WE ALREADY KNOW THERE’S NOTHING BEER CAN’T DO: Will beer waste remove snow?
Although when I read “beer waste” I’m less likely to think of removing snow than writing my name in it.
Archive for 2018
February 26, 2018
ANDREW MCCARTHY: The Schiff Memo Harms Democrats More Than It Helps Them.
LEGAL INSURRECTION: The Berniefication of the Democratic Party Is Almost Complete.
By some accounts, Bernie might have had a real shot at the nomination in 2016, had it not been for rampant cheating at the DNC. But now that even the party’s national committee has been co-opted by the hard left, there’s no telling what kind of “democratic” socialist they could nominate for 2020.
HIGH MILEAGE: The Honda Civic Diesel.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON OUR PERVASIVE INSTITUTIONAL ROT: Florida shooting yet another government failure to keep us safe: From the FBI to local law enforcement to the schools, every institution failed. We have more government than ever, but it isn’t working. “People are being asked to trust the government to keep them safe, when the government is patently unable to do so. And then, when the government fails, it engages in blame-shifting deflection. Why should people listen? Increasingly, they won’t.”
JUDICIAL EXCESS: Democrats Did Better Than on Hundreds of Simulated Pennsylvania Maps.
In the view of the majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, “perhaps the most compelling evidence” that Republicans sacrificed traditional redistricting criteria for partisan gain was a political scientist’s simulation of 500 possible congressional maps.
The Republican-drawn map was an extreme outlier compared with the simulations made by Jowei Chen of the University of Michigan, who has provided expert testimony in many redistricting cases. None of the simulations favored Republicans by anywhere near as much as the congressional map enacted in 2011, which gave the Republicans a 13-to-5 advantage. And partly on that basis, the court ruled that the map violated the state’s constitution.
But what about the remedial map recently adopted by the court? It is not an outlier to the same extent as the Republican-drawn map. But if you look at what 2016 statewide results would have been with the new map, the overall Democratic performance arguably would have been better than in all 500 of Mr. Chen’s simulations, according to an Upshot analysis.
When the elected Republican majority engages in gerrymandering, it’s evil. When judges dictate from the bench to do it, that’s just democracy in action.
THAT SOUNDS BAD: Liquefied brain tissue post-stroke could harm healthy parts: study.
HMM: A CDC researcher left work sick two weeks ago — then vanished.
Timothy J. Cunningham had been a rising official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Harvard-educated epidemiologist was promoted in July at the U.S. Public Health Service in Atlanta and contributed to responses following outbreaks of Zika, Ebola and health emergencies caused by Hurricane Sandy. He also was a prominent fixture in the Atlanta community, earning a spot in Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 Awards last year.
But the researcher, who studies disease patterns, was not feeling well Feb. 12 and left work around midday.
Cunningham, 35, hasn’t been seen or heard from since, his family and police have said, sparking a $10,000 reward offered by the family in partnership with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta for information leading to an arrest and indictment in connection with the incident.
Given the nature of his work, you would hope the CDC is investigating Cunningham’s disappearance. Given the low level of competence often displayed by our government agencies, you wouldn’t give too much credence to your hope.
PROOF THAT THERE IS A GOD, AND HE WANTS US TO BE HAPPY, AND ALERT: Coffee and alcohol: The keys to a long life?
TRUMP, ISRAEL, AND PALESTINE: What a difference a year of real American leadership can make.
AT AMAZON, Lightning Deal, Venture Pal Ultralight Lightweight Packable Foldable Travel Camping Hiking Outdoor Sports Backpack Daypack.
CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Naval Warfare Will Change Forever If Submarines Turn into Underwater Aircraft Carriers.
AT AMAZON, save in Household Supplies.
WELL, THAT REALLY NARROWS DOWN THE LITERATURE: “The solution to male violence is not to spout off drivel about the evils of masculinity.”
TONI AIRAKSINEN: Victimhood Culture Only Getting Worse, Professor Warns.
Of course it is — the infotainment industry happily turns victims into multimedia stars. Provided they spout the party line, that is.
NEW YORKER PROFILE: The New York Congressman Who Could Lead an Impeachment Charge Against Trump.
All Democrats — and their infotainment industry enablers — need to do is not act crazy, and they can’t even manage that.
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T COMPARE YOURSELF TO PICTURES IN BODYBUILDING MAGAZINES: How Bodybuilders REALLY Get Ripped. “Pro bodybuilding isn’t about getting ‘beach lean’ or building a physique that looks pretty good in the gym while wearing a tank top. It’s about being inhumanly muscular and insanely shredded at the same time. This process also requires a large amount of bodybuilding drugs to help maintain a high level of muscle mass while getting down to ridiculously low body fat.”
TYLER O’NEIL: Responding to students well.
ANDY KESSLER: Elon Musk’s Uncontested 3-Pointers: What does the Tesla and SpaceX founder have in common with Stephen Curry?
Mr. Curry often takes shots from several feet behind the 3-point line. Defenders, figuring no one would be stupid enough to shoot from that far away, leave him open. And he makes baskets with surprising accuracy. At one point in 2016, he made 35 out of 52 shots from between 28 and 50 feet. Uncontested indeed.
Elon Musk’s business strategy isn’t so different: Go far enough into the future that there are no other competitors. Mr. Musk’s first success was X.com, an email payment company. It merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity to form PayPal —and avoid competition. They had the market to themselves for a long time because fraud, especially from Eastern Europe, was so rampant on early internet payment platforms. They solved the fraud problem and enjoyed an uncontested market, eventually selling for $1.5 billion to eBay .
Then Mr. Musk headed further into the future. He took the nine-figure payout from PayPal and pushed ahead with SpaceX, Tesla and Solar City. Literally his last $20 million went to Tesla in 2008. “I was tapped out. I had to borrow money for rent after that,” he later recalled. Private space launches, electric cars and rooftop-solar financing were all huge Muskian pushes into the future, where no one else dared play. Today, Tesla is worth around $60 billion. SpaceX raised money last summer at a $21 billion valuation. Mr. Musk is no longer borrowing to pay his rent.
Quite impressive, even though I find all the handouts offensive. When I see someone driving a Tesla I greet him with, “You’re welcome.” When he inevitably asks for what, I roll out the long list of subsidies: a $465 million Energy Department loan in 2009, a $7,500-a-car income-tax credit from the feds, $1.3 billion in incentives from Nevada for a factory, and more. Removing competition by racing to the future is one thing. Seeking special treatment to boost your advantage is cheating.
Mr. Musk still pushes the boundaries. Some ideas will work and some will go up in flames, maybe literally. Work is progressing on the sonic-speed Hyperloop transportation system. The Boring Co., which Mr. Musk founded in 2016 to undertake the project, proposes to dig tunnels under cities fast—and to reduce costs by a factor of 10. For some reason, the Boring Company recently presold 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 each, complimentary fire extinguisher included. The entrepreneur is even funding a “neural lace,” a still theoretical brain-to-computer interface. Is a holodeck next? All these ideas are far-fetched, but they’re mostly uncontested.
In his 2014 book, “Zero to One,” Mr. Thiel badmouths competition. “ Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.” Google founder Larry Page agrees. “If you’re not doing some things that are crazy, then you’re doing the wrong things.” I agree, as long as there are market forces to allow competition from anyone who dares.
Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? The problem with Silicon Valley is that the big winners get cozy with government and competition somehow falls by the wayside. Stricter antitrust enforcement would help.
David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting, told Morning Joe on Monday that he thinks Gov. Rick Scott should be “held accountable” for the failure of three sheriff’s deputies to confront the gunman.
Law enforcement sources confirmed to news outlets that three deputies from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office remained outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High as the shooter opened fire, eventually killing 17 people.
Hogg, appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, said the news is “raising concern” in his community, before accusing elected officials of attempting the blame the shooting on “bureaucracy.”
“They’re in charge of them,” Hogg said of those elected officials. “This is their fault.”
This is not a well-informed child.