The brilliant and lovely Angeliki Kapoglou (Ms. #MoonVillage on Twitter) has set up a new web site. She’ll be putting out a monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to there.
James Lileks
…has been having a bad week. Me too:
This man. These people. Those people. That man. Gawd. Look: Nazis are bad. Commies are bad. Those two statements can be uttered in sequence without minimizing everything. Collectivists with a proven record of state-directed mass-murder are antithetical to the American character and must be opposed, but not by trashing the First Amendment. We’ve been here before. We know how this works. There are no fine people with torches, and there aren’t any fine people in black masks. Also, if the President could not tweet out BS stories about Pershing he got from a Bannontbart comment thread that would be great.
He’s just so bad at this. It’s not hard to be okay at this, and he is just so bad at this.
He is. He’s terrible (but pretty much as terrible as I expected him to be).
Also, James’ dog is missing.
Low Fat Versus Low Carb
A major new study. This is an important point that too few pay attention to; it’s not about weight loss per se:
The 18-mo moderate weight loss of 3.7 kg was similar in both groups, but the reduction in waist circumference was higher in the MED/LC group (−6.9 ± 6.6 cm) than in the LF diet group (−2.3 ± 6.5 cm; P = 0.01). After 18 mo, the IPF volume had reduced twice as much in the MED/LC group compared with the LF group [−37 ± 26.2 mL (−22% ± 15%) compared with −15.5 ± 26.2 mL (−8% ± 15%), respectively; P < 0.05, after adjustment for changes in weight or visceral adipose tissue]. [My emphasis]
This is one reason BMI is BS. Another is that it doesn’t take into account the difference between muscle mass and fat.
Hill Republicans To Trump
“It’s just frustrating to be constantly reacting to his sh*t,” a GOP Senate aide explained.
And growing discord between the White House and Capitol Hill won’t prove helpful when lawmakers return in September with a lengthy to-do list.
“The president has torched whatever political capital or moral authority he ever had,” a GOP aide told IJR. “He is uniquely incapable of political leadership. If we get tax reform done, it won’t be with his help. It’ll be in spite of him and his vortex of incompetence and destruction.”
“The more distracted [Trump] is tweeting about Mika [Brzezinski] or his historic victory or the 4 million illegal votes, the better the odds are that we get tax reform. If he gets interested in tax reform, it will probably die just like everything else he touches,” he added.
When it comes to legislation, like Obama, he has the reverse Midas touch.
The Latest Attack
It’s in Barcelona. Fox is reporting that thirteen are already dead, with the toll expected to go higher. Charlie Martin is tracking it.
Charles Martel weeps.
Johnny Has “The Talk”
Trump’s Latest Demented Rant
Robert Tracinski says he needs to not be president yesterday. But as he says, if he had enough sense to resign, he’d have enough sense not to appear to be defending Nazis. He just can’t help himself.
[Update a while later]
No, “liberals,” there are no Nazis under your bed.
[Thursday-morning update]
Note that I’m not complaining about Trump’s attempt to point out that Antifa are no saints. I’m furious (as usual) at how inarticulate, tone deaf and incompetent he was at doing so.
The Google Lunar X-Prize
There’s a lot of talk today about their having “extended” the deadline to March 31 of next year. I have a clarification in email from Katherine Schelbert:
To clarify, this is not an extension. In this case, this is more of a re-focus. The most recent Dec 31, 2017 date was established as the date by which teams needed to initiate a launch, and was used as a means to down select to the current 5 finalists. Now, what is more important to teams, who all have different mission profiles (and paths to the moon, length of time in orbit) is the deadline by which they need to complete the mission, which is now the only date that matters. This competition is designed to not just inspire teams to launch, but to complete the mission, which is also why we are further incentivizing teams with the in-space Milestone Prizes, which are important achievements that will occur post-launch, on the way to fulfilling the competition requirements.
FWIW.
Postmodernism
It’s the cause of the mess in academia, and it’s starting to collide with its own internal contradictions.
New Leadership At NASA
Apparently it’s going to be Jim Bridenstine as administrator, and former Chief of Staff John Schumacher as his Deputy. This is much better news than if Lightfoot had been given the job. Bridenstine told me in February that he had read my book. He will continue to pay lip service to SLS as long as seems politically necessary, but I think he knows what a programmatic disaster it is.