A new tyranny over the mind has arisen at some institutions of higher learning where open, diverse, and competing ideas across the spectrum of human interest is supposed to be the ideal. The last several years have been filled with numerous instances in which mobs of students and groups of professors have pressured university administrators to either prevent or revoke an invitation for an outside speaker to come to that campus because the vocal critics oppose the proposed speaker’s social, political or economic views.
When such an outside speaker has still appeared on such a campus, they have been greeted with crowds condemning their viewpoint even before the visitor has had the opportunity to express it, or has been drowned out by derogatory chants and slogans, or in a few cases they have been physically threatened and even assaulted.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The New Totalitarians
Looters used to just loot their own dumpy neighborhoods, but in 2020 they’ve gotten much more enterprising. To mourn George Floyd et al, they drive in to the most expensive neighborhoods in the metropolis and loot stores they’ve heard about from rap songs.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Scenes from Chicago 2020
A news story today reports that “Portland’s top newspaper reported Tuesday that after weeks of unrest in the city’s downtown, the ‘main action’ appears to have shifted to neighborhoods just outside the city.”
This has suburban residents very concerned, as one might imagine. As the mostly peaceful rioters and looters focus their efforts at urban renewal on residential neighborhoods, the nice liberal Portland suburb dwellers are struggling to criticize the wanton destruction of their own neighborhoods without sounding racist. A nice liberal can’t criticize Black Lives Matter, right? Not even if that organization has just peacefully protested their neighborhood into a post-apocalyptic video game cityscape.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on A Bunch of Entitled Kids
The curious thing about the Biden choice is it does not fit the popular theories for running mate selection. The most popular reason for selecting a running mate is they help in their home state. We know the old Rust Belt states will be where the election is decided, so picking a brown senator from California does not help there. Harris also has a strong hate-whitey vibe to her, which tends not to go over well with the white working-class types in these states.
Then there is the fact that Harris as the charm of a DMV clerk. In fact, she reminds people of every trip to get their license renewed. She is sour and unpleasant, even when she is professional and efficient. There is a reason she could not draw flies during the primaries. She was so obnoxious in the debates she was forced to drop out before the Iowa caucus. If it were possible for people to cast negative votes, she would have been the first to poll less than zero percent.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Absolution Ticket
Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris to be his running mate shows the shallowness of the Democrats’ talent pool. Biden handicapped himself by explicitly pledging to ignore men and then implicitly bowing to the demand that his female choice be black. However, it’s still somewhat shocking that, out of all the black, female, Democrat politicians in America, the best he could do was Kamala.
What’s most striking about Kamala is that, like Barack Obama, she has nothing in common with the American black experience. Despite her slamming the race card on the table, the only thing she shares with the generic “black vote” is skin color.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on It Says a Lot That Biden Chose Kamala, and None of What It Says Is Good
I’ve been tempted to tweak my liberal friends with the mischievous thought that COVID-19 is actually a Trump five-dimensional chess plot to destroy universities, unionized K-12 public education, and Hollywood (since TV and movie production is largely shut down too).
Colleges and universities were already facing mounting financial pressure because enrollment is steadily declining and certain to get much worse in the coming decade (the result of falling birthrates back at the time of the housing crash in 2008-09). Add to this the financial hit they are taking right now because of the virus, on top of the huge loss this year of foreign students who typically pay full tuition rates and subsidize other students, and a large number of colleges and universities face a serious risk of insolvency. (There are many colleges for whom a large foreign student enrollment—especially Chinese students—is a key part of their business model.) This week it is reported that 20 percent of Harvard freshmen are deferring a year; at other colleges, the rate of students saying they aren’t returning runs as high as 40 percent. At places further down the food chain than Harvard, how many students will decide not to go to college at all a year from now?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Has the College Death Spiral Started?
Nine months ago, New York was a thriving, though poorly governed, metropolis. It was coasting on the more or less good governance of its prior two mayors and on its ancestral role as the global nexus of finance and capital.
The city is now something out of a postmodern apocalyptic movie, reeling from the effects of a neutron bomb. Ditto in varying degrees Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco — the anti-broken-windows metropolises of America. Walking in San Francisco today reminds me of visiting Old Cairo in 1973, although the latter lacked the needles and feces of the former.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Thin Veneer of American Civilization
The Trump campaign was primed for Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., being named Joe Biden’s running mate, having attacks ready for her as a “phony” and pointing out her challenging Biden in the Democratic primary for segregationist busing support.
“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received,” Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson released in a statement. “Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party.”
Notably, Pierson, an African American woman who promotes the website youaintblack.com, called Harris a “political living will” for Biden, 77, a shot at his age and the possibility Harris might take over the presidency before Biden could finish his term.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Trump Campaign Pounces on Harris as ‘Phony,’ Biden’s ‘Living Will’
Vilified, threatened with violence and in some cases suffering from burnout, dozens of state and local public health leaders around the U.S. have resigned or have been fired amid the coronavirus outbreak, a testament to how politically combustible masks, lockdowns and infection data have become.
One of the latest departures came Sunday, when California’s public health director, Dr. Sonia Angell, was ousted following a technical glitch that caused a delay in reporting hundreds of thousands of virus test results — information used to make decisions about reopening businesses and schools.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Health Officials Quitting or Getting Fired Amid COVID Outbreak
In Minnesota the media are flogging an alleged increase in new cases and the Sturgis apocalypse to sustain the epidemic of hysteria. See, for example, Jeremy Olson’s Star Tribune story “625 new Minnesota COVID-19 cases contribute to weekend surge.” Subhead: “COVID-19 deaths have not increased amid rise in infections, but health officials worry that this trend could emerge next.” Or skip to the Star Tribune editorial “‘Utter disaster.’ Allowing Sturgis rally to go on puts nation at risk.” Subhead: “Failure of leadership at multiple levels allows event to go on during pandemic.” Coming soon: World to end tomorrow: Women, minorities hardest hit.
While we wait for the end of the world as we know it, we note that deaths attributed by the authorities continue at a low, low level, contrary to their projections and warnings. Yesterday, to take the example closest to hand, we had three new deaths. One decedent was in his 90’s, one in his 80’s, and one in his 60’s.
The problem, Gesell believed, was that money served two roles that often came into conflict: It was a way for people to store wealth, and it was the thing everybody needed to conduct business. The fact that money could store wealth meant its holders had a reason to cling to it, especially in crises like the one he saw in Argentina, when opportunities to safely put that money elsewhere looked grim. It was a typical story. When people got scared, they hoarded cash and brought business to a standstill. It led, Gesell said, to a situation of “poverty amid plenty.”
Gesell wanted to create a new kind of money — a money that would “rot like potatoes” and “rust like iron” so no one would want to hoard it, a money that was “an instrument of exchange and nothing else.” And the crazy part is that he did create it. Through a series of pamphlets, articles and books, Gesell inspired a worldwide movement that introduced a completely new form of money. It’s one of the most fascinating, and largely forgotten, stories in economic history.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The ‘Strange, Unduly Neglected Prophet’
CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King is steeped in the Democratic Party. She donates to Democrats. She vacationed with Democrats and has lobbied her Democratic-leaning friend Oprah Winfrey to run for president.
All of that would be fine except for the fact that King is allowed to operate as though she was a real, objective journalist. She has even moderated a 2020 Democratic primary debate. But King isn’t a fair and balanced journalist.
There are several immediate problems with Fauci’s arguments, including the fact that COVID cases are showing clear signs of a summer resurgence in the same European countries that allegedly tamed the virus through harsh lockdowns in the spring. The American news media however has seized on Fauci’s narrative, and used it to call for renewed lockdowns. The New York Times and the Washington Post both editorialized in favor of a second stricter wave of nationwide lockdowns lasting until October – this despite there being no clear evidence that lockdowns actually work at taming the virus.
So how does the evidence behind this narrative stand up under empirical scrutiny? Let’s consider the claims.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Fact-Checking Fauci
Yesterday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who signed an executive order forcing nursing homes in his state to accept patients who tested positive for the coronavirus in March, informed reporters there was no need for an independent inquiry into his deadly mistake because no one can be deemed reliable enough to investigate him.
During Friday’s edition of CNN Newsroom, co-anchor Poppy Harlow kicked off a contentious interview with Kudlow with negative spin, asking Kudlow: “Does the slowdown worry you and the president?” Kudlow immediately slapped back at that idea: “I don’t know that there’s a slowdown. I mean, these jobs numbers will go up and down.”
Harlow interrupted Kudlow to strangely point out last month’s jobs numbers: “4.8 million jobs were added the prior month.” Kudlow responded: “I think the big story here is this survey was taken in the middle of July, July 12th to July 18th.” He continued: “That was the heart, that was the heart of the hotspot problem, where some states had to pull back in the southwest and so forth. Therefore, we didn’t get hurt near as much as many people feared.” A chyron for CNN’s spin-segment read: “1.8 million jobs added in July, but recovery is losing momentum.”
The ‘chyron’ tells the story: CNN is just a publicity operation for the hate-Trump crowd even if they have to lie about it. Fortunately, Kudlow is a Real Economist and he isn’t buying what they’re selling.
President Trump may be facing one of the most unusual re-election campaigns in the history of the country. Unlike most incumbents, his own party will be working hard to elect his opponent. The fact is, America is a one-party country. The two parties are just the two faces of the same crowd. Both faces hate Trump. The voters for his party, on the other hand, largely get this. Despite their best efforts, the Republican party is the home of populist white people.
The other problem for Trump is he can’t actually campaign. Both parties have conspired to lock most of the country down to the point where it is impossible to hold rallies, meet and greet voters and whip up support in person. The uniparty candidate is a drooling vegetable locked in his basement, so the uniparty is fine with it. The less people see of Dementia Joe the better. Trump on the other hand really needs the social proof that comes from holding rallies and campaign events.
I apologize for linking to a site that has white text on a black background. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who can’t be bothered to understand that the purpose of a web site is to be legible rather than just be a monument to Cool and Edgy.
Those of us who use Safari have available a feature called “Use Reader when available’ that convert such masturbatory exercises into actual readable text. I heartily endorse it.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Visiting the Stable Marriage Problem
Senator Elizabeth Warren is claiming that “Donald Trump has undermined and corrupted our most popular government agency—the Postal Service.” I was surprised to learn that the postal service is “our most popular government agency.”
Ilhan Omar’s father was the late Nur Said Elmi. Omar has vehemently denied that Nur Said Elmi was his name because the name reflects the fraternal relationship of Ahmed Nur Said Elmi to her — Ahmed Nur Said Elmi being the younger brother she married for fraudulent purposes in 2009. Even though the marriage had long since served its fraudulent purpose(s), Omar didn’t get around to dissolving the marriage to Elmi until 2017, just in time to marry and divorce the father of her three children before marrying her consultant and fundraiser earlier this year. It’s quite a story for someone who has repeatedly invoked her “faith tradition” as both a shield and a sword.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Ilhan Omar: Case closed
One of the perennial favorite tasls of Lefty ‘journalists’ is explaining ‘conservatism’ to, you know, conservatives (and anybody else who might be listening).
Using a super porous material to suck up salt from brackish, salty water, researchers were able to sustainably create nearly 40 gallons of clean drinking water per single kilogram of a metal material. Better yet, this drinking water was even cleaner than WHO’s official guidelines.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Sunlight Could Solve Drinking Water’s Biggest Problem in 30 Minutes
A growing response to today’s chaotic information landscape sounds inviting and elegantly simple: Appoint experts to “fact-check” news stories, blogs, speeches, studies, opinions, and political ads. Information they deem to be false is corrected or even removed from public view, in the name of the public good.
Last October, Ibrahim Bouaichi sexually assaulted Karla Dominguez with whom he reportedly had been in a relationship. He was charged with six felony counts and held without bond in an Alexandria, Virginia jail.
In April, a judge, Nolan Dawkins, ordered the release of Bouaichi due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Bouaichi was 33 years old. The virus probably posed about the same threat to his health as the flu. Moreover, there had been no cases of the virus at the Alexandria jail.
Bouaichi’s lawyers argued that visits to the jail had been curtailed and that they needed to meet with their client. But all trials had been postponed.
The lawyers apparently did not seek relief from the curb on their ability to visit Bouaichi. Instead, they insisted on his release.
Judge Dawkins ordered Bouaichi to stay at home, to leave only to met with his lawyers, and to have no contact with Dominguez, his victim. But the judge did not order electronic monitoring of Bouaichi.
Less than a month after his release, police officers spotted Bouaichi in his car at a Wendy’s drive-through. He rammed his car into one of their cruisers.
For this, he was charged with multiple assault counts and drunk driving. But after spending one night in a Maryland jail, Bouaichi was released on bond.
You can probably guess the rest of the story. In late July, Dominguez was shot to death in Alexandria. The police issued a warrant for the arrest of Bouaichi on the charge of murder. He fled. When the police finally spotted him and moved in for the arrest, he killed himself.
Given the guy’s name, I could as easily put this under Living With Islam.
One of the fundamental tasks of government is to keep its citizens safe. Makes you wonder what we’re paying all of this money for.
For months now, the more cynical have suggested the lock downs will continue into the fall, as the hysteria has become something of a religion. The facts on the ground are useful to the panic party in so far as they can be used to support the idea that this plague is a curse sent from nature because of Trump. They hope the self-inflicted suffering will purge the lands of orange come November. Word now comes that they plan to cancel college football this week.
There’s no public health reason for cancelling college sports this fall or for keeping the kids of campus, which many colleges are doing. Many colleges will be on-line only this fall, meaning it will be a full year of virtual learning for their students. It was not that long ago when these very same colleges said on-line learning was terrible. Students needed personal interaction with their teachers and fellow students. Like so much that comes from the Left, that was true only while it was useful.
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There is a general assumption that the Covid stuff comes to an end with either the defeat of Trump in November or one final tantrum in January if he wins. At that point, the practical reality of life will force this charade to come to an end. That’s true, most likely, for this phase of the process. Economic necessity will force the people in charge to relent or civil unrest will force it. Unless this is really a simulation and the base code has been altered, this cannot continue much longer.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The End of the Beginning
The Roman roads diagram project is a series of maps driven by an unconventional idea: what if we represented Ancient Rome’s famed road network in the style of a modern transit map?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Project: Roman roads diagrams
Look at the cost increases in higher education, healthcare and childcare and ask yourself if the quality of those services have risen in lockstep with price increases.
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The capital and managerial expertise required to launch and grow a legal enterprise is significant, which is at least partly why a nation of self-employed farmers, shopkeepers, artisans and traders is now a nation of employees of government and large corporations.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The American Economy in Four Words: Neofeudal Extortion, Decline, Collapse
According to a press release from ANL, researchers at the lab, working with partners at Northern Illinois University, have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product, and low cost. Ethanol is a particularly desirable commodity because it is an ingredient in nearly all US gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.
This could be a game-changer. Ethanol isn’t as energy-dense as petro-fuel, but if they can get the price down low enough people will use it.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Argonne National Lab Breakthrough Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Ethanol
Today, the Washington Post’s Sunday “Outlook” section ran a piece in which Lawrence Downes, formerly of the New York Times editorial board, boasts about feeding books by Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, and other conservative authors to worms. Downes says he purchases these books on sale from his public library. He then takes them home for “quarantine.” In this way, he prevents people who might want to buy and read the books from doing so.
For extra pleasure, Downes has taken to putting the books in a compost bin along with coffee grounds, potato and carrot peels, etc., and feeding the pages to worms. He seems to believe that doing so is different in nature from burning the books. He’s right. Taking into account the pleasure Downes gets and his desire to write about the experience, it’s sicker.
