SHOCKER: Kratom associated with liver damage.
Archive for 2019
November 11, 2019
NASSIM TALEB: How To Be Rational About Rationality. “Judging people on their beliefs is not scientific. There is no such thing as ‘rationality’ of a belief, there is rationality of action. The rationality of an action can only be judged by evolutionary considerations.”
FURTHER INCENTIVIZING BAD BEHAVIOR: This Judge Is NUTS – Rules Trump Admin Must Provide Mental Health Services To Illegals.
IT’S A PAGEANT. IT’S JUST LIKE THE OSCARS: NBC Panel: Dems Must ‘Dramatize’ Impeachment With Crying Witnesses.
(Classical reference in headline.)
HOW STUPID DOES SHE THINK WE ARE? WAIT, DON’T ANSWER THAT: Not content with trying to outdo Hillary’s “plain folk” masquerade (“I’m gonna get me a beer“); now she tweets out a picture of her family with their humble station wagon:
Which is all well and good, except that’s a 1953 Lincoln Capri. Hardly the preferred ride of working class families. It sold back then for $3,766, which adjusted for inflation, is equal to $35,436.09 in 2019. Not exactly “dust-bowl” poor.
**Error fixed: this was Lincoln’s top of the line car in ’53. They did not offer the “Continental that year.**
SATELLITES DEPLOYED, BOOSTER SAFELY LANDED. SpaceX launches Starlink satellites with first reused rocket nose.
SALENA ZITO: Trump could lose Pennsylvania in 2020 if the Dems hone their message.
Trump won Pennsylvania by just 44,000 votes in 2016, the first Republican to take the state since 1988. That margin is so thin, the state could easily be won by a Democrat in 2020.
But if the Democrats want a victory, they must hone their message. Because here’s the other takeaway from last week’s statewide elections: the Western suburbs around Pittsburgh are deepening their allegiance to the GOP.
As Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist in Western Pennsylvania, puts it: “Philadelphia got bluer and Western Pennsylvania got redder.”
In short, not all suburban voters are alike.
“Go too far left on policy positions like banning fracking or Medicare for All or taking people’s guns away anywhere outside of the counties of Philadelphia, and they might repeat the same mistakes of 2016,” said G. Terry Madonna, political-science professor at Franklin and Marshall College.
Plus, voters in Pennsylvania are fickle, which is one reason why it — along with Wisconsin — remains the country’s most important swing state. Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, proves just how easily voters can switch.
Zito was among the first (or maybe even the first) national reporters to see and understand the Trump phenomenon in 2015, so ignore her at your own peril. That said, if the Dems can lose PA’s swing votes with promises of “banning fracking or Medicare for All or taking people’s guns away anywhere outside of the counties of Philadelphia,” then maybe they’ve already lost.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ‘Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself’ and the Popular Revolt Against the Elites. “What started five weeks ago as a gag on a nonpartisan gaming forum is now something of a national cause célèbre across the left, right, and great middle of this country. It’s a big middle finger salute to the Powers That Be, but more importantly it’s a sign that Americans in some small way are ‘as mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore!'”
Much more at the link, and if you aren’t already a PJMedia VIP member, the coupon code VODKAPUNDIT will get you a nice little discount on a monthly or annual subscription.
REAPING WHAT THEY SOW: Amazon Fails in Its $1.5M Bid to Oust Socialists from Seattle City Council.
Maybe if that Bezos-owned major newspaper weren’t such a lefty mouthpiece…
OH: American Taxpayers Are Subsidizing Ultra-Cheap Shipping From China.
“At today’s rates, the shipping of a 100-gram parcel to Fairfax, Virginia, would cost a small business in Marion, North Carolina, at least $1.94…but it would cost a company in Shanghai only $1.12,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, told Congress in 2015. “This has left thousands of American small businesses at a competitive disadvantage against foreign competition…because of the size of the hidden shipping subsidies.”
Foreign mail weighing less than 4.4 pounds arrives at U.S. “transfer points,” where it is then distributed by the USPS like regular domestic mail, but at subsidized “terminal dues” rates set by the UPU, not by the U.S. Postal Service.
Dumb.
But:
An “extraordinary congress” convened by the UPU in October finally addressed the disparity. UPU members voted to allow the U.S. and other countries to set new reimbursement rates beginning in July 2020. Terminal dues could increase anywhere from 125 percent to 600 percent, according to Cathy Roberson of Air Cargo World. Whatever the change, American tax dollars will no longer be used to benefit one group of businesses over another.
#Winning.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard hosts ‘Anal Sex 101,’ ‘Oral Sex 101’ and ‘fatphobia’ workshops.
BUFFS HIGH OVER THE BARENTS SEA: Three USAF B-52Hs and five Royal Norwegian Air Force F-16s fly toward the Barents Sea in the Arctic. Why? A stab at an answer: Russia’s Kola peninsula is on the Barents Sea. Russia’s Northern Fleet is based on the Kola.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. ‘Affordable and Reliable’ Energy Makes Life Possible.
California’s recent blackout revealed that having reliable electricity is an economic privilege, and interviews from across the state suggest those less affluent continue to have more losses and were disproportionately forced off the grid.
As it is, Californians already pay among the highest rates in the U.S. for their power, and unfortunately these costs are projected to rise even more. These increases often have a higher burden on low-income households that already struggle to keep up with rising cost, leading many down the path to energy poverty. The issue plagues not only California residents, but many more across the country including in Pennsylvania, where utility rates for customers are much higher than neighboring states. In Georgia a study finds energy consumption among the highest in America, and in New Mexico a new state law will increase cost to consumers, with the most negative impacts felt by lower income families who spend a larger share of their monthly income on energy.
The irony is that each state listed has an abundance of natural resources that can be accessed. But lawmakers, caving to environmentalist and special interest groups that don’t speak for the poor, continue to put forth expensive policy ideas like the Green New Deal that promote false hope and unrealistic outcomes for those who already grapple each month to make ends meet.
Why, it’s almost as though modern lefties don’t give a damn about the poor. Or that the Green New Deal is really about saving the world from deplorable bitter clingers.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Is Biden ‘Trumping’ His Competition? “In fact, Silver has mentioned on more than one occasion that people seem to not grasp just how much Biden is liked by regular Democrats, the ones in parts of the country that aren’t heard from much in the media, and who are probably underrepresented in the polls. Haven’t we heard that story in a recent election?”
REMEMBER, ONE OF THE JUSTIFICATIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IS THAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO FOSTER CRITICAL THINKING: Citing ‘gun violence,’ UVA cancels 21-gun salute portion of Veterans Day ceremony.
SINCE THEY’RE A HIGH-COST PRODUCER, I WONDER HOW LONG THEY CAN KEEP THIS UP: Venezuela selling cut-price oil as US sanctions bite.
“WHY I WEAR A POPPY.”