GREAT MOMENTS IN OFF-SEASON PLAYER TRADES: “Taliban leader Khairullah Khairkhwawas was freed from Guantanamo Bay in 2014 by Barack Obama in an exchange for American deserter Sgt. Robert ‘Bowel Bergdahl.”
(Via SDA.)
Archive for 2021
August 17, 2021
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Handgun Training with Your Offhand.
REMINDER OF WHO THEY SEE THEIR ENEMIES AS BEING:
JOANNE JACOBS: ‘If your 3rd grader can’t read, that’s a problem.’
Post-pandemic education needs to get out of the spin room and focus on tackling “unfinished” or “interrupted” or “missed” learning, writes Dale Chu. Or “learning lag” or “learning recovery” or . . .
“Those who are wary of “learning loss” posit that it stigmatizes an entire generation of children — especially those from poor, Black, and Hispanic communities,” he writes.
Educators seem a lot more concerned about CYAs than ABCs.
LOOK FOR THE EXPIRATION DATE: Under International Pressure, Taliban Says It Will Grant ‘Amnesty’ to All.
STILL IN STOCK AND ON SALE: The whole dang game. 410 cards total.
DON’T SIT ALL DAY: Sit all day for work? A simple step can cut your health risk.
THE GROWN-UPS ARE BACK! “Biden promised to restore our place on the world stage. Is this what that’s supposed to look like? Just another hollow lie from a cynical old man. Donald Trump once said of John McCain: ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’ Maybe you liked that, but I didn’t. Now Joe Biden is saying that he likes countries that weren’t captured. This clown was supposed to be better than Trump?”
ROBERT SPENCER: Emboldened China Warns Taiwan: ‘The Island’s Defense Will Collapse’ and the ‘U.S. Military Won’t Come to Help.’ “While no one will be fired or even reprimanded for our disastrous exit from Afghanistan, much less for the insane decision to stay there for twenty years without having a clear idea of victory or any coherent endpoint in China, they’re paying very close attention and learning one of the obvious lessons of the last few days.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Fighting fungal infections: Giant leaps for smart nanotech.
WELL, IT SHOULD: Afghanistan takeover sparks concern from NATO allies.
They told me if I voted for Donald Trump, our allies would lose all confidence in our staying power — and they were right!
DISPATCHES FROM THE AFGHANI EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:
A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER! Biden team faces bipartisan anger over chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.
PUT LIME JUICE IN YOUR GROG: New analysis of landmark scurvy study leads to update on vitamin C needs. “The goal of the Sorby investigators was not to determine the required vitamin C intake for optimal health; it was to find out the minimum vitamin C requirements for preventing scurvy. . . . In the end, the Sorby researchers said 10 milligrams a day was enough to ward off signs of scurvy. Partly based on these findings, the WHO recommends 45 milligrams a day. Hujoel said that the findings of the re-analyses of the Sorby data suggest that the WHO’s recommendation is too low.”
CATCH-25: The Worst Part? The Democrats Can’t Use the 25th Amendment. “This is a problem for the Democrats. Kamala Harris is currently the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, and Republicans are only crossing over if Mitch McConnell supports a bill or if he realizes the Republicans will lose the fight anyway. He has a very tight grip on his caucus, and he can get his 50 votes whipped if he wants to make a stand. So far, he hasn’t had to. But there is a lot of power to be had in a 50-50 Senate with no tie-breaking vote, and he will take advantage of it. So, Kamala Harris becoming the President via the 25th Amendment means the Democrats lose their tie-breaking vote in the Senate, and without a 51st vote, there is no way for the Democrats to break a tie in the Senate in order to confirm a replacement Vice President. They are effectively stuck.”
BUGGING OUT, SWEDISH STYLE:
SPACE LAWFARE: Jeff Bezos’ rocket company sues, creates additional delay for moon landing. If you can’t make a competitive product, sue. Lawyers are cheaper than rockets.
FROM A FRIEND: “America’s NATO allies are now angry that the so called global engagement leader, Biden, consulted with none of them a whit. They are angry, and feel that they were abandoned. They are also left with the mess of having to rescue their nationals left in Afghanistan themselves. Not only is Biden grossly incompetent, so is all of his military bureaucracy. All of these people need to be cashiered immediately.”
Yep.
WHICH WAS NOT EXACTLY STAINLESS BEFORE: Battenfeld: Afghanistan debacle is permanent stain on Biden presidency.
Biden already looked weak even before the debacle in Afghanistan and now he looks incompetent, too — getting caught off guard with a botched attempt to withdraw U.S. forces and allies from the war-torn country.
“The buck stops with me,” Biden said in a carefully watched speech after he rushed back from vacation at Camp David.
But Biden then proceeded to blame previous administrations — including by implication his own under President Obama — for sending U.S. troops over the last two decades to fight in an unwinnable war.
He could have pulled out without it being a debacle. He just didn’t want to.