YOU MEAN OBAMA NEVER CLOSED IT AFTER EIGHT YEARS? Trump planning to keep Guantanamo open with new executive order.
Archive for 2018
January 26, 2018
ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Social scientists have warned Zuck all along that the Facebook theory of interaction would make people angry and miserable.
Cory Doctorow:
Since the earliest days of Facebook, social scientists have sent up warnings saying that the ability to maintain separate “contexts” (where you reveal different aspects of yourself to different people) was key to creating and maintaining meaningful relationships, but Mark Zuckerberg ignored this advice, insisting that everyone be identified only by their real names and present a single identity to everyone in their lives, because anything else was “two-faced.”
Zuck was following in the footsteps of other social network entrepreneurs who attempted to impose their own theories of social interaction on mass audiences — danah boyd has written and presented extensively on the user rebellions of Friendster from people who wanted to form interest-based affinity groups and use pseudonymous identities for different activities, which Friendster rejected out of a mix of commercial concerns (it wanted users to arrange their social affairs to make it easier to monetize them) and fringe theories of social interaction.
But while all the other social networks collapsed, Facebook thrived, and imposed the Zuckerberg model of “one identity, one context” on billions of users, who, research consistently finds, are made unhappy and angry by their use of the service, but are nevertheless psychologically compelled to continue using it, creating a vicious feedback loop that even Zuck has acknowledged as a risk to his business.
Read the whole thing.
Over the last couple of years I’ve been off Twitter except for the occasional silly remark, and limit my Facebook time to little more than similar silliness and pictures of my kids. And I’ve found I’m much more relaxed.
FDR DIDN’T KNOW PEARL HARBOR WAR COMING, GRASSY KNOLL WAS EMPTY AND RR DIDN’T HAVE ALZHEIMER’S IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Craig Shirley, a former colleague in the 1980 Reagan campaign, has since become the pre-imminent biographer of the former president’s campaigns and administration. So the man knows what he’s talking about when he writes this morning on LifeZette concerning recent comments by the White House physician:
“It would be nice to dismiss Dr. Jackson’s ill-informed and without-substance comments and move on, just as the White House would like to put the hearsay concerning Trump’s mental health behind it.
“But he and Trump’s tweets have now given new life to an old and most-thought extinguished and ridiculous rumor. So once again, Reagan historians have to beat it down. Dr. Jackson’s uninformed comments made news and, even worse, they were uttered by a White House physician, giving the veneer of officialdom.”
In other words, no, Reagan’s capacity to govern was not impaired during his second term, contrary to the myth first propounded by those who fought him at every step in his efforts to restore American liberty and win the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
and LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mueller Almost Got “You’re Fired,” More Text Messages Released and Much, Much More. “More text messages between DOJ/FBI power couple Peter Strzok and DOJ attorney Lisa Page have been released where we learn the duo was concerned that if they were ‘loaded for bear’ in the interrogation of presumed presidential victrix Hillary Clinton, they might face retribution when she ascended to her Queendom. Contrast this with the stormtroopers that raided former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s house.”
HAWAIIAN WHO SENT FALSE MISSILE ALERT WON’T COOPERATE WITH INVESTIGATION: “The offending employee has not been identified. Here is a wild guess,” John Hinderaker writes at Power Line. “the employee who ‘pushed the wrong button’ is a fanatical anti-Trump Democrat who believed that causing hysteria over a presumed North Korean missile attack would somehow make the president look bad. If that guess is incorrect, maybe the anonymous employee should start cooperating with the investigation.”
WITHOUT DOUBLE STANDARDS THEY WOULDN’T HAVE ANY STANDARDS AT ALL: Environmentalist Millionaire Candidate Heavily Invested in Fossil Fuels.
Millionaire congressional hopeful Dean Phillips invested as much as $2 million in energy companies even as he criticized Rep. Erik Paulsen (R., Minn.) for supporting fossil fuel development.
Phillips, a Minnesota liquor heir, is campaigning as an environmentalist in a bid to win a crowded Democratic primary and unseat Paulsen, a five-term congressman. He has supported a massive carbon tax as well as a shift away from automobiles to cut down on emissions.
“I care about the environment and I’d like to see fewer cars burning fossil fuels,” he said at a May townhall with voters. “Anybody who argues that a carbon tax would kill jobs is simply, fundamentally misguided.”
Phillips’s financial records show that the environmentally conscious candidate has no problem profiting off of automakers and fossil fuels. He has invested between $780,000 and $2 million in energy companies and major car companies. He held stocks valued between $65,000 and $150,000 in Energy Transfer Partners, owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline that has inspired numerous protests and arrests from radical environmental activists.
Well, what else is he supposed to do now that the “clean” energy crony bonanza is drying up?
MICHAEL BARONE: Eschewing euphemisms frames the immigration issue Trump’s way.
Euphemism has been the weapon of the liberals on this. You can’t say illegal immigrants, you have to say undocumented aliens. (By the way, have you ever heard those two words spoken together in ordinary conversation?) You can’t say amnesty, you have to say legalization. You can’t say illegal immigrants brought in illegally as children, you have to say “Dreamers” (a phrase irresistibly appealing to journalists, like me, trying to keep their word count down).
You have to say that any immigration legislation providing a path to citizenship for the bulk of the estimated (by the widely respected Pew Research Center) 11 million illegal immigrants is “comprehensive.” You have to say that more restrictive plans are “hardline” and therefore presumably undesirable.
In previous debates over immigration legislation, in 2006, 2007, and 2013, euphemisms held sway. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both sought “comprehensive” legislation, including mass amnesty. That was the policy of every president since mass immigration picked up in the early 1980s.
President Trump, notoriously, campaigned for something different, starting just moments after he stepped off that escalator in Trump Tower in June 2015. His use of confrontation and sometimes vile language strikes many Americans, including me, as distasteful. But it has also helped him frame issues, including immigration, his way.
He was attacked as racist for saying that Mexico “does not send its best.” But Pew Research Center data confirms that immigrants from Mexico have on average the lowest education and skill levels as those from any country. His use of the term “chain migration” was attacked by Dreamer advocate Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as offensive because slaves arrived in North America in chains. This effort at euphemism enforcement was a stretch: People of varying views have been using the term “chain migration” for two decades.
Including Durbin, but the race card is the only card they’ve got.
SCIENCE: Cuckolding can be positive for some couples, study says.
According to a recent study by David Ley, Justin Lehmiller and the writer Dan Savage, acting on cuckolding fantasies can be a largely positive experience for many couples, and hardly a sign of weakness.
References to cuckolding appear in literature as early as the 13th century, usually in the form of male characters who fear that their child has been sired by another man during an act of infidelity. Today, however, cuckolding has become fetishized into a powerful sexual fantasy for some men, who get aroused by the idea of their romantic partner engaging in sexual activity with someone else. Women also share this fantasy, but less so than men.
“This fantasy has been around as long as marriage and sexuality,” said Ley, whose book “Insatiable Wives” addresses cuckolding in heterosexual couples. “But we’re hearing more and more about it these days, and more people are rejecting the social stigma against this fantasy.”
If nothing else, “I’m screwing your wife, and it’s for your own good” does seem like the ultimate Alpha play.
THE PRESS KEEPS CAN’T KEEP UP: Trump at Davos — not as hated and hateful as hoped.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
● Shot: “We Are All Socialists Now.”
—Headline, the cover of Newsweek, then-still owned by the Washington Post, February 6th, 2009.
● Chaser: “Welcome to the Golden Age of Conservative Magazines.”
—Headline, the Washington Post, yesterday.
PRIORITIES: Amid funding cut fears, PA purchases $50 million private jet for Abbas – report.
The report, which did not provide sourcing, said the plane was set to be delivered to Amman within weeks, and will be stationed there for use by the PA chief.
Funding for the plane was said to have been provided both from the PA budget ($20 million) and from the Palestinian National Fund ($30 million).
The report comes amid deep cuts to US aid to the Palestinians, and reports that further cuts may be coming.
If true, that’s a lot of hungry Palestinian children who won’t get fed, or more likely, a whole lot of American largess the PA has been able to count on for years.
Or both.
THE RETURN OF KING DOLLAR? Dollar rallies off a 3-year low in sudden reversal after Trump says it will get ‘stronger and stronger.’
And why not? Even the XFL is making a comeback.
WELL, HE’S A MAN AND THE JUDGE WAS A WOMAN, SO YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE, BIGOT: Larry Nassar Sexually Abused More Than 100 Girls. That Doesn’t Mean He Should Be Raped in Prison. “Nassar would not be a particularly sympathetic rape victim. Some would doubtless consider any violence he suffers to be cosmic justice. But Aquilina is an agent of the law, not of divine retribution.”
Related: Performance Justice. “The punishment fits the crime. However, the judge, Rosemary Aquilina, meted out the sentence in a disturbing, over-the-top performance. She couldn’t stop talking about herself. We heard about her family, her dogs, her ethnic background (Maltese and German, in case you were wondering), her military service, her soccer coaching. We heard boasting. . . . Egomania and grandstanding are not uncommon on the bench. However, Aquilina’s performance was, I hope, off-the-charts.”
She was mugging for the cameras, which is why cameras in courtrooms are a bad idea.
HAVE THEY CHECKED UNDER MADURO’S OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS? Half of Venezuelan economy has disappeared.
This year will mark the third consecutive year of double-digit contractions in Venezuela’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity. The nation’s GDP declined 16 percent in 2016, 14 percent last year and it’s projected to fall 15 percent this year, according to the IMF.
Venezuela is deep into an economic, political and humanitarian crisis, largely inflicted by the government’s own policies, economists say. Food and medical shortages are widespread. People are scavenging for food in dumpsters. Citizens are fleeing by the thousands. The currency, the bolivar, is nearly worthless. The government has defaulted on its debt. World leaders are calling President Nicolas Maduro a dictator.
The political turmoil is not expected to get better. Maduro’s administration said this week it will hold presidential elections this spring. Maduro has already excluded opposition leaders from participating in the election. It’s unclear if anyone is actually allowed to run against him. Meanwhile, the economy shows no signs of recovery.
This is just the socialist state withering away so that the fruits of full communism can be enjoyed by the survivors, if any.
HEH: The fix was in. The 2016 election was rigged — and Donald Trump won anyway.
We all know — thanks to former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile — that Hillary rigged the Democrat presidential primary against Bernie Sanders. That was a precursor of what was to come.
Does it shock anyone that someone brazen enough to rig a presidential primary would also try to rig the general election?
Don’t look now, but Donald J. Trump may be the first person in world history to win an election rigged against him. Hillary — with the backing of Barack Obama and the leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice — fixed the general election so Trump couldn’t win. And Trump — this relentless bull in a china shop — won anyway.
No wonder Hillary was so confident in the days leading up to Election Day. No wonder she was so shocked and distraught on election night. Keep in mind the point of fixing the election. It wasn’t just about Hillary winning. It was about covering up her crimes.
It’s all coming down upon this cabal of criminals like a ton of boulders. Hillary, Obama, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Podesta, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, Huma Abedin and leaders of the FBI and DOJ — they’re all looking at possible prison terms as this massive, brazen scandal and conspiracy unravels.
It’s an entertaining piece, but things almost always look as though the Clintons or their cronies are about to do the perp walk.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN HAS KILLED THE GLAMOUR OF HOLLYWOOD: Lawsuit: Weinstein’s Assistant Was Made to ‘Clean Up the Semen on the Couch.’
All is proceeding as I have foreseen.
TAMARA KEEL: UFO Sighting.
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD: Most Men Aren’t The Predators The #MeToo Movement Portrays.
What unsettles me about #MeToo is that the norm it broadly describes — a desolate moonscape of predatory men, vulnerable women suffering a litany of abuse and indignity — is so contrary to my experience.
I don’t mean here that I am the lucky one who wasn’t physically assaulted, either. There are millions of women equally lucky. Most men don’t attack women, or flash their privates about or parade about the office naked, or masturbate as an opening gambit. . . .
I had dinner last week with two women friends. One was for decades a secretary at a newspaper.
She was brilliantly capable — she organized the predominantly male department and all of us in it — and hideously underpaid. She was the very sort of woman you would imagine male bosses preyed upon: She needed the job, she was cute as a bug, she was vulnerable.
Yet, she said, no one had treated her badly or unfairly (except to pay her less than she was worth), and if that was perhaps because of the immense dignity with which she carries herself, it is also because she worked for and with good and decent men.
The other woman is a producer in the traditionally male-dominated sports world, smart as a whip.
She had gone through none of the ordeals #MeToo would have us believe are universal. My own experience, as a female sportswriter decades ago, when the number of women covering professional sports could be counted on one hand, was similar.
We aren’t the freaks who escaped harassment. I suspect we’re the norm. And whatever percentage of the female population we are, we’d best start speaking up.
Making this about all men, instead of about predators like Harvey Weinstein, serves the interest of feminists, and of predators like Harvey Weinstein.
A RAINBOW DINOSAUR, REALLY? This Week’s Strangest Science News.
THIS, RIGHT HERE, GENTLEMEN, IS FEMINISM FLYING OVER AN ARRAY OF 100 MASSED SHARKS: Amazon’s Alexa Will No Longer Tolerate Sexist Abuse.