Archive for September, 2020
30th September 2020
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
30th September 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
30th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
30th September 2020
Read it.
Look for … the Union label….
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Ex-Auto Workers President Pleads Guilty to Embezzling Member Dues in Ongoing Federal Corruption Probe
30th September 2020
Read it.
Betcha they’re all Democrats.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Officials Face Felony Child Endangerment Charges After Allegedly Covering Up Lead And Asbestos Contamination
30th September 2020
Ben Shapiro.
What somebody like Ben Shapiro was doing in California in the first place passeth all understanding.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Why I’m Leaving California
30th September 2020
Read it.
The attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, threatened to sue Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday after Biden released a video suggesting Rittenhouse is a “white supremacist.”
Biden’s video accused President Donald Trump of refusing to condemn white supremacists and included footage of Rittenhouse in Kenosha. There is no public evidence that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist.
Do it. That would be entertaining.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Kyle Rittenhouse’s Lawyer Threatens Biden With Libel Lawsuit Over ‘White Supremacist’ Accusation
30th September 2020
ZMan pulls the curtain back.
Depending upon when you mark the beginning, the world is anywhere between six and eight months into the Covid panic. While some parts of the world have slowly climbed back down from the ledge, other parts of the world seem committed to another round of lock downs and public hysteria. In fact, the great and the good are telling us that the public rituals may be a permanent condition. The question, though, is why has the world gone crazy over this particular pandemic?
Strangely forgotten in all of this is the fact that every generation or so has a nasty virus get loose that results in a very bad flu season. The last one was Swine flu, which was about a decade ago. There was a worldwide outbreak of H1N1 called the Soviet flu in the 1970’s and before that the Hong Kong flu. There are localized outbreaks of even scarier things like MERS and SARS. In other words, Covid is neither unusual or particular harmful compared to the regularly occurring pandemics.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Church of Covid
30th September 2020
Read it.
A Dallas salon owner who was sent to jail for defying coronavirus lockdown orders and became a symbol of conservative angst over COVID-19 restrictions advanced to a runoff for a Texas Senate seat on Tuesday night.
Republican Shelley Luther finished in a virtual dead heat with four-term Republican state Rep. Drew Springer as both advanced. Luther had 31.7% of the vote in a special election to fill a vacated seat in a heavily Republican North Texas district. Springer, a Muenster tax consultant, tallied 31.83% of the vote. Jacob Minter, the lone Democrat in the six-candidate race and an electrician heading up a quality control team for a union in Sherman, finished third with 21.06% of the vote.
An interesting wrinkle: Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick pays fine for salon owner who refused to close
The subtext is that this was a pissing contest between the Democrat political ruling class in Dallas County and a Republican business owner. Hence the Lt. Governor’s contribution.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Salon Owner Who Defied Lockdown Makes Texas Senate Runoff
30th September 2020
Read it.
Here’s Exhibit A for how shameless PBS looks in the fall campaign. On September 22, their series Frontline aired a two-hour documentary on the presidential election called “The Choice,” as they do every four years.
The quick review: Donald Trump is a vicious “killer” and bully. Joe Biden is “Obama’s trusted partner.”
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on PBS, The Propaganda for Biden Service
30th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
30th September 2020
Steve Sailer.
You might think that Isabel Wilkerson’s best-selling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents might be timely because Kamala Harris is descended both from a high-caste Brahmin mother and a Jamaican father from that island’s “middle-class brown” caste.
Harris’ father, a retired Stanford economics professor, appears to be a product of the careful breeding regimen that author Malcolm Gladwell describes in his writings about how his Jamaican mother’s ancestors kept themselves distinct from the black masses. An affluent Jamaican once told me with bemusement: “Everybody calls me black in the United States and white in Jamaica.”
…
On the other hand, it could be argued that the only real system of caste in the world is found among the Hindus of South Asia, Bali, and Silicon Valley, with their thousands of endogamous groups and endless proliferation of rules. Everybody else’s caste system is just a weak-tea metaphor for the Indian straight stuff.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Caste Aspersions
30th September 2020
Read it.
We seem to be approaching the bottom of the biggest political scandal in American history thanks to the declassification of information that was somehow kept under wraps over the past four years. This information wasn’t leaked to the Times or the Post or any of the Democrats’ other co-conspirators in the mainstream media.
In the latest information to emerge from our fabled intelligence community, DNI Ratcliffe advises that Hillary Clinton appears to have hatched at least one prong of the Russia hoax against then candidate Donald Trump in July 2016 — “the IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation” — and former CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials on it. Intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to former FBI Director James Comey the following September.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Russia Hoax News
30th September 2020
Read it.
Mice always get the best stuff first.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Nanoparticles With Self-Replicating RNA Stop Cancer in Mice
29th September 2020
Read it.
I’m surprised it wasn’t the other way around — because I’ve had that impulse.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Police: News Anchor Bashes Acquaintance With Bottle Over Politics
29th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
29th September 2020
The story behind Amy Coney Barrett’s little-known Christian group People of Praise (Washington Post) As seen through the eyes of Margaret Atwood.
Democrats aren’t anti-Catholic bigots for questioning Amy Coney Barrett (The Guardian) They are the way they’re doing it.
Harlow shuts down WH official: Stop attacking the press or this interview will end (CNN) Funny how no news organization ever threatened to shut down an interview for someone attacking Trump. (Bias? What bias?)
‘Classic Authoritarian’: How Historians Rate Trump’s Danger to Democracy (New York Magazine) Except, of course, for the fact that if Trump were who they say he is, they’d all be in jail.
Rich Guys Cuomo, Lemon Claim Trump Loans Endanger All Americans
Bernstein: NY Times Tax Report A ‘Smoking Gun of a Pervasively Criminal Presidency’ Except for the ‘criminal’ part, of which there was none.
California Teacher Threatens To Kick Student Out Of Virtual Class Over Pro-Trump Flag
Schumer Refuses To Meet With Amy Coney Barrett Don’t confuse him with facts, his mind is made up.
Scarborough: If Trump Loses, He Might Commit Treason to Pay Off His Business Debts The way Bill & Hillary did?
CBS Brings on Anita Hill to Talk Blocking Barrett, Endorsing Biden
Stephen King Drops More Hate on Trump Supporters
New York Times: Even Third World Feels Sorry for America Under Thuggish Trump
CNN Pre-Debate Poll Shows Biden Clearly Won Debate Babylon Bee.
‘Foremost Propagator Of Disinformation’: Joe Biden Campaign Hits Facebook For Not Removing Donald Trump’s Mail-In Voting Posts
‘Illegitimate Power Grab’: Elizabeth Warren Says She Won’t Meet With Amy Coney Barrett I’m guessing she didn’t teach Constitutional Law.
Ahead of Debate, CNN Warns of Trump ‘Stunts,’ ‘Neo-Civil War’
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome, With a Side of ACB
29th September 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
29th September 2020
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
29th September 2020
Read it.
President Donald Trump has received a third nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, this time from a quartet of Australian law professors who lauded his reduction of American overseas military involvement, brokering Middle East peace agreements, and increasing energy independence to lessen the need for military intervention.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Trump Gets Third Nobel Peace Prize Nomination
29th September 2020
Check it out.
You can’t be a Really Engaged Voter without a Babylon Bee Debate Bingo Card.
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Follow Tonight’s Debate With the Babylon Bee’s Handy Bingo Cards
29th September 2020
Read it.
Proglodytes have no sense of humor and so don’t recognize humor when they see it.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on HOW DUMB ARE WE? USA Today ‘Fact Checks’ Babylon Bee on ‘Court Overturns’ RBG’s Death
29th September 2020
Read it.
“Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data” about COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Robert Redfield told a colleague Friday, according to a Monday report by NBC News political reporter Monica Alba.
Within hours, numerous outlets ideologically allied with NBC amplified the coverage. Here are some screenshots of the Google News results for the story just a short while later, but is Redfield’s assertion correct? The Federalist spoke to numerous epidemiologists to find out.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Media Gunning for Scott Atlas Because He Keeps Exposing Coronavirus Lies
29th September 2020
Read it.
Contribute if you can.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Fundraiser For Kyle Rittenhouse Hits Half a Million Dollars
29th September 2020
Read it.
Perhaps this is the start of a trend.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Kenosha County Sheriff Endorses Trump, Says There Is ‘A Huge Difference’ Between President And Biden
29th September 2020
Read it.
Facebook and Instagram apparently would prefer that users not look at photos of big game hunting. But even more than that, Facebook will not allow specific links to the hunting website The Hunting Consortium to be shared on its platform or through Facebook Messenger.
The Hunting Consortium, an international hunting agency, has been suffering from online censorship at the hands of Facebook. “The Hunting Consortium, (@huntingconsortium) has recently fallen victim to the censorship issue that has been plaguing the hunting community for some time now,” stated Vice President of the Hunting Consortium Rob Kern. “In July, we experienced a censorship issue greater than anything we, or any of the experts we have talked to, have encountered.”
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Facebook, Instagram Try to Purge Hunting Consortium from Platform
29th September 2020
ZMan points out some inconvenient truth.
“Familiarity breeds contempt” is an old expression that like many others, remains true even though it is widely ignored. Proof of this is all round us, as Americans know more about one another than at any time in history. The more we know, the less we like about one another. The reason for this is we have never been one people or anything close to a nation. For most of our history, we have barely been a country. Now we get to see this reality every day on our media platforms.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Peaceful Separation
29th September 2020
Victor Davis Hanson.
There was once a tradition of Democratic liberalism. But that wing of the Democratic Party no longer exists and died sometime in the 1990s. Old-style liberalism has been absorbed by Progressivism at best and unapologetic socialism at worst—in a journey on the supposedly predetermined arc of history that bends toward 1984.
The new-old leftist aim is not to operate within either the existing parameters of the Constitution as written or the customs and traditions of America—a 150-year-long nine-justice Supreme Court, the Electoral College, a 50-state nation, a Senate filibuster, two senators per state, and a secure border. All are obstructions to the drive for power.
Given its redistributionist creed, socialism cannot afford to be patent and honest. If socialism were transparent, it never would gain majority support. Joe Biden cannot talk about the Electoral College or court packing, unequivocally condemn the violence in our urban centers, discuss the Green New Deal, name his likely Supreme Court appointments, be honest about his plans for fracking, or explain his views on the borders, because he is now owned lock, stock and barrel by the hard Left whose agendas were rejected even in his own Democratic primaries.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Progressive Medusa
29th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
29th September 2020
Read it.
If we were in a normal situation, and the disease hadn’t been politicized, we could rely on recorded statistics to tell us whether or not COVID-19 should be classified as a pandemic. Unfortunately, this is not a normal situation. Statistics on the infection have been gamed and manipulated to inflate both incidence and fatality rates. I have no confidence in any of the aggregate statistics put out by state and federal governments.
Therefore I am forced to focus on anecdotal evidence and utilize common sense. For the past three or four months, during my very limited social interactions (mostly involving family and close friends), I’ve made it my habit to quiz people about their personal experience with the coronavirus: Do you know anyone who has contracted COVID-19? If so, did any of them die of it?
For myself, I don’t even know anyone who has tested positive for the disease, much less died of it. And the overwhelming majority of the people I asked don’t know anyone who has had it. Out of all the people I have asked, only one person knows someone (a very elderly person) who died of the WuFlu.
If this were a real pandemic, we would all know multiple victims of it. Every family would have seen at least one fatality from it. Every person would be able to give a lengthy roster of friends and relatives who had contracted it, some of whom would have died.
Posted in Think about it. | 3 Comments »
29th September 2020
John Hinderaker at PowerLine.
Steve beat me to this, I see, but here are a few additional comments on the New York Times’s felony du jour. Well, to be fair, they just aided and abetted the felony. Maybe someday that will be illegal.
First, I doubt whether anyone cares. Donald Trump has been president for four years, and if you think he has done a good job (as I do), you are hardly going to be deterred from voting for him by the fact that he hires good accountants. The people who are excited about the Times felony/scoop weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
Second, on its face the Times “expose” falls flat. I understand that someone at the IRS feloniously leaked Trump’s tax returns for more than 20 years, and it is true, as Trump has said, that he has been subject to one or more audits also extending over a period of years. So apparently the IRS has been unable to find anything wrong with Trump’s tax returns. Case closed.
Third, this retired tax accountant supplies a knowledgeable perspective, as opposed to anything you might read in the co-conspirator Times. [Quotes Larry Correia]
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on More on Trump’s Taxes
29th September 2020
Read it.
At least according to a magazine called Behavioral Scientist. (This is an interpretation of ‘scientist’ with which I am unfamiliar.)
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on How Focusing on Individual Achievement Favors the Upper Class
28th September 2020
Larry Correia.
I posted that last night on Facebook, and sure enough, this morning my feed is filled with people who don’t know shit about taxes retweeting the stupid opinions of other morons who also don’t know shit about taxes. This is just as annoying as last week when these same idiots all suddenly became Constitutional Scholars. Or the month before that when they were all experts on use of force laws and police tactics. Or the month before that when they suddenly got their epidemiology degrees from the University of Internet and turned into infectious disease experts.
Holy shit, you Dunning-Krugerands are annoying. Of course the comments are all about the “morality” of paying your “fair share”. Which isn’t how any of this works in real life. Just stop it with your vapid hot takes already. You clearly have a child-like grasp of a complex topic, and your words are making America dumber.
As a former accountant, please allow me to explain why all of today’s newly formed tax experts are fucking morons, and we should metaphorically put a brick in a sock and beat them over the head with it until they shut up.
I love the term ‘wokesplaining’ and will be using it henceforth.
I highly recommend Larry’s ‘Saga of the Forgotten Warrior’ series.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on No, You Idiots. That’s Not How Taxes Work. – An Accountant’s Guide to Why You Are a Gullible Moron
28th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
28th September 2020
Colorado Encourages Dead People, Non-Citizens To Vote
NYC principals union votes ‘no confidence’ in de Blasio, Carranza
The Florida patrol attempting to enforce a mask mandate The Guardian.
Project Veritas uncovers ‘ballot harvesting fraud’ in Minnesota
Systemic Voter Fraud In Minnesota?
UK: Coronavirus latest news: Police ‘struggling’ as £10,000 self-isolation fines come into force
Seattle Rioters Allegedly Bust Windows, Light Fires, Hurl Objects At Officers Near Former CHOP Location, Police Say
Another Horrific Chicago Weekend: 5-Year Old Girl Stabbed, 49 People Shot
Pushback: Firefighter’s Union Sues New Jersey Over Handling Of COVID-19
Ted Cruz Triggers Joy Behar by Bringing Up Cuomo’s Disastrous Nursing Home Policy
Portland Rioters Hurl Firecrackers, Rocks at Officers, Weapons Recovered as Unrest Continues, Police Say
Around 1,400 Virginia Voters Received Two Absentee Ballots In Mail, Officials Blame Printer Problems
Calif. Teacher Threatened to Kick Student Out of Zoom Class Over Trump Flag
Rotten apple: New Yorkers are fleeing to the suburbs
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
28th September 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome, With a Side of ACB
28th September 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
28th September 2020
Read it.
Simon Leys was perhaps the pre-eminent Western chronicler of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and it is worth returning to his work for its vivid first-hand accounts of life in Beijing during this period. But Leys was also interested in the process by which, under the right conditions and with the right ideology, a society can collapse into insanity and murder. His description of the Cultural Revolution showed how political hysteria and the legitimization of violence and hatred combined to ravage a nation.
These developments, however, are by no means unique to communism in general or China in particular, and Leys explored similar themes in his retelling of the harrowing true story of a ship wrecked off the coast of Australia in 1629. His book on the topic, The Wreck of the Batavia, is a short masterpiece about how the small society that the ship’s survivors tried to construct in the wake of the disaster was plunged into apocalyptic madness and murder by a psychopathic leader operating according to his own deranged totalitarian ideology. The parallels to Maoism—although Leys was too elegant a writer to belabour them—are obvious.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Analyst of Totalitarianism—Reading Simon Leys Today
28th September 2020
Read it.
A conservative lawmaker took his frustration over Ohio’s coronavirus public health orders to a new level Monday by demanding that criminal charges be filed against fellow Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
Rep. John Becker, a Republican from Cincinnati, says DeWine has exceeded his authority under state law and the Ohio and U.S. constitutions in issuing orders restricting Ohioans movements and activities. He made his demand in Clermont Municipal Court under a provision of state law allowing private citizen affidavits.
A reviewing prosecutor dismissed the request for charges almost immediately, and a DeWine spokesman called the move “absurd.”
Becker filed to have the prosecutor charge DeWine with 10 different crimes, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, complicity, terrorism, inducing panic and interfering with civil rights.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Lawmaker Demands Charges Against Governor Over Virus Orders
28th September 2020
Read it.
Facebook has made multiple anti-conservative policy decisions in recent months, but reported leaks indicate the platform’s far-left employees could make the platform even worse.
“Employees want him to take a harder line against the Trump Administration. His user base wants him to do the opposite,” The Verge wrote in a September 23 piece with the headline “Mark in the Middle.” The piece discussed various leaks from the controversy-embattled company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Facebook Leaks Reveal Zuckerberg’s Struggle With Far-Left Employees
28th September 2020
Read it.
As mentioned here over the weekend, one reason among many that President Trump chose to appoint Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is that she’s already survived a Democratic attack, and one that was especially ugly in its overt anti-Catholic bigotry. Democrats with sense understand that a reprise of that attack will be a disaster for them. Over the weekend you could see various Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durban, saying that Barrett’s faith should not be an issue, but I’m betting a lot of leftists just won’t be able to help themselves.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on The Handwringing Tale
28th September 2020
Read it.
I can think of no prospect more repellant than an exposed Brian Stelter.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Hugh Hewitt Exposes Brian Stelter on Collusion, the Steele Dossier, and ‘Irrelevant’ Avenatti
28th September 2020
The Other McCain keeps track of this stuff because the DemLegHump Media won’t.
A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas.
One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard.
The problem with modern-day Criminals of Color is that they can’t resist telling the world about their guilt.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Ilhan Omar Implicated in Election Fraud
28th September 2020
Severian blows the whistle.
It should be clear to even the dullest social observer that human software has well and truly outstripped our hardware. We’re not built for the world we’ve built. This has been happening for a long time, of course, but it has really taken off recently. Note how hard it is not to watch tv, for instance. Even if you don’t have one in your home, go to a bar, an airport, hell, go to the grocery store — there are blinking screens everywhere, and it takes serious effort not to watch them. Our hardware interprets bright flashing things as a threat — can’t be helped. If you’ve been away from civilization for a few days, like I was recently, you’ll experience fatigue, even nausea when you first come back into town. The low-level-but-constant effort it takes to override your hardware when surrounded by blinking screens wears you out.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Recent Evolution
28th September 2020
ZMan takes a gander.
A popular theme in science fiction is one where the human explorers stumble upon alien technology and they are baffled as to what it does. It’s not that they know the purpose but cannot figure out how to make it work. It’s that they don’t understand the purpose of the technology. The implication is that the aliens were so advanced that they were creating tools to solve problems humans have yet to contemplate. The gap between the aliens and humans is so great that it cannot be bridged.
It is a useful thing to keep in mind when thinking about the modern world. The evidence is pretty good that Western man is dumber than his ancestors. We have more overall knowledge than our ancestors, but our ability to add to it is in sharp decline along with our ability to use it. The people in charge now struggle to do the basics of government, like maintain order and the infrastructure. In America, streets are crumbling and there are regular power failures in parts of the country.
Preventing riots and looting is the essence of government. Any government that cannot do that is ipso facto incompetent. Yet the sheep on the Left Coast will continue to vote for them, until the place falls into the sea.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Great Stagger
28th September 2020
No one would live as a knight and role-play as a marketing consultant.
— Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug)
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Quotation of the Day
28th September 2020
Not to mention the free long-distance phone calls.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
28th September 2020
Audacious Epigone deals with some inconvenient truth.
If Trump were a tyrannical dictator, nobody would be able to get away with calling him one. If so-called white privilege was beneficial, non-whites would be trying to pass as white to cash in on that privilege. Instead they run from the liability, pretending to be non-white because of how lucrative it is. Hell, if it were okay to be white it would be okay to say it’s okay to be white, but it’s not okay to be white so it’s not okay to say it’s okay to be white.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on It’s Not Okay to Say
27th September 2020
Read it.
So as we know, the left is having a collective freakout over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and they seem to be in competition to see who can disgrace themselves the most, with the Barrett-Is-a-Racist-Because-She-Adopted-Black-Kids caucus off to a strong early lead.
And the left is extra mad at Harvard’s Noah Feldman, otherwise a liberal, for publicly praising Barrett. For this sin, Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber called Feldman a “worthless shitty white man” on Twitter. Then the fun really began….
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Why Are Liberals Such Whiny Wusses?
27th September 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria