Archive for 2020

NORMS:

OPEN THREAD: There are others like it, but this one is yours.

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: But the important thing to Alyssa Milano is that someone is paying attention to Alyssa Milano.

OMG WE’RE TOTALLY LIVING THE HANDMAID’S TALE YOU GUYS:

I couldn’t manage this very full life without the unwavering support of my husband Jesse, at the start of our marriage, I imagined that we would run our household as partners, as it has turned out. Jesse does far more than his share of the work. To my chagrin, I learned at dinner recently that my children consider him to be the better cook. For 21 years, Jesse has asked me every single morning what he can do for me that day. And though I almost always say, ‘Nothing,’ he still finds ways to take things off my plate. And that’s not because he has a lot of free time, he has a busy law practice. It’s because he is a superb and generous husband.And I am very fortunate.

I’m beginning to suspect that the feminists’ unrelenting obsession with The Handmaid’s Tale has an erotic component.

U.S. PLANS ‘FULL WITHDRAWAL’ FROM IRAQI EMBASSY:

“The Americans aren’t just angry. They’re really, really, really angry,” said one Iraqi official after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed the Iraqi government that the U.S. was planning a full withdrawal from the U.S. Embassy unless attacks on American personnel and the embassy by pro-Iranian militias ceased.

Pompeo gave the ultimatum to Iraqi President Barham Saleh on Saturday night.

Read the whole thing.

JOE ROGAN VS. NPR WORLD.

‘HE’S SORT OF LIKE GOEBBELS:’ Biden compares Trump to Nazi propagandist.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Saturday compared Donald Trump to a German Nazi propagandist for the president’s barrage of attacks against him on the campaign trail.

When Biden was asked during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle how he would combat Trump’s repeated claim that he was pushing a socialist agenda, the former vice president didn’t mince words.

Trump is “sort of like Goebbels,” Biden said, invoking the name of Joseph Goebbels, the mastermind of Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine. “You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge” among voters.

“The Big Lie,” you say? Joe’s former boss received the “Lie of the Year” award in 2013 from his fellow Democrats at “Politifact:”

In other Godwinized news, Dana Milbank is partying like it’s 1934:

Related: Fascism: the most abused term in America.

UPDATE: Republican Jewish Coalition Calls on Biden to Apologize for “Goebbels” Comment.

MORE: Jeff Dunetz: Biden “owes an apology to the people who suffered at the hands of Hitler. their families, and the entire Jewish people. Making Biden’s insensitivity worse is that Yom Kippur is Monday.”

Nearly every Republican president or presidential candidate has been called a Nazi by Democrats since 1940. When does a political playbook from the leather helmet era get tossed out?

(Updated and bumped.)

SO WHAT? Aviation company says it flew aircraft with hydrogen fuel cell. These are only interesting or useful in a world where hydrogen is cheap and plentiful. Right now we generally make it via steam reformation of natural gas, which means you’re still working from fossil fuels. You can also split it from water via electrolysis, which you could do if you had lots of nice clean nuclear plants, or plentiful orbital solar power, neither of which is available or scheduled. That doesn’t make this research worthless, but . . .

THAT’S NOT REALLY NEWS, SINCE THE SPACE STATION IS WITHIN EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD: Radiation levels on moon more than double those on space station. Cover a lunar base with a foot of soil, which you’d want to do anyway for insulation and micrometeoroid protection, and you’ll be fine.