TOM FRIEDMAN ASKS THE QUESTION ABSOLUTELY NO ONE IS ASKING: What if Trump Did Actually Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue?
Archive for 2018
August 29, 2018
NEW YORK POST EDITORIAL: We Should All Be Worried About Google’s Power.
Break up Big Tech’s monopolies.
Related: Employees at Facebook Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture.
The post went up quietly on Facebook’s internal message board last week. Titled “We Have a Problem With Political Diversity,” it quickly took off inside the social network.
“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views,” Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer, wrote in the post, which was obtained by The New York Times. “We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology.”
Since the post went up, more than 100 Facebook employees have joined Mr. Amerige to form an online group called FB’ers for Political Diversity, according to two people who viewed the group’s page and who were not authorized to speak publicly. The aim of the initiative, according to Mr. Amerige’s memo, is to create a space for ideological diversity within the company.
Good for them. But we should break up Facebook too.
GARY JOHNSON WASN’T SUITABLE FOR PRESIDENT, BUT THIS MIGHT JUST WORK: Sen. Rand Paul backs Johnson in NM Senate race.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Given the right to larger families, Chinese may hold off.
China’s moves to combat an ageing population by relaxing decades-old curbs on family size have hit an unexpected snag: many parents are no longer interested in having more babies.
The government has indicated it will scrap its policy which limits the number of children per family through tough fines — and sometimes through forced abortions and sterilisations.
The world’s most populous country introduced its one-child policy in 1979 and last tweaked it in early 2016, raising the limit to two children as the nation scrambled to rejuvenate a greying population of some 1.4 billion.
But the pent-up demand for more children has ebbed, experts say. Couples have increasingly delayed having even one child as they devote more time to other goals, such as building their careers.
Just three weeks ago on this same topic I asked, “Can the State cajole a country out of a State-induced demographic tailspin?” Maybe we have our answer.
MAYBE NOT ALL TRANSGENDERS ARE BORN THAT WAY?—Yesterday I posted about Lisa Littman, the Brown University researcher who wrote about “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.” In her study, she asked questions of the parents of teens and young adults who suddenly, after no previous history, identified as transgender. About 21% of those parents reported that their children had one or more friends who came out as transgender at around the same time; 20% reported an increase in their child’s social media use around the same time; and 45% reported both. In addition, 62% reported their child had been diagnosed with one or more psychiatric disorders or neurodevelopmental disabilities before the transgender issue suddenly arose.
Transgender activists were apparently irate at the suggestion that maybe not all transgenders are “just born that way.” (Note that Littman was writing about rapid-onset gender dysphoria only.) Brown University, which had published a news note highlighting the study, caved in to pressure to withdraw the note and issued what was essentially an apology.
All this reminded me of when I drew the ire of transgender activists two years ago. You can read about that ridiculous moment here. I got all sorts of nasty emails and other messages for about a day and a half. One charmer, who claimed to be in San Diego, wrote, “Your days are numbered and we’re coming after you! UCSD will soon be free of your ignorant bigot ass!” (Of course, I don’t work for UCSD; I teach at USD, but whatever.) Another wrote, “Can’t wait for the shaming to begin, Gail. You will never be off the hook, you will always be shamed for being a racist ignorant bigot. Kill yourself now because these next years will be brutal. You will be fired professor [c-word].” And there were plenty more. (And this fuss was about some testimony I’d give that was generally supportive of the idea that one’s willingness to conform to conventional notions of masculinity or femininity is not the government’s business. Mobs tend not to have read the things they claim set them off.)
One difference between my case and Littman’s is that, despite numerous calls for my firing, USD never did anything other than quietly support my academic freedom. Here’s something that probably won’t be different for Littman: By the second day, supportive messages from around the country started rolling in for me. The law school even got a lovely contribution from an alumnus. Pretty quickly those supportive messages vastly outnumbered the critical ones. I suspect they will for Littman too. Brown, on the other hand, will likely learn that not everyone thinks it covered itself in glory.
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE: STDs in American reach a record high for the fourth year in a row, CDC reveals.
DEVOLUTION: My family escaped socialism, now my fellow Democrats think we should move the party in its direction. Well, it’s destructive, brutal, and impoverishing. But the opportunities for graft and control are awesome.
BOOM: South Africa Calls for 300,000 Gun Owners to Turn Over Their Weapons.
Though South Africa witnessed rising levels of economic freedom shortly after Apartheid ended in 1994, the country has taken a more interventionist path to economic development in recent years.
This situation is becoming more pronounced with the South African National Assembly recently voting 241-83 to amend the South African constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation.
The socialist-leaning African National Congress (ANC) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) parties are leading the charge for expropriation under the banner of fixing racial disparities that have supposedly remained intact since Apartheid’s conclusion.
While land confiscation has not been officially finalized, South Africans should worry about the direction their country is going.
And how does gun control fit into this equation?
I think you know the answer to that.
THAT’S ON A STRICTLY NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS, JOHN: Brennan ‘Uncertain’ Whether His Security Clearance Actually Has Been Revoked.
NEW STUFF TO LEARN: The Bane Drill. This is more workable with some carry pistols than others.
AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE IN THE ANNALS OF MADNESS: FLASHBACK: Whoopi Ties McCain to Slavery’s Return.
THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Suspended Pentagon Whistleblower Says FBI’s Russia Probe Was ‘All a Set-Up’. So, about that whipping through the mall behind an old donkey thing? No? I suppose you’re also not going to let them be hanged, cut down and their entrails burned before their eyes while yet living? You guys never let us Elizabethan-fans have any fun. It certainly would “encourager les autres.” You have to admit as far as encourager goes, that would encourager like anything.
DUH: Majority of Americans Agree with Trump’s Decision to Revoke Brennan’s Security Clearance. Some Americans would like to see him whipped through the Mall, his hands tied to an old donkey’s tail. But no one ever asks us. (It’s only unusual because we don’t do it enough.)
ONLY IN THE SENSE THE LAW OF GRAVITY IS THEORETICAL. I MEAN, WE SAW THE DOCUMENTS: Is It a Conspiracy Theory to Suggest Google Is Biased Against Conservatives?
MY SHOCKED FACE IS SHOCKED: Shocker! The Chinese Read Clinton’s Emails.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY FUNDRAISING MOST AFFECTED: Survey: 1-in-3 Gov Workers Could Leave Union.
BUT WHAT’S PUZZLING YOU IS THE NATURE OF HIS GAME: Soros Buys Millions in Facebook, Twitter Stocks After Bashing Tech Companies.
BUT DON’T DON THAT TINFOIL FEDORA: Step Back.
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: The Mental State of M. Todd Henderson.
August 28, 2018
DEATH IN THE AGE OF NARCISSISM:
Here’s how much time I spent around McCain. I’m also close to his daughter Meghan. This is the compliment he once gave me. This is what I said back. I voted for him this many times. I agreed with him on these issues but not those. It’s difficult to describe how pained I am. Here’s a photo of me looking mournful.
Were these hymns to McCain or arias of self-congratulation? The line blurred as the focus swerved from the celebrated to the celebrator.
A measure of this is inevitable and even right. One of the best ways to convey someone’s impact on the world is to demonstrate and universalize his or her effect on us, and our own stories and memories are our inimitable additions to the conversation.
But a little of the first-person singular goes a long way.
Did you hear Donald Trump on the day Aretha Franklin died? In the first sentence out of his mouth, he defined her as “a person I knew well.” In the second, he alluded to a few of her performances in hotels that he owned by saying, “She worked for me.” The remark was classic Trump in its offensiveness. But it also reflected a more widespread conflation of eulogy and personal P.R.
Did you see Madonna at MTV’s Video Music Awards? She stepped up to the microphone, began to memorialize Franklin and mused at great length about the raw ambition, relentless rise and gritty resilience of … Madonna! “So you are probably all wondering why I am telling you this story,” she finally added, stirring from her solipsistic stupor.
CTL-F “Obama” yields zero results, oddly enough.
WHEN A WATERGATE FELON FALSELY ACCUSES YOU OF DISHONESTY: I’ve been one of the louder critics of a terrible, inaccurate polemic posing as a work of history. The author’s defenders have resorted almost entirely to ad hominem, but none with as much irony as this:
CTHULHU 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN PREPARES TO THROW ITS TENTACLES INTO THE RING: Divers stumble upon 14 foot-long squid carcass.