Steve Sailer looks at the new JOKER movie.

With the shift in pop cultural hegemony from Old Americans to Ellis Island Americans, movies based on comic book superheroes, most of whom were dreamed up by American Jews from the 1930s into the 1960s, now fill the role once played by Westerns as Hollywood’s bread-and-butter genre. Writer-director Todd Phillips, who previously made comedies of masculine excess such as The Hangover and War Dogs, dreamed up a story that ingeniously merges the DC Universe, the Scorsese-verse, and the Trumpian present.

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For Israeli intelligence organizations 2019 was a revealing year, literally. The Israeli government continued its policy of going public with the accomplishments of Mossad (foreign intelligence) and Shin Bet (domestic intelligence). Israel made it clear this year that these growing number disclosures over the past few years was done because it was felt this played an important role in deterring attacks. There was also the impact on foreign governments, and the enemy, because the disclosures made it clear what the enemy was up to and why international action was necessary. These disclosures, especially the identity (and photos of) foreign terrorist leaders reinforced the personal danger these foreign terrorist leaders placed themselves in. Israel has gone after terrorist leaders in the past, usually after a particularly gruesome attack, especially when a lot of civilians were killed.

Audacious Epigone crunches the numbers.

Babylon Bee.

I see it every day.

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Just in case you have nothing better to do.

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“Where the streets have no name”, the first song on u2’s blockbuster 1987 album, “Joshua Tree”, begins with 40 seconds of ambient noise. A guitar arpeggio enters and accelerates into the driving rhythm of the drums and bass that arrive around 1:10. Nearly two minutes pass before Bono breathes the first lyrics. Such leisurely intros are no more, says Justin Kalifowitz of Downtown Music Publishing, a rights manager. Streaming platforms like Spotify have reshaped the music business—and pop songs. The gist of it: songwriters now get to the good stuff sooner.

Well, if it means less ‘artiste’ crap from rockers, I’m fur it. They need to get back to the ‘it has a good beat and you can dance to it’ roots of rock & roll.

Joel Kotkin is not optimistic.

Actually, since the reason Millenials are such mental basket cases is because Boomers educated them that way, I can’t say it isn’t deserved.

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I’m sorry, I can’t imagine Elizabeth Warren ever being pregnant.

UPDATE: Bethany Mandel: Is Liz a Pathological Liar?

Well, she’s a Democrat….

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Get woke, go broke.

Multiple online publishers have made large reductions in editorial staff over the last few years — and one factor seems to permeate many different newsrooms that have faced this peril — unions for journalists.

Indeed, newsrooms in New York City and Washington, D.C. may be the last place many Americans think of when they think of workers’ unions, but in fact, many unions can be found right there. Over the last half decade or so, media staffers, especially at online news sites, have made an effort to unionize their newsrooms, and in many cases, succeeded.

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Let’s begin with the primitive drones. These are devices which, according to one Russian military expert, roughly need a 486 CPU, about 1MB of RAM, 1GB of harddisk space and some (now extremely cheap) sensors to capture the signals from the US GPS, the Russian GLONASS or both (called “GNSS”). In fact, the “good terrorists” in Syria, financed, assisted and trained by the “Axis of Kindness” (USA/KSA/Israel) have been attacking the Russian base in Khmeimim with swarms of such drones for years. According to the commander of the air defenses of Khmeimin, over 120(!) drones were shot down or disabled by Russian air defenses in just the last two years. Obviously, the Russians know something that some “Axis of Kindness” does not.

Scott Adams sums it up.

As Americans watch two different movies, here’s a way to discern what’s happening off the screen.

Scott Johnson at Power Line responds: Dilbert’s  rules of reading

Ramesh Ponnuru doesn’t buy it.

If parts of Judge Allison Burroughs’s decision in the Harvard affirmative-action case don’t seem to make sense, it’s not entirely her fault. She was bound by the Supreme Court’s precedents on the subject, and the justices have been refining absurdity ever since they took up the issue in 1978.

The question this time was whether Harvard was unlawfully discriminating against Asian-American applicants. Harvard “testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in” – as the New York Times reported with a straight face. Judge Burroughs bought it, writing that race “is never viewed as a negative attribute” by Harvard’s admissions department.

Think about that for a moment. Logically, if a particular racial or ethnic background is a plus, then another background must be a “minus.” Harvard has a finite number of places to offer. Putting a thumb on the scales for certain racial minorities means putting a thumb on the scales against everyone else.

Democrats deliberately conceal global energy & CO2 emissions realities from the public

Police use a battering ram to break into Extinction Rebellion warehouse in Kennington, south London

“We need support”: Pacific Islands Demand More Climate Action

Former senior police officers risk arrest as they join Extinction Rebellion protest 

Extinction Rebellion warned protest could alienate the public   They dont’ care. Protest isn’t about convincing the other side, it’s about bonding with your own side and, incidentally, proclaiming your virtue.

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The latest U.S. jobs report tells a complex tale about American workers and the industrial economy. Unemployment, at 3.5%, is the lowest it has been in half a century. At the same time, hiring missed projections and wage gains have cooled off. The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index, a key measure of U.S. manufacturing output, slipped in September to its lowest level since June 2009. The ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute and weakening global economy contributed to a figure so low — 47.8 — it missed every estimate in a Bloomberg survey, which had expected the index to rise from August’s 49.1.

Meanwhile, a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that increased adoption of robotics and automation equipment has been a substantial driver of the declining labor share of income for U.S. workers, even during a period of extremely low unemployment. In the last global recession, industrial robot shipments fell significantly but did not stop; the labor-force growth rate for manufacturing, needless to say, went negative. I’m not a macro-economist, and I won’t predict anything about the health of the global economy. Instead, let’s look at something micro with global implications: how the world’s industrial robotics markets have grown and changed in the past decade

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Soon to be a major motion picture….

EPA Puts San Francisco On Notice Over ‘Instances Of Sewage Flowing In The Streets’

Climate Crusader Greta Thunberg Tipped to Win Nobel Peace Prize  And why not? They gave it to Obama for being black, they might as well give it to Greta for being a kid.

Global Cooling Warming Changing Crisis Denier

Marvelously Resilient Coral

Channelling the Malthusian Roots of Climate Extremism

HOW DARE YOU!

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If they know where you live, then it isn’t survivable.

And, of corse, this has nothing to do with capitalism, however defined, but ‘journalsts’ just throw that in when it deals with people who have more money than journalists. do.

These projects have plenty of skeptics, among them John W. Hoopes, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas who spent years studying the myth that the world would end in 2012. He accused doomsday investors of hawking “survival porn,” which he described as a “hypermasculine fantasy” that danger is near and a select few will be able to save themselves and their families — if they are prepared.

For survival, I’d sooner depend on rich paranoids than some random professor.

Read it.

An international team of researchers has analyzed remains from 10 archaeological sites in England, France, Germany, Russia and Switzerland to gain insight into the stages of the second plague pandemic (14th-18th centuries) and the genetic diversity of Yersinia pestis during and after the Black Death. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers reconstructed 34 Y. pestis genomes, tracing the genetic history of the bacterium, which revealed key insights into the initiation and progression of the second plague pandemic in Europe.

@Aoc follower goes berserk in town hall. Claims we “have to eat babies” to survive climate change

Understanding Why The Green New Deal Won’t Really Work

Global Temperature Report: September 2019

Putin Dismisses Climate Messiah Greta Thunberg: “Poorly Informed Teenager”

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Women’s unemployment currently sits at 3.1%, a number that matches April women’s unemployment numbers. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia said in a statement that September’s women’s unemployment numbers match the lowest numbers during the Trump administration and that these are the lowest number for women’s unemployment since 1953.

But you have to bear in mind that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just remember that.

Absolutely nothing.

Babylon Bee.

Forgiveness and hugs are among the 36 new entries recently added to a database of hateful gestures used by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.

You knew it had to happen.

UPDATE: CNN’s Sellers: ‘Infuriates Me’ to See Brandt Jean, Judge Hug Amber Guyger

Read it.

We all expect people to get more conservative as they grow older, but I never expected it to happen to Justin Bieber.

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Thank God white people no linger run that country, or who knows what sort of helhole it would be.

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Sounds like a win for the Global Warming/Overpopulation crowd.

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“The officer was doing what he felt was the right thing. Cooperating with federal law enforcement is part of our daily job and what we do everyday on the streets as officers in any department — whether it was the [Drug Enforcement Administration], FBI or ICE,” Culpeper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott Jenkins said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “He did what his conscience told him he should do: cooperate and work with another law enforcement agency as we do everyday. … I feel for him because I truly believe he was just trying to do the right thing.”

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Democrats are rushing into impeachment despite the knowledge that, given what we know now, the Senate will not remove Donald Trump from office. Why is Nancy Pelosi doing this?

Because she has resigned herself to the argument that impeaching Trump is the way for Democrats to win the presidency and Senate 13 months from now. Pelosi’s bank shot isn’t aimed at Trump’s conviction on the Hill. It’s aimed at his loss at the polls.

American University professor Allan Lichtman best expressed the political logic in a recent op-ed. His “13 keys” model, along with most quantitative forecasts, currently favors Trump’s reelection. Lichtman says impeachment would change that by tarnishing the incumbent with scandal. The facts of the case, and whether the Senate convicts, do not matter.

For what it’s worth, this sounds to me to be correct.

Climate Change Activists Protest By Spraying Fake Blood On UK Treasury With Firetruck Hose

Rainfall Trends in India Show No Climate Fatigue

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During this past year alone, a number of internationally prominent hate crime and hate incident hoaxes have occurred in the USA. In July, popular Georgia State Senator Erica Thomas claimed that she had been shamefully attacked, in a Publix grocery store, by a white male who screamed at her and told her to “go back home.” In fact, the “white man” turned out to Cuban-American Democratic Party activist Eric Sparkes, who literally showed up at Thomas’ melodramatic press conference to rebut her story.

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That’s why there aren’t any people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today. Oh,  wait….

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How about that GREAT government-provided health care? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

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Would you miss them?

What effect would it have on international terrorism?

What effect would it have on U.S. tech employment?

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I don’t use that method in my Commonplace Book page.

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Repeat after me: Com-nu-nist Dic-ta-tor-ship.

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“TERFs and what everyone needs to know about trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” ran the title of an article in Cosmo last month. TERFs—a term of abuse that means “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”—are a “minority group who usually stick to online forums,” it explained, though they also hand out “transphobic leaflets.” Under the guise of protecting women, they spread the idea that “trans women are a threat because they are men, attempting to gain access to women’s spaces such as bathrooms and trick lesbians into having sex with them.” Many are, apparently, “funded by anti-abortion and evangelical groups.” Some call themselves “gender-critical” to seem more “palatable to the general public.” But, the article argues, it would be best to call them what they are: “anti-trans activists.”

‘Scorecards! Get yer scorecards here! Can’t tell the victims without a scorecard!’

Read it.

Here is a copy of the list of the myriad mysterious deaths surrounding with the Clintons. I cannot discover who first compiled this list.

I had heard about this list, but was shocked at the extent of it, and at the number of surrounding circumstances that are, in some cases, mildly suspect, and others, very much so.

The Myth Of Imminent Environmental Collapse

The Liberals’ Covert Green Plan for Canada – Poverty and Dictatorship

“There Is No Climate Emergency”: Scientists Call For Reasoned Debate

Putin Shames Greta Thunberg And Her Handlers Over Environmental Agenda

Extinction Rebellion protests are putting a bigger strain on police than terrorism

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Recently I had a physical ordered by my life insurance company. This was before I made the switch. And even then, as unhappy with myself as I was, my blood work was fine: a testament to eating mostly low carb, whole foods and staying away from God forsaken vegetables.

Sounds like a plan.

Roy, this one’s for you.

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Scott Adams suggests that (a) this problem probably spells the end of the campaign trail for Bernie, and hence (b) Warren will consequently take over the front-runner spot from Biden, hence (c) Biden will crash and burn, since being the front-runner is all he had going for him.

This is almost as entertaining a political season as 2016.

Read it.

Aluminum-based batteries would be cheaper to make, because aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust after oxygen and silicon. Aluminum is also light-weight and could be ideal for use in batteries.

Yet, for years scientists have stumbled in the research about aluminum batteries because they have yet to crack the code of what materials to use for the anode and cathode of the battery so that it could enable efficient energy storage with enough energy content.

Now scientists from Sweden and Slovenia say they have found a way to have efficient aluminum batteries with lower environmental impact and lower production costs.

Roger Clegg translates for us.

The judge found, “Race is only intentionally considered as a positive attribute.” But if race is a positive attribute for favored groups, then does it not follow that it is a negative attribute for everyone else?  Well, yes, the judge admits about 100 pages later, “Race conscious admissions will always penalize to some extent groups that are not being advantaged by the process.” So, sure, there is discrimination against Asian Americans, but it is not “undu[e]” or “disproportionate.”

Here’s a sociopolitical reality: If it’s legally accepted that racial discrimination in admissions is permissible if you do A-B-C and do not do 1-2-3, then universities will make those claims. And so the judge here explains at great length why she accepts Harvard’s assertions that its discrimination is narrowly tailored (A-B-C) and that she is persuaded by the school that the discrimination is not anti-Asian (vis-a-vis whites, 1-2-3) but only pro-diversity. She’s wrong, but schools are willing to roll the dice that their bluff won’t be called and that, if it is, they’ll draw a sympathetic judge.

Steve Sailer.

By the time I get done grilling it, it isn’t red any more.

Problem solved.

Read  it.

If there is any trend that’s viewed as permanent, it’s the enduring attraction of coastal urban meccas: despite the insane rents and housing costs, that’s where the jobs, the opportunities and the desirable urban culture are.

Nice, but like many other things the status quo considers permanent, this could reverse very quickly, and all those pricey urban meccas could become crime-ridden ghost towns. How could such a reversal occur?

ZMan has some bad news.

The underlying assumption is that liberal democracy will work just fine, if we can just get rid of those terrible liberals or go back and correct some mistake from the past. No one ever stops to wonder if maybe those nasty liberals and errors in judgement are a feature of liberal democracy, rather than a defect. Like Marxists or libertarians, the right has worked from the assumption that the right sort of citizen can be conjured or created, in order to make liberal democracy function as intended.

The truth is, the results we see around us, whether it is spasms of radical self-destruction or the suicidal flood of migrants, are all the natural result of liberal democracy. The troubles facing the West are not the result of some defect or shabby operators at the top. This is what you get from liberal democracy. As a wise once man said, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”