I’ve got 3 articles from my weekend reading for your perusal.
The first one is on the stupidity of the DC politicos and their stupid geniusus:
All these effing geniuses: Ezra Klein, expert-driven journalism, and the phony Washington consensus
In a recent article on Vox, Ezra Klein declared that his generation of Washington journalists had discovered political science, and it is like the hottest thing on wheels. In the old days, he writes, journalists “dealt with political science episodically and condescendingly.” But now, Klein declares, “Washington is listening to political scientists, in large part because it’s stopped trusting itself.” Klein finds that political scientists give better answers to his questions than politicians themselves, because politicians are evasive but scientists are scientists, you know, they deal in “structural explanations” for political events. So the “young political journalists” who are roaring around town in their white lab coats frightening the local bourgeoisie “know a lot more about political science and how to use it” than their elders did.
Hence Klein’s title: “How Political Science Conquered Washington.”
Nearly every aspect of this argument annoyed me. To suggest, for starters, that people in Washington are-or were, until recently-ignorant or contemptuous of academic expertise is like saying the people of Tulsa have not yet heard about this amazing stuff called oil. Not only does Washington routinely fill the No. 1 spot on those “most educated cities” articles, but the town positively seethes with academic experts. Indeed, it is the only city I know of that actually boasts a sizable population of fake experts, handing out free-market wisdom to passers-by from their subsidized seats at Cato and Heritage.
Jump!
The second article is more bystander bias. I’ve seen quite a few people defending Adrian Peterson’s beating of his 4 year old son, but we’ve got one bystander who called the police and got a guy killed at Walmart in Ohio and now another bystander that got an actress handcuffed for kissing her husband in public. She’s black, he’s white, and therefore, according to bystander laws, she must be a prostitute. SMH:
Django Unchained Actress Accosted by LAPD After Kissing White Husband
Danièle Watts, an African-American actress who played Coco in Django Unchained and appears as Martin Lawrence’s daughter on FX’s Partners, says she was handcuffed and detained on Thursday by police in Los Angeles who suspected she was a prostitute.
Lastly, just another reason why women are awesome and important! 😀
Scientists discover antibiotic produced by vaginal bacteria while exploring ‘microbiome’
A new study reveals that microorganisms inhabiting areas of almost all human bodies produce substances that could be used in a wide array of medications, from antibiotics to chemotherapy drugs.
Nature.com reported on a study published in the journal Cell, in which researchers announced that one vaginal microbe’s power has been tapped to yield a new antibiotic medicine, Lactocillin.
So how you doin’?
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It’s supposed to be warmer today but you couldn’t prove it by the temperatures so far this AM. I really want Summer not to fade,
Your first article also annoyed eh hornbeck, he called them “Morons, the “functioning level of mental disability. They can work under supervision.” I think they need better supervision.
While I find it appalling that Ms. Watts was subjected to degrading treatment, I am not at all surprised. Police these days are another bunch of high functioning mentally disabled that could definitely use better supervision and training.
It’s encouraging that the pharmaceutical industry is still involved the search for new antibiotics. The problem is the medical and agricultural communities insistence on over using them which has led to “suoer-bugs” resistant to existing antibiotics.
I still need to get at the ivy that has overtaken the one side yard of the house and part of the far side of the backyard. We’ve decided to leave it on the ugly back fence until we replace it.
I thought Frank really schooled them. I like how he named names. Add another person to the list of people who get to say “I told you so.” months from now and for years to come.
On the other hand… The powerful in Powertown will never learn.
They will spin their spin and claim they were right all along. That their central political science thesis was actually right. ‘The masses are stupid’.
As a member of the Masses, to the Klein’s & Cohn’s of the world I say, speak for yourselves.