Read it.

The Pandemic Panic is having its intended effect. Orange Man Bad!

Freeberg sees a distinction.

Blue staters want everyone else to wear masks, so they can play alpha-dog. And so that they can see masks everywhere, because then maybe Biden will be elected. When blue staters wear their masks, they often leave them dangling around their chins, or letting their noses stick out Gavin-Newsom-style…they haven’t got a care in the world about what the masks actually do.

Read it.

And a truly superb target for Muslim terrorists. I can hardly wait.

Ann Coulter parses the taxonomy.

“Karen” and “Becky” are two neologisms with opposite meanings for the enjoyable life. Here’s your field guide.

Karen: a person, often a white woman, who feels entitled to lecture perfect strangers about their behavior.

Synonyms: “Co-op Board President”; “Hillary Clinton”; “Portland ‘Moms’”

Becky: a white woman who calls the police on a suspicious black male.

Synonyms: “Still alive”; “Breathing”

Karens used to be known as “bossy,” but then Sheryl Sandberg said “bossy” was patriarchal, misogynistic and sexist, so a new word had to be invented to describe the exact same conduct.

— A Karen will walk across the street to tell you you’re in a non-smoking area.

— She’s the person who harangues strangers (not customers) on mask-wearing — pro or con.

— She’s the Harvard Asian who made a TikTok video lecturing white people on their racism and threatening, “Ima stab you!”

The public has been crying out for a word like “Karen” ever since “bossy” was cruelly taken away from us.

Japanese Scientist Reveals When New Ice Age is Set to Begin on Earth

Philippines takes ‘major step’ toward using nuclear power

What Greta missed from skipping school: Presentation by Willie Soon

NYT: Climate Change Justifies Third World Moving North, by Steve Sailer

Six good years in a row for the polar bear subpopulation used to predict species demise

Read it.

Developer Felix Rieseberg has written a JavaScript virtual machine emulating Mac OS 8 running on a 1991 Macintosh Quadra. Wild. And because it’s an Electron app, it runs on pretty much any platform.

Gee, our old LaSalle ran great!
Those were the days!

Read it.

I guess being a RINO isn’t good enough for them.  Well, if you’re going to have a Democrat in the Senate, it might as well be an official Democrat rather than one pretending to be a Republican.

I wonder whether they do requests? There’s this guy in Utah….

New Material Can Generate Hydrogen From Fresh, Salt, or Polluted Water by Exposure to Sunlight

Checking in With the Latest Climate Change Estimates

Read it.

If you used a computer between 1997 and 2005, you probably burned valuable data to at least one recordable CD (CD-R) or DVD-R. Unfortunately, these have a limited lifespan, and many have already become unreadable. That’s why it’s important to back up your recordable discs before it’s too late—here’s how to do it.

ZMan is not optimistic.

This is a novel problem for Americans. If you are a white person in a place like Seattle, what are your options? If you abide by the law, you have your property destroyed and possibly your life threatened. People are being shot in their cars now as they try to go about their business. Gun sales are booming, but the people buying the guns imagine themselves defending their life and property within a system of laws. What happens when they realize there is no system of laws?

Read it.

The? Type Archive near Stockwell in London used to be a hospital for cab horses and circus animals, but since 1992 it has been home to every sort of mould, matrix, burin, bodkin and slug. The archive holds typographical apparatus from the last six hundred years, but its main collection relates to the technology of Monotype printing. That capital letter is important: this isn’t the single-print practice of fine artists (for ‘monotypes’, see Degas) but the huge and complex letterpress hot-metal printing system created by the Monotype Corporation in the late 1800s. Along with its competitor, Linotype, it bridged the gap – or formed the continuum – between manual letterpress printing (see Gutenberg), where a compositor arranges individual characters in rows for inking, and computerised printing. In the Monotype system, the text to be printed is freshly machine-cast from molten lead. Instead of having to assemble a book or newspaper line by line, letter by letter, the typesetter could type the text into a keyboard and a machine would issue forth its metal mirror.

I have always been fascinated by hot-type printing systems.

Read it.

Good article on the mechanism of coronavirus.

Read it.

To some American companies and Florida men, COVID-19 is apparently a war that will be won through antimicrobial blasting, to ensure that pathogens are banished from every square inch of America’s surface area.

But what if this is all just a huge waste of time?

Chemists Just Worked Out How to Recycle Some of Our Toughest Single-Use Plastics  What would we do without chemists?

Author Michael Shellenberger says climate change isn’t biggest environmental threat | TheHill

Democrats see climate change as ‘political weapon’ for picking off key Trump 2016 voters

FT: Big Fund Managers are Demanding Climate Action. But the USA is Leading a Pushback

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup # 417

Mediterranean Sea was 2 degrees hotter during Roman Empire  But that’s just so 2000 years ago….

Admission: Climate Litigation is Tool to Make Industry Bend a Knee

Read it.

Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over $100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump’s fate in the November election.

In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received $6.3 million from an organization with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court.

And that’s just a small slice of the overall spending, which is likely to swell far higher as the election nears.

Read it.

Congressman Jerry Nadler, D.-NY

Read it.

On Monday’s New Day, CNN co-hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota brought on national political reporter Maeve Reston and political director David Chalian to spout typical Democratic election-year talking points about President Trump and Republicans being “sexist.” Most appallingly, Chalian praised Joe Biden for his to plan to choose a woman as his running mate without mentioning that Biden has been credibly accused of sexual assault.

Severian does a deep dive.

If you’ll indulge me for a moment: “Identity,” variously defined, has been one of humanity’s most vexing problems from the get-go.

Is the world we perceive, the world as it actually is? How reliable are our perceptions? For that matter, how reliable is the perceiver? If we can’t trust our senses when it comes to external objects — and we all know how shaky our senses can be — then how can we trust them when they report to “us” (whatever that is) on our internal states? Ever had what the docs call “referred pain“? The pain, at least, is real, though it doesn’t necessarily hurt at the site of the injury. Ever felt mad when what you really are is scared? Nothing, it seems, is reliable. Nothing is stable.

Most people don’t interact with reality directly, but second-hand. They craft an artificial persona composed of the characteristics that they would like to have, or at least like people to think they have, and then deal with reality, not as themselves, but as if they were this fake person. This is why a lot of people get the stunned-cow look on their faces when something in real life happens to them that isn’t in the script that they are attempting to act out. This is why mass shooters have such an easy time — their victims didn’t include such a thing in their scripts, so they have no clue as to what to do and therefore panic.

This “I am the star of my own movie” attitude is essentially narcissistic, because most people are what Any Rand called “second-handers”; their opinion of themselves is determined by what other people think of them … which means they need to get other people to think of them, hence the popularity of tattoos, piercings,unnatural hair colors, and the other components of hipster fashion. If you look cool, then you are cool, by definition, regardless of the barren wasteland that constitutes your soul.

This is why “self-esteem” and “identity” is such a Big Thing among the second-handers. They have no worth except the worth assigned to them by others, so they need to be insulated from adverse inputs from the outside.

Read it.

Something strange seems to be going on with Newsweek. Although few are still aware it even exists and even fewer actually read it, they sometimes publish stories that diverge drastically from its usual liberal orthodoxy. Perhaps they are willing to sometimes commit such heresy simply to draw attention. And in the case of their op-ed column by a Yale professor of epidemiology on Thursday, they sure got the attention of anyone reading it since it utterly shattered the media taboo against hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.

Read it.

If there even is a convention, which I suspect the Powers That Be are maneuvering to prevent.

Note that none of them are wearing masks.

Lawsuit: Aussie Government Not Applying Climate Disclosure Rules to Government Bonds

Settled Science? New Climate Study Shifts the Goalposts to 2.6-3.9C

Chaos and Weather

A Billion More Tons of Plastic Could Blanket Earth by 2040  Blanket!

UNSW Report Mixes Climate Change with Chinese Legal Reform

Read it.

Tequila inspires strong opinions in people, just like the Beatles, goat cheese, and the 1988 Detroit Pistons. Some can’t stand the smell or taste of it; others relish every sip and wait for the “tequila!” feeling to hit.

But the fact is, tequila and its smokier sister, mezcal, have never been more popular outside of their Mexican homeland. The spirits rocketed to the top of the US drinking charts in 2019, and are projected to surpass rum in buying volume in the next few years. And while they both may be mainstream at this point, there’s still a lot consumers don’t know about the distillation process. Here are five essential questions and answers about the fiery desert libations.

Bottom line: There is no potable liquid so obscure that somebody won’t ferment an alcoholic beverage out of it.

Read it.

An interesting take.

ZMan does an overview.

In 2016, the Left was super confident they had the election in the bag. So confident, in fact, they got sloppy. It was around this time that the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign, assuming President Clinton would be cool with it. They are just as confident this time, but they probably don’t have the FBI and CIA spying for them. Given what happened in 2016, you would think they would be cautious, but instead they are overflowing with certainty. They know they will win.

One reason for this is they have purged almost all dissenting voices from their preferred media platforms. The Drudge Report is so over-the-top in his anti-Trump antics it feels like a parody site now. There is some speculation that he sold out to Silicon Valley grifters, but Drudge was always a creation of Neo-Conservative Inc. His sources and sympathies were always in that world. That whole scene has fired up the NeverTrump clown car for one more ride through the public square.

Steve Sailer.

The unforgivable fact of 2020 is that white men have done most of the great things of the last 600 years. This deeply angers many nonwhite people today that their ancestors didn’t accomplish much.

NYT Slams Bjørn Lomborg’s New Climate Economics Book

Thunberg Donates 100,000 Pounds to Criminalize ‘Ecocide’

Louis-Dreyfus Short Circuits For Joe: Vote Biden Or ‘Octopuses’ Will Be ‘Stuck In Trees’

Read it.

I laughed when I saw The Washington Post headline: “Minneapolis had progressive policies, but its economy still left black families behind.”

The media are so clueless. Instead of “but,” the headline should have said, “therefore,” or “so, obviously.”

Of course, progressive policies failed! They almost always do.

“If you wanted a poster child for the progressive movement, it would be Minneapolis,” says Republican Minnesota Senate candidate Jason Lewis in my new video. “This is the same city council that voted to abolish the police department.”

The council, which has no Republicans, spends taxpayer money on most every progressive idea.

They brag that they recycle most everything. They have a plan to stop climate change. They tell landlords to whom they must rent. They will force employers to pay every worker $15 an hour. They even tell supermarkets what cereal they must sell.

Despite such policies, meant to improve life for minorities and the poor, the Minneapolis income gap between whites and Blacks is the second-highest in the country.

Read it.

I suspect foul play. Maybe he had dirt on Hillary or some life-shortening condition like that.

Read it.

Be the first on your block to do likewise, I guess. FOMO informs a lot of what passes for journalism these days.

Read it.

According to CNBC, anyway. If that’s important to you.

First Methane Leak Found on Antarctic Sea Floor Confirms Researchers’ Fears  Fears!

Climate-change hysteria costs lives — but activists want to keep panic alive

After 40 years, researchers finally see Earth’s climate destiny more clearly  Took ’em long enough.

Siberian heatwave of 2020 almost impossible without climate change  Almost!

Is the demise of polar bears being exaggerated?

University Appeal Upheld, Peter Ridd Loses – We all Lose

Read it.

With almost 150,000 COVID-19 deaths, the United States, putative leader of the free world, now is competing with Brazil and Russia for global supremacy in pandemic mismanagement. Not only does the United States lack any kind of coherent federal leadership on this issue, but even state and city leaders have fallen into bickering—and even lawsuits—over the correct response. While many Western nations have all but extinguished COVID-19 within their borders, the American pandemic is raging with a new ferocity. Yet some conservatives continue to protest even basic public-health measures, including masks. How could some of America’s best and brightest abet their country’s collapse into dysfunction in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic?

Maybe, just maybe, they’re not buying what you’re selling.

Read it.

Twitter was accused of anti-Semitism after locking multiple accounts of users with profiles that feature images of the Star of David, which the platform called “hateful imagery.” Days later, the platform then unlocked the accounts, but one group that fights anti-Semitism called that response “inept.”

The users got a message from Twitter saying: “We have determined that this account violated the Twitter Rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against posting hateful imagery. You may not use hateful images or symbols in your profile image or profile header. As a result, we have locked your account.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said it received complaints from users over the last few days saying their accounts had been locked by the social media platform.

Melting permafrost linked to impending environmental disaster — study  Disaster! Impending!

It Was NOT Climate Change That Caused Neanderthal Extinction

Activism: Colbert, Thunberg Hope Govt. Will Take ‘Extraordinary Measures’ Like With Coronavirus, For Climate  This would have a greater chance of success if Greta were black or transgender.

ZMan chronicles the degeneration.

Nowadays, the outrageous gay guy act is the leisure suit of public performance. It’s not just out of style, it makes everyone stare at their shoes. In fact, gay males are now totally out of fashion on the Left. They have been replaced in the catalog with hairy Jewish guys in sundresses. In fact, the wide array of imaginary sexual identities has displaced suburban white girl feminism too. In order to get in the Progressive catalog, you better have at least two things going wrong for you.

The Sullivan incident and other similar happenings during this phase of the revolution puts the lie to the whole coalition of the fringes thing. If there was really an intelligence behind this stuff, playing four-dimensional political chess, they would not be swapping out the gays for guys in lady’s underwear. Feminists are also financially and organizationally strong. In reality, it is the old Progressive hatred of tradition manifesting itself as a quest for the novel and bizarre.

Read it.

There is, I think, a growing awareness of the fact that, however much the current unrest in cities on both sides of the Atlantic owes to anger over the killing of George Floyd, police brutality, and racial injustice, other factors are also at work, most notably a struggle within the elite, or more broadly, within the elite and those who would be in it, much of it a consequence of what the University of Connecticut’s Peter Turchin has dubbed “elite overproduction”.

Too many potential Crustians for the Crust to absorb.

Polar Bears Could Face Extinction By 2100 Due To Climate Change, Study Says  Extinction!

Climate change: Polar bears could be lost by 2100  Lost!

Greta Thunberg wins prize worth €1m – but pledges to give it away to climate change charities  It’s not as if she needs to go to college or anything, since she already knows it all.

Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

DOJ is Right to Limit Enviro Groups’ Free-Riding on Its Enforcement Actions

Read it.

And who could blame them?

Firms in New York’s financial district are facing an onslaught of headwinds amounting to great reasons to simply pick up and leave: employees working from home, unused office space, a mayor who has squelched law and order in the city and a state legislature obsessed with taxation, just to name a few.

That’s why we weren’t surprised when Bloomberg reported that New York’s financial and professional-services industries are considering eliminating up to 20% of their footprint in the city.

Read it.

I think he just did it to see what sort of dance moves the Democrats can come up with.

This is one of those “let’s pull their chain and see what happens” moments that he likes to do when he gets bored.

ZMan keeps asking inconvenient questions.

For example, the odds of knowing someone who has died from the corona virus is very low, unless you work in a nursing home. For the typical person, you are more likely to know someone who was murdered. In fact, in most of the country, you are four times more likely to know a murder victim than a corona victim. Yet, many people on the Left will tell you they know many people who have died from corona. They really believe this is true and display the appropriate emotions to prove it.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that these people have had the math explained to them many times by the more skeptical. The same is true about the stories of overwhelmed hospitals everyone hears about, but no one has seen. The nurses and doctors posting TikTok videos of themselves dancing in empty hospitals had no effect on the believers in these claims. Even now, they are sure the “first responders” are nearing exhaustion as they heroically fight the virus.

Steve Sailer keeps asking inconvenient questions.

For months I’ve been asking for somebody to calculate the cost of COVID-19 deaths in terms of the medical research standard of Quality Adjusted Life Years lost (a.k.a., Disability Adjusted Life Years lost). For example, assuming that average life expectancy is 80 and the average age of people who die in car accidents is 40, then car accidents take somewhat less than 40 years of Quality Adjusted Life Years (due to downward adjustments for quality of life).

Fact-check of viral climate misinformation quietly removed from Facebook