21st CENTURY HEADLINES: This Hero Cat Is Surviving and Thriving With 3D-Printed Titanium Limbs.
Archive for 2020
February 24, 2020
JONATHAN COWAN AND MATT BENNETT: Stand up to Bernie or You – and We – All Lose. “These and many other aspects of his record would offer Trump a deadly arsenal with which to savage Sanders and down-ballot Democrats. Sanders’ notion that he is the most ‘electable’ among you is laughable on its face, which is why Republicans are campaigning for him. For every voter he ‘mobilizes’ with his radicalism, he will turn out at least one for Trump. Negative partisanship is powerful when the candidates are extreme. Loyal Democrats like us would support Sanders, but too many others wouldn’t.”
Curious how many of these “anti”-Sanders Democrats would still put party above country on November 3.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Do Californians hate deregulation more than homelessness?
Homelessness has many causes, and few of them are easy to work through. Addiction and mental illness are two. Family and community breakdown are two more. Drawing the homeless population to Santa Monica specifically are laws that explicitly permit sleeping on sidewalks.
But one cause of homelessness is a simple lack of homes. And Santa Monica, like much of California, has fewer homes than it should — thanks to regulation.
Land-use regulations make housing more expensive. The Los Angeles metro area ranks as the 15th most restrictive in land-use regulation.
People who own houses in housing-restricted places often don’t want to deregulate. They like the space. They fear the traffic. And they know that adding more housing could harm their home values. Of course, preserving scarcity in housing to keep your housing investments valuable is not really something most people want to admit to, so they make other arguments. They suggest that the regulations drive up home values not by curbing supply but by giving people what they want: green buildings, safe buildings, adequate parking, and uncrowded neighborhoods.
But the one study that has looked into this finds that more than 90% of the price effect of regulation comes not from making the homes more desirable but from limiting supply. So regulation is affecting the market mostly by preventing homes from being built.
It’s “the housing price of liberalism,” as Thomas Sowell dubbed it – and it doesn’t come cheap.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for February 24, 2020. “Bernie’s the frontrunner, Bloomberg battered over fat broads and horse-faced lesbians, more slams against #NeverTrump, plus a gratuitous Slashdot joke. “
OUR SEXY, SEXY ANCESTORS: Earliest evidence of hominin interbreeding revealed by DNA analysis. Perhaps the different subspecies were like the alien chicks on Star Trek — different enough to be exotic, but similar enough to be sexy.
THE ISIS PLOT IN KANSAS CITY YOU HEARD NOTHING ABOUT:
Someone converted Robert Hester to Islam. That person or group was unable or unwilling to convince him that his new religion did not command him to commit treason and mass murder. That person or group was unable or unwilling to convince young Ali Talib Muhammad of the truth of the peaceful version of Islam that virtually every non-Muslim politician in the Western world assures us is as plain as day in the pages of the Qur’an. The implications of that are serious. No one dares contemplate them.
Read the whole thing.
UGH: ‘The City Has Been Annihilated’: South Korea’s Coronavirus Epicenter Is a Virtual Ghost Town. “The country’s cases rise 25-fold in five days, as Seoul declares a ‘red alert,’ allowing it to block domestic travel among other measures.”
Since the start of the local outbreak traced back to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, this southeastern city of 2.4 million people has ground to a halt. The mayor has told people to stay indoors and avoid large gatherings. U.S. soldiers stationed in Daegu aren’t allowed to visit off-base establishments. South Korea’s military base is on a virtual lockdown.
Shincheonji’s eight-story church building remained closed after services were canceled there, as well as at more than 70 other locations across the country. Yellow-vested city officials sprayed disinfectant on the exterior of the church building. Shincheonji—which means “new heaven and earth” in Korean—on Sunday said it had shut its facilities and is doing everything in its power to reach its members.
Also: “The U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory for South Korea—placing it at the second of four levels—and warned travelers to ‘exercise increased caution’.”
WE CAN HOPE, BUT DON’T COUNT ON IT: Why Chinese Communism Could Be the Final Casualty of the Coronavirus.
HEATHER MAC DONALD DESERVES A MEDAL: She continues to speak truth to shrieking college students.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Heather Mac Donald defends due process, debunks 1-in-5 rape stat as hostile crowd shrieks in protest (video).
JOHN FUND: Bernie Bros. say Bernie will win by boosting turnout. That plan may backfire.
WHO IS THIS “WE,” KEMOSABE? Bernie Sanders is the front-runner because of how we raised our kids.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: My colleague Maimon Schwarzschild and I recently signed a contract with Encounter Books to edit a volume of essays on how race-preferential admissions policies have (and continue to) undermine higher education. An updated version of this essay will be among them. Plus several new essays from authors to be announced. Look for it in early 2021!
DEEP STATE: FBI’s ‘Case Agent 1’ Stephen Somma ‘primarily responsible’ for FISA failures.
Horowitz said he did not have enough information to determine “whether it was sheer gross incompetence that led to this versus intentional misconduct or anything in between.”
When questioned by a lawyer from DOJ’s Office of Intelligence about Page’s prior relationship with the CIA, Somma claimed those “interactions took place while Page was in Moscow (which was between 2004 and 2007)” and were “outside scope.” Because of this, the attorney “did not include information about Page’s prior interactions” with the CIA in the FISA application. Horowitz said the information Somma provided was “incomplete, inaccurate, and in certain respects contrary to the information the other agency provided to the Crossfire Hurricane team on August 17, 2016 and that Carter Page had provided to the FBI in 2009 and 2013.” Page’s relationship with the CIA “actually overlapped with information alleged in the FISA application concerning his alleged ties to Russian intelligence officers.”
Horowitz showed that Somma omitted significant information provided by confidential human source Stefan Halper — known as “Source 2” in the report. Halper met with and recorded Page in October 2016, before the FBI filed its first FISA application. Horowitz concluded Somma failed to include key “exculpatory” information from that meeting, including Page denying meeting with Russians mentioned in Steele’s report, denying knowledge of the WikiLeaks dissemination of the DNC emails hacked by the Russians, and denying any role in the GOP platform related to Russia.
Read the whole thing.
HIS FACULTIES ARE SLIPPING: Joe Biden’s Tall Tale About Being Arrested in South Africa in the 1970’s Debunked.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN FOUND GUILTY OF RAPE IN LANDMARK #METOO-ERA CASE:
The jury in New York convicted Weinstein, 67, of third-degree rape against former aspiring actress Jessica Mann, as well as a count of criminal sexual act in the first-degree against former production assistant Mimi Haley. But the jury found him not guilty on the two most serious counts, predatory sexual assault, as well as a count of first-degree rape against Mann.
“And a reminder that Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on four counts of felony sexual assault in Los Angeles. He faces those charges next,” Yashar Ali tweets.
HYPOCRITE: AOC Says Charter Schools for Mine But Not for Thine.
Also at the link: The latest on AOC vs the Establishment in the Great Democratic Civil War, VodkaPundit-style.
ROGER KIMBALL: Media Serves Up Comedy in Effort to Get Trump.
It is a time- and labor-saving expedient. Instead of having deep-state operatives leak classified information to the press, why not simply invite the sympathetic (i.e., left-wing) press to sit in on the classified briefings? That way, venues like The New York Times and The Washington Post won’t be put to the inconvenience of having to wait for someone the leak the rumors and innuendos to them. They’ll have them firsthand.
In the meantime, it will be interesting to see how Russia 3.0 fares at the box office. The opening weekend, from all I can tell, was pretty dismal. What happens with this entertainment will probably depend on what competing acts the media comes up with to divert us.
Read the whole thing.