Monday Mule Pack – Smart Jackets, Robocars, Oxford Commas, and Detective X
March 20, 2017
A weekly look at some of the more interesting articles from around the web.
Secret Crime-Fighter Revealed to Be 1930s Physicist
Until now, most of the man’s fame was tied to his work on the materials used for dental fillings. When he’s mentioned in agency histories, he’s described as the founder of the dental materials research program. The write-up will add, in an offhand way, that he was involved in investigating the murder and kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, the son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, which happened 85 years ago this month.
Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute
In other words: Oxford comma defenders won this round.
“That comma would have sunk our ship,” David G. Webbert, a lawyer who represented the drivers, said in an interview on Wednesday.
MM: This makes me incredibly happy. Oxford commas are important, people. Omit them at your own risk. *Note: the name of this website was nearly oxfordcommas.com (I still own that URL).
The kids’ lawsuit was joined by acclaimed NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who began studying climate change in the 1970s and whose granddaughter, Sophie, is among the 21 young plaintiffs.
“In my opinion, this lawsuit is made necessary by the at-best schizophrenic, if not suicidal nature of U.S. climate and energy policy,” he told the court.
If the ideology is Islam (and it is) and the woman is a former Muslim (and she is), she must steel herself to face threats against her life from her onetime coreligionists and a hail of invective from, and insidious betrayals by, those posing as progressives. Moreover, she must prepare to fend off attempts to silence her viewpoint as “inconvenient” given our current political morass. Even more egregiously, if the woman is trying to help (as she is) others also striving after the gloriously secular freedom she has achieved for herself, she becomes a danger to the entire edifice of hypocrisy, cowardice, and fact-deficient balderdash forming the mainstream left’s view of Islam as a “religion of peace” distorted by a few deranged miscreants. In short, in the America of today, such a brave woman will find no haven extended to her, but, rather, confront wielders of figurative pitchforks eager to skewer her for both abandoning her religion and traducing her kind. And with Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency, her position becomes more precarious than ever.
So what is the solution? First, find a way to bring politics more into your sphere of influence so it no longer qualifies as an external locus of control. Simply clicking through angry political Facebook posts by people with whom you already agree will most likely worsen your mood and help no one. Instead, get involved in a tangible way — volunteering, donating money or even running for office. This transforms you from victim of political circumstance to problem solver.
Second, pay less attention to politics as entertainment. Read the news once a day, as opposed to hitting your Twitter feed 50 times a day like a chimp in a 1950s experiment on the self-administration of cocaine. Will you get the very latest goings on in Washington in real time? No. Will that make you a more boring person? No. Trust me here — you will be less boring to others. But more important, you will become happier.
The Original Lie About Obamacare
Their approach to Obamacare has worked quite nicely for them, until now. Lying can be an effective political tactic. Believing your own alternative facts, however, is usually not so smart.
Glenn Beck wants to heal the America he divided — one hug at a time
Now, at 53, Beck sees a nation of people who are at one another’s throats, and he blames his language, his meanness and his assaults, his constant selling of the idea that the other side was evil and that his side had the one true answer. He believes that his radio show and his TV shows and his rallies on the Mall paved the way for the incivility, intolerance and general indigestion that now plagues the body politic.
“I did and said terrible things,” Beck says. “I did my thinking out loud and it’s one of my worst aspects. But I haven’t changed my principles. I’ve changed the way I phrase things — for example, I’m trying to ban the word ‘evil’ from my lexicon. I didn’t notice how my language could be interpreted by half the country as racist. I lacked humility. I was the height of arrogance.”
MM: I’m a bit skeptical of his newfound warm and fuzziness, although I hope it’s genuine. He’s a showman after all, and my natural reaction is to think that this is just some new bit. I’ve heard him interviewed on a few shows recently, notably the Rubin Report, and did find that he had some interesting things to say. That said, he’s still intellectually dishonest in most of his opinions, even if his insanity is toned down.
Bill Nye has some advice for President Trump about getting to Mars
So the Planetary Society report urges that NASA orbit Mars first — something that could happen in 2033 — then land astronauts on the surface later in the decade. This can happen if NASA’s budget grows to match inflation, the report says (something that hasn’t always been the case in the past several years), and if funding responsibilities for the International Space Station are gradually handed over to private space flight companies.
How Google and Levi’s smart jacket shows what’s coming next for wearables
She said that what makes the Commuter jacket different from other wearables — and even other smart clothing — is that it’s not necessarily marketing the tech as its main feature, but rather using it to solve problems that everyday people have. Many smartwatches and even other smart clothing can feel like solutions in search of a problem to solve. The Commuter jacket, she said, stands out as a type of wearable for a more everyday consumer who may not be that interested in the tech, but likes the practical features that come with a stylish jacket.
MM: I’m unclear about what this smart jacket does that something like a smart watch doesn’t already do. Seems doomed to fail.
‘Satirical’ Texas bill turns language of antiabortion laws on men
Finally, Farrar’s bill would ban “unregulated masturbatory emissions.”
“Emissions outside of a woman’s vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility, will be charged a $100 civil penalty for each emission, and will be considered an act against an unborn child,” the four-page bill reads. Furthermore, emissions created in medical facilities “will be stored for the purposes of conception for a current or future wife.”
Trump’s budget calls for seismic disruption in medical and science research
Investment in research and development has been seen since World War II as critical to national prosperity and security. But the Trump administration has signaled that government-funded science, like government more broadly, has become too sprawling.
A White House Devoid of Integrity
After leading the world to victory in World War II, the future President Dwight D. Eisenhower insisted that journalists be taken to witness the horror of Nazi death camps and the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. He forecast that without witnesses, the magnitude of the horror would be forgotten with time. This is the kind of leadership we need right now: those who are willing to stare down raw truths and speak to the threat of what happens when we sacrifice our basic humanity and Constitutional rights for political fear-mongering.
President Barack Obama’s use of executive power drew great criticism (including from me) while he was in office. Democrats should be incentivized to see that executive authority overreach isn’t okay just because you agree with who is in office. And Congressional Republicans must restrain Trump. If Republicans want to emerge from the Trump presidency with any semblance of a party, never mind a conscience, they should start asserting principled opposition.
Al Franken may be the perfect senator for the Trump era — a deadly serious funnyman
At the dawn of a presidency that stretches the limits of late-night parody, and at a moment when an out-of-power Democratic Party is trying to find its voice, the former comedian and satirist may be having a breakout moment as a political star.
To Make Us All Safer, Robocars Will Sometimes Have to Kill
Cut your pearl-clutching: Self-driving cars will save countless lives. Humanity needs them, badly—more 30,000 people die every year in road accidents in the United States alone. Worldwide, it’s more than a million. Because, it turns out, humans are terrible drivers. Machines, by contrast, are consistent, calculating, and incapable of getting drunk, angry, or distracted.
Don’t Try to Fix Obamacare. Abolish It.
Americans are increasingly cynical about politics. Watching Republicans campaign for years on repealing Obamacare only to see the effort collapse will just increase that cynicism. But the reverse is true, too. Watching many Americans demand repeal, while voting for a man who promised a government-run, universal coverage solution, only increases politicians’ cynicism about the American voter. The voters know the politicians will break their promises once elected. The politicians know the voters will let them get away with it as long as the spoils of victory are divvied up.
MM: I strongly disagree with the author about the solution to health care—the free market is not the answer, something that we’ve proven in this country over and over. The industry just doesn’t work that way.
The Increasing Significance of the Decline of Men
Men are really going to have to change their act or have big problems. I think of big guys from the cave days, guys who were good at lifting stuff and hunting and the things we got genetically selected out for. During the industrial revolution that wasn’t so bad, but it’s not going to be there anymore.
‘Project Lit’ takes aim at Nashville’s book deserts
Libraries, while abundant in Nashville, can’t reach every neighborhood, Amato said. Metro is seeking a major expansion of its library system, but it won’t be complete until 2040.
That’s too long of a wait for access to books, Amato said. It’s also too late for a school district which has struggled to get kids reading on grade level, he said.
MM: 2040? Damn.
