It’s apparently not enough to socially compel us to celebrate abnormal sex. Now they propose to make normal sex illegal.
The Democrat Thuggery In Wisconsin
Cindy Archer is filing a lawsuit. He should be held personally liable, and taken to the cleaners. In a sane world, he’d be jailed.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from Elizabeth Price Foley.
Hillary’s Emails
They’re apparently a treasure trove of stupidity, banality and vanity.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
[Update a while later]
But wait! There’s more!
So Hillary can’t work a fax machine and hasn’t driven a car since 1996, but journalists are still recycling false stories about Bush #41 and barcode scanners?
Give her a break. She’s an old woman.
SpaceX
Thoughts from Rick Tumlinson on the venality of Congress.
Media Bias
It’s gotten so bad that even Howie Kurtz is starting to notice it. See, if you think that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, you’re a bigot. Toss gays off buildings? Who are we to judge?
And this exchange between Ben Smith and Hugh Hewitt was in fact very enlightening:
Elsewhere, John Nolte of Big Journalism listens to Hewitt’s interview with Smith and spots this juxtaposition: “BuzzFeed Pledges Allegience to Gay Flag — Editor Ben Smith Won’t Call Shariah Evil.”
Or as Ace notes, “it is quite obvious that [Smith] has never even thought about the questions Hugh Hewitt poses before. Simple, obvious questions everyone even pretending to be a thinker must ask himself, like ‘Why is it I feel comfortable declaring there are no two sides on gay marriage, and yet I cannot bring myself to criticize Shariah law?’”
Which dovetails well with this observation from Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller, when as a (more or less) conservative, he debates leftists: “I’ve noticed an uptick in the following phenomenon: I go on a TV debate show, and the people I’m talking to fail to grasp my points. I don’t mean they disagree with me — I mean they don’t comprehend what I’m saying.“
Why, it’s as if the left and right are speaking an entirely different language — as Insta-guest blogger John Tierney noted here yesterday.
Yes. And that’s partly a difference in world views, and partly a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and Newspeak the language.
Chelsea Clinton Too Expensive?
For those who like to get the most for their money, here’s an itemized menu of what you can get if you hire me instead:
• Bargain basement price of $200 per minute (limit of three-hour event)
• $10 per person for a handshake (light grip but not limp)
• $15 per person for a photo with me*
• $20 per person for a handshake and a photo
• $25 per person for a photo in which I appear enthusiastic
• $30 per person for a hug**
• $5 per person for a minute of light conversation
• $10 per person for a minute of light, enthusiastic conversation
• $15 and speaker will call your mom on your cell phone
• $25 per person for a lengthy, deep conversation with your mom in which I tell her we’re best friends***
Seems like a much better deal to me. I like the a la carte plan, particularly the hug.
But as Ed Driscoll notes, that doesn’t allow them to contribute to the Clintons’ personal slush fund.
Cat Petting
News you can use, from Science.
Ours will tolerate tummy rubbing, for a while.
Legal Polygamy
Not that I care that much, but it’s probably inevitable now. But as noted there, Richard Epstein makes a great point:
In particular, Kennedy never explains why his notions of dignity and autonomy do not require the Supreme Court to revisit its 1878 decision in Reynolds upholding criminal punishment for polygamy, which is still on the books. Nor does he ask whether the dignity of workers could, and should, be used as a reason to strike down the full range of labor regulations on both wages and hours that make it flatly illegal for two individuals to enter into a simple employment contract on mutually agreeable terms.
That would require them to rule consistently, rather than just making it up as they go along based on stuff they like.
Grace And Dignity After Charleston
Thoughts from Jonah Goldberg:
There are few subjects that ignite more casual, uninformed bigotry and condescension from elites in this nation than Dixie. “Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment,” the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky wrote last year.
How then to explain the tens of thousands of South Carolinians, white and black, marching in unity across the Ravenel Bridge on Sunday night? Did the city bus in decent Northerners?
The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins glibly asserts that “the Confederate battle flag is an American swastika, the relic of traitors and totalitarians, symbol of a brutal regime, not a republic.”
If it were left to me, I would take the flag down (for the reasons South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley laid out Monday). But this kind of cheap moral preening is galling. Is it really too much for people to muster the moral imagination that the issue isn’t nearly as simple as that?
A November poll of South Carolinians found that 61 percent of blacks wanted it down. That means nearly 4 in 10 blacks felt differently. Are they deluded? Are they the moral equivalent of self-loathing Jews, happy to live under a swastika?
Bigotry against white Christian southerners isn’t just the only acceptable one; it’s almost mandatory. And it largely comes from people who embrace and vote for the historical and traditional (and current) party of racism.
Telomere Extension
…turns back aging clock in cultured cells:
“This new approach paves the way toward preventing or treating diseases of aging,” said Blau. “There are also highly debilitating genetic diseases associated with telomere shortening that could benefit from such a potential treatment.”
Blau and her colleagues became interested in telomeres when previous work in her lab showed that the muscle stem cells of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy had telomeres that were much shorter than those of boys without the disease. This finding not only has implications for understanding how the cells function — or don’t function — in making new muscle, but it also helps explain the limited ability to grow affected cells in the laboratory for study.
The researchers are now testing their new technique in other types of cells.
“This study is a first step toward the development of telomere extension to improve cell therapies and to possibly treat disorders of accelerated aging in humans,” said John Cooke, MD, PhD. Cooke, a co-author of the study, formerly was a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford. He is now chair of cardiovascular sciences at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
“We’re working to understand more about the differences among cell types, and how we can overcome those differences to allow this approach to be more universally useful,” said Blau, who also is a member of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
“One day it may be possible to target muscle stem cells in a patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for example, to extend their telomeres. There are also implications for treating conditions of aging, such as diabetes and heart disease. This has really opened the doors to consider all types of potential uses of this therapy.”
I wonder if there’s some political reason they won’t use the R word? Anyway, faster, please.