More bad luck.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/aetna-maggedon-15232.html

Great sequence of tweets from McArdle this morning about Uber/Taxi and the costs and profits of fleets.

We are lazy crid, you have to actually POST the link

But, unfortunately, it seems like Winner was not aware of the fact "that most new printers print nearly invisibly yellow dots that track down exactly when and where documents, any document, is printed," Robert Graham of Errata Security said, explaining how the agency identified the leaker.

http://thehackernews.com/2017/06/nsa-russian-hacking-leak.html

Looks like you can add "terrorist" to my many sins. At least I don't leak like a sieve.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/05/nsa-leaker-being-white-is-terrorism/

When the Fairy Godmother has an awful taste in shoes:

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheCoffeeSnolf/status/872077025707741184/photo/1

No

Hey Raddy, let's all join hands and try to figure out whether it's the simony or the vanity of a multiply-bankrupted game show host that sets the direction of our nation's response to a global crisis!

Fun game!




The man is a bab

So, I just learned I've been using the animal kingdom descriptor "orange baboon" incorrectly for nearly a year.

Oooooo! Totally embarrassed.

But as always, my luck is superb, and it works out okay.

In other news from the extended family....

Barro made a good point about this dustup.

Also Aggie, Justice is their front office, but it will be fun to see how the FBI responds to the Comey hearings beginning Monday.

A great line indeed.

Big Mac is having a good day.

The core ideas apparently came from Codex.

These days the proper term should be Progressive:

https://mobile.twitter.com/IHWCo/status/871797429506592768

Alright, now this is interesting.

Pathetic, but the cute often are.

Is there any reason to think the fish can see & perceive the world beyond the tank?

Dogs didn't much as care about television until high-persistence LCD pixels allowed them to identify visual elements... Theretofore, the phosphor scanning (imperceptible to humans) defeated them.

Hey Raddy! Never underestimate the rapid-fire wonderfulness of bankrupted businessman carrying very special cellphone!

She seems nice.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/266808/

LOL, I love it. Countries like Canada have been bitching for years about Pax Americana and how horrible it is for the world.

We withdraw from one baseless, voluntary, unenforceable, nonbinding resolution of a treaty and the world suddenly starts bitching that the US cant be relied on to solve everyone's problems for them

Make up your minds you hypocritical assholes, you cant bitch about America butting its nose in everywhere only to bitch about us not butting our noses in everywhere

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/minister-canada-will-build-up-its-military-as-the-us-pulls-back-from-world-stage/2017/06/06/4c841a22-4ad8-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e_story.html?utm_term=.bfde0961cef6

Mostly because of pompous and somewhat duplicitous foreign visitors to Amy's blog and a few other internet fora, I collect annoying stories about Canada, and that's a handsome entry.

“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Freeland said, never mentioning President Trump by name.

Well, that's fine. America's aversion to international entanglement is young, but it's certainly older than this Administration. Trump's riding the wave, but the tide has been on approach from both left and right for more than a decade. To have him called names for this broad American impulse toward isolation —one which many of us are none to happy about— may in fact be something of a silver lining. But I regard this—

Although Freeland was careful to say that Canada was “grateful” for the “outsized role” that the United States has played in the world, there was an undertone of disappointment throughout the speech, something seldom heard recently in Canada-U.S. relations.

We should all note the specific financial numbers in that news story. Their aren't many. The teenage doesn't have a job yet.

FFS!

We're patrolling their shores for them.

Does she come with an authentic Indian Headdress and affirmative action paperwork?

How about the ability to ignore democratic election campaigns illegally stealing funds from citizens?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fctry/elizabeth-warren-action-figure/description

Does he come with a ball gag, gimp suit, and a Debbie Wasserman Schultz figurine wearing a strap on?

How about a mass grave as socialism has been responsible for more deaths than any human idea since the beginning of time?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fctry/bernie-sanders-action-figure

Also, crid, bad link

"Hey Raddy! Never underestimate the rapid-fire wonderfulness of bankrupted businessman carrying very special cellphone!"

I see that I now reside permanently in your thoughts. Good.

Let us note together that the point of the previous blog post objecting to Trump using his own phone was sensationalist crap.

Because it was, and is.

The entire planet is fascinated with figures such as yourself who voted for the Orange Dorkmundus not as a protest, or even (as Cousin Dave[?] [errantly] put it last week) in "a hail Mary" gesture for political recognition, but through unalloyed teen-idol adoration, with a richly-hued fantasy at hand for each consideration of fact placed before you: Maybe hith phone ith ekthtra spethial! Then thingth would be okay!

You are very, very often in our thoughts. But not in a good way:

What kind if dipnitz could ever have thought this was a *good* idea?

Ah, I know of one...!

If you had something to say, you wouldn't have to play at how to say it.

When you have something of substance to say about Trump, I see it. I understand if you go crazy because I don't immediately parrot you.

The assertion of phone insecurity was and is nonsensical grasping, its sole purpose to find something else to object to about Trump.

Love being horrified? Focus on the fantasy of spray-tan and hair being what you will, but don't pretenf THAT is about reason.

"Well, that's fine. America's aversion to international entanglement is young, but it's certainly older than this Administration. Trump's riding the wave, but the tide has been on approach from both left and right for more than a decade. To have him called names for this broad American impulse toward isolation —one which many of us are none to happy about— may in fact be something of a silver lining"

Of course, isolationism is actually the traditional American position (although few people alive today are old enough to remember it); it's the period starting with WWII that has been the anomaly in that regard. So what we're seeing is sort of a return to the traditional position, and yes, it's being driven by the Berinebros as much as by the Trump supporters and the isolationist wing of the libertarians. And it's not hard to see why: it's because there has been a fundamental change in our cosmopolitan class. Go back to about 1960, and most of America respected that class as being the people who would keep us out of war (well, mostly), and smooth over the differences among nations of the world. I think a lot of that was driven by the still-common view of war as a European thing, driven largely clashes of cultures that were actually pretty similar. And there was no doubt about the loyalty of America's cosmopolitans. JFK and Hubert Humphrey were both staunch anti-Communists. Johnny Carson, who was very much a cosmopolitan, made it a point to welcome Middle America into his virtual home every night. The creation of the United Nations embodied what everyone saw as the virtue of the cosmopolitans.

That's changed now. I'm not sure when the change started. I suspect the undercurrent was always there, going back to the late 19th century, but I'm not sure why it is emerging right now. But what we have now is that the cosmopolitans' concept of loyalty has changed. They now think of themselves as a self-contained community, independent from the rest of the world. Cosmopolitans are no longer loyal to the country they live in; they are loyal to their class. They have no concern for people outside of their class, as long as they can get cheap immigrant labor to mow their lawns and clean their hotel rooms. Production -- of food, of electricity, of train cars, of Tuscan kitchen backsplash tiles -- is invisible to then, nor do they concern themselves with it. They just assume that those things will happen, and if the domestic workers aren't doing it to their satisfaction, they outsource it. Problem solved, as far as they are concerned.

All of the hopes that Americans had placed in the cosmopolitan class have been dashed. The United Nations is a cesspool of corruption and hypocrisy. Our great cities, under cosmopolitan leadership, are declining. Our smaller industrial towns, many of whose existence turned on decisions made by cosmopolitans, lay in ruins. Our schools, which the cosmopolitans said they would make the envy of the world by applying scientific principles, turn out graduates who can't read or do basic arithmetic, and understand nothing about civics, government, or history. Much of our politics is based on transfers of wealth from one class to another; the principle has been established that, if you can make enough noise and raise enough votes, you can get the government to take other people's stuff and give it to you. (After the cronies and bureaucrats get their cut, of course.)

Under these circumstances, it's not surprising that many people turn to someone that they perceive as an outsider. (They're wrong about that; although Trump has indeed spent most of his life in the private sector, he's no more of a Washington outsider than Jeb Bush is. In America today, you don't get wealthy without stroking Washington.) Was it a bad choice. Maybe. But as Trump's voters perceived it, there was no alternative.

There were a number of people in the Republican field who probably would have been better candidates and better Presidents. Would any of those people won against Hillary? Probably not. The media would have succeeded in character-assassinating them. Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Fionoria, Paul, no matter who it was, their name would have been mud among American voters by election day. Trump was able, during the campaign, to throw the media for a loop; they didn't come up with an effective response at the time, and here we are. Under Hillary, the cosmopolitans were poised to complete the process that they had started with Obama, of fundamentally transforming America into a kleptocracy manipulated by a disloyal internationalist class. For that reason alone, I'm glad Donald Trump is President.