Steve Sailer.

Steve has made a hobby of documenting the self-absorbed victimhood of black activists. It can get pretty silly.

Read it.

That’s how the New York Times characterizes the Massachusetts Senator in an editorial today. I would have said “liar,” but why quibble?

Read it.

One of the many odd things about the New York Times‘s “1619 Project” on slavery is that Martin Luther King Jr is barely mentioned (ditto Frederick Douglass). This omission may not be accidental, since both Douglass and King found sources for the remedy of slavery inside the American founding that today’s left wishes to repudiate completely. It will be a curious thing to see whether and how the 1619 Project appears in any of today’s observances of MLK’s birthday (or whether, in the fullness of time, there will be a push to rename MLK Day for someone or something else).

Read it.

I eat at McDonalds all the time, and I’ve never noticed that the Coke there is anything to write home about.

If they wanted their Coke actually to taste good, they’d serve Pepsi.

Read it.

Yuval Levin’s new book — available for presale on Amazon; released tomorrow — argues that we are living through a social crisis.

Duh. If all it takes to write a book is to wake up and look around, we’re all in clover.

Levin, my colleague at AEI, focuses on the important role of institutions. He writes that public trust in institutions is commonly undermined by abuses of power. That isn’t our era’s unique problem.

Institutions are only as good as the people who man them. If an institution is full of corrupt power-hungry sociopaths, all the paper guarantees in the world will not keep it from going to Hell.

This is what has motivated the proglodyte ‘march through the institutions’ that has been proceeding successfully during all of my adult life.

Read it.

Thank you, President Trump.

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What the Inequality Weepers never realize is that when one of the 1% like Bloomberg gets a bug up his butt about something he will do out and spend massive amounts of money on it, whether that spanding will be useful (Bill Gates) or wasteful (Bloomberg, Steyer); either one gives thousands of people employment and hundreds of businesses profits. Economic inequality is one of the chief engines of economic growth.

Read it.

Today very few people know that national socialists are just another branch of socialism. They lack the ‘inter prefix’. That’s all. Hitler was a socialist. He admired Mussolini, who also was a socialist. Mussolini was congratulated by Lenin himself when he took over the Italian government. A lot of Nazis and Fascists admired the Roosevelt administration. The feelings were mutual: the US Democrats of the day admired the Nazis and the Fascists. Hitler was particularly impressed by the racial policies of the Democrat party and its Jim Crow laws. He based his Nuremberg laws on those laws. Eugenics were thought up by Democrats, and ‘improved’ by the Nazis. Hitler was Man of the Year 1938 in Time Magazine. On the other side of the pond Mussolini was greatly admired as the guy who made the trains run on time. Socialism really works, and it rules!

Read it.

It’s amazing now many people reason backward from their preferred outcome rather than forward from some sort of basic principle.

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… European leaders are already thinking about how to cope with a scenario where they face a resurgent empire to the east, and a fading—and no longer friendly—superpower in the west. Under these conditions, a real European army could emerge for the first time.

Won’t happen when they realize that it means they have to spend some money that could go to social programs i.e. buying votes.

Neil Ferguson.

The aftermath of the killing of Iran’s Major General Qassem Soleimani, the mastermind of Tehran’s dirty wars, not only confirmed the weakness of the Iranian government, it also exposed the weakness of President Trump’s domestic opponents.

Yuval Levin.

Our institutions lost the capacity to mold character and have become platforms for performance instead.

Read it.

Federal authorities are turning to a new tactic in the escalating conflict over New York City’s so-called sanctuary policies, issuing four “immigration subpoenas” to the city for information about inmates wanted for deportation.

“This is not a request — it’s a demand,” Henry Lucero, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told The Associated Press. “This is a last resort for us. Dangerous criminals are being released every single day in New York.”

In a pissing contest between the Feds and a city, I suspect that the Feds hold most of the high cards.

Read it.

More evidence that President Trump’s immigration policies are having great effects, from the Wall Street Journal: “Mexican Forces Clash With Migrants at Border With Guatemala.”

Climate Kidz case scuttled by 9th Circuit Court

Climate Activist Thunberg Joins March Ahead of Davos

Ultra-Wealthy Donors Place Low Priority on Environmental Causes

Appeasement: The Root Cause of the Australian Mega-Fires

What’s a Climate Scientist to Wear During Awards Season?

Cold truth: Iceland’s melting glaciers are nothing to panic about

“I hope we get another impeachment after this one. The stock market appears to do very well under impeachment.”

— Scott Adams  (16:05)

Read it.

If they hadn’t confiscated all of the guns, this would be an easy problem to take care of.

Climate Change Is Killing Alpine Skiing as We Know It

A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

Ok, Boomer: NBC Blames Climate Change for Generational Divide

PBS Guest Argues Media Should Ignore Climate Skeptic ‘Lies’

Michael Mann Beclowns Himself with Aussie Climate Refugee Prediction

Climate Change Destroyed Assyrian Empire… without fossil fuels!  Climate Change — is there anything it can’t do?

Senior Aussie Politician: “Climate deniers are like anti-vaxxers”

Austrian Chancellor Says Battling Illegal Immigration Is Just As Important As Climate Change  Can he say that?

Were IPCC’s 1990 medium-term warming predictions accurate? No.

These Grass Straws Are an Eco-Friendly Alternative to Plastic  Yeah, if you don’t mind your drink tasting like grass….

Angry 17-Year-Old Girl Threatens World Leaders In Davos: “You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet”

Noah Rothman.

The American left has long regarded itself as the antidote to the prudish puritanism displayed by the moralistic right. But as “liberalism” gave way to “progressivism,” this conceit has fallen away. As economic populism becomes fused with and is often superseded by the demands of identity politics, technocratic social engineering has once again become an urgent part of the progressive project. That urgency is accompanied by a sense of moral rectitude and historical inevitability. The result is a form of progressivism that looks a lot like the progressivism of the early 20th century.

This fits with the common perception that the current proglodyte Left are a bunch of Puritans on the hunt for Heretics and Sinners to ‘cancel’.

Peter Robinson holds a discussion with two experts on what to expect.

Christopher deGroot is not sure about all this.

On Wednesday, the liberal writer Caitlin Flanagan tweeted something about the previous night’s Democratic debate that should be of immense interest to social conservatives. “Was it just me,” she asked, “or did all of the candidates seem to think that the place for Mom is at work and the place for baby is daycare?” No, it certainly wasn’t just you, close observer, nor is it surprising that those progressives took it for granted that “gender equality” must consist of “gender parity” in the workplace, even if achieving that goal results in children becoming a kind of afterthought, or anyway, secondary consideration, their care and development to be left to strangers. For the Democratic Party is the party of feminist ideology, and though women, like men, are a heterogenous group, characterized by diverse interests and values, most feminists seem to assume that if women are not “keeping up” with men in the workplace, then in some vague ultimate sense women do not matter as much as men do.

Read it.

Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.

When I heard Hillary Clinton refer to half of Trump supporters as “deplorables” during her 2016 presidential campaign, I knew she would lose. Her comment exemplified the arrogant, elitist, dismissive attitudes that make many white working-class voters suspicious of the Democratic Party. Four years later, as Democrats try to figure out how to beat one of the least popular Republican presidents ever, they’re still trying to get over their deplorables problem.

The problem is that the new clerisy that runs the Democratic Party has no experience with, nor any sympathy for, working-class people, particularly working-class white people. This is an amazing change for the party that pretends to be the champion of ‘working families’.

Read it.

Yesterday, some irate supporters of Sanders circulated a #Never­Warren hashtag. #WarrenIsASnake also began trending.

Warren deserves this treatment. Contrary to her angry post-debate statement to Sanders that he called her a liar on national television, Sanders’s denial that he ever said a woman can’t beat Donald Trump is just as consistent with the notion that Warren simply misunderstood his comment on the subject. Warren was not justified in going nuclear.

In any case, Warren should not have berated Sanders, and refused to shake his hand, while the cameras were still rolling and CNN was still picking up sound. Sanders was spot on when he advised her, “let’s not do this right now.”

The poor judgment Warren displayed by going nuclear over a comment with an innocent explanation, and with the cameras still rolling, is yet another reason to expect the worst from a Warren presidency.

Who could dislike Professor Umbrage?

Read it.

This does not appear to be a satire.

Read it.

For many of today’s children, that privilege is disappearing. American children have less independence and autonomy today than they did a few generations ago. As parents have become increasingly concerned with safety, fewer children are permitted to go exploring beyond the confines of their own backyard. Some parents have even been prosecuted or charged with neglect for letting their children walk or play unsupervised. Meanwhile, child psychologists say that too many children are being ushered from one structured activity to the next, always under adult supervision—leaving them with little time to play, experiment, and make mistakes.

The Ocean Is Warming at a Rate of 5 Atom Bombs Per Second, Scientists Warn

Climate Change to Alter Death in the Anthropocene… Or Something Like That

Telemundo Now Blaming Suicide and Violence on Climate Change

Read it.

How funny it is when silly political correctness gets tangled up. The latest case has been a description of the Spanish actor Antonio Banderas (in magazines such as Vanity Fair and Deadline) as one of the few candidates “of color” nominated for an Oscar.

This same ultra-racism affects discussions of Megan Markle, who is ‘black’ only to proglodytes.

Read it.

Architects, builders, and sustainability advocates are all abuzz over a new building material they say could substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the building sector, slash the waste, pollution, and costs associated with construction, and create a more physically, psychologically, and aesthetically healthy built environment.

The material is known as, uh, wood.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

Read it.

Especially among rich liberals who whine to the press about how they aren’t taxed enough.

CNN Touts Climate Alarmists Blaming Skeptics for Wildfires

Environmental Groups Sue Govt Over Calif. Oil, Gas Leasing

Venice Canals Nearly Empty As Tide Falls Drastically | NBC News  Boy, those rising sea levels are scary.

Rupert Murdoch’s Son James Furious at Media Empire’s “Climate Denial”

1D Model of Global SST Shows 40% of Warming Since 1979 Due to Early Volcanic Cooling

In Iowa, Democrats tell farmers no new jobs until Greta Thunberg is happy

Green Issues Top Davos Attendees’ Worries Ahead of Summit

Half of sea turtles have ingested plastic, study finds, as Greenpeace warns they could become extinct

Merchants of Thirst

Has the Aussie Government Surrendered to Climate Activists?

AmGreatness: Australia Was Set On Fire by Environmentalists Who Prevented Prudent Land Management, Not By “Global Warming”

Quant Legend Seeks $1.5 Billion For New Fund Dedicated To Fighting Climate Change  How to get rich: 1. Find a trend 2. Figure out a way to monetize it.

While NOAA/NASA claims 2019 as the “second warmest year ever”, other data shows 2019 cooler than 2005 for USA.

Read it.

The Iran deal was never meant to stop Iran from building a bomb—it was supposed to delay it until disaster happened on someone else’s watch.

Read it.

All while being one of those little plastic thingies that is destroying the planet.

The Guardian wags its finger.

Telling people what they can throw out and recycle is important, but corporations and governments that are in the business of growth do not want to address the real problem: the vast and escalating quantity of plastic and other stuff that people buy, use a bit and then throw away. Along with celebrities, “influencers” and PR companies, they seek to create needs for things we never knew we wanted, and then manipulate us to buy more of everything. Bombarded by advertisements, we are then persuaded that the more we binge-shop, the more fulfilling and satisfying our lives will be.

Hear that? All of you unenlightened people are being shits but it’s not your fault — you’re just puppets in the hands of Bad Guys who make you do Bad Things. (Like vote for Trump.)

Victor Davis Hanson. (A real farmer.)

I grew up with an entire local network of clubs and get-togethers, and ferried my grandparents to periodic meetings of the Walnut Improvement Club, Eastern Star, the Odd Fellows, Masons, the Grange, and Sun-Maid growers. They exchanged gossip, of course, but also vital folk and empirical information on irrigation, fertilizers, and machines.

The point was to remind us that “we” (i.e., the vanishing rural classes) needed to stick together—especially given glimpses of what the country would be like in the 21st century. When one of us died or got sick, people showed up with flowers, food, and offered help—whether the use of a tractor, or truck or hired man to “get you through this.”

Now? Zilch.

Read it.

They compare textbooks by the same publishers but customized to suit the predilections of Texas and California.

Guess which one they thought was better.

Read it.

Assuming, of course, that she enjoys lowbrow underclass entertainment. The assumption here is that the sort of people who work at WalMart like things like UFC and Vegas.

It strikes me that a good use for 1%-style wealth is tracking down people who have been fucked over by our ruling class and their managerial drones and dumping money on them. People in prole jobs who nevertheless treat their employer’s property like their own and resist being robbed are a good target demographic.

Joel Kotkin.

Perhaps nothing so animates the progressive Left today as the notion of an increasingly race-conscious society, segregated by ethnic identity and dismissive of the traditional ideal of assimilation. If this seems ironic, it should—in the not-so-distant past, this was a position embraced by the reactionary Right, particularly in the Jim Crow South. Today, however, progressives support separate dorms for African-Americans and promote restricted “safe spaces” for minorities and other designated victim groups. Indeed, it’s hard to pick up the New York Times—even its arts, sports, or travel pages—without seeing race-based analysis and reportage. The Times’s racial obsession reached new intensity with the “1619 Project,” which overstates the role of slavery in American history and economic development.

Read it.

Well, they can take comfort in the fact that the UK’s strict gun control laws (so strict that their Olympic pistol team has to practice in other countries) are keeping everybody safe.

Read it.

In the past five years, almond milk consumption in the United States has exploded over 250 percent. The lower-calorie, vegan milk alternative is a staple in grocery stores and coffee shops across the country now, but its booming popularity comes at a heavy environmental cost. According to a new report from the Guardian this week, the titanic and growing demands of the California almond industry are placing a huge strain on the hives of bees used to pollinate their orchards, wiping out billions of honeybees in a matter of months.

Read it.

The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to [a fence] and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

—G.K. Chesterton, The Thing (1929).

David Cole points out some inconvenient truth.

Some of you might remember Anthony Stokes. He was a 15-year-old DeKalb County, Ga., hood rat with a bum ticker who kept getting passed over for a heart transplant because of his “high risk” lifestyle, which included burglary, weapons charges, arson, and neglecting to take his prescribed meds.

Seeing how donor hearts aren’t found on trees (or in Dollar Trees), doctors were reluctant to give a young crime lord in training one of the precious organs. So Anthony’s granmoms or auntie or whoever the hell was raising him went to the local civil rights shysters screaming racism. Social justice gorgon Tara Culp-Ressler, managing editor of ThinkProgress, ginned up a media campaign, which soon went national. Anthony was given his heart transplant in record time by doctors who were basically told, “Perform this operation or you’re Mengele.”

Anthony Stokes was now armed with a new, healthy heart with a kickin’ beat. He was also armed with a variety of handguns, one of which he used on an old lady whose front door he kicked in during a brazen home-invasion robbery. After shooting at his elderly victim but missing, Tony carjacked a passerby, ran over a pedestrian, and lost control of the vehicle, smashing full-speed into a SunTrust Bank sign, closing his personal account for good.

This same dynamic was responsible for the economic disaster of 2008. Political pressure was brought to bear on mortgage lenders to give money to people who wouldn’t be able to pay it back, merely because of the ‘disparate impact’ on Fashionable Minorities — with results that everybody knew would happen but that nobody could afford to admit.

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Read it.

Rather than fight with chemicals, which bacteria will almost always develop resistance to, the researchers set out to find ways to physically attack the bugs. After all, humans, for example, could evolve resistance to mild poisons over time, but not being stabbed.

The team’s solution was to use magnetic, liquid metal nanoparticles. When exposed to a low-intensity magnetic field, these droplets change their shape, with their edges becoming sharp enough to puncture cell walls and biofilms – the sturdy, sticky substance that colonies of bacteria build to protect themselves from antibiotics.