WELL, TO BE FAIR, THEY PROBABLY THOUGHT THAT FIRE COULDN’T MELT STEEL: 3 charged in ‘maliciously set’ Atlanta highway fire may have been smoking crack.
Archive for 2017
April 1, 2017
HE WAS THE BEST GUN SALESMAN IN HISTORY. WE SHALL NOT SEE HIS LIKE AGAIN. Without Obama, Once-Booming Gun Industry Is Poised To Shrink.
AT AMAZON, freshen up your place for Spring.
THE WASHINGTON POST HELPFULLY INSTRUCTS MIKE PENCE on how to be a better Christian.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS SUCH A CESSPIT OF DISCRIMINATION? On Diversity of Top Staff, Senate Republicans Outpace Democrats.
ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR DATA: Jonah Goldberg’s laptop has seconds to live as he kicks off his latest G-File:
Dear Reader (particularly any of you women who want to have dinner with me alone, but can’t),
Turn that frown upside down!
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been in a bit of a funk of late, what with all of the gloominess, snark, and unexplained blood spatters and splatters on my glasses, clothes, car, etc.
Just last week, in this space, while mentioning my dour mood, I asked, “Hey, what’s the emoji for metaphysical dyspepsia and spirit-grinding weltschmerz?”
A bunch of people sent in suggestions, but none really hit the mark. So, the Universe decided to create one for me.
To summarize briefly, last week I was in NYC trying to salvage a little bit of Spring Break for my kid in the wake of all our plans blowing up on account of needing to go to Alaska for my mother-in-law’s funeral. While in the city, I met with the lovely (and understanding and patient and awesome) editor of the book I’m still working on. She needed to know when the final chapters were coming. I said in the next week or so. “I have about 25,000–30,000 words on my computer,” I told her. “I just need to organize it and write a couple thousand more.”
And this is when the Universe saw an opening.
Sensitive readers triggered by past memories of their own hard drive failures and/or accidentally pouring liquids into laptops are warned about reading onward. Though it could be worse, I suppose. As James Lileks once noted after one of his backup sessions, “I remember Anthony Burgess telling a story in an interview: he had finished a book and was heading off to the post office to mail it to his publisher, and a scooter sped by – the fellow on the back grabbed his satchel and they sped off through the Roman traffic. You might doubt the story, since it contains the phrase ‘sped off through the Roman traffic,’ but a scooter can fit between the cars. That was the only copy of his book. So he went home and wrote it again.”
JAPAN SEEKS COUNTER-ATTACK CAPABILITY TO DEAL WITH NORTH KOREA: This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Japan is fed up with North Korean threats. And SecState Tillerson said strategic patience if over.
I EAGERLY AWAIT PAUL KRUGMAN’S BRUTAL CONDEMNATION OF THIS SORT OF ELIMINATIONIST METAPHOR. Coffee shop taking heat for politically-charged loyalty cards:
A Pittsburgh coffee shop is brewing up backlash over a loyalty punch card featuring pictures of President Donald Trump and other conservatives.
Black Forge Coffee House owner Nick Miller says the satiric cards are meant to express frustration with the system and nothing more. However, critics complain the punch holes make it look like the politicos have been shot in the forehead.
The subjects include Vice President Mike Pence, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and conservative pundits Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.
Store owners say the cards aren’t meant to endorse violence.
But why should we believe them? We all know how dangerous eliminationist metaphors can be – and how racist.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: If It’s a New Law Dean, It’s Likely a Woman.
Poor women. Now that the industry is running on fumes, they get the keys to the cockpit.
MATT DRUDGE: I suspect Congress is deliberately sabotaging Trump.
WE HAVE THE WORST POLITICAL CLASS IN AMERICAN HISTORY: Consider The Possibility That We Are Led By Idiots.
It’s like the “suicide of expertise” or something.
Related: The Rising Tide of Educated Aliteracy.
MEDIA BIAS GOES FAR BEYOND LANGUAGE: “Recently, New York magazine published a profile piece on Donald Trump’s White House counselor and campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway. The profile itself is well written, and overall I found it to be fair and interesting. That said, when I saw the accompanying photos, I couldn’t help but be taken aback. I’ve been a photographer for over 20 years, and I’ve done editorial and corporate headshots before. What I saw in New York magazine is something I would never present to a client.”
Read the whole thing.
TWO PAPERS IN ONE!
● As a Trump protest, theaters worldwide will screen the film version of Orwell’s ‘1984.’
—Headline, the L.A. Times, March 28th.
● How Trump supporters survive in blue California: ‘You kind of keep your head down.’
—Headline, the L.A. Times, March 31th.
Like Walter Cronkite and his biographer (and fellow lefty) Douglas Brinkley before them, wait ‘til the L.A. Times discovers what IngSoc is an abbreviation for.
ON THE UPSIDE, THEIR FILE-DELETION SKILLS ARE WELL-HONED: Trade Group: IRS Wastes 22% Of Its Budget ($2.76 Billion) On Information Technology.
ARRESTS IN CALIFORNIA ARE WAY DOWN AND RESIDENTS WANT TO KNOW WHY: “Does anyone besides 5-year-olds and liberals believe that a declining arrest rate leads to a declining crime rate? Sheesh.”
Apparently Fox Butterfield is now writing California laws.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Climate Yawns — Donald Trump is no more a planet wrecker than Barack Obama (as measured to the third decimal):
So potent and large are these global forces that repealing the Obama rules, costly as they are, not only won’t affect coal jobs, it won’t affect climate.
Gina McCarthy, Mr. Obama’s EPA administrator, admitted as much when confronted, during a 2015 House hearing, with the fact that, by the agency’s own climate models, the effect would be only 1/100th of a degree Celsius. Instead, she said success should be measured in terms of “positioning the U.S. for leadership in an international discussion.”
Read the whole thing.
THE INSTAWIFE ON THE FUTURE OF FEMINISM.
BREXIT ROCKS GIBRALTAR: Well, not quite. Some EU stuffed shirt bureaucrats hoped it would. But it appears the Spaniards don’t want to mess with it. Spain has its Catalan secession issue.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Man’s Guide to Dressing Sharp and Casual in His 30s.
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Solar-Powered Graphene Skin Enables Prosthetics to Feel.
FORTRESS OVER ENGLAND: StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft series. A B-17 Flying Fortress flies above the English countryside. There’s no date on the photo, but it’s clearly a war time picture.
Two B-17 bonus history photos:
A B-17G flying with a B-52H Stratofortress. The photo was taken in May 2006.
Four female pilots training to fly B-17s. They are WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots). WASPs would pilot U.S. aircraft on ferry flights, typically from factories to seaports or training bases. The photo was taken at Lockbourne, Ohio. The B-17 in the background is named Pistol Packin’ Mama.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Free Speech and Silly Speech on Campus.
THE BBC ON SPAGHETTI HARVESTING IN TICINO:
AKA, fake news, the early days.
(Via Jim Geraghty, who adds, “Reality has made April Fool’s Day kind of superfluous.”)