You Have To Break Eggs To Make An Omelette

Nurse Bloomberg says that people should have to suffer a bit.

…Mr. Bloomberg also argued the number of pain pills currently being prescribed had even contributed to an uptick in violent crimes outside of pharmacies from robbers looking to steal the drugs.

“You see there’s a lot more hold-ups of pharmacies, people getting held up as they walk out of pharmacies,” he explained. “What are they all about? They’re not trying to steal your shaving cream or toothpaste at the point of a gun. They want these drugs.”.

Yes, and you know what would reduce the number of hold ups? If they could get them legally.

You know who I’d like to see “suffer a bit”? This overprivileged midget fascist.

Piers Morgan

…was pwned by Ben Shapiro last night.

One point that Ben missed. He should have asked Morgan if he was aware of what the precipitating event was that caused the American Revolution.

Also, he could have pointed out that at the time Reagan signed that letter, in 1994, it was also about the time that he announced that he had Alzheimers…

[Update a few minutes later]

For those interested, here is Ben’s new book.

Carbon Nanotubes

This looks like it would make a useful material for an electrodynamic tether:

Working with Teijin Aramid, the Rice group has now made carbon-nanotube fibers that have more of the properties of individual nanotubes. They have an electrical conductivity close to copper’s, but are much stronger. They’re not quite as strong as conventional carbon fibers, but they’re much less brittle. And they’re more thermally conductive than metal or carbon fiber. That means nanotube fibers could replace these materials in existing applications in aerospace and electronics, and enable new technologies that take advantage of the fibers’ unique combination of strength, flexibility, and thermal and electrical conductivity. Pasquali envisions washable electronic textiles, lightweight wiring for planes, and eventually, more efficient wires for the electrical grid.

Cool.

The Defense Budget

How much can we cut?

In addition to the points that Megan makes, a lot of the Pentagon budget is wasteful, for the same reason that a lot of NASA’s is — because the lawmakers on the committees overseeing it like it that way. But the other problem is that we can’t always predict what we’ll need, and in that sense, defense spending is like advertising — only half of it is effective, but no one knows which half.

Four Months After The Benghazi Attack

Where are the killers?

On Tuesday, the Tunisian government released Ali Ani al-Harzi, a leading suspect in the attack who was taken into custody after fleeing Libya for Turkey and then sent to Tunisia. Officials say Harzi was released over Washington’s objections, as Tunis cited a “lack of evidence.” While the FBI eventually got access to Harzi, efforts to press him on what he knew were often blocked by bureaucratic objections by the Tunisian government and its court system. In December, the Tunisian branch of the Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia posted photos of people they claimed to be FBI agents who interviewed Harzi, according to the counterterrorism website Long War Journal. The U.S. intelligence community believes members of Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi participated in the attack four months ago.

While some U.S. officials feared that Harzi’s release was coming, Tunisian officials did not inform the U.S. government ahead of time.

It’s a good thing Obama has so improved our relations with other countries.

And then there’s this:

One source of frustration for U.S. intelligence community: the president’s decision to make the Benghazi probe a criminal investigation. While the CIA has an ever-changing list of suspects it dubs the “Benghazi attack network,” the drones and Special Operations teams that are used to hunt al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and Yemen are not being used to track down Stevens’s killers. Instead the investigation is being led by the FBI, which relies on cooperation from local and national police in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Brilliant.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!