GRUMPY OLD MEN: Shatner-Takei feud spills into documentary.
Archive for 2014
August 17, 2014
CREEPING KRISTALLNACHT: Gaza protesters run amok in Tesco and attack staff and police ‘because it stocks Israeli food’: Up to 100 demonstrators hunted after shoppers were left terrified by rampage. Somebody should’ve shot ’em.
Instead, this cowering response — or maybe it’s an endorsement: Sainsbury’s strips kosher food from its shelves over fear of attacks by anti-Israeli protesters picketing as Gaza demonstrators run amok in Tesco branch.
Will the British government respond to this the way it would respond to attacks on Muslims? Or will it, too, endorse with cowardice?
MY USA TODAY COLUMN is about sexbots, the battle of the sexes, and Screwfly Solutions.
JONATHAN TURLEY NOT SO IMPRESSED WITH RICK PERRY INDICTMENT. “There are significant constitutional concerns raised by this type of indictment. Perry is essentially being indicted for his use of constitutional power to veto an appropriations item. Most people seem to recognize that he could have done this if he had not threatened to do it in advance. That seems to be the determinative factor: that he announced what he would do in advance if Lehmberg did not resign. That does not make for a particularly compelling criminal charge.”
This is — as Turley basically states — the remnants of the Democratic Deep State in Texas getting their licks in. If the GOP is serious, not only should the individuals involved pay a price for this overreaching prosecutorial abuse, but the Texas Legislature needs to rewrite some laws.
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on fish.
BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: “I dunno, when I see someone on the news running out of an electronics store with a flat screen TV in his arms, my first thought is, ‘he must be fighting for social justice.'” It is entirely possible, you know, that there are no good guys in this story.
THE PAST IS UNSETTLED: Mastodon Skull And Ancient Knife Pulled From Ocean Leave Researchers Mystified. “A 22,000-year-old mastodon skull and tool dredged from the seafloor in the Chesapeake Bay hints of early settlers in North America. The two relics, which were pulled up together, may come from a place that hasn’t been dry land since 14,000 years ago. If so, the combination of the finds may suggest that people lived in North America, and possibly butchered the mastodon, thousands of years before people from the Clovis culture, who are widely thought to be the first settlers of North America and the ancestors of all living Native Americans.” So did the Native Americans commit genocide against the pre-Native Americans?
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ERIC S. RAYMOND: Demilitarize the police – and stop flinging false racism charges.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: New York City Career women are having ‘egg-freezing’ parties. “I don’t want to be in the position when I’m in my late 30s and panicking because I haven’t found the right man and I’d compromise and take anyone off the street!”
Not against the whole egg-freezing thing, but you might want to listen to this song.
BILL WHITTLE: Firewall: The Struggle For Stupidity.
SO THEY’VE GOT THAT GOING FOR THEM: American Ebola patients now immune from disease.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Have A Headache? Have Some Sex. “Streicher went on to cite a study out of Southern Illinois University, which found that women who suffered migraine headaches and had sex tended to experience a 50 percent decrease in their headaches. That’s partly because of the endorphins released during intercourse, she said, but also because sex makes for a pretty good distraction from pain. It works, in effect, the same way that other painkillers do.”
SCIENCE: ‘Wormy’ pills might fend off autoimmune diseases. “Scientists have identified peptides from parasitic hookworms that can calm the body’s immune response and perhaps pave the way to treat autoimmune diseases. Experts believe the peptide molecules could help explain why worm infections can effectively treat diseases such as multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.”
FATHERS OPTIONAL: Katy Perry Doesn’t Need A Man To Have A Baby.
STEPHEN HALBROOK WILL BE ON CSPAN-2’S BOOK TV AT 5 PM EASTERN TODAY, talking about his new book, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State.”
DESPITE ECONOMIC STAGNATION, crime is falling across the rich nations. I credit videogames and Internet porn.
OH, GOODY: Hospitals In The US Get Ready For Ebola. “The C.D.C. says that health care workers treating Ebola patients need only wear gloves, a fluid-resistant gown, eye protection and a face mask to prevent becoming infected with the virus. That is a far cry from the head-to-toe ‘moon suits’ doctors, nurses and aides have been seeing on television reports about the outbreak. Some hospital officials are skeptical of the new advice.”
Do you get the feeling that they’re a little more worried about this outbreak than they let on?
UPDATE: Could this looting of an Ebola clinic by “armed men” in which bloodstained sheets, etc. were taken actually be a terrorist group trying to get infectious material? Probably not, but the thought just occurred to me that if I were a terrorist planning to spread Ebola, this is the kind of thing I’d do.