NEWS YOU CAN USE! How to tell if your therapist is crazier than you.
Archive for 2017
July 21, 2017
IN THESE SHOES? I DON’T THINK SO! Humans probably could have outrun a T-Rex.
IN THE EMAIL FROM J. M. NEY-GRIMM: The Tally Master.
July 20, 2017
NOW OUT FROM HARRY TURTLEDOVE: The Hot War: Armistice.
TO BE FAIR, KATIE COURIC KNOWS A LOT ABOUT FAKE NEWS:
Shot: Katie Couric says fake news is ‘tearing’ America ‘apart at the seams.’
—The New York Daily Mail, today.
Chaser:
Of course Yahoo News should fire Katie Couric. She committed an act of gross intellectual dishonesty — and if you don’t fire a journalist for dishonesty, what in hell do you fire one for? Bad manners?
Well, yes. More on that in a bit.
Couric is under fire (you know, like Hillary Rodham Clinton in Bosnia) for her role in an anti-gun documentary (NB: My iPad wants “anti-gun” to be “anti-fun” — changed it three times — and I do not disagree) in which dishonest editing was used to make it look as though pro–Second Amendment activists were unable to answer elementary questions about a gun-rights controversy. This technique is known as “the Jon Stewart.” What you do is take a few seconds (or, in this case, a few minutes) of reaction shots (the footage they shoot of people’s faces while other people are talking) and then insert that non-talking footage after a question is asked: Voilà, the opposition is literally speechless. My friend Jonah Goldberg knows a little bit about this, his Daily Show appearance being an infamous example of editing with malice.
—“Katie Couric & Gun Rights: A Study in Dishonesty,” Kevin D. Williamson, National Review Online, May 29, 2016.
I GUESS I PICKED THE WRONG WEEK TO . . . Sniffing Insulin May Help Promote Weight Loss.
WELL, ONCE THE WALL STREET CONTRIBUTIONS TO OBAMA CAME IN, YES: Did The US Government Stop Caring About White Collar Crime?
STEVEN HAYWARD: Oddities Of The Noor Shooting. “Second and related, a question that I am sure the mainstream media will not ask, and the Minneapolis political class will suppress if asked in any case, is whether officer Noor was qualified to be a police officer as part of an affirmative action push to get a Somali officer on the force. It would be interesting to see his test scores and training evaluations from whatever police academy he went through. Is there evidence of political pressure to qualify Noor for active duty? Normally I wait for more facts to emerge before engaging in speculation on stories like this, except that this is one question that, as I say, is certain to be suppressed.”
I would expect that the record of his training, performance on qualifying tests, etc. — as well, of course, as any emails, etc. regarding his progress — would be available under Minnesota open-records law.
WHAT AMERICANS CARE ABOUT VS. WHAT THE MEDIA CARES ABOUT.
AT AMAZON, on sale, Rain-Mate Compact Travel Umbrella – Windproof.
HMM: NASA’s Next Great X-Plane Will Try to Revolutionize Electric Flight. Well, it’s not as exciting-looking as the X-15.
In a tangentially related matter, Cirrus Aircraft has a big billboard along I-40/75 in Knoxville announcing that they’re hiring. They have an operation here in town.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: The California Bar Exam Is The Tip Of The Lawyer Licensing Iceberg. “Traditional bar exam and licensing practices have outlived their sell-by date. In their present state they are increasingly hard, if not impossible, to justify as serving the best interests of the profession or the public.”
AS KURT SCHLICHTER SAYS, LEFTIES AREN’T GOING TO LIKE THE NEW RULES: Conservative groups plan Saturday protest at CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
CULTURE-WAR TRAVEL BANS ARE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, Virginia Postrel writes:
For a state that prides itself on its cosmopolitanism and world-renowned research universities, [California’s] rule is perverse. By declaring that even minor carve-outs for conscientious objectors violate its anti-discrimination tenets — and that those tenets almost always trump other considerations — this proudly diverse state seeks to impose cultural homogeneity on the entire nation.
The travel ban is especially ironic as liberals lament state preemption laws that prevent cities in conservative states from enacting left-wing measures. California is trying to export its policies to places that aren’t even in its jurisdiction. And in many cases the ban punishes the same liberal oases hammered by conservative preemption statutes. It doesn’t matter if your conference is in Charlotte or Austin; California wants nothing to do with it.
* * * * * * * *
California’s intolerance in the name of tolerance is also selective and ethnocentric. It applies only to U.S. destinations. For many LGBT people around the world, living under Texas or Kansas law would be a great liberation. Forget high-profile offenders like Russia. What about Turkey or Singapore? A consistent policy would even deny travel funds for Poland. If the community of scholars can span regimes as diverse as China, India, and Iran, surely it can make room for North Carolina.
Related: Gov. Jerry Brown, in a counter to Trump, lands in China to affirm climate change alliance.
ELIMINATIONISM: Bill Nye: Older people need to ‘die’ out before climate science can advance.
Scratch an environmentalist, and a genocidaire bleeds.
SHOW ME THE MAN AND I WILL FIND YOU THE CRIME: Mueller widens witch hunt investigation.
NPR: Want To Slow Global Warming? Researchers Look To Family Planning.
Say, what could go wrong?
Funny how media sites never propose shuttering their own air-conditioned server farms and broadcasting studios as an option — or notice that they’ve been playing the role of Chicken Little for half a century:
IT’S KINDA FAST: 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon: First Drive.
21ST CENTURY DATING: Prosthetic penis sex attacker Gayle Newland jailed.
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID: The Mystery of Why Japanese People Are Having So Few Babies.
Japan’s population is shrinking. For the first time since the government started keeping track more than a century ago, there were fewer than 1 million births last year, as the country’s population fell by more than 300,000 people. The blame has long been put on Japan’s young people, who are accused of not having enough sex, and on women, who, the narrative goes, put their careers before thoughts of getting married and having a family.
But there’s another, simpler explanation for the country’s low birth rate, one that has implications for the U.S.: Japan’s birth rate may be falling because there are fewer good opportunities for young people, and especially men, in the country’s economy. In a country where men are still widely expected to be breadwinners and support families, a lack of good jobs may be creating a class of men who don’t marry and have children because they—and their potential partners—know they can’t afford to.
“The gender stuff is pretty consistent with trends around the world—men are having a harder time,” said Anne Allison, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University who edited the recent collection of scholarly essays Japan: The Precarious Future. “The birth rate is down, even the coupling rate is down. And people will say the number-one reason is economic insecurity.”
I’d wager that there are cultural elements at play, too. But overall, there may be no greater expression of confidence about the future than starting a family.
FREE TO SEARCH FOR THE REAL KILLER, ONCE AGAIN: O.J. Simpson is granted parole after serving nine years for Vegas robbery.
Related: Is this parole board official trolling O.J. Simpson with his Kansas City Chiefs tie? “It’s worth pointing out that Marcus Allen played for the Chiefs from 1993 to 1997. According to Faye Resnick’s book ‘Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted,’ Brown was sleeping with Allen while she was married to Simpson.”
Update: CNN Legal Analyst Compares John McCain to O.J. Simpson.
This is CNN.
AT AMAZON, deals galore at the Amazon Baby Store.