TAMARA KEEL: Review: FN 509.
Archive for 2019
October 12, 2019
AT AMAZON, Fall Deals in Automotive.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Chronic Pain Sufferers Beg the DEA to Reconsider Prescription Opioid Cuts.
FASTER, PLEASE: The Navy’s Patent for a Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is Wild. Huge if it pans out.
ALL TICKS SHOULD DIE: NIH sets five-year plan for tickborne disease research.
WEEKEND WISDOM: If you’re looking for a break from the political wars, The Three Blind Spots of Politics makes for good weekend reading. Russ Roberts’ 2017 essay explains the blinds spots that afflict liberals and conservatives — and, yes, even libertarians.
This is from the new Margolis and Cox site, with political cartoons by Matt Margolis and John Cox (formerly of Cox and Forkum).
DID NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR JUST ARRIVE A LITTLE LATE?: Kursat Pekgoz and James Moore argue that the Ministry of Love is alive and well.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Rise Of Jordan Peterson Pushes Past Partisan Bickering.
Peterson is a gifted but surprisingly naive intellect. He lobs culture war smart bombs in interviews, only to be taken aback when they blow up in his face.
Take his comments about women who wear makeup and high heels in the office. You can sense his contrarian take, a willingness to challenge our preconceptions. Yet he’s shocked when the observations take on a life of their own.
What did he expect, especially since the Left has a virtual APB out on him?
Peterson deserves a documentary willing to capture his family, his flaws and his hunger to help his growing flock. “Rise” delivers on all of the above.
Read the whole thing.
Related: Jordan Peterson enters rehab after wife’s cancer diagnosis.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Gentile’s Guide To Sukkot: The Holiday With Prayers For Jews AND Non-Jews.
ROGER SIMON: Trump Makes Real Progress with China while Dems Play Impeachment.
It’s incumbent on us to find the better, more moderate parts of the regime and subtly encourage them (forming economic ties that work is one way) while still making sure that as Americans we see and sympathize with the cause of the democracy demonstrators. Thus far, Trump has done a rather accomplished job of this for a “diplomatic amateur,” letting his sharp criticism of the brainless, pandering comments of NBA managers Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich–their absurd and stunningly ignorant claims of human rights equivalency between the USA and Communist China–make clear his feelings about the protestors in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, the president publicly praises depots like Xi and Kim, much to the consternation of the CNNs of the world. It’s a strategy, obviously. It’s not clear the extent to which it will work. But if it does even some of the time, it’s miles ahead of what his predecessors ever did.
Read the whole thing.
I’m so old, I can remember when the Babylon Bee was still a satiric Website, before morphing into America’s Newspaper of Record.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University program teaches faculty and staff how they ‘support racism and white supremacy.’
OVERFUNDED HIGHER ED UPDATE, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE EDITION: UMaine PUBLICLY SHAMES College Republicans for Columbus Day comments in CAMPUS-WIDE EMAIL. “After a Maine mayor expressed disapproval of the state’s official changing of Columbus Day to ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day,’ the University of Maine College Republicans spoke out in support of the mayor via Facebook. The university responded to the post in an email blast, where it accused the group of ‘implying all indigenous peoples of the Americas are brutal savages’ and proclaimed that the post was not “reflective” of the university’s values.”
Why should a bunch of unelected administrators get to decide what a state university’s “values” are? And if they have time to weigh in on this sort of thing, they’ve got too much time on their hands. Why even have a “Vice President for Student Life” like Robert Dana? Especially when the job description seems to involve bullying students over politics.
FIGHTING FALCONS IN RUNWAY SHOW OF FORCES: Yes, on the runway. According to the DOD caption the photo captures a “show of forces display at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, Oct. 1, 2019.” In fashion shows models display clothes on the runway. So…in this show of forces is it fair to say the F-16s are modeling weapons? This fighter wing has a “suppression of enemy air defenses mission.” So…is this modeling fashioned for the Kremlin? Here’s another show of force, this one over the Baltic Sea (June 2016). Poles, Germans and Swedes fly with U.S. aircraft, including a BUFF. Yup, modeling in the BUFF.
CNN’S LGBT TOWN HALL COLLAPSES INTO TRANS MADNESS:
As a mild-mannered woman stood to ask a scripted question to Beto O’Rourke (who did not appear as his drag alter-ego Frieda Migrants), a black transgender snatched the microphone and bum-rushed the stage. She introduced herself as Blossom C. Brown and screamed at moderator Don Lemon, accusing him of being an example of ‘how anti-blackness works among people of color.’
‘Black trans women are being killed in this country and CNN you have erased black trans women of color for the last time. Our lives matter!’ she roared. During the nearly two-minute long spectacle, Brown raged against CNN for not giving a microphone to black trans women. ‘Blossom, you’re a black trans woman, you have the mic now,’ Lemon condescended, causing Blossom to fumble, fume, and walk back to her seat.
Unfortunately for Blossom, later in the show CNN already did have a black trans woman scheduled to ask a question. When moderator Nia Henderson introduced the audience member, Shea Diamond, pronouncing the name ‘Shay-a’, Diamond snapped. ‘It’s ‘She-a’! Get that on the record. It’s violence to misgender or alter the name of a trans person. Always get that right first.’ Should Henderson be faulted for thinking, as she read her cue cards, surely, no one was obnoxious enough to have renamed themselves to the phonetic ‘she’s a diamond’? Turns out, someone was.
Related: In the latest edition of the G-File, now at the Dispatch Website he co-founded, Jonah Goldberg writes:
Consider Beto O’Rourke, who seems to think that the shortest path to the Oval Office is to become a hipster Noam Chomsky. Last night, he said he wants to revoke the tax exempt status of any church that doesn’t perform same-sex marriages:
There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break, for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. And so, as president, we’re going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.
If I were of a more QAnony bent, I would suspect that O’Rourke is a Russian sleeper agent determined to sow social discord by serving as a right-wing strawman made flesh. Or maybe he’s a kind of strawman golem? If enough liberals say, “Oh come on, that’s not what liberals actually believe!” a straw Beto O’Rourke suddenly comes to life:
“Liberals don’t want to confiscate everyone’s guns!”
[Sproing!] “Hi, I’m Beto O’Rourke. We’re gonna get the guns.”
“Um, why are you standing on my table?”
“No liberal thinks the government should force the Catholic Church or Orthodox Jews or devout Muslims to perform same sex weddings! That’s just a strawman.”
[Sproing] “I’m not straw! I’m a real boy!”
As Stephen Miller tweets, “Stop saying churches. Start saying Mosques.”
Or as leftist journalist Katie Herzog concludes, “The Winner of the LGBTQ Town Hall? Donald Trump.”