…was much warmer than today:
Last winter, the East Coast had record cold. That was ignored because it was “less than 1% of the Earth.” But this week, the Eastern US defines the global climate.
Funny how that works.
…was much warmer than today:
Last winter, the East Coast had record cold. That was ignored because it was “less than 1% of the Earth.” But this week, the Eastern US defines the global climate.
Funny how that works.
..and the Washington Post decides it’s all about Obama:
He’s dead now but the thing you have to worry about is how this might spoil Obama’s 600th round of golf.
Don’t think about these minor characters.
Think only of this Hero, the Star of Our Movie, in a difficult moment on his Hero’s Journey. The deaths of these walk-ons with no lines aren’t important, except to the extent they cause him to reflect, or feel a moment of triumph in…. golf.
At least when he’s golfing it minimizes the damage he’s doing to the country.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speaking of the WaPo, here are the ten stupidest things about it portraying Ted Cruz’s kids as monkeys.
No, the Republicans aren’t “politicizing it”:
For decades, the government has advised Americans on what they should eat. The advice isn’t just advisory; it drives everything from school lunches and agricultural subsidies to marketing for those bowls of candy we call breakfast cereal. But the science behind this enterprise has always been shaky.
Yes. And Michelle’s lunch program continues to constitute literal, physical child abuse.
Who will call these thugs out for what they are?
Hard to think of a better way to engender sympathy for your cause than preventing people from Christmas shopping, or getting home for Christmas.
[Update mid afternoon]
Enough is enough: Hold “Black Lives Matter” accountable.
David Solway has thoughts on living with it:
Our electrician is a fundamentally decent man, as are probably the majority of his fellow citizens whose views are shaped by skewed reporting and yellow journalism, and who share the same erroneous beliefs. Moreover, many do not enjoy sufficient disposable leisure to research the topics and issues on which they vote. I suspect that even if they did, however, they lack the interest, desire and will to educate themselves, to acquire a historical perspective and a grasp of the less obvious details that ultimately impinge on their well-being. Vigilance is a desideratum of informed citizenship.
Even more dispiriting, many do not want to hear the Muslim hum for what it is, instead attributing it to other sources or re-interpreting it as something it is not. Perhaps the hum is only an auditory hallucination or, for those with ears differently attuned, the hum is “really” a sweet and appealing melody. Robert Spencer recounts a recent instance of such a convenient transposition, involving a young woman affiliated with Georgetown University’s Saudi-funded Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. She was photographed at a Washington demonstration carrying a sign reading: “I’m a Christian and I LOVE the Quran.” The woman presumably believes, Spencer comments, “that Jesus is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, who was crucified and rose from the dead for the salvation of the human race. Yet she is professing love for a book that not only denies all of that, but also insists that Christians are accursed, vile beings who should be waged war against until they submit to the hegemony of a group that believes differently.”
This may be an unaccommodating thing to say, but what one tends to find among the temporizers is a particularly daunting combination of ignorance, stupidity and self-infatuation. Such people do not want to recognize the peril before them since that would require the impulse to think, which is always hard, and the courage to act, which is never easy. Meanwhile, it’s obvious that ear mufflers won’t work against the Muslim detonations. Living beside a construction site is bad enough; living in a destruction site is infinitely worse.
Europe is learning this the hard way.
[Update a couple minutes later]
From early in the year, but related: Islamaphobia is a myth:
“Islamophobia is a code word for mainstream European elites’ fear of their own populations, of their native hordes, whom they imagine to be unenlightened, prejudiced, easily led by the tabloid media, and given to outbursts of spite and violence.”
Yes.
[Update late morning]
The perils of Islamic apologetics: “…it’s not my job to make Islam look good, or to argue that Islam “is a religion of peace,” when the reality is more complicated.”
You don’t say.
Loren Grush talked to some Shuttle engineers to assess SpaceX’s chances. I’ve pointed out to several people on Twitter that Shuttle provides very little relevant experience.
[Mid-morning update]
I mentioned it in comments, but this piece I wrote at Popular Mechanics four and a half years ago is just as relevant today: Six False Lessons From The Space Shuttle:
…the reality is that the shuttle taught us nothing about the cost of a properly designed, fully reusable launch system, because that’s not what it was.
It’s a little depressing to see how well that holds up.
NASA’s launches always have been as well, but in a different way. This was more of a popular culture event. Let’s hope we see a lot more of them.
At least not yet. Doug is right: It’s Bezos versus Branson (and XCOR).
Yes, it's Bezos versus Branson (and XCOR). The tortoise has pulled into the lead in the suborbital game. https://t.co/XNqDcl4jDx
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 23, 2015
The quote from the Virgin Galactic employee is brutal.
Trump isn’t a video recruiting tool, but Barack Obama is.
As Safire said, Hillary is a congenital liar. And she’s always gotten away with it, because the media and her supporters don’t care.
Jerry Grey says that we will have to rely on it for a while longer. This is a very good history. Interestingly, he stays out of the AR1/BE-4 fight, and makes no specific recommendation of what should replace it, only that something should.