FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Nearly two-thirds of US Navy’s strike fighters can’t fly.
It’s almost as though the U.S. military just got through spending eight years getting treated to a variation of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
Archive for 2017
February 6, 2017
THE STORY OF the Risky Business Porsche 928. If I recall correctly, the real risky business about the 928 was replacing the water pump, which you had to do with great frequency.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Conspiring To Stifle Free Speech Is A Crime: Law Enforcement Needs To Put This To A Stop. Plus, a call for legislation banning political viewpoint discrimination on campus.
WOLVERINES! 7 Best Movies About the Russians: From Bolsheviks to Berlin.
Missing from the list? The World War II Italian production of Ayn Rand’s We the Living about life, such as it was, during the early days of Russian communism. Director Goffredo Alessandrini pitched it as anti-Communist propaganda in order to get the government greenlight, but he delivered Rand’s anti-totalitarian message a little too well for Mussolini’s comfort. As a result, the movie was banned shortly after its release, then forgotten for 40 years. The restored film is beautifully shot, well-acted, and true to the source material, which of course young Rand lived through.
Highly recommended.
ALSO: Seriously, no Red Dawn? That’s everything you need to know about the Russians, and the Cuban commies, too.
KURT SCHLICHTER: The Left Hates You. Act Accordingly.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Two-component, 120-subunit icosahedral cage extends protein nanotechnology.
DANIEL PAYNE: 16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won.
We are in the midst of an epidemic of fake news. There is no better word to describe it than “epidemic,” insofar as it fits the epidemiological model from the Centers for Disease Control: this phenomenon occurs when “an agent and susceptible hosts are present in adequate numbers, and the agent can be effectively conveyed from a source to the susceptible hosts.”
The “agent” in this case is hysteria over Trump’s presidency, and the “susceptible hosts” are a slipshod, reckless, and breathtakingly gullible media class that spread the hysteria around like—well, like a virus.
It is difficult to adequately sum up the breadth of this epidemic, chiefly because it keeps growing: day after day, even hour after hour, the media continue to broadcast, spread, promulgate, publicize, and promote fake news on an industrial scale. It has become a regular part of our news cycle, not distinct from or extraneous to it but a part of it, embedded within the news apparatus as a spoke is embedded in a bicycle wheel.
Whenever you turn on a news station, visit a news website, or check in on a journalist or media personality on Twitter or Facebook, there is an excellent chance you will be exposed to fake news. It is rapidly becoming an accepted part of the way the American media are run.
Accepted by whom?
AT AMAZON, high-quality headphones from AmazonBasics.
HIGH TIMES, ISRAELI EDITION: Knesset Bill Would Allow Export of Medical Cannabis.
Given how easy weed is to grow, even the medical-grade stuff, I wonder how much of an export market Israel will find.
WHILE WATCHING THE CROWN WITH THE INSTA-DAUGHTER OVER CHRISTMAS, I mentioned that Eisenhower’s handling of the Suez Crisis was a debacle. Michael Totten has thoughts on how it’s still hurting us today.
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: Dem Rep Paid Sister’s Law Firm Nearly $150K From Campaign Funds in 2016.
Rep. William Lacy Clay (D., Mo.) dished out nearly $150,000 in campaign funds to a law firm owned by his sister during the 2016 election cycle and has paid more than $800,000 to the firm since 2002.
The St. Louis Democrat has also paid more than $30,000 to his father’s scholarship fund over the years.
Clay began paying family members from his campaign committee, Clay Jr. for Congress, almost immediately after entering Congress in 2001.
Michelle Clay, his sister, is the owner of the Law Office of Michelle C. Clay located in Silver Spring, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.
Clay’s firm first appeared on the campaign payroll of Clay Jr. for Congress in 2002, and has been its largest recipient of cash on numerous occasions.
He must need an awful lot of family-friendly legal advice.
UM, IT WASN’T ME, THE CHAIR JUST MAKES THOSE SOUNDS SOMETIMES: Bursts of Methane May Have Prepped Ancient Mars for Life.
21ST CENTRY DATING: Sleeping Together Before First Date Is OK, But Using Your Phone During the Date Is Taboo. A third of singles have had sex with each other before their first date, according to Match.com’s representative survey of the American population. “We have a real misunderstanding of Millennials,” said Helen Fisher, the anthropologist who designed the survey. “I think they are very career oriented, so sex before the first date could be a sex interview, where they want to know if they want to spend time with this person.”
But don’t answer your phone during the date. That’s a turn-off for three-quarters of the singles. Other findings:
The majority of men believe that feminism has changed dating for the better, with only 35% saying that the rise of gender equality has made dating worse.
Men reported that they want women to take charge, with a little over 90% of men are in favor of a woman making the first move when it comes to kissing and sex.
Thought you had to wait for a man to ask for your number? Not the case, with 95% of men saying it’s OK for a woman to ask for a man’s number, according to the survey.
But once again, while men may appreciate a more assertive women, the message is lost in translation, with only 29% of women reporting that they would initiate a first kiss, and only 13% asking for a phone number.
And the all-important question: Who picks up the check?
While 71% of men find it attractive when a woman offers to split the bill, if a woman asks to split it may mean she’s just not that into you.
Sixty-five percent of men reported that they thought a woman offered to split in order to be polite, while 78% of women surveyed said they offered to pay because they don’t want to feel obligated for anything. That means no hug, kiss or second date.
This helps explain the conspicuous silence during the Women’s March on Washington on the issue of check-equity.
ROGER KIMBALL: Judge Robart’s Black Humor.
The funniest part of Judge James L. Robart’s cursory, six-and-a-bit-page restraining order against Donald Trump’s executive order — which temporarily suspends travel into the United States from seven notorious sponsors of terrorism — comes at the end:
Fundamental to the work of this court is a vigilant recognition that it is but one of three equal branches of our federal government. The work of the court is not to create policy or judge the wisdom of any particular policy promoted by the other two branches.
Ha! What a card!
The Left goes shopping for a likeminded judge, and finds a Seattle District Court judge who is sympathetic to Black Lives Matter and does pro-bono work for refugees. He has the added advantage of being located in the Ninth Circuit, the wackiest, most reliably left-wing precinct of the U.S. appellate system (though that may change soon). Said judge then intervenes to suspend the implementation of an executive order issued by the president of the United States to help safeguard the country.
So, not funny-funny.
Read the whole thing.
JAZZ SHAW: The media suddenly seems less interested in the Nerd Prom. I wonder why? “The Fourth Estate is supposed to be policing the government, not getting drunk with it. While there may be nothing overtly in violation of journalistic policy going on, it’s always just looked bad. When the public observes the federal government and the press all getting together to laugh and laugh and laugh we have to eventually begin wondering who the joke is really on. (Spoiler alert: It’s you.)”
But that’s not the problem: “No, what Margaret Sullivan is really seething about is the fact that Trump has already been making the media the butt of his jokes pretty much since he declared his candidacy. Can you imagine what he’d have to come up with to top that material at the dinner? By the time he got done ripping into them I somehow suspect that there wouldn’t be many reporters laughing along with him at the tables.”
As I keep saying, they’re not smart enough to be nerds. And under Obama it played out more like student council members sucking up to the principal.
IT’LL WORK THIS TIME FOR SURE: Hollywood Celebs Produce Yet ANOTHER Anti-Trump Video, Pretend to Understand & Revere Constitution.
I don’t recognize any of these celebrities, but I can tell you that given their recent material, “Funny Or Die” ought to consider a new name.
DANIEL HANNAN: Marine Le Pen is really quite Left-wing.
IN THE MAIL: Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff.
Plus, today only at Amazon: Save on H&R Block 2016 Tax Software.
And, also today only: Save Big on select Stanley products.
And, of course, Fresh Lightning Deals, Updated Every Hour.