Archive for 2018
March 9, 2018
OLD GLORY: Unacceptable at Stanford.
BRENT BOZELL: JOY BEHAR’S APOLOGY TO MIKE PENCE A ‘FIRST STEP,’ BUT MUST BE DONE PUBLICLY.
As Jim Treacher tweeted yesterday, “If only she had some sort of platform where she could do so publicly.”
LOUIS FARRAKHAN’S ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE SILENCE OF THE LEFT: “What we’re witnessing is the Balkanizing of the United States. And the left’s silence about Louis Farrakhan is the canary in the coal mine.”
JILL ABRAMSON, VOODOO PRIESTESS: Michael Walsh spots an astonishing admission from Abramson, the “first, and so far, last, female editor of the New York Times [who] has found a second career as a spokeswoman for the lunatic Left:”
It’s easy to look at what’s happening in Washington DC and despair. That’s why I carry a little plastic Obama doll in my purse. I pull him out every now and then to remind myself that the United States had a progressive, African American president until very recently. Some people find this strange, but you have to take comfort where you can find it in Donald Trump’s America.
Read the whole thing. I wonder if Abramson ever commiserates with Sally Quinn, the widow of the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee, who recently admitted to a life-long obsession with Ouija boards, talismans, and magical incantations.
I’m pretty sure that Ayn Rand didn’t write The Return of the Primitive as a how-to guide for east coast elitists. But I do know that Mary Katharine Ham did predict the omnipresent Obama doll back in 2008:
WELL, GOOD: Research: Saliva protects body from traveler’s diarrhea. “A protein found in saliva helps protects the body from traveler’s diarrhea, which may lead to the development of new preventive therapies for the disorder and others, according to a study. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine and collaborators found the protein histatin-5 in human saliva helps the body defend itself from gut infections, according to findings published Thursday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.”
FINE NEEDLEWORK: Researchers sew atomic lattices seamlessly together.
CLAUDIA ROSETT: Little Rocket Man’s Great Big Summit Scam.
This plan is now being widely hailed as a historic step forward; a triumph for Trump’s campaign of coralling Pyongyang with “maximum pressure.” It’s historic all right, but there’s an enormous hazard that it’s a step right into the same old North Korean trap.
North Korea has a record of deceit that includes not only the series of broken nuclear deals over the past 24 years, but the surprise invasion of South Korea way back in 1950, with which Kim Jong’s grandfather, founding tyrant Kim Il Sung, triggered the 1950-53 Korean War. The totalitarian character of the regime itself — a system built on brute force, threats and lies — ought to warn us that Kim’s goal in proposing a summit is not to surrender to maximum pressure, but to deflate it, via assorted diplomatic stunts. All the better for Kim to regroup and carry on with North Korea’s predatory projects, global rackets and nuclear missile program. (Forget the idea that Kim might be suddenly looking to repent his murderous ways and scrap his totalitarian system; odds are, his own gotesquely abused citizenry would seize the chance to kill him.)
Already, with this plan for a summit, Kim is gaming the mighty United States. For an American president to agree to a sitdown with North Korea’s tyrant is not a coup for the U.S., it’s a concession. When the elected leader of the Free World sits down with a totalitarian dictator to bargain as equals, it dignifies the dictator, not the democrat.
Read the whole thing, but given that Kim has put much on the table (even if he doesn’t mean it) and Trump hasn’t, for now I’m more sanguine on the talks than Claudia is.
“IT’S RAINING ROCKETS”: Deadly New Syrian-Russian Assault Kills Hundreds in Eastern Ghouta.
ANDREW KLAVAN: At the Box Office and Voting Booth, Leftist Fantasies Bomb.
Get woke, go broke.
A LOVELY OBITUARY FOR NATIONAL REVIEW’S DUSTY RHODES, who passed away Wednesday at 78.
US TREASURY REPORT: True U.S. Government Shortfall Is $88.9 Trillion, An Average of $704K Per Household. “Entitlements make the real national debt four times worse than it appears.”
I’M ALL EARS: The Case for a 21st-Century Battleship.
Stealth is one way to keep from getting hit, and the United States leads the way in the development of stealthy destroyers. But stealth defeats the purpose of a FONOP, which is to be seen. An old-fashioned battleship is a ship to be seen—and in a big way. But there’s no need for the Navy to build an old-fashioned battleship in the twenty-first century when it can build a new-fashioned battleship instead.
A contemporary battleship would combine advanced armor materials with automated damage control to produce a ship that is virtually unsinkable. Its offensive armaments might be mission-specific, but its key attribute would be survivability. It would be a ship that could be put in harm’s way in the reasonable expectation of coming home in one piece.
This “battleship of the future” could solve the challenge posed by China’s emerging anti-access / area denial (A2/AD) strategy for excluding the United States from the western Pacific. China is rapidly expanding and improving its networks of onshore, offshore, undersea, and space-based sensors to the extent that it will soon be able to see everything that moves between the Chinese mainland and the first island chain formed by Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Philippines. And improvements in precision weaponry will increasingly mean that China will be able to hit anything it can see.
I was only half-joking a few years ago when I suggested stripping down our museum-ship Iowa-class battleships down to the hull, dropping in a few A1B nuclear reactors, and festooning the new deck with lasers and railguns.
JANE MAYER’S DOSSIAD: Powerline’s Scott Johnson continues to hammer Mayer’s idiotic New Yorker article defending the Cristopher Steele/Hillary Clinton propaganda smear mainstream media call a dossier. In her epic Mayer portrays Steele as a hero of the purest motive– verily, Stainless Steele. This is the third post in Scott’s series that utterly destroys Mayer’s trash. His title “Dossiad” plays on Alexander Pope’s poem “The Dunciad,” a poem satirizing heroic narrative poems. Is Powerline suggesting the The New Yorker is a contemporary Empire of Dulness? Stay tuned.
MUST-SKIP TV: Obama in Talks to Provide Shows for Netflix. “Former President Barack Obama is in advanced negotiations with Netflix to produce a series of high-profile shows that will provide him a global platform after his departure from the White House.”
Community agitators gotta agitate, but former Presidents continuing to push their agendas long after they’ve left office is un-(small-r)-republican, and damaging to the country’s civic health.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I think this is the best take:
THE #LOVEWINS JACKBOOT: As George Orwell warned in 1984, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Engaged Ohio Teacher Had Sex With 13-Year-Old Female Student From Her School.
21ST CENTURY PARENTING: Porn is not the worst thing on Musical.ly.
Musical.ly looks innocent — just kids making music videos, and it is that, but more so it’s this: user uploaded content by millions of people who can also live stream, which is how I first encountered porn on Musical.ly. A very helpful naked man live-streamed his live stream (if you know what I mean.)
Kids are going to see it eventually, right? Might as well let them see it now. Might as well get them drunk while we’re at it. And high. Can’t keep them bubble-wrapped forever. 8-year-olds have been diaper free for five years; if you can pee in a potty, you can hold your own online. Amiright?
Friends who worry I’m over-reacting suggest I make the account private to keep pedophiles at bay, but pedophiles are not my main concern. Here’s why: Pretend you can turn your kid invisible. Pretend you drop your invisible kid off at a warehouse downtown LA. You have no idea who’s inside — fingers crossed it’s packed with Nobel Peace Prize winners, board certified pediatricians and J.K. Rowling. Pray it is not packed with the worst of humanity. No one can see your kid, but your kid can see everyone and hear everything.
Would you do it?
My wife and I let our sons (ages 7 and 12) watch some age-inappropriate programing and read almost anything which can hold their attention. But we have their hand-me-down computer and iOS devices locked out of social media/sharing apps and sites.
IN THE MAIL: From Gavan Tredoux, Comrade Haldane Is Too Busy to Go on Holiday: The Genius Who Spied for Stalin.
ROGER SIMON: Can The Donald Rein in The Kim?