He may get off the hook for the prostitution rap. When I heard about this, I thought it was stupid, unless he knew that there was human trafficking involved and was part of it. Prostitution laws are stupid, and much more harmful to women than consenting sales of sex.
The Media Lied, Their Credibility Died
I favored the removal of Saddam Hussein, but I thought that the Bush administration Charlie Foxtrotted the aftermath, particularly with regard to fecklessness with the mullahs. But I was also continually annoyed by the “Bush lied, people died” mantra (not to mention the “War for Oil” nonsense). The only reason WMD was even an issue is that Tony Blair demanded UN approval, which couldn’t be attained without it. Anyway, Ari Fleischer sets the record straight (again).
Clinton Cronies
One has gotten snagged by the Mueller probe, and another may be. It’s long past time.
The SLS Saga
Over at The Space Review, Jeff Foust has the story on last week’s events.
[Update a few minutes later]
Also over there a sort of debate on the pros and cons of NASA’s approach to getting back to the moon. I’d note that Hedman’s objection to transpiration cooling is both weak (in the sense that even if Starship was expended, it would still deliver more payload for much less money than SLS ever will) and moot, since Elon has stated that with the steel and standard thermal protection, they may only use it in areas that are scorched when they return.
“Progressive” Professors
…want to blacklist academics who write for Quillette.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of Quillette, “Why We Should Read Marx.”
The Younger Dryas
It was apparently much worse than we thought:
As Kennett noted in a recent article in The Current (a university press maintained by UCSB), the crater would have led to widespread destruction, characterized by biomass burning, megafaunal extinctions and global cooling. “It’s much more extreme than I ever thought when I started this work,” he said. “The more work that has been done, the more extreme it seems.”
The discovery was made possible by a Chilean group of scientists who were studying sediment layers at the well-know Quaternary paleontological and archaeological site, known as Pilauco Bajo. Years ago, these scientists recognized changes in the sediment record that were associated with the YDB impact event.These included a “black mat” layer that coincides with the disappearance of South American megafauna fossils and human artifacts dated to the Pleistocene (12,800 years ago), indicating a severe shift in the climate. This was a major find since the vast majority of evidence for the YDB Impact has been found in the northern hemisphere.
Imagine that happening today. And here we’re obsessing over two degrees Celsius.
Better get moving on that vital SLS, so we can protect ourselves. #NotReally
The AR-15
Yes, the gun-control case against it is full of lies. As he notes, this isn’t about the AR-15; it’s about banning all semi-auto rifles, if not all semi-auto guns, if not all guns. That’s always their ultimate goal, because they know that an armed society is a free one.
A Modest Proposal For Academia
An earlier post elicited this comment from George Turner (who should have his own blog). I thought I’d slightly edit and elevate it here:
“Trying to stop the cheating won’t fix the problem, which was baked in when parental/donor pressures led to grade inflation. Using brutal attrition and grading on the curve was a way to continually deselect students. There was no point in a parent tying to cheat a kid into Harvard if the kid would almost immediately flunk out.
That harsh grading system’s drawback was that it produced drop-outs, and that was an inefficient way to get all of the bright kids the maximally beneficial education. And it still had the corruption problem because some rich or powerful kids simply weren’t going to be flunked out, even if it took hand-holding by the administration. And once it became obvious that rich kids weren’t really going to flunk out, the public realized that the Ivy League had become social clubs.
That seemed unfair, so SATs/ACTs. But those are harsh, and Jews did too well, so they added essays. But essays are hard, too, and Jews and Asians are great writers, so they emphasized BS high-school extra-curricular activities and offered a back door for ping-pong. Academics, educators, and administrators will no doubt make careers out of debating the merits of various fixes, and the wheels of the bus go round and round.
Continue reading A Modest Proposal For AcademiaStatins
When the benefits outweigh the risks. These two grafs stuck out to me:
My decision to take a statin was not made casually. I first tried a stricter-than-usual diet of home-cooked meals rich in vegetables plus fish and nearly devoid of saturated fats, processed foods and refined carbs and sugars. I took supplements of fish oils, fiber and plant sterols, among other nonprescription products said to lower cholesterol. And, of course, I kept my weight down and activity up — a daily regimen of walking, swimming and cycling. All, alas, to no avail. [Emphasis added]
So if she’s only eating fish, it’s likely that she’s not getting enough protein. She doesn’t explain why she’s not eating land animals. And she seems to think that saturated fat is harmful, when there’s no scientific evidence that consumption of it either increases cholesterol, or health risks. There’s also not much evidence that exercise controls cholesterol. Next:
…for those facing a higher-than-average risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, the first step in reducing that risk is not a drug but getting modifiable risk factors under control. Even if you plan to take a statin, the drug will be most effective when combined with measures that reduce cardiovascular risk.
That means adopting and sticking to a Mediterranean-style diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, peas and beans, nuts and seeds and contains little or no saturated fats, the fats found in meats, poultry and dairy products that are not fat-free. Substitute whole grains for refined ones. The best oils to use for cooking and salads are olive, canola, grapeseed and avocado.
So she’s recommending eschewing animal products in general, and (again) eliminating saturated fats, with their healthy omega 3s. And substituting seed oils (canola and grape), with their high omega 6s for them, promoting inflammation. She also imagines that whole grains are all right, when refined aren’t when (again) there is little scientific evidence to support it.
One other point: This is exactly the kind of uncontrolled experiment that gives us so much junk nutrition science (e.g., she didn’t try a high-meat, high-fat, low-carb diet; she just assumed that the one she was on was best to lower cholesterol, then gave up and switched to taking statins).
Given that I have never had a cardiovascular event, I think I’m going to stick with my current meat-rich (and saturated-fat-rich) diet, and continue to eschew statins.
NASA’s “Inability” To Do Space Assembly
A righteous Twitter rant from Phil Metzger:
Follow the thread. He lambastes the Alabama delegation, and how this actually harmed Alabama. He’s right. It’s tragic.