Apparently there's a measles outbreak in Washington state. Cheer wildly, anti-vaxxers! You have brought misery and death back in style!

And hepatitis has appeared in Aiken County, SC. Oh, boy!

Cheer wildly, anti-vaxxers! You have brought misery and death back in style! ~ Radwaste at February 14, 2019 4:01 AM

I have discovered that I have several anti-vaxxers in my FB friends pool. The vehemence and self-righteousness with which they post things advocating for their cause is off-the-charts.

They actually believe that vaccines are a scam; that the pharmaceutical industry and the entire medical establishment have colluded to make money with vaccines, and the consequences be damned.

I think the problem is that we've been too successful at wiping out these diseases; that the phantom fears of conspiracy nuts are more frightening than measles, rubella, polio, et al. People today are unaware of how devastating these diseases were, how frightened the population was about catching them.

Polio killed children and left adults crippled for life (Franklin Roosevelt, Mitch McConnell, etc.). People lived in mortal fear of it.

Influenza, in the 1918 outbreak, "killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century." It crippled a US president and can, at least in part, be blamed for World War II. That's right, the flu.

Medieval diseases are making a comeback. Seems it's not only radical fundamentalist Islam that wants us to live in the 14th century.

Landscape paintings, are, of course, racist (and probably misogynist and homophobic): ‘Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment’ Review: History Through an Ideological Filter https://www.wsj.com/articles/natures-nation-american-art-and-environment-review-history-through-an-ideological-filter-11550095706

Conan, you may find this interesting:

"Stop Talking About Measles: News reporting on the measles outbreak has a spotty record."

By Daniel Engber

https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/measles-outbreak-clark-county-overblown.html

Psst...no, not 1,500 meters. In fact, the Army is looking for a new rifle so that they can engage opponents in the 500-1,000 m range reliably.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/david-hogg-claims-ar-15-owners-are-hunting-human-beings/

"Navigating the Male-Female Work Relationship: There’s plenty of safe middle ground between a man’s leering at women and his simply avoiding them."

By Nicholas Kristof.

(In the column, he talks about two real-life situations that he faced.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/opinion/me-too-male-bosses.html

From the last third of the column:

...The challenge is less about maintaining propriety than about the image of propriety. I know I wouldn’t do anything improper, but I don’t want to leave the slightest room for innuendo.

That’s why men sometimes say they don’t dare mentor women; tongues will wag.

To me, that’s ridiculous. Bosses should manage these issues just as they handle every other kind of risk — conflicts of interest, volatile personalities, data safety and so on.

There’s abundant evidence that companies with more senior women have a higher return on equity. This seems to be because more diverse teams do better and also because the companies willing to promote women are more innovative in other ways. The upshot is that managers who don’t mentor women don’t just hurt those women; they also sell their own companies short.

Men and women alike will periodically hug someone who isn’t ready to be hugged, or will make a ribald comment that leaves someone uncomfortable. But occasional awkwardness is preferable to gender apartheid.

In my journalistic career, I’ve worked alongside women covering war, genocide, riots and famine. Often there are no toilets, no places to change, no privacy, but men and women manage to make the situation work through mutual respect. If people of good will can make those “work places” succeed, a modern office building should be no problem...

(snip)
________________________________

Me: I WILL be kind and say that when it comes to Mike Pence, it's likely that male politicians have it worse than other men. That is, it's not that any individual woman is going to make a false accusation if the two of you meet alone, it's the enemies on the OUTSIDE who will look for any chance to start a false rumor. (But, as Gail Collins, I think, pointed out some time ago, it just wouldn't look right if Pence refused to have a private dinner with some REALLY famous politician, such as Nancy Pelosi or Teresa May. In other words, a famous female politician who is not his employee.)

Hey, Spartacus, you can have my bacon when you pry it out of my cold, dead stomach.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/13/cory-booker-go-vegan-meat-not-sustainable/

There’s abundant evidence that companies with more senior women have a higher return on equity. ~ lenona at February 14, 2019 8:46 AM

I'm not sure that's an accurate statement, lenona. There are too many variables coming into play to say that one variable, and only the one that politically benefits you, is the magic variable.

There are more variables than just the count of women on the board. If it were that simple, why wouldn't corporate America simply ditch men and hire only women?

It is not be as simple as more women = more profits.

Simply having a diverse team is not the answer: "We also have a preference to be around people who are similar to ourselves and that can create obstacles when we try to diversify our work groups and bring in a woman to work with a group of white men. What does the research say? Sadly, the largest analyses of diversity in groups suggests there is no advantage to gender diversity (and possibly a small disadvantage)."

To question my own linked article, why "white men?" Do black or Asian men possess an innate ability to work with women that white men do not?

"In sum, women aren’t miracle workers for an organization. But, that’s OK, because neither are men. Women should be provided the same opportunities to sit on boards as their male counterparts, because it’s the fair thing to do. However, we have to stop stretching the truth in order to promote women’s opportunities in organizations. We must not fabricate results about the benefits of hiring women. And we shouldn't have to. Female board members perform just as well as their male counterparts, and organizations who do not appoint women to their boards are stuck in the past and missing out on some great talent."

So go ahead and send that to Kristof. Or to the NYT editor. You write well enough to get that letter printed - though of course it'll need to be paraphrased.

I present you the Planned Parenthood crab.

https://twitter.com/TheScaryNature/status/1095913483009441792

Where the bribes and kick backs demanded too much?

Amazon abruptly abandoned plans Thursday for a big new headquarters in New York that would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city, reversing course after politicians and others objected to the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives promised to the company.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/14/amazon-ditches-new-york-headquarters/

why wouldn't corporate America simply ditch men and hire only women?

Especially when they can hire them for ~$0.75 on the dollar less than men.

Psst...no, not 1,500 meters. In fact, the Army is looking for a new rifle so that they can engage opponents in the 500-1,000 m range reliably. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at February 14, 2019 8:34 AM

"The truth of the matter is weapons like the AR-15 have an effective range of over 1,500 meters." ~ David Hogg

No truth in that matter at all, Davey boy.

Hogg needs to stop talking and start reading. He loses credibility with anyone who knows anything about the firearms. The uproar over his earlier "rate of fire" comment when he was talking about bullet velocity (3,000+ fps for a AR-15 rifle vs. ≈1,124 fps for a 9mm pistol) should have clued him in to that.

The effective firing range of a US military M-16 is 550m for point target firing. It will go to 800m for spray and pray firing.

The rifles it replaced, the M-1 Garand and the M-14, were effective out to about 500m. Both had longer barrels and heavier bullets. The M-1 had a barrel length of 24 inches and the M-14 ran 22 inches while the M-16 runs 16-20 inches. The M-16 used a lighter bullet (5.56x45 vs. 7.65x51 or ≈.223 caliber vs. .308 caliber) to achieve a similar range.

The M-4A1 (5.56x45), currently in favor with the US military due to its compact size, is accurate to about 500m. It has a barrel length of 14.5 inches.

European militaries are switching to bullpup designs to get a longer barrel (≈16-20 inches) with a more compact rifle.

The US Army is thinking of switching to a 6.8mm bullet to get more stopping power than a 5.56mm can provide. Getting that out to 1,000m with a decent degree of accuracy is going to require a big cartridge which will pack a pretty good recoil.

How anyone, even anti-gun folks, take David Hogg seriously is a mystery. Even Andrea Mitchell should have realized by now that the kid is out of his depth.

The luckiest drug dealer, ever.

https://twitter.com/benigma2017/status/1095728844970082305

The luckiest drug dealer, ever. ~ Sixclaws at February 14, 2019 10:33 AM

Well, he did have some really good weed. After all, Kamala was able to listen to Snoop and Tupac while smoking it, years before their first albums dropped.

Civ VI drops a big EULA bomb. Hilarity ensues.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/321782/

The EULA pretty much says "all your data are belong to us".

Congress: Hey, let's foist our budget problems onto the private sector!

This Bill Would Make Private Individuals, Businesses Pay the Price of Government Shutdowns