ENDORSED: Peter Thiel For California Governor.
Archive for 2017
January 14, 2017
WHAT HAPPENS TO AN INFLUENCE-PEDDLING OPERATION WHEN THERE’S NO INFLUENCE TO PEDDLE: Clinton Global Initiative to be discontinued.
AT AMAZON, deals on Dishwashers.
THE END OF RINGLING BROTHERS CIRCUS?: Say it ain’t so. Appears animal rights activists bear part of the blame.
After 146 years, the curtain is coming down on “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus told The Associated Press that the show will close forever in May.
The iconic American spectacle was felled by a variety of factors, company executives say. Declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups all contributed to its demise.
The animal rights extremists forced Ringling Brothers to get rid of its elephants.
In May of 2016, after a long and costly legal battle, the company removed the elephants from the shows and sent the animals to live on a conservation farm in Central Florida. The animals had been the symbol of the circus since Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882. In 2014, Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements from groups including the Humane Society of the United States, ending a 14-year fight over allegations that circus employees mistreated elephants.
The animal rights bullies helped put some of the more talented people on the planet out of a job — I mean Ringling Brothers clowns and acrobats.
Some 500 people perform and work on both touring shows. A handful will be placed in positions with the company’s other, profitable shows – it owns Monster Jam, Disney on Ice and Marvel Live, among other things – but most will be out of a job. Juliette Feld said the company will help employees with job placement and resumes. In some cases where a circus employee lives on the tour rail car (the circus travels by train), the company will also help with housing relocation.
Too late to push back?
IF TRUMP IS REALLY HITLER, WHY IS OBAMA EMPOWERING HIM? Obama Opens NSA’s Vast Trove of Warrantless Data to Entire Intelligence Community, Just in Time for Trump.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, TAKING-SIDES EDITION: Profs pledge to ‘use regular class time’ to protest Trump. Huh. I thought universities were nonprofits that were supposed to be nonpartisan.
Related: ‘Tolerant’ educators exile Trump voters from campus.
ANDREW FERGUSON: Golf Comes to the Killing Fields.
Read the whole thing.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, BLUE-STATE CORRUPTION EDITION: Flashback: In Illinois, Substitute Teaching For One Day Reaped Nearly $1 Million in Taxpayer-Funded Pension Money.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH LABELS U.S. A ‘HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSER’ BECAUSE OF TRUMP.
Give the left points for consistency at least – Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize only a few months after taking office; despite Trump not even in office, the Soros-funded Human Rights Watch is performing the mirror universe version of the same stunt. Someone hold its beer.
UPDATE (From Glenn): If this works out like Obama’s Nobel, Trump will wind up doing more for human rights than any previous president!
Related: Hey, nice beard!
JOEL KOTKIN: FAKE NEWS AND THE ECONOMY:
Perhaps no president in recent history has more pressure on him to perform economic miracles than Donald Trump. As someone who ran on the promise that he could fix the economy — and largely won because of it — Trump faces two severe challenges, one that is largely perceptual and another more critical one that is very real.
To start, Trump must cope with the widespread idea, accepted by much of the media, that we are experiencing something of an “Obama boom.”
He is widely portrayed as inheriting a very strong economy, notes MSNBC, in which the U.S. is “the envy of the world.” Fortune sees Trump inheriting “the best economy in a generation.”
Yet this is more a matter of perception than reality, a kind of “fake news.” To be sure, President Barack Obama inherited a disastrous economy from George W. Bush and can claim, with some justification, that on his watch millions of jobs were restored and the economy achieved steady, if unspectacular, growth. Under Obama average GDP growth has been almost twice as high as under his predecessor, but roughly half that of either President Reagan or Clinton.
Less appreciated, however, are the fundamental long-term weaknesses in the U.S. economy that Obama and Bush have left for Trump. A recent report from the U.S. Council on Competitiveness details a litany of profound, lingering flaws — historically slow growth, rising inequality, stagnant incomes, slumping productivity and declining lifespans. As the report concludes: “The Great Recession may be over, but America is dangerously running on empty.”
On the other hand, if people thought the economy was as good as the press has been claiming, would Trump have won?
UPDATE: From the comments:
I’d be delighted if Trump started his first State of The Union speech with, “My fellow citizens, after many years of being absolutely lied to, by both politicians and the media that support them, I’d like to throw a monkey wrench in their spin-jobs and tell you some rock solid facts, quoting the statistics from the government agencies responsible. Here’s what has been going on with the economy… labor participation rates… violent crime… illegal immigration… the revolving door of media, government service and political campaigns… size of the federal bureaucracy… how much of your tax money actually goes to the purposes they’re allocated for…”
Heh.
WELL, THAT’S THE MESSAGE THEY’RE TRYING TO SPIN:
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON ON TRUMP AND THE AMERICAN DIVIDE:
As the nation became more urban and its wealth soared, the old Democratic commitment from the Roosevelt era to much of rural America—construction of water projects, rail, highways, land banks, and universities; deference to traditional values; and Grapes of Wrath–like empathy—has largely been forgotten. A confident, upbeat urban America promoted its ever more radical culture without worrying much about its effects on a mostly distant and silent small-town other. In 2008, gay marriage and women in combat were opposed, at least rhetorically, by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their respective presidential campaigns. By 2016, mere skepticism on these issues was viewed by urban elites as reactionary ignorance. In other words, it was bad enough that rural America was getting left behind economically; adding insult to injury, elite America (which is Democrat America) openly caricatured rural citizens’ traditional views and tried to force its own values on them. Lena Dunham’s loud sexual politics and Beyoncé’s uncritical evocation of the Black Panthers resonated in blue cities and on the coasts, not in the heartland. Only in today’s bifurcated America could billion-dollar sports conglomerates fail to sense that second-string San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protests of the national anthem would turn off a sizable percentage of the National Football League’s viewing audience, which is disproportionately conservative and middle American. These cultural themes, too, Trump addressed forcefully.
Read the whole thing.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF NANOTECHNOLOGY.
I THINK TRUMP MAY BE THE ROCK UPON WHICH THE RACE-HUSTLERS BREAK: ‘We will not be Trumped’: Sharpton calls for protests against Sessions. Sharpton’s rather iffy affairs have enjoyed a de facto immunity from Democrat Administrations who find him useful and Republican who are afraid to be called racist. That may not persist.
UPDATE: From the comments: “There are lots of anti Semites on the left but Sharpton has the distinction of actually organizing a pogrom.”
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: What If China’s Money Stream Stops Flowing to Hollywood?
Movies might suck less, for one thing, since their plots and dialogue are often dumbed for foreign consumption — not to mention censored as well to placate the Chinese government. Or as even urban haute bourgeois* left Vanity Fair asked in August, “Did You Catch All the Ways Hollywood Pandered to China This Year?”
(Via Blazing Cat Fur.)
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Long Can an Engine Run Using Coca-Cola as Oil?
DEEP CONTEXT ON THE NEWS: How new is the news? Often it isn’t so new. For about five years the StrategyPage webmaster and I have been discussing starting a “Ten Years Ago On StrategyPage” feature. Two years ago a reader said we should have a feature that linked posts and analysis in the archive to current news. I told her we’re a garage band. Who has the time?
But we’re going to give it a try. When I became an Instapundit co-blogger Glenn encouraged me to make use of StrategyPage’s archives to provide readers with background on current defense and international topics.
Modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal is a current topic.
From January 14, 2007: Strategic Weapons: The Cost of Maintaining Missiles: “January 14, 2007: The U.S. Navy will pay about $400,000 a year for maintenance on each of its Trident II D5 SLBM (sea launched ballistic missiles)…”
The decade-old post is about maintenance. It’s short. But it’s a window into what it takes to maintain complex weapons. As time passes maintenance costs increase. Now it’s time to modernize.
Here’s an analysis of cost and consequences of current nuclear arsenal modernization (from The Hill.) And GEN Mattis’ take on the issue.
This archived post from January 18, 2007 is also related to current strategic weapons issues: THAAD Goes Into Production.
A battery of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles is now operational on Guam. Note the system’s name has changed but its acronym hasn’t.
I’m not sure how often I’ll have the time to do this, but I’ll try another one tomorrow. Maybe.
FLASHBACK: JOHN LEWIS (D-GA) COMPARES JOHN McCAIN AND SARAH PALIN TO GEORGE WALLACE (D-AL).
Is there any Republican president or presidential candidate Lewis hasn’t cried wolf over?
Related: “Lewis is invariably described as a ‘civil rights icon,’ but the man is an utter fraud. He has been coasting on his 50-year-old reputation for decades,” John Hinderaker writes today at Power Line. “There is no reason to treat John Lewis with kid gloves, and Donald Trump doesn’t do so. This morning he used his favorite medium to respond to Lewis’s slanders…Trump could have been a lot harsher,” he adds, after linking to Trump’s tweets.
TRUMP TURNED BEN CARSON INTO A MILITANT WHITE GUY SO GRADUALLY I BARELY EVEN NOTICED:
Hat tip: Benny Johnson on Facebook.
CARTEL DRUG LORD ORDERED TO PAY $1 MILLION INDEMNITY FOR DEA AGENT’S MURDER:
A Mexican federal court made the ruling.
A federal judge has ordered a drug lord convicted in the 1985 killings of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a Mexican government pilot to pay relatives of the victims nearly $1 million in compensation, officials said Friday.
The Federal Judicial Council announced the 20.8 million peso penalty in a statement without naming any of the parties involved.
But a judicial official confirmed that the order is directed at Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseca Carrillo, co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel, for the case of the kidnapping, torture and killing of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
THE FATHER OF PINYIN WRITING SYSTEM DEAD AT 111: Zhou Youguang’s efforts helped raise literacy rates in China. He became a critic of the dictatorship. He was born in 1906 during the Qing dynasty. Read the whole thing.
LIFE IN THE POST-ANTIBIOTIC ERA: A superbug resistant to every available antibiotic has killed a woman in the US. But don’t worry, the government’s on it: “Many major pharmaceutical companies have stopped developing new antibiotics altogether. Last year for example, the FDA turned down Cempra Pharmaceuticals‘ new antibiotic, a drug designed to fight a type of bacterial pneumonia called solithromycin, citing too little information on how the drug might impact the liver. That additional trial would require testing out the antibiotic on 9,000 people.”