OF COURSE, IF EVERYBODY DID THIS? What happened when I stopped spending money for a whole year.
Archive for 2017
March 2, 2017
March 1, 2017
21ST CENTURY PARENTING: Mark Your Son As A Mama’s Boy. “All the moms at my son’s school have been gushing about the Cat & Jack line for kids since Target released it last summer. Now there’s an additional reason to love the brand: their ‘Strong Like Mom’ T-shirts that are grabbing the attention of feminist moms everywhere. . . . For boys, there is a T-shirt that says the word ‘friend’ in several different languages, ‘be the future,’ and my personal favorite, which my son owns, ‘Kindness Matters.'”
But don’t worry, there are shirts for girls, too: “For girls, the line includes T-shirts that say ‘Future President,’ ‘Future Astronaut,’ and a ‘Genius,’ written out with the periodic table.”
Plus: “For babies, there are onesies (talk about a clothing option that doesn’t need to be gendered) that say ‘My Dad Reads To Me,’ and “’Boss Lady.'”
HEY, THAT NEVER HAPPENED UNDER OBAMA: Illegal immigrant detained after press conference. “Moments after an immigrant spoke out about her fears of deportation, she was detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Daniela Vargas, 22, was detained by ICE agents Wednesday morning, shortly after speaking at a news conference in downtown Jackson, according to her attorney, Abby Peterson. The news conference was hosted by local immigration attorneys, churches and the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance to bring attention to families impacted by deportation.”
WOW, SCOTT ADAMS IS RIGHT: TRUMP REALLY MUST BE A MASTER PERSUADER: Democrat calls himself a Republican in response to Trump speech.
MARK RIPPETOE: Why Your Kids Should Be Lifting Weights.
HAVE THEY NO DECENCY? NO DECENCY AT ALL? Associated Press Attacks Trump’s Tribute to Ryan Owens.
NYT OP-ED WRITER AWAKENS FROM 8-YEAR NAP, SHAMES TRUMP FOR USING TELEPROMPTER.
It’s Andrew Rosenthal, who invented the fake news about George H.W. Bush and the supermarket scanner, so you can take his opinion on Republican presidents and electronic devices to the bank.
EMPHASIS ON “TRIES:” A Physics Prof Tries to Justify Campus ‘Diversity’ Policies.
Honestly, either of my grampas would have been more entertaining. Though they both would probably have backed Trump.
I WAS THERE FOR THIS: Andrew Breitbart Declares War On The Media. Hard to believe he’s been gone 5 years.
HMM: Trump’s Immigration Orders Are About Long-Term Demographics.
Behind President Trump’s efforts to step up deportations and block travel from seven mostly Muslim countries lies a goal that reaches far beyond any immediate terrorism threat: a desire to reshape American demographics for the long term and keep out people who Trump and senior aides believe will not assimilate.
In pursuit of that goal, Trump in his first weeks in office has launched the most dramatic effort in decades to reduce the country’s foreign-born population and set in motion what could become a generational shift in the ethnic makeup of the U.S.
Trump and top aides have become increasingly public about their underlying pursuit, pointing to Europe as an example of what they believe is a dangerous path that Western nations have taken. Trump believes European governments have foolishly allowed Muslims with extreme views to settle in their countries, sowing seeds for unrest and recruitment by terrorist groups.
This jibes with what a commenter said last night when I remarked that I didn’t like Trump’s paid family leave proposal:
I used to hate stuff like this as recently as a year ago, but if immigration’s getting cut off (rightfully so), the US is going to need to do something about its native birth rates. Right now the situation is that younger professional women have an easier time climbing the ladder than middle-aged ones, which means they put off children until their late 30s or early 40s so as to not interrupt this momentum. By that time, it can be too late in some cases and in others, they’ll only have 1, when the health of the state requires 2 or 3. Something needs to be done to change this calculus. We can’t have a system where our smart, successful middle to upper middle class women don’t have kids or barely have them. And a tax credit doesn’t get the job done.
Given the choice between twisting business’s arms in a way that makes me uncomfortable and demographic/fiscal destruction (god knows what happens to Medicaid and SS if our birth rates start looking like Japan’s), I’d rather grit my teeth and twist away.
Hmm.
IT’S WHAT THEY DO: Your state is soaking you for beer money.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: THE RETURN OF MAGIC.
Too many everyday things are already indistinguishable from magic to the average man. Four centuries ago everyone knew how everything in their village worked. Even a hundred years ago an intelligent person could figure out how anything he would likely encounter, even the steam locomotive. But today people are surrounded by things about whose workings they haven’t a clue. Medical devices, synthetic pharmaceuticals, designer pathogens. The proportion of those who can explain the world is gradually shrinking.
Cell phones, robots, mesh nets, remote imaging, data mining, stealth, invisible lethal chemicals and contagious diseases exist cheek by jowl with ox drawn carts, subsistence agriculture, illiteracy and fanaticism around Mosul and in other global cities. You hear the chants in the video. “Let the missile hit the tank. Let the missile hit the tank.” Epistemologically they are found objects like the Palantir or mithril coat described in the Lord of the Rings, things made in the deeps of time by wizards still rumored to exist, some say in America, Europe or Asia for the wizards are so few in proportion to the planetary billions that most people will never meet one personally.
Nor is the cohabitation of primitive and advanced confined to the Third World. A recent survey found an increasing number of young American men now play video games instead of getting jobs. “Danny Izquierdo, a 22-year-old who lives with his parents in Silver Spring, Md., has found little satisfaction in a series of part-time, low-wage jobs he’s held since graduating from high school. But the video games he plays, including ‘FIFA 16’ and ‘Rocket League’ on PlayStation and Pokemon Go on his smartphone, are a different story.”
To the scene of a darkened North Korea beside a lit South Korea add the disturbing image of a young man employed at the low tech work and entertaining himself with a console of superlatively magic technology. The West has become a place of magic too. This alienation of man from his former world is reflected in Western politics. Too many when asked where food comes from will reply, ‘the store’. If quizzed how cell phones work they might at best explain ‘you get a subscription’. And who pays for health care? Even Bernie Sanders might reply ‘the government’ — so that the taxpayers won’t have to.
With magic multiplying rather than receding, the latest trend in progressive politics is to question why anyone should work or learn skills at all.
That will turn out well.
CHEAP AND ATTRACTIVE: How Ikea’s Billy bookcase took over the world.
THIS TECH IS JUST THE BEGINNING: Home Assistants Like Amazon Echo Could Be a Boon for Assisted Living.
PAUL KRUGMAN ON ELECTION NIGHT: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”
The Wall Street Journal, just now: Dow Surges 303 Points to Top 21000 for First Time. “The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 300 points to cross 21000 for the first time Wednesday, as investors embraced optimism from President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve officials. Stocks have soared since November, with the blue-chip index surpassing 19000, 20000—and now 21000—since Election Day.”
Stocks will drop sooner or later, of course, but that won’t vindicate Krugman, who claimed on election night that Trump’s election was an immediate economic and financial apocalypse.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard administrators are accused of embezzling $110,000 meant for disabled students and spending it on luxuries including sex toys. “DeMarco, 33, who worked at Harvard Law School as Director of Student Affairs from August 2008 until November 2013, was confronted at a her current workplace, Babson College.”
At Babson, she’s the Associate Director of Programs for the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Babson, you may recall, is the place that persecuted two male students for cheering Donald Trump’s victory. Maybe Babson President Kerry Healey should pay more attention to hiring decisions, and less to political witch-hunts.
FORMER MISS USA: Donald Trump made me great again.
I was 20 in 2006 when I was crowned Miss USA. Few people knew my name and my “Miss USA story.” Later that year, millions knew my name because of my real story, the story I didn’t want shared. I became famous as “Mess USA” when my boss — now the president of the United States — tossed me into rehab after I tested positive for cocaine. Rather than strip me of my crown or add to the negative press with a humiliation campaign, Donald Trump surprised me, and shocked the world, when he held a news conference and declared: “Tara is going to be given a second chance.”
It was 10 years ago that I got out of treatment, and I thank him for my 10 years of recovery. I will always be profoundly grateful. He saved my life and, essentially, made me great again.
Huh. That doesn’t fit the narrative.
WHY IS SILICON VALLEY SUCH A CESSPIT OF SEXISM AND MISOGYNY? Tesla engineer sues over sexist workplace culture.
BECAUSE THE DNC-MSM NEEDED AS BIG A DISTRACTION AS POSSIBLE FROM TRUMP’S SPEECH TODAY. Oprah on running for president: It never occurred to me before that you could do so with no experience.
Really? Not even in 2008?
VIDEO: Watch a Liberal Bro Student Calmly Destroy the Berkeley College Republicans’ Property.
Plus this classic exchange:
“You just vandalized our property,” said the person recording the video.
“Yeah,” replied the perpetrator. “I did.”
You can watch the video below: it’s one of the more chill acts of illiberalism I’ve ever seen. The perpetrator even asked the CR if he knows whether the sign should be composted, or placed in the trash.
“I believe that would be compost,” the CR replied, because this is Berkeley, after all.
Indeed.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The Trans Women Who Become Lesbians After Years as Gay Men. “I was raised by a feminist mother, so almost all dudes and their misogyny were a complete turn-off.”