I think we’ve come to the point at which academia is just one huge case of Poe’s Law.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Bloomberg
The risk he will not take:
…when I look at the data, it’s clear to me that if I entered the race, I could not win. I believe I could win a number of diverse states — but not enough to win the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency.
In a three-way race, it’s unlikely any candidate would win a majority of electoral votes, and then the power to choose the president would be taken out of the hands of the American people and thrown to Congress. The fact is, even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee. Party loyalists in Congress — not the American people or the Electoral College — would determine the next president.
I’m always amused at the horror of some that a president might be selected exactly the way the Founders intended it.
Commercial Crew
“Building in safety from the ground up.”
Note the theme that safety is the highest priority, and no discussion of how much this is all costing, or how much it’s delaying ending our dependence on Russia (which is part of the cost) in addition to delaying an increase in ISS crew size (which is also part of the cost).
Sydney Blumenthal
Here are the 23 classified emails he sent Hillary.
Remember, he wasn’t even allowed to work for the State Department by the White House. She basically ignored them. Anyone not named “Clinton” (or, rather, not a high-level Democrat) would have been indicted over all this long ago.
A New Suborbital Tourism Vehicle
This article is amusing:
CosmoCourse CEO Pavel Pushkin told Sputnik New Agency, he came up with the idea of suborbital tourism back in 2013 when he was working at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.
“We were reviewing various concepts of commercial space rockets and came up with the idea of launching people into space via suborbital trajectory.”
Wow, as far back as 2013! What a visionary.
Note that it’s short on details.
How Inevitable Is Trump?
Not as much as some want us to think.
#ProTip: If you want to have a high probability of stopping Trump, get behind Cruz. If you want to throw the dice, try to get to convention.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 7, 2016
[Late-morning update]
Kurt Schlichter has sympathy for the Donaldites.
So do I, but The Donald isn’t their (or anyone else’s) salvation.
Nancy Reagan
RIP. The media is treating her much more kindly in her death than it did during her husband’s presidency.
The Campus Crybully Wars
What they’re really all about.
They’re about totalitarianism, and stamping out any thoughts that deviate from DoublePlusGoodThink.
Confident Idiots
A long but very interesting piece on the overconfidence of the incompetent, by David Dunning (of Dunning-Kruger fame). For some reason, I think it has some relevance to the Trump phenomenon, and politics in general.
For the record, I have never had a problem claiming my ignorance on a topic.
The Mystery Of Melody
Thoughts from Ed Driscoll (and David Solway).
Music does seem to have noticeably degenerated in my lifetime. I remain mystified at the popularity of the “musical” Les Miserable. When we saw it at the Pantages over two decades ago, I walked out thinking it was one of the most tuneless operas I’d ever heard. There was very little memorable in it. Richard Rogers it wasn’t, and isn’t.
[Update a while later]
I’ve added a link to the Solway piece, which is worth a read in and of itself. I should also note that, just as I have no talent whatsoever for fiction, I’m unable to write a song to save my life. I can read music, and play music, but I am utterly unable to create it.