TROLL LEVEL: President Donald J. Trump.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2019
I notice that Mitt Romney gets lumped in with the Democrats, which is sad. But fair.
Archive for 2019
February 16, 2019
BUT IT’S NOT LIKE THE SUCKUPS IN THE PRESS WILL ASK THEM ABOUT IT: Embarrassment for 2020 Democrats after Jussie Smollett attack story unravels.
REMEMBER, AS BRIAN STELTER TOLD US, REPORTERS DON’T TAKE SIDES: What media bias? Reporters shopping with Kamala Harris offer a preview of 2020 coverage.
OPEN THREAD: So there you are.
NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS HOPING FOR:
SpaceX foundry casting Raptor engine manifold out of Inconel pic.twitter.com/zWlqNwGj0R
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2019
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: The Progressive Civil War.
Related: “It used to be that we would protest wars. Now we are protesting jobs?” NYC Dem Carolyn Maloney slams opposition to Amazon deal.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot: Police sources: New evidence suggests Jussie Smollett orchestrated attack.
—CNN, tonight.
Chaser: Don Lemon Says He Texts Jussie Smollett Every Day Following Attack.
—Entertainment Tonight, Tuesday.
Hangover: Cameron Gray collects a ton of tweets on the alleged Jussie Smollett attack that might not age well.
–Twitchy, Thursday.
LIFE UNDER LATE SOCIALISM: As Venezuela Collapses, Children Are Dying of Hunger.
Shockingly, the word “socialist” actually appears in the story: “The Venezuelan government has used food to keep the Socialists in power, critics say. Before recent elections, people living in government housing projects said they were visited by representatives of their local Socialist community councils — the government-aligned groups that organize the delivery of boxes of cheap food — and threatened with being cut off if they did not vote for the government.”
RIP: Pat Caddell, 1950-2019.
ROGER KIMBALL: Shall We Defend Our Common History?
Also, THE JUSSIE SMOLLETT STORY: CNN reports the latest in the unraveling. UPDATE: Here’s the Daily Mail story.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Kurt Schlichter brings perspective:
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS: The Perils of “Orbiting.”
Sometimes, orbiting is so inexplicable that it just feels rude. Alexi Mojsejenko, 22 and living in New York, believes there’s someone from her past who views her Stories to spite her, but withholds likes and comments on her Instagram posts.
“Orbiting, in this sense, just feels very passive aggressive,” Ms. Mojsejenko said, “like a silent and lonely battle.”
Sigh.
SO AS I READ THE LATEST Man-Kzin Wars stories, I’m regularly reminded of a problem with the whole concept — by the time the stories take place, it should be child’s play to enhance a human to be as lethal in the flesh as a Kzin, if not more so. I suppose you can explain it away by arguing that the ARM would have suppressed those technologies, but once the first war started you’d expect them to have taken off. I think the real issue is that that sort of enhancement would undercut a major premise of the stories.
LONGEVITY: A ‘Fountain Of Youth’ Pill? Sure, If You’re A Mouse.
“Until about the early 1990s, it was kind of laughable that you could develop a pill that would slow aging,” said Richard Miller, a biogerontologist at the University of Michigan who heads one of three labs funded by the National Institutes of Health to test such promising substances on mice. “It was sort of a science fiction trope. Recent research has shown that pessimism is wrong.”
Well, hurry up. I’m not getting any younger, and neither is anyone else, David Sinclair’s claims of reverse-aging notwithstanding.
FLASHBACK: The Unexpected Return of ‘Duck and Cover.’
LIST YOUR FAVORITE “DOWNFALL” PARODY IN THE COMMENTS: Bruno Ganz, who played Hitler in Downfall, dies aged 77.
My personal favorite is where Hitler finds out he has to teach on Fridays. But that’s just me and my world.
UPDATE: Post some links, people, not just descriptions!
HOW DEEP IT GOES: Study confirms Cuvier’s beaked whale is world’s deepest-diving mammal.
Because the elusive whales spend so little time at the surface and rarely venture close to shore, studying their behavior is difficult. Researchers were able to tag several Cuvier’s beaked whale off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The satellite tags recorded 3,242 hours of behavioral data from 5,926 dives.
“They typically only spend about two minutes at the surface between dives,” Jeanne Shearer, a doctoral student in ecology at Duke University, said in a news release. “It’s amazing that they can dive to such depths, withstand the pressure, and be down there that long, with such brief recovery times.”
Scientists have previously tracked the dives of Cuvier’s beaked whales in the Pacific, Mediterranean and Caribbean, but studies suggest beaked whale populations exhibit distinct diving patterns.
The new data showed the whales’ deepest dives extend more than 4,500 feet beneath the ocean surface. Deep dives can last two to three hours. The whales dive continuously, with deep dives followed by a few shorter dives, averaging 1,000 feet.
“Cuvier’s beaked whales are only half the size of the sperm whale,” Shearer said. “Their dives push the limits of mammalian physiology, but we still don’t know how they’re able to behave this way.”
By contrast, the deepest breath-hold dive by a human is around 700 feet — only about 1/6 as deep, but still pretty impressive considering, you know, that we’re not whales.
INVERTED ANGEL: A USN Blue Angel practices the Diamond 360 maneuver, canopy down. It’s a tricky photo.
DICTATORS SPINNING CLUELESS MEDIA: Iran’s Yemen propaganda and more — a lot more. The latest StrategyTalk podcast. Jim Dunnigan gets off a great line in the first five minutes: “History is memory, news is not.” Liars in Iran, Russia, Venezuela and elsewhere leverage that.
I WONDER IF THERE’S ACTUALLY MORE PAIN, OR JUST MORE REPORTS: More U.S. adults reporting chronic pain, study says.