Sunday, April 26, 2020

Hubble turns 30: Take a look back at some of the space telescope’s best images

Hubble turns 30: Take a look back at some of the space telescope’s best images EuroNews. “Cool 1:05 video


40 Photos Of People Having A Worse Quarantine Than You Bored Panda

In Germany, they consult humanities scholars about how to end the lockdown.  And from a French philosopher.  And we need blogs back for the pandemic





Shakira, Philosophy, and the Power of Celebrity

A few weeks ago I noted in the Heap of Links that pop star Shakira was taking a course in ancient philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Now she has successfully completed the course, sharing the news via Twitter: (more…)


The Singer Solution to World Poverty by Peter Singer was published in the NYT 
Simple Singer solution



TMZ is going with the headline, “N. Korea Dictator Kim Jong-un Reportedly Dead After Botched Heart Surgery.” But as NRO’s Dan McLaughlin tweets“TMZ is rarely wrong about these things, but my guess is that its sources in Pyongyang are not on par with its sources in the LAPD.”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Is he alive? Is he dead? For the moment, I’m calling him Triguboff-Schrodinger’s Dictator.
UPDATE (From Ed): America’s Newspaper of Record weighs in on the current state of the big man: North Korea Reports Kim Jong Un Is ‘Most Alive Person In Universe.’

That news conflicts with reports from another great parody news account, DPRK News

As Glenn said, he really is Triguboff-Schrodinger’s Dictator right now.
The news stories that were published yesterday featured these speculative details: Kim Jong Un in ‘vegetative state’, Japanese media claims; China medical experts dispatched to North Korea.
“Japanese magazine Shukan Gendai reported that Kim collapsed during a visit to a rural area in April. Kim reportedly required a stent procedure following the incident. Shukan Gendai subsequently detailed how the surgeon in charge of Kim’s operation was not used to dealing with obese patients and was too nervous during the operation, leading to delays that left Kim in a ‘vegetative state.’”
How nervous? “Other unconfirmed reports, attributed to senior party sources in Beijing, said an operation to insert a stent went wrong because the surgeon’s hands were shaking so badly,” the New York Post adds.
Shades of the scene in The Death of Stalin when they Politburo couldn’t find any competent doctors to revive Stalin – because Stalin had recently had all the good doctors rounded up and shot during his “Doctors’ Plot” purge.