IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? How beer can help mend our differences this Thanksgiving.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
November 23, 2016
DIGITAL DATING DIFFERENTIALS: Tinder users can express their gender in 37 different ways.
This is going to put “there’s someone for everyone” to the test.
HEALTH: Lilly Alzheimer’s drug fails in latest study.
The drug, solanezumab, missed the study’s main goal of significantly slowing cognitive decline in patients compared to a placebo or fake drug.
Eli Lilly and Co. had been studying the drug in patients with mild cases of the disease.
Current Alzheimer’s treatments like Aricept and Namenda only temporarily ease symptoms such as memory loss, confusion and agitation. They don’t slow, stop or reverse the mental decline that happens when the brain’s nerve cells stop functioning normally.
Faster, please.
CABINET OF RIVALS? Democrat Harold Ford Jr. emerging as potential Trump pick.
Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. is emerging as a possible contender for transportation secretary, or another Cabinet post, in Donald Trump’s budding administration.
The telegenic Ford — who served five terms in Congress representing Tennessee and is the son of a long-serving Democratic congressman from Memphis — has worked as a managing director at Morgan Stanley since 2011, and is a regular news analyst on MSNBC.
Ford endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, and he and his wife, Emily, contributed to Clinton’s campaign. But Ford is also close with Trump’s children, Don Jr., Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, an associate said.
Maybe liberals will come around to a Republican infrastructure plan if there’s a Democrat in charge of it.
ASTRONOMY: Milky Way’s Faintest Companion Could Further Our Understanding Of Dark Matter.
A longstanding puzzle scientists seeking to study this exotic matter face is the missing satellites problem, which relates to how dark matter assembles itself into structures known as “dark halos.”
Our current theoretical models of galaxy formation suggest that a galaxy the size of Milky Way should be surrounded by hundreds of small dark matter halos, which, in turn, should lead to the formation of a comparable number of luminous satellite companions. However, so far, only 50 odd satellite galaxies to the Milky Way have been observed — a number that falls short of the theoretical prediction.
“This discovery implies hundreds of faint dwarf satellites waiting to be discovered in the halo of the Milky Way,” lead researcher Masashi Chiba from Tohoku University in Japan, said in a statement released Monday. “How many satellites are indeed there and what properties they have, will give us an important clue of understanding how the Milky Way formed and how dark matter contributed to it.”
It’s amazing — and frustrating — that 85% of the matter in the universe is invisible to even our most powerful telescopes.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Trump Actually Treating Media Better Than They Deserve.
WHAT HATH MERKEL WROUGHT? One in three Germans feel they are ‘strangers in their own country’ due to ‘Muslim infiltration’, study claims.
There has to be an upper limit on how many unassimilated foreigners a country can comfortably welcome in a short amount of time. Germany seems to have reached that limit — which Angela Merkel seems loathe to accept.
STILL LESS BIASED THAN ESPN: Russian TV Blasts Obama for Manspreading in Front of Trump.
WHAT’S WORSE THAN FAKE NEWS? The Scourge of Dumb News.
Media is a product. Firms that provide this product are servicing a need, and we’d only be kidding ourselves to claim news consumers desire only to be informed. This isn’t a matter of simple bias confirmation. News outlets have begun to cater not just to partisans but the minimally informed for whom fleeting and shareable controversies provide a sense of feeling informed. What media consumers reward outlets for are rarely deeply reported stories on matters related to consequential items of public policy. What takes off are emotionally stimulating stories that don’t require of their readers any background knowledge to fully understand them and to opine on them.
This kind of entry-level politics is not a new phenomenon, and its victims are bipartisan. Colin Kaepernick, the Black Lives Matter movement, college-age adults devolving into their childlike selves, or pretentious celebrities politicizing otherwise apolitical events; for the right, these and other similar stories masquerade as and suffice for intellectual stimulation and political engagement. The left is similarly plagued by mock controversies. The faces printed on American currency notes, minority representation in film adaptations of comic books, and astrophysicists insensitive enough to announce feats of human engineering while wearing shirts with cartoon depictions of scantily clad women on them. This isn’t politics but, for many, it’s close enough.
We’re outraged more and more about less and less.
WHITTLE, OTT, GREEN: Mad Dog for SecDef.
Full disclosure: I’m Green.
BLUE LIVES: Wayne State University police officer in critical condition after being shot in head.
The officer, 29-year-old Collin Rose, was investigating complaints of thefts from vehicles when he stopped a man on a bicycle, Craig said. Responding to the scene as backup, a second officer found Rose on the ground, suffering from at least one serious gunshot wound, the Detroit Free Press reported. The officer was not shot with his own gun, and police were still searching for the weapon used, the Associated Press reported.
Rose was transported to the hospital, where he was recovering from surgery Tuesday night, M. Roy Wilson, Wayne State University president said, according to the Associated Press. The officer was with family members, and was still not “totally out of the woods,” Wilson said.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LEGACY: Federal judge blocks Obama overtime pay rule.
U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas, whom President Obama appointed, imposed a nationwide injunction against the rule Tuesday at the request of 21 states, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.
Business groups cheered the decision as another rebuke of the Obama administration’s penchant for regulation and for extending executive power.
“The Labor Department’s overtime changes are a reckless and aggressive overreach of executive power, and retailers are pleased with the judge’s decision,” said David French, the National Retail Federation’s senior vice president for government relations.
The judge said the Labor Department regulation exceeded the authority granted it by Congress, which he said gave Labor the right to define which workers are considered salaried but only based on the duties they performed, not by how much they made.
Live by the phone and the pen, die by the phone and the pen.
THANKSGIVING TIP: Alton Brown’s Turkey Brine.
We use our own roasting technique because we roast (much!) larger birds, and we substitute Alton’s candied ginger for fresh. There’s something about fresh ginger that makes the turkey taste even turkey-er.
PAYBACK’S A… YOU KNOW: Twitter has been left red-faced after it briefly suspended its own CEO’s account.
CABINET OF RIVALS? Trump taps South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for U.N. ambassador, sources say.
PERSPECTIVE: An Awful Lot of Media Coverage for About 200 Losers Getting Together.
Jim Geraghty:
It is not that hard to gather a couple dozen or couple hundred people together for just about any idea or concept, no matter how obscure or outlandish. About 80 Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln presenters – don’t call them “impersonators!” – gathered for their convention in Vandalia, Illinois. The white nationalists couldn’t gather as big a crowd as the 300 mermaids and mermen at “MerFest” in Cary, North Carolina last year. Of course, all of these gatherings shrink in comparison to “BronyCon”; about 7,000 grown adults attended the last convention for My Little Pony fans. (You may find that a completely different sign of the Apocalypse.)
Yet from the headlines, you would think that this was some sort of burgeoning mass movement, marching through the streets and taking over the nation’s capital.
It takes a lot of effort to establish a narrative.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Seen on Facebook:
Progressives on 9/12: ‘Just because some Islamics are terrorists, doesn’t mean all Islamics are terrorists! It’s not okay to just walk up and assault them!’
Progressives on 11/9: ‘Some Trump supporters are Nazis so Trump and all his supporters are NAZIS! Just walk up and assault them!’
Yeah, pretty much.
RED LINES: ISIS Used Chemical Arms at Least 52 Times in Syria and Iraq, Report Says.
“The coalition is concerned about ISIL’s use of chemical weapons,” Col. John Dorrian, a military spokesman in Iraq, said in an email on Monday, using another name for the Islamic State. “ISIL has used them in Iraq and Syria in the past, and we expect them to continue employing these types of weapons.”
Colonel Dorrian said that the Islamic State’s ability to use chemical weapons is “rudimentary,” and that American, Iraqi and other allied troops are equipped to deal with the impact of these chemical attacks — typically rockets, mortar shells or artillery shells filled with chemical agents. The effects of these chemical munitions thus far have been limited to the immediate area where they land.
Given enough time and space, ISIS’s chemical efforts will become less rudimentary.
YES. Tell The Children The Same Thing About Donald Trump As For Any President: Beware.
For that manner, any officeholder at any level.
November 22, 2016
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Could Beer Power Your Electric Car?
WORST. IDEA. EVER. Scotch Whisky Makers to Appeal Ruling on Minimum Alcohol Prices.
To combat alcohol abuse, Scotland’s Parliament in May 2012 passed a law establishing a 50-pence floor on per-unit alcohol prices but the measure has since been tied up in court after being attacked by the alcohol industry, which claims it won’t stem heavy drinking but instead force responsible drinkers to pay more, and that any such measure is illegal.
The industry worries that the measure, if implemented, will pave the way for a wave of restrictive legislation in England and around the world.
What has become of Scotland, birthplace of Adam Smith?
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE THY SELFIE STICK: Please, for the Love of Christmas, Tell Me Why This ‘Hipster Nativity Scene’ Exists!
FLORIDA MAN: Video shows man running over himself outside Orlando strip club.
Florida Man was 2016 before it was cool.
TWITCHY: Check out why Obama’s DOJ fined Denver Sheriff Dept.
No spoilers, but apparently following Federal law is more than the D.O.J. can accept from a sheriff’s department.