Archive for 2017

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MORPHED INTO A STALIN APOLOGIA SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED:

Perhaps it’s those legendary Russian hackers again — and if I were Scientific American, I’d run pretty hard with that theory. Because otherwise, somebody’s layers and layers of fact checkers and editors are really falling down on the job.

I HAD A COLUMN PROPOSING JUST THIS A WHILE BACK: Dem touts bill to ‘decentralize’ the federal government.

If the GOP is smart, they’ll go along, but make the move in a way that takes federal employees out of Virginia, and puts them in the run-down parts of blue states. Fresno! Bakersfield! Utica! Lower costs, and a firsthand view of economic decline.

Here’s my column.

And I recently read Garrett Graf’s Raven Rock, a history of Cold War (and post-9/11) “Continuity Of Government” operations and a recurring theme is how vulnerable we are by having so many eggs in the Washington, DC basket.

JOURNALISM:

AND SPEAKING OF NIGHTMARISH DYSTOPIAN FUTURES: The “Frork”…It Is Un-American And Clearly A Sign Of The End Times:

It’s an all-too-familiar scenario. A bit of ketchup drips from your hamburger onto your placemat, and you’re left with only one choice: to use your fingers and a few French fries to sop up the mess.

McDonald’s is here to change that with their new “uselessly useful” invention–a “frork.” Basically, it’s a fork. But instead of metal prongs, it sports three French fries.

Decline is a choice, America.

GEORGE WILL: THINK YOU’RE LIVING IN A ‘HELLHOLE’ TODAY? TRY BEING A BILLIONAIRE IN 1916.

Boudreaux says that if you had Rockefeller’s riches back then, you could have had a palatial home on Fifth Avenue, another overlooking the Pacific, and a private island if you wished. Of course, going to and from the coasts in your private but un-air-conditioned railroad car would be time-consuming and less than pleasant. And communicating with someone on the other coast would be a sluggish chore.

Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies. If in 1916 you wanted Thai curry, chicken vindaloo or Vietnamese pho, you could go to the phone hanging on your wall and ask the operator (direct dialing began in the 1920s) to connect you to restaurants serving those dishes. The fact that there were no such restaurants would not bother you because in 1916 you had never heard of those dishes, so you would not know what you were missing.

If in 1916 you suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, a sexually transmitted disease or innumerable other ailments treatable in 2017, you also would not know that you were missing antibiotics and the rest of modern pharmacology.

In 1924, Calvin Coolidge’s son died at age 16 of a staph infection a week after developing a blister on his foot while playing tennis – because Penicillin’s invention was still four years away. And as P.J. O’Rourke once wrote, “In general, life is better than it ever has been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word: ‘dentistry.’”

Related: Give Sam Walton the Nobel Prize.