IN THE MAIL: From Raj Raghunathan, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?
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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1067.
ACCORDING TO FOLKS ON TWITTER, THE QUESTIONER WAS A BLACK LIVES MATTER ACTIVIST: Bernie Sanders Berated With Questions About ‘Zionist Jews’ at Harlem Forum.
Why is the Democratic Party such a cesspit of hatred, prejudice, and stereotyping?
LIES ON TOP OF LIES: Obama vows no influence in Clinton email probe, defends terror fight.
President Obama repeatedly vowed there would be no political influence over the Justice Department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state — in a wide-ranging interview with “Fox News Sunday” in which he also ardently defended his efforts to defeat the Islamic State and other terror groups amid criticism about his perceived indifference.
“I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case,” Obama told “Fox News Sunday.” “Nobody is above the law. How many times do I have to say it?”
His remarks came less than three months after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest publicly downplayed a possible indictment for Clinton.
Obama praised Clinton’s tenure running the State Department from 2009 to 2013 and said he still doesn’t think the emails to and from her private server breached national security.
But remember, he’s not exerting any political pressure on the investigation. Not even a smidgeon!
Related: Hillary’s NSA Problem.
Also: Hillary Clinton Put Spies’ Lives At Risk.
THE WEEK IN PICTURES: NEW YORK STATE OF MIND EDITION.
I love the “Sounds of Cylons” Photoshop.
WHEN YOUR TAX BASE IS TOO NARROW: One billionaire moves south — and New Jersey’s budget falls apart. One of many problems with a “tax the rich” approach.
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DISPATCHES FROM THE LEFT’S WAR ON BATHROOMS: Reporter Has Some Tough Questions for PayPal CEO After He Pulls Out of NC Over New Trans Bathroom Law.
GRAY LADY DOWN: The New York Times’s bizarre handling of its Gay Talese story.
In 1992, New York magazine reported that Pinch Sulzberger “told a crowd of people that alienating older white male readers means ‘we’re doing something right.’” If one older white male reader in particular that your staffers attempted to eviscerate in your pages is an 84 year old left-leaning journalistic legend, well, the left always devours its own eventually. Even if it’s someone who has written one of the best histories of the Times’ past glory days, 1969′s The Power and the Glory.
As for the slow collapse of the paper in the decades since, Bill McGowan’s 2010 book, Gray Lady Down takes up the story where Talese’s book ends. As this week’s debacle and the earlier quote from Sulzberger combine to illustrate, the self-styled elites who currently populate the Times appear to be remarkably punitive and infantile, not least when compared to their grown-up Timesmen of an earlier and better era in the paper’s long history.
Related: Great moments in unawareness, from both Tina Fey and Salon: “Tina Fey, female writer, is not impressed by Gay Talese.”
More: Gay Talese and the Outrage-Industrial Complex’s Odd Priorities.
IT’S HIS FIRST TIME; HE’LL GET BETTER AT IT: Bill Clinton paid the price for accidentally telling the truth.
IN TRUTH, THAT’S EASY TO DO WHENEVER YOU’RE PAYING ATTENTION: The ugliest face of Bill de Blasio: It was a week when it was easy to lose faith in the mayor.
Related: NYPD corruption probe turns focus to de Blasio fund-raisers Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz.
‘TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE UNEDUCATED:’ British journalist Tom Slater of the anti-PC Website Spiked “finds a fair bit of prejudice among anti-Trump activists in Long Island:”
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Donald Trump. He’s a crass opportunist, who, for all his talk of sticking it to the freedom-squishing status quo, has more than his fair share of authoritarian tendencies. But this protest in a sleepy New York suburb, and the wretching that Trump has sparked among the cosmopolitan classes nationwide, isn’t really about him. It’s about his supporters: the dumb rednecks who, Sally and Co tell us, know not what they do.
Trump may not go the distance at the Republican convention in July, but this fear and loathing of the masses is here to stay.
Read the whole thing.
There’s a reason why “this fear and loathing of the masses is here to stay” — it’s never gone away. It’s been the philosophy of the American left for over a century now, hence the title of Fred Siegel’s 2014 history of the American left, The Revolt Against the Masses, and his observation early on in the book that “The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. ‘Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class.’”
The middle class is merely returning a long-overdue favor, at least until the full-on arrival of “The Coming Middle Class Anarchy.” In the meantime, as Glenn explored in USA Today a couple of weeks ago in a piece titled “How David Brooks created Donald Trump,” “The political establishment denounced bourgeois Tea Partiers. Now, they must face raucous working-class Trumpsters.”
AS A WISE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ONCE SAID, PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Fla. gov. Rick Scott releases attack ad against woman who called him an ‘a–hole.’
ASTROTURF R US: Crowd Source: Inside the company that provides fake paparazzi, pretend campaign supporters, and counterfeit protesters.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: B-52s arrive in Qatar to join bombing campaign against ISIS.
As one Twitter user noted, Obama’s “heard some talk of ‘carpet bombing ISIS’ lately, and is trying to keep up appearances.”
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: America’s Cities Have Become Playgrounds For Rich, Childless White People.
NEW DRAFT ARTICLE, “DE-POLICING,” SEEMS TO PROVIDE EMPIRICAL SUPPORT FOR “FERGUSON EFFECT” CLAIMS.
Who could have seen this coming at the time? Other than everyone, that is.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF OFFICIAL POVERTY AND ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLENCE? Poorest Sections of Los Angeles Blighted with Most Illegal Dumping, Litter, and Decay.
Victor Davis Hanson frequently sees the strange dichotomy of California up close and personal on his family’s farm and neighboring hometown of Fresno. As he has noted on several occasions, the state’s leftwing elites in Sacramento are utterly obsessed with passing more and more environmental laws, which impact primarily its middle-class citizens (ban the shopping bag!) and its business owners (try building anything in California without obtaining a stack of permits first). Which makes for a sharp contrast with their see-no-evil attitude towards illegal immigrants and their crimes.
As he wrote in 2013, along with a photo he took of refuse dumped alongside his family’s vineyard, “The miscreants had already dumped their trash: chemical drums, paints, solvents, oils, concrete, tires, garbage, and lots of broken fluorescent glass tubes — something a bit worse than the usual toxic brew that is left on San Joaquin Valley property. How strange that the California legislature can pass all sorts of new laws over the last six months — transgendered access to either boy or girl restrooms in the public schools, the banning of lead bullets, driver’s licenses for illegal aliens — but it cannot go after the epidemic of destroying the ecology of the San Joaquin Valley countryside. If only there were a spotted toad or a lavender newt native to the vineyard, perhaps the Bay Area intelligentsia would change their views about unchecked illegal immigration. I think the rationale of the dumpers is that there are always enough law-abiding citizens left to pick up after the casual law-breaking of the fewer. But are the fewer still the fewer?”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: FBI Warns of Cyber Threat to Electric Grid; DHS intel report downplayed cyber threat to power grid.
Entirely unrelated: The Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.
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REPUBLICAN BIG SPENDING DÉJÀ VU — ALL OVER AGAIN: “But despite these lessons. Despite the fact that cronyism, or, as the left calls it, ‘corporate welfare’ is roundly decried on both the right and the left, despite the fact that the GOP lost the Congress in 2006 in no small measure on the issue of cronyism and spending, here we are again, in 2016.”
Read the whole thing.
Flashback: Glenn’s pre-postmortem for the GOP in 2006.
THE CHALKENING (CONT’D): Newsweek: Armed With Chalk, Trump Supporters Are a New Breed of College Republicans. “Trump is the first politician in a long time to not care about political correctness.”
ENTITLED TWIT GETS JOB AS GAY TALESE’S ASSISTANT, FAILS, CALLS HIM SEXIST. You’re not above making tea.
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STOP PORTRAYING HIM AS A BROODING BATMAN CLONE IN BLUE TIGHTS WOULD BE A GOOD START: Five Ways to Save Superman.
THE RAGE OF AN ENTITLED RULING CLASS: Sen. Warren: My Opponents Keep “Saying Whatever They Want About Washington Policy Debates.”
If we’re going to start jailing people for political lies, what about your ancestry claims, Fauxcahontas?
TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH.
And that means it’s a good time to plug Hampton Sides’ excellent Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission.
WHY DID THIS NEVER WORK FOR GILLIGAN? Castaways Rescued After Spelling ‘Help.’ ” Three castaways might still be stuck on a remote, uninhabited Pacific island might still be there if they hadn’t made a sign. The sailors were saved after a US Navy plane spotted that they had spelled out “HELP” in palm fronds on Fanadik Island, which lies around 2,600 miles southwest of Honolulu, CNN reports. The men, who also waved orange life jackets to attract the plane’s attention, had been stranded for three days after their boat capsized, forcing them to swim all night to the island.”
FROM STEVE CROWDER: Donald Trump vs. Bernie Sanders Town Hall Parody. With a smashing cameo appearance by Mark Rippetoe.
SHOULD WE HAVE POST-CANCER THERAPY?
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GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, CHAMP: Dem Lawyer: Obama Can Appoint Garland to SCOTUS Without Senate Approval.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: I was a closeted Christian at the Pentagon.
IS THIS THE most dangerous year in U.S. history for free speech? It’s certainly the worst in my lifetime.
THE WORST SCHOOL IN AMERICA FOR FREE SPEECH: Marquette to Fire Tenured Professor For Blogging Unless He Apologizes.
FEINSTEIN-BURR: The Senate’s Draft Encryption Bill Is ‘Ludicrous, Dangerous, Technically Illiterate.’
NSAIDS MAY EASE THE PAIN OF TENDINITIS, but may slow healing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Don’t Try This In Real Life: Stuff That Only Works In-Game.
WHAT IS SEEN CANNOT BE UNSEEN: Artist Imagines What Donald Trump Looks Like Naked And It Ain’t Pretty (NSFW).
Related: “Its creator [Los-Angeles based artist Illma Gore] claims to have received a thousand death threats from his supporters.”
As Glenn noted last month, linking to an article titled, “The Culture That Created Donald Trump Was Liberal, Not Conservative,” “Want political leaders with the decorum of yesteryear? You’ll need a society with the decorum of yesteryear.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Egg Hacks You Absolutely Need To Know About.
Related: How To Poach Eggs With Saran Wrap.
NICE, BUT IT NEEDS MORE GUNS: Secret DIY Gun Compartment Hides Behind a Mirror. “Gun safes are great for securing firearms, but not so great when you need quick access. This gun compartment doubles as a living room mirror, which hides them in plain sight.”
ERDOGAN 1, MERKEL 0: Germany Bows To The Caliph.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Middle School Students Forced to Fill Out ‘Privilege’ Form.
“FRAN LEBOWITZ HAS ACHIEVED THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM: She gets to live out a writer’s most wild fantasy life without ever having to do the actual writing part,” Rachel Shukert writes at Tablet, reviewing the new HBO documentary on Lebowitz directed by Martin Scorsese:
Susan Sontag—until her death the third member of New York’s great triumvirate of Overrated Jewish Lesbians, along with Le(i)bow(v)itzes Fran and Annie—famously called Fran “a rich man’s boor,” and, indeed, it’s easy to understand how Lebowitz’s tales of inconvenience and irritation might prove uproariously profound to those Masters of the Universe who have managed to eradicate petty nuisances from their lives. To the rest of us, for whom stroller rage and apartment envy and wishing things were cheaper form life’s heartbeat, they hardly seem worthy of comment.
There is one area in which Fran Lebowitz has by all measures succeeded brilliantly, one that Scorsese’s film, which consists almost entirely of uninterrupted images of her, gives us plenty of time to ponder. Fran Lebowitz has perfected her look. Her boulevardier wardrobe, her trademark cigarette/sneer, her unruly Beethoven bob: She has precisely distilled, or perhaps invented, our idea of what a “sardonic New York literary curmudgeon” should look like and has stuck to it faithfully for decades. This tastefully nihilistic pose has been her fortune and, perhaps perversely, also her undoing as an artist. “I’m not interested in other people, so I don’t expect them to be interested in me,” she claims. Fair enough (if somewhat specious), except that the single requirement of the art of writing—to say nothing of the art of conversation—is exactly that.
Read the whole thing.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: I was a closeted Christian at the Pentagon.
IN THE MAIL: From James Patterson, Private Paris.
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TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1066.
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Will Jake Tapper Become the New Face of Colt 45 Beer?
BLUE MODEL BLUES: t’s Not Just Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico’s rolling bankruptcy crisis is just a taste of the fiscal storm that lies ahead if American state and local governments can’t find a way to bring their own gaping pension shortfalls under control. For decades, rapacious public sector unions and craven politicians on the mainland have also been also been propping unsustainable state employee retirement systems, and—crucially—using accounting tricks to dupe the public and conceal the magnitude of their unfunded obligations. Congress’s proposed relief package for Puerto Rico would require the island to be more forthright about its pension costs going forward, but it would allow state and local governments to continue downplaying the size of their debts. . . .
The resistance to honest accounting is apparently coming not from Congressional Democrats, but from Republican state legislators eager to keep their pension Ponzi schemes in place—a reminder that corrupt blue model practices are thoroughly bipartisan. Hopefully Congressional Republicans will have the good sense to reverse course and require state and local governments to come clean as well.
Meanwhile, state Attorneys General who want to punish “climate deniers” may want to ponder the personal consequences of criminalizing political lies. Because who lies more about politics: Corporations? Or politicians?
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Behind Closed Doors, Top U.S. Commander Frustrated With Obama.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of major disagreements between the White House and the Pentagon over U.S. Asia policy. Two weeks ago, the well-connected David Ignatius indicated that top Defense officials would like to see the U.S. take a tougher line in the South China Sea. But this Navy Times report is pretty remarkable. It’s difficult not to assume that although Harris’ office declined to comment on-the-record, someone close to the Admiral has been disclosing Defense’s frustrations off-the-record.
It’s easy to see why Defense officials would be exasperated. China is slowing but steadily taking control of one of the world’s critical shipping lanes, and the U.S. President doesn’t want to try harder to stop them because he’s focused on nuclear non-proliferation and non-binding climate agreements. Yes, the United States needs China’s cooperation on many issues. But America has, since the end of World War Two, defended freedom of the seas as a cornerstone of a peaceful world order that has largely benefited the world.
President Obama, the White House keeps saying, is focused on legacy-building in his final year. Well, a Beijing-controlled South China Sea and the embittering of America’s Asia Pacific allies and partners who asked the U.S. to intervene on their behalf would certainly be quite a legacy.
Worst commander-in-chief ever?
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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HOUSING BUST LINGERS FOR GENERATION X: “Compared with previous generations, Generation X went from the most successful in terms of homeownership rates in 2004 to the least successful by 2015, according to the data, which date to the early 1980s,” the Wall Street Journal notes:
The culprit: a historic bull market for housing, fueled in part by easy-to-get mortgages, that encouraged record levels of home buying until the financial system cracked and the housing market collapsed. Earlier generations such as baby boomers, who entered the market before the frenzy of the early 2000s, have fared better.
Hey, if only Viacom-owned MTV hadn’t pushed that whole “Rock the Vote” thing to enable Bill Clinton’s rise to power, and if only tyro young voters could have seen through his proto-hipster posing. I’m sure Bill and Hillary feel your pain though:
CBS ASKS, “WHAT ROLE DOES ISLAMOPHOBIA PLAY IN TERROR ATTACKS?”
Alternate headline: Europe totally had it coming wearing such a short skirt. Or as Tim Blair’s commenters would say, “British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.”
And note that despite American CBS’s 60 Minutes eagerly promoting anti-Israeli Palestinian “Pallywood” propaganda, Islamic “migrants” in Sweden had no qualms last month attacking 60 Minutes Australia correspondent Liz Hayes in full view of her cameraman:
Related: How Islamists Are Slowly Desensitizing Europe And America.
ASHE SCHOW: Student expelled for sexual assault for something other people did.
New, yet Victorian, views of sex on college campuses have led to a return to the days when men were the ultimate protectors of women. This view says that women who drink cannot be held accountable for their actions, and are to be viewed as victims. Men who drink, meanwhile, are to be held accountable for their actions (and the actions of the women around them), and are to be viewed as perpetrators.
Now comes a story out of California, in which a male student (referred to in court documents as John Doe) was expelled for consensual sex because the accuser did not like what other men involved in the group sexual activity did to her. The University of Southern California determined Doe was somehow responsible for preventing and stopping what the other men did, even though his accuser gave no indication she didn’t like the contact. When she finally did show displeasure with the activities, by all accounts, Doe immediately stopped engaging in sexual contact with her and left.
Even stranger, Doe was found in violation for sexual assault because he allegedly left his accuser after the sexual activity, which may have endangered her. So here a student is being branded a rapist because he didn’t sufficiently protect a woman from other people or from what could have happened after the sexual activity.
He’s a male, which makes him guilty.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: New ISIS Affiliate Promises New Fronts ‘Against the Enemies of Allah.’
POPCORN TIME: Forget ‘Unqualified’, Watch Bernie’s Campaign Manager Blame Hillary for Rise of ISIS!
Analysis: True, given that she was Obama’s secretary of state when he decided to go full Democrat on President Bush’s hard-won victory in Iraq.
Related: George Will on Hillary’s Libya debacle.
ROGER SIMON: Will Guccifer Upend Hillary?
WHAT IS HILLARY HIDING? Reporter: Clinton Camp Used Static Noise to Drown Out Speech at Colorado Fundraiser:
The Hillary Clinton campaign used a static noise machine to drown out the Democratic presidential frontrunner’s speech during a fundraiser in Colorado Thursday.
Stan Bush, a reporter for KCNC-TV CBS4 in Denver, was among several reporters staking out the fundraiser at the home of Gov. John Hickenlooper (D.).
Music could be heard at the event, which was held outside in a public neighborhood before Clinton was set to speak. The campaign then used a “large speaker pointed out into the street” to distort the sound so lingering reporters could not hear, according to Bush.
Bush said the campaign “must have chosen static noise as a privacy wall since they wanted to hold an event outside in a public neighborhood.”
Exclusive video of Hillary’s speech and her static noise generator; must credit Instapundit.com if copied:
On a serious note though, if the MSM wanted to push back against Hillary’s continuing efforts to limit their access they could; to understand why they don’t, just think of them as Democrat activists with bylines and you won’t go far wrong, to coin an Insta-phrase.
I DOUBT GERALDO LOSES MUCH SLEEP OVER HIS OWN HYPOCRISY: Palestinian Terror Apologist Geraldo Rivera Has No Right To Criticize Cruz.
FIRST QUARTER ECONOMIC NUMBERS LOOK SO BLEAK THEY’LL NEED THE ADDITION OF OBAMA’S MINIONS’ NUMBER-MASSAGING HELP: “They’re not going to let it be negative, as that would set up the possibility of an official recession just before the election (two negative quarters in a row). They’ll make sure it comes in at at least 0.1.”
Flashback: National Bureau of Economic Research redefines recession definition to move recession back from the third quarter of 2008 to December of 2007. Similarly, in the fall of 1992, the media hid the economic recovery occurring under George H.W. Bush’s watch to enable the Clintons’ “Worst recession in 50 years” lie. Or as a Time magazine headline writer described it with maximum self-satisfied snark on December 7th of 1992, “Bush’s Economic Present for Clinton.” The economy would grow 4.2 percent that quarter, but you never would have known it from the DNC-MSM until after November 3rd.
Flash-forward: “‘The Greater Depression Has Started’ — Comparing 1930s & Today.” Soon, we could be partying like it’s 1929…
MY COUSIN DONNY: Joanne Nosuchinsky on what Donald Trump can learn from Joe Pesci.
GOVERNMENT IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO LIE ABOUT TOGETHER: VA bosses in 7 states falsified vets’ wait times for care.
THE WEIRDEST PERSONAL AD I’VE EVER READ: NASA’s resurrected telescope seeks wandering planets.
WELL, IT IS THE 21st CENTURY: Flexible spinal cord implants will let paralyzed people walk.
CHECK YOUR GUT BACTERIA PRIVILEGE: Gut bacteria regulate nerve fibre insulation
IT COULD BE WORSE, SHE COULD HAVE CHILDREN: Neutering speech until silence prevails! (And no menacing movements either!)
OH SHOCKED FACE, YOU ARE NEVER FAR: NYPD corruption scandal leads straight to de Blasio.
BACKGROUND CHECKS ARE SO DISCRIMINATORY: Only 3 U.S. Airports Require Employee Security Checks.
TO BE FAIR, IT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIDDLE: The feds dawdle while patients die needlessly.
THEY BECAME TEH GRAUNIAD SO SLOWLY I NEVER NOTICED TILL NOW: BBC News covers Higgs boson reboot with a smutty spelling gaffe.
Layers and layers of fact and spell checkers. You know the drill. If only they were some gonzo guys (and gals) in their pajamas!
UPDATE: Link fixed!
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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Do we even own things anymore? Thanks to intellectual property laws, companies sell you “things” but still own the software.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Former New Berlin school teacher charged with sex with student. “Domres is the second teacher facing charges of sex with a student in Waukesha County in recent months. In December, April M. Novak, 30, of Sussex, a former Menomonee Falls School District teacher, was charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old student.”
IMPOSSIBLE. IT’S A GUN-FREE ZONE. Newtown, CT Middle School Teacher Arrested for Carrying Gun in School.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: It’s Unhealthy To Be A Widower.
Related: Men Living Longer: Women And Minorities Hardest Hit?
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We tend to think of heretics as contrarians, individuals with a compulsion to flout conventional wisdom. But sometimes a heretic is simply a mainstream thinker who stays facing the same way while everyone around him turns 180 degrees.”
SOMEBODY WAS POSTING THIS ON FACEBOOK, AND TO BE HONEST IT SEEMS INCREASINGLY PLAUSIBLE: Human intelligence is declining according to Stanford geneticist.
Shut up and pour me another Brawndo. It’s got electrolytes!
“SHRIMP SIMULACRUM.” SOUNDS DELICIOUS! A New Shrimp Simulacrum Hopes To Take Plates By Storm. “Barnes told the Atlantic that the process of making the faux crustacean, out of red algae and protein powder, is like ‘baking a loaf of bread.’ New Wave won’t be the first faux shrimp on the market, but because they are made of the same algae that shrimp regularly eat, these shrimp knock-offs claim to have a much closer nutritional profile that any previously produced.”
Yum. Not just shrimp simulacrum. Algae-based shrimp simulacrum. Who could say no to that?
THE WILD, THE INNOCENT, AND THE LEFT’S WAR ON BATHROOMS: ‘Raising my voice in opposition’: Bruce Springsteen cancels N.C. concert over HB2 law.
Alternate headline: Semi-Retired Former Rock Star Turned Tool of the One Percent Ruling Elite Screws Working Class Fans to Send PC Virtue Signal to His Political Masters.
SHARING ECONOMY, DNA-EDITION: Forget the presidential race, the biggest story right now is the rapid spread of gene-editing technology. Tech Review reports on the entrepreneurial nonprofit driving its rapid spread:
AddGene is a nonprofit that exists to help scientists share their DNA inventions. Think of it as an Amazon.com for biological parts. Anyone can submit one—or order someone else’s part for $65.
Easy access to gene-editing technology is what has allowed labs everywhere to get into the game. Last year, there were more than 1,300 scientific papers on CRISPR, and it’s been used to do everything from curing muscular dystrophy in mice to making super-muscled beagles.
Read the rest here. (It’s short.)
WELL, THIS WON’T WIN HIM MANY NEW FRIENDS ON THE LEFT: Pope Francis Encourages Marital Sex, Condemns Gay Marriage.
CUTENESS IS JUST A MANIPULATIVE STRATEGY FOR KILLERS: Biologists Have Learned Something Horrifying About Prairie Dogs: Prairie dogs are cold-blooded killers.
SPACEX SUCCESSFULLY LANDS REUSABLE FIRST STAGE ON DRONE SHIP.
UPDATE: Video.
HOW NOT TO BE SEEN: Will This Weapon Change Infantry Warfare Forever?
For now, not much will change on the battlefield for dismounted soldiers in combat. However, once the weapon is distributed more widely at the squad level throughout the U.S. military, the impact of the XM25 could be revolutionary and fundamentally change small infantry tactics. The XM25 will essentially destroy the value of cover and with it the necessity of long-drawn out firefights. It will also make the old infantry tactic of firing and maneuvering to eliminate an enemy hiding behind cover obsolete.
“The XM25 is a next-generation, semi-automatic weapon designed for effectiveness against enemies protected by walls, dug into foxholes or hidden in hard-to-reach places,” according to the website of Orbital ATK, the producer of the XM25.
If there’s ever a civilian model, the range where I shoot is going to have to start hiding the targets just to keep things interesting.
THE SCIENCE IS CISGENDERED: GENDER-NEUTRAL CATS ARE THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE OF OUR AGE.
SPRING CLEANING AT AMAZON: Organize Your Office!
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Do we even own things anymore? Thanks to intellectual property laws, companies sell you “things” but still own the software.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – PROFESSOR LAURA KIPNIS ON HER ‘TITLE IX INQUISITION’: Check out FIRE’s latest interview with Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis. Last year, Professor Kipnis published an article called “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Little did she know, she would become the target of a Title IX investigation herself as a result. As FIRE’s Aaron Reese and Chris Maltby write:
Kipnis’ article described problems with a “post-Title IX landscape” where “sexual panic rules” on America’s campuses and Title IX investigations can be the result of just talking about sex. Following the article’s publication, Kipnis was subjected to a 72-day investigation that proved her point all too well. That’s right: A professor was subjected to a lengthy Title IX investigation for her article about how there are too many Title IX investigations.
You can watch the video below, and learn more about Kipnis’s “Inquisition” over at The Torch.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Should Keep Backyard Chickens. My sister did that for a while, until she discovered that “fox in the henhouse” was not just an expression.
THIS WASN’T TRUE IN THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Doctors: Oral Sex Is Still Sex.
YOU MEAN, IT TEXTS AND EATS A BURGER WHILE DRIVING? DARPA’s Self-Driving Submarine Hunter Steers Like a Human.
WELL, YES, THAT’S ABSOLUTELY THE GOAL: How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother: When money becomes information, it can inform on you.
I wrote on this a while back.
THIS WILL NOT END WELL: Here Come the Marketing Bots.
Actually, I think it was in Accelerando where the solar system eventually became a robot wasteland run by spambots and malware.
NEW YORK OBSERVER: Yes, Hillary Has Lost Her Momentum: Bernie Sanders’ win streak makes NY critical for Clinton.
