HAVEN’T WE KNOWN THIS FOR A LONG TIME? Arm position during blood pressure check may lead to wrong reading, study finds.
Archive for 2024
October 8, 2024
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-MONOPOLY INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF ANTISEMITISM? Windows Smashed, John Harvard Statue Vandalized in Act of ‘Palestinian Resistance.’
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Kamala Harris Wanted To Ban The Gun She Now Claims To Own.
A LOOK AT THE 2026 Toyota RAV4.
GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The Lost Art of the Sitcom Opening.“Always underneath these broadly comedic shows of the ’70s ran that intriguing undercurrent of melancholy. The juxtaposition is striking. Perhaps it was a sign of the times.”
FINALLY: Colorado Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit harassing cake artist Jack Phillips. State high court rules in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner, brings an end to attorney’s harassment of Phillips.
Until the next lawsuit, of course. Once again, it’s a reminder of the stunning business opportunity hidden within the Centennial State: With a population of 5.84 million, why on earth won’t someone open up a second bakery there?
I DUNNO, THIS SEEMS MORE LIKE AN OBAMA-STYLE MOVE: Joe Biden pushed UK to surrender Chagos Islands.
The Telegraph understands that American officials pushed the UK toward the deal, fearing that if it was not signed, Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base.
The base is considered strategically important because it puts some bomber aircraft within range of the Middle East. Diego Garcia was previously used by the US to conduct bombing runs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
US officials told the Foreign Office that a quick deal should be signed before the American and Mauritian elections next month, agreeing to give up UK territory in exchange for the base.
The officials argued that handing over the islands would safeguard Britain’s special relationship with the US, and that a binding court ruling would make it more difficult to fly aircraft to the base, conduct repairs, and cooperate with UN agencies.
Well, let’s hope it works out well for our interests there. Otherwise: No Time Like the Present for the UK to Give Away *gulp* Diego Garcia.
BAY AREA BLUES: Bay Area poll: 7 in 10 residents say the region’s quality of life is getting worse.
Naturally of course, the San Jose Mercury buries the real lede paragraphs deep into the article:
A whopping 46% of respondents said they were likely to leave the Bay Area in the next few years, with two-thirds of those citing high housing costs as the main reason to consider a move. During the pandemic, people fleeing the region contributed to a 3% population drop, though that exodus has since slowed.
Hey, remember that Welcome Wagon program, wealthy Red State Republicans? Any thoughts on actually getting it going?
I SHOT ONE OF THESE YEARS AGO, AND HONESTLY THE RECOIL WASN’T BAD: Gun Review: The Magnum Research Desert Eagle is 50 Caliber Perfection. That’s no doubt because it’s huge and heavy. (It weighs nearly 4 1/2 pounds empty, much more when loaded). It’s also because the .50AE cartridge, while powerful, isn’t as powerful as you probably think.
POSTMODERN PROBLEMS: Sexbots? In My Cloud Stack? It’s More Likely Than You Think. “I’ve long been amazed at the hyperparasitism of the hacker exploit ecosystem, where hackers penetrate systems not to steal credit card numbers, but just to steal the resources to run bot farms. And now hackers are stealing cloud resources to run AI sexbots.”
AT AMAZON, Shop the Prime Day Deals. #Commission Earned
COLD WAR II: U.S. Nuclear Deterrence: What Went Wrong and What Can Be Done? “Contemporary U.S. plans for the modernization of nuclear forces are an approximately 15-year-old legacy of the Obama Administration. They were established at a time when many U.S. officials believed that U.S. relations with Russia and China were relatively benign and would remain so, or improve further. Correspondingly, these plans reflected no sense of urgency and, with the exception of a modified B61 bomb, nothing is soon-to-be operational. How a new presidential administration and Congress decide to (or not) adapt the U.S. nuclear posture given the unmistakable reality of a much more dangerous than expected contemporary threat environment will affect the U.S. nuclear force posture for decades, and, consequently, U.S. deterrence strategies and options.”
Previously: Obama: The ’80s called, they want their foreign policy back.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Saturday Night – When Liberals Loved Free Speech.
There’s plenty to chew on during the film. The cast members do good-enough impressions of Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase and John Belushi. It’s fun to see comedy institutions like “Weekend Update” in their earliest forms.
Another takeaway? How much “SNL” has evolved over the years.
It’s gotten worse. Much worse. And the show’s political leanings are now to the Left of Stephen Colbert. And it shows.
They always were; Chevy Chase thought that hapless liberal Republican Gerald Ford was the antichrist. But in the beginning, Lorne Michaels was essentially making the weekly television version of National Lampoon magazine. (Chase, Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner and original head writer Michael O’Donoghue were all originally with the Lampoon.) As a result, the show was hip and irreverent; decades on though, it now exists only to provide Sunday column fodder for Beltway journalists. As John Hinderaker wrote in 2017 at Power Line, political reporters and wire services love to recap SNL episodes, because it allows them to get their biases in print while still maintaining a thin veneer of objectivity. “‘Respectable’ news outlets like the AP can’t publish absurd comedy skits ripping President Trump, much as they might like to,” Hinderaker wrote. “But by covering Saturday Night Live, they turn such meaningless attacks into fake ‘news.’”
I ALWAYS ASSUMED IT WAS CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSED BY MARTIAN SUVs: Curiosity rover provides new insights into how Mars became uninhabitable.
COLUMBIA BROADCASTING STRUGGLE SESSION UPDATE:
Jerry Dunleavy gets results!
Presumably this is one of the “leaks” that CBS was trying to prevent:
By way of contrast, instead of Maoist struggle sessions, this is what CBS News journalists were doing 80 years ago:
What happened in recent years to cause once grizzled newsmen and women to become so brittle that the sight of a book author being asked tough questions suddenly gives them the vapors? (Answer, among other things, safetyism.) Once again, we’ve entered some sort of bizarre hell-world in which Piers Morgan is a voice of sanity: Walter Cronkite would be turning in his grave at this cowardly CBS attack on good journalism.
Earlier: The Columbia Broadcasting Struggle Session: How Is CBS Marking October 7? By Admonishing Tony Dokoupil.
AIRBRUSH ALERT:
Wow. Here’s what happened. 60Minutes released a preview of the Kamala interview before it aired. Netanyahu word salad clip got dunked on relentlessly. So… 60Minutes cut it from the version which actually aired on TV. Makes you wonder what else was left on the cutting room floor. https://t.co/n1nd1Iz26z
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) October 8, 2024
Related: Kamala Implodes During CBS News Interview.
UPDATE: 60 Minutes Edits Harris’ Train Wreck Answer on Israel to Make It Sound Coherent.
Kyle Morris, formerly of Fox News and Breitbart.com asks, “Why is 60 Minutes speaking for Kamala Harris? This interview should have been aired in its entirety, unedited.”
Beyond the obvious answer (res ipsa loquitur), jump cuts are what newsrooms do during presidential election, though more often, it’s to harm candidates, not save them. Recall ABC cutting up Sarah Palin’s September 2008 interview with Charlie Gibson so badly, then Glenn wrote in the New York Post shortly thereafter, “Bring Your Own Camera.”
10 STATE ABORTION BALLOT INITIATIVES: the Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson lays out the stakes in the 10 states where pro-abortion activists have succeeded in getting ballot proposals extending abortion-on-demand through the ninth month.
TOM KNIGHTON: Harris Talks About Freedom That Doesn’t Exist. “She’s using the word freedom a lot, all while pushing things that will restrict actual freedom.”
PRIME EXCLUSIVE DEAL: Apple 2022 MacBook Air Laptop with M2 chip. #CommissionEarned
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Can Kamala Harris escape the ‘Hubert Humphrey problem?’
That marginal role applied to all vice presidents before the modern era. It was captured in the most famous quote about the office, uttered by one of FDR’s previous vice presidents. The job, John Nance Garner said, wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss.” (That quote used to be bowdlerized for public consumption as “warm spit.”)
Since Garner’s day, the bucket has been removed and the VP’s job increased markedly. This new, more prominent role influenced the VP’s run for the top office in 1960, 1968, 1976, 1984, 1992, 2000, and now 2024. In each of those, the party holding the White House nominated the vice president (or, in 1984, the party’s last sitting last vice president) for the top spot. The exception was 2016, when Barack Obama passed over his vice president, Joe Biden, and gave the nod to Hillary Clinton. Biden has been furious at both Obama and Clinton ever since, all the more so since Clinton lost (and, of course, he figured he would have won).
What changed in the modern era, making the vice president so likely to become the next presidential nominee? Beyond the detailed reasons (listed below), there is one overarching change: the vice president’s job has become much more important and visible as the national government has grown so vast. The Executive Branch, with its myriad of regulatory agencies, is too big and complex for the president and a small staff to control. He needs a much larger staff and a second-in-command who can handle whatever major tasks he assigns.
With the vice president’s larger role come four major advantages in becoming the party’s next nominee. Today’s vice presidents have:
- much higher name recognition than their predecessors
- political backing from the outgoing president (except in 2016 and perhaps now)
- strong ties to the party’s elected officials, campaign consultants and donors across the country, and
- a sure way to tap into the party’s fundraising apparatus, essential for today’s campaigns
Those advantages make it likely, though not certain, the vice president can not only win the nomination but win it without a damaging primary battle.
Incumbent vice presidents have one more advantage, or rather they have it if their administration is popular near the end of the term, as Bill Clinton’s was. The VP can credibly claim a share of that success. The recurrent theme is, “I not only supported all these great policies, I help devise and implement them, right alongside the (popular) president.”
If the administration is unpopular, the vice president never utters those words.
Until now:
Host: “Would you have done anything differently than Biden the last 4 years?”
Harris: “There is nothing that comes to mind…I’ve been a part of most the decisions that have had an impact.”
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) October 8, 2024
STUNNING BUT DEADLY:
We flew over Hurricane Milton about 90 minutes ago. Here is the view out the Dragon Endeavour window. Expect lots of images from this window as this is where I’m sleeping while we wait to undock and return to Earth.
Timelapse coming in a separate post.
1/6400 sec, f8, ISO 500 pic.twitter.com/zkhJdTlag7
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 8, 2024