Archive for 2016
August 21, 2016
IT’S ALWAYS NICE to make Twitchy.
JOEL KOTKIN: Two Views Of The West’s Decline.
AS THE FACADE CRUMBLES. Shot: Report: Germany to require citizens to stockpile supplies in case of catastrophe.
UPDATE: Hangover?
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: When a Friend Cheats Often on Her Husband, Should You Keep Quiet?
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Voting For Trump Shouldn’t Cost Your Marriage: Wives are threatening to divorce their husbands if they vote for Donald Trump, but a vote for Trump doesn’t negate a human being’s worth and years of marital devotion.
Two things: (1) A wife who’d do this should be kicked to the curb anyway; and (2) These guys are now twice as likely to vote for Trump once they’re alone in the voting booth.
NOTE THAT THE HEADLINE MAKES THE ABUSED MINOR THE ACTOR HERE — HE “IMPREGNATED” HIS TEACHER: Teen who impregnated teacher gets $6M from district. “A former student who impregnated a California high-school teacher received a $6 million settlement from the school district Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The victim’s attorney, Vince Finaldi, says it’s the largest child sexual abuse settlement against a public entity in U.S. history, reports the Redlands Daily Facts. ‘That number didn’t get there by accident,’ Finaldi says. He says that the Redlands Unified School District knew that Laura Whitehurst was sexually abusing students and did nothing about it and thus the district had no choice but to settle.”
CENSORSHIP: Facebook Removes Two Popular Libertarian Pages Without Warning.
Must mean somebody thinks they’re taking votes from Hillary.
Related: Could Facebook swing an election?
Also: Tech Companies Apple, Twitter, Google, and Instagram Collude to Defeat Trump.
Plus: New emails highlight ties between White House and Google.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: What Men & Women Want In Marriage, 1939-2008.
I’M SORRY, BUT THE GRILL LOOKS MORE LIKE A BMW THAN A MERCEDES: The Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 is pure electric excess. It’s otherwise pretty, though I think the roofline’s a bit low.
ANDREW KLAVAN ON THE #NEVERTRUMP GENERATION GAP: “The #NeverTrumpers are younger. People on both sides have pointed this out to me. Without naming names, I find a quick mental survey of the most prominent people in both movements shows that the Yes-Trumpers have about twenty to twenty-five years on the Nevers. Not all of them, to be sure, but a considerable number. It’s a fair generalization. Why is this?”
THE ISLAMIC STATE’S LIBYAN STRONGHOLD FALLS: Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) forces now control most of the city of Sirte. The StrategyPage update provides lots of details. The US has backed the GNA Sirte offensive with airstrikes. It appears Islamic State fighters outside Sirte say they’ll counter-attack– so it’s wait and see. (No, there isn’t much accord in Libya’s Government of National Accord. The update discusses that, too.)
I’M SORRY, BUT IF YOU’RE “working toward a master’s degree in bioethics” you’re not actually a “scientist.”
UPDATE: The following comment is a New York Times “Editors’ Pick:”
Actually Zika is our friend. It will make couples think twice about adding to an already over-populated earth. Kids “happen” without much thought, which was OK when the Old Testament was written, but today? (I myself never had kids. In fact my family is so weird I believe the choice was probably a service to humanity.) I wish we would think more about quality than quantity. I wish we could institute a parental licencing test. I never really bought the Gaia principle, but this is the perfect disease to present as evidence of its existence. Perhaps the earth is scratching an itch.
I think it did that when you never had kids.
IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN THE GLOBAL HEALTH AUTHORITIES WEREN’T READY FOR LAST YEAR’S EBOLA OUTBREAK. BUT NOW THIS? A Yellow Fever Epidemic Made Worse by a Vaccine Shortage.
Maybe if our “public health” people would focus on this sort of threat, instead of peddling scientifically dubious guidance about diets and firearms, we wouldn’t have this sort of problem.
Fair enough. Now discuss your colleagues Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and Al Sharpton.
AT AMAZON, Summer Savings on Bras.
WHAT HATH MERKEL WROUGHT? Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks.
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the German government plans to tell citizens to stockpile food and water in case of an attack or catastrophe, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper reported on Sunday.
Germany is currently on high alert after two Islamist attacks and a shooting rampage by a mentally unstable teenager last month. Berlin announced measures earlier this month to spend considerably more on its police and security forces and to create a special unit to counter cyber crime and terrorism.
“The population will be obliged to hold an individual supply of food for ten days,” the newspaper quoted the government’s “Concept for Civil Defence” – which has been prepared by the Interior Ministry – as saying.
Good advice everywhere, but interesting that they’re urging this now. Is it about ISIS, or about Putin? Yes.
MINE CALL ME “PROFESSOR REYNOLDS:” Should Students Call Professors By Their First Names?
CNN THINKS “Felons” is a synonym for “Blacks.”
BEWARE OF GAME MASTERS BEARING GIFTS: Rewards for RPG Players with the Strings Attached.
SHOCKING, RIGHT? Your All-Natural Toothpaste Might Have Toxins. It also probably won’t work any better than that “all natural” deodorant that just gives you patchouli-scented BO.
JAYVEE UPS BATTING TECHNIQUE: Calling for Another Nice-Style Attack, ISIS Suggests Jihadists Try Baseball Bat, Power Screwdriver.
“SOMETIMES OUR MEDIA CAN BE SO INCURIOUS:”* Remember that ‘Republican Woman for Clinton?’ She’s a healthcare lobbyist married to a Clinton operative.
* Just think of them as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
THE MAGICIAN BEHIND R2-D2: How art director Roger Christian changed the aesthetics of science fiction via his back-to-back work building the props and sets for Star Wars and Alien.
