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.

Victor Davis Hanson.

In his latest incarnation as president emeritus and corporate multimillionaire community activist, we are reminded of the earlier Barack Obama of “get in their face,” “take a gun to a knife fight,” and “punish our enemies” vintage. From time to time, Obama ventures from his hilltop, seaside, $12 million “you didn’t build that” Martha’s Vineyard Estate or his tony Washington, D.C. $8 million “spread the wealth” mansion to lecture the nation on all of its racist sins, past and present.

In these outings, he seeks to advise lesser folk on how we can still find redemption (make Puerto Rico a state?), given that his own eight years as president apparently proved that the United States remains hopelessly captive to the spirit of Bull Connor and that a president such as himself—starting out with complete control of the Congress—had no power to change much.

His latest weaponization of the funeral of John Lewis revealed all the Obama signature characteristics.

Read it.

The owner of a Virginia smoke shop is outraged that a juvenile who allegedly plotted to burglarize his store “is walking free.” He said Monday that his employee is on house arrest with an ankle GPS for defending himself and the store.

Read it.

CNN’s New Day aired a segment this morning that included an interview by CNN reporter Miguel Marquez with an Arizona gun shop owner wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “CNN” — except the ‘C’ had been replaced with . . . a hammer and sickle. His message was clear: the Communist News Network!

Read it.

An NPR report suggests the global response to COVID-19 may have been based on a flawed assumption about the volatility of COVID19. We already know that the model used to initially predict infection and death rates was completely flawed, and now discredited, along with the modeler Neil Ferguson of London’s Imperial College.

ZMan looks at the sound track.

This connection between language and truth is useful, if we can step out of our own partisan sensibilities, in assessing the rationality of a society. North Korea is a good example of this. The gap between official truth and actual truth is so broad in many cases, it lurches into caricature. Iran is another example. Her leaders make claims that strike most people as deliberately ridiculous. This wild language is the result of a great gap between official truth and the actual truth.

Of course, this is turning up in our own society. We live in an increasingly unreasonable age, so the claims of partisans become increasingly unreasonable. The absurdity of calling Trump a dictator, for example, could be excused as fashionable exaggeration, but the people doing it are not exaggerating. Similarly, they are deadly serious when they claim he and his supported are racist, who want to bring back slavery. Their absurd language, reflects absurd beliefs by absurd people.

Read it.

Judge Torres is, of course, a Woman of Color.

Read it.

Ballot harvesting refers to the practice of party volunteers or campaign workers collecting mail-in ballots from voters and submitting them in batches to polling places or election offices.

There have been several documented voter fraud cases involving ballot harvesting. A prominent occurrence was during North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District election in 2018. A county operative was arrested after illegally collecting hundreds of absentee ballots, many containing forged signatures. The results were also overturned by the state’s election board.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #418

Pacific Islands must stop relying on foreign aid to adapt to climate change, because the money won’t last

Two Arctic ice caps have vanished as NASA reveals shock satellite images of global warming

Study Finds That ‘Chemical Recycling’ Is All Talk and No Recycling

Phys.org: “Climate change and COVID-19: The denial playbook is the same”

“An obstacle to electoral success”: Aussie Left Feuding Over Climate Policy

Climate change-fueled heatwaves could kill millions  Could.

Magic Johnson Arrives in Split on $150 Million ‘Aquila’ Super-Yacht  It’s just astonishing the way black people are oppressed in this country.

More Shootings in NYC So Far in 2020 Than in All of 2019

BLM: Nice Little Cuban Restaurant You Have Here, be a Shame if Anything Happened to It, by Steve Sailer

Portland suffers most killings in three decades

Jonathan Isaac Jersey Sales Shoot Up After He Stands Alone During The National Anthem  Nobody dares wear them, though.

NYC Has Already Seen More Shootings This Year Than In All Of 2019

Police Made 4 Arrests For Defacing Property As DC Faced Occasional, Destructive Riots. Then They Arrested 2 Pro-Lifers For Writing ‘Black Preborn Lives Matter’

‘And You Get New Health Care!’ Oprah Launches Voting Registration For BLM-Supporting Voters

BLM Uses ‘Mafia Tactics’ To Threaten Cuban Restaurant Owner With Diversity Demands

Spanish Nets Omit BLM Extortion of Hispanic Business in Louisville

Trader Joe’s Agrees To Discontinue Racist Food Labels, Replace With New ‘Trader Don’s’ Brand  Babylon Bee.

Black Ministry of Justice employee accused of car theft while jogging

The Lincoln Project’s plan for preserving the union: Drive Trump out of office by driving him nuts  Washington Post. Hey, he did it to them first….

BAM: Billy Bush Says NBC Built Trump in Their Lab, Now ‘Despises Him Most’

Top 13: ‘Virus Is Winning,’ Time to End ‘Dictator’ Trump’s ‘Reign of Terror’

Hey, Chris Cuomo: Maybe YOU Have Hate In Your Heart? Not Trump

Trump ‘Doesn’t Plan To Have Fair And Unfettered Election … Plans To Install Himself In Some Emergency Way,’ Says Rep. Clyburn

Rasmussen Poll: Trump Approval Rating Hits 51 Percent

“Blood-Chilling” Or Just A Tweet? Debunking The Coup d’Trump  Jonathan Turley.

Willfully Covering Up Dem Lies: CNN Calls Trump ‘Pinocchio’ on ObamaCare

CNN Doesn’t Care About Facts: Ryan Claim ‘Armed Forces’ Will Force Trump to Leave Office

MSNBC FAIL: Watch Claims of Racist Trump Policy Immediately Collapse

Read it.

A drive in a European-market 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S with matrix LEDs shows just how dumb our headlights are in the U.S.

Europe good, America bad.

Read it.

How many of them are run by Democrats is left as an exercise for the reader.

Read it.

Who are you going to believe, CNN or some professor somewhere?

Read it.

Be the first on your block….

Jim Goad speaks for all right-thinking people.

I’ve always been antisocial, and from my perspective, that’s society’s fault. When you see how people operate in groups, you’d realize that being antisocial is a virtue rather than a character flaw. Being antisocial merely means being wise to how people operate in groups. And it’s never pretty. That’s why I refuse to declare myself part of any movement, because it would involve being surrounded by people.

This is why I never needed government agents or social-media scolds to tell me to keep my distance. I don’t go anywhere I’m not wanted and I avoid most of the places where I actually am wanted.

Concur.

Steve Sailer.

Must be Youthful Exuberance.

Read it.

Some months ago, I saw a shocking video: someone rode a bicycle down a sidewalk in Los Angeles, filming as he went, for something like a half hour. The entire time, he passed tent encampments or cities on both sides of the sidewalk. They seemed to go on forever and had an appearance of permanence.

Yesterday a friend sent me a similar video, on a smaller scale, which was filmed by a resident of South Minneapolis. It shows Minnehaha Park, near the famous Minnehaha Falls. The tent city that has sprung up there is replicated in many other Minneapolis parks. These encampments are the result, I believe, of an executive order by Governor Tim Walz that decreed all 38 parks within the city of Minneapolis to be open for occupancy by tent squatters. I assume this order ostensibly has something to do with the governor’s emergency powers based on the COVID epidemic, but how the two are related I can’t tell you. Basically, we are living under martial law.

‘I Have Never Been Called That’: Dr. Birx Responds To Pelosi Criticism

The Panopticon Is Already Here

Portland Recorded More Homicides In July Than Any Month Over Last 30 Years  Sure, we’ll de-fund the police and see what happens.

Greenland Ice CO2 – Chemical Reactions or Natural Variability?

British Academics: Delay is the new Climate Denial

Satellite survey shows California’s sinking coastal hotspots

A favourite lie of the environmental movement takes another blow

Four held after British GP climate action protest

Blue crabs become scourge of fishermen in Adriatic as warming sea temperatures boost their numbers

Hartford police say man decapitated landlord during rent dispute, claimed ‘sovereign’ status

How ‘good White people’ derail racial progress CNN.

NBA’s Jonathan Isaac Becomes First To Stand For National Anthem And Refuse To Wear A “Black Lives Matter” T-Shirt

College Expels Student For “Racist” Social Media Post, Then Discovers What Actually Happened

BLM Fascists Harass Restaurant Patrons [Updated]

The moment impeachment managers realized how corrupt Trump’s defense was  Washington Post. (How can a ‘defense’ be ‘corrupt’?)

Confederate Coolers and Grifters: ABC Promotes Anti-Trump Lincoln Project

Iran’s Supreme Leader: Fresh Talks With US Would Only Boost Trump Ahead Of November  And we can’t have that, now, can we? (I guess this makes Biden the Islamist candidate….)

UNHINGED: CNN Claims Trump Trying to Intentionally ‘Crash’ America

Bill Maher Gushes Over Jim Carrey’s Anti-Trump Painting ‘Wicked Witch of the West Wing’

Read it.

It may seem a stretch to compare page design with architecture, but the comparison really works, I think. Looking at the medieval page, it is not difficult to regard it as an engineered construction: a convoluted space defined by columns and corridors, with rooms inhabited by thoughts and ideas (Figure 1). Nothing encountered on the medieval page is a coincidence. Everything is there for a reason and serves a specific purpose; and so, too, is the manner in which the text was spread out over the page. Like other material features of the manuscript, page design is usually reflective of how the book would be used, but in their choices scribes also responded to the preferences – demands, even – of the individuals who would ultimately use the manuscript.

Readers, in turn, preferred their books – and the pages in them – to be formatted in certain ways because they planned to use them for performing particular tasks: to educate or be educated (teachers and students), to entertain or to be entertained (minstrels and courtiers), or to gather a body of information and consult it (scholars, preachers, physicians, lawyers). How and where words were placed on the page – their size and script, and their location – were important considerations in this process of turning the book into a tool that was up to the task. Indeed, it can be argued that a page’s design was (and is) key to a book’s success. What are some of the variables in play? And how did the choice for a certain design affect, positively and negatively, the manner in which the medieval book could be used effectively?

Page layout has ancient roots, and a considerable body of traditional knowledge. Today’s functional equivalent is web-page user interface design, and they still haven’t got it to the same degree of sophistication of those ancient scribes.