12th November 2023
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12th November 2023
Scott Johnson at Power Line.
All things considered, Peggy Noonan must be the worst columnist in the United States. That is a rash judgment, I concede. She certainly has a lot of competition over at the New York Times. For the combination of fatuity and self-love, however, she must be in a class by herself.
Peggy Noonan has become a great disappointment.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Why Not the Worst?
11th November 2023
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11th November 2023
‘Church Shouldn’t Be Political,’ Says Pastor With BLM, Pride Flags On Building (Babylon Bee)
“Have You Lost Count Yet Of The Number Of Things In Our Country That Are Broken?”
Alarmed by Off-Year Losses, Mainstream Republicans Balk at Abortion Curbs (N.Y. Times) Principle is all very well, but we can’t let it cost us power and money.
Gun Owners Score Major Legal Victories On Pistol Braces and Ghost Guns
Regulating crypto might end it. And that’s just fine. (Washington Poop) After all, something that can’t be tracked and controlled by the government (that is, the Democrat Crust) can’t really be of any benefit. (Russia’s Finance Ministry Says (Again) That The Digital Ruble Will Replace Cash)
Bay Area Counseling Service Hosts Meet-Ups for Adults and Minors To Discuss Gender and Sexuality At taxpayer expensed, natch.
Businesses Fleeing Crime-Ridden ‘Blue’ D.C.
Not Married, No Kids: The Rise Of China’s ‘Single’ Culture Sounds like what the Wokerati have in mind for the U.S.
‘Facts Matter,’ Cruz Battles Maher on Left’s History of Election Denialism
Steve Fast: How Did Ronna McDaniel Become RNC Chair?
San Francisco Clears Homeless And Cleans Sh*t-Covered Streets For World Leaders Next Week So: They can do it, they just don’t want to.
Adam Carolla: Gavin Newsom Is a ‘Sociopathic, Tyrannical Dictator’
Germany approves global minimum corporate tax Corporations do not pay taxes. Their customers pay the taxes; corporations merely collect the taxes. Governments like ‘corporate taxes’ because it allows them to tax their people twice (or more) while pretending that they are Socking It To The Rich. Don’t be deceived.
Ruth Marcus and the Alarmed, Oblivious Washington Post
Bill Maher’s Pissed Off At ‘Progressive’ Pandering Using “Victims Or Victimizers” Reductivism
Only 15% of Californians can afford a home, new data shows
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11th November 2023
N.Y. Times.
Sarah Camino had been in a relationship for two years when she found out she was pregnant. The father, whom she met while they were both working at a restaurant in Times Square, was initially excited. But he had been using drugs lately, and had been fired from his last four jobs; when she ventured that she was scared she might wind up raising the child alone, he got defensive and walked out. She and her daughter now live in Florida with her parents, and he is not a part of their lives.
Sounds as if they’re better off for it.
Ms. Camino, a beautician and hospitality worker, checks all the boxes of the demographic that has been targeted for advice in recent months by an array of columnists and authors, who have argued for the promotion and prioritizing of marriage, sometimes for the sake of overall happiness, but more often for the sake of children’s well-being.
With the results as you see them.
She’s a 37-year-old single mother without a college degree. She cares deeply about her child’s happiness and about providing her with a good future.
But not enough, apparently, to get married first.
When I asked what she made of the advice to get married, though, she was skeptical. “I don’t think things are perfect like that,” she told me. She had planned to stay with the father, but that’s not how it happened. “I didn’t think he was gonna leave me like this,” she said.
Better yet, ask men whether they would want to marry a Modern Woman. I certainly wouldn’t.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Why Aren’t More People Getting Married? Ask Women What Dating Is Like.
11th November 2023
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— John McCrae
This is one of the many poems I memorized in my younger days. Back when this was still America, children were encouraged to read (and memorize) significant poetry (“The Highwayman”, “The Raven”, “Ulysses”, “Recessional”, etc.). Worrying about pronouns and ‘climate change’ doesn’t leave a lot of bandwidth for anything else, unfortunately.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
10th November 2023
Read it.
For most normal businesses or organizations, an employee expressing support for Adolf Hitler is a clear red line with no second chance. Not, however, for the New York Times, which has rehired a freelancer previously exposed by HonestReporting for his pro-Hitler, pro-terrorist social media posts.
In 2022, HonestReporting’s investigative work exposed several journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being virulent and unapologetic antisemites. As a result of our reporting, several mainstream media outlets decided to cut ties with them.
This included freelance filmmaker Soliman Hijjy (also spelled Sulaiman Hejji) who we uncovered as having praised Adolf Hitler on Facebook in 2012. “How great you are, Hitler,” Hijjy wrote on the social media site, sharing a meme featuring the Nazi mass murderer. Six years later, he doubled down: in a caption accompanying a picture of himself, Hijjy stated he was “in a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.”
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on New York Times Defends Rehiring Pro-Hitler, Pro-Terror Freelancer in Gaza
10th November 2023
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9th November 2023
Zman turns over a rock.
The Republicans have been vexed by one primary complaint for close to a decade. The people they want to swindle into voting for them do not like them very much. In fact, they went so far as to vote for the one guy the party said was off-limits in 2016, Donald Trump. Despite the party’s best efforts to rid themselves of this troublesome man, the rank-and-file voters still prefer him over whatever the party offers as an alternative.
In other words, the party’s complaint is that the voters refuse to support the blocks of wood the party is selling and they support the guy they hate. This turned up in the local elections yesterday, where the Republican Party underperformed again. They even put up a based black guy in the Kentucky governor’s race, but the Democrat still won, in a state that is reliably Republican. In Virginia, the party failed to win the state house, despite their claims about the governor’s popularity.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Sailing The Three C’s
8th November 2023
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7th November 2023
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6th November 2023
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6th November 2023
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5th November 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
4th November 2023
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4th November 2023
Read it.
If you think offering migrants luxury hotel rooms, free meals, laundry service, transportation, health care, and immigration lawyers is excessive, just wait until they can vote.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Non-Citizen Voting Scam
3rd November 2023
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3rd November 2023
University of Birmingham.
In ‘Physiological responses and cognitive behaviours: Measures of heart rate variability index language knowledge’ published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics, Professors Dagmar Divjak, Professorial Research Fellow in Cognitive Linguistics and Language Cognition at the University of Birmingham, and Professor Petar Milin, Professor of Psychology of Language and Language Learning, discovered a direct correlation between instances of bad grammar and subjects’ Heart Rate Variability (HRV).
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Hearing ‘Bad Grammar’ Results in Physical Signs of Stress – New Study Reveals
2nd November 2023
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2nd November 2023
The American Mind.
The aggressive promotion of gender ideology has coincided with a sharp rise in children identifying as transgender. As with the eugenics movement of a century ago, doctors are subjecting these young and vulnerable children to harmful drugs and irreversible surgeries that can leave them permanently sterilized.
Since most of their parents are progressives, I’d say this was a self-correcting problem.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Sterilizing the Young
30th October 2023
Read it.
Another month has passed without full release of Audrey Hale’s manifesto, which could reveal her motive for the murder of nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, daughter of Chad Scruggs, senior pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville.
Hale, a woman who thought she was a man, also shot dead schoolmaster Katherine Koonce, 59; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61. On March 29, 2023, two days after the murders, the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit took custody of the manifesto. While release awaits, a movie offers insight into motive, the primary question in any murder case.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Killer Construct on Screen
30th October 2023
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30th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
30th October 2023
The Critic.
Do you believe in cancel culture? I apologise for asking — it’s a trick question. Just as complaining about the use of Karen makes you a Karen, thinking cancel culture exists makes you deserving of being cancelled. Not that this is a problem; if anyone were really being silenced, we’d hear them complaining about it, which would then mean they weren’t actually being silenced.
Such are the logical contortions outlined in Umut Özkirimli’s Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke. It explores how certain self-styled goodies — those who identify with being on the right side of history — promote a version of leftism which rivals the right in “its disdain for dissent, its bunker mentality, and Manichean simplicity”.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Censorious Sadism
30th October 2023
Read it.
Mrs Rodin and I watched Dinesh D’Souza’s Police State on Rumble yesterday. I hope this review, summary, or whatever will not cause you to not watch it yourself.
First, is “police state” the correct description of America, today? My initial inclination is to believe that it is true for some and not true for many. That America is now a “surveillance state” is beyond question. It shifts into a police state whenever the apparatus of the state using the surveillance data at hand picks and chooses to harass/destroy “disfavored” persons and cower the remainder into submission.
If one looks at history, the existence of a police state does not require the full quiescence of a people. There will always be dissenters within a police state. We tend to regard dissent’s failure to “move the needle” in such places as evidence of the existence of the police state. And so it is, when viewing an historically free and democratic society, it can be difficult to judge when a police state might exist because there is always some level of sturm und drang reflecting political debate within that society, some level of criminality associated with political belief, and a desire to characterize any failure to gain ideological purchase within the larger society as the result of state machinations.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Reflections on “Police State”
29th October 2023
Read it.
It’s the accusatory nature of a great deal of progressive commentary that makes it so obnoxious. On the face of it, it sounds absurd to take offence at an article which maintains that Britons from ethnic minorities can feel uncomfortable in rural areas. Yet an article in The Lead with the headline “Black and brown hikers are taking back Britain’s countryside” is so fiercely combative that one can do nothing else. It stands in your face daring you to react.
First, what’s with that headline? “Taking back”? Did it belong to them? Have I missed a giant chunk of British history? Why must it be “taken” at all? Is this some sort of weird game of “capture the flag”?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Marginalising the Majority
29th October 2023
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28th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
28th October 2023
Read it.
There was a time, in the bad old days of ALF, when animal rights terrorists were considered the second greatest terror threat to the UK behind the IRA. While various Islamist groups have overtaken them now, animal rights terrorism still abounds, carried out by a small but active crew of extremist cadres who still resort to violence to pursue their political aims. The animal rights movement is a product of just the past 50 years, so these individuals are relative newcomers to spreading terror as a form of direct action.
“Children thrown from frightened horses while out for a weekend ride, vehicles vandalised, businesses threatened, fieldsports participants physically attacked, horses and hounds injured, incessant trolling by sab dross online and groups of aggressive hunt saboteurs hiding behind balaclavas … need I go on? These unhinged and violent individuals are a danger to the public, as the jailing of Paul Allman underlined this week.”
Ben McCarthy Terrorists Among Us, CSM Aug 19th 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Hamas & the Hunt Sabs
27th October 2023
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27th October 2023
The Antiplanner.
Early this week, Grassroot Institute executive director Keli’i Akina interviewed the Antiplanner about affordable housing, why it costs more than regular housing, and why the Hawaii Housing Finance & Development agency refuses to release records that would help the public understand where their money is going. The interview was posted on YouTube late Wednesday evening.
Affordable housing is a nationwide scam and Hawaii is far from the worst offender. As the state with the second-least-affordable housing in the nation, however, local politicians are prone to promoting affordable housing subsidies as the solution to housing affordability problems, which doesn’t work as they are two different issues. The Antiplanner suggests that affordable housing subsidies should solely be in the form of vouchers directly to low-income people, not subsidies to developers who build costly projects at taxpayers’ expense.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Affordable Housing Industrial Complex
26th October 2023
Read it.
Really bad policies lead to really bad consequences, and our leaders have been making absolutely disastrous decisions for decades.
As a result, the streets of America are now teeming with thieves, drug addicts, prostitutes, violent criminals and sexual predators. We have raised an entire generation of young Americans that has no moral foundation whatsoever, and every day we are adding even more immigrants from third world countries to the mix. Many of those immigrants have no intention of following our laws, and they are fueling the explosive growth of criminal gangs all over the nation. On top of everything else, the war in the Middle East threatens to spark an unprecedented wave of domestic terror attacks here in the United States. Millions of radical Muslims now live in this country, and when the time comes many of them will not hesitate to commit acts of violence.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Toxic Brew That Is Going to Create Endless Chaos in the Streets of America
26th October 2023
The Atlantic.
Dark Triads counted for about one in 14 people in an international population sample, a proportion that means all of us will meet them on a regular basis in love, in work, in politics, and—most obviously—on social media. For the sake of our happiness, well-being, and wallets, we need to understand them, learn how to identify them, and steer clear of them whenever we can—so that we can find better companions instead.
Narcissism is the egotistical admiration of oneself. Machiavellianism is a duplicitous interpersonal style and disregard for morality. These characteristics are bad enough, but the element of psychopathy adds in an absence of empathy and remorse to complete the Dark Triad: It’s all about me, I am willing to hurt you for my gain, and I don’t care how you feel.
For example, your typical Woke Democrat–celebrities, ‘journalists’, academics, and politicians.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Sociopaths Among Us—and How to Avoid Them
26th October 2023
Read it.
“Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it,” Wu writes. “And that’s where the suffering begins.”
Wu explains that under calculated misery, services or features that were once expected (think of leg room) are made worsened (leg room is reduced as rows are moved closer together). Want a little more leg room? You’ll likely need to upgrade your airfare to business or first class or even ordinary coach seats with added leg room.
Yet another reason not to fly–unless you can afford your own plane.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on ‘Calculated Misery’: Here’s Why Airlines Want You to Be Uncomfortable
25th October 2023
Read it.
According to a survey done by the Harvard Crimson in 2022, 80% of the faculty at Harvard University self-identified as “liberal,” and 37% self-identified as “very liberal.”
Only 1% self-identified as conservative.
This snapshot of the politics of the faculty at the nation’s oldest and leading university is not exceptional. Surveys of most university faculties show them overwhelmingly on the Left.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for it.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on We Must Restore ‘Veritas’ at Our Universities
25th October 2023
Read it.
Several years ago, I watched a rage-fuelled protest unfold outside the Toronto Public Library. The feminist gender-critical advocate Megan Murphy had been invited to speak, and Canadian transgender activists treated this as an active threat to their very existence. Watching the mob shriek and threaten those attending an event featuring a speaker who holds progressive views on virtually every issue was deeply unsettling, and I wondered: If this is how much they hate someone who shares most of their worldview, how much do they hate the rest of us?
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on We Will Be Blamed for Transgender Crimes
24th October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
24th October 2023
Read it.
Once a fundamental part of the American dream, the ability to own a home is drifting farther and farther away for many Americans.
But, as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, between skyrocketing prices, stagnating wages, and now rising interest rates, the deck seems to be increasingly stacked against home ownership.
Using May 2023 data tabulated by Home Sweet Home, we map out the annual salary needed to afford a 30-year mortgage (at 6.37%) to buy a home in America’s 50 most populous metropolitan areas.
Needless to say, all of these cities are run by Democrats. Of course, if you don’t insist on living in a (Democrat-run) city, prices are much more ‘affordable’ (whatever that means).
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Here’s What You Need to Earn to Own A Home in 50 American Cities
24th October 2023
Washington Free Beacon.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund touts its commitment to advancing “social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.” It also bankrolls an Israeli-designated Palestinian terror group and has given millions more to groups that fund Hamas or have justified the terrorist group’s attacks against Israel.
Established by the heirs of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has since 2018 funneled more than $3.4 million to Hamas-friendly groups including Defense for Children International-Palestine, which serves as a critical cog in the terror group’s propaganda machinery.
In fact, the Israeli government declared Defense for Children International-Palestine a terror organization in October 2021, arguing that it effectively operates as an extension of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and employs senior PFLP members.
A conservative publisher once said “Every organization that is not explicitly right-wing will eventually become left-wing” in these degenerate modern times.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Meet the Major US Philanthropy Financing an Israeli-Designated Terror Group
24th October 2023
The Foundry.
Home ownership was supposed to be the American dream, the thing to which the entire middle class could not only aspire but also achieve. That dream has turned into a nightmare, thanks in large part to the Biden administration and the big spenders in Congress. Now home ownership is increasingly out of reach for Americans.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta began maintaining a Home Ownership Affordability Monitor Index in 2006 because homes were so unaffordable at that time. The latest reading from that index, which has plunged 36% since President Joe Biden took office, is the lowest in its history and indicates record unaffordability. It now takes 44% of median income—before taxes—to afford a median-price home.
It’s even worse in several major metropolitan areas across the country. The cost of a median-price home is 50% of median income in Boston, 55% in Miami, 63% in New York, 84% in San Francisco, and 85% in Los Angeles. But these are percentages of before-tax income, which means the cost of home ownership in some of those places exceeds 100% of net income. “No joke,” as Biden would say.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Home Prices: From American Dream to American Nightmare
24th October 2023
Zeihan.
The third piece of the shale revolution is all about timing. As the world shifts from globalized supply chains to more localized and secure means of production, utilizing cheaper energy sources and products will be essential.
The US has become the lowest-cost-highest-quality producer of intermediate materials, meaning much of the leg work to reshore supply chains and manufacturing has already been done. So what do we have to show for it?
Between agriculture, wiring, textiles and refined products, the US has shaken up dozens of industries and ramped up reshoring efforts. While industrial construction spending has grown significantly, we must maintain that growth to retain this newly added competitive advantage.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Third Shale Revolution: Reshoring Manufacturing
24th October 2023
Pharmacy Closures Leave Millions Without Access (NewsMax) The new Narrative: First we had ‘grocery deserts’, now we have ‘pharmacy deserts’ – all to justify more interference by government.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
23rd October 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
