Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Feminists

7 Comments

…are too fragile to read:

My advice to potential faculty hires — or student applicants — at Northwestern: Go somewhere else. As law professor Jonathan Adler notes in The Washington Post, Northwestern threw academic freedom “under the bus.”

The good news is that Kipnis’ experience has generated a national wave of outrage. Even feminist website Jezebel wrote: “As feminist student activists fight to expand their circle of vulnerability in collegiate life, Title IX has gone from a law designed to protect college students from sexual misconduct and discrimination to a means by which professors are put on trial for their tweets.”

In New York magazine, Jonathan Chait observed: “I highly doubt that the inquiry against Kipnis will result in any important formal sanction. … But the slim possibility of actual administrative punishment is not the problem her story reveals. The problem is that a major body of progressive campus thought believes her publication of a dissenting column merits punishment.”

And at Reason,Robby Soave pointed out that bureaucrats whose power comes from an outrageously expansive reading of Title IX have expanded that interpretation to include a claim that “criticizing Title IX violates Title IX.”

Yes, Congress should have very public hearings about this. But they almost certainly won’t.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Fastest-Growing Group Of Gun Owners

5 Comments

…are women:

In late 2012–immediately following the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School–there was greater support for gun control than for gun rights. In fact, there had been a greater support for gun control over gun rights for more than 20 years. And this held true through January 2013. Then things began to shift.

On parallel with growing female gun ownership, increasing numbers of women applying for concealed carry permits, and burgeoning women involvement in shooting sports, support for gun control has dwindled. Thus, whereas only “45 percent” of the American people supported gun rights in January 2013 while “51 percent” supported gun control, the numbers have now shifted to “52 percent” support for gun rights and only “46 percent” support for gun control.

Interestingly, the shift in women’s attitude in favor of guns has taken place during years when groups like Bloomberg-funded Moms Demand Action have worked their hardest to get moms to vote against the Second Amendment.

To paraphrase the old saying, God created men and women. Sam Colt made them equal.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Clinton Foundation And Hillary

3 Comments

Yes, she’s very likely guilty of the bribery statutes.

But as Professor Foley notes, don’t expect Clinton-appointed prosecutors to do anything about it. We’re turning into a banana republic without the bananas.

[Sunday-morning update]

The Clintons’ favorite way of lying:

I need not dwell on the implausibility of roving bands of ninja-like naughty toddlers — or lone-wolf munchkins — breaking into nice homes to scribble on the upstairs walls and then depart leaving no other trace of their schemes. I simply bring this up to say that my daughter’s “a bad girl did it” gambit is a wildly more powerful and resolute claim of innocence than “you have no smoking gun.”

Yes. “You can’t prove it, copper” isn’t much of a defense in the face of the obvious, but the media continues to perversely admire them for how adroitly they can get away with corruption and lies. In a way, of course, they never would if the Clintons were Republicans.

[Bumped]

[Update a couple minutes later]

I should note, as a bonus, there is more disquisition on the merits of a President SMOD over a President Cthulthu at that last link. Including arguments over electability:

For starters, Cthulhu will never get the Evangelical vote. As a demonic beast who claims, if not sovereignty over, then at least co-equal status with the Almighty, Biblical conservatives will never pull a lever for some squid-faced Baal-wannabe. I can see Ralph Reed’s attack ads now.

Indeed.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

My New Kickstarter

17 Comments

I’m having trouble uploading the video to the Kickstarter page (they’re figuring out what the problem is, hopefully), but meanwhile, here’s a higher-quality version of it on Youtube. I’m not thrilled with audio quality (it sounds sort of like I’m in an echoey lecture hall), but I don’t have a sound studio, just a Sennheiser headset.

[Update a few minutes later]

Oops. Just noticed, it looks like I lost the end credits. Have to look into what happened there.

[Update a while later]

For some reason, I hadn’t included the final credits in the build. Here’s the new version.

[Update a while later]

Sorry transitions are so choppy. I’m sure it has something to do with Youtube’s post-processing.

[Monday-morning update]

Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Neil Stephenson

8 Comments

Discusses his new novel, and the role of science fiction.

He is one of the few authors whose books I always look forward to reading, though I was a little disappointed with Anathem. But this looks like a fun read.

I should also note that one of the points I make in my book (and in op-eds) since, is that our unwillingness to use the hardware we have on hand to get into space is an indicator of how utterly unimportant human spaceflight is (a point that is accentuated by the relatively poor sales of a well-reviewed book). Stephenson describes a scenario in which it suddenly becomes very important to become as spacefaring as possible, as soon as possible, and how society reacts.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Medical Health Records

8 Comments

Another ObamaCare failure:

Let’s force doctors to spend a lot of money to become technology dependent and adopt electronic health records when the old way of doing things was working just fine. And hey–as a bonus, our health information is now more vulnerable to hacking and we can lose some privacy along the way! Electronic health records haven’t saved a single life or a single dollar, but they have created a lot of expense, confusion, and tremendous demoralization for our health care providers. It wasn’t broken, and it shouldn’t have been “fixed.” If the Republican Congress was smart, it would repeal this onerous, useless provision of Obamacare.

There are a lot of things the Republicans would do if they were smart. On the other hand, I can understand why they don’t want to repeal this abomination piece meal. They need to scrap the whole thing and start over, but it won’t happen until we get someone in the White House who actually understands markets and actually gives a damn about others.