Archive for October, 2020
27th October 2020
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The vandalism follows more than a dozen other crimes targeting Catholic Churches across the country, prompting lawmakers to call on federal authorities to investigate the incidents as religiously motivated. Most recently, the New York Police Department investigated a vandalism at a Brooklyn church in October, where a Virgin Mary statue had its hand cut off and was cracked along the head, according to ABC 7. A few weeks prior, police in San Antonio investigated vandalism at a Catholic seminary where glass doors were struck and damaged, and a crucifix was desecrated.
Maybe he was a fan of the pre-Vatican II liturgy and wanted the altar turned back around the way it was for the first 1900 years of Church history. Such people exist; I have met them.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Man Reportedly Arrested After Allegedly Destroying Altar At Catholic Church
27th October 2020
ZMan does some anthropology.
A similar sort of detective work can be used in this age to try and understand the beliefs of our ruling class. At first blush, the things they say and do run counter to the normal explanations for political behavior. Often, what they say runs counter to their own interests, suggesting some unknown motivation. Of course, many of the popular fads with the great and good are best described as superstitions. They have no justification other than a primitive fear of the unknown.
The Left is turning into a collection of secular Dispensationalists. They are waiting for the Tribulation and (I suppose) expecting Obama to arise and lead them into the Millenium.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Oogily-Boogily Men
27th October 2020
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Very impressive woodwork.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on From Ancient to Modern: Modular Construction in Chinese Timber Architecture
27th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
27th October 2020
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Let’s consider some history. Prior to his arrival in the Senate, senators were generally reluctant to openly oppose judicial nominees on ideological grounds, but Schumer worked to change that. He enthusiastically supported a blockade of Bush appellate nominees and rejected President Bush’s appeal for a presumptive confirmation schedule.
Once Republicans retook the Senate, Schumer pushed for the repeated filibusters of President Bush’s nominees and, even after the “Gang of 14” deal, continued in his attempts to use this obstructionist tactic.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Senator Schumer’s Sour Grapes
26th October 2020
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
26th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
26th October 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
26th October 2020
California’s dire coronavirus prediction was wrong, hospitalizations went down instead
Curfew imposed in El Paso County in Texas as all hospitals and ICUs hit 100% capacity
The Cult Of The Brave New Normal
Chinese Authorities Scramble To Suppress Biggest COVID-19 Outbreak In Months
Watch: Furious Welshman Tears Down Sheeting Off “Non-Essential” Goods In COVID-Lockdown Protest “Welshman’? The guy is obviously black.
The non-linearity of Covid-19 response
AstraZeneca Says Its COVID-19 Vaccine Produces Robust Immune Response In Elderly Patients
“Remdesivir for COVID-19” Study accidentally proved effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine Shhhh! We aren’t allowed to talk about hydroxycholorquine!
Rockefeller Foundation Offers $1 Billion for Coronavirus Recovery
Health Expert: Mask Wearing Will Remain Mandatory Even After A COVID Vaccine Be ready for pushback on that.
Iconic Barbershop In NYC’s East Village Closes After 73 Years In Business Due To COVID
YouTube, Vimeo Remove Conservative Entrepreneur’s COVID-19 Video
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
26th October 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
26th October 2020
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“We are in a bit of a race right now,” with China and Russia on developing the technology, Mark Lewis, acting deputy undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering (and director of defense research and engineering for modernization,) told reporters on a Monday call.
One of the models the DoD has looked at in developing the new consortium is the Chinese government’s, which works closely with its universities on hypersonic weapons programs. Lewis said they have noted that “China will integrate their students working on their various projects.”
Universities in the US, Australia, the UK and Canada are eligible to work on the DoD program, said Gillian Bussey, head of the Joint Hypersonic Transition Office. But Bussey added Texas A&M has strict counterintelligence protocols in place, and the Pentagon will have strict rules for who can participate in the often classified work. The team in particular wants to ensure “we’re not training Chinese scientists that are going to go help their programs for example.”
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on DoD Kicks Off New Hypersonic Program; F-18 to Get Hypersonic Cruise Missile
26th October 2020
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And of course he’s been right so many times before.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | 1 Comment »
26th October 2020
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Michigan law enforcement officials say they cannot enforce the state’s secretary of state executive order prohibiting openly carried firearms at or near polling places on election day because they have no lawful authority to make an arrest.
“The issue with the Secretary of State issuing the ban on open carry at the polling stations is she issued an administrative order,” said Robert Stevenson, head of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. “Michigan has an open carry law that prohibits open carry in defined locations. Polling locations are not one of those.
“So, the issue for us is not that we won’t enforce the ban, it’s that there is no law that we can enforce. We have no authority to enforce the secretary’s order. This is exactly what prosecutors are advising us.”
Michigan’s Secretary of State is a Crustian female Democrat SJW and crony of Gretchen Whitmer. Apparently they don’t teach Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Michigan Police, Sheriffs Will Defy Firearms Ban at Polling Places
26th October 2020
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Once again, CNN’s New Day is covering for the network’s preferred presidential candidate, Joe Biden, for not venturing out of the comfort of his basement. One would think that with the election eight days away, that Biden would be hitting the campaign trail and talking to the voters. Instead, as co-host Alisyn Camerota noted: “President Trump is holding three rallies in the critical state of Pennsylvania today. Joe Biden is back home in Delaware, but plans to campaign in Georgia tomorrow.”
It is honestly concerning how often the Biden campaign has called a lid before 10:00 in the morning. Most people are just getting into work at this time. In order to “prepare” for the last presidential debate, Biden called a lid for the entire week leading up to it. If only everyone was able to take off so much time to prepare for a big meeting.
This is in contrast with President Trump, whose whirlwind schedule includes hosting three rallies a day across the country. CNN criticized this move with senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson noting: “the picture of it, I think, goes against not only science, but what most Americans want to see, these big rallies with people outdoors and not wearing any masks and not social distancing either.”
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Biden’s in His Basement and CNN Is Covering for Him
26th October 2020
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So U.S. maker of military equipment won’t be able to sell stuff to Communist China?
I’m good with that.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on China to Sanction US Military Contractor Companies Over Arms Sales to Taiwan
26th October 2020
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Well, let’s not just confuse people with facts that are inconsistent with the Narrative….
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Defund NPR: Man Plots to Kill Biden, NPR Omits From Story That He Was Bernie Bro With Books on Islam
26th October 2020
Kevin Williamson.
The New York Times has really outdone itself, managing to write a full news story about a mob of blackshirts attacking Jews in New York without characterizing the events in question as a mob of blackshirts attacking Jews in New York.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Adventures in Euphemism
26th October 2020
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Biden? Say rather the entire Democrat Party (who have apparently never gotten over the fact that Russia is no longer Communist — they likes them some Communists).
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Kremlin Accuses Biden of Spreading Hatred of Russia
26th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
26th October 2020
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A “real estate frenzy” has been noted in Connecticut, New Jersey, Westchester County and Long Island, as City residents seek to move to where there is more space and less danger of infection. These areas could become prime attractors of Manhattan employees who want to avoid the crowded offices, crowded transit, crowded elevators and generally overcrowded situations that naturally accompany super-high population and employment densities.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Escape From New York?
26th October 2020
Scott Johnson at PowerLine.
Watching Lesley Stahl’s interview of President Trump on 60 Minutes last night, one might get the impression that she gets her news strictly filtered and refined by CBS. She therefore doesn’t know anything beyond what can be acknowledged with the approval of CBS News.
Trump gave her 37:40 of his time for the interview last week. In the event, that was about 37 minutes too much.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on “This is 60 Minutes”
26th October 2020
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It has been long known and increasingly suspect that American colleges and universities accept vast sums from foreign donors, and then, some argue, merrily do their governments’ bidding. Before you say, “There ought to be a law!,” the US Department of Education has reminded us that there is a law. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 explicitly requires American institutions of higher education to declare foreign gifts or contracts exceeding a total of $250,000 per year. In Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s words, “transparency in foreign funding of higher education is not just something I think is a good thing; it’s the law. For too long, enforcement of that law was lax, but not anymore.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Are American Universities Under Foreign Control?
25th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
25th October 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
25th October 2020
‘Learn to live with the pandemic’: Physicians warn that a vaccine may not prevent Covid from becoming endemic It will eventually disappear, just like SARS-1.
CDC had contentious plan for flight filled with COVID-exposed cruise passengers
First-time buyers fuel pandemic-related surge in gun sales (CNN) I suggest it’s more related to left-wing riots.
Polar bear research on hold in Western Hudson Bay due to COVID-19 restrictions
Sweden Refuses To Impose New Lockdown Measures, Saying People Have Suffered Enough I’d move to Sweden if it weren’t so overrun by violent Muslim immigrants.
The false promise of herd immunity for Covid-19
NYC Hotel Occupancy Rate Crashes Toward 10% As Permanent Closures Loom
Welsh People Blocked From Buying “Non-Essential” Items Due To Lockdown
Tennessee Titans Fined $350,000 For Coronavirus Violations
Italians Rise Up Against “Health Dictatorship” As Country Moves Toward New Lockdown
Bethany Mandel: Your Home Is No Longer Your Castle
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
25th October 2020
“It’s Time To Defund NPR”: GOP Rep Slams NPR For Refusing To Cover Hunter Biden Laptop Bombshell
Twitter Nukes Alleged Hunter Biden Sex Tape After Letting Borat-Giuliani Sex Scene Trend
California Middle-Schooler Threatened with Jail for Missing 3 Zoom Classes
In Bizarre Freudian Slip, Biden Brags About Assembling “Most Extensive Voter Fraud Organization In History”
Ocasio-Cortez: It’s ‘My Job To Push The Democratic Party’ To The Left
Italians Rise Up Against “Health Dictatorship” As Country Moves Toward New Lockdown
Bethany Mandel: Your Home Is No Longer Your Castle
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
25th October 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
25th October 2020
How come, as we approach the date of the election, the BLM-AntiFa marches and riots … which were supposedly Bad For Biden … have just – stopped? There used to be reports every day, especially in Portland, of riots Every Fargin Night. And then they just – stopped.
Hmmmm.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on I Have a Question
25th October 2020
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Legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin expressed his support for Republican Arizona Sen. Martha McSally’s bid to keep her seat over her Democratic challenger in a Friday evening tweet.
McSally, a former United States Air Force pilot and congresswoman who was appointed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to fill the seat of the late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, has been running significantly behind former astronaut Mark Kelly throughout the 2020 Senate race. However, recent polls have shown the Arizona senator closing the gap of late, and one even has her leading by two percentage points, according to Real Clear Politics.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Legendary Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Endorses Arizona Sen. McSally Over Former Astronaut Mark Kelly
25th October 2020
Victor Davis Hanson.
What instead counts most are the days after. The debate take-aways, the news clips, the post facto fact checks, and the soundbites to be used in ads over the next ten days all favor Trump. In this regard, Biden did poorly and will suffer continual bleeding in the swing states.
We will know that because by the weekend Biden will be out of his basement and trying to reboot his campaign and actually be forced to campaign.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Trump Won the Debate—But Won Bigly the Post-Debate
25th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »
24th October 2020
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Laura Huhtasaari, an MEP and a member of the right-wing Finns Party, wrote to the Nobel Committee to nominate Trump for the 2021 prize “in recognition of his endeavors to end the era of endless wars, construct peace by encouraging conflicting parties for dialogue and negotiations, as well as underpin internal cohesion and stability of his country.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Trump Picks Up Another Nobel Peace Prize Nomination From Europe After Diplomatic Victories
24th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
24th October 2020
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
24th October 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
24th October 2020
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
24th October 2020
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The Japanese have been doing this sort of thing by hand for centuries.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Simple Software Creates Complex Wooden Joints That Interlock With No Nails, Glue, or Tools Needed
24th October 2020
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Scientists in Japan have produced a plastic with the highest heat resistance ever reported, and done so by using natural materials as the building blocks. This biomass-derived plastic therefore promises not just greater performance in some aspects than conventional plastics, but paves the way toward greener production for the omnipresent material.
The majority of plastics in circulation today are synthetic and derived from crude oil, gas and coal, but recently we’ve seen an alternative emerge in the form of bioplastics, which are made from biomass such as plants, egg shells, chicken feathers or even by-products of tequila.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Plastic Made From Biomass Logs the Highest Heat Resistance on Record
24th October 2020
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The choir of panic in the background singing, “Russian disinformation! Disinformation! Disinformation!” is trying to drown out what Rob Long should be developing as a new sitcom, “All in the Biden Family.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Tonight on the Bidens…
24th October 2020
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This generation’s Paula Jones.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Networks, CNN: Tony Bobulinski Who?
24th October 2020
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The University of Glasgow’s Historical Thesaurus of English is a unique resource charting the development of meaning in the huge and varied vocabulary of English. It consists of almost every recorded word in English from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, all arranged into detailed hierarchies of meaning.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Historical Thesaurus of English
24th October 2020
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In May 2017 Bret Weinstein and his wife were forced to resign from Evergreen State College following an outcry over his refusal to cancel his class for a day and stay off campus to show solidarity with minority students protests.
In November 2015 a mob of students at Yale University accused college master Nicholas Christakis and his wife Erika of racism following her email suggesting that Yale did not need to oversee Halloween costumes. Subsequently the University conferred graduation prizes on two of the mob members for their “service of race and ethnic relations,” and for their “anti-racist” work.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The State of the Modern American University
24th October 2020
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When the handle of a tilt-and-turn is in the downward position, the window is shut is and locked. Rotate the handle 90 degrees so it points sideways, and you can pull the window open horizontally.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Tilt & Turn: Ingenious Three-in-One Window for Security, Breezes & Egress
24th October 2020
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“I don’t know why anyone in the great state of South Carolina would ever vote for Lindsey Graham,” Dobbs said. “It is just outrageous. This is a guy who keeps saying ‘stay tuned.’ He said he would get to the bottom of Obamagate with the Judiciary Committee, which has been a year and a half, actually longer, of absolute inert response to these pressing issues of our day.”
Apparently, without his former job as John McCain’s Sancho Panza, Graham doesn’t do a lot.
Maybe Mitt Romney has some openings.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Lou Dobbs: Why Would Anyone Vote for Lindsey Graham?
24th October 2020
ZMan looks at recent history.
One obvious problem is the demand side. The media has always liked polling because it is cheap content. It allows them to discuss the results of an event, like a presidential election, for months before it actually happens. Polling stories are just a way to pretend the election already happened. Then as the polls change, and they always do, the media can talk about those changes. That also opens the door for so-called experts, who can provide “expert” commentary on the polls.
Of course, supply naturally follows demand, so Gallup was followed by other polling outfits supplying opinion surveys to the media. The explosion of media over the last thirty years has caused an explosion in demand for polling. One reason we have so much bad polling now is the same reason we have fake news. There is only so much good quality material, so the void is filled with low-quality material. Fake news has replaced real news and fake polling is crowding out good polling.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Polling Problem
24th October 2020
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In virtually every charity shop across the country, there are an increasing number of sad-looking plastic cases, with a variety of films both beloved and forgotten inside. Once, they would have sold for around £20 apiece, but now most retail for no more than a pound or two. Yet, for the adventurous, there are treasures to be had, at a time when the convenience of streaming services is threatening to kill off home video for good.
It is no exaggeration to say that my cinematic education was immeasurably helped by the rise of the DVD format. Before, I was a keen but undiscerning cinema goer; afterwards, I considered myself a film aficionado. Some would have said fanatic. I bought my first DVD player in 1999, when the format was still in its infancy, but already I had heard excited whispers that this was a proper game-changer for the industry. After years of only being able to watch films at home either on overpriced, poor-quality VHS video tapes or expensive, hard-to-find Laserdiscs, this was a true boon. Not only were the films presented in their proper aspect ratios, rather than the hacked pan-and-scan format on video, and in pristine audio and visual condition, but, most excitingly of all, they came with a cornucopia of extra features.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Death of the DVD Commentary
24th October 2020
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
24th October 2020
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Earlier this week, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against a group of hackers known as Sandworm. The document charged six hackers working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency with computer crimes related to half a decade of cyberattacks across the globe, from sabotaging the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea to unleashing the most destructive malware in history in Ukraine. Among those acts of cyberwar was an unprecedented attack on Ukraine’s power grid in 2016, one that appeared designed to not merely cause a blackout, but to inflict physical damage on electric equipment. And when one cybersecurity researcher named Mike Assante dug into the details of that attack, he recognized a grid-hacking idea invented not by Russian hackers, but by the United State government, and tested a decade earlier.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on How 30 Lines of Code Blew Up a 27-Ton Generator
23rd October 2020
Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine.
Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal provides a summary of what Tony Bobulinski, backed up by documents, has to say about the business dealings of Joe and Hunter Biden. Bobulinski, a former Navy officer and past supporter of Democrats, was Hunter Biden’s business partner.
Strassel’s entire article is well worth reading. I want to focus on the portions of it that pertain directly to Joe Biden — aka “the big guy.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Biden Family Business
23rd October 2020
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome