Sleepless in Midland

Patients in death's doorway get a push from the British death panel

Anyone who has witnessed a friend's or relative's demise from disease knows how difficult that moment is when we switch from a hope for recovery to hope for a speedy end. If we could see the future it might not be such an emotional ordeal. But many times that hope for recovery lingers longer than it should. And the cost to the patient, insurance company, or some government program keeps going up.

It's almost enough to make an observer appreciate the British death panel system that makes the decision regardless of what the patient, family, or friends want. But not quite.

The idea that the government can decide whether a person should live longer or die sooner is a bit disturbing. A few years ago Australians came up with a checklist of 29 indicators on which they would base a decision of whether a patient would live another 12 weeks. And the patient failed the test, he/she would get counseling, but not treatment. See 'Death test' could predict chance of dying within 30 days -- subhead: "Health experts say a new test will prevent futile and expensive medical treatments which prolong suffering."

We are seeing this played out in the case of Alfie Evans, the kid the British government declared should die in Britain instead of going to another country for treatment. Dailysignal sums it up nicely in UK Government Seeks to Play God in Denying Alfie Evans Life Support.

Libertarians and conservative have long decried governments' tendency to pick industry winners and losers. But bureaucrats picking winners and losers among the sick is a proposition that should frighten us all.

------

1:57 PM 4/29/2018

Thomas Frank talks tough about the main stream media -- a club of which he is a card carrying member

I'm a link hoarder. My browser bookmarks number in the thousands. I pity any NSA underling or some other entity employee in or out of the government that should ever be tasked with looking at each one. From time to time I scroll through one of the several "Read Later" folders for something that might still be of interest. And this one jumped out.

Thomas Frank's animus toward conservatives was painfully obvious when he wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal. Frank was hired on as a columnist as a way to placate progressive reporters for that newspaper when Rupert Murdoch's family enterprise bought it. Frank was very hostile toward conservatives in those columns, and it prompted some readers to speculate that his addition to the line-up was intended to showcase the hostility progressives held for conservatives more so than to convince anyone that just maybe progressive ideology had some good points after all.

Anyway, Frank eventually moved on, and the buried treasure unearthed from the bookmark archives is his article from July, 21, 2017, from the Guardian in which he tries to explain the disconnect so many people had with the main stream media. See The media's war on Trump is destined to fail. Why can't it see that?.

He saw two reasons. One was the social media websites like Facebook that feed their readers what they want to see. Then there's this:

But there’s also a second reason, one that is even more fundamental. The truth is that the unanimous anti-Trumpness of the respectable press is just one facet of a larger homogeneity. As it happens, the surviving press in this country is unanimous about all sorts of things. ...

Everything they do, they do as a herd – even when it’s running headlong over a cliff. ...

These things don’t happen because the journalists that remain are liberals. It happens because so many of them are part of the same class – an exalted and privileged class. They are professionals and they believe in the things that so many other professional groups believe in: consensus, “realism”, credentialing, the wisdom of their fellow professionals and (of course) the stupidity of the laity.

This is the key to understanding many of their biases – and also for understanding why they are so utterly oblivious to how they appear to the rest of America.

His observations seem accurate. But people who remember his column in the Wall Street Journal might wonder if he's aware of how oblivious he appeared there.

------

12:25 PM 4/28/2018

Let us hope American's enemies believe Trump's bluster as much as Dems do

Donald Trump is a bombastic blowhard. Anyone who doesn't know that hasn't been paying attention. So when he taunts Little Rocket Man, aka Kim Jong Un, most of us know it's bluster. But Kim seems to take it literally. We should be grateful for that. But do Democrats take it literally, too? It certainly seems so, based on lines such as this one in the WaPo: Senate confirms Mike Pompeo as Trump’s next secretary of state. Note this part:

The Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo as secretary of state Thursday despite lingering objections from Democrats who have questioned his record of hawkish policy positions and past controversial statements about minority groups.

(Bold added.)

Making your enemies think you are crazier than they are is a pretty good defense. Trump has gotten a lot of mileage out of that tactic, and he's found a Secretary of State who might be able to help him pull it off. Hopefully, it will continue to work on America's enemies as well as it works on Democrats.

------

3:54 PM 4/26/2018

teacher strike -- Polls says three fourths of people want higher teacher pay

There's something unseemly about teachers going on strike. There was a time when teaching was a calling, and those who went into the profession were dedicated to the idea that the young minds under their tutelage would grow, and those youngsters would become productive citizens. There are probably still some teachers like that, but reading the headlines one is led to believe they are government workers out to get what they can from taxpayers. And with test scores of American students lagging so far behind students of other countries, it seems reasonable to question whether more money will change that dismal situation.

Be that as it may, there's a poll out which purports to tell us what Americans think of the whole thing. See the apnorc poll report at American Attitudes Toward Teacher Pay and Protests. The most interesting graphic is the one below telling us what the poll responders think should determine teacher salaries:

It's noteworthy that the two categories with the lowest importance are statewide test scores and input from parents. So if this can be believed, a full 2/3rds think the test scores are moderately to very important, but they don't think those scores are the most important determining factor. There's a priority disconnect there.

------

12:19 PM 4/26/2018

Doing volunteer work might help ward off mental decline says a researcher

Found at WSJ.com, Research Finds Volunteering Can Be Good for Your Health, behind the paywall. Here's the key part:

A recent study of 2,705 volunteers age 18 and older from UnitedHealthcare and VolunteerMatch found that 75% of those who volunteered in the past 12 months said volunteering made them feel physically healthier.

A much larger study—one involving more than 64,000 subjects age 60 and older from 1998 to 2010—has found results suggesting that volunteering slows the cognitive decline of aging.

The author of that study, Sumedha Gupta, an assistant economics professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, used data from the long-running University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study to reach her conclusions. After dividing respondents into three categories—volunteers, nonvolunteers and individuals who switched back and forth—she found that an individual who is volunteering 100 hours a year scores on average about 6% higher in cognitive testing than a nonvolunteer.

“The effect is significant. It’s consistent,” Dr. Gupta says. As people age, their cognitive scores drop, but those who volunteer score higher at every age.

Of course, it could be that people with the inclination and energy to work for free may be less inclined to get dementia, anyway. But it's nice that someone actually put it into a study that sounds scientific. That said, there's some rationality backing it up. To wit:

The reasons behind volunteering’s boost to cognitive health, Dr. Gupta says, have to do with the unique characteristics of such activity.

For starters, unlike paid work, there is a “different subjective well-being” or “warm glow” that a volunteer experiences from helping people. Volunteering is also unique “because it supplies mental, physical and social stimulation in one package,” Dr. Gupta says. “You have to move around, you interact with people, you think about activities.” Whereas doing a Sudoku puzzle offers one type of intellectual stimulation, she says, volunteers get all of these types of stimulation simultaneously.

Makes sense. But take a look at this prediction from New Alzheimer’s Association Report Reveals Sharp Increases in Alzheimer’s Prevalence, Deaths and Cost of Care:

By 2025 – just seven years from now – the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s dementia is estimated to reach 7.1 million – an increase of almost 29 percent from the 5.5 million age 65 and older affected in 2018.

Baby boomers had better get busy with those volunteer jobs.

------

1:19 PM 4/24/2018

Domino's franchise owner Jim Gerety in the pages of Washington Examiner

Readers of this blog might remember Jim Gerety as the generous Domino's franchise owner who feeds the volunteers for free at the AirSho at the Midland International Air and Space Port. (That "space port" part has become a local joke, but that's the name, nonetheless.)

Mr. Gerety has earned the gratitude of a lot of volunteers. But he has a problem with the government. See On pizza regulations, Trump slices differently than his own FDA commissioner by Mr. Gerety. Excerpt:

As the owner of 18 Domino’s stores in Texas, I do not cut corners, whether on pizzas or complying with the law. Unfortunately, on May 7 the law will become especially burdensome and unhelpful to my customers. That day, President Trump’s FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb will implement a nationwide, Obama-era menu-labeling rule requiring restaurants with 20 or more locations to post in-store menu boards listing the calories of every item sold.

First, the rule fails to account for how my customers actually order pizza in the real world out here in West Texas. Unlike other food establishments that have static menu options, pizza is highly variable: Domino’s offers consumers 34 million different combinations of pizza.

In addition, Domino’s customers do 90 percent of their ordering remotely — either online (Web and app) or by phone. I estimate that I will have to spend approximately $5,000 annually per store to put up compliant menu boards. I’m talking possibly $90,000 to invest in signage that less than 10 percent of my customers actually will see, and less than that actually will use.

Second, the costs of the rule to my employees and me could be excessive, with the greatest beneficiaries of these costs being trial lawyers. This is because Gottlieb’s rule exposes my employees and me to civil and criminal penalties of up to one year in prison and/or a $100,000 fine for inadvertent violations.

That means if one of us accidentally tops a pizza with too much pepperoni or cheese, or is a little heavy-handed with the tomato sauce on a given day, we could be headed to prison.

I know many supporters of the rule would argue that’s an outrageous claim, but FDA has offered no information or clarity except: “Trust us.”

Domino’s online Cal-O-Meter seems like a useful feature and a good replacement for the wall boards. But the rule requiring the menu boards is still in place. So, "Now my employees and I need Trump to weigh in."

------

2:04 PM 4/24/2018

Save the newspaper from extinction

I've bashed the local morning paper for quite some time, but lately I'm beginning to feel sorry for their plight. Our own Midland Reporter-Telegram was once a great local paper. But like all the others, they're struggling with the competition from online news sources. The classified ads are a fraction of that they used to be. They are still getting advertising from the car dealers and retail stores. But on most days it seems that there is more space occupied by ads than there is by news. And the news mainly comes from wire services. It's as if they are operating with a skeleton staff in the newsroom.

They are in survival mode. It's a Hearst property, and for all I know, the home office is cannibalizing the small newspapers out here in flyover country. I'm not enough of a visionary to see any positive developments on the horizon. But we can hope that they'll come up with something other than jacking up the subscription price on the remaining customers.

Meanwhile, here's a development that seems counterproductive: Denver Post journalists are revolting against the new owner.

And here's Barton Swaim who is nostalgic for a paper newspaper: In Praise of the News on Paper. It's behind the wsj.com paywall, but as of the time of this writing you could read it at investorvillage.com.

------

2:49 PM 4/23/2018

Reminder: no free speech in Britain

Thank goodness our founding fathers recognized the need to protect citizens against a government which might be tempted to jail people for what they said.

But freedom of speech is a unique right. Few if any other countries recognize such a right for their citizens. For example, in Britain a fellow has been convicted for a youtube video. That's according to Britain’s Joke War: The Pug and Count Dankula. To wit:

Count Dankula, a YouTube prankster, posted a video in which his girlfriend’s pug gives a Nazi salute, watches Hitler footage, and responds enthusiastically to the remark, “Gas the Jews.” Mr. Dankula appears to be headed for prison, having been convicted of a hate crime by a Glasgow judge. Dankula — real name Mark Meechan of Scotland — is annoying, and in Britain that’s against the law. Section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003 declares it illegal intentionally to “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” with online posts. Meechan’s sentencing is set for April 28.

This might be a good time to remember that guy who made a video and became the target of the U.S. government after he became the scapegoat for the Benghazi fiasco. At least in that case the government made the plausible claim that he wasn't prosecuted for the video but for some ancillary charge.

In any case, the left would love to outlaw speech with which they disagree, and it's incumbent on the rest of us to try to protect the bill of rights and all the rights listed therein.

------

11:19 AM 4/22/2018

Cato and Reason -- Take out drug kingpins and markets become more competitive and deadly

The nation building challenge for any country trying to do it is that when the dictator is removed the void is filled by others who may be more violent.

That same theory seems to apply to the removal of drug kingpins. Alexis Garcia at Reason.com asks this question: Will El Chapo’s Arrest Make the Drug Trade More Deadly? Excerpt:

The U.S. and Mexican governments have declared Guzmán's capture a major win in the drug war. Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron thinks his story better demonstrates the folly of prohibition.

"When we interfere on the supply side with the drug trade by taking out kingpins and other ways, we tend to lower the prices partially because we're making the market more competitive," says Miron, who's also the head of economic studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "Where there's demand, there's going to be supply."

The capture of kingpins doesn't just tend to make cartels more competitive in the marketplace. It can also increase violence as rival factions battle to fill the power vacuum.

A 2015 research brief conducted by Miron and his Cato colleagues Jason Lindo and Maria Padilla-Romo shows that capturing a leading drug trafficker "in a municipality increases its homicide rate by 80 percent" over a 12-month period. In neighboring municipalities, the homicide rate rises 30 percent in the six-month period after a kingpin's capture.

Here's a link to the Cato report: Kingpin Approaches to Fighting Crime and Community Violence: Evidence from Mexico’s Drug War.

Prohibition didn't work in the war on alcohol and doesn't seem to yield an ideal outcome in the war on drugs.

------

1:06 PM 4/21/2018

The real heroes in the SW Airlines engine calamity are the trainers who teach pilots how to handle emergencies

The media told us about the shrapnel from the failed engine that pierced the 737's window and resulted in one passenger death. The media are hailing Captain Tammie Jo Shults as a hero. And that's a perfectly natural response. But I'm inclined to agree with the pilot when she said she was just doing her job.

From time to time one of the cable channels will broadcast a show featuring passenger plane pilot training. And the one I saw showed pilots flying a simulator in which the trainers threw at them every possible disaster they could think of. The pilots had been taught how to respond, and they were graded on how well they put that training into practice. Click here for a three minute Youtube video of a Southwest Airlines training simulator doing its job. In the featured segment one engine conks out while the plane is taking off.

Given all the bad things that can happen, the loss of one engine in a two-engine jetliner is not as catastrophic as it might seem. The 737 is supposed to be able to fly with only one engine, and in this latest in-flight-emergency, the plane and pilot did their jobs.

This blog post isn't intended to take away from the glory the pilot received or will receive. But she was really just doing what she was trained to do. Hopefully, the airline training programs will continue demanding top tier results from the pilots.

The real heroes are the trainers who taught Ms. Shults how to deal with the situation she found herself in.

Three cheers for those unsung heroes!

------

11:03 AM 4/19/2018

Death with dignity -- stop stigmatizing suicide

According to news reports, Barbara Bush opted out of any further life saving procedures. Instead, she wanted palliative care to help her live her remaining days pain free. And the consensus of the reporters is that she was doing the right thing.

This wasn't suicide, which is routinely regarded by those same reporters as a need for counseling. And physician assisted suicide, which is legal in some states, is often excoriated. For example, see Physician-Assisted Suicide in Hawaii Is an Attack on All of Us.

Staying alive is the default mode in our genetic makeup. But some circumstances make life unlivable -- a debilitating but nonfatal disease comes to mind. So an "opt out" feature shouldn't be so roundly condemned.

There's even a app for that. SARCO CAPSULE: Check Out This State-Of-The-Art Suicide Machine.

------

2:29 PM 4/18/2018

Starbucks to educate employees on race bias -- time would be better spent teaching them how to brew coffee

The other day I complained about the bitter tasting coffee I got at a Starbucks coffee bar and noted that it's no wonder that their customers prefer those sweetened, flavored coffees the store sells so many of. My diagnosis was that the coffee I was served had been overheated. Cook coffee too long or at too hot a temperature and the result is bitter tasting coffee.

Anyway, I was amused to read this: Starbucks to close all company-owned stores on the afternoon of May 29 for racial-bias education day.

Starbucks' executives are so woke they don't need coffee to stay awake. They've got their lefty agenda to promote, but they would do better for the stockholders and customers if they put the time into teaching better coffee brewing techniques.

Previously: How good is Starbucks coffee, really?

------

2:22 PM 4/17/2018

Stay of execution on tax filing -- due date is April 17, 2018

Not really a stay of execution, but it is an extra day to get the 1040 prepared. And there I was busting my rear over the weekend to get mine ready.

Turns out not only did the 15th fall on Sunday, April 16th is Emancipation Day in Washington D.C., a holiday. So the true deadline is 4/17/18. If it's postmarked on or before 4/17/18 then it's on time.

On the down side, there will be no swamp draining on the 16th, either.

------

3:05 PM 4/16/2018

Pininfarina Hypercar -- at least you know it will look good

Pininfarina is the design firm famous for Ferraris, so if nothing else, their proposed electric hypercar is going to look good.

The first ones expected off the assembly line are Codenamed PF-Zero , and the design is expected to be based on the H2 Speed -- pictured on the right. And it is expected to be powered by a 1,500hp electric motor.

They won't be cheap. For prospective pricing, we get this from New Pininfarina car brand to launch electric hypercar in 2020:

An inside source told Autocar: “Pininfarina has always made very special cars, but usually for other people. When we have sold cars ourselves, like the Pininfarina Sergio [of which six were built in 2015 and sold for a reputed $3m each], we have always done very well. It is not difficult to see what the next step should be. The cars will be exclusive and very beautiful.”

Meanwhile, for those of us who watch our pocket books, there will be SUVs, which should be cheaper. However, that will mean sacrificing a few hundred horsepower.

------

2:01 PM 4/15/2018

President Trump, please just say no to alcohol, in gasoline

Conservatives and progressives can agree on this. Using corn based ethanol as a gasoline additive is a waste of resources. Conservatives don't like it because it's basically corporate welfare. Progressives don't like it because it doesn't improve the environment and adds to the cost of buying fuel.

But the ethanol lobby has a lot of clout. And they've got Donald Trump's ear. Too bad he’ll allow more ethanol sales to make farmers very happy.

Trump campaigned as a maverick, but in many ways he is a typical politician.

------

2:20 PM 4/13/2018

Los Angeles mayor is so compassionate he's giving away your space to the homeless

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti should feel some responsibility for the homeless in Los Angeles. It's not because he's so compassionate, it's because housing is so heavily regulated few can build anything, so he's part of the problem.

Not to worry. The government is here to help. Andrew Malcolm tells us about the proposed solution in How about housing some homeless in your backyard?. Here's how the proposal would work:

Under the program the county would lend $75,000 to homeowners to build a backyard house or $50,000 for a garage-type renovation for up to six units. Loan principal would be reduced for each year a formerly homeless person occupies the unit.

After 10 years, the loan would be forgiven and homeowners would be free to do as they want with the building.

One should wonder whether the formerly homeless residents of these dwellings would care enough about them to perform regular upkeep and what recourse, if any, the homeowner would have if they didn't.

Meanwhile, this video uploaded on Christmas day 2016 made the rounds a while back. It's rather astonishing to see how many people live on the streets in downtown Los Angeles. Aside from refugee camps, there's really no worthwhile solution.

------

1:13 PM 4/12/2018

How good is Starbucks coffee, really?

The worst coffee I've ever tasted -- actually I drank it anyway -- was a cup I purchased from a machine at a Stripes roadside convenience store. Coffee brewer tip: if the coffee gets too hot or stays heated too long, it gets that awful, bitter taste.

I'm in possession of a Starbucks gift card and used it the other day at a Starbucks counter inside a grocery market. I wanted plain black coffee without sugar or milk. The barista recommended an Americano, and I went with that.

So it was black enough, contained no sugar, and contained no milk. But oh, was it bitter! It rivaled the Stripes coffee.

It's no wonder Starbucks customers love those sugary, flavored, coffee drinks. That's what it takes to make bitter coffee palatable.

P.S. The Americano is supposed to be an expresso, however a properly made expresso should not be bitter. Most likely it was over heated. The proper brewing temperature for coffee should be between 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit, but if you prefer the bitter taste, then cook the hell out of it. That should do the trick.

------

2:04 PM 4/11/2018

If Michael Cohen has any other clients besides Donald Trump, they must really be sweating

The news that the FBI conducted a raid on Michael Cohen's office, home, and hotel hit the wires big time. What did they take? We get this snippet from Wapo:

FBI agents on Monday raided Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room as part of the investigation, seizing records about Cohen’s clients and personal finances. ... Investigators took Cohen’s computer, phone and personal financial records, including tax returns, as part of the search of his office at Rockefeller Center, that person said.

Perhaps Donald Trump is Mr. Cohen's only client. But if he has others, they must be shaking in their boots. Prosecutors will likely have access to confidential communications they had with Cohen. Prosecutors would try to avoid an appearance of impropriety. But if they see something they didn't know about another subject of an investigation, they couldn't look away. That's just common nature, and what we've seen in the last several years about the justice department, legal niceties aren't always followed. Furthermore, if they found something useful but it's inadmissible, they would try to obtain it some other way.

As the old saying goes, it's easier to apologize than to ask permission.

This episode will also deter any prospective Trump attorney.

------

11:02 AM 4/10/2018

The Chicago gun black market might be a preview of gun markets after a gun ban

Last month we talked about how the black market exists on the dark web in Australia for gun buyers in the no-guns land down under. Here in the U.S., Chicago is the poster child of restricted gun rights coexisting with a high murder rate.

I stumbled on this link while going through old bookmarks stored in my browser. It's titled How Chicago gets its guns from October of last year. It reads like a human interest story about someone who had a spell of bad luck. But regarding the gun market, here's an excerpt which summarizes the relevant part:

Most of the guns police seize in Chicago come from Indiana and other states where firearms laws are more lax, police and researchers have found. After they were purchased legally, most were sold or loaned or stolen. Typically, individuals or small groups are involved in the dealing, not organized trafficking rings, experts say.

Unlike the drug trade — often dominated by powerful cartels or gangs — illegal gun markets operate more like the way teenagers get beer, “where every adult is potentially a source,” said Philip Cook, a researcher at the University of Chicago Crime Lab who’s also a Duke University professor.

Under pressure to respond to the violence, law enforcement has focused on making examples of people caught selling, buying or possessing guns. But authorities acknowledge that these cases do little to stem the flow of guns into the city.

With so many guns individually owned in the U.S., should a law ever get passed that would require turning them in it wouldn't do much to reduce gun ownership. A black market would pop up that would make the Chicago market look like a garage sale.

------

2:14 PM 4/9/2018

London murder rate exceeds NYC -- two lessons: broken windows strategy works, gun laws don't

We shouldn't be amused at this, but it certainly does fly in the face of the wrong headed theory that gun bans reduce crime. Here's the story from thetimes.co.uk: London murder rate beats New York as stabbings surge. To read the whole thing it appears the reader has to register and accept cookies. But here's an excerpt from the free part:

London overtook New York in murders for the first time in modern history in February as the capital endured a dramatic surge in knife crime.

Fifteen people were murdered in the capital, against 14 in New York. Both cities have almost exactly the same population.

London murders for March are also likely to exceed or equal New York’s. By late last night there had been 22 killings in the capital, according to the Metropolitan police, against 21 in the US city.

James Q. Wilson's "broken windows" plan of policing was implemented in NYC by William Bratton and Rudy Guiliani, in the 1990s. The theory was that a neighborhood that was kept clean and maintained would be a safer neighborhood. The addition of the "stop and frisk" strategy also helped deter criminal behavior, although that program has been criticized because more minorities were arrested because of it. It's questionable whether there is actual racism involved or whether the crime rate in the subject neighborhoods is higher which would draw more scrutiny.

Nevertheless, NYC's murder rate was lower than London's due to a "dramatic surge in knife crime." Source: London murder rate beats New York as stabbings surge.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting development: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car. The director arrested is Reagan Stevens, Deputy Director of Youth and Strategic Initiative.

------

2:04 PM 4/8/2018

Ted Kennedy colluded with Russia -- with Teddy in the news again this might be a good time to remember that

Kennedy got a pass from Democrats and the press and a get-out-of-jail-free card from the justice system for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. But with the movie Chappaquiddick coming out, management of the narrative has slipped out of the hands of Democrats and their friends in the media.

But the investigation into any collusion between Donald Trump and Russia goes on. So maybe this is a good time to remember when Democrats colluded with Russians. It happened in 1983 when Ted Kennedy sought a deal with Russian to get their help in defeating Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election.

In Ted Kennedy Secretly Asked The Soviets To Intervene In The 1984 Elections, Sean Davis at The Federalist tells the story with a quote from a Forbes article:

Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.

First he offered to visit Moscow. “The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.” Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. “A direct appeal … to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. … If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. … The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.”

Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time–and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.

Ya gotta love that part about rigging the arrangement "to look like honest journalism." That probably would have been easy to pull off.

But with all the hysteria about Donald Trump keeping the partisan heart rate beating at such a high rate, old memories will likely stay buried.

Related:
Ted Kennedy Sent a Secret Letter to the Soviets in 1983 – Truth!;
When The Left Longed For Russian Political Interference;
Ted Kennedy Secretly Asked The Soviets To Intervene In The 1984 Elections.

------

1:41 PM 4/7/2018

Juan Williams provides a valuable service to conservatives who watch Fox

Juan Williams is thoughtful and articulate. And when he appears on Fox news and commentary shows he usually provides a reasoned view of what Democrats are thinking at that moment.

Sometimes there isn't a reasoned view from Democrats. And instead of blasting Williams for being dumb, as J. Marsolo did in Juan Williams's comparison to Chappaquiddick could not have been dumber, it's more instructive to learn from him.

Marsolo says this in regard to a discussion on "The Five" about the movie, "Chappaquiddick":

Williams said he didn't know the "story" of Chappaquiddick.  You would expect that someone whose job is a paid political commentator would know the story.  Kennedy would have been the Democratic nominee for president but for Chappaquiddick.  Kennedy was lauded by the Dems and the media as the Lion of the Senate. ...

If not knowing about Chappaquiddick isn't bad enough for a paid political commentator, Williams then outdid himself.   He said that while the left wanted to block the Chappaquiddick movie, the "right" wanted to block the movie about President Reagan's last years while he was afflicted with Alzheimer's.  This is beyond stupidity and civility.  How could anyone compare a movie about President Reagan's Alzheimer's with Ted Kennedy leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die in a car submerged in a pond that he put her in?  How is that equivalent, analogous, or relevant? There is no equivalency between blocking the truth about how Kennedy caused Ms. Kopechne to die and respecting the privacy of President Reagan during the last years of his life.

OK, it wasn't a good comparison. But that's all Williams had in the debate. And by proxy, that's all Democrats have in the debate. It's over, and while Democrats controlled the narrative for 50 years, they've lost it. Finally. But this whole thing is a good demonstration of how powerful the Democrats and the media are in managing a story.

------

1:08 PM 4/6/2018

The left runs rings around conservatives with their skillful manipulation of language

We've talked about this previously. The left, with a huge assist from the democrat media machine, uses the language to further their agenda to much greater effect than does the right.

They might call it the evolution of words, but manipulation is probably a more apt description. Michael Walsh touches on that in an article how they do it in the immigration debate titled The Right of No Refusal. He starts out with this:

The cultural-Marxist Left’s war on Western civilization and American society is conducted on many fronts, including the courts and the streets, but also on a daily basis in the arena of public opinion, via the language. One prominent example has been their transformation of the two human sexes, male and female, first into “genders” (a term drawn from English grammar, and of which there are three, including neuter) and then into multiple genders. This of course demands a new set of pronouns which promptly are given “identity” characteristics, the better to tribalize and thus weaponize these hitherto unknown species of human beings.

He finishes with this:

Were the terms “immigration” and “asylum” not so thoroughly corrupted, therefore, we might be having a more reasonable discussion of the problem. But for the racially obsessed Left, “migrants” now mean brown and black people, while “asylum” means the right of free and unfettered entry into the First World, with no end either in sight or even contemplated. If these continue to be the meanings of the terms, we are in for the most profound period of social and national disruption since the fall of Rome.

As someone once said, if you have open borders then you are welcoming in your next rulers. Meanwhile, by manipulating the language, they give themselves a good head start against conservatives in the minds of many.

------

1:13 PM 4/5/2018

When their users are the product, Yahoo free email really really wants us to stay logged in

Earlier this year we highlighted a feature on the Yahoo email login screen which would keep the user logged in unless he/she checked a box opting out.

But with a recent update, Yahoo is politely asking users to verify that they want to log out, not once, but twice. Here are screen shots of the initial login screen and the one that follows the first logout attempt.

With all the news about Facebook's sale of personal info, Yahoo email users should probably wonder what's happening to all the information they share in emails they might have thought were personal. But that information wasn't enough for Yahoo. They want to keep tracking the user after he/she is finished with the email.

It's a little bit disturbing.

------

2:28 PM 4/4/2018

Mozilla Thunderbird and Avast Antivirus don't get along

Thunderbird is a popular email software program offered free by Mozilla. And Avast is a popular free antivirus program. But the two aren't exactly compatible without some tinkering.

In my case, after an update, Mozilla Thunderbird stopped connecting to the email server. And after much trial and error, not to mention anguish, I hit on the work-around.

Here's what the user needs to do:

1. Open the Avast program.
2. Click "Settings" at bottom left.
3. On the Settings page, click "Components."
4. On the Components page, locate the "Mail Shield" line and click on the green switch on the right to turn it off for the time duration you select.

Works for me. I hope this helps someone else.

------

2:25 PM 4/3/2018

Does anyone take those California product warnings seriously anymore?

These days practically every product one buys has a warning label of one level of severity or another. And some products have an extra label directed at customers in California -- those levels might actually tell us something we didn't know. But they've over done it to the point where their warnings are ignored.

It's not hard to find parody sites consisting of fake warning labels which use absurdity to spoof the warning labels we actually see.

And this recent news that a judge in California issued an order compelling Starbucks and other coffee makers to post warnings that coffee may contain a carcinogen called acrylamide could easily be mistaken for parody. See Starbucks, others must carry cancer warning in California, judge rules.

But note this: "The 'probable' or 'likely' carcinogen label is based on studies of animals given high levels of acrylamide in drinking water. But people and rodents absorb the chemical at different rates and metabolize it differently, so its relevance to human health is unknown." Saccharine and Alar come to mind.

With so many warnings, does anyone take them seriously any more? It's like the boy who cried wolf. Those self appointed saviors of humanity have squandered their credibility. And if they happen to stumble on a real threat they'll likely be ignored.

Meanwhile, one doesn't have to look too hard to find information about the health benefits of coffee. See, for example: Three cups of coffee a day clears out the arteries and protects against heart disease, reveals study.

Coffee has been around for generations, and people are living longer than ever. So which of these theories does a rational person base his/her consumption decision? I'll stick with coffee, thank you very much.

------

1:00 PM 4/2/2018

The Greatest Story Never Told -- an unfortunate typo in TV schedule

The morning paper typically contains a schedule of the TV shows for the evening. And it's a convenient way to plan in advance if something good is on.

This isn't a fact-checking blog, but there was an amusing typo in regard to an old movie shown on TCM the other night: "The Greatest Story Never Told." It looked like a spoof of a famous old biblical movie.

But no. Turns out it was the old movie, "The Greatest Story Ever Told." Ever? Never? What a difference a letter makes.

------

11:12 AM 4/1/2018

Hiit just got harder

We talked about high intensity interval training a couple of months ago. At that time the high end calculation for the maximum heart rate (HRmax) was the Tanaka formula, 208 – (0.7 x age).

But wouldn't you know? A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have come out with a formula that gives us an even higher maximum rate. So the hiit workouts just got harder.

Click the hyperlink to get to their Maximum Heart Rate Calculator. Their formula is 211 – (0.64 x age). For me result is about 7.3 bpm higher.

Here's their recommended routine:

1. Start with a ten minute warm-up at approximately 60 % of HRmax to get you sweating.
2. Do four intervals, each four minutes long. The last two minutes of each interval, your heart rate should be at 90–95 % of HRmax, so you become short of breath. Use the first two minutes of each interval to reach this heart rate level.
3. Between each interval, your should perform active resting at a heart rate of approximately 70 % of HRmax. This is the zone where the body clears lactic acid most efficiently.
4. End with a ten minute cool-down with lighter activity after the last interval.

Previously: Hiit, mother nature and father time.

Good luck.

------

1:30 PM 3/31/2018