A recent WSJ article written by a clinical psychologist advocated that college students attend classes.
Say, what?
Archive for August, 2018
Shocker: Majority of Harvard students cut class…
August 31, 2018Fighting back against the cyber-attackers…
August 30, 2018Yesterday, we posted about the Chinese cybersecurity threat.
Coincidentally, the WSJ ran an article: America Goes on the Cyberoffensive
The essence of the article:
Obama-era rules restricting the use of cyberweapons have been rolled-back.
U.S. government hackers will now have more latitude to respond to and deter cyberattacks by adversaries.
Here are some details….
The Chinese cyber-threat…
August 29, 2018Continues to amaze me so much attention is being focused on the Russians (and Macedonians) … and so little on China.
Michael Pillsbury nails the point in his book The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower…
John McCain: Respected … and Disrespected.
August 28, 2018First, my personal view.
My wife is a Viet Nam Gold Star family member.
I’m deeply and sincerely appreciative to the men and women who serve in our military … especially those who were killed, wounded or confined as POWs.
I can’t imagine the horror of being a POW for 5 years.
So, I put John McCain irrevocably in the heroes’ column.
That said I disagreed with many of his political stands.
That was ok with me because he was one of very few politicians that I thought was a good, well intended man who had the cajones to speak his mind truthfully.
This week I’ve been struck by the gross hypocrisy of politicos who “always respected” John McCain.
Always? Really?
Reminded me of the day — the moment — when Obama “lost” me.
It was the televised healthcare summit that Obama held to “listen” to opposing views.
McCain offered a short, sincere, respectful point-of-view.
Obama shot him his trademarked condescending glance and rebutted: “John” … not Senator McCain … “you can stop campaigning the election is over so .”
Pretty disrespectful, right?
I wonder if Obama’s flowery eulogy this week will say “I always respected, Senator McCain” or if it will include an apology for publicly disrespecting “John” at the healthcare summit.
My money is on the former.
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PS Obama doesn’t have a monopoly on this week’s hypocrisy. It’s just that the incident was meaningful to me at the time. There are worse cases, including the Bush campaign insinuating during the SC primary that that McCain was a racist. I doubt that Bush will apologize for that in his eulogy.
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Southwest nixes peanuts, okays horses … say, what?
August 27, 2018Is the world getting crazier by the day or is it just my imagination?
OK, I understand the peanut part.
I’ve seen allergic reactions to peanuts … not pretty … and potentially a big health risk.
I also accept that ingestion isn’t always required to trigger a reaction … for some people, just touching or smelling a peanut can set off a threatening reaction.
But, let’s put the dastardly peanut in context…
Chuck Todd: “Start impeachment now”
August 24, 2018I agree … but for different reasons.
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Let’s connect a couple of stories today.
Encouraged by the Manafort-Cohen outcomes, Chuck Todd (NBC / MSNBC commentator) ranted that outgoing Speaker Ryan should begin “drawing up impeachment papers now”.
After all, “You now have a president of the United States accused of committing a federal crime.”
My first reaction was “echo-chamber over-reaction”.
At first, I shrugged off the idea, but…
Dershowitz: “Candidate” Committed No Election Crime
August 23, 2018I was channel-switching yesterday to get both sides of the Cohen “bombshell”.
Alan Dershowitz provided the clearest (and most succinct) explanation (on MSNBC of all places).
Click to view … or keep reading
Here’s the essence of Dershowitz’s argument…
Cohen lawyer: “It’s a crime because he plead guilty to it”
August 23, 2018Say, what?
That’s the central argument being proffered by Lanny Davis – Michael Cohen’s lawyer (and longtime lawyer for the Clintons).
Interviewed by a well-prepped Martha McCallum, Davis — playing defense — argued that there is certainly a campaign law violation:
Explicitly, because Cohen plead guilty to a campaign violation, and …
Implicitly, because the prosecutors – who had the facts – included the campaign violation in the plea deal.
click to view … or keep reading
Let’s unpack Davis’ logic…
Trump’s Space Force is a dumb idea … or is it?
August 22, 2018After reading …
Bret Baier’s Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire …
… and Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower…
I think Trump may be on to something.
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Let’s drill down…
It’s not Russia that we should be worrying about … it’s China!
August 21, 2018And, here are China’s 9 strategic principles.
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One of my summer reads has been The Hundred Year Marathon: China’s Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury.
Pillsbury is a bona fide China expert, having served 8 administrations in a variety of high-level positions in the state and defense departments and having worked for heralded think tanks, including RAND and the Hudson Institute.
Note: To me, guy seems very credible since (a) he footnotes every major point with compelling source documentation, and (b) he is very self-effacing – often pointing out the mistakes that he had made in his China analyses.
As the title indicates, Pillsbury concludes that China is about midway through a 100-year strategy to replace the U.S. as the global superpower…
About the bruhaha over security clearances…
August 20, 2018
It’s not your imagination, people are really getting dumber.
August 17, 2018
Who’s your daddy?
August 16, 2018Ancestry DNA tests are delivering some shockers.
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Yesterday, we wrote about a relatively common situation: ancestry DNA results that don’t jive with a person’s prior beliefs regarding their race or heritage.
Let’s open another of Pandora’s DNA boxes today…
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The NY Post ran an article titled “My ancestry test revealed a genetic bombshell”.
Here’s a way to get your kid into a better college…
August 15, 2018Instead of submitting SAT scores, take an ancestry-DNA test.
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Let’s open Pandora’s box today…
As previously reported, some colleges are no longer requiring (or accepting) SAT & ACT scores
See University of Chicago drops SAT / ACT scores … say, what?
The action is a thinly veiled move to “diversify” the student body by throttling the number of high scoring Asian-American admissions.
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I’m not a big fan of the commercial DNA testing done by ancestry sites.
But, they may be a tool for getting kids into better colleges.
About the recent spike in interest rates…
August 14, 2018I’ve started paying closer attention to interest rates.
The motivation: my trusty mortgage ARM — which hovered around 3% for a decade or so — jumped to 4% last year and is being reset to 5% this year.
Ouch.
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That got me wondering about the the impact of rising rates on the Federal budget…
GOP narrowing the Congressional “generic ballot” gap, but…
August 13, 2018Will ‘hate trump love’ in the midterm elections?
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Lots of chatter re: a forthcoming ‘blue wave’ in the 2018 midterms.
The usual quantitative metric is the so-called Generic Congressional Ballot …. which queries folks on which parties’ (unnamed) Congressional candidate they’re likely to vote for.
At the end of 2017, the Dems had a 13 point advantage.
That gap has narrowed to under 4 points in the RCP poll-of-polls.
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And, the the most recent individual polls indicate that the gap is continuing to close…
To hyphenate or not to hyphenate?
August 10, 2018That’s a question I seem to struggle with…
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The good news is that a linguistics professor found that 4 simple rules cover 75% of cases that writers encounter.
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Here are Prof. Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer’s four rules…
Parents: Stash your cell phones !
August 9, 2018New studies raise concerns re: “distracted parenting”.
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Lots written lately re: kids spending too much “screen time” on iPads, computers and cellphones … and too little time reading, exploring and conversing.
All true … and much concerning.
A recent analysis in The Atlantic stipulates to the cognitive development dangers of kids spending too much time glued to screens … but concludes that “When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids’ screen time—and more about their own.”
Here’s the essence of the argument…
Geez, who can I have faith in?
August 8, 2018Now OSU coach Urban Meyer is suspect.
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This is a very sad personal story.
Raised as a Catholic kid, I was taught that priests were pure as the fresh driven snow.
Then came the revelations that priests were fiddling with altar boys and the Church was covering up for them.
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My first job out of college was with Arthur Andersen … a squeaky clean Big 8 accounting firm.
Technical note: yes, there used to be 8 !
When some rogue partners got in cahoots with Enron shysters, the Feds brought down the entire firm.
Technical note: The Fed charges were eventually overturned by the SCOTUS.
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In my dumbest blog post ever, in December 2015, I heralded James Comey as the “last honest man” and endorsed him for President.
See My nomination for President … experience, integrity, leadership.
Oucn. At the time, I didn’t suspect that he was just a run of the mill political hack.
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Fast forward to today…
How do you feel about your bank giving your financial detail to Facebook?
August 7, 2018Yesterday, we asked how you felt about ancestry sites selling your DNA data to drug companies.
See How do you feel about 23&Me selling your DNA to drug companies?
Today, let’s go a step further.
The WSJ was the first to report that Facebook has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances
Think about that for a minute…
How do you feel about 23&Me selling your DNA to drug companies?
August 6, 2018Maybe privacy just doesn’t matter any more.
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I was a bit surprised when a group of friends were chatting about DNA testing thru 23andMe, Ancestry.com and other sites.
As usual, I was an outlier since I’m skeptical of the science and worry about the privacy implications…
CNN: “Trump has no earthly clue what the average person is dealing with day to day”
August 3, 2018That’s what Jen Psaki, a CNN political commentator says.
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The silly talk (and bias) is getting sillier and sillier.
Here’s the backstory…
At a campaign rally this week, President Trump was pitching the need for voters to show a photo ID.
To illustrate the point, he rattled off a list of places that require IDs: airports, bars, gun shops … and he slipped in: grocery stores.
Obviously out of touch says CNN’s Psaki. Source
Hmmm.
Let’s drill down on that, Jen.
Finding college-caliber disadvantaged high-schoolers …
August 2, 2018Universal SAT / ACT testing “finds” talented low-income college candidates
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Recently, some name-brand colleges have announced that they would no longer require SAT or ACT test results.
The rationale: the tests may be culturally biased, dampening diversity.
Hmmm.
Taking another tack, the Brooking Institution recently published a study suggesting that diversity can be enhanced with more, not less, SAT/ACT testing.
Entrance exams (ACT or SAT ) are required for admission to virtually all selective colleges in the US.
For low-income students, that’s a hurdle to overcome.
Students have to register and pay for these tests, and then travel to a testing center on a weekend to take them.
This is straightforward, if you have internet access, a computer, a credit card, and a car.
If you are missing any of these resources, it’s a lot more challenging.
The nearest testing center may be in a suburb that is unreachable by public transportation early on a Saturday morning.
To overcome these hurdles, several states are now giving the ACT or SAT exams in school, for free, on a school day during school hours.
The benefits are two-fold …
Which TV news source is “most trusted”?
August 1, 2018The answer may surprise you.
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A survey outfit called Brand Keys periodically measures a “Customer Loyalty and Engagement Index” that examines 1,287 brands across 150 categories to determine how much “trust” contributed to each brand’s engagement and market success.
For TV “brands”, 4,012 viewers rated broadcast and cable brands that they regularly watch to determine how much trust those brands engendered. Source
The tightly bunched “most trusted TV brands” at the top of the list are the BBC, Fox News and PBS.
Bloomberg and MSNBC fall in the middle of the pack.
The bottom of the pack are the Big 3 networks and CNN.
Hmmm.
What about ratings?
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