Archive for 2020
December 10, 2020
THAT’S CHEAP COMPARED TO SOME UNIVERSITIES: Ohio State University employs more than 100 diversity workers, costing more than $10 million a year.
THE STATE CARES FOR THOSE IT CARES ABOUT: Prisoners to get first crack at coronavirus vaccine under Charlie Baker’s plan.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE: Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Trending Toward Secession’ Comment Was Not a Call for Civil War.
FOR A HAPPIER NEW YEAR: The Gratitude Diaries. Janice Kaplan’s latest podcast offers tips for overcoming the brain’s negativity bias (which will help you forget 2021).
NEWS YOU CAN USE FROM REASON: The Ultimate 2020 Libertarian Gift Guide.
APPALACHIA ON FILM: Criticism for the Sake of It. Lefty critics have attacked the film (as a proxy for the Trump voters they despise), but Ron Howard’s adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy has remained one of the most watched movies on Netflix — and deservedly so.
FRUITS OF OUR LOCKDOWN CULTURE: Childhood Without Other Children: A Generation Is Raised in Quarantine.
JUST THINK OF HIM AS A COMMISSAR GETTING YET ANOTHER MEANINGLESS RIBBON PINNED TO HIS TUNIC: Andrew Cuomo Gets Handed Yet Another Award, But He’s Still Unconscionably Awful.
GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING:
● Shot: James Clyburn: ‘Nobody is going to defund the police.’
—CNN.com, June 14th.
● Chaser: Under Veto Threat and During a Violent Crime Wave, Minneapolis City Council Cuts Police Budget.
—Rick Moran, PJ Media.com, today.
INCONSTANT SUN: Enormous Solar Flares from Proxima Centauri Make Life Unlikely.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, HUNTER BIDEN, AND ERIC SWALWELL: Three Democrats Having a Very Bad Week.
I’M CALLING BUBBLE, IT FEELS A LOT LIKE LATE 1999/early 2000: Airbnb skyrockets 115% in public market debut Airbnb skyrockets 115% in public market debut.
Airbnb, which has never made an annual profit, is now valued at over $100 billion. From Wikipedia: “On August 19, 2020, Airbnb announced that it had filed for an initial public offering. The company has been privately valued at $31 billion and is projected to be listed as a public company in mid-December 2020 at a targeted evaluation of between $30 and $33 billion.”
Door Dash, which has also never made a profit, and has lots of well-funded competitors (Grubub, Slice, Uber Eats, etc., plus various local delivery rivals), also soared in its IPO yesterday, closing yesterday at a valuation of over $70 billion.
Tesla, which CEO Elon Musk, no master of modesty, said was overvalued like 300% ago earlier this year, is hovering around $600 billion in valuation.
This is not normal.
QUESTION ASKED BY ROGER KIMBALL: Hunter becomes the hunted. Will the Delaware tax probe into Biden’s son go anywhere?
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GRAUNIAD OF FUTURE RESULTS:
I HAVE A SMALL CHEST FREEZER FILLED WITH UNEXPECTEDLIES AS WE AWAIT THE OUTCOME: Under Veto Threat and During a Violent Crime Wave, Minneapolis City Council Cuts Police Budget.
THIS WEEK THEY’RE COMING FOR PHILIP CARL SALZMAN: Next week it may be you or me.
McGill University students and student organization have written a lunatic Open Letter Demanding the Overhaul of McGill’s Statement of Academic Freedom. In particular it targets Philip Carl Salzman, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, which apparently said things about the Middle East that they didn’t like.
The National Association of Scholars has posted a petition on change.org asking McGill to instead issue a muscular defense of Dr. Salzman and of academic freedom. I signed it. Maybe you’ll want to as well.
(Bumped — and endorsed — by Glenn).
OF COURSE HE DID: Raphael Warnock likened Benjamin Netanyahyu to George Wallace.
JOE PAPPALARDO: Fiery Crash of SpaceX Starship Rocket Ignites Dreams of Future Spaceflight. “For a prototype like SN8, part of a test program to develop a new rocket called Starship, success is not defined by survival but by the amount of data generated during flight. The longer the flight and the more maneuvers attempted, the better.”