Steve Sailer.

Homicide statistics in St. Louis, next door to Ferguson, MO, were perhaps the first fairly big city to reflect the Ferguson Effect of rising homicide numbers in the First BLM Era. If you stare closely at this graph of homicides in the city of St. Louis, you can that homicides were notably more frequent from late 2014 through spring of 2020 than in the half decade before BLM debuted at Ferguson (August 2014).

But in St. Louis, the Ferguson Effect is dwarfed by the Floyd Effect in June (33 homicides) and July (54) of 2020.

Read it.

Are American freedom and individualism to blame for the failure to contain the coronavirus? That was one premise of the lead story in Friday’s New York Times by David Leonhardt: “U.S. Is Alone Among Peers In Failing to Contain Virus – 2 Major Causes: Individualist Tradition and Trump Administration Missteps.”

It comes as no surprise that the basic message of any New York Times article is America Sucks.

It also ought to come as no surprise that the cultural Marxists that man (excuse me, person) the Gray Lady are committed to the platform Individualism Bad, Collectivism Good (although how that squares with the dystopia patent on the daily news in the world’s biggest collective society, Red China).

Read it.

President Trump says he will sign an Executive Order to ease the suffering of those harmed by the pandemic-related shutdowns and to stimulate the economy. Congress has failed to agree on a new package to accomplish these things.

Trump’s Executive Order would include these four components: (1) a payroll tax holiday until the end of the year, (2) an extension of enhanced unemployment benefits until the end of the year, (3) an extension of the eviction moratorium for federal subsidized housing, and (4) a suspension of student loan payments until further notice.

Questions surround the legality of accomplishing at least some of these things via executive order. Trump’s response to that might be, “so sue me.”

Which they won’t dare do, because it would make them look like insensitive assholes.

I’m curious as to how the vast throng of people who look at Trump and see an aging teenager, impulsive and ignorant and bigoted who can barely make it out of bed in the morning, explain this brilliant political move, worthy of Bill Clinton at his prime. I expect that the popping sound you hear in the distance is heads exploding in D.C.

Read it.

President Trump conducted an impromptu press conference yesterday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Those at the club were invited to watch the president meet the press. The American Thinker’s Andrea Widburg notes that one of the reporters opened, not with a question, but with an accusation: “You said that the pandemic is disappearing, but we lost 6,000 Americans this week, and just in this room, you have dozens of people that are not following guidelines in New Jersey, which say we should not have more than 25 people….”

Without cracking a smile, Trump put his preparation on display (video below). Andrea explicates Trump’s response with reference to Alinsky’s rules 4 (“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules”), 5 (“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon”), and 6 (“A good tactic is one your people enjoy”).

You know that somebody is trans if ‘he’ watches the Three Stooges and doesn’t laugh.

Read it.

That would do it for me.

No word as to whether she now has to sleep during the daytime.

I’m curious as to whether the bat looked like Maxine Waters. A lot of bats do.

You keep using that word….

Read it.

The problem is simple but vicious circular logic. In the 2006 case sanity was able to reassert itself because there was a much slower test which was considered reliable. It defined what we call the ground truth: the final arbiter of reality. PCR tests could be cross-checked against the ground truth after enough time had passed, allowing the big reveal that the error rate on the PCR was 100%.

But with COVID-19 there is no other test. And it’s a “new” virus, whose exact effects are unknown, so it was decided that the obvious choice of using symptoms as the ground truth would be taking too much risk.

In this situation something new and very nasty has happened. The PCR test has itself become the ground truth. Despite having had an error rate of 100% in the past, it now by definition has an error rate of zero.

Read it.

Ohhh, never thought of this hypothesis: that the act of getting drunk together might be a social technology that helps us verify the trustworthiness of others by inhibiting their higher cognitive functions and thus making it harder to consciously fake things. That would make sense.

I like it. It has texture, and scope.

To enhance our natural thin-slicing abilities, humans have therefore also developed various cultural practices that make these instant assessments more reliable. These techniques take advantage of the fact that deception is fundamentally a cold-cognition act and relies on cognitive control centers. This means that if we can impair the cognitive control abilities of people we’re trying to judge, we’ll do a better job of sussing them out: they will be less able to confuse our cheater-detection systems.

And it puts those of us who don’t drink in the driver’s seat. I like that a lot.

Steve Sailer.

The NYT won’t call them Antifa yet in the hopes that readers assume these are the terrifying white supremacist wreckers they’ve heard so much about and thus not be offended by this article by not getting the point.

Read it.

A top U.S. intelligence official put out a report today that U.S. adversaries China, Iran, and Russia were trying to influence the 2020 presidential election. Published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it found both China and Iran want Joe Biden to win the election, while Russia prefers Trump. Can you guess which election meddling bothered the three evening news broadcasts the most?

Read it.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic planning documents state non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing are ineffective once a disease infects 1% of a region’s population. Literature on this subject is unanimous worldwide.

…

Nature always finds a way. No respiratory virus ever needed a “lockdown” to dissipate. What it needs is herd immunity, preferably sooner than later, preferably developed by the young and healthy to minimize mortality. Politicians know the disease will eventually leave, yet they strive to convince a critical mass that their actions — modern-day versions of the rain dance — brought about that result. They count on us behaving like renowned psychologist B.F. Skinner’s superstitious pigeons.

Georgia teens shared photos of maskless students in crowded hallways. Now they’re suspended.

De Blasio suggests Cuomo is wrong to ask New York City’s wealthy to return, says residents shouldn’t buy cars

Supermodel Bella Hadid Throws Up The Middle Finger To New York Cops Not Wearing Face Masks

Economics Professor Says University Blocked His Anti-Marxism Class From Being Available To All Business Students

NRA Announces Lawsuit Against New York Attorney General  Saw that comin’.

Trump Suggests NRA Relocate To Texas After New York AG Files Lawsuit Against Them  Works for me.

Dozens Of Minneapolis Businesses Consider Leaving, Cite Possibility Of Police Being Dismantled

Iowa Teachers Write Their Own Obituaries After Governor Pushes Schools To Hold In-Person Classes

Forty-Five Businesses Mull Leaving Downtown Minneapolis Over COVID, Police Dismantling

People Renouncing US Citizenship Jumps by 1,210 Percent

Protesters Who Caused Thousands In Damage In Utah Could Face Up To Life In Prison For Gang Affiliation Charges

Portland Protesters Cause Mayhem Again, Police Officer Hurt

Portland Mayor Turns On Protesters, Accuses Them Of ‘Attempting To Commit Murder’

Portland Police: Protesters Disguised Themselves As ‘Press,’ Harassed Officers  I’m sure I couldn’t tell the difference.

WNBA Players Start Full-blown Campaign For Democrat Senate Candidate

‘You Want To Buy Crack?’: NYC Homeless Staying In Luxury Hotels Urinating In Public, Harassing Residents

How climate change affects allergies, immune response and autism

New Series “Idiots guide to Climate Change” aims to Educate

‘Climate Scientist Explains …’

Canada’s Last Intact Ice Shelf Collapses Due to Warming

Trump advisers hesitated to give military options and warned adversaries over fears he might start a war  CNN.

Trump advisers were wary of talking military options over fears he’d accidentally start war: report | TheHill

It has suddenly dawned on Senate Republicans: They’re doomed  Washington Post.

Lefty Journalists on MSNBC Mock Trump ‘Scaring White People’ by Calling BLM Marxist ‘Anarchists’

ACLU Has Filed 400 Lawsuits Against Trump Administration

3 Teens Arrested After Scaling Mar-a-Lago Wall With AK-47

Complicit Morning Joe Covers Up Clinton’s Epstein Connection, Tries to Smear Trump  As they always do.

CNN Urges Dems Unite Around ‘Very Moderate’ Biden Against ‘Existential Threat’ Trump

Hayes Imagines Trump Conspiracy to Prop Up Kanye West’s 2020 Bid

MSNBC Touts Ex-Trump Voter Who Wants Trump ‘Nightmare’ Over

ABC/NBC More Outraged Trump ‘Pounced’ on Biden’s Racist Comments

Ted Wheeler Warns Protesters They Might Re-Elect Trump If They Keep Trying To Murder Cops

Read it.

Brent Scowcroft is the perfect East Coast Establishment name

Well, except maybe Strobe Talbot….

And maybe Stensfield Turner….

But it’s certainly up there.

Read it.

Guess there’s a limit to how ‘woke’ women are prepared to be.

Read it.

Heh.

Read it.

The tunnel intended for smuggling ran from San Luis, Arizona, to a Mexican neighborhood and had a ventilation system, water lines, electrical wiring, a rail system and extensive reinforcement, federal officials said Thursday.

“This appears to be the most sophisticated tunnel in U.S. history, and certainly the most sophisticated I’ve seen in my career,” said Carl E. Landrum, acting chief patrol agent with the Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector.

Homeland Security Investigations found the tunnel in late July. A camera was sent 25 feet (7.6 meters) underground after federal agents discovered a sinkhole in the area of a tunnel investigation, authorities said.

Read it.

Fifty years after the Public Broadcasting Service launched, we’re still seeing our taxpayer subsidies transformed into Democratic donations in election years. On August 4, the PBS NewsHour hatched a love-in with Jill Biden.

Read it.

For the last week, I’ve been lobbying for our local private schools, which have been closed until at least October 1st by the executives in Montgomery County, Maryland. You may have heard about the controversy, which could become a battleground for private school parents across the country.

Last month, the public schools announced that they would not be opening for in-person instruction until at least January. In part as a result of that announcement, their projected enrollments saw a significant drop-off. Local media reported, “MCPS was expecting over 2,500 new students by the end of August. As of July 1, only about 300 K-12 new students had been enrolled.” There’s no word about how many kids who were enrolled have been pulled out, but it’s likely as significant as the lowered projected enrollment numbers. Schools are funded by the number of bodies enrolled, and this exodus is an existential threat to the stability of the public school model.

If private schools opened and offered a refuge for these parents, the public school system would suffer a crushing blackeye, not to mention guarantee their numbers (and cashflow) wouldn’t bounce back whenever schools do reopen. And so, what did the county do? They kneecapped the private schools, declaring that they would not be allowed to reopen until the day after public schools would receive money for an enrolled student. The county hopes that if a family are forced into choosing between online-only options, they’ll choose the school without tuition.

Culture-Enrichers Fight With Knives in Lugano

India police patrol ahead of construction of temple on bitterly contested site

Muslims perform Eid prayers with social distancing, masks

Hamas Prioritizing Naval Attack Force Build-Up

Haj pilgrims keep distance at usually crowded stone the devil ritual

Irish Muslims perform Eid prayers on symbolic Croke Park pitch

Barr Willing to Drop Death Penalty to Prosecute ISIS ‘Beatles’ for Beheading Americans

Syrian Army Uncovers Organ Trading Hub Of Turkish-Backed Militants In Southern Idlib

German Muslims Discuss Islam’s Final Solution

Artifact Looters on Facebook Helped Fund ISIS

A Kuffar-Pusher Strikes at the Station in Waghäusel

Mass jailbreak in Afghanistan as IS fighters battle Afghan forces

One person is dying of COVID-19 every seven minutes in Iran: state TV.

Pakistan says mediation between Saudi and Iran going slowly

Israel hits squad that placed explosives along Syria frontier, army says

Video: Five Things You Should Know About Osama Abuirshaid

MSNBC Gives Daily Show To Former Al Jazeera Host Who Attacked ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle As ‘Racist’

US Confirms American Company Has Signed Deal With ‘Rebels’ To Take Syria’s Oil

Israel strikes Syrian targets in response to attempted terrorism

The U.S. Is ‘Reconsidering’ the Death Penalty for ISIS Terrorists

Beirut “Like A War Zone”: Terrifying Blast Shockwave Rips Through City

300 ISIS Terrorists At Large: Mass Prison Break In Afghanistan After Hours-Long Firefight

At least 30 injured in grenade attack in Pakistan at Kashmir rally

Culture-Enriching Rape in Monte Stella Park

Victor Davis Hanson.

We know where to watch in the next few weeks but have no real idea what we will be watching. Yet pundits, the media, and the Left seem giddy that their polls show a Trump slump, as if they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from 2016. But in truth, the news cycle over the next three months may well favor Trump — a scenario his opponents no doubt deem preposterous in these dog days of August.

Read it.

Our efforts to understand the epidemic in one state are clouded by the efforts of the authorities to sustain one-man rule and the panic on which it is based. They are also clouded by the faithful alliance of the press with the authorities.

Over the past two days in Minnesota the authorities have attributed four (8/4) and 9 (8/5) new deaths to COVID-19. Seventy-six percent of all deaths attributed to the epidemic have occurred among residents of long-term care facilities. Hospitalizations continue at a level that would be indetectable under sane conditions.

Read it.

Chinese fishing vessels come every year to the seas around the Galápagos, which were declared a Unesco world heritage site in 1978, but this year’s fleet is one of the largest seen in recent years. Of the 248 vessels, 243 are flagged to China including to companies with suspected records of illegal, unreported and unregulated, or IUU, fishing, according to research by C4ADS, a data analysis NGO.

The fleet includes fishing boats and refrigerated container – or reefer – ships to store enormous catches.

Transferring cargo between vessels is prohibited under international maritime law yet the Chinese flotilla has supply and storage ships along with longline and squid fishing boats.

“There are some fleets which don’t seem to abide by any regulations,” said Wray.

Read it.

I suppose any excuse will do.

‘I’ll Buy You A Drink’: Gov. Andrew Cuomo Begs Rich New Yorkers To Return Amid Budget Shortfall  And make you wear a mask. Oh, and tax your ass off. Enjoy your drink.

LA Mayor Authorizes City To Shut Off Utilities Of Houses And Businesses That Hold Gatherings

“Science Made Stupid” – Carbon Dioxide & Bird Nest Edition“Science Made Stupid” – Carbon Dioxide & Bird Nest Edition

Why “Green” Energy Is Impossible

Trump news – live: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube remove president’s false coronavirus posts as he again claims pandemic will ‘just go away’  The Independent (British tabloid). Which it will.

Facebook Censors President Trump on Virus ‘Disinformation’

Nets Suppress Yates Testimony: Comey Went ‘Rogue’ in Flynn Case

Michelle Obama Says She Has ‘low-grade Depression’ — Blames Trump, by Steve Sailer  My foot itches. I blame Trump.

‘Unmasked’ Beverly Hills Mansion Party Turns Tragic

3 shot, 1 fatally, during large party at Los Angeles mansion

ABC/NBC Cover-Up Biden Asking Black Journo ‘Are You a Junkie?,’ CBS Edits Vid

President Trump Denies Involvement With Kanye West’s Campaign

Guess Who Wants Cops Around? Blacks

NBA team owners pledge $300 million over 10 years to Black empowerment  And why not? That’s their recruiting pool.

More Evidence of the Racism of Leftists

MSNBC’s Joy Reid Organizes Smear Segment: Reaganism Equals Racism

Riotous BLM Protesters Suddenly Realize They’re All White People  Babylon Bee.

Joe Biden Launches New National Ad Aimed at Black Americans  Settle for Joe!

So posting will be sparse.

Read it.

You want paranoid/ We got yer paranoid, right here.

On the other hand, not making any preparations gives your heirs a challenge, like a Liam Neeson movie.

Read it.

On Wednesday, New York Times White House correspondent and MSNBC contributor Annie Karni sounded the alarm, expressing dismay about the state of press freedoms because….The Daily Signal served as the pool outlet for Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Tampa?

And that’s not a typo. Karni actually wrote a 705-word meltdown about how Daily Signal executive editor, Heritage Foundation VP of communications, and CNS News alum Rob Bluey flew on Air Force Two.

But wait, there’s more! Karni admitted that Bluey’s reports contained “nothing openly partisan,” he only went because no one else had taken the spot, and it “was not the first time someone representing Daily Signal served as a pool reporter” for the President or Vice President.

Not surprisingly, liberal journalists threw fits when Bluey’s colleague Fred Lucas (another CNS News alum) filled in.

In a warming world, New England’s trees are storing more carbon

Investors launch climate plan to get to net zero emissions by 2050

Why Progressive Activists Want to Silence the Truth About Climate Change

White BLM mob comes calling on home of Seattle’s black police chief  You can’t make this shit up.

‘Black-owned’: Google Unveils Program to Identify Business Owners by Race

REPORT: Family Eating Ice Cream Threatened With Racist Comments Over Not Wearing Face Masks By Man Carrying A Sword

UNT Faculty Targeted For Saying Music Theory Isn’t White Supremacist  Apparently somebody didn’t get the memo.

HBO’s John Oliver Pummels America’s ‘White Supremacist’ History

The Newest Demon In The Left’s Sights: Woke White Women

LA Prosecutor’s Husband Charged With Pointing Gun at BLM Protesters

Silicon Valley didn’t inherit discrimination, but replicated it anyway

“This Is Huge” – Formerly Homeless BLM Activist Defeats Democratic Incumbent In Missouri Primary

Condoleezza Rice Warns The ‘Problem Of The Left’ Is Assuming How Black People Should Think

‘Black Lives Matter’: WNBA Players Support Democrat Running Against Kelly Loeffler

The UK is dropping an immigration algorithm that critics say is racist

Biden Asks Black CBS Host: Are You a Cocaine ‘Junkie’?  I guess he wanted a sniff.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Punishes Doctor Who Questioned Affirmative Action

Coronavirus Rules Don’t Apply to Sharpton’s 100,000 Racists March

Overwhelming Majority Of Black Americans Support Current Or Increased Police Presence, Survey Shows

The Smollett Family Is Back!, by Steve Sailer

Sen. Peters: Trump Administration Taking Steps to Slow Down Mail

If one reporter can demolish Trump, where are the rest?  Washington Post.

Donald Trump mispronounces ‘Yosemite’ at White House event  IMPEACHMENT!

Let It Go: Russia-Obsessed CNN Still Passing Off Debunked Nonsense About Trump

Sally Yates: ‘No Such Thing’ as Anti-Trump Politics in Obama’s Flynn Inquiry  If not, that would be a first.

Mitchell: Ought to Be ‘Law Against’ Trump Accepting GOP Nod at White House

A Woman Reportedly Stabbed A Protester In Portland After An Argument

U.S. prosecutors do not charge Portland protesters with antifa ties  Which means they’ll keep doing it.

Ohio Governor to Mandate All K-12 Students Wear Masks  Perhaps that will shut them up.

‘They Can F*cking Get Over It’: Providence Councilwoman Confronts Police When Friend’s Bar Gets Noise Complaint  Only the little people have to obey the law.

Here Are All The Weapons Rioters Have Used Most Against Cops

Shock: NBC Admits New York’s Mail-In Ballot System Is a ‘Fiasco’

‘No apparent social distancing’: NYC river cruise stopped, arrests made over illegal party

New York City — the new liberal utopia

Woman Throws Coffee In Man’s Face For Not Wearing A Mask, Gets Boyfriend’s Ass Beat

Cuomo Urges Wealthy New Yorkers to Come Back to City  And why would they?

Union at NY Times Demands ‘Sensitivity Reads’ to Censor Content

Federal Prosecutors Say Alleged Gang Member Went Right Back To Committing Gun Crimes After He Was Released Without Bail

NYC’s Upper East Side Logs 286 Percent Increase in Robberies  Gee, I wonder why?

Read it.

It’s good to see a little pushback goin’ down.

Read it.

I guess the criminal element is tired of preying on its own and going where the money is.

The police situation being what it is, I’m surprised it took them this long to figure that out.

Read it.

This is why people don’t believe the ‘news’.

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there was such a thing as competitive lockpicking.

Read it.

CNN’s Media Unit emails out a nightly newsletter titled “Reliable Sources.” It’s not always reliable, since they have a slippery grasp on what their own network is actually putting on television and online.

On August 3, Oliver Darcy led this newsletter with what he described as an “imaginary controversy” – the notion that Joe Biden might skip the presidential debates. Darcy was quoting Biden press secretary T.J. Ducklo’s spin: “Donald Trump and his allies at Fox News have decided an imaginary controversy about debates will be their latest attempt to distract Americans.” Under the header “Where it originated from,” Darcy added “Yes, there have been some NYT opinion pieces and brief chatter about why Biden should skip the debates. Personally, I’ve never taken the suggestions too seriously.”

On Twitter, Darcy’s colleague Brian Stelter agreed: “It is mostly a right-wing media tempest, fueled by hour after hour of Fox commentary (not reporting), far removed from campaign reality.”

Both these men seemed supremely oblivious to the fact that CNN.com published an opinion piece by CNN analyst Joe Lockhart arguing Biden should skip the debates….and CNN booked a subsequent Lockhart interview over the weekend on CNN’s Smerconish show. Michael Smerconish didn’t lecture his guest that he was in danger of fueling a right-wing media tempest.

Steve Sailer.

Read it.

Sure, why not.

How Climate Change Panic Costs us Trillions

The Dirty Secrets of “Clean” Electric Vehicles

Trump will use emergency powers to remain in White House if he loses election, says House majority whip

Trump promises to ‘Respect our Military!’ His hypocrisy is sickening.  Washington Post.

CNN Doc Claims Trump Intentionally Withholding COVID Testing

CNN Fear Over Facts: Teacher Says Trump Vote Was Her ‘Death Warrant’!  Unfortunately not.

WashPost Admits Broad Q2 Report Confusion, Insinuates Trump Commerce Dept to Blame

Atlanta Mayor: Trump a ‘Narcissist’ With Comments on John Lewis

Dems Bass and Abrams: Trump ‘Resurrecting the Census’s Horrific History’

Ben Thompson is one of the sharpest technology analysts living.

The only thing more predictable than members of Congress using hearings to make statements instead of ask questions, and when they do ask questions, usually of the “gotcha” variety, refusing to allow witnesses to answer (even as those witnesses seek to run out the clock), is people watching said hearings and griping about how worthless the whole exercise is.

There was, needless to say, all of the above last Wednesday, when the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law held a hearing featuring Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. Statements were made, gotcha questions were asked, answers were interrupted, clocks were run out, and there was a whole lot of griping about what a waste of time it all was.

To be sure, it does seem like there must be a better way to hold these hearings, particularly if the goal is to learn something new, but the reality is that genuine inquiry is much more likely to happen without the glare of the media spotlight that inevitably accompanies such a high profile hearing; what that glare will highlight is the politics of the topic in question: what do various politicians and parties actually care about, what do they think that their constituents care about, and how should those affected by said hearings respond.

In that regard last Wednesday’s hearing was a success: partisan priorities were made clear on the politician side, tech’s collective position and impact on society came into view, even as each of the companies at the hearing revealed different strengths and vulnerabilities. This article will examine all of these points, but first a caveat: this post, even more than most on Stratechery, is meant as an analysis of the politics of this hearing in particular, not a statement of values; unless I say so explicitly, I am not necessarily endorsing or condemning any particular line of argument, simply pointing it out.