Archive for 2018
June 22, 2018
ELIZABETH WARREN’S ACADEMIC CLAIM TO FAME MAY BE NO MORE LEGITIMATE THAN HER CLAIM TO BE NATIVE AMERICAN: William A. Jacobson explains how this will be an issue if she decides to run for President.
I wrote about her highly questionable “research” on medical bankruptcies back in 2006. If only the media (including the conservative media) had paid attention then …
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: University Of Minnesota Approves $3.6 Million Subsidy For Law School; Regent Urges School To Drop Quest To Retain Top 20 Ranking Due To Projected $100 Million 10-Year Subsidy.
I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: SpaceX wins $130 million military launch contract for Falcon Heavy.
MARKETING: This “Hot Dog Water” sells for $37.99 a bottle. “The tent selling unfiltered ‘Hot Dog Water’ — literally a bottle of water with a wiener floating inside — for $37.99 a pop included some promising, if not dubious, claims. Such as helping consumers not only lose weight but also increase brain function, look younger and improve overall vitality.”
I’M HOPING FOR THE CLARENCE THOMAS MOMENT INSTEAD: Paul Mirengoff asks, “Is This the Sandra Day O’Connor Moment?” O’Connor said in Grutter v. Bollinger that she expected race-preferential admissions policies would no longer be necessary in 25 years. That was 15 years ago, and the level of preferences has, if anything, increased.
BAD NEWS FOR BABY BOOMERS: Herpesvirus may contribute to Alzheimer’s development. “The hypothesis that viruses play a part in brain disease is not new, but this is the first study to provide strong evidence based on unbiased approaches and large data sets that lends support to this line of inquiry.”
THIS VIDEO ON HELEN’S MEN ON STRIKE HAS NOW SURPASSED 1 MILLION VIEWS.
BRIDGET JOHNSON: Hate-Crimes Indictment Returned Against Minnesota Mosque Bombing Suspects. “One allegedly told investigators that they didn’t intend to kill anyone but wanted to send a message of ‘show them, hey, you’re not welcome here’.”
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Trump’s Immigration Policies Are Actually Pretty Popular.
When asked which policy they prefer for how to handle families that are stopped for crossing the border illegally, two-thirds of the 1,500 surveyed said they support detention for lawbreakers and less than 20 percent responded that they support previous presidential administrations’ policy of letting the lawbreakers enter the country with a promise to return for a later court date. The poll was taken June 17-19, at the height of media outrage over the policy.
When given a choice for how to handle illegal border crossing arrests, some 44 percent of Americans chose “hold families together in family detention centers until an immigration hearing at a later date.” Another 20 percent of U.S. adults chose detention options that would separate families. Only 19 percent chose to return to the policy of allowing people who cross the border illegally to go without detention on the promise they’d return for a court hearing at a later date.
The Economist/YouGov poll shows an American electorate fare more serious about border enforcement than what the media conversation would indicate.
The media’s got this — or at least they think they do.
WHAT’S BETTER THAN A SPORTS CAR? A Sports Car With Rockets!
IS THE FIX NOT QUITE ALL THE WAY IN? Erdogan’s gamble on snap elections in Turkey could backfire.
The President faces his toughest political challenge yet, in snap elections Sunday that Erdogan himself called. Turkish voters go to the polls to elect both a president and a new parliament, and for the first time in more than a decade, they have an array of strong candidates to choose from.
Erdogan’s grandiose rallies have become an expected part of any Turkish election, but they appear to have been eclipsed Wednesday, as main opposition candidate Muharrem Ince drew what looked like the largest crowd in the elections period yet.
In the town of Izmir, hundreds of thousands of Ince supporters in a sea of red Turkish flags stretched for kilometers down a promenade on the Aegean coast, as the charismatic former high school physics teacher promised to end the nepotism of the Erdogan government.“Erdogan is tired, he has no joy and he is arrogant,” he said.
“On the one hand you have a tired man, and on the other you have fresh blood.”
Whether he wins or loses this weekend, the damage Erdogan has done to Turkey’s political and religious culture will outlast him.
WELL, PEOPLE CERTAINLY DRANK MORE OF IT: Did Whiskey Taste Better In The 1800s?
I do think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines and it does all make sense.
EVERYBODY’S TRANSITIONING THESE DAYS: As We Approach The Drinkularity, It’s Time To Grant Bourbon Personhood.
On second thought, no. Wouldn’t that make us cannibals for drinking the stuff?
YOU STAY CLASSY, WAPO: Washington Post Begins Krauthammer’s Obituary By Blaming Him for the Iraq War.
JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRAT PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: Oops! NBC’s John Heilemann: ‘We’ Have a Great Chance to Punish Trump, GOP.
SPOILER ALERT: NOT VERY WELL. Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?
The 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have done—and to reconsider environmental policy accordingly.
Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,” as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.
Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios—enough to determine which was closest to reality. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16. Assessed by Mr. Hansen’s model, surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.
Read the whole thing.
YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH THE CLASSICS. Aristotle: Build The Wall!
SABER STRIKE POLAND: A U.S. Army Chinook helicopter takes off after unloading equipment during Exercise Saber Strike 18 at Ziemsko Airfield, Poland.
LIONEL CHETWYND: My Early Days with Charles Krauthammer.
IN THE MAIL: From Andy Siegel, Elton’s Case (Tug Wyler Mysteries).
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals. New deals every day, and even every hour.