Read it.

And be thankful you don’t live in Britain.

Read it.

I’ll add a few more:

“Jeez, what died?”

“Is that your real hair color?”

“How can you walk in those things?”

“Doesn’t that thing hurt?”

“Let me just give you this coupon for Harry’s….”

Read it.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Want to know why people at Trump rallies punch out protestors? Look no further.

Read it.

Eventually people will wake up to the fact that the only thing needed to be ‘radicalized’ is to read the Koran and believe it.

Reminder for the dimwitted: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology masquerading as a religion, with which no co-existence is possible.

Read it.

Hell might actually be other people  — at least if you’re really smart.

I, for one, am prepared to believe it.

First, they find that people who live in more densely populated areas tend to report less satisfaction with their life overall. “The higher the population density of the immediate environment, the less happy” the survey respondents said they were. Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.

But there was one big exception. For more intelligent people, these correlations were diminished or even reversed.

I’ve been saying that for decades. Every bad thing that has ever happened to me has been caused by another person — typically one with whom, given the choice, I would not have associated.

Why would high population density cause a person to be less happy? There’s a whole body of sociological research addressing this question. But for the most visceral demonstration of the effect, simply take a 45-minute ride on a crowded rush-hour Red Line train and tell me how you feel afterward.

Heh. Note that the Crust promote and encourage ‘density’ for everybody else but rarely inflict it on themselves.

Read it.

When many people think about the Middle Ages they see it as a time when people were tortured by a wide collection of diabolical instruments. Whether it is the Pear of Anguish or the Iron Maiden, these torture devices are portrayed as medieval. The reality, however, is that many of these devices never existed in the Middle Ages.

Imagine that.

Lileks.

Pronounce this sentence out loud: “There may be a schism about this, but my forte is not to err; people are pronouncing ‘Sriracha’ incorrectly.”

If you said skism, for-tay and urr, you’re right, and you probably correct people or silently judge them. “Err” is one of those words that makes you sound like a moron if you say it right; people think it’s derived from “error,” when it really comes from the Ole English uyr, meaning “to fall on one’s face into a dung heap.” (Note: If you believed that, you urred.) But you got Sriracha right, right? Sree-racha.

No. It’s See-rah-cha. The first R is silent. You may ask: Why is it there, then? Am I mispronouncing other foods that have Rs in them? Hand me some ed seedless gapes, please. No adishes, but I will try some of that utabaga ganish.

…

I don’t know why the R is silent. Perhaps it’s on advice from its attorney. But it’s one of those words that people think sound a certain way, and so you sound dumb when you’re right.

This doesn’t matter, though. We’re entering the last stage of Sriracha’s reign as the hip thing to know about.

Being hip and trendy these days is getting to be a full-time job.

Read it.

Thirty-seven percent of companies say they hire college graduates for positions that in the past were primarily held by people with only high school degrees [sic], and 26 percent say they hire people with master’s degrees for jobs that used to go to candidates with bachelor’s degrees.

Asked why, 60 percent of the employers hiring college grads over high school grads said skills for those positions have evolved, requiring more highly educated workers. More than half said a tight labor market has allowed them to attract college grads to jobs that traditionally haven’t called for higher education.

My theory is that requiring a college degree is the only way employers can be sure of finding someone with what used to be a high-school education. It’s not that the work is more difficult, it’s that the schools these days suck.

Read it.

Girls as young as 10 have been victims of the attackers, who are still on the loose, and police are warning females not to go outside alone at night.

The 14 separate incidents have all been reported in the town of Ostersund, which has a population of 44,300.

While police have refused to release descriptions of the attackers, victims have described the men as of foreign origin.

Don’t think it has anything to do with Islam! Don’t even think it!

Vigilante groups have formed in Ostersund with some even joining police in nightly patrols.

Attacks have included the shocking attempted rape of two 10-year-old girls at a bus stop.

Another assault saw three young  men wrestle a woman to the ground before trying to rip her clothes off.

Don’t think it has anything to do with Islam! Don’t even think it!

In a recent press conference police chief Jerald said the attacks were unusual because none of the culprits appeared to be drunk.

Don’t think it has anything to do with Islam! Don’t even think it!

Other shocking incidents involving migrant attacks have rocked Sweden.

They include a number of women being sexually assaulted at a Stockholm music festival.

The police response to that drew huge criticism afterwards with police taking five months to reveal the attacks, which took against girls as young as 11.

Around 50 men, predominantly from Afghanistan, were identified as response for the sexual assaults.

Don’t think it has anything to do with Islam! Don’t even think it!

The Other McCain looks at ‘journalism’.

Identity politics and liberal notions of “diversity” have so polluted the journalism racket that now even the sports pages are full of “social justice.” If there is a gay outfielder playing for some AA farm team anywhere in America, all he has to do is send an email to Sports Illustrated and they’ll run a 6,000-word feature about his courageous struggle against homophobia in Dubuque or Albuquerque or wherever.

Whether broccoli journalism is Good for Democracy, it’s not good for journalism, because people get tired of being told what to think.

A newsroom is not a pulpit, and editors are not theologians, and if you want to preach a sermon by disguising it as a five-part “investigate” series about homelessness or whatever, you might eventually find yourself preaching to an empty church, because readers are not entirely stupid. Your pretentious attitude as Our Moral Superiors™ is tiresome and obnoxious, and people won’t pay money to be treated like third-graders being scolded by their teacher. But I digress . . .

Read it.

Lately I’ve been arguing with lefty acquaintances of mine who say, “Isn’t it terrible for the Republicans to play tit-for-tat over Court nominations” that surely they don’t seriously expect Republicans never to reciprocate for the shameful treatment of Republican judicial nominees, starting with Bork. Over 50 Bush judicial nominees were never given a hearing, let alone a vote—and not just in the final year in office. Democrats blocked a hearing for Miguel Estrada for several years (because a conservative Hispanic terrified Democratic Party racial uniformity enforcers). And let’s not forget Obama’s willingness to filibuster each of George W. Bush’s two Supreme Court nominees. Obama has no standing to complain about the treatment of Judge Garland.

Moreover, if you consult the basic literature of game theory, you’ll see that “tit-for-tat” is exactly how you should respond to a second party who is trying to gain advantage over you: only through a taste of their own medicine will the first party moderate its behavior.

Democrats pretty much own hypocrisy in public life; the Clintons are only the pustule that symptomizes the deeper disease.

Michael Goodwin speaks truth to power.

The insanity defense is all that’s left now that the smart set has declared that it’s immoral and indecent to even think about voting for Trump. OK, call me immoral and indecent as well as crazy, because I’m thinking about it.

…

I like those Republicans even though I’m a registered Democrat, just not that kind of Democrat. I voted for President Obama in 2008, believing he meant it when he said no red states, no blue states, only the United States. The barrier he broke added to his appeal.

Six months later, I was off the bus. It was already clear Obama had no intention of building a consensus on anything, although few realized he would be such a radical and partisan polarizer. He may love America, but doesn’t seem to like actual Americans. Other than himself, of course.

…

Following Obama, Clinton’s election would be a calamity. She would be beholden to him, and unable to shift much from his disastrous policies. And who knows what she really believes?

Besides, if the Clintons are rewarded with the White House again, it would be impossible to demand honesty from any public official in America. She’s thoroughly corrupt and, in the memorable words of the late William Safire, a “congenital liar.” Voting for her is a give up on the future.

Read it.

Samaritan Ministries is an organization of devout Christians who eschew traditional health insurance to pool their money and cover each other’s catastrophic medical bills. It’s one of the very last mutual aid societies in the U.S., in which a community of individuals with shared beliefs band together to form a voluntary social-safety net. A century ago, an estimated one-third of American men belonged to mutual aid societies, but most faded away with the expansion of the welfare state.

For which they will be penalized by Obamacare, because Democrats don’t like individual freedom if it means living some way of which they don’t approve.

Read it.

Read it.

San Francisco’s colorful former mayor Willie Brown caused a stir three years ago by writing some disturbing truths about major government infrastructure projects. The city’s Transbay Terminal project—billed as a future “Grand Central Station of the West”—was running $300 million over budget. Brown argued that no one should be shocked by such overruns, and that “we always knew” the estimate was artificially low. “In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment,” he wrote. “If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved. The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.”

And this is the Democrat approach to governance generally: We will come up with a bright idea, since we are so much smarter than you, and it’s your job to cough up the money, even if it turns out that it was a stupid bright ides. California is natural home of this sort of thinking.

Scott Sumner, a Real Economist, takes a look.

Suppose you wanted to switch to socialism—what would be the ideal place to do so?
You’d want a country with extremely high quality civil servants.

That would be France.

You’d want a country where socialism is not a dirty word, and capitalism is.

That would be France.

You’d want a country with the Socialist party in power, a party that was committed to enact the ideas of Thomas Piketty.

That would be France.

So how did things work out in France, when they tried to adopt a Bernie Sanders/Thomas Piketty approach to taxes?

Read it.

Asylum seekers in Austria are increasingly likely to go berserk when required to fill out forms or follow official procedures when required. Which is unfortunate, given that such activities are part of the bedrock of German-speaking cultures. The following account describes two such Allahu-Akhbar moments, one at a hospital and the other at a bus station.

Read it.

The most wanted terrorist in Europe, considered the mastermind in November’s multi-targeted attack in Paris that left 130 people dead, was arrested Friday by Belgian authorities.

But residents in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, where Saleh Abdeslam was captured, didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Within hours, the district, which has a majority Muslim population, erupted into riots. Dozens of Abdeslam’s fans attacked police with bottles, stones, and other objects, local press reported, angered by the arrest of their “hero.”

Read it.

For the Crust, hating Jews trumps other considerations.

Read it.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) defended the right of a terrorist-affiliated Palestinian media outlet to incite murder against Israelis, according to Honest Reporting.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently closed down “Palestine Today” – a Palestinian Islamic Jihad radio and television station – for inciting violence and glorifying Palestinian terrorists. Instead of condemning the Palestinian media outlet, the IFJ accused Israel of engaging in a “wave of violence targeting journalists.”

“The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which represents 600,000 journalists across the globe, stands by its affiliate the Palestinian Journalists Union (PJS) in condemning this brutal attack against free press and ask for UN immediate reaction to the escalation of attacks against the press in the occupied territories,” reads an IFJ statement.

The E-Reader Pillow.

SlotDog.

Snowcaster pusher shovel.

SeatRack cargo rack inside your car.

Darth Vader toothpick dispenser. It’s actually rather clever.

Sand-Off same wipe-off mitt.

BlueFire Pro Extreme Protection Cooking & Grilling Gloves. The perfect thing for that recalcitrant tibicena.

Butter Sprayer. I am not making this up.

Double-Barreled Pistol disguised as a smartphone.

‘Stealth’ socks.

Read it.

Further evidence that the F-35 is a flying piece of shit.

Read it.

More evidence that the F-35 is a flying piece of shit.

Mike Masnick understand the dialectic.

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people who think that power that cannot be trusted to individuals or corporations can nevertheless be safely left in the hands of government employees, despite thousands of years of historical experience to the contrary.

Read it.

I am not making this up.

Read it.

LinkedIn is riddled with so-called Dark Patterns which basically means it’s continuously trying to trick me into doing things I don’t actually want, such as uploading my address book, or spamming my existing contacts (whether they are or are not already on LinkedIn). These practices were recently actually deemed illegal by a Californa judge. Almost every action I do presents me with a screen that I’ll immediately want to close. That is: if I’m focused, because sometimes I’m not, and I end up spamming people again. LinkedIn is a giant opt-in spam engine masquerading as a directory and address book.

Read it.

An eavesdropping technique allows scientists to instantly find, map, and classify whales over enormous stretches of ocean.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Read it.

To channel the late and much-maligned Senator Joe McCarthy, “I hold in my hand, a special mailing from Xcel Energy, the spelling-challenged Minnesota utility company formerly known as Northern States Power, informing me of what an electricity-guzzling wastrel I am.”

For it would seem that I have used 8% more energy than my neighbors! There is a colorful bar graph with Green (but, of course) representing the Good Efficient Neighbors, Grey for All Neighbors, and a long Blue Line of Shame representing ME, the Bad Grrrll, up an unconscionable 8%.

Why they should not be delighted that I am using so much of their product remains a mystery, virtually unique among purveyors of products. I await a similar letter from Ben and Jerry informing me that I have bought 8% more Cherry Garcia and Chubby Hubby Ice Cream than my most lactose-intolerant neighbors and asking me to please try to use less.

…

Finally, in a nod to the “Everyone Gets a Trophy” philosophy that defines Minnesota, the letter tells me that “In 2015 you used 13% less energy than in 2014.” Woo-hoo! Then back off, nosy eco-freaks.

Read it.

Bet you didn’t know that.

Read it.

With their beloved baguette already available 24 hours a day, it seems only logical that Parisians can now get the Bayonne ham and Basque pate that goes so well with the bread from the first meat vending machine installed in the French capital.

In a city filled with small shops where long lunches remain a crucial part of the French “art de vivre,” the gleaming red machine set up on the lively Rue de Charonne in eastern Paris seems a bit incongruous.

Read it.

And, more to the point, most of them don’t give a rap.

Read it.

Well, it’s good to have that cleared up.

Eric S Raymond has some new theories.

A theory is a prediction-generating machine. It takes as input some set of observables and generates as output predictions about the not yet observed. One of the classic examples is Newton’s Three Laws of Physics. Using these, expressed in the formalism of calculus, we can put in observations of force and mass and motion and get out predictions of future force and motion.

(If you are studying something that people call a “theory”, and you can’t identify what inputs it takes and what predictions it generates, the “theory” is almost certainly bogus. I say “almost” because it’s possible you don’t yet understand the theory well enough to do that identification. On the other hand, there are a lot of bogus pseudo-theories floating around out there; caveat thinker.)

Read it.

The following article summarizes an official report on the condition of Vienna’s Islamic kindergartens. The report’s conclusions — that the kindergartens are influenced or controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafist groups, that children are indoctrinated with “extremist” views, that parallel societies are created and sustained by these schools, that children are taught to disdain and reject the kuffar — will not be a surprise to most Gates of Vienna readers. They seem to have caused consternation within the city’s Socialist governing class, however, so much so that the authorities have made sure to kick the can down the road at least as far as 2017.

The most telling fact is that most Islamic kindergartens refused entry to investigators working on the study.

Read it.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development was not so diplomatic, and estimates that the CO2 and climate benefits from replacing petroleum fuels with biofuels like ethanol are basically zero (IISD). They claim that it would be almost 100 times more effective, and much less costly, to significantly reduce vehicle emissions through more stringent standards, and to increase CAFE standards on all cars and light trucks to over 40 miles per gallon as was done in Japan just a few years ago.

But by law we still have to use it.

Read it.

While socialism’s goals may be lofty, its means are inherently at odds with democracy. In the end, “democratic socialism” makes no more sense than “voluntary slavery.”

Read it.

Liberal students attempted to shut down an event at the University of California-Berkeley earlier this month by resorting to one of the worst kinds of censorship tactics: mob violence.

The event featured a discussion between notable people, including Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. Ulrich’s elderly father participated in the forum, as did wealthy entrepreneur Marc Benioff.

Members of the Student Labor Committee, the group that crashed the event, didn’t object to these specific speakers. Rather, they have urged a boycott of all speakers until the administration agrees to their demands, which concern the allegedly subpar conditions endured by contract workers on campus.

Ulrich, who hosted the event, went so far as to allow a protester to speak at the beginning of the event. This was not sufficient for the aggrieved. Eventually protesters stormed the stage and even assaulted Benioff. The police were forced to intervene.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

And who could blame them?

The number of citizens and long-term residents cutting their official ties to Uncle Sam jumped more than 20% last year to 4,279, according to a CNNMoney analysis of the latest government data.

It’s a trend that’s been increasing in recent years. Many of those severing links are Americans living overseas who are tired of dealing with complicated tax paperwork, a headache that has worsened since new regulations came into effect.

Eighteen times as many Americans renounced their citizenship or long-term residency in 2015 compared with 2008. Last year was the third record-breaking year in a row.

Read it.

They have more than twice as much to cry about, I suspect.

Read it.

But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures. But, if they be not certain in event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here. If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements. I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expence in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but, in the mean time, they will teach us something we do not know. It is not so in agriculture. The indifferent state of that among us does not proceed from a want of knowledge merely; it is from our having such quantities of land to waste as we please. In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundan

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query VIII

Read it.

A Kurdish woman has been shot dead in Germany after refusing an arranged marriage with her cousin, it has been reported.

Images have been posted on Facebook by a man claiming to be the girl’s father and depicting her lying on the ground in a pool of blood, surrounded by distraught wedding guests. In an accompanying message he writes that his 21-year-old daughter was an aspiring engineer who had refused attempts by members of her extended family to agree to a marriage with her cousin.

He writes that: “This murderer would not accept that! They decided to take revenge, to continue the tradition. At 10am on 13 March, she was killed with 3 shots to the head by her own cousin.”

Read it.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have recently held out Eaton Corp.  as being a corporate ingrate that has abandoned its Cleveland headquarters for a low-tax haven and is now moving manufacturing operations to Mexico.

‘Ingrate’ apparently means ‘won’t stand still and be robbed’.

Should five percent appear too small,
Ah ah, Mr Wilson…
Be thankful we don’t take it all.
Ah ah, Mr Heath…

Read it.

The left comes up with this stuff faster than average people can make fun of it.

Read it.

Read it.

Academic systems rely on the existence of a supply of “outsiders” ready to forgo wages and employment security in exchange for the prospect of uncertain security, prestige, freedom and reasonably high salaries that tenured positions entail. Drawing on data from the US, Germany and the UK, Alexandre Afonso looks at how the academic job market is structured in many respects like a drug gang, with an expanding mass of outsiders and a shrinking core of insiders.

Read it.

Science remains humanity’s best hope for solving its most vexing problems, from feeding the malnourished, to finding alternative energy sources, and protecting us from pandemics and meteorites. But the way we train scientists now is not optimal for tackling these big challenges. Rather than thinking big, the current system encourages students to think small. It provides potent incentives for behaviors that are sometimes detrimental to not only scientists but also science and, by extension, to society as a whole. A winner-take-all hyper-competitiveness discourages cooperation, encourages poor scientific practices and deters new talent from entering the field. Graduate programs since World War II have produced excellent postdoctoral fellows. However, attempts to create well-rounded scientists have been thwarted by an increasingly demanding, grant-focused environment. As a result, we channel students into already narrow and highly specialized areas, teaching them more and more about less and less. One sad consequence is the inability of many scientists to talk about their work and ideas in a way that’s comprehensible by voters, politicians and even scientists in other fields.

Read it.

Chicken embryos that have legs nearly identical to those of prehistoric extinct dinosaurs were created recently by inhibiting the activity of a single gene.

The success of the project, outlined in the journal Evolution, brings scientists a step closer to creating “Dino-Chicken,” a chicken fully reverted to one of its dinosaur ancestors. That isn’t what this research team is after, though.

Pity. That would be kinda cool.

Read it.

Hey, caving is what they do best.

Read it.

As reported in last night’s news feed, a man walked into an armed forces recruiting center in Toronto and stabbed two soldiers. He was subdued by six or eight other soldiers before he could stab anyone else.

I’m pleased to report that the incident is now known to have a Mohammed Coefficient of 0%. However, it’s still quite possible that the alleged crime had traces of cultural enrichment, since the suspected assailant is named Ayanie (or “Ayanle”) Hassan Ali. None of the reports refers to the fellow’s ethnicity — he is in fact a “Québécois”, since he was born in Montreal — but judging by his photo, he appears to be a Somali.

Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders hastened to admonish the public not to engage in Islamophobic thinking concerning the incident: “One of the things I want to be very careful of when it comes to the national security piece that we don’t go do that Islamaphobia nonsense.”