21ST CENTURY PARENTING, OR THE LACK THEREOF: Dad Starts YouTube Channel of Tips for Kids Growing Up Without Dads of Their Own.
Archive for 2020
May 25, 2020
IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Eureka! The Left Discovers Tenth Amendment.
Amid the grim coronavirus news of death and unemployment, at least there is the comic relief of the left embracing the Tenth Amendment. Suddenly trendy is the provision of the Bill of Rights that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
The rush to the Tenth came in response to President Trump’s statement on May 22. “I call upon governors to allow our churches and places of worship to open right now,” Mr. Trump said. “The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important, essential places of faith to open right now, for this weekend. If they don’t do it, I will override the governors.”
Clara Jeffrey, the editor of Mother Jones, a left leaning magazine, wasn’t having it. “To be clear, Trump can’t do [expletive] to force churches/temples/mosques to open. Little thing called the 10th Amendment,” she tweeted.
The White House correspondent of the PBS Newshour, Yamiche Alcindor, made the same point. “Pres Trump says he will ‘override the governors’ if they don’t follow new CDC guidance and open places of worship this weekend. Context: The 10th Amendment of the Constitution says powers not delegated to federal government are reserved to the states,” Alcindor tweeted.
And just like that, “the living Constitution” argument (temporarily) fades away.
THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE STAR WARS OPENING WEEKEND 43 YEARS AGO:
Among the 100 top-grossing domestic movie releases, there have been three occasions when two of those films opened on the same weekend.
“Dr. Zhivago” and “Thunderball” shared Christmas 1965; “The Exorcist” and “The Sting” were Christmas 1973. And on Memorial Day Weekend 1977 there was “Smokey and the Bandit”… and “Star Wars.”
Read the whole thing. For all of the talk of the dark, European-influenced auteur-driven “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” Hollywood of the ‘70s, the industry could still turn out far more entertaining movies than today’s product. If only that Hollywood still existed.
DON’T GET COCKY: Red Wave Coming? GOP Sweeps Election in Virginia Democratic Stronghold.
2020, MAN: Working from home, in the car. “You need to work, but you can’t drive to your office. Because your office is closed due to COVID-19. And the whole home office thing worked for a while, but now the kids have figured out how to jimmy open the lock, and their new favorite activity is Zoom bombing. May we suggest the office that’s parked in your driveway?”
FASTER, PLEASE: Slow, Steady Progress for Two U.S. Nuclear Power Projects.
SENTRY AND FRIENDS: An E-3 Sentry and two F-22 Raptors fly over snow-covered mountains in Alaska. Photo taken mountains taken May 5, 2020.
STRATEGYTALK PODCAST: A Plague Of Peace — Covid-19/Wuhan virus’ effect on various conflicts around the world.
FASTER, PLEASE: President Trump Cutting Additional Regulations To Reignite Economy.
VIRUS: 16% of recovered patients test positive for COVID-19 weeks after discharge: study. “Findings are based on small study in China, experts caution, so more research is needed.” Plus: “This might well happen with other viruses such as influenza, but no one has ever looked for it.”
ALLEGED DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE ROUNDUP: BidenWatch for May 25, 2020. “Senile Joe became Racist Joe this week, with one of the most amazingly ill-considered answers since Gerald R. Ford said Poland didn’t suffer from Soviet domination.”
Battleswarm also has some very nice Memorial Day tributes today.
25 YEARS ON: Bill Gates’ ‘Internet Tidal Wave’ memo, a seminal document of the unfolding digital age.
When Netscape was founded in 1994, according to one of its principals, Jon Mittelhauser, “Microsoft didn’t even know what a web browser was, really.”
About Netscape, Gates declared in the memorandum: “We have to match and beat their offerings ….”
More broadly, the “Tidal Wave” memorandum also represents an intriguing and rather detailed assessment of the state of the internet, and its emerging capabilities, in 1995.
“I have gone through several stages of increasing my views of its importance,” Gates wrote of the internet, adding:
“Now I assign the Internet the highest level of importance. In this memo I want to make clear that our focus on the Internet is crucial to every part of our business. The Internet is the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.”
Gates pointed out how little Microsoft content was then available on the World Wide Web. “Browsing the Web, you find almost no Microsoft file formats,” Gates wrote. “After 10 hours of browsing, I had not seen a single Word .DOC, AVI file, Windows .EXE (other than content viewers), or other Microsoft file format. I did see a great number of [Apple] Quicktime files. All of the movie studios use them to offer film trailers.”
He also wrote: “Amazingly it is easier to find information on the Web than it is to find information on the Microsoft Corporate Network.”
“Amazingly.”
HOW NOT TO HONOR THE FALLEN: Memo to NYT Libel Merchants: The US Military Is Not the Ku Klux Klan.
BACKGROUND HERE: On Eve of Memorial Day, NYT Accuses U.S. Military of Celebrating ‘White Supremacy.’
HILLARY CLINTON MARKS MEMORIAL DAY WITH ‘INCREDIBLY TONE-DEAF’ TWEET (AND PHOTO): Why is Hillary uploading her photo posed with a James Bond supervillain “buwahahaha!” expression in New York State on Memorial Day?
As Jim Treacher notes, Cuomo “turned the state’s nursing homes into deathtraps and waited months to even start cleaning the subways.” Where Is Cuomo’s Apology for Killing 10,000 People?
A WORLD BECOME ONE, OF SALADS AND SUN — ONLY A FOOL WOULD SAY THAT: Some Non-Negotiable Demands for Utopia.
SUPER GAFFE-O-MATIC ’76: ‘You Ain’t Black’ and Joe Biden’s 10 Other Acts of Racism.
I BET WE LEAD IN DEATHS INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED TO CORONAVIRUS: Don’t Buy the Misleading Figures. Here’s the Real Story About How the U.S. Matches Up on Coronavirus Deaths.
THE DEFICIT MYTH: You may not recognize Stephanie Kelton, but she knows you because you are a “currency user,” whereas government is a “currency issuer.” Therefore, according to Kelton and other Modern Monetary Theorists (MMT), Washington can spend and borrow without limit and without worry of ever going bankrupt.
And the day after the 2020 election, I will awaken with a third ear growing out of my forehead. Kelton on the other hand could wake up that same day headed to the White House as a key economics adviser in the Biden presidency. Odds on the latter are better than those for the former, so you might want to become familiar with MMT.
OUR REOPENING WAS MAY 1, AND WE MOVE INTO THE NEXT, EXPANDED PHASE TOMORROW: Coronavirus in Tennessee: 27 active Knox County cases, 342 total. “The Knox County Health Department reported six new COVID-19 cases on Monday, to bring the county’s total to 342. Knox County reported 27 active cases on Monday. The total number of recovered cases is 310. . . . There is one Knox County patient currently hospitalized due to COVID-19. Of the 342 cases, 39 of them have resulted in hospitalization at any point during the illness.” Still only 5 deaths.
