RIP, Charles G. Hill. This is sad; he just retweeted me the other day. He had been blogging half a decade longer than I’d been. He was a pioneer.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Linda Ronstadt
A new documentary about her career which, sadly has been over for a decade. I never saw her live, but I did see her in the audience at McCabes, once, in better days (the 80s). I forget who the act was.
A Modest Proposal
We must, finally, take effective steps to end gun violence:
I’m proposing that we campaign to reduce gun violence, and to meet our constitutional duty, by requiring that every member of the militia — which, of course, we’ll redefine to eliminate the obvious sexism and make it all adults — must own at least one long gun, one handgun, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition for each, or pay an annual $1,000 tax for failing to do so. As I pointed out the last time I brought this up, the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare makes it clear that it’s constitutional to require people to buy a product, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And, federal law would override the local laws in rogue cities like Chicago that prevent members of the militia from fulfilling their constitutional duty.
They can no longer be sanctuary cities from the 2nd Amendment.
The GOAT
Roger Simon’s new novel seems to be getting good reviews from people I trust (like Glenn Reynolds). I hadn’t realized it was about rejuvenation.
Terrible Nutrition Advice
More of the usual nonsense:
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that at the 34 fast-food chains they analyzed, the average combo meal contains 1,193 calories, and that the quantities of sodium, saturated fat and sugar are through the roof.
But all a person has to do is hold the dipping sauce; remove toppings, such as cheese; and opt for water over soda — and you’ll be good as gravy, says lead author Kelsey Vercammen of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in an interview with Reuters Health.
The problem with fast food is not calories, or saturated fat, or sodium. It’s the bun and the potatoes. The only good advice here is water instead of soda.
Twin XL Beds
An interesting history of bed sizes, including in dorm rooms.
I had dinner with Eileen Collins a couple months ago, and we were discussing the virtues of community college. In addition to all the other benefits of better education and lower cost, this article reminds me of another one: It eliminates the need to live in a dorm as a freshman. I was in Ann Arbor for three years, but I never lived in one.
Jeffrey Epstein
Mickey Kaus on why it still matters. Yes, he is a symptom of the deep corruption of business, national, and world leadership.
Slavery
No, America did not invent it.
Such is the state of our educational system.
Brexit And Trump
How I learned to stop worrying about the first, and love the other.
The left seems determined to push us into Trump’s and BoJo’s arms.
“Born That Way”
This study does not prove that people aren’t born that way. Of course there is no “gay gene.” That would make no evolutionary sense. It has to be a complex of them that, combined, cause it. Plus this seems to ignore pre-natal environment. There’s some evidence that this is a cause as well.
[Friday-morning update]
And then there’s this: “Genetics may explain up to 25% of same-sex behavior.”