UNEXPECTEDLY: Apple Caves, Removes Multiple Apps, Including News App Covering Hong Kong Protests, After China Objects.
As Cam Edwards tweeted yesterday, “Guess we can officially retire this commercial:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSnW-ygU5g
Archive for 2019
October 10, 2019
THEY HATE YOU; THEY REALLY HATE YOU: ‘MAGA’ Slogan Listed on California College’s ‘White Supremacy’ Pyramid.
Flashback: Nobody tell this guy.
REVIEW: Brownells BRN-10.
AT AMAZON, Fall Deals in Grills and Outdoor Cooking.
YOUR OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: The Cost of Insuring Illegal Aliens: Between $10-20 Billion a Year.
MORE RONAN FARROW: NBC NEWS CHIEF ANDREW LACK “PREYED ON FEMALE UNDERLINGS” TOO. “For the moment, this is a credibility contest. Both sides have their issues in that regard (thanks to Farrow’s irresponsible reporting on the Deborah Ramirez claims in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation cycle), but the hushed-up goings-on at NBC News for the last few years puts Lack behind the credibility eight-ball in this case.”
Related: “What’s especially ironic about all of this is Lack was brought into NBC News to help steer the ship after Brian Williams was caught telling countless lies about himself. But now Lack has embroiled the network in an institutional scandal that grows worse by the day…So pop the popcorn and enjoy yourself as the hits just keep on coming for far-left NBC News.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: What It’s Like to Give Birth after a Uterus Transplant.
BELIEVE IN SOMETHING. EVEN IF IT MEANS SACRIFICING EVERYTHING: Charles Barkley Rips ‘Idiots’ For Criticizing NBA Over China Situation … ‘Jackasses!’ “NBA players and execs have shied away from backing [Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey] — and Barkley says he certainly gets why. ‘They have billions of dollars at stake,’ Barkley says. ‘It’s a business decision. I understand the NBA. The players and the owners both got billions of dollars at stake.’”
THE SAD LIVES OF OCTOPI: The deeper octopuses dive, the more warts they grow.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Apple, Google, Basketball, and Chinese Dominance of American Culture. “Apple and Google’s kowtowing comes in the same week that the NBA lent itself out as a virtual propaganda outlet for the Chinese Communist Party.”
AT AMAZON, Save on High Speed HDMI Cables.
FASTER, PLEASE: Humans may possess ability to regrow cartilage.
THE LAST WASP IN PRIMETIME — What the 1950’s quiz show scandals can teach us about meritocracy and the elite:
[Herb] Stempel’s grievance was doubtless legitimate, regardless of whether [Charles] Van Doren missed a handshake or whether [Dan] Enright cheated him out of a job. But that grievance’s effectiveness ultimately had more to do with congressional desire for good publicity and Van Doren’s own mistakes than its own justice. Van Doren did his part to undermine public acceptance of WASP privilege, not only by cheating, but by going on Twenty-One in the first place. He hoped his participation would promote elite education and erudition as attainable for everyone—but if it’s for everyone, then people like Mark and Carl Van Doren had no unique claim to it, or to the position of America’s teachers. Twenty-One subjected Charles’s aristocratic virtues to meritocratic standards, and he didn’t live up.
Popular memory considers the ’60s a moment of great disruption, including of the WASP elite, but that disruption began earlier, at the height of WASP popular cultural influence. Today’s elite stands at a similar apex of influence, cooperating with mass media not to spread knowledge of literature, history, and philosophy, but of diversity, inclusivity, and intersectionality. But this cooperation can be risky. There may be no better way to create and spread discontent with reigning elite values than broadcasting them nationally. Mass media might end up making promises that elites can’t keep. And no matter how entrenched and widely beloved a cultural elite may seem, it can only take a few years, a slighted outsider, or a broken public promise to change everything.
Read the whole thing, which perfectly captures the end of a bygone era.
YES: China: Threat or Menace? “Making China part of the world trade system was supposed to lead to China liberalizing and adopting democracy. It was a beautiful theory with a lot of supporting evidence behind it. One tiny problem: It turned out not to be true.”
INTERESTINGLY IT’S NOT THE VITAMIN D, APPARENTLY: How Sunlight Could Fight Obesity and Heart Disease—And Why Vitamin D Supplements May Not Work. I take vitamin D supplements but I also try to get moderate sunlight, because I’ve always wondered if maybe there wasn’t some other benefit to sun exposure. I also wonder if nitric-oxide boosting supplements like citrulline, which I take, or PDE5 inhibitors that boost nitric oxide and seem to prevent heart disease and cancer, might operate via a similar mechanism.
BELIEVE IN SOMETHING. EVEN IF IT MEANS SACRIFICING EVERYTHING: Houston Rockets merchandise disappears from Chinese Nike stores.
In addition to testing out their slogan from this past summer, Nike’s has also invalidated their eighties-era licensing of John Lennon’s “Revolution” in their ads as well. Apparently, both the shoe company and the NBA are perfectly OK carrying pictures — or at least the water — of Chairman Mao.
Related: CNN journalist “gets quickly shut down when she asked James Harden, Russell Westbrook if they would refrain from speaking out on politics/social justice after China debacle:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnQKgDhCNI
(Classical reference in headline.)
YOU CAN’T SEE WELL ENOUGH IN THE DARK WHEN THE POWER IS OFF TO SHOWER, ANYWAY: California bans hotels from using tiny plastic bottles.
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Lesbian pioneers in fight for marriage equality now in bitter divorce battle challenging definition of marriage.
BEFORE LONG I’M AFRAID WE’LL LEARN WHICH SIDE IS CORRECT, IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY: Florida begins arming teachers as large school districts rebuff controversial program.
