THE VIEW OF THE WORLD FROM PINCH AVE. Time to get out more: New York Times reports on shooting in ‘downtown Arkansas.’
The Times really does want to live up to all of the stereotypes about the New York left’s myopia regarding the rest of America famously satirized in Saul Steinberg’s classic “View of the World from Ninth Avenue” cover, don’t they?
THIS IS NICE: Chibok Girls And Trump Appear In Unannounced Photo Op. “The White House usually picks a photo of the day. On June 28, the image they chose showed two girls from Nigeria who were abducted in 2014 by Boko Haram but managed to escape: Joy Bishara and Lydia Pogu. They’re flanked by President Donald Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump. The photo had been taken the day before. Trump is giving a thumbs up. The meeting was not publicized in advance. NPR’s White House correspondent Tamara Keith says the administration didn’t notify the press corps about it, it didn’t appear on the White House daily schedule and it was not discussed in any of that day’s briefings.”
It’s a lovely picture.
HATTUSA, capital of the Hittites.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN MEMORY HOLES:
● Shot: Carl Bernstein calls for ‘different kind of reporting’ to take on ‘malignant presidency.’
—The Washington Examiner, today.
● Chaser: Carl Bernstein: Bush Has Done “Far Greater Damage” Than Nixon.
—TruthOut, January 24, 2007.
Related: “The lowest form of popular culture – lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives – has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
MICHAEL WALSH: In Re: Palin v. New York Times, You Have to Like Sarah’s Chances.
Read the whole thing.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. Media Myth Alert: Murrow ‘risked his career to confront demagogic Joe McCarthy’? Hardly.
GALLERY: Grocery Shopping In Yesteryear.
AT AMAZON, Men’s Shoes: Extended Sizes.
TEST DRIVE: 2018 Mercedes-Benz E-class Cabriolet.
AT AMAZON, new deals in Industrial and Scientific.
Plus, deals on Craft Supplies.
WHAT IS IT PROFESSOR GLENN SAYS?: Oh, yeah…”heh.”
WHY DON’T THEY IMPROVE THEIR RURAL NETWORKS INSTEAD? Verizon Wireless disconnects some heavy data users in rural areas.
WHAT TO PUT IN A KID’S FIRST TOOL KIT.
Well, you know, besides the obvious.
BUT OF COURSE: College Hiring Director To Promote ‘Feminist Theories and Knowledge.’
And murder?
IT SAYS “DON’T TRUST THE INTERNET OF THINGS:” ‘NotPetya’: Latest Ransomware is a Warning Note From the Future. Well, that’s one of the things it says.
BLUE STATE BLUES: High-tax Connecticut fails to pass budget as fiscal situation worsens.
Despite having a per capita personal income that is more than 143% of the national average—according to Moody’s— the state’s economy continues to lag behind others. Revenue shortfalls in the state register around $450 million for the current fiscal year alone, while estimated deficit totals are projected to clock in near $5 billion for the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years combined, according to The Connecticut Business & Industry Association. Debt outstanding levels and unfunded pension liabilities relative to revenues are among the highest of any state in the country, Moody’s Investors Service said in May.
Additionally Connecticut has yet to recover many of the jobs it lost during the financial crisis, according to Moody’s, and, as previously reported by FOX Business, income-tax collections are projected to fall in fiscal year 2017 for the first time since the recession.
The three major rating firms have downgraded the state’s credit rating in response to the ongoing budget crisis. In its most recent downgrade, which landed Connecticut with the third-lowest rating out of every state behind only New Jersey and Illinois. Moody’s said “the downgrades reflect continuing erosion of Connecticut’s finances, evidenced by the pending elimination of its rainy day fund, growing budget gaps and rising debt levels.”
Connecticut’s financial despair comes despite the state government’s approval of one of its largest tax rate increases ever in 2015, which has had a negative impact on some business investment.
Unexpectedly.
TO BE FAIR, THAT’S SETTING THE BAR PRETTY LOW: Machine Creativity Beats Some Modern Art.
THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM AT BERKELEY: Berkeley Journalism Student Reveals Her Generation’s Entitled Arrogance.
SHUT UP, HE EXPLAINED: China’s Xi says there’s no tolerance for subversion in Hong Kong.
Nobody really believed in “One country, two systems,” did they?
IN THE MAIL: From Michael Z. Williamson, Forged in Blood.
ROGER SIMON: GOP Congress Uses Trump Tweets as Excuse for Its Own Ineptitude.
Read the whole thing.
THIS SEEMS LIKE A NON-STARTER: Democrats Propose Cutting Funding for ICE, Border Patrol.
I’M NOT SAYING THAT IT’S ALIENS. BUT IT’S ALIENS. A Planet Is Found. At Least That’s What We Hope It Is. A newly discovered force at the edge of the solar system is the stuff of sci-fi dreams.
Just in time for summer movie season comes news that something huge is lurking out there at the edge of the solar system. It’s really big. It’s never before been detected. It’s warping gravity fields. No, it’s not the latest Michael Bay disaster-fest or the mothership from “Independence Day.” It’s not the hypothesized Planet 9 that everyone was talking about a little over a year ago. Probably it’s another planet. Or maybe that mothership.
Back in 2016, the Internet was all atwitter with the news that astronomers believed they had located another planet at the edge of the solar system. Planet 9, as they called it, was discovered through a study of disturbances in the orbits of Sedna and other less-than-planet-size objects out there in the vicinity of Pluto (which was a planet when most of us were kids and now isn’t). This area is known as the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers, who don’t like to waste mental energy deciding what to call things they study, have a name for objects in the Kuiper Belt: Kuiper Belt Objects. It is through modeling the movement of these KBOs (see what I mean?) that the search for Planet 9 has proceeded. Nobody has seen Planet 9 yet, even with the most powerful telescopes, although with the help of millions of citizen astronomers, researchers have narrowed the field of possible suspects.
Anyway, it turns out that Planet 9 is not the only massive object out there warping the orbits of the KBOs. According to soon-to-be-published research by Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona, there’s another one. It’s called … well, it doesn’t have a name yet, but we can make a good guess. . . .
And there’s something else for the sci-fi paranoiac to chew on along with the popcorn. The sequence. In early 2016, astronomers find a disturbance in the Kuiper Belt Objects and think “planet.” Fine, natural phenomenon. Then this year, they find another disturbance and think “another planet.” Fine, natural phenomenon. Then how is it that we never noticed before? Maybe the disturbances are … recent. So if by chance we’re soon told of a third disturbance, then by the James Bond theory of conspiracy it’s enemy action.
Aliens.
ENERGY: This Paint May Pick Up Where Solar Panels Leave Off.
A team of researchers in Australia have created an experimental paint that attracts water molecules from the air and chops them up to produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that can be used to generate electricity.
“Our new development has a big range of advantages,” Dr. Torben Daeneke, a research fellow at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology School of Engineering in Melbourne and leader of the team, said in a written statement. “There’s no need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapor in the air, even remote areas far from water, can produce fuel.”
Anyone else reminded of Galt’s generator from Atlas Shrugged?
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