YAMMERING AND VIRTUE-SIGNALLING, WILL IT, SPARKY? Centuries of kidnapping, torture, murder, rape. What white person can understand black lives? Not me.

REASON: The Case Against Hamilton: The hit Broadway musical was all that was wrong with 2016, and will likely be wrong with 2017, too.

On first take, I thought it sounded a bit like a University of Iowa freshman—the kind who only listens to “real hip-hop”—attempting his first mixtape. One of my Twitter followers corrected me, however. It’s closer to a Braintree elementary school making a rap song for parents’ night. The latter description hints not merely at the simple, formulaic quality of the material, but also the cloying, bourgeois quality of it all. From the reference to “ten-dollar Founding Father without a father” to “when the British taxed our tea we got frisky,” the whole affair sounds more like something made by precocious children than a professional composer.

We have Lin-Manuel Miranda to blame for this cultural atrocity, a scion of a psychologist and an advisor to New York mayor Ed Koch, who attended the same elementary and high school as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Sure, he got bullied by Immortal Technique in school, but how much street cred is that really worth? After this he attended Wesleyan University, a top-10-ranked school that costs $65,000 a year, according to Forbes, before making his mark writing jingles for noted prostitute-enthusiast Eliot Spitzer’s 2006 campaign. The original version of Hamilton debuted at a Vassar College workshop. All this is, of course, an attempt to firmly establish Miranda’s street cred, which is unassailable.

Some are irritated about the people who aren’t white playing white people, but I’m not. The whole production plays so fast and loose with the truth that it’s hard to pick any particular piece to criticize, there’s a reality correlation approximating that of the Weekly World News. At the top of the list, though, has to be casting Alexander Hamilton as some sort of proto-multicultural progressive. That’s either stupidity or mendacity, take your pick. Hamilton was, if anything, the most aristocratic of the Founding Fathers, the closest thing to a Colonial Tory. You know that electoral college you’ve been gnashing your teeth over for the last couple months? Guess whose idea that was?

Of course, shit music and feels-over-reals weren’t the whole problem with America in 2016—and they aren’t the biggest deal facing us in 2017, either. No, the worst thing about this present moment in time is the smugness with which zillionaires and their sycophants on the coasts piss all over anyone who does actual work for a living.

That’s not just one of the main reasons that Trump won the election. That attitude makes for garbage art.

Read the whole thing.

CLARICE FELDMAN: The Trump Dossier Puts the Deep State in Deep Doo-Doo. “As you will see, the dossier is so ridiculous, if anyone in the Intelligence Community fell for it, he’s too stupid to allow in place, and if no one did but they still played a role in publicizing it, everyone involved needs to be fired.”

DON SURBER: The Press’s New Mission: Save The Bureaucracy.

HEALTH: Yellow Fever Outbreak in Brazil Prompts a State of Emergency.

The governor of the Minas Gerais State in southeastern Brazil declared a public health emergency on Friday over an outbreak of yellow fever that appears to have killed at least 10 people so far and led to reports of more than 100 suspected cases of the disease.

The state authorities said Friday they were investigating 133 suspected cases of yellow fever, of which 20 were considered probable, pending further testing. They said they were also looking into reports of 38 deaths, 10 of them suspected of being caused by yellow fever, according to the State Health Secretariat’s website.

The state health authorities said the number of suspected cases had more than doubled in recent days: 48 suspected cases had been reported as of Wednesday, and that figure rose to 110 on Thursday.

According to the World Health Organization, yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, nausea and vomiting. A small number of patients develop severe symptoms, and about half of those die within seven to 10 days.

With so many mosquito-borne diseases on the upswing, I guess we should be grateful that there’s at least a vaccine for this one.

THE MAN WHO LOST THE DEMOCRATS A THOUSAND ELECTIONS SAYS HIS WORK ISN’T FINISHED: Obama and His Movement Prepare to Challenge President Trump. And despite all the puffery packed into this NBC story, the conclusion is what matters: “The Democrats’ huge losses in terms of state legislative, gubernatorial and congressional seats during Obama’s eight years in office may reduce his credibility in telling party leaders what to do in the future.”

UPDATE: From the comments:

There’s one: the tradition that ex-Presidents back out of politics and mostly stay out of their successor’s way regardless of party. That’s a valuable, important institution in American politics. It goes back to George Washington (who retired to his farm). And, of course, the press is totally whitewashing that.

Well, one more American political tradition in the crapper. I have a feeling it will do even his own party more harm than good. Notice also that Obama’s special criterion for violating the tradition is if Trump backs policies that are “not who we are”. IE whenever Obama feels like it.

There’s another American tradition. The respect and deference shown to past American Presidents, even the bad ones. That tradition exists in large part because ex-presidents are no threat politically to current ones. Their job is to be the grown-ups, elder statesmen who protect the system as a whole (typing this, I’m seeing why Obama’s incapable of that role) and quietly work to foster the future of their party. If Obama’s going to cater to his own narcissism and remain defiantly on stage heckling President Trump, then there’s no reason for Trump to show any deference and respect to Obama.

Obama and the media will surely try to have it both ways: he’ll be marching around picking political fights, while acting wounded and disappointed when he isn’t treated like a non-combatant. American political traditions only exist insofar as they serve immediate democrat political expediency. Otherwise, if they’re mentioned at all it’s as antiquated foolishness.

Yeah, pretty much.

THE NEW FACE OF THE RESISTANCE:

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: University Of Washington Delays Launch Of New Law School In Tacoma. Not enough people want to be lawyers.

GERMANS IN THE ARDENNES: Winter combat in a dense forest. Today’s StrategyPage Battle of the Bulge photo and another one that’s new to me. It’s sourced to a German archive. The caption says the photo was snapped December 22, 1944. The grenadier in the foreground is carrying an assault rifle.

UNKNOWN INDIVIDUALS ATTACK MOSUL HOME OF ISLAMIC STATE SENIOR LEADER: Can’t vouch for the source or its accuracy.

Unidentified individuals attacked the house of an Islamic State’s senior leader, north of the city of Mosul, a local source told Shafaaq News on Sunday.

The source said, “Unidentified individuals attacked the house of Omran Abu Mariam, the Islamic State’s leader in Diwan al-Harb (War Council), in al-Arabi neighborhood, north of Mosul, using hand grenades.”

“No casualties were reported so far, but the terrorist group started to lose its control over many areas in Mosul,” the source added on condition of anonymity.

A militia action? Who knows. The long house-to-house city fight for Mosul continues.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “While everyone was banging on about Trump being Hitler, Obama sent thousands of troops into Poland. The satire is writing itself these days.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Famed French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy: Anti-Zionism Is the New Dressing for the Old Passion of Antisemitism.

A SMALL VICTORY FOR FREEDOM: Tesla Autopilot Will Let You Speed After All. Plus: “If the majority of drivers stuck religiously to posted speed limits, that would be one thing. But very few people actually drive exactly the speed limit in a 35-mph zone. Considering that interrupting the flow of traffic is more dangerous than driving with the flow of traffic, this change may actually make Autopilot safer than before.”