RESIGNED UNDER THREAT OF TERMINATION, I’D WAGER: Daily Beast reporter resigns after plagiarism revealed.
It seems just about impossible to get away with plagiarism on digital platforms, and yet people still try it.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
January 16, 2018
HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? U.S. oil industry set to break record, upend global trade.
Surging shale production is poised to push U.S. oil output to more than 10 million barrels per day – toppling a record set in 1970 and crossing a threshold few could have imagined even a decade ago.
And this new record, expected within days, likely won’t last long. The U.S. government forecasts that the nation’s production will climb to 11 million barrels a day by late 2019, a level that would rival Russia, the world’s top producer.
Now that’s what I call peak oil.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL PREPPING: Dogfish Head brewery unveils ‘nutrient-rich’ beer for survivalists.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Soda Tax Sticker Shock Grips Seattle.
THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY: Margaret Atwood is a blood-drinking monster.
Just here to say I would rather eat my own computer and then my own face than read something by Margaret Atwood with the title ‘Am I a Bad Feminist?’ ” tweeted one. “I cannot bring myself to read that Margaret Atwood shitpiece,” went another. And those were the more polite ones. Several tweets accused her of being an old, cisgender white woman. In this intersectional age, that alone is proof of guilt.
Margaret Atwood as an enemy of feminism is a tough concept to get your head around. She is, after all, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, the universally acclaimed dystopian fantasy in which women are enslaved to men. Her impressive body of work – one that has profoundly informed the feminist zeitgeist – is a 50-year-long attack on misogyny and the patriarchal state. Ms. Atwood is probably the leading feminist author in the world. So what happened?
What happened is that the Revolution has entered a new phase. Having vanquished the reactionaries, the Jacobins are sending the moderates to the guillotine. The buildings must be razed so that society can begin anew. Everyone who isn’t for them is against them. Moderates like Ms. Atwood, with their odious ideas about due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, are traitors to the Revolution.
The revolution eats its own, always.
THE OBAMA-CLINTON LEGACY: Tom Perez Says ‘We had to rebuild almost every facet’ of DNC.
OF COURSE THERE IS: There’s a Committee to Draft Oprah for the 2020 Election.
OVER AT HOT MIC: Small nukes is good nukes.
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER FROM JON GABRIEL: Actually, Swervy McSwerverton, Donald Trump is your president.
My daily travels brought me by my proud alma mater last week. As I crept along the narrow college streets lulled into complacency by a boring history podcast, a tiny car swerved in front of me, barely missing my left fender.
Usually, when a driver pulls this type of move, I call him a wide variety of colorful terms.
This time, however, I immediately knew he was a thoughtful, upstanding activist. He showcased his profound civic engagement in the form of a bumper sticker: HE’S NOT MY PRESIDENT.
Thank you, citizen. Swerve on.
Say it with me: Trump is president.
But resistance or something.
Anyway, do read the whole thing.
YOUR CONGRESS AT WORK: Congress has long struggled to pass spending bills on time.
Far from being a new symptom of present-day Washington dysfunction, Congress’ chronic inability to follow its own appropriations process goes back decades. In fact, in the four decades since the current system for budgeting and spending tax dollars has been in effect, Congress has managed to pass all its required appropriations measures on time only four times: in fiscal 1977 (the first full fiscal year under the current system), 1989, 1995 and 1997.
The country is in the very best of hands.
COLLUSION: Uranium Indictment in Maryland Not ‘Coincidental,’ Tom Fitton Says. “Mark Lambert is facing 11 counts of money laundering and wire fraud for allegedly bribing a Russian official.”
OUTLAWS: Venezuela president orders 2 bishops probed for hate crimes.
Their crimes?
The newspaper El National says Bishop Victor Hugo Basabe of San Felipe recently prayed for the liberation of Venezuela from the “corrupt plague” that sees citizens eating from garbage.
The newspaper says Bishop Antonio Lopez Castillo of Barquisimeto drew cheers from thousands at a Mass when he asked that Venezuela be saved from corruption.
Well, it isn’t as though they’d spoken up at a school board meeting or something genuinely serious like that.
SNOWFALLS ARE A THING OF THE PAST: Snow moving into Alabama; up to 2 inches expected in some areas.
NO. Can Government Officials Have You Arrested for Speaking to Them?
Deyshia Hargrave is a language arts teacher in Kaplan, Louisana. She was arrested Monday after she questioned school-district policy during public comment at a school board meeting.
She asked why the superintendent of schools was receiving a five-figure raise when local teachers had not had a permanent pay increase in a decade. As she was speaking, the school-board president slammed his gavel, and a police officer told her to leave. She left, but once she went into the hall, the officer took her to the ground, handcuffed her, and arrested her for “remaining after having been forbidden” and “resisting an officer.”
Fane Lozman, whose case will be argued in front of the Supreme Court on February 27, faced the same fate at a meeting of the Riviera Beach, Florida, city council in November 2006. Lozman, remarkably enough, has made his way to the high court more or less without assistance twice in the past four years, arguing two different aspects of his acrimonious dispute with the Riviera Beach city government. The first case, which Lozman won, asked whether his motorless plywood “floating home” was actually a “vessel” subject to federal admiralty law. (Answer, via Justice Stephen Breyer: “Um, no.”) The second case is about police tactics at public meetings; its result could make a profound difference to citizens like Hargrave who want to talk back to local officials without a trip to jail.
“When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny,” the wise man is supposed to have said.
D.C. MCALLISTER: No, Jaylen Brown, Racism Is Not Why Blacks Underperform in School. “A culture of distrust might have more to do with it.”
As D.C. notes, a culture which accuses studious black students of “acting white” has something to do with it, too.
NOW THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: Skycorp planning to make space industries.
Today’s super-strength metal alloys including all jet turbines use at some stage of other development vacuum processes that would be cheaper to handle on the moon.
As chief executive of Skycorp, Wingo is currently bidding on a project to make satellites on the International Space Station. He sees even greater opportunities making vehicles using moon metals as materials in 3D printers.
Wingo imagines governments commissioning data centers on the moon linked with laser communications that keep data safe in the event of a nuclear war. He even foresees small space fabs for semiconductors.
Silicon-28 could be cost-effectively purified on the moon and used to make chips with 400-percent higher thermal conductivity than the silicon mixtures used on Earth.
Plus:
The moon is largely made up of metal oxides that could yield new supplies of platinum — perhaps enough to drive prices for the precious metal down to $300 from $1,400 an ounce today.
Jewelers however might be able to charge a premium for “moon platinum” pieces.
CHANGE: Utility Jobs Lost as New Power Plants Need Fewer Workers. “Older plants are being supplanted by newer power plants fired by natural gas, as well as wind and solar farms.”
The Center for Energy Workforce Development, a group backed by six major utility industry groups, estimates that total direct utility employment has fallen to 505,000 from 550,000 since 2006. That is eroding a stable source of well-paying jobs, especially in rural areas, and generating local political pressure at a time when President Donald Trump has made blue-collar job retention a major issue.
Many industry leaders believe the shift is inevitable.
“The power sector is just not going to contribute to the economy in terms of jobs the way it once did,” said Curt Morgan, president and chief executive of Vistra Energy Corp , the electricity producer which used to be part of the former Energy Future Holdings Corp., and is planning to merge with rival Dynegy Inc.
That’s strange. Barack Obama spent most of a decade assuring me that clean energy would lead to more and higher-paying jobs.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump’s a Racist, Gov’t Shut Down and Much, Much More.
GRATITUDE: Syrian army vows to eject US troops.
The official told SANA that the Assad-aligned Syrian Arab Army would thwart the “conspiracy, end the presence of the US, its agents and tools in Syria, establish full control over the entire Syrian territory and preserve the country’s sovereignty.”
The US maintains some 2,000 troops in Syria and has said its forces will continue to back local anti-ISIS forces there until the extremist group is defeated and the area is stabilized.
The Syrian statement comes after the US-led coalition fighting ISIS announced plans Sunday to boost border security in the region, a move that Syrian and Turkish officials have said would destabilize the region.
Erdogan promised over the weekend to wipe out US-backed Kurdish forces in the area — and elsewhere.
PERSONNEL IS POLICY: There Are 633 Key Administration Positions. Trump Hasn’t Appointed Nominees for 252 of Them. “In many cases, that means career government employees from the Obama administration are filling the mid-level positions on an interim basis.”
Trump has no nominee for 252 of the 633 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, according to the Partnership for Public Service, which tracks presidential appointments. That’s well behind every predecessor going back to at least President George H.W. Bush, each of whom had the bulk of nominees confirmed by this point in their administration, according to the organization.
The Senate, where the Democratic minority has held up many nominees, has confirmed 241 Trump nominees, while another 136 nominations are pending.
“President Trump has yet to fill key political policy and management jobs across the government, ranging from the IRS, to the Census Bureau and the Drug Enforcement Administration, to important diplomatic positions such as the ambassador to South Korea,” Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told The Daily Signal in a statement.
There might not be much the White House can do to speed things up in the Senate, but there’s less excuse for not even naming names for 40% of key positions.
PROJECT VERITAS: Twitter Pays Hundreds of Employees To Look at ‘D*** Pics.’
What, you thought only the recipient could read your direct messages?
XI’S GETTING SERIOUS: The PLA Accelerates Modernization Plans.
Shortly after the close of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping announced that the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) would essentially complete by 2035. Subsequent reporting confirmed that this announcement represented an acceleration of the military modernization plan, shortening the original plan’s third stage by 15 years from 2049 to 2035 (Xinhua November 24, 2017). However, Xi added that the PLA would not transform into a world-class military until mid-century (Xinhua, October 27, 2017).
This shortened timeline is a sign of both successes of the reforms and recognition of continuing areas of weakness for the PLA. Even more importantly, however, is the fact that this accelerated timeline is being accompanied by reform of military education and training which are necessary complements to the equipment modernization. Cultivating military talents as part of the military educational reforms, and enhancing training to approach actual combat conditions are important components of military modernization.
Note that modernization includes making the People’s Liberation Army deadlier and smaller. It’s a common theme on the internet that a major war would help China reduce the large surplus of young males, but Beijing’s move to a more Western-like force indicates they desire the means to fight shorter, (and hopefully, to them) conclusive wars with minimized losses.
Otherwise, they’d be sticking with huge numbers of draftees and practically disposable, Soviet-style equipment.
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: The New York Times List Of Donald Trump’s “Racist” Quotes Is Garbage.
Patterico:
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts to bring black and white America together, the New York Times has chosen to stoke arguments over race by amassing a collection of allegedly racist quotes by Donald Trump. The piece is titled: Donald Trump’s Racism:The Definitive List. In many places, the alleged examples of racism are dishonest and absurd. Time and time again, truthful statements by Trump are deemed to be “racist.” It’s shoddy work, and the Times ought to be deeply ashamed.
Let’s pick apart some specific examples, so you can see just how shameless this list is. I’m going to start by debunking one of the allegations at some length, because the claim of racism makes me so angry that I want you to see, in detail, why it’s so dishonest and outrageous.
You’ll need to read the whole thing.
SIGNS POINT TO YES: Did Glenn Simpson Lie to Congress?
Yes, after a year of wall-to-wall reporting inspired by or based on charges in the Steele dossier, the New York Times broke a story right before New Year’s Eve—a traditional dumping ground for bad news—stating that the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign in fact had nothing to do with “a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by [the Clinton] campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies” that kicked off the probe. According to the Times’ switcheroo, the origin point of the Trump-Russia investigation was a boozy May 2016 evening in a London bar where a 28-year-old Trump campaign aide named George Papadopoulos boasted to an Australian diplomat that “Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.”
Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch’s op-ed in the Times supported the new revised version of Russiagate holding that it’s not about the work that originated with their firm. “We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling,” they wrote.
It’s not hard to see why the Times, which rejected the dossier before embracing it, is now backing off the dossier again. For all of the newsprint and air-time used to push the dossier for 14 months, nothing that hadn’t already been publicly reported prior to the 2016 campaign has panned out, nor have any of the accusations regarding Trump. There is also the fact dossier may have been used to secure a FISA warrant to spy on Trump’s associates, and therefore on the candidate himself, which would be a political scandal of a magnitude likely to transcend partisan divides.
This whole thing stinks, to coin a phrase.