They’re called ‘‘fronts’’ for a reason

Glenn Reynolds:

When students go on about social justice, the proper response is to tell them you don’t care what they think, because they don’t know enough to have an intelligent opinion yet.  If universities were run on this principle, the 3% of students responsible for 98% of the idiocy would no longer have their destructive impact.

Unfortunately, that 3% is backed by 98% of the faculty.

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Plenty of opponents

‘‘AML’’ comments at Instapundit:

If I were going to run for President in 2016, my pitch would be to go through each government agency and excise everything that they do that is not ‘‘core’’ to the agency.  No more lesbian obesity work at CDC, no more gun control at NIH, no more global warming at DoD.  You effectively get to shrink government massively without appearing to be shrinking government -- who could be against getting CDC and DoD back on mission?

Okay, I’ll play:

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God knows, they wouldn’t want to work any overtime!

USA Today:

The drums [of ebola-contaminated household goods] needed to be driven to an incinerator 400 miles away, where they would be destroyed.  But getting the appropriate permits from the Department of Transportation took a few days, because the agency needed to draw up permits specifically for Ebola transport, McCallum said.  ‘‘There was no DoT permitting out there because this had never happened before in this country...’’

So much for all that ‘‘emergency preparedness.’’

Elsewhere:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:03:49 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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That’s ‘‘FUNDAMENTAL Transformation’’ to you!

Politico:

...The Prevention and Public Health Fund, [is] a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare.  Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund.  Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity...

Instead, the Obama administration has focused the CDC on other priorities.  While protecting Americans from infectious diseases received only $180 million from the Prevention Fund, the community transformation grant program received nearly three times as much money—$517.3 million over the same five-year period.

...cause who cares about disease when there’s transformation to be done! boodle to be passed out.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 15:22:29 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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‘‘Evil Republican funding cuts caused ebola– Oh, wait!’’

The Federalist:

President Obama Already Has An Ebola Czar. Where Is She?
...The federal government not ten years ago created and funded a brand new office in the Health and Human Services Department specifically to coordinate preparation for and response to public health threats like Ebola.  The woman who heads that office, and reports directly to the HHS secretary, has been mysteriously invisible from the public handling of this threat.  And she’s still on the job even though three years ago she was embroiled in a huge scandal of funneling a major stream of funding to a company with ties to a Democratic donor—and away from a company that was developing a treatment now being used on Ebola patients.

Oh, and by the way...

HHS’s 70,000 workers will spend a total of $958 billion this year, or about $7,789 for every U.S. household.

I’m old enough to recall all the posturing when the entire federal budget crossed $100 Billion.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 15:11:47 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Reynolds assumes Republicans possess intelligence, integrity (again)

Instapundit:

...somebody on the House side needs to go through the NIH/CDC budgets for next year and strip out all the non-disease funding and move it over to infectious diseases, since apparently they could achieve miracle cures with just a little more money.

Like that’s gonna happen...

Previously:
Related:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 16:29:19 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Under the weather...

Richard McEnroe, blogger, Blair’s place denizen, and long-time internet presence, is in hospital

...for an irregular heartbeat, enlarged heart, and congestive heart failure. His heart is twice the norm.  The heart is pumping only 15% of the blood out...  Currently [October 10], he is having two procedures...  If all goes well they won’t install a pacemaker.

and gunblogger ‘‘Borepatch’’ got tangled up on his bike:

7 broken ribs, a broken collar bone, and a bruised lung.  I was lucky that the lung didn’t collapse or get punctured. They had me in the ICU for almost 24 hours.

Get mended quick, guys... we need you!

(Borepatch via Brickmuppet. Thanks.)

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Answer: Two more years of whining ‘‘because we only control two-thirds of the government’’

Roger Simon:

What Happens if Republicans Win?

That’s only if we’re lucky.

Elsewhere:  ‘‘HerbN’’ comments at Instapundit:

And then in 2017 if they have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency they won’t be able to do anything because it could cost them the majority.

True, dat.

More:
Related:

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 19:27:31 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, THIS will do *wonders* for e-publishing!

The Register:

Adobe spies on reading habits over unencrypted web because your ‘privacy is important’

Adobe confirmed its Digital Editions software insecurely phones home your ebook reading history to Adobe – to thwart piracy.

And the company insisted the secret snooping is covered in its terms and conditions.

Version 4 of the application makes a note of every page read, and when, in the digital tomes it accesses, and then sends that data over the internet unencrypted to Adobe...

...because some spook monitoring my reading is exactly what I want in an ebook!

Read the Register story for a list of what’s transmitted.  TeleRead has a howto for seeing what’s transmitted about you.

And you may wish to add ‘‘adelogs.adobe.com’’ to your HOSTS file.


Elsewhere:

Related:

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