Archive for 2018
September 6, 2018
ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE STILL NOW LESS THAN A TOTAL MYSTERY: Over at Ed Driscoll.com, I have a lengthy review of film scholar Nathan Abrams’ new book, Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual.
WHATEVER WORKS: Surprising Tactic in War Against Antibiotic Resistance. “Biologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, identified more than 8,100 combinations of four or five antibiotics that appear effective against harmful bacteria. . . . It’s long been believed that using three or more antibiotics would not lead to better patient outcomes because interactions among the drugs would cancel out their benefits. But working with eight antibiotics, the research team identified nearly 1,700 four-antibiotic combinations and more than 6,400 five-antibiotic combinations that are more effective than expected at stopping E. coli bacteria.”
WOW: The world’s fastest SUV will be a 200 mph Lister.
A specialist British sports car company is to turn the Jaguar F-Pace into a 670 horsepower, 200 mph 4×4 that it says will be the fastest SUV in the world.
The Lister Motor Company’s Lister LFP will do 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds and will cost around £140,000.
The performance “beats the performance of recently-launched SUVs from other well-known car brands with monster killer performance” and is “faster than most supercars, never mind SUVs”.
The Grand Cherokee Trackhawk with a supercharged Hemi and a sub-12-second quarter mile seems almost reasonable at $88,000 or so.
You probably wouldn’t want to take either one off-road, however.
THEY PUT POLITICS OVER TRUTH: Brown University criticized over removal of transgender study. Brown pulled it because they got complaints from transgender activists; now they’re getting complaints from scientists.
TO BE FAIR, BOOKER IS EMINENTLY MOCKABLE: Twitter is having fun mocking Cory Booker’s “Spartacus” moment.
A NEW PROJECT FOR TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ATTORNEYS AFTER THEY GET DONE WITH THE KAVANAUGH HEARINGS: Roger Clegg discusses the need for a Disparate Impact Inventory.
GOOD QUESTION: What Comes After INF?
Should the United States withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty? Colin Gray and Matthew Costlow argue that the time has come for Washington to walk away from the Treaty because it no longer serves to promote American national security.[1] Their arguments about the growing weakness of the current INF regime are sound and command respect.
In their analysis, however, they give insufficient attention to the tangible security benefits that the current INF regime confers on the United States, including its stabilizing effect on U.S.-Russian relations, as well as its important role in promoting enduring American advantages in naval and aerial strike capabilities against the missile challenges of Eurasian land powers like Russia. In minimizing the role that the INF Treaty plays in promoting American military advantages, they fail to provide a roadmap for what the United States ought to do after withdrawing from the Treaty. The logic behind the INF Treaty is sound, even if the current Treaty needs revision. To paraphrase Voltaire, if an INF Treaty didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent one. The time may be approaching to abandon the existing INF framework, but American leaders would do well to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of that framework and plan their departure to maximize the chances of returning to a more secure, robust INF Treaty in the near future.
The problem isn’t that the INF is a bad deal. The problem is that Moscow has spent years violating it flagrantly and with impunity.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Nerve stimulation may be effective against female sexual dysfunction. “This study presents an alternative method for treating female sexual dysfunction that is non-pharmacologic and non-invasive.”
NEW YORK’S OTHER NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: State Senate Candidate Julia Salazar Was Arrested in 2011 On Suspicion of Criminal Use of Personal Information.
And what’s described almost as an afterthought in the above Tablet article makes for a screaming headline in the London Daily Mail: New York Socialist Democratic candidate Julia Salazar, 27, who ‘faked her Jewish immigrant biography’ was accused of affair with Mets star Keith Hernandez, 64, and arrested over claim of stealing from his wife.
ACCESSIBILITY: Xbox Adaptive Controller is now out — and we go hand, foot, fingers, and elbows-on.
Microsoft’s newest game accessory, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, probably isn’t for you. That’s just an odds game, when counting the percentage of people who fall into the “limited mobility” camp that this strange, unique controller is aimed at.
But that’s the incredible thing about the XAC: that it’s targeting a particularly fractured audience. Limited mobility is a giant, vague category, after all, with so many physical ailments to account for (let alone psychological ones). And previous answers in the gaming sphere have typically been specialized, one-of-a-kind controllers for single hands, feet, heads, and more.
XAC wins out in an odd way: by leaving some major work in users’ hands. This $99 lap-sized device is truly incomplete on its own, as it’s designed from the ground up to require add-on joysticks, buttons, and more.
Kudos to Microsoft for addressing a small market with big needs, and doing so in what looks like an intelligent way.
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: That NYT Op-Ed from That Anonymous Trump Official Was a Terrific Idea!
DEMS SET UP COMING CLAIM THAT KAVANAUGH IS ILLEGITMATE: Just in case there’s any doubt about what Democrats’ post-Kavanaugh confirmation claims will be, they made it clear at the opening of the third and last day of the judge’s hearing they will claim he is illegitimate. Just like Trump is for colluding with Russian intelligence to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.
And isn’t it impressive how all those Senate Democrats are accepting Sen. Thom Tillis’ challenge that, since they are going to make confidential documents public, they also make public all of their emails concerning the Kavanaugh hearing. Can’t wait to read all about how they plotted with far-left protestors to disrupt and derail the hearing.
SCRAPPLEFCE: Op-Ed Blowback: Trump Behavior Shames Economy.
FORMER OBAMA ADMIN OFFICIAL: TRUMP IS RIGHT TO BE PARANOID, JUST LIKE STALIN WAS:
MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal, who served as acting U.S. solicitor general during the Obama administration, compared President Donald Trump’s paranoia to that of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin Thursday morning.
Katyal appeared on “MSNBC Live” with host Stephanie Ruhle as part of a discussion about an anonymous New York Times op-ed alleging “resistance” within the Trump administration.
“Yeah, no, I mean I think, look, he’s right to be paranoid. I don’t know if he has a right to be paranoid. He’s right to be paranoid. I mean, just as Stalin had a right to be paranoid and was paranoid,” Katyal said.
No one on the panel pushed back against the claim.
This is fake news. Joseph Stalin never lost a moment of sleep over a New York Times column on the Soviet Union.
DEMOCRATS: TRUMP IS A TYRANT WHO DISREGARDS ALL THE NORMS AND PROPRIETIES.
ALSO DEMOCRATS: Sen. Cory Booker Releases Confidential Kavanaugh Documents.
Now if the Dems take the House, the Trump Administration can justify its refusal to provide documents to investigating committees based on Congress’s untrustworthiness.
IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH CERTAIN LEFTISTS WILL ADOPT ANY OLD ANTI-AMERICAN CAUSE: Former Anti-Nuclear Peace Activist Sentenced For Plotting ISIS-Inspired Attacks.
IN THE MAIL: The Keto Reset Diet: Reboot Your Metabolism in 21 Days and Burn Fat Forever.
Plus, Today’s Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
MICHAEL LEDEEN: Anonymous Speaks. “It isn’t treasonous or cowardly, it’s about ambition. You cannot imagine it until you see it unfold. When I worked for then-Secretary of State Haig, I was in a staff meeting one morning where Haig gave an explicit order to an assistant secretary, who of course responded, ‘Yes, sir.’ Whereupon, within hours, he did the opposite. And kept his job! Really.”
Read the whole thing.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: If Albert Einstein applied for a professorship at UCLA today, would he be hired? The answer is not clear.